Malcolm Hillgartner

In the winter of 1952, New England was battered by the most brutal nor'easter in years. As the weather wreaked havoc on land, the freezing Atlantic became a wind-whipped zone of peril, setting the stage for one of the most heroic rescue stories ever lived.

On February 18, while the storm raged, two oil tankers, the Pendleton and the Fort Mercer, were in the same horrifying predicament. Built with "dirty steel," and not prepared to withstand

...

The story behind the major motion picture from Disney—starring Chris Pine, Eric Bana, and Casey Affleck—written by a recognized master of the genre—"a blockbuster account of tragedy at sea" (The Providence Journal).
It's the winter of 1952 and a ferocious Nor'easter is pounding New England with howling winds and seventy-foot seas. Two oil tankers get caught in the violent storm off Cape Cod, its fury splitting the...

British Empire in the vast wilderness of the Ohio Valley. Naïve and self-absorbed, the twenty-two-year-old officer accidentally ignited the French and Indian Wara conflict that opened colonists to the possibility of an American Revolution. With powerful narrative drive and vivid writing, Young Washington recounts the wilderness trials, controversial battles, and emotional entanglements that transformed Washington from a temperamental striver into...

Traces America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the years since 9/11, and how the U.S. efforts in the Afghan War faltered because of a failure to understand the intentions of Pakistan's intelligence agency.

The first hard-hitting examination of ExxonMobil, this book is the masterful result of Coll's indefatigable reporting. He draws here on more than four hundred interviews, field reporting from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta, more than one thousand pages of previously classified U.S. documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, heretofore unexamined court records, and many other sources. A penetrating, newsbreaking...

Nicolas von Bingen and Alex von Hemmerle, titled members of the German aristocracy, have been best friends since childhood. Both widowers, they are raising their children, Nick's two lively boys and Alex's adored teenage daughter, in peace and luxury on the vast Bavarian estates that have belonged to their families for generations. While Nick indulges in more glamorous pursuits, Alex devotes himself to breeding the renowned white Lipizzaner horses...

This extraordinary book is the result of Saul Bellow's sojourn in Israel in 1975. A personal record of his stay—his experiences and impressions—as well as a meditation, it crackles with wit and controversy on America's relationship with this embattled country. Using quick sketches and vignettes, Bellow captures the personal opinions, passions, and dreams of several Israelis, and he also adds to these his own reflections on being Jewish in the...

"A social history of alcoholism in the United States, from the seventeenth century to the present day Today, millions of Americans are struggling with alcoholism, but millions are also in long-term recovery. Alcoholics Anonymous and a growing number of recovery organizations are providing support for alcoholics who will face the danger of relapse for the rest of their lives. We have finally come to understand alcoholism as a treatable illness, rather...

Born in 1903, and until his death in 2003, Bob Hope was the only entertainer to achieve top-rated success in every major mass-entertainment medium, from vaudeville to television. He virtually invented modern stand-up comedy. He helped redefine what it means to be a star. Richard Zoglin shows there is still much to be learned about this public figure, who, unlike many Hollywood stars, truly loved being famous, appreciated its responsibilities, and...

"A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucald was raised in magnificent chateaux and educated in Europe's finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucald escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combat--cracking safes and planting bombs and killing with his bare hands--from the officers of Special Operations Executive, the collection of British spies, beloved...