Publisher's Summary
For the first time, 10 years after her abduction from her Salt Lake City bedroom, Elizabeth Smart reveals how she survived and the secret to forging a new life in the wake of a brutal crime.
On June 5, 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart, the daughter of a close-knit Mormon family, was taken from her home in the middle of the night by religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. She was kept chained, dressed in disguise, repeatedly raped, and told she and her family would be killed if she tried to escape. After her rescue on March 12, 2003, she rejoined her family and worked to pick up the pieces of her life.
Now for the first time, in her memoir, My Story, she tells of the constant fear she endured every hour, her courageous determination to maintain hope, and how she devised a plan to manipulate her captors and convinced them to return to Utah, where she was rescued minutes after arriving. Smart explains how her faith helped her stay sane in the midst of a nightmare and how she found the strength to confront her captors at their trial and see that justice was served.
In the nine years after her rescue, Smart transformed from victim to advocate, traveling the country and working to educate, inspire and foster change. She has created a foundation to help prevent crimes against children and is a frequent public speaker. In 2012, she married Matthew Gilmour, whom she met doing mission work in Paris for her church, in a fairy tale wedding that made the cover of People magazine.
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 380.8 MB
Publisher's Summary
The unforgettable account and courageous actions of the US Army's 240th Assault Helicopter Company and Green Beret Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez, who risked everything to rescue a Special Forces team trapped behind enemy lines.
In Legend, acclaimed best-selling author Eric Blehm takes as his canvas the Vietnam War as seen through a single mission that occurred on May 2, 1968. A 12-man Special Forces team had been covertly inserted into a small clearing in the jungles of neutral Cambodia - where US forces were forbidden to operate. Their objective, just miles over the Vietnam border, was to collect evidence that proved the North Vietnamese Army was using the Cambodian sanctuary as a major conduit for supplying troops and materiel to the south via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. What the team didn't know was that they had infiltrated a section of jungle that concealed a major enemy base. Soon they found themselves surrounded by hundreds of NVA, under attack, low on ammunition, stacking the bodies of the dead as cover in a desperate attempt to survive the onslaught.
When Special Forces Staff Sergeant Roy Benavidez heard the distress call, he jumped aboard the next helicopter bound for the combat zone without hesitation. Orphaned at the age of seven, Benavidez had picked cotton alongside his family as a child and dropped out of school as a teen before joining the army. Although he was grievously wounded during his first tour of duty in Vietnam and told he would never walk again, Benavidez fought his way back - ultimately earning his green beret.
What followed would become legend in the Special Operations community. Flown into the foray of battle by the courageous pilots and crew of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company, Benavidez jumped from the hovering aircraft and ran nearly 100 yards through withering enemy fire. Despite being immediately and severely wounded, Benavidez reached the perimeter of the decimated team, provided medical care, and proceeded to organize an extraordinary defense and rescue. During the hours-long battle, he was bayoneted, shot, and hit by grenade shrapnel more than thirty times, yet he refused to abandon his efforts until every survivor was out of harm's way.
Written with extensive access to family members, surviving members of the 240th Assault Helicopter Company, on-the-ground eyewitness accounts never before published, as well as recently discovered archival and declassified military records, Blehm has created a riveting narrative both of Roy Benavidez's life and career and of the inspiring, almost unbelievable events that defined the brotherhood of the air and ground warriors in an unpopular war halfway around the world. Legend recounts the courage and commitment of those who fought in Vietnam in service of their country and the story of one of the many unsung heroes of the war, whose actions would be scrutinized for more than a decade in a battle for a long overdue and what many believe was an unjustly denied Medal of Honor.
The case was reopened 13 years later, in 1980, when a long-lost - and believed dead - Green Beret eyewitness whom Benavidez had rescued that day came forth and wrote a statement that revealed, once and for all, what happened on that fateful day in May of 1968.
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File Size: 377.01 MB
Publisher's Summary
Number-one New York Times best seller
The incredible true story of survival and salvation that is the basis for two major motion pictures: 2014’s Unbroken and the upcoming Unbroken: Path to Redemption.
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.
Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
In her long-awaited book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
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File Size: 575.49 MB
Publisher's Summary
With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 393.83 MB
Publisher's Summary
From the author of the beloved New York Times best-selling book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? and the creator and star of The Mindy Project comes a collection of essays that are as hilarious and insightful as they are deeply personal.
In Why Not Me? Kaling shares her ongoing journey to find contentment and excitement in her adult life, whether it's falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, or, most important, believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you're constantly reminded that no one looks like you.
