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Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane
by Andrew Graham-Dixon"This book resees its subject with rare clarity and power as a painter for the 21st century."--Hilary Spurling, New York Times Book Review In a bravura performance, Andrew Graham-Dixon explores Caravaggio's staggering artistic achievements, delving into the original Italian sources to create a masterful profile of the mercurial painter. This New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of the Year features more than eighty full-color reproductions of the artist's best paintings.
Caravaggio: Una vida sagrada y profana
by Andrew Graham-DixonEl claroscuro de un genio maldito. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio vivió la más oscura y peligrosa vida de entre los grandes maestros de la pintura. Los ambientes de Milán, Roma y Nápoles en los que Caravaggio se movió, y que Andrew Graham-Dixon describe magníficamente en este libro, son los de los cardenales y las prostitutas, los de la oración y la violencia. En las calles que circundaban iglesias y palacios, las peleas y los duelos eran moneda común. En una de estas disputas, el impetuoso Caravaggio mató a otro hombre y tuvo que huir a Nápoles y luego a Malta, donde escapó de prisión tras verse envuelto en otro episodio violento. Él mismo fue víctima de un intento de asesinato en Nápoles tiempo después. Murió mientras regresaba a Roma en busca del perdón papal para sus crímenes. Tenía 38 años. Andrew Graham-Dixon ha pasado una década reuniendo las evidencias conservadas sobre la vida de Caravaggio para responder en este libro a muchas de las cuestiones que durante años han desconcertado a los investigadores. Revela las identidades de la gente corriente -a menudo prostitutas y mendigos- que el pintor usó como modelos para sus representaciones de escenas religiosas clásicas; describe lo que pasó realmente durante ese fatídico duelo; y ofrece el más convincente relato publicado hasta la fecha de las extraordinarias circunstancias de su muerte. Y en el centro de este relato se sitúa la reveladora interpretación que Graham-Dixon hace de los cuadros de Caravaggio para mostrar cómo éste creaba su drama, inmediatez y humanidad, y cómo rompió drásticamente con las convenciones de la época. La crítica ha dicho...«Ha habido otras biografías de Caravaggio, pero la de Andrew Graham-Dixon es la que hay que leer. Impresionantemente erudita y bien escrita, ésta es una extraordinaria historia de un hombre que nunca nos habla más que a través de su pintura.»Daily Mail «La vida de Caravaggio fue en cada detalle tan sangrienta, excitante y atractiva como sus propias pinturas. Entre informes policiales y exuberantes lienzos, Graham-Dixon ha moldeado una vida y la historia de una sociedad.»The Times «Raramente se ha podido contemplar a Caravaggio con tanta profundidad y relieve como en esta maravillosa biografía. El hombre y su obra emergen enriquecidos y revitalizados.»Neil MacGregor, director del British Museum «Tras años en los que los historiadores del arte se han concentrado en los detalles del estilo artístico, es refrescante leer una biografía de Caravaggio que combina la sangre y las vísceras de los callejones de Roma con una verdadera comprensión de la calidad y el carácter de su pintura.»Charles Saumarez Smith, director de la Royal Academy of Art «El que a Graham-Dixon le llevara una década investigar y escribir este lúcido y fascinante libro es una muestra de la profundidad de sus indagaciones, la destreza de su análisis histórico y artístico y la hábil fluidez con la que está expresado. Se trata de una proeza poco común.»Publishers Weekly
Getting Open
by Tom Graham Rachel Graham CodyBill Garrett was the Jackie Robinson of college basketball. In 1947, the same year Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball, Garrett integrated big-time college basketball. By joining the basketball program at Indiana University, he broke the gentleman's agreement that had barred black players from the Big Ten, college basketball's most important conference. While enduring taunts from opponents and pervasive segregation at home and on the road, Garrett became the best player Indiana had ever had, an all-American, and, in 1951, the third African American drafted in the NBA. In basketball, as Indiana went so went the country. Within a year of his graduation from IU, there were six African American basketball players on Big Ten teams. Soon tens, then hundreds, and finally thousands walked through the door Garrett opened to create modern college and professional basketball. Unlike Robinson, however, Garrett is unknown today. Getting Open is more than "just" a basketball book. In the years immediately following World War II, sports were at the heart of America's common culture. And in the fledgling civil rights efforts of African Americans across the country, which would coalesce two decades later into the Movement, the playing field was where progress occurred publicly and symbolically. Indiana was an unlikely place for a civil rights breakthrough. It was stone-cold isolationist, widely segregated, and hostile to change. But in the late 1940s, Indiana had a leader of the largest black YMCA in the world, who viewed sports as a wedge for broader integration; a visionary university president, who believed his institution belonged to all citizens of the state; a passion for high school and college basketball; and a teenager who was, as nearly as any civil rights pioneer has ever been, the perfect person for his time and role. This is the story of how they came together to move the country toward getting open. Father-daughter authors Tom Graham and Rachel Graham Cody spent seven years reconstructing a full portrait of how these elements came together; interviewing Garrett's family, friends, teammates, and coaches, and digging through archives and dusty closets to tell this compelling, long-forgotten story.
