Larry Loftis

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Texas

The True Story of World War II Spy Aline Griffith, Countess of Romanones

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Featured on Today What to Read in 2021 by The Washington Post A Wall Street Journal monthly pick ​The international bestselling author of the “exciting, suspenseful, inspirational” (Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Code Name: Lise weaves another exceptional and thrilling hidden history of an ordinary American girl who became one of the OSS’s most daring spies in World War II before marrying into European nobility. Perfect for fans of A Woman of No Importance and Code Girls. When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live “a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious” (Time). As the US enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes. Aline’s life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of Strategic Services—forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats, and titled Europeans, any of whom could be an enemy agent. Against this glamorous backdrop of galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in deep-cover espionage to counter Nazi tactics in Madrid. Even after marrying the Count of Romanones, one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her covert activities, being given special assignments when abroad that would benefit from her impeccable pedigree and social connections. Filled with twists, romance, and plenty of white-knuckled adventures fit for a James Bond film, The Princess Spy brings to vivid life the dazzling adventures of a remarkable American woman who risked everything to serve her country.

The Princess Spy

c30544b0-0f2e-48aa-9342-5832cc4199b3-1

North Carolina

Sixteen-year-old Ellie Baum time-travels to 1988 East Berlin, where she meets members of an underground guild who use balloons and magic to help people escape over the wall, and learns that someone is using dark magic to change history.

The Girl with the Red Balloon

9b03186e-8ebe-4064-bbda-7e1e05f09ff1-1

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Illinois

The Right Fight World War II book 1

5e66daaa-ddab-450f-9755-9f9e2f9e8827-1

The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII's Most Highly Decorated Spy

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A Goodreads Choice Awards semifinalist
Florida Book Awards Silver Medalist
Featured in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, New York Newsday, and on Today!
Best Nonfiction Books to Read in 2019--Woman's Day
The Best Nonfiction Books Coming Out This Year--BookBub
"A nonfiction thriller."--The Wall Street Journal

From New York Times and international bestselling author of the "gripping" (Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Into the Lion's Mouth comes the extraordinary true story of Odette Sansom, the British spy who operated in occupied France and fell in love with her commanding officer during World War II--perfect for fans of Unbroken, The Nightingale, and The Code Breaker.

The year is 1942, and World War II is in full swing. Odette Sansom decides to follow in her war hero father's footsteps by becoming an SOE agent to aid Britain and her beloved homeland, France. Five failed attempts and one plane crash later, she finally lands in occupied France to begin her mission. It is here that she meets her commanding officer Captain Peter Churchill.

As they successfully complete mission after mission, Peter and Odette fall in love. All the while, they are being hunted by the cunning German secret police sergeant, Hugo Bleicher, who finally succeeds in capturing them. They are sent to Paris's Fresnes prison, and from there to concentration camps in Germany where they are starved, beaten, and tortured. But in the face of despair, they never give up hope, their love for each other, or the whereabouts of their colleagues.

In Code Name: Lise, Larry Loftis paints a portrait of true courage, patriotism, and love--of two incredibly heroic people who endured unimaginable horrors and degradations. He seamlessly weaves together the touching romance between Odette and Peter and the thrilling cat and mouse game between them and Sergeant Bleicher. With this amazing testament to the human spirit, Loftis proves once again that he is adept at writing "nonfiction that reads like a page-turning novel" (Parade).

Code Name: Lise

85e986d6-746d-4098-825b-8e3e154d40e8-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #history #atomicbomb #billoreilly #ww2 #japan #douglasmacarthur #harrystruman

South Carolina

How America Vanquished World War II Japan

The powerful and riveting new book in the multimillion-selling Killing series by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard Autumn 1944. World War II is nearly over in Europe but is escalating in the Pacific, where American soldiers face an opponent who will go to any length to avoid defeat. The Japanese army follows the samurai code of Bushido, stipulating that surrender is a form of dishonor. Killing the Rising Sun takes readers to the bloody tropical-island battlefields of Peleliu and Iwo Jima and to the embattled Philippines, where General Douglas MacArthur has made a triumphant return and is plotting a full-scale invasion of Japan. Across the globe in Los Alamos, New Mexico, Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team of scientists are preparing to test the deadliest weapon known to mankind. In Washington, DC, FDR dies in office and Harry Truman ascends to the presidency, only to face the most important political decision in history: whether to use that weapon. And in Tokyo, Emperor Hirohito, who is considered a deity by his subjects, refuses to surrender, despite a massive and mounting death toll. Told in the same page-turning style of Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, and Killing Reagan, this epic saga details the final moments of World War II like never before.

