NCW Libraries

Meet the fearsome creatures of the lumberwoods! The Hodag, like a spinybacked bull-horned rhinoceros packing 3,000 pounds of carnivorous fury. The Snoligoster, the reptilian beast that feeds on the shadows of its victims. And deadlier than a rattler, copperhead, or cottonmouth combined, the Hoop Snake, which can chase prey at speeds up to 60 miles per hour and then, with one sting of its venomous tail, cause the victim to turn purple, swell up, and...

It Was Not Inevitable that World War II would end as it did, or that it would even end well. 1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler's power. Instead, it saved those democracies-but with a fateful cost. Now, in a superbly told story with unprecedented sweep, Jay Winik captures this historic turning point as never before. Book jacket.

Jefferson Davis, his cause went down in disastrous defeat and left the South impoverished for generations. James McPherson shows us that Davis might have been on the wrong side of history, and it is too easy to diminish him because of his cause's failure. In order to understand the Civil War and its outcome, it is essential to give Davis his due as a military leader and as the president of an aspiring Confederate nation.

In Jubal Early: Robert E. Lee's "Bad Old Man," Civil War historian B. F. Cooling III takes a fresh look at Confederate lieutenant general Jubal Anderson Early, one of the most fascinating, idiosyncratic characters in the pantheon of Confederate heroes and "villains. Dubbed by Robert E. Lee "bad old man" because of his demeanor, Early was also Lee's chosen instrument to attack and capture Washington and defend the Shenandoah Valley granary in 1864....