Books published by publisher Tantor Media Inc

When Donovan Campbell's platoon deployed to Ramadi in the spring of 2004, they believed they'd be spending most of their time building schools, training police, and making friends with the citizens. But shortly after arriving, when Campbell awoke to the chilling cry of “Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!” echoing from minaret to minaret across the city, he knew they had an altogether different situation on their hands. For nearly the entire day, Joker-One - the forty-man infantry platoon that Campbell was charged with leading - fought house-to-house to rescue other units, sometimes trading grenades with their enemies from just a few feet away. In the days and months that followed, hundreds of hard-core insurgents launched simultaneous attacks on the Marine forces in Ramadi, their ranks swelled by thousands of local volunteers drawn from the citizens of a city whose primary export was officers in Saddam Hussein's army. By the fall of 2004, nearly half the men in Campbell's platoon had been wounded in some of the fiercest urban fighting since Vietnam; less than a month after they withdrew, the forces in Ramadi were doubled, then tripled. Although Joker One is set in Iraq, the book's themes - brotherhood, honor, and sacrifice - are universal. Campbell shows us how his Marines' patience, discipline, and love for one another created a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts, and how the essential goodness of these men remains unchanged by all of the pain and the terror surrounding them. His sharp-eyed, evocative, and unflinching account of his deployment is just as impressive as the man himself - a man who chose to enter the military because of his patriotism, sense of privilege, and deep religious faith when most of his Princeton classmates were cashing in their ivy league educations for lucrative careers among the financial elite. The vivid and gripping battle scenes will satisfy fans of military memoirs, but it's Campbell's sense of duty, faith, and love for his men that makes Joker One a truly extraordinary account of a war that has touched us all. e tradition of Jarhead and Band of Brothers, this is the extraordinary story of one Marine platoon's brotherhood, honor, and sacrifice during the battle of Ramadi - arguably the most intense conflict of the Iraq War.

Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town. Jared Whitcomb is a chain-smoking sixteen-year-old heart-transplant recipient who befriends Sebastian and begins to teach him about all the things he has been missing, including grape soda, girls, and Sid Vicious. They form a punk band called The Rash, and it's clear that the upcoming Methodist Church talent show has never seen the likes of them.

Until 1894 there were no female sport stars, no product endorsement deals, and no young mothers with the chutzpah to circle the globe on a bicycle. Annie Kopchovsky changed all of that. Annie was a Jewish immigrant and working mother of three living in a Boston tenement with her husband, a peddler. This was as close to the American dream as she was likely to get -- until she became part of what one newspaper called “one of the most novel wagers ever made”: a high-stakes bet between two wealthy merchants that a woman could not ride around the world on a bicycle, as Thomas Stevens had a few years before. Annie rose to the challenge, pledging to finish her fifteen-month trip with a staggering $5,000 earned by selling advertising space on her bike and her clothing, making personal appearances in stores and at bicycle races, and lecturing about her adventures along the way. When the Londonderry Lithia Springs Water Company of New Hampshire offered to become the first of her many sponsors, Annie Kopchovsky became Annie Londonderry, and a legend was born. So began one of the greatest escapades -- and publicity stunts -- of the Victorian Age. In this marvelously written book, author Peter Zheutlin vividly recounts the story of the audacious woman who turned every Victorian notion of female propriety on its ear. When Annie left Boston in June 1894, she was a brash young lady with a 42-pound bicycle, a revolver, a change of underwear, and a dream of freedom. The epic journey that followed -- from a frigid ride through France to an encounter with outlaw John Wesley Hardin in El Paso -- took the connection between athletics and commercialism to dizzying new heights and turned Annie into a symbol of sexual equality. A beguiling true story of a bold spirit who reinvented herself against all odds, Around the World on Two Wheels blends social history and high adventure into an unforgettable portrait of courage, imagination, and tenacity.

John Wayne Cleaver saved his town from a murderer even more appalling than the serial killers he obsessively studies. But it turns out even demons have friends, and the disappearance of one has brought another to Clayton County. No one in Clayton is safeunless John can vanquish two nightmarish adversaries: the unknown demon he must hunt and the inner demon he can never escape.

In this classic fantasy novel from author Michael Ende, small and insignificant Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. Then, through the pages of an ancient, mysterious book, he discovers the enchanted world of Fantastica, and only Bastian himself can save the fairy people who live there. Shy, awkward Bastian is amazed to discover that he has become a character in the mysterious book he is reading and that he has an important mission to fulfill.

Sid Phillips knew he was a long way from his home in Mobile, Alabama, when he plunged into the jungles of Guadalcanal in August 1942. A mortarman with the same company of the 1st Marine Division as Helmet for My Pillow author Robert Leckie, Sid was a seventeen-year-old kid when he entered combat. By the time he returned home some two years later, the island fighting on Guadalcanal and Cape Gloucester had turned him into a man and an “Old Timer” by Marine standards. In this true story, Sid recalls his encounters with icons like Chesty Puller, General Vandergrift, Eleanor Roosevelt, and his boyhood friend Eugene Sledge, author of With the Old Breed. He remembers fighting in the battle of the Tenaru (Alligator Creek), the struggle for Henderson Field, bombardments by Japanese battleships, the brutality of the tropics, and the haunting notion of being surrounded and expendable. This is the story of how Sid stood shoulder to shoulder with his Marine brothers to discover the strength and faith necessary to survive the dark, early days of World War II in the Pacific.

The greatest dream of eighteenth-century sculptor Marie Tussaud is to attract the attention of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; their stamp of approval on her work could catapult her and her wax museum to the fame and riches she desires. After months of anticipation, Marie learns that the royal family is willing to come and see their likenesses. When they do, the king's sister is so impressed that she requests Marie's presence at Versailles as a royal tutor in wax sculpting. Thus, Marie is introduced to aglamorous world that is entirely different from her home on the Boulevard du Temple, where people are selling their teeth in order to put food on the table. Meanwhile, many resent the vast separation between rich and poor. In salons and cafés across Paris, people are lashing out against the monarchy. Soon, there's whispered talk of revolution. Will Marie be able to hold on to her friendship with the royal family as France approaches civil war? More important, will she be able to fulfill the demands of powerful revolutionaries who ask that she make the death masks of beheaded aristocrats, some of whom she knows?

After centuries of terrorizing Europe, Lenah Beaudonte, with the help of the handsome Rhode, has been able to realize the dream of all vampires---to be human again. Now, as a raven-haired sixteen-year-old, Lenah believes her greatest challenge is fitting in at her new school. But the challenges have only just begun. The vicious coven Lenah once ruled is threatening the new-found pleasures of her human life, including the one guy who makes her feel most alive: Justin. Can this ex-vamp survive in an alien time and place, or will her past come back to haunt her...forever?

Even as a child, Davy Crockett "always delighted to be in the very thickest of danger." Better known to us as "King of the Wild Frontier," Davy Crockett was not only a frontiersman but also a politician who became a celebrity and a folk hero during his lifetime. Here, in his own inimitable style, he describes his earliest days in Tennessee, his two marriages, his career as an Indian fighter, his bear hunts, and his electioneering. His reputation as a "b'ar" hunter sent him to Congress with an eye on the White House; but at the Alamo, he would cap off a legend that still holds Americans in its spell.