Great Escape Stories

A Nobel Prize–winning economist tells the remarkable story of how the world has grown healthier, wealthier, but also more unequal over the past two and half centuries The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton—one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty—tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations, and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind. Deaton describes vast innovations and wrenching setbacks: the successes of antibiotics, pest control, vaccinations, and clean water on the one hand, and disastrous famines and the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other. He examines the United States, a nation that has prospered but is today experiencing slower growth and increasing inequality. He also considers how economic growth in India and China has improved the lives of more than a billion people. Deaton argues that international aid has been ineffective and even harmful. He suggests alternative efforts—including reforming incentives to drug companies and lifting trade restrictions—that will allow the developing world to bring about its own Great Escape. Demonstrating how changes in health and living standards have transformed our lives, The Great Escape is a powerful guide to addressing the well-being of all nations.

Records the efforts of six hundred British and American officers to escape from a Nazi prison camp.

One night in 1944, eighty airmen escaped a German POW compound in Poland. The event became known as "The Great Escape." Ted Barris writes of the planners, task leaders, and key players in the escape attempt, those who got away, those who didn't, and their families at home.

Inky, worn out from his exciting life in the ocean, has retired to the aquarium. There he quietly regales his tank mate Blotchy with tales of his past adventures. Then Blotchy dares Inky to make one more daring escape. Will Inky succeed?

The real history behind the classic war movie and the men who plotted the daring escape from a Nazi POW camp. Between dusk and dawn on the night of March 24th–25th 1944, a small army of Allied soldiers crawled through tunnels in Germany in a covert operation the likes of which the Third Reich had never seen. The prison break from Stalag Luft III in eastern Germany was the largest of its kind in the Second World War. Seventy-nine Allied soldiers and airmen made it outside the wire—but only three made it outside Nazi Germany. Fifty were executed by the Gestapo. In this book Jonathan Vance tells the incredible story that was made famous by the 1963 film The Great Escape. It is a classic tale of prisoners and their wardens in a battle of wits and wills. The brilliantly conceived escape plan is overshadowed only by the colorful, daring (and sometimes very funny) crew who executed it—literally under the noses of German guards. From the men’s first days in Stalag Luft III and the forming of bonds among them, to the tunnel building, amazing escape, and eventual capture, Vance’s history is a vivid, compelling look at one of the greatest “exfiltration” missions of all time. “Shows the variety and depth of the men sent into harm’s way during World War II, something emphasized by the population of Stalag Luft III. Most of the Allied POWs were flyers, with all the technical, tactical and planning skills that profession requires. Such men are independent thinkers, craving open air and wide-open spaces, which meant that an obsession with escape was almost inevitable.” —John D. Gresham

True stories of seven daring escapes by prisoners of war during World War II.

An NPR Best Book of the Year * A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * An Electric Literature Best Short Story Collection of the Year * Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize The "often hilarious and always compassionate" (New York Times Book Review) collected stories of a critically acclaimed, award-winning “American literary treasure” (Boston Globe), now in paperback-with a foreword by Elizabeth Strout. From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer-now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game-has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.” (Washington Post) These collected short stories-most of them originally published in magazines including Esquire and the Saturday Evening Post, in the 1960s and 1970s, along with a new story that brings her early characters into the present-are evocative of an era that still resonates deeply today. In the title story, a bystander tries to soothe a woman who seems to have cracked under the pressures of her life. And in several linked stories throughout, the relationship between the narrator and her husband unfolds in telling and often hilarious vignettes. Of their time and yet timeless, Wolitzer's stories zero in on the domestic sphere with wit, candor, grace, and an acutely observant eye. Brilliantly capturing the tensions and contradictions of daily life, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket is full of heart and insight, providing a lens into a world that was often unseen at the time, and often overlooked now-reintroducing a beloved writer to be embraced by a whole new generation of readers.

Are you ready for some of the most exciting, death-defying escape stories ever told? Perfect for fans of the I Survived series, the first installment in a brand-new, edge-of-your-seat series based on real events! In spring 1942, Royal Air Force pilot Bill Ash’s plane was shot down by Germans, who captured and eventually brought him to Stalag Luft III, a notorious camp for prisoners of war. The Germans boasted that the camp—which was isolated, heavily guarded, and surrounded by wire fences—was escape proof. But Ash was ready to prove them wrong. He, along with other POWs, would dig tunnels, hide in shower drains, or jump on trucks—all in the name of freedom. Because resisting the Germans was their mission, and escaping was their duty. From reluctant reader to total bookworm, each book in this page-turning series—featuring fascinating bonus content and captivating illustrations—will leave you excited for the next adventure!

Novelist Tyler Trafford reconstructs the story of his mother's life--from her youth as a Montreal debutante to her final days as a casualty of an unhappy marriage--as he uncovers the mystery of her relationship with Jens Müller, one of only three prisoners to make it home after the "Great Escape" from Stalag Luft III, the infamous Nazi prisoner-of-war camp.

Non-fiction that reads like a novel! A thrilling, moment by moment account of an epic escape and the real-life adventures that followed.