In "How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet's Confessions", Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty ("Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn't the land of appropriate - this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman's traditional hair color is honey blonde"). "Player" tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in LA ("I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs"). In "Unlikely Leading Lady", she muses on America's fixation with the weight of actresses ("Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they're walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture"). And in "Soup Snakes", Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend B. J. Novak ("I will freely admit: my relationship with B. J. Novak is weird as hell").
Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming of age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who's ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who've never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.
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File Size: 204.57 MB
New Saucerian Press proudly presents the Visitors From Lanulos! Initially published in 1971, this book became perhaps the rarest UFO contactee book ever. Prior to its 2014 reissue, there were only a half-dozen copies remaining in the world's library system, with the rest trading for thousands of dollars each.
Woodrow Derenberger, the author of the book, claimed to have had a series of strange adventures beginning on November 2nd, 1966. While driving home from Parkersburg, West Virginia, to his suburban home in Mineral Wells, he suddenly found the highway blocked by a large gray object. Someone emerged from the object and walked to the passenger side window of his car. The man introduced himself as "a searcher", and offered words of comfort to Derenberger.
After noting that he would come again, the spaceman, who called himself "Indrid Cold", stepped back into the object and it rose out of sight. Derenberger went home and told his story to his wife. He then called the police and the press. Soon after, other witnesses came forward to say that they, too, had seen Cold talking to Derenberger by the side of the road. (In time, several locals would have their own encounters with Cold.)
Two days later while driving in his car, Derenberger began to receive telepathic communications from Cold, who described himself as from the galaxy of Ganymede; Cold also supplied some information about his life, including the observation that people on his planet (Lanulos) lived to be 125 to 175 of our Earth years.
This indispensable special edition of Visitors From Lanulos features introductions by John A. Keel and Taunia Derenberger-Bowman (Woody's daughter), an epilogue by the publisher, Andy Colvin, and a special addendum from Gray Barker.
Duration: 2 hrs and 54 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 119.92 MB
When Guy Sajer joins the infantry full of ideals in the summer of 1942, the German army is enjoying unparalleled success in Russia. However, he quickly finds that for the foot soldier the glory of military success hides a much harsher reality of hunger, fatigue, and constant deprivation. Posted to the elite Grosse Deutschland division, with its sadistic instructors who shoot down those who fail to make the grade, he enters a violent and remorseless world where all youthful hope is gradually ground down, and all that matters is the brute will to survive. As the biting cold of the Russian winter sets in and the tide begins to turn against the Germans, life becomes an endless round of pounding artillery attacks and vicious combat against a relentless and merciless Red Army.
Sajer's perspective as a German foot soldier makes The Forgotten Soldier a unique war memoir, the book that the Christian Science Monitor said "may well be the book about World War II which has been so long awaited". A work of stunning force, this is an unforgettable reminder of the horrors of war.
Duration: 21 hrs and 48 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 898.99 MB
The revolutions sweeping the Middle East in 2011 were unlike any the world had ever seen. Brutal regimes that had been in power for many decades were suddenly swarmed by unstoppable mobs of freedom seekers. Now, one of the key figures behind the Egyptian uprising tells the riveting inside story of what happened and presents lessons for all of us on how to unleash the power of crowds.
Wael Ghonim was a little-known 30-year-old Google executive in the fall of 2010 when he anonymously launched a Facebook page to protest the death of an Egyptian man at the hands of security forces. The page’s followers expanded quickly and moved from online protests to nonconfrontational public gatherings. Then, on January 14, 2011, they made history when they announced a revolution. Over 350,000 friends clamored to join. On January 25, as the revolution began in earnest, Ghonim was captured and held for 12 days of brutal interrogation - and when he emerged and gave a speech on national television, the protests grew even more intense. Four days later, Mubarak was gone.
The lessons Ghonim draws will inspire each of us: Forget the past. Don’t plan ahead. Let the crowd make its own decisions. Welcome to Revolution 2.0.
Wael Ghonim was born in Cairo and grew up in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, earning a degree from Cairo University in 2004 and an MBA from the American University in Cairo in 2007. He joined Google in 2008, rising to become head of marketing for Google Middle East and North Africa. He is currently on sabbatical from Google to launch a nongovernmental organization supporting education and technology in Egypt.
Duration: 11 hrs and 53 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 490.15 MB
Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive.
