Akron Public Library

On the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, Eisenhower biographer and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944, had to be abandoned before the first shot was fired. The true story of D-Day, as Ambrose relates it, is about the citizen soldiers - junior officers and enlisted men - taking the initiative to act on their own to break...

Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL, recounts his life and military experiences, discusses his record for the most career sniper kills in United States military history and the bounty placed on his head by Iraqi insurgents, provides an eye-witness account of war in Iraq, shares the strains of war on his marriage and family, and honors his fellow soldiers.

"Reacher goes where he wants, when he wants. That morning he was heading west, walking under the merciless desert sun--until he comes upon a curious scene. A Jeep has crashed into the only tree for miles around. A woman is slumped over the wheel. Dead? No, nothing is what it seems. The woman is Michaela Fenton, an army veteran turned FBI agent trying to find her twin brother, who might be mixed up with some dangerous people. Most of them would rather...

"1992. Eight respectable, upstanding people have been found dead across the US. These deaths look like accidents and don't appear to be connected. Until one body - the victim of a fatal fall from a hospital window - generates some unexpected attention. That attention comes from the Secretary of Defense, who promptly calls for an inter-agency task force to investigate. Jack Reacher is assigned as the Army's representative. Reacher may be an exceptional...

"For more than two thousand years, Sun-tzu's The Art of War has provided leaders with essential advice on battlefield tactics, managing troops and terrain, and employing cunning and deception. But its underlying philosophy lends itself to infinite applications: an elemental part of Chinese culture, it has also become a touchstone for the Western struggle for survival and success, whether in battle or in business or in relationships. Now, in his crisp,...

Killing Patton takes readers inside the final year of the war and recounts the events surrounding Patton's tragic demise, naming names of the many powerful individuals who wanted him silenced.

Michael Howard (1922–2019) was a leading British military historian who held professorships at the University of Oxford and Yale University. His many books included The Franco-Prussian War and War in European History. Peter Paret (1924–2020) was professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His many books include Clausewitz in His Time, The Cognitive Challenge of War (Princeton), and Clausewitz and the State (Princeton)....

"America's first line of defense--Brad McLanahan and the heroes of the Iron Wolf Squadron--must counter a dangerous Russian strike from within the homeland. On a remote island estate, a billionaire investor sells his air freight company to a mysterious new owner. The purchaser is none other than the President of Russia, Gennadiy Gryzlov. The Russians will use these private planes to secretly transport dangerous cargo into the United States. The inept...

When Captain Kyle Mercer of the Army's elite Delta Force disappeared from his post in Afghanistan, a video released by his Taliban captors made international headlines. But circumstances were murky. Did Mercer desert before he was captured? Then a second video sent to Mercer's Army commander leaves no doubt: the trained assassin and keeper of classified Army intelligence has willfully disappeared. When Mercer is spotted a year later in Caracas, Venezuela,...

"Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists had a different view. This 'Bomber Mafia' asked:...