Bob Drury
All Books By Bob Drury
A Dog’s Gift
- By: Bob Drury
- Narrator: Traber Burns
- Length: 8 hours 10 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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3.93(141 ratings)
A decade ago, former military counterintelligence officer Terry Henry joined his precocious young daughter, Kyria, on a trip to a nursing home in order to allow its residents to play with their family dog, a golden retriever named Riley. Terry was astounded by the transformations that unfolded before his eyes. Soon after, Terry and Kyria started their service dog organization, Paws4people, with the goal of pairing dogs with human beings in need of healing, including traumatized and wounded war veterans and children living with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities.
In A Dog’s Gift, award-winning journalist and author Bob Drury movingly captures the story of a year in the life of Paws4people and the broken bodies and souls the organization mends. The book follows the journey of pups bred by the organization from their loving, if rigorous, early training to an emotional event that Terry and Kyria have christened “the bump,” where each individual service dog chooses its new owner through an almost mystical connection that ignites the healing process. Incorporating vivid storytelling, insights into canine wisdom, history, science, and moving tales of personal transformation, A Dog’s Gift is a story of miracles bound to be embraced by not only the sixty million Americans who own dogs but by anyone with a full heart and a loving soul.
... Read moreBlood and Treasure
- By: Bob Drury
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hours 23 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: April 20, 2021
- Language: English
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4.08(1493 ratings)
The explosive true saga of the legendary figure Daniel Boone and the bloody struggle for America’s frontier by two bestselling authors at the height of their writing power–Bob Drury and Tom Clavin.
It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the 13 colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and finally against the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world.
This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone–not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women, white and red, who witnessed it.
This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the listener at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press
“Bob Drury and Tom Clavin together have given us a half-dozen elegantly written narratives of exhilarating episodes in American history. [Blood and Treasure] may be the authors’ finest work to date. Redolent of time and place, a raw and rugged tale.” — Wall Street Journal
... Read moreLast Men Out
- By: Bob Drury
- Length: 10 hours 16 minutes
- Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
- Publish date: September 21, 2021
- Language: English
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4.16(436 ratings)
In a gripping, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable drama that unfolded over the final, heroic hours of the Vietnam War. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines, a vast fleet of helicopter pilots flying nonstop missions beyond regulation, and a Marine general who vowed to arrest any officer who ordered his choppers grounded while his men were still on the ground.
Drury and Clavin focus on the story of the eleven young Marines who were the last men to leave, rescued from the U.S. Embassy roof just moments before capture, having voted to make an Alamo-like last stand. As politicians in Washington struggled to put the best face on disaster and the American ambassador refused to acknowledge that the end had come, these courageous men held their ground and helped save thousands of lives. Drury and Clavin deliver a taut and stirring account of a turning point in American history that unfolds with the heart stopping urgency of the best thrillers-a riveting true story finally told, in full, by those who lived it.
“A fast-paced, well-researched…irresistible” (USA TODAY) World War II aviation account of friendship, heroism, and sacrifice that reads like Unbroken meets The Dirty Dozen from the authors of the #1 New York Times bestselling The Heart of Everything That Is.
It’s 1942, just after the blow to Pearl Harbor and the Japanese invasion of the Philippines, and the United States is reeling. A group of raw US Army Airmen travels to the embattled American Air Base of Port Moresby at Papua, New Guinea. Their mission: to protect Australia, to disrupt the Japanese supply lines, and to fly perilous reconnaissance runs over the enemy-held strongholds. Among the men are pilot Captain Jay Zeamer and bombardier Sergeant Raymond Joseph “Joe” Sarnoski, a pair of swashbuckling screw-ups whose antics prevent them from being assigned to a regular bombing crew. Instead, they rebuild a broken-down B-17 bomber from spare parts and christen the plane Old 666.
One day in June 1943, a request is circulated: volunteers are needed for a reconnaissance flight into the heart of the Japanese empire. Zeamer and Sarnoski see it as a shot at redemption and cobble together a crew and depart in Old 666 under cover of darkness. Five hours later, dozens of Japanese Zeros riddle the plane with bullets. Bloody and half-conscious, Zeamer and Sarnoski keep the plane in the air, winning what will go down as the longest dogfight in history and maneuvering an emergency landing in the jungle. Only one of them will make it home alive.
With unprecedented access to the Old 666 crew’s family and letters, as well as newly released transcripts from the Imperial Air Force’s official accounts of the battle, Lucky 666 is perhaps the last untold “great war story” (Kirkus Reviews) from the war in the Pacific. It’s an unforgettable tale of friendship, bravery, and sacrifice–and “highly recommended for WWII and aviation history buffs alike” (BookPage).
