Lucky 73

Today USS Pampanito is a tourist destination. During WWII the submarine earned six battle stars, sank six Japanese ships, damaged four others, and rescued seventy-three British and Australian POWs from the South China Sea. Astonishingly, this rescue happened three days after she sank one of the transport ships on which the Allied prisoners were being ferried to Japan. The chain of events that led to this rescue is truly remarkable. Captured in 1942, forced to spend fifteen months constructing the Burma-Thai Railroad, and then loaded onto floating concentration camps--hellships, as they were called--the prisoners were in the wrong place at the wrong time when Pampanito and her wolf pack attacked a Japanese convoy. Returning to the coordinates a few days later, the crew was astonished to discover survivors in the water from among the more than 2,200 prisoners who had been aboard the Japanese ships. Even more remarkable is that the officers and crew of Pampanito, after picking up these men (the Lucky 73), thought to have them record their thoughts and experiences while the events were still fresh in their minds, before returning to port. While working as curator for Pampanito, Aldona Sendzikas discovered these documents and began an odyssey of tracking down one of the most incredible rescue stories of the Pacific War.

How do you change your luck? A young woman chooses to look for happiness in this marvelously entertaining and poignant novel from the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk Away and Things You Save in a Fire. “A hilarious and touching take on what it means to be a grown-up.”—Julie Buxbaum, author of Admission and Tell Me Three Things Sarah Harper isn’t sure if the stupid decisions she sometimes makes are good choices in disguise—or if they’re really just stupid. But either way, after forwarding an inappropriate email to her entire company, she suddenly finds herself out of a job. So she goes home to Houston—and her sister, Mackie—for Thanksgiving. But before Sarah can share her troubles with her sister, she learns that Mackie has some woes of her own: After years of trying, Mackie’s given up on having a baby—and plans to sell on eBay the entire nursery she’s set up. Which gives Sarah a brilliant idea—an idea that could fix everyone’s problems. An idea that gives Sarah the chance to take care of her big sister for once—instead of the other way around. But nothing worthwhile is ever easy. After a decade away, Sarah is forced to confront one ghost from her past after another: the father she’s lost touch with, the memories of her mother, the sweet guy she dumped horribly in high school. Soon everything that matters is on the line—and Sarah can only hope that by changing her life she has changed her luck, too.

The residents of Hard Pan, California, come together to help Brigitte and Lucky when the County Health Department threatens to close down the cafe, and meantime Miles's life is complicated by his mother's return.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1860.

Rainbow learns carpentry skills and how to read from a young neighbor; experiences the bigotry his mother warned him to ignore and finds he prefers truthfulness to hypocrisy; makes many friends because of his cheerful and helpful disposition; tames a too-clever horse named Lucky; outwits thieves and counterfeiters; ends up the owner of Lucky and a mail route; and earns a good reputation.

People who met Princess even for the first time called her one of those rarest of “once-in-a-lifetime” canines saying, “if she could only tell her own remarkable life story . . .” Simply stated, Princess did nothing less than save her family. Which is why—were she human instead of canine—her extraordinary qualities and skills would be aptly characterized as rare gifts of nature. Regal in bearing. Preternaturally intelligent with an obvious uncanny ability to reason. Charismatic with an unwavering purposefulness, sense of love and loyalty, devotion and dedication to duty. Especially when called upon to become her mother’s Canine Cancer Companion-- with intense focus, an innate calmness and an almost freakish composure in every crisis. A leader. A strategist. A wondrous communicator. A terrific listener and quick study. A true once-in-a-lifetime. Told with the assistance of her human father, this is her unusual memoir of compelling, touching, relentlessly inspiring true stories from an extraordinary life. All viewed through her own and most unique lens. Soon to be followed by the whimsical illustrative sequel: “A Day In The Life Of Lucky, Mommy & Me”© (Authored by Barbara Brooks Pomerantz).