The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including the Send-to-Kindle feature in Amazon.
Download the mobi file for Amazon devices except the Send to Kindle feature here.
Enjoy descriptions and links to fourteen eBooks written at the 6th to 8th grade level. Please preview each book since the subject matter in some texts is disburbing.
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including the Send-to-Kindle feature in Amazon.
Download the mobi file for Amazon devices except the Send to Kindle feature here.
Enjoy descriptions and links to four eBooks written at the 9th to 10th grade level. The titles are:
Is Tomorrow Hitler’s? by H.R. Knickerbocker: The Rise of Hitler
No Woman’s World by Iris Carpenter: U.S. Army in Western Europe
Purple Heart Valley by Margaret Bourke-White: Torpedoed in the Mediterranean
Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly by Margaret Bourke-White: A Report on the Collapse of Hitler’s ‘Thousand Years’
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including the Send-to-Kindle feature in Amazon.
Download the mobi file for Amazon devices except the Send to Kindle feature here.
This is a guidebook to ninety free eBooks, primarily about American history, from three non-profits: Project Gutenberg, StandardeBooks, and this site. The idea is that skimming the guidebook will be more efficient than opening and skimming each eBook on this site. I selected books which I think will be huge improvements on the World History and American textbooks used in many classrooms. I promise that each book in this collection is more dramatic than an textbook in my collection of textbooks. In addition to my search for drama, I tried to find books at a variety of reading levels so that weak readers would have materials to read.
As I wrote the descriptions of the books, I often included suggestions for related writing assignments. Writing in high school matters a great deal in my opinion. The failure rates in writing classes at the community college where I taught were painful and could have been avoided with more practice at the high school level.
I found that requiring references to the reading in each writing assignment coerced students into doing more of the reading. I also found that including space for students’ voices in each writing assignment led to more energetic essays, but I digress.
Please send your comments, corrections, and suggestions for digitizing other out of print books to me at feedback@ebooksforstudents.org.
Regards,
Jim McCabe
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including the Send-to-Kindle feature in Amazon.
Download the mobi file for Amazon devices except the Send to Kindle feature here.
The reading level is 7.6 on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. This book is in the public domain due to the author’s death in 1944 in Normandy. Copyright in the U.K. lasts for 70 years after the author’s death.
Reviews from Goodreads (4.18 rating with 620 ratings and 36 reviews):
One of the most vivid books of WW2 reportage ever written. It reads as quirky and unvarnished as ever and captures the brutality and sheer oddness of tank warfare.
An excellent book. What distinguishes it from the very many desert war memoirs is the details of daily life. This is because the book was built-up from very detailed diary entries, so that the excitement of looting some decent coffee, for example, or the author’s irritation at getting his prized uniform damaged beyond repair by the regimental doctor (to save his life!) are recorded in a detail rarely seen in more sweeping memoirs. This makes it a fascinating read in which one comes closer to understanding the actual life of a desert rat than in any other book I’ve read…
A marvelous read , full of humour and humanity. It has the ring of truth full of characters well described. He does not hide from the sheer awfulness of war but the anecdotes and lively description of his situation raise this memoir above the ordinary. Can recommend.
No preliminary b.s. in this book. By page 3 the author has gone A.W.O.L. from his desk job and headed into the North African desert to fight in Crusader tanks. This is small book but is full of terrible fighting, down time and the constant search for food, water and loot. It shows all the confusion of combat and how horrendous some of the injuries can be.
The author survived North Africa only to be killed on his third day in Normandy.
With this gripping and moving memoir Keith Douglas made a truly valuable contribution to the literary canon of the Second World War. Douglas drops us into his story with minimal introduction or context and ends with a trivial and tasteless comment about going out to gather loot. What happens to Keith and his unit, the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry, after they leave Zem Zem is left unexplained. This is a book written very much in the moment, and Douglas’ observations and comments on his comrades, the enemy, his surroundings, and the war in general, have an immediacy that would likely be lost in a work written more analytically or at greater distance.
His wry observations are often both memorable, amusing and affecting: “it is exciting and amazing to see thousands of men, very few of whom have much idea why they are fighting, all enduring hardships, living in an unnatural, dangerous, but not wholly terrible world, having to kill and to be killed, and yet at intervals moved by a feeling of comradeship with the men who kill them and whom they kill, because they are enduring and experiencing the same things. It is tremendously illogical – to read about it cannot convey the impression of having walked through the looking-glass which touches a man entering a battle.” Douglas recognizes the irony and dark humour in the war and this suffuses his writing throughout the book, both in how he records his experiences and in his reflections on them.
