Daniel Willard's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Sam Spearman—wealthy, elderly, irascible—is a man on a mission. The mighty Central Pacific Railroad proposes to abandon tracks that serve his Kansas grain elevators. Caught in the middle is Chet Whitfield, who runs CP’s Kansas Division. When Sam forces Central Pacific to sell him the Kansa City-to-Denver route, Chet chooses sides and becomes president of the new railroad, nicknamed the Seldom Willing.. Together the two men, aided by a young woman believed by all to be Sam’s rob-the-cradlegirlfriend, set out to make a success of their new railroad. They must overcome unhappyformer employees, criminals and even Central Pacific itself. You’ll… show more.

In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered,a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written the definitive history of this horrifying episode.

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