Forged in conflict, the United States of America has been at war in one form or another for over two hundred years, and at peace for just seventeen. Within seventy-eight mostly undeclared wars, over a million souls have sadly perished. In a historical anthology, novelist Max Blue shares forty-nine chapters from his twelve published novels set against the backdrop of Americas wars. Divided into six parts, Blues stories detail diverse battles that include World War I; the economic war of the Great Depression; World War II; the Civil Rights War, Korean War, and Cold War; academic wars; and the ongoing drug wars that still plague America today. His fascinating tales share a glimpse into a time when President Woodrow Wilson reluctantly led his country into a genocidal European war, thousands of World War I veterans desperately sought ways to survive and feed their families, ships were torpedoed in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and North Korean troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel to invade South Korea. Wild Blue Ponders shares a diverse collection of short tales extracted from the works of an American novelist that detail the effects and aftermath of war through the eyes of fictional characters.

The story of the men chosen by the Army Air Forces to man the B-24 bombers which made a vital contribution to the Allied victory.

“Readers will be entranced by this exceptional offering.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “By turns a mystery, a thriller, and an adventure, this richly woven story will provide much for readers to tease apart long after it’s finished.” —Booklist (starred review) “Thought-provoking and intense.” —Kirkus Reviews “A survival story in its truest sense.” —BCCB The threat of two escaped convicts and a missing friend lead Lizzie on a harrowing journey through the wilds of the Adirondacks in this captivating mystery from National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart. Thirteen-year-old Lizzie’s favorite place in the world is her uncle’s cabin. Uncle Davy’s renovated schoolhouse cabin, filled with antiques and on the edge of the Adirondacks, disconnected from the rest of the world, is like something out of a fairy tale. And an escape from reality is exactly what Lizzie needs. Life hasn’t been easy for Lizzie lately. Her father abandoned their family, leaving Lizzie with her oftentimes irresponsible mother. Now, her mom has cancer and being unable to care for Lizzie during her chemotherapy, asks Lizzie where she’d like to spend the summer. The answer is simple: Uncle Davy’s cabin. Lizzie loves her uncle’s home for many reasons, but the main one is Matias, Uncle Davy’s neighbor and Lizzie’s best friend. Matias has proportionate dwarfism, but that doesn’t stop him and Lizzie from wandering in the woods. Every day they go to their special spot where Matias paints with watercolors and Lizzie writes. Until one day when Matias never arrives. When news breaks about two escaped convicts from the nearby prison, Lizzie fears the worst. And when Uncle Davy goes missing, too, Lizzie knows she’s the only one who knows this area of woods well enough to save them. Armed with her trusted Keppy survival book, Lizzie sets out into the wilds of the Adirondacks, proving just how far she’ll go to save the people she loves.

In the early 1950s, German philosopher Martin Heidegger proclaimed the Austrian expressionist Georg Trakl to be the poet of his generation and of the hidden Occident. Trakl, a guilt-ridden lyricist who died of a cocaine overdose in the early days of World War I, thus became for Heidegger a redemptive successor to Hölderlin. Drawing on Derrida's Geschlecht series and substantial archival research, Dialogue on the Threshold explores the productive and problematic tensions that pervade Heidegger's reading of Trakl and reflects more broadly on the thresholds that separate philosophy from poetry, gathering from dispersion, the same from the other, and the native from the foreigner. Ian Alexander Moore examines why Heidegger was reluctant to follow Trakl's invitation to cross these thresholds, even though his encounter with the poet did compel him to take up, in astounding ways, many underrepresented topics in his philosophical corpus such as sexual difference, pain, animality, and Christianity. A contribution not just to Heidegger and Trakl studies but also, more modestly, to the old quarrel between philosophy and poetry, Dialogue on the Threshold concludes with new translations of eighteen poems by Trakl.

The End of the World is about the end. It tells and develops a trail of two children growing up before and after the Civil war. The struggle, agony, death, and non-sensitivity which they experienced as children shook the lives of the entire Beaver Creek, South Carolina community. One of the children lived in a slave shack, and worked in the field. The other lived in the mansion and performed work for the slave master. However, they realized that they both were slaves. Through these experiences, the meaning of “the end of the world” enters their thoughts. These experiences, and the continued life and death ordeals puzzled little Anne and Raymond. Before you have completed the very first chapter, your mind will never be the same. This book touches the inner feelings of all mankind. It ignites that strong feeling of not giving up, and having faith through courage. So, seek, think, judge, and ponder, The End of the World. To all mankind remains a substance out front in the wild blue yonder.

According to Lieutenant General Bill Carr, an ex-Commander of Canada's Air Command, and himself a decorated WWII Spitfire pilot: "This book contains the most vivid, uncomplaining and honest descriptions I have ever read of what the WWII Bomber Command aircrews went through during the years 1939-1945 when they delivered no less than one-and-a-quarter million tons of bombs on Hitler's empire. From 1943 onward, the US Army Air Corps added a further three-quarter million tons to this total. And those young aircrew suffered incomparable losses." It is the gripping life story of a decorated Air Navigator who, with his crew in a Lancaster, did a tour of operations in a Canadian squadron of RAF Bomber Command in WWII, spending nine months in the front lines. There are tales of night raids to Southeast Germany and 6 raids to Berlin. This milieu had up to 1 million personnel, 20,625 guns, 6,680 searchlights and about 400 fighters, a formidable barrier across Western Germany and around the targets, all with the prime purpose of frustrating the efforts to bomb, shooting down aircraft and killing crews being their preferred outcome. The tour terminated with bombing raids in France preparing for the invasion of Normandy. There are also interesting details of cultural life on the base, and in wartime Great Britain. In addition, the life and times of growing up in New Brunswick, Canada in the 1920s are included, as well as stories of pre-war employment. There are also post-war stories of managing the family business, returning to the RCAF as a construction engineer, time as General Manager of the RCAF Association and proprietorship of Unique Decor Unlimited. Stories of retirement include much about worldwide travel. Once you start reading, you'll find it so interesting you'll be reluctant to put it down!