Again he has the poets eye for beauty and emotional resonance, such as in this poignant passage: “Sometimes the surface of the desert where we halted for a few hours or a few days was thick with flowers which changed the ridges and hollows whose sandy colour had for weeks been relieved only by stones, the hiding places of scorpions – or the dead grey spouts of camelthorn – into undulating distances of blue-green. The sweet scent of the flowers would come up to your nostrils even in a tank turret, moving along; it could overcome all the odours of machines.” It’s not quite England’s green and pleasant land, and the war overshadows everything, but Douglas can readily tap into his own and his readers feelings, and not merely record the external details of his experiences. That same ability is apparent both in more pastoral passages such as the above, and in his more breathless memories of being under fire.
I’m glad I read this, and anyone with an interest in the Second World War will likely enjoy it. I’ll leave the last word of wisdom to Keith Douglas himself, in what is a fine proverb and rule for life:
“Books and flowers are invincible beautifiers. I have often used them to make horrible surroundings habitable.”
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices and the Send-to-Kindle feature on Amazon devices.
To read on a device from Amazon, here is the ebook in mobi format.
Editorial Reviews
The New York Times, September, 1957.
“…This is an old story, but it is told in a fresh and lovely voice. Robert Leckie writes with charm, with personal humility, with humor, with a rare gift for capturing all that is human in the most inhuman of man’s activities.
He makes no bones about it—the war is what happened to him. The point of view is not the grand strategy of victory, but the immediate tactic of personal survival. By turns a boot, a machine gunner on Guadalcanal, a liberty hound in Australia, an intelligence scout on Peleliu—briefly a self-styled “brig rat” subsisting on bread and water and finally a casualty —Private Leckie fought the enlisted man’s battle.
By David Dempsey
From the Marine Corps Association and Foundation
Robert Leckie’s “Helmet for My Pillow” has been my single favorite military book for over 30 years. Written from the perspective of a young participant in the great endeavor that was World War II, it is a soulful, wrenching, humorous, and insightful account of one youth’s journey into manhood via the Pacific campaigns spearheaded by the 1st Marine Division.
I first read it as a junior high school student in 1980, and I have reread it nearly every year since. It has framed my perspectives of the Marine Corps, of leadership, of enlisted service, of officers, and of combat as I have aged, matured, and risen through the ranks. Leckie doesn’t provide a technical, historical account consisting of units, maps, and strategy, but instead provides a humanistic view of the Marine Corps at war from the perspective of an often-bewildered observer caught up in the whirlwind of events.
Beginning with his rush to service after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Leckie brings the reader along as a fellow traveler on his journey to war. He presents his story through a framework of symbolism, simile, and metaphor; almost no character is identified by actual name but instead by title or attribute that the author chooses to best typify them. Generally warm to his peers (to whom have been bestowed titles such as “Hoosier,” “Chuckler,” and “Runner,” all so called because of their origins, habits, or claims to fame), he is critical of his seniors, most notably his officers. “Commando,” for example, was what we would consider an exceptionally motivated officer in the modern sense, but his Marines viewed him with suspicion and occasional terror as he attempted to utilize urban combat techniques in the dank jungles of the Pacific. “Commando sits on his brains,” says Leckie and his mates; they recognize that he is incredibly brave, but such bravery is not the only quality that a leader needs to possess in order to inspire men. He writes of officers who only venture into the lines when they hear that Leckie has somehow obtained a box of cigars; true to his status as a carefree private he ensures that they receive none.
Leckie is not uncomplimentary to all of his leaders, however, as he admiringly terms one of his lieutenants “Spearmint” because he has the lowly affectation for chewing gum. Spearmint they follow out of respect and admiration; Commando they follow because they are Marines, and Marines follow orders. The juxtaposition of leadership types and styles from the perspective of an articulate young private is an object lesson that all Marine leaders should heed, and there is no finer case study than Helmet for My Pillow.
The book should not be read only for the study in leadership, but also from the perspective of a Marine engaged in a seemingly endless conflict. Leckie speaks of timeless war where rumors of returning home rise and fall with the completion of each assault. He chronicles the chaotic creation of a newly formed division as it prepares to fight; the murderous landings and campaigns in Guadalcanal, New Britain, and Peleliu; and the adventures and misadventures of liberty in Australia.
His writing style is not the staccato regurgitation of battle lines, company positions, and enemy orders of battle, but instead it is the wrenching and visceral viewpoint of a machinegunner in a dank and slimy pit who waits in the dark for the yellow peril to blot him savagely from existence. He writes of idly watching crocodiles feast on the Japanese dead in the Tenaru River, most notably one he names “Chowhound” because the dead soldier floats in a soup of rice ripped free from his haversack when the amphibious animals savage his body. He speaks easily of the petrifying terror felt by them all when the banzai charges came, and of the following relief when the attacks are repulsed and the field of battle is thick with the corpses of slain Japanese soldiers. He writes much as Norman Mailer did in The Naked and the Dead; his story is about the military experience but is not intended to be a military book. He writes of life and love and, most intensely, of fear:
I had not looked into its foliage before the darkness and now I fancied it infested with Japanese. Everything and all the world became my enemy, and soon my very body betrayed me and became my foe . . . . I lay quivering, in that rotten hole while the darkness gathered and all creation conspired for my heart. How long? I lay for an eternity. There was no time. Time had disintegrated in that black void. There was only emptiness, and that is something; there was only being: there was only consciousness. Like the light that comes up suddenly in a darkened theatre, daylight came quickly. Dawn came, and so myself came back to myself. I could see the pale outlines of my comrades to right and left, and I marveled to see how tame my tree could be, how unforbidding could be its branches.
