The story of 1776, the year of our nation's birth, has become so enmeshed in shadow play rituals that we no longer sense its immediacy or its significance. That changes with this full-bodied narrative history. With this book, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough does for George Washington (and surprisingly enough, George III) what he did for John Adams, Harry Truman, and Theodore Roosevelt. He sets the grassroots fervency of the outnumbered colonists against the mighty United Kingdom, the world's only superpower. Like all McCullough's books, 1776 captures history at its most human level. He takes the reader, for instance, on the arduous journey of Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller who dragged tons of heavy British artillery to turn the tide in the siege of Boston. America at its most heroic; history at its finest.

Thanks to Audible, just finished listening to this - a great historical story - I need to listen again... there is so much detail

Murder in Mesopotamia Agatha Christie "I have arrived", said the note. Louise Leidner claimed the writer had followed her halfway around the world and was now coming to kill her. But the others on the dig in Iraq thought the archeologist's wife was suffering from hysteria...until she was found bludgeoned in her bedroom. An excellent story - story-telling, that is. In some ways with the Christie stories, while the mystery MAY be interesting and subtle, it is her grasp of people and her powers of description that reward the reader. Fun to see this picture of Baghdad and it's surroundings in a time long gone - a great contrast to what it is today.