Historical Relief

So Others May Live: Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers: Saving Lives, Defying Death is the award-winning untold story of the US Coast Guard's quiet but resolute rescue swimmers. From deep ocean caves on the Oregon coast to the panicked and chaotic streets of post-Katrina New Orleans, here are their stunningly heroic stories.

During the height of the blizzard of 1978, the tanker Global Hope floundered on the shoals off the Massachusetts coast. The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat, but was soon in as much trouble as the tanker. Then pilot boat captain Frank Quirk, hearing of the Coast Guard's troubles on his radio, decided to act.

On December 3, 1999, the call crackled in to the men of the Worchester, Massachusetts Fire Department: a three-alarm warehouse blaze in a six-story windowless colossus of brick and mortar. What happened next - and how their lives and community were changed forever - offers an unprecedented look at these heroic men whose job it is to rush into burning buildings when everyone else just wants out.

Almost 7,000 fans eagerly packed into the Ringling Brothers big top on July 6, 1944. With a single careless act, an afternoon at the "Greatest Show on Earth" quickly became one of terror and tragedy as the paraffin-coated circus tent caught fire. Panicked crowds rushed for the few exits, but in minutes, the tent collapsed on those still struggling to escape below. A total of 168 lives were lost, many of them children, with many more injured and forever scarred by the events.

Melissa Faye Greene stunningly unfolds the story of the Springhill, Nova Scotia, mine disaster, a drama that seems especially hard-hitting in light of more recent mine collapses. In 1958, gases were propelled three levels upward, trapping men against the ceiling and burying them. One hundred men had entered the dangerously built mine Number Two; 75 never saw the light of day again. Two groups of men did survive, although their struggle was immense and almost unbelievable.

Already sold in eight countries around the world, these nine energized, irreverent stories from Nathan Englander introduce an astonishing new talent. In Englander's amazingly taut and ambitious "The Twenty-seventh Man," a clerical error lands earnest, unpublished Pinchas Pelovits in...

This is an unconventional biography of an unconventional woman. Eglantyne Jebb moved from drawing rooms to war zones, often defying expectation and at times breaking the law. Although not fond of individual children, she founded Save the Children and originated the revolutionary concept of children's human rights. Clare Mulley brings to life the brilliant, charismatic, passionate, and compassionate woman, whose work has saved millions of lives and permanently changed the way the world treats children. Save the Children ambassador Joely Richardson narrates this extraordinary story.

On December 3, 1999, the call crackled in to the men of the Worchester, Massachusetts Fire Department: a three-alarm warehouse blaze in a six-story windowless colossus of brick and mortar. What happened next, and how their lives and community were changed forever, offers an unprecedented look at these heroic men whose job it is to rush into burning buildings when everyone else just wants out.

Just before sunset on January 12, 2010, a powerful earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Within a few terrifying minutes, over one-hundred thousand men, women, and children were killed. Thousands more were critically injured, and millions were displaced to rapidly erected tent cities or hospitals across the country. Swiftly came the international response. Health care professionals from every corner of the world dropped their work and descended on Haiti. Phillip Scott was a no-nonsense, suffer-no-fools Seattle trauma surgeon. His response to his university dean’s memo looking for ...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Taut, edgy, sharply observed. . . . A revelation of the human condition.”...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, in which Englander envisions a group of Polish Jews herded toward a train bound for the death camps and, in a deft, imaginative twist, turns them into acrobats tumbling out of harm’s way. FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES...

Betrayed. Deceived. Dare they trust again? Hans Lubeck lost the woman he loved and the family farm to his brother. Ten years later, he's on the cusp of fulfilling his new dream—captaining his own ship. And another woman could jeopardize everything. Jilted at the altar, schoolteacher Lenore Kerrigan devotes her time to her pupils and good works. She has no use for a man or the damage he could do to her reputation. Especially when a man from her past arrives and wants to court her. But this holiday season, fate and an island of matchmakers have other plans. Will Hans and Lenore accept the ...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Taut, edgy, sharply observed. . . . A revelation of the human condition.”...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. “The Wig” takes an aging wigmaker and makes her, for a single moment, beautiful. A NEW YORK...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Taut, edgy, sharply observed. . . . A revelation of the human condition.”...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Taut, edgy, sharply observed. . . . A revelation of the human condition.”...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Taut, edgy, sharply observed. . . . A revelation of the human condition.”...

A story from the collection FOR THE RELIEF OF UNBEARABLE URGES, a work of startling authority and imagination–an audiobook that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK “Taut, edgy, sharply observed. . . . A revelation of the human condition.”...