Victory

Describes the Reagan administration's covert campaign against the Soviet Union that increased stress on the Soviet economy.

A “smoldering indictment” of the corrupt influences that rescued Ronald Reagan's career, made him millions, and shaped his presidency (Library Journal). Founded in 1924, the Music Corporation of America got its start booking acts into speakeasies run by such notorious Chicago mobsters as Al Capone. How then, in only a few decades, did MCA become the driving force behind music publishing, radio, recording artists, Hollywood, and the burgeoning television industry? Enter Ronald Reagan. By the late 1950s, Reagan was a passé movie actor. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he was also MCA’s key client. With Reagan’s help, MCA would become the most powerful entertainment conglomerate in the world. And with MCA’s help, Reagan would secure a fortune (resulting in a federal grand jury hearing), be marketed to the public as a viable politician, and ascend to the presidency of the United States. But according to reporter Dan E. Moldea, there had always been another catalyst behind MCA: Ties to organized crime that reached back to the company’s inception—and through Reagan’s Teamster-backed candidacy—had never been severed. From the author of The Hoffa Wars, this is an epic and serpentine investigation into the insidious links among Hollywood, the Mob, and politics. Based on research of six thousand pages of previously classified documents, including the entirety of Reagan’s grand jury testimony, Moldea “has, through sheer tenacity, amassed an avalanche of ominous and unnerving facts. [Dark Victory is] a book about power, ego and the American way. Moldea has shown us what we don’t want to see” (Los Angeles Times).

A pair of siblings' bucolic French town is almost untouched by the ravages of WWII. When their friend goes into hiding and his Jewish parents disappear, they realize they must take a stand.

The Blindside meets Friday Night Lights in Keanon Lowe's Hometown Victory when an NFL coach returns home after losing a friend to coach a team of struggling high school kids on a 23-game losing streak. Keanon Lowe was working as an offensive analyst for the San Francisco 49ers when his childhood friend and former high school teammate suddenly died from an opioid overdose. Keanon dropped everything––including the plum NFL job he had been working towards since childhood––leading him to a position as football coach at a struggling high school back in his hometown. At the time, Parkrose High School was in the middle of a 23-game losing streak--they were the ultimate underdogs. In many ways, the road to Parkrose was paved by Keanon's life-defining experiences––from a childhood spent dodging racist bullies and finding the support and mentorship he craved on the football team, to an NFL season where he worked closely with Colin Kaepernick as he evolved his sideline protest. Keanon was drawn to the young men on the Parkrose team, and to the school itself. After two years, he pushed them to become conference champions, mentoring countless players along the way. But still, there was that nagging sense that his calling wasn't meant to stop there. He was at that school for a reason. In May 2019, he got his answer when a 19-year-old student entered a Parkrose classroom with a trench coat and shotgun. Keanon disarmed him and pulled the boy into a hug, telling him he cared. In the boy, Keanon saw himself, and the young men he grew up with or mentored along the way––and weren't so many of them just looking for acceptance, for comfort, for love? With the heart of favorite football classics––The Blindside, Friday Night Lights, Remember the Titans––Keanon’s journey at Parkrose is the true account of a life spent striving forward, even when faced with the unimaginable. Hometown Victory is a story about gratitude, service, and most of all, hope.

Experience the chilling combat of World War I from inside an early biplane in this classic novel, by a pilot who lived through the war himself. France, 1914. The war on the land is taking to the skies . . . Pilot Tom Cundall is ready to take on the enemy in his trusty Camel fighter plane. But as he sees more and more planes shot down in flames, he begins to question the war, and what, or who, he is fighting for. There is no bitter snarl nor self-pity in this classic novel about the air war of 1914-1918, based very largely on the author’s experiences. Combat, loneliness, fatigue, fear, comradeship, women, excitement—they all are part of a brilliantly told story of war and courage by one of the most valiant pilots of the then Royal Flying Corps. Praise for Winged Victory “The greatest novel of war in the air.” —The Daily Mail (UK) ‘Beautifully written with a poet’s eye as well as a pilot’s eye.” —Evening Echo (UK) “Not only one of the best war books . . . but as a transcription of reality, faithful and sustained in its author’s purpose of re-creating the past life he knew, it is unique.” —Henry Williamson, author of Tarka the Otter

A noted historian examines the impact of culture and politics on the wartime attitudes and experiences of Americans and their expectations concerning the postwar world.

A dark, ruthless Highlander, the Black Macleod has refused his destiny. His life is revenge for the massacre of his family. His enemies' insults—that he is a man of stone—only amuse him. But fate is impatient, and when a woman from another time dares to summon him, he cannot resist her powers—or her.… A schoolteacher by day, Tabitha Rose uses her magic to protect others by night. When the vision of a dark Highlander, bloody and burned, appears to Tabby, she knows she has been called to help him, no matter how frightening he might be. But what Tabby doesn't expect is to be taken against her will to his dark, violent time. And when evil begins to stalk her, she realizes she must fight for far more than his destiny—she must fight for her love.…

In the vein of Taylor Branch’s classic Parting of the Waters, Supreme Court lawyer and political pundit Linda Hirshman delivers the enthralling, groundbreaking story of the gay rights movement, revealing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America forever. When the modern struggle for gay rights erupted in the summer of 1969, forty-nine states outlawed sex between people of the same gender. Four decades later, in 2011, New York legalized gay marriage and the armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Successful social movements are always extraordinary, but these advances seem like something of a miracle. Linda Hirshman recounts the long roads that led to these victories, detailing the remarkable and revolutionary story of the movement that has blurred rigid gender lines, altered the shared culture, and broadened our definitions of family. Written in vivid prose, at once emotional and erudite, Victory is an utterly vibrant work of reportage and eyewitness accounts and demonstrates how, in a matter of decades, a focused group of activists forged a classic campaign for cultural change that will serve as a model for all future political movements. “Remarkable for its emotional punch as for its historical insight.”—New York Times Book Review

This the memoir of Gerard Basset, OBE, the greatest wine professional of his generation. A school dropout, Gerard had to come to England to discover his passion. He threw himself into learning everything he could about wine, immersing himself in the world of Michelin star restaurants and beginning the steep climb to the top of the career ladder. Tasting Victory charts his business successes: co-founding and selling the innovative Hotel du Vin chain and founding, with his wife Nina, the much-loved Hotel TerraVina. It recounts in detail just how he managed to earn his unprecedented sequence of qualifications; Gerard is the first and only individual to hold the famously difficult Master of Wine qualification simultaneously with that of Master Sommelier and MBA in Wine Business. But it is his pursuit of the most important award of all that forms the core of this book – how, at his seventh attempt, and after a training regime that would shame most Olympic athletes, the fifty-three-year-old Gerard Basset was finally crowned the Best Sommelier of the World, and acknowledged as the greatest sommelier of his generation. Gerard's memoir is not only the story of how a champion is made, but also a record of how fine dining and hospitality changed in England, going from stale and unexciting to the world-leading sector it is today. Above all, it’s a book about succeeding against great odds: in typical fashion it was when he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus that Gerard responded by deciding to write Tasting Victory, which he completed shortly before his death in January 2019.