Killing the Rising Sun

57b1a6d5-6d01-43b1-87d7-aff5477f6dcb-1

Frances Liardet

Iowa

In the disorderly evacuation of Southampton, England, newly married Ellen Parr finds a small child asleep on the backseat of an empty bus. No one knows who little Pamela is. Ellen professed not to want children with her older husband, and when she takes Pamela into her home and rapidly into her heart, she discovers that this is true: Ellen doesn't want children. She wants only Pamela. Three golden years pass as the Second World War rages on. Then one day Pamela is taken away, screaming. Ellen is no stranger to sorrow, but when she returns to the quiet village life she's long lived, she finds herself asking: In a world changed by war, is it fair to wish for an unchanged heart?

We Must Be Brave

e7580b10-b9ee-4c98-b7e1-da97cd3c78ff-1

Connecticut

Sisters in Arms

Françoise Frenkel

Patrick Modiano

The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman's Harrowing Escape from the Nazis

A PEOPLE BOOK OF THE WEEK WINNER OF THE JQ–WINGATE LITERARY PRIZE “A haunting tribute to survivors and those lost forever—and a reminder, in our own troubled era, never to forget.” —People An “exceptional” (The Wall Street Journal) and “poignant” (The New York Times) book in the tradition of rediscovered works like Suite Française and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, the powerful memoir of a fearless Jewish bookseller on a harrowing fight for survival across Nazi-occupied Europe. In 1921, Françoise Frenkel—a Jewish woman from Poland—fulfills a dream. She opens La Maison du Livre, Berlin’s first French bookshop, attracting artists and diplomats, celebrities and poets. The shop becomes a haven for intellectual exchange as Nazi ideology begins to poison the culturally rich city. In 1935, the scene continues to darken. First come the new bureaucratic hurdles, followed by frequent police visits and book confiscations. Françoise’s dream finally shatters on Kristallnacht in November 1938, as hundreds of Jewish shops and businesses are destroyed. La Maison du Livre is miraculously spared, but fear of persecution eventually forces Françoise on a desperate, lonely flight to Paris. When the city is bombed, she seeks refuge across southern France, witnessing countless horrors: children torn from their parents, mothers throwing themselves under buses. Secreted away from one safe house to the next, Françoise survives at the heroic hands of strangers risking their lives to protect her. Published quietly in 1945, then rediscovered nearly sixty years later in an attic, A Bookshop in Berlin is a remarkable story of survival and resilience, of human cruelty and human spirit. In the tradition of Suite Française and The Nazi Officer’s Wife, this book is the tale of a fearless woman whose lust for life and literature refuses to leave her, even in her darkest hours.

A Bookshop in Berlin

c9c29c80-7612-425e-b7e1-cb09f5ce48c5-1

#hardcover #ww2 #nonfiction #juvenile #womenpilots #history 

New Mexico

A Story of World War II

To Touch the Stars

Leo Litwak

Maryland

Life and Death in the Last Days of WWII

Leo Litwak was a university student when he joined the Army to fight in World War II, "a na've, callow eighteen-year-old son prepared to join other soldier boys being hauled off to war." In 1944 he found himself in Belgium, in the middle of the waning European war, a medic trained to save lives but often powerless to do much more than watch life slip away. It was hard fighting that took Litwak and his rifle company into the heart of Germany at the close of the war. But Litwak learned there was more to war than fighting, more to understand than maps and ammunition.

In the final months of the war, he watched the men in his company tenderly serve food at a Passover seder for a dozen brutalized Jewish women newly liberated from slavery. He watched those same men torture and execute defenseless German soldiers. He fell in love at the Moulin Rouge in a scene straight out of a Toulouse-Lautrec painting.

The men in his company were dreamers, thieves, friends, killers, revolutionaries, and heroes. They were the men of their time: sometimes brave, sometimes compassionate, sometimes cruel, sometimes loving, usually scared. They were held together by loyalty, only to be scattered by the war's end. The Medic is the gritty, wise, bighearted, and unflinching account of one man's quest to find sense in war and its aftermath.

The Medic

6a34119d-2e42-40bb-ba1d-0bff02a5b589-1

Bridey Kelly has come to Greenway House—the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie—in disgrace. A terrible mistake at St. Prisca’s Hospital in London has led to her dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from the Blitz.

Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles: wondrous curios not to be touched, restrictions on rooms not to be entered, and a generous library, filled with books about murder. The biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one Bridey has ever met. Chasing ten young children through the winding paths of the estate grounds might have soothed Bridey’s anxieties and grief—if Greenway were not situated so near the English Channel and the rising aggressions of the war.

When a body washes ashore near the estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is not a victim of war, but of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves, Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what has led them to Greenway. With a mystery writer’s home as their unsettling backdrop, the young women must unravel the truth before their safe haven becomes a place of death . . .

