In Life in the Combat Zone, Rick Renner teaches you what it takes to fight effectively and come out with the victory, no matter what type of spiritual conflict you face. Throughout the book, Rick reveals the traits needed to emerge as a conqueror from every spiritual conflict. As he explains in great detail, you must cultivate discipline, preparation, and patience in your life before you ever enter the combat zone. You have to take time to learn to fight like a Roman solider, train like a Greek athlete, and produce like a farmer so you can please the Lord, fulfill your destiny, and receive an eternal crown of victory. Spiritual battles are unavoidable, and they can be fierce. In this book, Rick Renner will show you how to engage in your battle effectively. One thing is sure, the fight is personal, so it's imperative that you do all you can to come out victoriously!

A classic from the New York Times bestselling author of The Things They Carried "One of the best, most disturbing, and most powerful books about the shame that was / is Vietnam." —Minneapolis Star and Tribune Before writing his award-winning Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien gave us this intensely personal account of his year as a foot soldier in Vietnam. The author takes us with him to experience combat from behind an infantryman's rifle, to walk the minefields of My Lai, to crawl into the ghostly tunnels, and to explore the ambiguities of manhood and morality in a war gone terribly wrong. Beautifully written and searingly heartfelt, If I Die in a Combat Zone is a masterwork of its genre. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content.

"There are no pacifists in God's army. To be fore-warned it to be forearmed. This book will show you the hows, whys, whens, wheres, and whos. Rick Renner is a well qualified to enlighten us with nuances, facets, shades of meaning of Greek words

The story of a Harvard student’s murder in 1970s Boston amid racial strife and rampant corruption, told with “careful reporting and historical context” (Providence Journal). Shortlisted for the 2021 Agatha Award for Best Non-Fiction and the 2022 Anthony Award for Best Critical or Nonfiction Work At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Boston’s Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city’s adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city’s North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. The murder made national news, and led to the eventual demise of the city’s red-light district. Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo family’s struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Boston’s segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past. “The grim history of racism in Boston, the crime and corruption of the Combat Zone, and the legal permutations of the case take up the bulk of the book. But its heart lies in a character who wasn’t even in the Combat Zone that fateful night—the victim’s brother, Danny Puopolo.” —Providence Journal Includes photographs

Boston has always been known for its stiff character. So how did this great New England city become home to one of the largest and most notorious adult entertainment districts in the nation? In this expertly crafted history, veteran reporter Stephanie Schorow teases out the issues that created this controversial neighborhood, giving voice to the players who sought to tame or profit from the sleaze snaking its way through Boston. At turns comic and tragic, Schorow introduces us to the politicians, exotic dancers, and wise guys, and residents brought together by the adult entertainment district—a five-acre neighborhood the city engineered to contain the very porno plague it wanted to eliminate. (Meet the nun-turned-attorney who advocated for the First Amendment rights of adult bookstores, a dancer called “the thinking man's stripper,” and Boston's unofficial city censor.) For these people and thousands of others, the Combat Zone is more than a memory—it was a life-altering adventure.

Chronicles a month in the lives of the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq.

No Buddy Left Behind unveils the life-altering relationships American troops serving in the Middle East have shared with the stray dogs and cats they've rescued from the brutalities of war. Overcoming monumental obstacles, Operation Baghdad Pups' program manager Terri Crisp makes it her mission to save these wartime “buddies,” get them out of danger, and bring them home to the soldiers who love them. How exactly does someone get animals out of a country at war when normal resources are lacking and every step of a plan to transport animals could get you arrested, kidnapped, or blown apart? As Crisp soon learns, each rescue mission from first to last is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experience, and no animal is truly safe until its paws touch U.S. soil. Terri and her team have saved the lives of 223 dogs and forty-two cats befriended by military personnel since February 2008—and No Buddy Left Behind finally tells this story.

The 2008 financial crisis was among the worst in history, yet nevertheless offers invaluable lessons. Recorded as the third largest bankruptcy in history, it caused Iceland to experience an instant collapse. Iceland defied the rules of finance; no bailout was attempted, capital movements were restricted, bankers jailed, and creditors fought. Amazingly, although Iceland was hit hardest, it recovered fastest. In The Combat Zone of Finance is an insider's account told through anecdotes, dialogues and personal stories. The author, Svein Harald Ø ygard, was offered the job of Central Bank Governor of Iceland just as the crisis struck. He saw how institutions and leaders behaved from inside the system in its deepest crisis. Some made billions; others got burned. Their behaviour, strengths and weaknesses were revealed as in no other country. Ø ygard analyses these events in the context of financial risks facing the world in 2020; knowledge of which is becoming increasingly relevant.

Perhaps the most accurate story of LRRPs at war ever to appear in print! When Frank Johnson arrived in Vietnam in 1969, he was nineteen, a young soldier untested in combat like thousands of others--but with two important differences: Johnson volunteered for the elite L Company Rangers of the 101st Airborne Division, a long range reconnaissance patrol (LRRP) unit, and he kept a secret diary, a practice forbidden by the military to protect the security of LRRP operations. Now, more than three decades later, those hastily written pages offer a rare look at the daily operations of one of the most courageous units that waged war in Vietnam. Johnson served in I Corps, in northern Vietnam, where combat was furious and the events he recounts emerge, stark and compelling: walking point in the A Shau Valley, braving enemy fire to rescue a downed comrade, surviving days and nights of relentless tension that suddenly exploded in the blinding fury of an NVA attack. Undimmed and unmuddied by the passing of years, Johnson's account is unique in the annals of Vietnam literature. Moreover, it is a timeless testimony to the sacrifice and heroism of the LRRPs who dared to risk it all.