The Heart of Everything That Is
- By: Bob Drury
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 12 hours 5 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2013
- Language: English
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4.11(3485 ratings)
This acclaimed New York Times bestselling biography of the legendary Sioux warrior Red Cloud, is “a page-turner with remarkable immediacy…and the narrative sweep of a great Western” (The Boston Globe).
Red Cloud was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms. At the peak of Red Cloud’s powers the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States and the loyalty of thousands of fierce fighters. But the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now, thanks to the rediscovery of a lost autobiography, and painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the nineteenth century’s most powerful and successful Indian warrior can finally be told.
In this astonishing untold story of the American West, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin restore Red Cloud to his rightful place in American history in a sweeping and dramatic narrative based on years of primary research. As they trace the events leading to Red Cloud’s War, they provide intimate portraits of the many lives Red Cloud touched–mountain men such as Jim Bridger; US generals like William Tecumseh Sherman, who were charged with annihilating the Sioux; fearless explorers, such as the dashing John Bozeman; and the memorable warriors whom Red Cloud groomed, like the legendary Crazy Horse. And at the center of the story is Red Cloud, fighting for the very existence of the Indian way of life.
“Unabashed, unbiased, and disturbingly honest, leaving no razor-sharp arrowhead unturned, no rifle trigger unpulled….a compelling and fiery narrative” (USA TODAY), this is the definitive chronicle of the conflict between an expanding white civilization and the Plains Indians who stood in its way.
The Last Hill
- By: Bob Drury
- Narrator: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hours 59 minutes
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Publish date: November 01, 2022
- Language: English
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4.3(221 ratings)
Bob Drury and Tom Clavin’s The Last Hill is the incredible untold story of one Ranger battalion’s heroism and courage in World War II.
They were known as “Rudder’s Rangers,” the most elite and experienced attack unit in the United States Army. In December 1944, Lt. Col. James Rudder’s 2nd Battalion would form the spearhead into Germany, taking the war into Hitler’s homeland at last. In the process, Rudder was given two objectives: Take Hill 400 . . . and hold the hill by any means possible. To the last man, if necessary. The battle-hardened battalion had no idea that several Wehrmacht regiments, who greatly outnumbered the Rangers, had been given the exact same orders. The clash of the two determined forces was one of the bloodiest and most costly encounters of World War II.
Castle Hill, the imposing 1320-foot mini-mountain the American Rangers simply called Hill 400, was the gateway to a desperate Nazi Germany. Several entire American divisions had already been repulsed by the last hill’s dug-in defenders as–unknown to the Allies–the height was the key to Adolf Hitler’s last-minute plans for a massive counterattack to smash through the American lines in what would become known to history as the Battle of the Bulge.
Thus the stalemate surrounding Hill 400 could not continue. For Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, there was only one solution: Call in Rudder’s Rangers. Of the 130 special operators who stormed, captured, and held the hill that December day, only 16 remained to stagger back down its frozen slopes. The Last Hill is replete with unforgettable action and characters–a rich and detailed saga of what the survivors of the 2nd Ranger Battalion would remember as “our longest day.”
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.
... Read moreValley Forge
- By: Bob Drury
- Narrator: Jeremy Bobb
- Length: 14 hours 45 minutes
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
- Publish date: January 01, 2018
- Language: English
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4.12(664 ratings)
The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Heart of Everything That Is return with “a thorough, nuanced, and enthralling account” (The Wall Street Journal) about one of the most inspiring–and underappreciated–chapters in American history: the Continental Army’s six-month transformation in Valley Forge.
In December 1777, some 12,000 members of America’s Continental Army stagger into a small Pennsylvania encampment near British-occupied Philadelphia. Their commander in chief, George Washington, is at the lowest ebb of his military career. Yet, somehow, Washington, with a dedicated coterie of advisers, sets out to breathe new life into his military force. Against all odds, they manage to turn a bobtail army of citizen soldiers into a professional fighting force that will change the world forever.
Valley Forge is the story of how that metamorphosis occurred. Bestselling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin show us how this miracle was accomplished despite thousands of American soldiers succumbing to disease, starvation, and the elements. At the center of it all is George Washington as he fends off pernicious political conspiracies. The Valley Forge winter is his–and the revolution’s–last chance at redemption. And after six months in the camp, Washington fulfills his destiny, leading the Continental Army to a stunning victory in the Battle of Monmouth Court House.
Valley Forge is the riveting true story of a nascent United States toppling an empire. Using new and rarely seen contemporaneous documents–and drawing on a cast of iconic characters and remarkable moments that capture the innovation and energy that led to the birth of our nation–Drury and Clavin provide a “gripping, panoramic account” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) of the definitive account of this seminal and previously undervalued moment in the battle for American independence.