"When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave--only to discover that the...

A guide to researching family history using the records of the East India Company's European armies in India ( 1748-1861).

"Just over a century ago British troops were fighting a vicious frontier war against Pashtun tribeman on the North West Frontier--the great-great-grandfathers of the Taliban and tribal insurgents in modern-day Afghanistan. Winston Churchill, then a young cavalry lieutenant, wrote a vivid account of what he saw during his first major campaign. The Story of the Malakand Field Force, published in 1898, was Churchill's first book and, a hundred years...

"'With some dogs you share a boil in the bag breakfast and maybe a blanket on a cold desert floor. Some you wouldn't leave in charge of your Grandma unless you wanted to find out just how fast the old girl could run. But, if you're very, very lucky there will be the one dog you would lay down your life for--and for me that dog is Buster.' Buster, an English springer spaniel who has served his comrades and his country with unstinting devotion, has...

A look at T.E. Lawrence, a British officer who unites the desert tribes of Arabia against the Turks during World War I.