Книга Виктора Поротникова рассказывает о восшествии на престол Дария I (неизв. - 486 до н.э.), царя династии Ахеменидов, основанной Киром Великим. При Дарии Персидская империя достигла наивысшего могущества. С помощью своей личной гвардии - "десяти тысяч бессмертных" - ему удалось подавить волнения скифских племен Средней Азии, а также восстания в Вавилонии, Мидии, Эламе, Египте, Парфии и завоевать часть Индии.

"Ствол длинный, жизнь короткая". "Двойной оклад - тройная смерть!", "Прощай, Родина!"... Какими только эпитетами не награждались бойцы и командиры, которые воевали в артиллерии, стоявшей на прямой наводке сразу позади, а то и впереди порядков пехоты. На долю артиллеристов орудий калибра 45,57 и 76 миллиметров легла самая ответственная и смертельно опасная задача - выбивать немецкие танки.
Каждый бой, каждый подбитый танк давался кровью. Каждая смена позиции - потом. Победа в противостоянии бронированного и хорошо вооруженного танка с людьми, спрятавшимися за щитом орудия, требует от последних колоссальной выдержки, отваги и мастерства. Такие герои у нас были, и именно они входили в поверженный Берлин. В этой книге вы встретитесь всего с десятью бойцами и командирами, каждый из которых внес свой посильный вклад в дело нашей Победы, но именно их рассказы помогут понять, как складывалась война для многих тысяч воинов-артиллеристов.

Новая книга известного историка, написанная на основе малоизвестных архивных материалов и воспоминаний участников войны, посвящена борьбе за господство в воздухе на южном и северном флангах советско-германского фронта летом-осенью 1941 года.
Какова была роль нашей и вражеской авиации в грандиозной битве за Киев?
Насколько успешны были действия противоборствующих сторон?
Почему "сталинским соколам" так и не удалось сорвать переправу крупной вражеской группировки через Днепр и замедлить продвижение немецких танковых клиньев, сомкнувшихся в тылу Юго-Западного фронта?
Как оценивать результаты немецких налетов на Ленинград?
Почему наша ПВО не смогла отразить эти удары столь же эффективно, как отражались налеты на Москву?
Каковы были потери сторон?
Почему господство в воздухе тогда осталось за люфтваффе?

The seven-part Harry Potter series of fantasy novels was written by English author J. K. Rowling about an adolescent boy wizard named Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The story is mostly set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school for young wizards and witches, and focuses on Harry Potter's fight against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents as part of his plan to take over the wizarding world.

Abook: | 08:36 | MP3, 128 kbps | 453.649 Мб | English

EBook:| 313p | PDF | 757 Кб | English

Born of noble stock to parents marooned on the savage West African coast, the young lord Greystoke is orphaned in his first year of life. Named Tarzan by the great apes that raise him, he must learn the law of the jungle to survive. As he matures, his strength and agility develop to match those of the beasts that he is surrounded by, yet he realizes that he is different. He combines higher intelligence, superhuman strength and his jungle training to become the unconquerable Lord of the Jungle! But, when a group of civilized people invade his paradise, his life is changed forever, for with them is Jane. Jane is the first woman Tarzan has ever seen and he must have her as his own! How can this uncivilized ape-man hope to win her?

95p | PDF |1.736 Мб| English

The consequences of media saturation are the basis for an urban nightmare in Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk's darkly comic and often dazzling thriller. Assigned to write a series of feature articles investigating SIDS, troubled newspaper reporter Carl Streator begins to notice a pattern among the cases he encounters: each child was read the same poem prior to his or her death. His research and a tip from a necrophilic paramedic lead him to Helen Hoover Boyle, a real estate agent who sells "distressed" (demonized) homes, assured of their instant turnover. Boyle and Streator have both lost children to "crib death," and she confirms Streator's suspicions: the poem is an ancient lullaby or "culling song" that is lethal if spoken--or even thought--in a victim's direction. The misanthropic Streator, now armed with a deadly and uncontrollably catchy tune, goes on a minor killing spree until he recognizes his crimes and the song's devastating potential. Lullaby then turns into something of a road trip narrative, with Streator, Boyle, her empty-headed Wiccan secretary Mona, and Mona's vigilante boyfriend Oyster setting out across the U.S. to track down and destroy all copies of the poem.

In his previous works, including the cult favorite Fight Club, Palahniuk has demonstrated a fondness for making statements about the condition of humanity, and he uses Lullaby like a blunt object to repeatedly overstate his generally dim view. Such dogmatic venom undermines the persuasiveness of his thesis about mass communication and free will, but thankfully, Palahniuk offers some respite here by allowing for sympathy and love, as well as through his razor-sharp humor, such as his mock listings for Helen's possessed properties: "six bedrooms, four baths, pine-paneled entryway, and blood running down the kitchen walls...." At such moments, Lullaby casts a powerful spell.

108p | PDF |1.924 Мб| English

Victor Mancini is a ruthless con artist. Victor Mancini is a med-school dropout who's taken a job playing an Irish indentured servant in a colonial-era theme park in order to help care for his Alzheimer's-afflicted mother. Victor Mancini is a sex addict. Victor Mancini is a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. All of these statements about the protagonist of Choke are more or less true. Welcome, once again, to the world of Chuck Palahniuk.

"Art never comes from happiness." So says Mancini's mother only a few pages into the novel. Given her own dicey and melodramatic style of parenting, you would think that her son's life would be chock-full of nothing but art. Alas, that's not the case. In the fine tradition of Oedipus, Stephen Dedalus, and Anthony Soprano, Victor hasn't quite reconciled his issues with his mother. Instead, he's trawling sexual-addiction recovery meetings for dates and purposely choking in restaurants for a few moments of attention. Longing for a hug, in other words, he's settling for the Heimlich.

Thematically, this is pretty familiar Palahniuk territory. It would be a pity to disclose the surprises of the plot, but suffice it to say that what we have here is a little bit of Tom Robbins's Another Roadside Attraction, a little bit of Don DeLillo's The Day Room, and, well, a little bit of Fight Club. Just as with Fight Club and the other two novels under Palahniuk's belt, we get a smattering of gloriously unflinching sound bites, including this skeptical bit on prayer chains: "A spiritual pyramid scheme. As if you can gang up on God. Bully him around."

Whether this is the novel that will break Palahniuk into the mainstream is hard to say. For a fourth book, in fact, the ratio of iffy, "dude"-intensive dialogue to interesting and insightful passages is a little higher than we might wish. In the end, though, the author's nerve and daring pull the whole thing off--just barely.

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