August Books

The Sunday Times and New York Times Bestseller By the YouTube sensation with more than two million followers, the inspiring account of a woman in her thirties who, in a moment of personal crisis, embarked on an epic, transcontinental motorcycle ride - and along the way found a new sense of purpose. Noraly Schoenmaker was a thirty-something geologist living in the Netherlands when she learned that her live-in partner had been having a long-term affair. Suddenly without a place to stay, she decided to quit her job and jet off to India in search of a new beginning. Her plans were dashed when she fell quickly and helplessly in love: with a motorcycle. Behind the handlebars, she felt alive and free - nimble enough to trace the narrowest paths, powerful enough to travel the longest of roads. She first rode toward the Pacific, through the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand, then into Malaysia. Rather than satisfy her appetite for the open road, this ride only piqued it. She shipped her bike to Oman, at the base of the Arabian Peninsula, and embarked on a journey through Iran, across Turkmenistan along its border with Afghanistan, over the snowy peaks of Central Asia and into Europe, all the way back home to the Netherlands. She covered remote and utterly unfamiliar territory; broke down on impossibly steep mountains; and pushed too many miles along empty roads, farther and farther from civilization. But through her travels, she discovered the true beauty of the world - the kindness of its people, the simplicity of its open spaces, as well as her own inner strength. In spirit of The Motorcycle Diaries and Wild, this is an inspiring story of self-discovery and renewal. Filled with unforgettable figures, hilarious disasters and powerful human connections, it shows you what happens when you open your heart and let the world in. 'Required reading' New York Post

A visceral account of the white-knuckled bombing mission carried out on Hitler's hometown. In April 1945, Linz was one of Nazi Germany's most vital assets: a crucial transportation hub and communications centre, its railyards brimming with war materiel destined for the front lines. Linz was also the town Hitler claimed as home. Inevitably, it was one of the most heavily defended targets remaining in Europe. In their unheated, unpressurized B?24 Liberator and B?17 Flying Fortress heavy bombers, the young men of the US Fifteenth Air Force battled elements as dangerous as anything the Germans could throw at them. When batteries of German anti?aircraft guns did open fire, the men flew into a man?made hell of exploding shrapnel. Drawing on interviews with dozens of surviving World War II veterans and residents of Linz, as well as previously unpublished sources, Mike Croissant compellingly relates one of the war's last truly untold stories - a gripping chronicle of warfare and a timeless tale of courage and terror, loss and redemption. With a foreword by Richard Overy, author of The Bombers and the Bombed