The Mystery of Olga Chekhova

Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101175052
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
In his latest work, Antony Beevor—bestselling author of Stalingrad and The Battle of Arnhem and one of our most respected historians of World War II—brings us the true, little-known story of a family torn apart by revolution and war. Olga Chekhova, a stunning Russian beauty, was the niece of playwright Anton Chekhov and a famous Nazi-era film actress who was closely associated with Hitler. After fleeing Bolshevik Moscow for Berlin in 1920, she was recruited by her composer brother Lev to become a Soviet spy—a career she spent her entire postwar life denying. The riveting story of how Olga and her family survived the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the Stalinist Terror, and the Second World War becomes, in Beevor’s hands, a breathtaking tale of survival in a merciless age.

Paris After the Liberation 1944-1949

Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101175079
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
"A rich and intriguing story whcih the authors disentangle with great skill."--Sunday Telegraph From Antony Beevor, the internationally bestselling author of D-Day and The Battle of Arnhem In this brilliant synthesis of social, political, and cultural history, Antony Beevor and Artemis Cooper present a vivid and compelling portrayal of the City of Lights after its liberation. Paris became the diplomatic battleground in the opening stages of the Cold War. Against this volatile political backdrop, every aspect of life is portrayed: scores were settled in a rough and uneven justice, black marketers grew rich on the misery of the population, and a growing number of intellectual luminaries and artists including Hemingway, Beckett, Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Cocteau, and Picassocontributed new ideas and a renewed vitality to this extraordinary moment in time.

The Fall of Berlin 1945

Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101175281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 593

Book Description
"A tale drenched in drama and blood, heroism and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post The Red Army had much to avenge when it finally reached the frontiers of the Third Reich in January 1945. Frenzied by their terrible experiences with Wehrmacht and SS brutality, they wreaked havoc—tanks crushing refugee columns, mass rape, pillage, and unimaginable destruction. Hundreds of thousands of women and children froze to death or were massacred; more than seven million fled westward from the fury of the Red Army. It was the most terrifying example of fire and sword ever known. Antony Beevor, renowned author of D-Day and The Battle of Arnhem, has reconstructed the experiences of those millions caught up in the nightmare of the Third Reich's final collapse. The Fall of Berlin is a terrible story of pride, stupidity, fanaticism, revenge, and savagery, yet it is also one of astonishing endurance, self-sacrifice, and survival against all odds.

The Second World War

Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Back Bay Books
ISBN: 0316084077
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 829

Book Description
A masterful and comprehensive chronicle of World War II, by internationally bestselling historian Antony Beevor. Over the past two decades, Antony Beevor has established himself as one of the world's premier historians of WWII. His multi-award winning books have included Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945. Now, in his newest and most ambitious book, he turns his focus to one of the bloodiest and most tragic events of the twentieth century, the Second World War. In this searing narrative that takes us from Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 to V-J day on August 14, 1945 and the war's aftermath, Beevor describes the conflict and its global reach -- one that included every major power. The result is a dramatic and breathtaking single-volume history that provides a remarkably intimate account of the war that, more than any other, still commands attention and an audience. Thrillingly written and brilliantly researched, Beevor's grand and provocative account is destined to become the definitive work on this complex, tragic, and endlessly fascinating period in world history, and confirms once more that he is a military historian of the first rank.

A Tuscan Childhood

Author: Kinta Beevor
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 1780228651
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
'Wonderful ... I fell immediately into her world' Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun Kinta Beevor was five years old when she fell in love with her parents' castle facing the Carrara mountains. She and her brother ran barefoot, exploring an enchanted world. They searched for wild mushrooms in the hills with Fiore the stonemason, and learned how to tickle trout. The freedom and beauty of life at the castle attracted poets, writers and painters, including D.H. Lawrence and Rex Whistler. The other side to Kinta's childhood was very different, for it was spent with her formidable great aunt, Janet Ross, in a grand villa outside Florence. But soon the old way of life and Kinta's idyllic world were threatened by war. Nostalgic, yet unsentimental and funny, A Tuscan Childhood is a book which transports the reader to bohemian, aristocratic Italy and the sound of bells from a distant campanile.

Trail of Tears

Author: John Ehle
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307793834
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Book Description
A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the “trail where they cried.” The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed. B & W photographs

Nowhere Else on Earth

Author: Josephine Humphreys
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780141002064
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Book Description
In the summer of 1864, sixteen-year-old Rhoda Strong lives in the Lumbee Indian settlement of Robeson County, North Carolina, which has become a pawn in the bloody struggle between the Union and Confederate armies. The community is besieged by the marauding Union Army as well as the desperate Home Guard who are hell-bent on conscripting the young men into deadly forced labor. Daughter of a Scotsman and his formidable Lumbee wife, Rhoda is fiercely loyal to her family and desperately fears for their safety, but her love for the outlaw hero Henry Berry Lowrie forces her to cast her lot with danger. Her struggle becomes part of the community's in a powerful story of love and survival. Nowhere Else on Earth is a moving saga that magnificently captures a little-known piece of American history.

The Battle for Spain

Author: Antony Beevor
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101201207
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588

Book Description
A fresh and acclaimed account of the Spanish Civil War by the bestselling author of Stalingrad and The Battle of Arnhem To mark the 70th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War's outbreak, Antony Beevor has written a completely updated and revised account of one of the most bitter and hard-fought wars of the twentieth century. With new material gleaned from the Russian archives and numerous other sources, this brisk and accessible book (Spain's #1 bestseller for twelve weeks), provides a balanced and penetrating perspective, explaining the tensions that led to this terrible overture to World War II and affording new insights into the war-its causes, course, and consequences.

The Glass Harmonica

Author: Louise Marley
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101207906
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
Two young women of two different times are bound by a passion for the ethereal music of a glass harmonica in this compelling novel that mixes science fiction, mystery, and romance. Eilish Eam is an orphan, living in 1761, London. She stands on an icy corner and plays her instrument: water-filled glasses. Fingers raw from the cold, her only comfort is the place her music takes her...to visions of a young girl, much her own age, but with odd short hair. Eilish survives on pennies and applause, and nothing more. Until the night Benjamin Franklin stops to listen, awe-struck by her gift—and with plans for her future... Erin Rushton is a musical prodigy, living in Seattle, 2018. She stands in the orchestra, consumed by the music of her own instrument: the glass harmonica. Like a current of electricity, the music moves from her fingers to her lips and hands. And the only thing that alters the rhythm are the visions that haunt her…of an odd old-fashioned girl, much her own age, who needs her help...

Lenin's Jewish Question

Author: Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300168608
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
The grandson of a Jew, whose Jewish relatives converted to Christianity, whose allies played down his Jewish origins just as fervently as his enemies played them up, V.I. Lenin makes for a fascinating case study of the many complexities associated with 'Jewish question' in Russia.