Books with author Robert Papp

Teresa Maria Meneurez hadn’t intended to kill six astronauts, end NASA’s manned space program, and cause the destruction of the most expensive object ever built by mankind. It was just an unfortunate consequence of her affair with one of her husband’s co-workers. Thankfully, rather than an ending, her act of indiscretion lead to a new beginning, as it enabled a man she had never met to embark on the greatest adventure in history. From the boardroom to the courtroom, the halls of Congress to the launch pad, Lunar Dance tells an epic tale of ambitious dreams, bold actions and eternal love set amid the high stakes world of today's commercial launch industry, where the opportunities are boundless, but failure leads to certain death. When maverick aerospace startup Roadrunner Rockets hired former NASA engineer Carl Heinel to help them win a multi-million dollar launch competition, they knew nothing about the secret that consumed him. But Carl soon realizes that their revolutionary technology could allow him to keep a promise from his distant past—a promise he is committed to fulfilling, regardless of the cost. The one piece they need to make it all possible is a retired space shuttle. What follows is an intricate and elaborate plan to secretly obtain the shuttle they need and embark on the greatest adventure in history. A plan in which everything is hidden in plain sight, nothing is as it seems, and only a handful of people know the real truth. Everything is proceeding very well—until it all goes catastrophically wrong.

"...a talent for historical narrative is here, sweeping before it the complexities of Hitler's rise to power and his orchestration of World War II...And of major importance, Robert Payne takes Hitler seriously. He gives the devil his due. Far from depicting him as the clown, Mr. Payne transforms Hitler into a plausible, if demonic, genius." -The New York Times

A New York Times Bestseller In The Life And Death of Adolf Hitler, biographer Robert Payne unravels the tangled threads of Hitler's public and private life and looks behind the caricature with the Charlie Chaplin mustache and the unruly shock of hair to reveal a Hitler possessed of immense personal charm that impressed both men and women and brought followers and contributions to the burgeoning Nazi Party. Although he misread his strength and organized an ill-fated putsch, Hitler spent his months in prison writing Mein Kampf, which increased his following. Once in undisputed command of the Party, Hitler renounced the chastity of his youth and began a sordid affair with his niece, whose suicide prompted him to reject forever all conventional morality. He promised anything to prospective supporters, then cold-bloodedly murdered them before they could claim a share of the power he reserved for himself. Once he became Chancellor, Hitler step by step bent the powers of the state to his own

"... (Payne) has the gift, as does John Keegan, of using prose to elevate facts, figures, dates and events into the realms of the dramatic." -Amazon Reviewer NO ONE LIVING IN NEW YORK CAN escape from George Gershwin. His music still comes in unrestrained and sometimes paralyzing abundance through the radio. Its gaiety, its flippancy, its violence, its electrifying "blues" passages, though written in the twenties and early thirties, still reflect the prevailing mood of New York. No other city could have produced him, and no other city has taken him so much to its heart. Robert Payne's first motive for writing his story was because he planned to write a long novel about New York, and wanted to get to grips with that strange, effervescent period when New York was still young and reckless. Gershwin was, he thought, the best symbol of the twenties. In the novel someone very like him was to grow old and grey with the weariness of his eternal youth, dying at last in a quarrel in a Bowery doss-house. It was a satisfying ending, but Gershwin's ending was still more satisfying. George Gershwin was larger than life, and no one was ever so demanding. They said of him that he was like a young Prince, and nothing he ever asked for was refused him. Perhaps that was the tragedy, for certainly the stereotype of the brilliantly successful composer was not entirely satisfactory. So Robert Payne has painted him in the limelight, but also as he walked through the Shadows. Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (4 December 1911-3 March 1983), was a novelist, historian, poet, and biographer. Born in Cornwall, the son of an English naval architect, and with a French mother. He worked as a shipbuilder and then for a time with the Inland Revenue. In 1941 he became an armament officer and chief camouflage officer for British Army Intelligence at Singapore. In the summer of 1946, Payne traveled to China and visited with and interviewed Mao Zedong in Yenan. During the interview Mao correctly predicted that it would only take the Communist forces a year and a half to conquer China once the armistice with Chiang Kai-shek and his followers was broken. Payne had more than 110 books published, novels, histories and biographies.