Western Biography

The romance of the West is built on an endless armature of shootouts and train robberies, cowboys versus Indians, white hat versus black, and everybody versus the wilderness. From John Colter's harrowing escape from the Blackfeet to Hugh Glass' six-week crawl to civilization after a grizzly attack, from Custer's final moments to John Wesley Powell's treacherous run through the rapids of the Grand Canyon, Cowboys, Mountain Men, and Grizzly Bears takes the top 50 wildest episodes in the region's history and presents them to the listener in one convenient, narrative-driven package.

Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband, George, encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud and startled owners of a near-derelict croft house - a farmer’s stone cottage - on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse.

Beryl Markham, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, describes her childhood on a farm in Kenya, her apprenticeship as a horse trainer, and her later career as a pioneer aviator who piloted passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa.

A compelling account of history's most famous pirate. The Pirate King is the compelling true story of a Welshman who became one of the most ruthless and brutal buccaneers of the golden age of piracy. The inspiration for dozens of fictionalized pirates in film, television, and literature - as well the namesake of one of the world's most popular rum brands - Captain Sir Henry Morgan was matchless among pirates and privateers.

The deadliest gunfighter in the West died in bed, sober, his boots off — and his last words were "This is funny." John Henry Holliday should have died at thirty-six in a saloon, shot down over a card game. Instead he died of tuberculosis in a Colorado sanatorium, killed slowly by the same disease that had made him fearless. He had been a dead man walking for fifteen years — and almost nobody who feared him understood it. He was not supposed to be a killer at all. Born to a respectable Georgia family in 1851, Doc Holliday earned a genuine doctorate in dental surgery and opened a practice...

Art T. Burton sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late 19th-century America - and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Fluent in Creek and other Southern native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Bass Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws, and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The enthralling true story of the rise and reign of O-Six, the celebrated Yellowstone wolf, and the people who loved or feared her. Before men ruled the earth, there were wolves. Once abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hunted to near...

J. B. West, chief usher of the White House, directed the operations and maintenance of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue - and coordinated its daily life - at the request of the president and his family. He directed state functions; planned parties, weddings, funerals, gardens, playgrounds, and extensive renovations; and with a large staff, supervised every activity in the presidential home.

In the romantic narrative of the Old West, two larger-than-life characters emerged as the perfect foils for each other - the rampant outlaw and the heroic peace officer. Without the villain, sheriffs would not have needed to uphold the law; and without the sheriff, villains would have had no law to break. Together, both personalities fought, lost, and triumphed amid shootouts, train robberies, and bank holdups against the backdrop of the lawless American frontier.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the definitive book on Lewis and Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the most momentous expedition in American history and one of the great adventure stories of all time. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson...

Billy the Kid - a.k.a. Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, and William Bonney - was a horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue, and cold-blooded killer. A superb shot, the Kid gunned down four men single-handedly and five others with the help of cronies. Two of his victims were Lincoln County, New Mexico, deputies, killed during the Kid's brazen daylight escape from the courthouse jail on April 28, 1881.

He was a Methodist preacher's son named for the founder of the church. By his own count, he killed forty men. He died with a bullet in the back of his head, mid-sentence, over a game of dice. On the night of August 19, 1895, John Wesley Hardin stood at the bar of the Acme Saloon in El Paso, shaking dice with a grocer. "Brown, you have four sixes to beat," he said — and an old constable named John Selman fired into the back of his skull. The deadliest gunman Texas ever produced never saw the man who killed him. It is the perfect ending for an impossible life. Hardin grew up in the wreckage...

May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it's entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.

Initially published in 1775, A Journey to the Western Isles recounts a three-month trip to upper Scotland that Samuel Johnson undertook with James Boswell a couple of years previously. During their adventure, they discover a novel culture, stunning landscapes and welcoming locals – all described in Johnson's captivating prose.

The only place in the United States that Hemingway could really call home after he started writing was the tropical island of Key West. During his decade here in the 1930s, he acquired his famed macho persona as Papa, the biggest Big Daddy of them all. This vivid portrait of Ernest Hemingway's Key West reveals both Hemingway, the writer, and Hemingway, the macho, hard-drinking sportsman. His Key West years turned out to be his most productive: he finished A Farewell to Arms, started For Whom the Bell Tolls, and wrote several other books, including Green Hills of Africa.

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

Discover the Extraordinary True Story of America's First Free Black Community In 1738, decades before the American Revolution, a former slave named Francisco Menéndez achieved something historians once thought impossible: he founded and commanded North America's first legally sanctioned free Black settlement. Through groundbreaking archaeological discoveries and meticulous historical detective work, this remarkable biography brings to light one of America's most inspiring yet forgotten freedom fighters. From Chains to Command: An Epic Journey Across Empires Born in West Africa around 1700,...

In 1851, Olive Oatman was a 13-year-old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own.

"If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber ranch, it must be the sort of life which I have not read of in books or experienced in person," wrote Mark Twain, and now you can share in that experience. The beloved American humorist spent seven years on a "pleasure trip" through the untamed wilderness of Nevada. Twain intended to spend three months touring silver mines, but the lure of rough terrain and comfortable clothes proved irresistible - as will this vibrant travelogue.

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.