"Lusitania: She was a ship of dreams, carrying millionaires and aristocrats, actresses and impresarios, writers and suffragettes - a microcosm of the last years of the waning Edwardian Era and the coming influences of the Twentieth Century. When she left New York on her final voyage, she sailed from the New World to the Old; yet an encounter with the machinery of the New World, in the form of a primitive German U-Boat, sent her - and her gilded passengers...

"Behind the bucolic plantation estates of Northern Virginia lies a history of scandal. The region has a rotating cast of greedy supervisors, vain senators, bullying occupiers and party bosses. The Aryan Nations once flooded the streets of Arlington. Infamous floating brothels once sailed the Potomac. Even George Washington's death at his historic estate outside the capital is shrouded in mystery. Join journalist and author Michael Lee Pope as he serves...

A desperate last hope for safety and freedom. The plight of refugees risking their lives at sea has, unfortunately, made the headlines all too often in the past few years. This book presents five true stories, from 1939 to today, about young people who lived through the harrowing experience of setting sail in search of asylum: Ruth and her family board the St. Louis to escape Nazism; Phu sets out alone from war-torn Vietnam; José tries to reach the...

In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist's palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. How did the most precious color blue travel all the way from remote lapis mines in Afghanistan to Michelangelo's brush? What is the connection between brown paint and ancient Egyptian...

"In an engaging and anecdotal social history, Maiden Voyages explores how women's lives were transformed by the Golden Age of ocean liner travel between Europe and North America. During the early twentieth century, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women, whose lives were transformed by their journeys between the Old World and the New. Some travelled for leisure, some...

"The O. Henry Prize Stories 2013 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories take place in such far-flung locales as a gorgeous sailboat in Hong Kong, a Cuban sugar plantation, the Kenai River in Alaska, a mansion in New Delhi, a ship torpedoed by a German U-boat, and the ghost-haunted rubble of a Turkish girls' school. Also included are the editor's introduction,...

"Our favorite albums are our most faithful companions: we listen to them hundreds of times over decades, we know them far better than any novel or film. These records don't just soundtrack our lives but work their way deep inside us, shaping our outlook and identity, forging our friendships and charting our love affairs. They become part of our story. In Long Players, fifty of our finest authors write about the albums that changed their lives, from...