I know now why men light fires.
Marines of all ranks and ages should read Leckie’s memoir. It contains lessons that pertain to us all—lessons about combat, lessons about life and, most importantly, lessons about leadership. Leckie, who managed to reach the rank of private first class on several occasions, rose from bread and water in a transport’s brig to being decorated for valor while fighting the Japanese. His observations on his lot in life, his friends, and his leaders are not so dissimilar from those being made today in places like Marjeh in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. I have read his work dozens of times and will reread it many times more. I learn a little more each time I read it, and it is so well written that I look forward to reading it again.
Reprinted with permission of Lt. Colonel Michael Grice.
Directions on how to email this file to your Kindle device are here.
To add this mobi file to your Kindle for PC software to read the chapters on your computer, see instructions at http://tinyurl.com/y8gsazq.
The Kindle Personal Document Service allows teachers, or librarians to send a mobi file to up to 15 student Kindle email addresses at a time.
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices including Send-to-Kindle.
As you may know, Amazon has changed to the epub format to use with the Send-to-Kindle program. A great feature of the Send-to-Kindle program is that the file will go directly to your Library folder, and not have to be searched for in ES File Explorer or another app. If you use the mobi format in Send-to-Kindle, you will now get an error message. You can see instructions about Send to Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email.
If you or your students want to download directly from this website to an Amazon device, you can use the mobi format below. When you find the mobi file in ES File Explorer, it will then open in the Kindle app on your tablet. If you download an epub file to your Amazon tablet, it will also open if you have an app such as Overdrive on your tablet. The Kindle app offers an excellent reading experience to start with. Overdrive may need some customization of font size.
Download mobi file here.
Reviews
This book is a collection of raw, first-person accounts, written by two black soldiers who were drafted into the U.S. Army in 1968 and who eventually went to Vietnam. The informal, conversational style makes for easy reading. The subject matter is absolutely fascinating. The two writers sometimes mention issues associated with race. At the same time, race does not dominate the narrative. Source: https://vietnamblacksoldiersportraitproject.com/index.php/the-perfect-gift/
“Life at the Cutting Edge” The Military Review
“A Moving story!” Booklist
Who, or what, was the real enemy in Vietnam? The ever-elusive, jungle-wise Viet Cong and their NVA allies? The oppressive heat and torrential rains? The leeches, mosquitoes, and the jungle itself? Or the army whose regulations made you carry a .45 even though the firing pin was broken? Perhaps, each in their own way, they all were… and John Shook battled them all.
In One Soldier, he recounts his experiences and describes how he faced—and overcame—all the enemies a machine-gunner encountered in the Nam. Straight-from-the-shoulder, Shook tells of search and destroy patrols and night ambushes and slogging through a rice paddy, wondering when the first shot was going to come. You’ll be at his side during bull sessions on getting a “million-dollar” wound that would mean a return to the States and in firefights that turned his M-60 machine gun from a shoulder-numbing burden into a staccato, lead-spewing lifesaver.
Most of all, One Soldier is a story of combat, written in the immediate, gut-wrenching language that men at war resort to: “A burst of automatic rifle fire rips through the hooch inches above my elevated perch. Knowing exactly where my rifle hangs I reach out for it but grasp only air and wooden wall. … The firing in both directions is heavier now. There is yelling on the bridge. It is a black night, a void of vision punctuated by muzzle flashes and the crisscrossing streaks of tracers… Is that your 16?’ I yell. ‘What the f—. Who cares?’… ‘Where was your rifle when this s— started?'”
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices and the Send-to-Kindle feature on Amazon devices.
Download in mobi format for your Amazon ereader or Fire tablet:
The epub format below is for your Apple and Android devices and in one case for Amazon devices. As you may know, Amazon has changed to the epub format to use with the Send to Kindle program. A great feature of the Send to Kindle program is that the file will go directly to your Library folder, and not have to be searched for in ES File Explorer or another app. If you use the mobi format in Send to Kindle, you will now get an error message. You can see instructions about Send to Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email.
So if you are using this ebook on Apple, or Android devices, or in the Send to Kindle program, you can download this epub file below.
