Awesome Beleaguered Album and Music Offers

The companion volume to Stars in Their Courses, this marvelous account of Grant's siege of the Mississippi port of Vicksburg continues Foote's narrative of the great battles of the Civil War--culled from his massive three-volume history--recounting a campaign which Lincoln called "one of the most brilliant in the world.".
Price: $8.75 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In January 1944, the Allies decided to land at Anzio in order to overcome the stalemate at Cassino This amphibious landing has become one of the most controversial campaigns of World War II. Questionable decisions by the Allied leadership led to three months of World War I-style trench warfare, and the entire beachhead suffered from continuous German observation and bombardment.  Vividly describing each thrust and counter-thrust, this book takes us through the agonizing struggle as each side sought to retain or regain mastery.  It shows how Anzio proved to be a stepping stone not only to Rome but also to the liberation of Italy..
Price: $3.80 [Notify me when price goes down.]

These fourteen funny stories tell the tale of a beleaguered boyhood down home where the dogs still run loose. As a boy growing up in the tiny backwater town of Forty-Five, South Carolina (where everybody is pretty much one beer short of a six-pack), all Mendal Dawes wants is out.

It's not just his hometown that's hopeless. Mendal's father is just as bad. Embarrassing his son to death nearly every day, Mr. Dawes is a parenting guide's bad example. He buries stuff in the backyard—fake toxic barrels, imitation Burma Shave signs (BIRD ON A WIRE, BIRD ON A PERCH, FLY TOWARD HEAVEN, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH), yardstick collections. He calls Mendal "Fuzznuts" and makes him recite Marx and Durkheim daily and befriend a classmate rumored to have head lice.

Mendal Dawes is a boy itching to get out of town, to take the high road and leave the South and his dingbat dad far behind—just like those car-chasing dogs.

But bottom line, this funky, sometimes outrageous, and always very human tale is really about how Mendal discovers that neither he nor the dogs actually want to catch a ride, that the hand that has fed them has a lot more to offer. On the way to watching that light dawn, we also get to watch the Dawes's precarious relationship with a place whose "gene pool [is] so shallow that it wouldn't take a Dr. Scholl's insert to keep one's soles dry."

To be consistently funny is a great gift. To be funny and cynical and empathetic all at the same time is George Singleton's special gift, put brilliantly into play in this new collection..
Price: $3.48 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Fathers may suspect it's not easy for their daughters to become women, but those same daughters have no idea how hard it is for fathers to stand by and watch. According to W. Bruce Cameron, "Having a child mutate into a teenager is a bit like being an airline passenger who must suddenly take over for a stricken pilot and land the plane. And in this case, the passengers are all yelling, 'I have you! I hate you!' and slamming the door to the cockpit."

Cameron has two daughters, so he is doubly aware that raising teenage girls is well, impossible. He's been through braces (the most expensive metal on earth), kissing (do they have to use their lips?), teen "logic" ("I asked if I could go out with Lindsey and you said no, so I went out with Courtney"), and, of course, dating, which leads to the 8 Simple Rules. (Rule #1: if you pull into my driveway and honk, you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure as heck not picking anything up.)

If your little girl has moved out and a teenager has taken her place, this book will help you do something you probably thought was not possible in your situation: laugh.

.
Price: $0.40 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A New York Times Bestselling Author
A RITA Award-winning Author

Kit Wilde, eighth Earl of Bourne, had pledged to return home from the war and flirt outrageously with every well-financed London lovely to be had. He had not intended to marry the first country chit he dared kiss. How was he to know the impertinent lass was actually a well-born lady?.
Price: $28.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

During the Civil War, the strategically located town of Winchester, Virginia, suffered from the constant turmoil of military campaigning perhaps more than any other town. Occupied dozens of times by alternating Union and Confederate forces, Winchester suffered from three major battles including some seventy smaller skirmishes. In his voluminous community study of the town over the course of four tumultuous years, Richard R. Duncan shows that in many ways Winchester’s history provides a paradigm of the changing nature of the war. Indeed, Duncan reveals how the town offers a microcosm of the war: slavery collapsed, women assumed control in the absence of men, and civilians vied for authority alongside an assortment of revolving military commanders.

Control over Winchester was vital for both the North and the South. Confederates used it as a base to strike the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and conduct raids into western Maryland and Pennsylvania, and when Federal forces occupied the town, they threatened Staunton—Lee’s breadbasket—and the Virginia Central Railroad. At various times during the war, generals "Stonewall" Jackson, Nathaniel Banks, Robert Milroy, Richard Ewell, Jubal Early, and Philip Sheridan each controlled the town. Guerilla activity further compounded the region’s strife as insecurity became the norm for its civilian population. In this first scholarly treatment of occupied Winchester, Duncan has compiled a narrative of voices from the entire community, including those of groups often omitted from such studies, such as slaves, women, and Confederate dissenters. He shows how Federal occupation meant an early end to slavery in Winchester and how the paucity of men left women to serve as the major cohesive force in the community, making them a bulwark of Confederate support. He also explores the tensions between civilians and military personnel that inevitably arose as each group sought to protect its interests.

The war, Duncan explains, left Winchester a landscape of wreckage and economic loss. A fascinating case study of civilian survival amid the turmoil of war, Beleaguered Winchester will appeal to Civil War scholars and enthusiasts alike. AUTHOR BIO: Richard R. Duncan is the author of Lee's Endangered Left: The Civil War in Western Virginia, Spring of 1864 and is professor emeritus of history at Georgetown University. He grew up in Winchester, Virginia, and now lives in Alexandria, VA..
Price: $32.58 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Bruce Cameron is "the talk of parents nationwide" (People). He is "a brilliantly funny writer . . . in the tradition of James Thurber. He is so funny he makes you think that being a grown-up isn't such a crummy deal after all" (Cathryn Michon, author of The Girl Genius Guide to Life); his observations are "warm and funny, exhibiting just the right mix of laughs and love" (Kansas City Star), and "rich with tongue-in-cheek fatherly wisdom" (Cincinnati Enquirer).

A nationally syndicated columnist with the Rocky Mountain News, Cameron gained national attention with the publication of 8 SIMPLE RULES in hardcover, becoming a regular contributor to Time's "Your Family" column and a featured story on CNN, CBS's The Early Show, and in People magazine. The reason is simple: he expresses something very true in a very funny way, examining just what happens when Daddy's little girl becomes a teenager. Beginning with the warning signs (#5: Your car insurance suddenly costs more than the car), the book covers dating (Rule #2: Keep your hands and eyes off my daughter's body or I will remove them), the telephone (seemingly wired to her nervous system), braces (the costliest metal on earth), the first job, and more. "Cameron's take on the angst felt by every father of a teenage daughter is witty, wise, and excruciatingly on the money" (Charles Shyer, writer and director, Father of the Bride I and II)..
Price: $9.56 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Jacques," said I, "I do not call it impious, like this good woman, but I call it inhuman. What! a man goes to carry help to the dying, and you show him no respect!" This brought the color to his face; and I think, perhaps, that he might have become ashamed of the part he had played; but the women pushed in again, as they are so fond of doing. "Oh, M. le Maire, he does not deserve that you should lose your words upon him!" they cried; "and, besides, is it likely he will pay any attention to you when he tries to stop even the bon Dieu?".
Price: $10.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]