Born the son of slaves in America’s Deep South, he escaped the stifling racism of his native land to pursue a dream of freedom, wealth and personal happiness that took him from Brussels to Monte Carlo, and from Moscow to Constantinople. Embracing triumph and tragedy and spanning continents, wars and revolution, his life story is as colourful as it is improbable. He is the ‘Black Russian’. Frederick Bruce Thomas was born in 1872 to former slaves who had become prosperous farmers in Mississippi. When his father was brutally murdered, the teenaged Frederick fled the Deep South and headed for New York City, where he worked as a waiter and valet. Deploying charm, charisma and cunning, he emigrated to Europe, criss-crossing that continent to find employment as a multilingual waiter in locations as diverse as London and Leipzig, Venice and Vienna, before settling in Moscow in 1899. There he married twice, acquired a mistress, and became one of that city’s richest and most fêted restaurateurs and nightclub impresarios. But then came the shock of the Bolshevik Revolution. Frederick and his family were forced to flee Russia for Constantinople, where, ever resourceful, he reinvented himself afresh, opening nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey. However, Frederick’s luck was finally running out: the long arm of American racism and his own extravagance landed him in a debtor’s prison in 1927, after which death came swiftly. Written with a novelist’s verve, The Black Russian is both the extraordinary story of the most engaging and unexpected of heroes, and a meticulously researched and richly characterized tour of the changing political and cultural landscape of the early twentieth century. Views: 71
'Night of the Living Dead' meets 'Saving Private Ryan' in a bloodthirsty World War II night of terror.
World War II is raging across the globe and the Nazis are being pushed back slowly by the victorious Allies. It is 1944 and the Allies are poised to open up a second front in occupied France to join the Soviet Union in a final assault that will bring the war to its conclusion. In the early hours of the D-Day invasion, Sergeant Smith and his unit of elite airborne infantry arrive in occupied France. Their mission is to capture a series of important bridges deep behind enemy lines prior to the arrival of the main infantry. It soon becomes apparent however that the Germans have a terrifying secret weapon, one that could drive the allies back into the sea and could change the fate of the War! Views: 71
Welcome to the America we don't usually talk about, a place where that nice couple down the street could be saddling up for "pony play," making and selling their own porn DVDs, or hosting other couples for a little flogging. As award-winning journalist Brian Alexander uncovers, fringe experimentation has gone suburban. Soccer moms, your accountant, even your own parents could be turning kinky. Stunned by the uninhibited questions from ordinary people on his msnbc.com column, "Sexploration" ("My wife and I have heard that a lot of couples in their thirties are playing strip poker . . . as well as skinny-dipping with other couples/friends. Any idea if this is a fashionable trend or has it been going on for some time and we never knew it?" or "I am interested in bondage and hear that there are secret bondage clubs someplace. Can you help me find them?"), Brian Alexander was driven to understand Americans' desire to get down and dirty--especially in an era where... Views: 71
The classic real-life story of the superspy whose vast intelligence network helped defeat the Nazis in World War II.A Man Called Intrepid is the account of the world's first integrated intelligence operation and of its master, William Stephenson. Codenamed INTREPID by Winston Churchill, Stephenson was charged with establishing—and running—a vast, worldwide intelligence network to challenge the terrifying force of Nazi Germany. Nothing less than the fate of Britain and the free world hung in the balance as INTREPID covertly set about stalling the Nazis by any means necessary.First published in 1976, A Man Called Intrepid was an immediate bestseller. With over thirty black-and-white photographs and countless World War II secrets, this book revealed startling information that had remained buried for decades. Detailing the infamous Camp X" training center in Ontario, Canada; the miraculous breaking of the Ultra Code used by the Enigma... Views: 71
A luminous memoir from the Holocaust writer, Alison Leslie Gold, told through a series of letters to the living and the dead.Alison Leslie Gold is best known for her works that have kept alive stories from the time of the Holocaust, stories of courage and survival - most famously her Anne Frank Remembered, co-authored with Miep Gies (who risked her life to protect the Frank family). She has never chosen to write about her own life or what made her into a gatherer of other people's stories, until now, in Found and Lost. Starting with her childhood experience of running her primary school 'Lost and Found' depot, Gold charts the origin of her need to save objects, stories, people - including herself - whom she has sensed to be on a road to perdition. After a series of deaths of people close to her (mother, lover, mentor, friend), she develops, though a series of letters, a meditation on aging, friendship, loss and the forces that link us to the dead. The... Views: 71
Everything comes with a price
What if you could live in a universe where you were always the winner? Pushed to his limits by a horrific accident, Liam discovers he has an amazing ability: he can move’ to parallel universes where things always turn out just the way he wants. But every time he moves the fabric of the metaverse begins to tear. And something evil begins to find its way in ... A gripping fantasy adventure story of the battle between a teenage boy and a terrible demon. It is also the deeper tale of how Liam changes, emerging from the final crisis a much wiser person than the boy for whom the ability to swap universes made the world his toy. A thrilling roller-coaster ride from an award-winning author. Views: 70