This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history. His squadmates fought valiantly beside him until he was the only one left alive, blasted by an RPG into a place where his pursuers could not find him. Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors.
A born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan for which they never could have been prepared. His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience for which two of his squadmates were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for combat heroism that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war.
Duration: 14 hrs and 17 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 589.36 MB
Like many of his generation, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe in the early '70s - in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. Over 20 years later, the acclaimed author of Notes from a Small Island, The Mother Tongue, and A Walk in the Woods decided to retrace the journey he undertook in the halcyon days of his youth, carrying with him a bag of maps, old clothes, and a stinging wit honed to razor sharpness by 2 decades of adult experience. The result is this affectionate, blisteringly insightful, and riotously funny pilgrimage from the frozen wastes of Scandinavia to the chaotic tumult of Istanbul, with stops along the way in Europe's most diverting and historic locales - a brutally frank and uproarious tourist's-eye-view of the Old World according to Bryson.
Duration: 5 hrs and 38 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 309.9 MB
Publisher's Summary
Everyone knows Michael Jackson - the myth. This is the revealing true story of Michael Jackson - the man.
To Frank Cascio, Michael Jackson was many things - second father, big brother, boss, mentor, and teacher, but most of all he was a friend. Though Cascio was just a few years old when he first met Jackson in 1984, at the peak of the pop star’s career, Jackson was at the center of his life for the next twenty-five years, allowing Cascio to observe firsthand the greatest entertainer the world had ever seen. In that time, he became the ultimate Michael Jackson insider, yet remained publicly silent about his experiences. Until now.
In My Friend Michael, Cascio refutes the rumors, lies, and accusations that have accumulated over the years, providing a candid look at the Michael Jackson he knew for more than two decades. Offering an uplifting and definitive account of the legend, Cascio details how he grew up alongside Jackson, traveling the world with him on concert tours and eventually working for him. Through this lens, Cascio captures Jackson’s most private and tumultuous moments, while also setting the record straight on the entertainer’s notorious and misunderstood lifestyle - from his Peter Pan reality and his sexuality to the false allegations against him.
As Cascio shows, there was a great deal more to Michael Jackson than the headlines about him have suggested. Cascio reveals his friend in all his complexity, bringing to light his passions and joys as well as his flaws and eccentricities. Including stories about Jackson that have never before been made public, Cascio creates a balanced, human look at the pop star, one that shows Jackson as the very real person he was - a lively friend with an endearingly juvenile sense of humor.
Duration: 12 hrs and 44 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
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File Size: 510.2 MB
Carlos Castanada was a student of anthropology when he met Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui shaman and the inspiration for Castanada’s The Teachings of Don Juan. In this controversial work, Castanada relays his experiences being challenged by his mentor on his perception of the world and all living things in it.
Duration: 10 hrs and 52 mins
BitRate: 95 kbps
File Format: .Mp3
File Size: 597.7 MB
For the first time anywhere, the first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from a Navy Seal who confronted the terrorist mastermind and witnessed his final moments....
From the streets of Iraq to the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean, and from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama Bin Laden's compound, operator Mark Owen of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group - commonly known as SEAL Team Six - has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines.
No Easy Day puts listeners alongside Owen and the other handpicked members of the 24-man team as they train for the biggest mission of their lives. The blow-by-blow narrative of the assault, beginning with the helicopter crash that could have ended Owen's life straight through to the radio call confirming Bin Laden's death, is an essential piece of modern history. In No Easy Day, Owen also takes listeners onto the field of battle in America's ongoing War on Terror and details the selection and training process for one of the most elite units in the military.
Owen's story draws on his youth in Alaska and describes the SEALs' quest to challenge themselves at the highest levels of physical and mental endurance. With boots-on-the-ground detail, Owen describes numerous previously unreported missions that illustrate the life and work of a SEAL and the evolution of the team after the events of September 11.
In telling the true story of the SEALs whose talents, skills, experiences, and exceptional sacrifices led to one of the greatest victories in the War on Terror, Mark Owen honors the men who risk everything for our country, and he leaves listenres with a deep understanding of the warriors who keep America safe.
Duration: 6 hours 53 minutes
BitRate: 95 kbps
File Format: .Mp3
File Size: 376.6 MB
Publisher's Summary
In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones) reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an 18-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit - as she struggles for understanding; as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction.
In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of a trauma victim even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved".
Duration: 9 hours 13 minutes 36 seconds
BitRate: 95 kbps
File Format: .Mp3
File Size: 398.7 MB
