Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The mood in the helicopter was upbeat, especially from Ronnie Means. He had taken a job building concrete silos before joining the Army, and he looked like he was giddy. I didn't hit it off with him until we spent five hours together on a bus. #2 I had always known cold and snow in December, but here, the air was so thick and muggy that I struggled to take deep breaths....

In a series of episodes as fantastic as any fiction, a powerful civilization crumbled at the hands of a small band of warriors. Written by one of America's great historians, this gripping chronicle draws upon the firsthand accounts of eminent sixteenth-century captains and statesmen to relate the overthrow of the Inca empire by the Spanish adventurers under Pizarro's command. Author William H. Prescott's immensely readable narrative crackles with...

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The first guest to use Airbedandbreakfast. com was Amol Surve, a graduate of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. He arrived at his rental late in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 16, 2007. The apartment was spacious, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a comfortable living room. #2 Brian Chesky grew up in a middle-class family in Niskayuna,...

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The earthquake in Ecuador in 1906 was the most powerful ever recorded by the machines of man. It destroyed the island port of Tumaco, and killed as many as 2,000 people. #2 There were several large earthquakes in the Caribbean in the 1970s, and they did not kill anyone. But they did trigger a burst of smaller earthquakes, which went on for two or three weeks....

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Billy Joe Aplin was a fisherman in 1975, and his family decked-out with all the trappings. He met his wife in 1964, when she was sixteen, and they were pregnant with their first child, Beth, in 1965. They had saved enough by the late 1960s to buy their first trawler. #2 Billy Joe Aplin was a fisherman in 1975, and his family decked-out with all the trappings....

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. #1 Hazel is on her way to visit the Smith family, whom she has been caring for for the past five months. She is fearless, and knows these woods well. She is not afraid of the dark, and is ready for whatever may come. #2 On July 11, 1908, the heatwave that had been plaguing the entire state of New York reached Sand Lake, a small town in the middle of Rensselaer County. It was...

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 I was offered an extremely attractive assignment overseas in mid-September, 1942. I was to be placed in charge of the Army's part of the atomic effort. I was skeptical, but it took me several weeks to realize how overoptimistic an outlook Styer had presented. #2 I was brought into the picture when research on the uses of atomic energy was already underway....

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The story of my family's griot, Jim, says that Madison had a relationship with one of his slaves, Coreen, that resulted in the birth of a son, Jim, who was sold and sent away when he was a teenager. #2 I was a debutante in the cotillion, a ball sponsored by the Bay Area chapter of the Links, which was a national organization of wives of prominent black men....

With the passing of the Volstead Act, the United States embraced Prohibition as the law of the land. From 1920 to 1933, the well-intentioned ban of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors gave rise to a flourishing culture of bootleggers, gangsters, and corrupt officials. This witty and perceptive history by Herbert Asbury, the bestselling author of The Gangs of New York, offers a wide-ranging survey of the Prohibition era...

"Thou hast been a generous giver," wrote Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in "To the River Charles," a poetic celebration of the eastern Massachusetts watercourse. Rich in intriguing and amusing anecdotes, this illustrated history traces the Charles's path to the sea through rocky gorges and vast meadows, along with the river's contributions to America's cultural development. Profiles of those who dwelt along the banks range from colonial settlers in the...