Adventure Books...




The Hero Inside of You
By Allan Zullo and Mara Bovsun

In these turbulent times, we need heroes more than ever. Luckily, there are heroes all around us-and not just on the silver screen or in the sports arena. This book features 260 thrilling and inspiring true stories of extraordinary men, women and children-and even pets-who went beyond the call of duty to help their fellow man. For example: a one-legged man dashed through flames to save an old woman... a schoolteacher thwarted a crazed gunman... a grandma leaped on a crocodile to save a man from the jaws of death... a coed gave up a cushy life in America to help children in India's slums. This book celebrates the heroes among us-those courageous souls who did the right thing no matter how risky, no matter how costly.

Purchase The Hero Inside of You from Amazon.com or Sourcebooks




The Greatest Survivor Stories Never Told
By Allan Zullo and Mara Bovsun

Psychologists say that each of us humans has an inherent survival instinct that lays dormant — in fact, that is virtually unknown to us — and doesn't emerge until we are battling toe-to-toe with death. Only then does that instinct reveal itself and come to our aid to combat any or all of the six basic enemies of survival: thirst, cold, hunger, pain, terror and loneliness.

Despite overwhelming odds, people have survived the seemingly most hopeless predicament by doing the unthinkable. As you'll read in this book, desperation knows no limits. A prospector who was lost in the desert for nearly a week without water drank his own urine to survive. A teenager whose arms were hacked off by a madman trudged through underbrush until she found help.

Real-life struggles are often solitary encounters. In this book, some survivors faced their fate alone — like being imprisoned in a dark hole, adrift in a stormy sea, or abandoned for years on a deserted island — with no one to comfort or advise them, no voice of authority telling them what to do next.

Even if they were among thousands, survivors bore their own personal pain. During the horrific terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, it was "walk or die" for an NYPD police surgeon who was suffering painful, potentially fatal internal bleeding after being struck by falling debris. An NYPD lieutenant was badly injured in the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center but staggered out of the rubble only to be seriously hurt again when the North Tower crumbled.

It would be easy to imagine that the survivors in this book were somehow smarter, stronger, or younger than the rest of us, but that's certainly not the case. They called on their survival instinct to overcome their fears and keep their wits about them in the face of a horror that might have paralyzed others. "Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Survivors in this book felt the terror; they just weren't consumed by it.

If there is one common thread among survivors, it's a refusal to give in to death without a fight — a willingness to keep trying something, anything to live. It might mean crawling for days in the wilderness with two fractured ankles or eating bark off rotting timber in a cave-in or pouring gasoline on one's wounds to purge maggots.

The survivors in this book were the defiant ones who refused to give in to bad breaks or bad people that threatened their life. These survivors were the defiant ones who never say die.

Purchase The Greatest Survivor Stories Never Told
from Amazon.com or AndrewsMcMeel.com




The Greatest Firefighter Stories Never Told
By Mike Santangelo, Mara Bovsun and Allan Zullo

Firefighters know that no fire is predictable, no day on the job is ordinary. What they don't know for sure is what heartache or danger they will face when they rush out on a call. Will they discover a severely burned child curled up in the corner of a charred bedroom… fend off flaming debris from a collapsing ceiling… fall through a burning floor? Will they save a life or recover a body? Will they get hugs of thanks from grateful survivors or give hugs of condolences to victims' relatives?

After they don 90 pounds of gear and equipment, including flame-resistant turnout coats, heavy steel-soled boots and breathing packs, will they be running up the stairs of a burning skyscraper or running for their lives from a collapsing building?

To some people, it might seem foolhardy to charge into the flames to rescue someone you never saw before and may never see again. It's not that firefighters don't think about the danger. They're human and don't want to die, just like everyone else. But unlike most everyone else, they do what has to be done despite their fears.

That's why, as you'll see in this book, firefighter Joseph Clerici crawled through a blazing apartment, desperately groping in the dense smoke for a child who was presumed dead... firefighter John Traphagen leaped into a smoke-filled elevator shaft of a burning high-rise and shinnied down a cable to a red-hot elevator in a valiant rescue attempt... firefighter Bill Shea jumped 15 feet down into a pit of fire without a plan of escape because to do nothing meant certain death for a trapped victim.

Gripping acts of heroism can happen anywhere at any time — a hotel in Chicago, a harbor in New York, a runway near Miami, a high-rise in Dallas. The stories featured here are representative of the amazing accounts of firefighter valor that aren't well known, have been long forgotten, or received media coverage locally only. In most cases, these stories are based on personal interviews with the firefighters and witnesses or first-hand reports in fire department archives.

In this book, you'll read about astonishing rescues spurred by fast thinking and quick improvising by firefighters who would never have considered doing what they did if lives weren't at stake. For instance, Matt Moseley dangled from a helicopter cable over a raging inferno to pluck a man off a melting crane. Charles Kamin tossed terrified children out of a burning second-story classroom as it reached its flashpoint because there was no time to carry them down the ladder.

You'll also read about firefighters who put their lives at risk simply by doing what's right, like New York firemen Jay Jonas and his men. Following orders to evacuate immediately, they were running down the stairs of the North Tower of the World Trade Center when they came upon an exhausted elderly woman on the 20th floor. They refused to abandon her even though they knew they probably wouldn't get out of the building in time. They were still with her when the North Tower collapsed. (Fortunately, all survived because they stayed with her.)

The day-to-day work of firefighters may never make the six o'clock news or the front page, earn a medal or even a thank you. But you can bet the firehouse those dedicated men and women will be back on the job tomorrow, ready to plunge through a wall of flames when necessary, simply because that's who they are and that's what they do.

Purchase The Greatest Firefighter Stories Never Told
from Amazon.com or AndrewsMcMeel.com