Central Kansas Library System

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared--Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.

"When a barroom brawl lands Ace and Chance Jensen in jail, it's just the beginning of a nightmare that will never end. Their jail mates are army deserters. Even worse, their jailers assume Ace and Chance are deserters, too. Which earns them even more hard time - on a brutal prison chain gang... Things go from bad to worse awfully fast. One prisoner tries to escape and gets blasted in the back. Others face horrific torture at the hands of sadistic...

"A phenomenal novel of resilience and survival from bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris. In the midst of World War II, an English musician, Norah Chambers, places her eight-year-old daughter Sally on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe from the Japanese army as they move down through the Pacific. Norah remains to care for her husband and elderly parents, knowing she may never see her child again. Sister...

Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine airmen sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down. One od those nine was miraculously rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine. The others were captured and held by Japanese soldiers on Chichi Jim and held prisoner.

His efforts to avenge his father's unjust imprisonment force fourteen-year-old Tom Tin into the streets of nineteenth-century London, but after he is convicted of murder, Tom is eventually sent to Australia where he has a surprise reunion.

Tom Tin and his friend Midgely--with assorted juvenile criminals--escape the ship taking them to serve their terms in Australia and head for a Pacific island, forgetting Tom's father's warnings about headhunters and cannibals.

"Homecoming" takes us back to Ford County, the fictional setting of many of John Grisham's unforgettable stories. Jake Brigance is back, but he's not in the courtroom. He's called upon to help an old friend, Mack Stafford, a former lawyer in Clanton, who three years earlier became a local legend when he stole money from his clients, divorced his wife, filed for bankruptcy, and left his family in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again--until...

"The first English language edition of a lost memoir by an Auschwitz survivor, offering a shocking and deeply moving perspective on life within the camps. When József Debreczeni, a prolific Hungarian-language journalist and poet, arrived in Auschwitz in 1944, his life expectancy was forty-five minutes. This was how long it took for the half-dead prisoners to be sorted into groups, stripped, and sent to the gas chambers. He beat the odds and survived...

Lucian and Norman Parker ar close twin brothers. Together with their father they run a railway station in Warm Springs, Oklahoma during the depression. Both brothers fall in love with the same girl, and a rift between the brothers begins.

As other volunteers quit or are killed, a rancher is left alone to deal with the responsibility of putting a captured outlaw aboard a Fort Yuma-bound train.