"The final book in the Unwanteds dystopian fantasy trilogy, as twins Alex and Aaron's parallel stories come together"--

Stalingrad was one of the largest, bloodiest, and most famous battles in history as well as one of the major turning points of World War II. For four winter months during the battle, German and Soviet forces fought over a single factory inside the city of Stalingrad. Lavishly illustrated with photos and maps, Island of Fire presents a day-by-day—at times hour-by-hour—chronicle of that pitiless struggle as seen by both sides. The book is unparalleled and exhaustive in its research, meticulous in its reconstruction of the action, and vivid in its retelling of the street-by-street, hand-to-hand fighting near the gun factory.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

When Luca went to Sicily in search of his parents' roots, he didn't count on meeting Vito: a wizened old man who seemed to embody the history of the island in his bones. He also didn't count on Vito taking him back centuries - millennia - to the ancient times when Sicily was settled by seafaring people, and fought over by warring tribes and invaders. Luca didn't know about Anu and Baia who came to the shores of the island 11,000 years ago, or Telia and Sapira who began Sicily's agricultural revolution thousands of years later. He had never heard of the Sicani, Elymi, and Siculi tribes who settled the island 3,000 years ago, or the Arabs, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans who fought to control this vital piece of earth in the Middle Sea. Islands of Fire takes the reader on a journey through time, from the volcanic origins of this island to the era of the Roman Empire. It is a journey chronicled in the dozens of invasions of the island over thousands of years. A waystation in the Middle Sea, Sicily is at the heart of western history.

Sir James G. Frazer (1854-1941) is famous as the author of The Golden Bough, but his work ranged widely across classics, cultural history, folklore and literary criticism as well as anthropology. A Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for 62 years, Sir James G. Frazer devoted his life to research. This volume was first published in 1930.

The author examines natural disasters around the Pacific Rim throughout history together with scientific data context to produce enlightening—and highly readable—entries. On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Japan's coast, triggering a powerful tsunami. The massive destruction that resulted proved that not even sophisticated, industrialized nations are immune from nature's fury. Written to take some of the mystery out of the earth's behavior, this encyclopedia chronicles major natural disasters that have occurred around the Pacific Rim, an area nicknamed the "Ring of Fire" because of the volatile earth that lies above and below. The encyclopedia offers descriptions of deadly earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis through time. The entries provide in-depth information that promotes an understanding of the structure of the earth and earth processes and shares the insights of scientists whose work helps clarify the causes and effects of these cataclysmic events. At the same time, the work examines how the people and cultures of the Pacific Rim view this active part of the earth, how they live with the threat of disaster, and how they have been affected by major events that have occurred. Readers will come away with a holistic view of what is known, how this knowledge was gained, and what its implications may be.

Angry her father, who has ordered her to bond with a man with tainted lines.Lasara plans to escape. Her ability to read the lines of fire makes her a talented duelist. Friends aid her escape. They tell her to seek the Desert Riders and a man called Jens. The meeting is different than she plans. They duel for hours and end in both collapsing. While she recovers she hears about the kidnapping of girls with strong lines of fire, she decides to act to free them. Then she learns about a strange man who has joined her enemy. The Defenders need to know. Ever since his duel with a Defender Jens wonders if this man could really be his brother. Traveling to the Defender’s Hall doesn’t suit him. He like his life as a Desert Rider. His band of Riders travels to a village on the edge of the desert. A challenge to see who has the trading advantage is called for. The duel ends in a tie. He is on his way back to the desert when a man from a different troop speaks of young girls being kidnapped. Learning and freeing them becomes his goal. Lasara joins him during the quest. Somehow, they must face the renegades and rescue the young women.