Year Of The Hawk

From a celebrated military historian, a powerful, “highly recommended” (Library Journal, starred review) account of the most pivotal year of the Vietnam War—the cataclysm that “continues to haunt American politics and culture” (Publishers Weekly). The Vietnam War was the greatest disaster in the history of American foreign policy. The conflict shook the nation to its foundations, exacerbating already deep cleavages in American society, and left the country baffled and ambivalent about its role in the world. Year of the Hawk is a military and political history of the war in Vietnam during 1965—the pivotal first year of the American conflict, when the United States decided to intervene directly with combat units in a struggle between communist and pro-Western forces in South Vietnam that had raged on and off for twenty years. By December 1965, a powerful communist offensive had been turned back, and the US Army had prevailed in one of the most dramatic battles in American military history, but nonetheless there were many signs and portents that US involvement would soon slide toward the tipping point of tragedy. Vividly interweaving events in the US capital with action in Southeast Asia, historian James A. Warren explores the mindsets and strategies of the adversaries and concludes that, in the end, Washington was not so much outfought in Vietnam as outthought by revolutionaries pursuing a brilliant, protracted war strategy. Based on new research, Year of the Hawk offers fresh insight into how a nationalist movement led by communists in a small country defeated the most powerful nation on earth and is “a well-researched overview of how America got into Vietnam—and why it shouldn’t have” (Kirkus Reviews).

New York Times Bestseller: This account of adopting and raising a vicious bird of prey while grieving a father’s death is “a soaring wonder of a book” (The Boston Globe). One of the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year One of Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years Time’s #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year An instant classic and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald’s story of adopting and raising one of nature’s most vicious predators has soared into the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel’s temperament mirrors Helen’s own state of grief after her father’s death, and together raptor and human “discover the pain and beauty of being alive” (People). H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying debut from a unique and transcendent voice. “Her prose glows and burns.” —The Wall Street Journal “An elegantly written amalgam of nature writing, personal memoir, literary portrait, and an examination of bereavement.” —The Washington Post “Breathtaking . . . Macdonald renders an indelible impression of a raptor’s fierce essence—and her own—with words that mimic feathers, so impossibly pretty we don’t notice their astonishing engineering.” —The New York Times Book Review Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot

At the end of a winter-long journey into manhood, Little Hawk returns to find his village decimated by a white man's plague and soon, despite a fresh start, Little Hawk dies violently but his spirit remains trapped, seeing how his world changes.

Hawk, a First Nations teen from northern Alberta, is a star athlete until a serious illness yanks him out of competition and into a fight for his life. Struggling to recover, he comes across a young osprey trapped in a tailings pond, helpless. Rescuing the bird gives Hawk a new purpose in life, if he can survive to see it through.

From a celebrated military historian, a powerful, “highly recommended” (Library Journal, starred review) account of the most pivotal year of the Vietnam War—the cataclysm that “continues to haunt American politics and culture” (Publishers Weekly). The Vietnam War was the greatest disaster in the history of American foreign policy. The conflict shook the nation to its foundations, exacerbating already deep cleavages in American society, and left the country baffled and ambivalent about its role in the world. Year of the Hawk is a military and political history of the war in Vietnam during 1965—the pivotal first year of the American conflict, when the United States decided to intervene directly with combat units in a struggle between communist and pro-Western forces in South Vietnam that had raged on and off for twenty years. By December 1965, a powerful communist offensive had been turned back, and the US Army had prevailed in one of the most dramatic battles in American military history, but nonetheless there were many signs and portents that US involvement would soon slide toward the tipping point of tragedy. Vividly interweaving events in the US capital with action in Southeast Asia, historian James A. Warren explores the mindsets and strategies of the adversaries and concludes that, in the end, Washington was not so much outfought in Vietnam as outthought by revolutionaries pursuing a brilliant, protracted war strategy. Based on new research, Year of the Hawk offers fresh insight into how a nationalist movement led by communists in a small country defeated the most powerful nation on earth and is “a well-researched overview of how America got into Vietnam—and why it shouldn’t have” (Kirkus Reviews).

In a mythic Scotland, two unlikely heroes must make a dangerous journey to save their people. Agatha is a Hawk, brave and fierce, who protects her people by patrolling the high walls of their island home. She is proud of her job, though some in her clan whisper that it is meant to keep her out of the way because of the condition she was born with. Jaime, thoughtful and anxious, is an Angler, but he hates the sea. Worse, he’s been chosen for a duty that the clan hasn’t required for generations: to marry. The elders won’t say why they have promised him to a girl in a neighboring clan, but there are rumors of approaching danger. When disaster strikes and the clan is kidnapped, it is up to Agatha and Jaime to travel across the haunted mainland of Scotia to Norveg, with help along the way from a clan of nomadic Highland bull riders and the many animals who are drawn to Agatha’s extraordinary gift of communication. Thrilling and dark yet rich with humor and compassion, this is the first book in the Shadow Skye trilogy, written by a wonderful new voice in fantasy and introducing a welcome new kind of hero.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Raven Boys, a mesmerizing story of dreams and desires, death and destiny. The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming - they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives - they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . .

A true, bestselling story from the battlefield that faithfully portrays the horror, the madness, and the trauma of the Vietnam War More than half a million copies of Chickenhawk have been sold since it was first published in 1983. Now with a new afterword by the author and photographs taken by him during the conflict, this straight-from-the-shoulder account tells the electrifying truth about the helicopter war in Vietnam. This is Robert Mason’s astounding personal story of men at war. A veteran of more than one thousand combat missions, Mason gives staggering descriptions that cut to the heart of the combat experience: the fear and belligerence, the quiet insights and raging madness, the lasting friendships and sudden death—the extreme emotions of a "chickenhawk" in constant danger. "Very simply the best book so far about Vietnam." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch