Central Skagit Library District

As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" were considered the luckiest alive--until they began to fall mysteriously...

E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, essayist, painter, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous paintings and drawings. He is remembered as an unsurpassed voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular, even today. Cummings attended Harvard, receiving both his bachelor's and master's by 1916. A year later, he enlisted in the...

John Dos Passos's second novel, Three Soldiers, was published in 1921 after many rejections from publishers and censorship squabbles. The novel, which was hailed as a masterpiece on its original publication, stands as one of the most grimly honest portraits of World War I. This anti-war novel focuses on three soldiers, Fuselli, an Italian American store clerk from San Francisco; Chrisfield, a farm boy from Indiana; and Andrews, a musically gifted...

"A monumental new volume. . . . Revelatory, even revolutionary. . . . Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable." — Boston Globe

One of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History)

Historian Christopher Clark's riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I.

Drawing

...

The Campaign of Chancellorsville by Theodore Ayrault Dodge libreka classics — These are classics of literary history, reissued and made available to a wide audience. Immerse yourself in well-known and popular titles!

Michael Howard (1922–2019) was a leading British military historian who held professorships at the University of Oxford and Yale University. His many books included The Franco-Prussian War and War in European History. Peter Paret (1924–2020) was professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His many books include Clausewitz in His Time, The Cognitive Challenge of War (Princeton), and Clausewitz and the State (Princeton)....

"The Light That Failed" is Kipling's first novel, written when he was 26 years old, and is semi-autobiographical; being based upon his own unrequited love for Florence Garrard. Though it was poorly received by critics, the novel has managed to remain in print for over a century. It was also adapted into a play, two silent films as well as a drama film.

I am one of the million or more male residents of the United Kingdom, who a year ago had no special yearning towards military life, but who joined the army after war was declared. At Chelsea I found myself a unit of the 2nd London Irish Battalion, afterwards I was drilled into shape at the White City and training was concluded at St. Albans, where I was drafted into the 1st Battalion. In my spare time I wrote several articles dealing with the life...

A story of heroism and glory that rivals any work of fiction, this instructive treatise on a Middle Eastern conflict was written by one of history's greatest figures. In The River War, Winston Churchill recounts a critical but often overlooked episode from the days when the British Empire was at the height of its power: the operations directed by Lord Kitchener of Khartoum on the Upper Nile from 1896 to 1899, which led to England's reconquest of the...

A struggle. A war. The past. Would you recover? Nathan Olason picks up the pieces of his life in 1893 and becomes a devoted father and grandfather. Except something from his past is holding him back. When his grandson, Mike, announces that he is joining the Great War, Nath fears the worst. Armed and deadly, his grandson hones his marksmanship skills to a perfection not seen in any other soldier. But once Mike arrives at Vimy Ridge, France, with...