If you or your students want to download directly from this web site to an Amazon device, you can use the mobi format below. When you find the mobi file in ES File Explorer, it will then open in the Kindle app on your tablet. If you download an epub file to your Amazon tablet, it will also open if you have an app such as Overdrive on your tablet. The Kindle app offers an excellent reading experience to start with. Overdrive may need some customization of font size.
Donald Duncan wanted be the best soldier possible. He was regular Army, then Airborne, then Green Beret.
In Vietnam, he led reconnaissance patrols deep into enemy-held territory to assess the strength of the Viet Cong, the communist guerrillas. He returned home with questions about Vietnam. Did the peasants on the farms in South Vietnam want another foreign power in their country? Were they as anti-communist as Americans, or anti-foreigner? What did their attitudes mean to the success of the intervention of United States in Vietnam? He went even further as you will see. He asked if South Vietnam was really a separate country in the eyes of the Vietnamese.
Read about his patriotism, his courage and his questions.
Editorial Reviews :
“Frequently provocative.” –The Saturday Review.
“Duncan’s merits are obvious. He has written a buoyant work filled with rueful reflections on our past and present errors, but charged with hopes for the future. In relating his impressions of army life he is at his best; some really fine pages describe the counterinsurgency training of the Green Berets; the numerous missions of the Special Forces into Viet Cong-held territory; the shop talk of war-weary soldiers groping to discover a rational explanation for their presence in Vietnam; the almost totally negative reactions of these same soldiers to the South Vietnamese army, government, and people; and the sorry plight in the armed forces of the American Negro, who still suffers from discrimination despite the efforts of his government to eradicate it.
“… There is much of value in The New Legions. Evident on every page is Duncan’s humanity. And the nobility of his cause— the end of the war and the triumph of peace, justice, and integrity throughout the world—is, of course, incontestable. His book is often illuminating and frequently provocative…”
Saturday Review August 12, 1967
Download an epub file for Apple, and Android devices and the Send to Kindle feature on Amazon devices:
Download a mobi file for Amazon devices:
“Miss Bourke-White is one of the most distinguished of American photographers. Before the war she was a specialist in pictures of industry. During the war as a photographer for Life she took many of the best frontline pictures which appeared in that magazine, in Russia, in Italy and in France and Germany. She traveled by jeep, by plane and on foot wherever reporters were allowed to go, which often meant where shells were exploding and bullets flying. But she did not just take pictures. Miss Bourke-White is a good reporter as well as a photographer. She talked with all manner of men and with resourceful enterprise sought out representative and significant men. The present volume includes 128 of her excellent pictures of Germany in defeat, in addition to Miss Bourke-White’s report on her investigations….
“….Miss Bourke-White talked with hundreds of Germans. Among them she found a few, a pitiful few, who had not succumbed to the Nazi infection. Most of therm, did not admit or realize that there was any infection. They did not admit that Hitler was evil, that Germany had started the war, that they were aware of the torture and death camps, that they in any way shared responsibility for their government’s and their nation’s crimes. Many of them expected the Allies to finance Germany’s recovery, to be responsible for German employment.
“In Bremen Miss Bourke-White found an old friend, a German girl who had graduated from the Columbia School of Journalism. “Here will be somebody I can talk to,” she thought. But the intelligent, American-educated girl turned out to be an ardent defender of Nazism and all its works. “We have believed in the party principles for centuries,” she said. “Adolf Hitler never knowingly told a lie.”
More disturbing, because of their greater power and influence and because of the respectful deference with which the Allies treated some of them, were the great industrial lords of the Ruhr. Miss Bourke-White talked with many of them, the men who had made Hitler’s war machine possible and who had profited mightily in the process. And they were all just innocent business men uninterested in politics, worthy citizens who expected to continue to run their peaceable enterprises! If they are allowed to, and if the Allies do not foster a genuine democracy in Germany, the third World War will come sooner than we expect it. That is the underlying theme of ‘Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly.’ “
Download in epub format:
First published in 1922 during the “Red Scare,” by which time Jane Addams’s pacifist efforts had adversely affected her popularity as an author and social reformer, Peace and Bread in Time of War is Addams’s eighth book and the third to deal with her thoughts on pacifism.
Addams’s unyielding pacifism during the Great War drew criticism from politicians and patriots who deemed her the “most dangerous woman in America.” Even those who had embraced her ideals of social reform condemned her outspoken opposition to U.S. entry into World War I or were ambivalent about her peace platforms. Turning away from the details of the war itself, Addams relies on memory and introspection in this autobiographical portrayal of efforts to secure peace during the Great War. “I found myself so increasingly reluctant to interpret the motives of other people that at length I confined all analysis of motives to my own,” she writes. Using the narrative technique she described in The Long Road of Women’s Memory, an extended musing on the roles of memory and myth in women’s lives, Addams also recalls attacks by the press and defends her political ideals.
Source: Goodreads.
