Charles Leavitt

In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex was assaulted by something no one could believe: a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance. The real-life maritime disaster would inspire Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. But that told only half the story. This story reveals the encounter's harrowing aftermath, as the ship's surviving crew is pushed to their limits and forced to do the unthinkable to stay alive.

Danny Archer is an ex-mercenary turned smuggler. Solomon Vandy is a local Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join together for two dangerous missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son. The son was conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside....

Ernie Davis was born in New York and raised in poverty. He overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become an unstoppable running back for the Syracuse Orangemen. With the guidance of coach Ben Schwartzwalder, Ernie would develop from an impressive high school athlete into a college legend. Ernie would become the first black to win the Heisman Trophy. Refusing to play by the unspoken racist rules of the day, Ernie broke through one barrier after...

A Manhattan psychiatrist, who thinks he's seen it all until he's assigned to analyze Prot, a psychiatric patient who claims to be from a distant planet called K-PAX. He is convinced that Prot is "a convincing delusional, " but his cynicism turns to open-minded fascination as Prot's case reveals a combination of otherworldly insight and all-too-human trauma, prompting an earthbound explanation for Prot's allegedly alien origins.