California

A Novel

From the award-winning author of The Day I Died and The Lucky One, a captivating suspense novel about nurses during World War II who come to Agatha Christie's holiday estate to care for evacuated children, but when a body is discovered nearby, the idyllic setting becomes host to a deadly mystery. Bridey Kelly has come to Greenway House--the beloved holiday home of Agatha Christie--in disgrace. A terrible mistake at St. Prisca's Hospital in London has led to her dismissal as a nurse trainee, and her only chance for redemption is a position in the countryside caring for children evacuated to safety from the Blitz. Greenway is a beautiful home full of riddles: wondrous curios not to be touched, restrictions on rooms not to be entered, and a generous library, filled with books about murder. The biggest mystery might be the other nurse, Gigi, who is like no one Bridey has ever met. Chasing ten young children through the winding paths of the estate grounds might have soothed Bridey's anxieties and grief--if Greenway were not situated so near the English Channel and the rising aggressions of the war. When a body washes ashore near the estate, Bridey is horrified to realize this is not a victim of war, but of a brutal killing. As the local villagers look among themselves, Bridey and Gigi discover they each harbor dangerous secrets about what has led them to Greenway. With a mystery writer's home as their unsettling backdrop, the young women must unravel the truth before their safe haven becomes a place of death . . .

Death at Greenway

dca0e01a-11bf-4bb5-9ba6-2e2696f5e034-1

#hardcover #youngadult #historicalfiction #suspense #ww2 #fiction

New York

Orphan Monster Spy

Walter Dean Myers

A World War II Soldier - Normandy, France, 1944

A seventeen-year-old soldier from central Virginia records his experiences in a journal as his regiment takes part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and subsequent battles to liberate France.

The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins

42d3966c-dd00-4173-9907-d8e8ea10a7a0-1

Tom Brokaw

Missouri

Letters and Reflections

Collects letters sent to the author in response to "The Greatest Generation," his tribute to the generation of Americans who fought in World War II and came home to build a new America during the post war era

The Greatest Generation Speaks

a3ded630-26fe-4a1e-803f-feef3c10e278-1

#hardcover #children #history #starofdavid #nazis #legend #ww2 #jewish #kingchristian #parentschoiceaward 

Oregon

The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark

Without the yellow star to point them out, the Jews looked like any other Danes.

In 1940, Nazis occupied Denmark and King Christian X, beloved amongst his people, had to find some way to resist their overwhelming power. When the order went out that all Jews must wear a yellow star on their clothes, the king had an idea that might just work. But it would take the faith and commitment of all Danes.

In this retelling of a World War II legend, New York Times best-selling author Carmen Agra Deedy poignantly remind us of the power of a good, wise leader. Paired with Henri Sørensen's arresting full-color portraits, this is a powerful and dignified story of heroic justice.

The Yellow Star

b53da208-9b3b-4598-b00f-089e61f66884-1

John Lukacs

Tennessee

Sixty-five years after the conclusion of World War II, its consequences are still with us. In this probing book, the acclaimed historian John Lukacs raises perplexing questions about World War II that have yet to be explored. In a work that brilliantly argues for World War II’s central place in the history of the twentieth century, Lukacs applies his singular expertise toward addressing the war’s most persistent enigmas.

The Second World War was Hitler’s war. Yet questions about Hitler’s thoughts and his decisions still remain. How did the divisions of Europe—and, consequently, the Cold War—come about? What were the true reasons for Werner Heisenberg’s mission to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in September 1941? What led to “Rainbow Five,” the American decision to make the war against Germany an American priority even in the event of a two-ocean world war? Was the Cold War unavoidable? In this work, which offers both an accessible primer for students and challenging new theses for scholars, Lukacs addresses these and other riddles, revealing the ways in which the war and its legacy still touch our lives today.

The Legacy of the Second World War

b293d079-130b-4ee6-b116-2bff4d59f083-1

Andy Rooney

One of America's favorite commentators writes a moving, funny, and highly evocative account of his life as an Army private and Stars and Stripes reporter during World War II. Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, My War features endpapers showing dispatches and photos taken during the war.

My War

df9536f9-c9e9-4c66-b408-d1b4018b51fe-1

Sara Houghteling

Alaska

Set in a Paris darkened by World War II, Sara Houghteling's sweeping and sensuous debut novel tells the story of a son's quest to recover his family's lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation. Born to an art dealer and his pianist wife, Max Berenzon is forbidden from entering the family business for reasons he cannot understand. He reluctantly attends medical school, reserving his true passion for his father's beautiful and brilliant gallery assistant, Rose Clément. When Paris falls to the Nazis, the Berenzons survive in hiding. They return in 1944 to find that their priceless collection has vanished: gone are the Matisses, the Picassos, and a singular Manet of mysterious importance. Madly driven to recover his father's paintings, Max navigates a torn city of corrupt art dealers, black marketers, Résistants, and collaborators. His quest will reveal the tragic disappearance of his closest friend, the heroism of his lost love, and the truth behind a devastating family secret. Written with tense drama and a historian's eye for detail, Houghteling's novel draws on the real-life stories of France's preeminent art-dealing familes and the forgotten biography of the only French woman to work as a double agent inside the Nazis' looted art stronghold. Pictures at an Exhibition conjures the vanished collections, the lives of the artists and their dealers, the exquisite romance, and the shattering loss of a singular era. It is a work of astonishing ambition and beauty from an immensely gifted new novelist.

