In the last days of World War II, a new and baffling weapon terrorized the United States Navy in the Pacific. To the sailors who learned to fear them, the body-crashing warriors of Japan were known as "suiciders"; among the Japanese, they were named for a divine wind that once saved the home islands from invasion: kamikaze. Told from the perspective of the men who endured this horrifying tactic, At War with the Wind is the first book to recount in nail-biting detail what it was like to experience an attack by Japanese kamikazes. David Sears, acclaimed author of The Last Epic Naval Battle, draws on personal interviews and unprecedented research to create a narrative of war that is stunning in its vivid re-creations. Born of desperation in the face of overwhelming material superiority, suicide attacks-by aircraft, submarines, small boats, and even manned rocket-boosted gliders-were capable of inflicting catastrophic damage, testing the resolve of officers and sailors as never before. Sears's gripping account focuses on the vessels whose crews experienced the full range of the kamikaze nightmare. From carrier USS St. Lo, the first U.S. Navy vessel sunk by an orchestrated kamikaze attack, to USS Henrico, a transport ship that survived the landings at Normandy only to be sent to the Pacific and struck by suicide planes off Okinawa, and USS Mannert L. Abele, the only vessel sunk by a rocket-boosted piloted glider during the war, these unforgettable stories reveal, as never before, one of the most horrifying and misunderstood chapters of World War II.

Sand, Wind, and War records the work, travels and adventures of one of the last of the great British explorers, a man who served in both world wars and carved out a special niche in science through his studies of desert sands. Ralph Alger Bagnold was born in 1896 into a military family and educated as an engineer. Posted to Egypt in 1926, he was one of a group of officers who adapted Model T Fords to desert travel and in 1932 made the first east-west crossing—6,000 miles—of the Libyan desert. Bagnold established such a name for himself that in World War II he was again posted to Egypt where he founded and trained the Long Range Desert Group that was to confound the German and Italian armies. Bagnold’s fascination with the desert included curiosity over the formation of dunes, and beginning in 1935 he conducted wind tunnel experiments with sand that led to the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. Eventually, he was to see his findings called on by NASA to interpret data on the sands of Mars. He devoted subsequent research to particle flow in fluids, and also served as a consultant to Middle Eastern governments concerned with the interference of sand flow in oil drilling. Sand, Wind, and War is the life story of a man who not only helped shape events in one part of the world but also contributed to our understanding of it. It is a significant benchmark not only in the history of science, but also in the annals of adventure.

On a cold, snowy night, Haswell Magruder makes a decision that will have a profound effect on his own life as well as the lives of all those he loves. A wounded Confederate soldier appears at the family’s Virginia farm, and Haswell convinces his mother and sister to take the man in, despite the certain repercussions if the enemy Yankees were to catch them in such a “traitorous” act. Unfortunately, this is precisely what happens, setting off a horrific chain of events that leaves Haswell’s mother dead and the farmhouse burned to the ground. After leading his younger sister to safety with relatives, Haswell sets out on his journey in search of his older brother, a Confederate soldier. His quest is also a passage into manhood, as he experiences the last bloody days of the Civil War. Skillful storytelling, well-developed characters, and a fast-paced plot distinguish this compelling family story by an award-winning author.

During the westward settlement, for more than twenty years Apache tribes eluded both US and Mexican armies, and by 1886 an estimated 9,000 armed men were in pursuit. Roberts (Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative) presents a moving account of the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest. He portrays the great Apache leaders—Cochise, Nana, Juh, Geronimo, the woman warrior Lozen—and U.S. generals George Crock and Nelson Miles. Drawing on contemporary American and Mexican sources, he weaves a somber story of treachery and misunderstanding. After Geronimo's surrender in 1886, the Apaches were sent to Florida, then to Alabama where many succumbed to malaria, tuberculosis and malnutrition and finally in 1894 to Oklahoma, remaining prisoners of war until 1913. The book is history at its most engrossing. —Publishers Weekly

The New York Times bestseller “The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love letter to literature, intended for readers as passionate about storytelling as its young hero.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice) “One gorgeous read.” —Stephen King Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer’s son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind, by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author’s other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Soon Daniel’s seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

World War II came to the North Pacific in June 1942. Alaska's Native people living on the Aleutian and Pribilof islands, the Aleuts, felt its impact as did no other American citizens in that region. Forty-two residents of Attu Island were captured and imprisoned in Japan and, in response to Japanese bombings of Dutch Harbor and invasions of Kiska Island, the American military evacuated the remaining 881 Aleuts from the islands to camps in southeastern Alaska. The story of the removal of the Aleuts is little known outside Alaska. Dean Kohlhoff delved extensively into civilian and government archives, as well as videotapes of Aleuts chronicling their wartime experiences, to compile this engrossing account of the evacuation. Personal accounts tell of life in the temporary camps, in which the makeshift accommodations arranged by the Department of the Interior failed to reflect the good intentions of some Interior officials. One visitor to the Funter Bay camp wrote, "I have no language at my command which can adequately describe what I saw....I have seen some tough places in my days in Alaska, but nothing to equal the situation in Funter". Upon their eventual return, the Aleuts found that their homes had been devastated by weather, fire, and both Japanese and American military operations, and they began the fight for reparation for loss of property and income that would affect them long after the war. Finally the Civil Rights Act of 1988, which awarded damage claims to Japanese Americans relocated during the war, led to restitution for the Aleuts, who Congress and the president agreed had been mistreated.

A classic and poignant treatment of Japan's struggle between recognition of the kamikaze's futility and the country's pride in having made the attempt to stem the tide of the American advance in 1944-1945, this account, given by two former Kamikaze pilots, testifies to Japanese perspective of the last days of World War II. This book stands out among English-language translations of Japanese accounts of the Pacific war, and was translated by a former American officer who fought against the Japanese in the Pacific.