Pictures at an Exhibition

e4243d26-5226-4520-8024-016249069415-1

Sally Bedell Smith

Oklahoma

The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman

Biography of Pamela Harriman, U.S. Ambassador to France, drawing from over 800 interviews, diaries, letters, and archival research, to tell about how the English debutante worked her way through men and fortunes to attain her goals.

Reflected Glory

88f2a74d-8f9f-4ebb-aa1c-aa5402bfd551-1

In his own best tradition of Eye of the Needle and The Key to Rebecca, Follett follows his major bestseller, Code to Zero, with a breathtaking novel of suspense set in the most dangerous days of World War II.

Jackdaws

c209b570-c483-4eb4-9b76-37e59c22a95c-1

#hardcover #deanmyers #ww2 #wwii #worldwar2fiction 

Florida

Walter Dean Myers brilliantly renders the realities of World War II.Josiah Wedgewood and Marcus Perry are on their way to an uncertain future. Their whole lives are ahead of them, yet at the same time, death's whisper is everywhere. One white, one black, these young men have nothing in common and everything in common as they approach an experience that will change them forever. It's May 1944. World War II is ramping up, and so are these young recruits, ready and eager. In small towns and big cities all over the globe, people are filled with fear. When Josiah and Marcus come together in what will be the greatest test of their lives, they learn hard lessons about race, friendship, and what it really means to fight. Set on the front lines of the Normandy invasion, this novel, rendered with heart-in-the-throat precision, is a cinematic masterpiece. Here we see the bold terror of war, and also the nuanced havoc that affects a young person's psyche while living in a barrack, not knowing if today he will end up dead or alive.

Invasion

a56ab921-7955-432b-936a-0b1be243fe11-1

New Jersey

The Hinge of History

Acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author Craig Shirley delivers a compelling account of 1945, particularly the watershed events in the month of April, that details how America emerged from World War II as a leading superpower. In the long-awaited follow-up to the widely praised December 1941, Craig Shirley's April 1945 paints a vivid portrait of America--her people, faith, economy, government, and culture. The year of 1945 bought a series of watershed events that transformed the country into an arsenal of democracy, one that no longer armed the world by necessity but henceforth protected the world by need. At the start of 1945, America and the rest of the world were grieving millions of lives lost in the global conflict. As President Roosevelt was sworn into his fourth term, optimism over an end to the bloody war had grown--then, in April, several events collided that changed the face of the world forever: the sudden death of President Roosevelt followed by Harry S. Truman's rise to office; Adolph Hitler's suicide; and the horrific discoveries of Dachau and Auschwitz. Americans doubled down on their completion of the atomic bomb and their plans to drop them on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the destruction ultimately leading the Japanese Empire to surrender on V-J day and ending World War II for good. Combining engaging anecdotes with deft research and details that are both diminutive and grand, April 1945 gives readers a front-row seat to the American stage at the birth of a brand-new world.

April 1945

04f1b944-b1a8-49b5-82a2-083729197e86-1

Bill O'Reilly

The Death of the Nazi Regime and the World's Most Notorious Dictator

"A special illustrated edition based on ... Killing Patton"--Jacket.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Larry Loftis

The Princess Spy

Katherine Locke

The Girl with the Red Balloon

Chris Lynch

The Right Fight World War II book 1

Larry Loftis

Code Name: Lise

Bill O'Reilly; Martin Dugard

Killing the Rising Sun

Frances Liardet

We Must Be Brave

Kaia Anderson

Sisters in Arms

Françoise Frenkel; Patrick Modiano

A Bookshop in Berlin

Karen Zeinert

To Touch the Stars

Leo Litwak

The Medic

Lori Rader-Day

Death at Greenway

Matt Killeen

Orphan Monster Spy

Walter Dean Myers

The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins

Tom Brokaw

The Greatest Generation Speaks

Carmen Agra Deedy; Henri Sorensen (Illustrator)

The Yellow Star

John Lukacs

The Legacy of the Second World War

Andy Rooney

My War

Sara Houghteling

Pictures at an Exhibition

Sally Bedell Smith

Reflected Glory

Ken Follett

Jackdaws

Walter Dean Myers

Invasion

Craig Shirley

April 1945

Bill O'Reilly

Hitler's Last Days

Bill O'Reilly

Hitler's Last Days