William: HRH Prince William of Wales
by Tim Graham Peter ArcherAs the boy prince turns into the man who would be king, interest in Prince William is at an unprecedented height in 2003, the year of his twenty-first birthday. Seen as the vital link between the traditions of the Royal Family and the more populist, modern approach of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, William has become an icon and pin-up as well as the future of the monarchy. This pictorial celebration features hundreds of photographs of William at work and at play by Tim Graham, the foremost photographer in this field. These beautiful photographs are accompanied by a unique insight into William's life by Peter Archer, the only journalist to interview the prince and be accredited to Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace. Elegant and revealing, William is not just a landmark in royal publishing but a beautiful celebration of this special year in the prince's life.
Mr. Flagler's St. Augustine
by Thomas GrahamArguably no man did more to make over a city—or a state—than Henry Morrison Flagler. Almost single-handedly, he transformed the east coast of Florida from a remote frontier into the winter playground of America’s elite.Mr. Flagler’s St. Augustine tells the story of how one of the wealthiest men in America spared no expense in transforming the country’s “Oldest City” into the “Newport of the South.” He built railroads into remote areas where men feared to tread and erected palatial hotels on swampland. He funded hospitals and churches and improved streets and parks. The rich and famous flocked to his invented paradise.In tracing Flagler’s life and second career, Thomas Graham reveals much about the inner life of the former oil magnate and the demons that drove him to expand a coastal empire southward to Palm Beach, Miami, Key West, and finally Nassau. Graham also gives voice to the individuals history has forgotten: the women who wrote tourist books, the artists who decorated the hotels, the black servants who waited tables, and the journalists who filed society columns in the newspapers.Filled with fascinating details that bring the Gilded Age to life, this book will stand as the definitive history of Henry Flagler and his time in Florida.
Silent Films in St. Augustine
by Thomas Graham“This absorbing tale, documenting the forgotten history of early moviemaking in St. Augustine, is a must-read for film enthusiasts.”—Janelle Blankenship , coeditor of European Visions: Small Cinemas in Transition “Very few people have any idea that St. Augustine played any role in early film history. This book brings St. Augustine into a much larger film conversation.”—Christina Lane, author of Magnolia “This richly detailed book tells the story of early filmmakers’ adventures in St. Augustine and captures the excitement of their moviemaking escapades.”—Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, coauthor of One Thousand Nights at the Movies: An Illustrated History of Motion Pictures, 1895–1915 “Given that the great majority of these early films are now lost, Graham makes an important contribution to the study of Florida’s image on film.”—Jan-Christopher Horak, author of Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design “The ‘reel’ history of Florida and its contribution to the development of American film history has been left out of mainstream textbooks and accounts. Thomas Graham’s book is a link in the chain of that history and an important addition to film scholarship.”—Susan Doll, coauthor of Florida on Film: The Essential Guide to Sunshine State Cinema and Locations “Through entertaining stories of how St. Augustine lured studios and enriched filmmaking with Henry Flagler’s railroad and architecture, Graham adds new detail to our understanding of the silent film era.”—Rita Reagan, Norman Studios Silent Film Museum Before Hollywood, when America’s rising motion picture industry was based on the East Coast, early film stars like Rudolph Valentino, Thomas Meighan, Ethel Barrymore, and Oliver Hardy made movies in St. Augustine, Florida. Silent Films in St. Augustine tells stories of the leading film producers and actors who escaped New York winters—and kept the studio doors open—in St. Augustine’s sunshine and warm weather. Scenes for more than 120 films were made in St. Augustine from 1906 to 1926 by film companies including Thanhouser, Lubin, Éclair, Pathé, Edison, Vitagraph, and Paramount. The first feature-length Frankenstein movie, Life Without Soul, was partly shot in St. Augustine. Theda Bara became a “vamp” sensation for her role in A Fool There Was. Sidney Drew acted in the genderbending A Florida Enchantment. Noted directors Edwin S. Porter, Maurice Tourneur, and George Fitzmaurice also set up shop in the beach town. Filmmakers used St. Augustine’s striking architecture to create backdrops for movies set in exotic foreign locales. The famous Castillo de San Marcos, the stone houses on the narrow streets, and Henry Flagler’s Spanish Renaissance palace hotels were reimagined as Spain, Italy, France, Egypt, Arabia, South Africa, Brazil, and Hawaii. Residents of St. Augustine loved seeing film teams in action on their streets and would gather around the camera to watch the actors and marvel at the outlandish costumes. Cast as extras in larger productions, locals packed theater houses to catch a glimpse of themselves and their neighbors on the screen. Describing the lavish sets, theatrical action, and New York movie personalities that filled St. Augustine, Thomas Graham evokes an intensely creative time and place in the history of American moviemaking.
A Private In The Guards [Illustrated Edition]
by Stephen GrahamIncludes the First World War Illustrations Pack - 73 battle plans and diagrams and 198 photosStephen Graham was a noted writer and journalist who took the fateful step of enlisting in the Scots Guards at the less than tender age of 33. However as he did so in 1917 the manpower shortage of the First World War ensured his quick acceptance into the "Little Sparta" depot for recruits. Being a liberal, well-travelled gentleman with views as to his dignity, the author suffered greatly under the strict discipline and harsh training of which he complained bitterly in this book. He shipped out to France for the last bloody year of the war, and found that he had bonded with his comrades to an extent he could not have imagined. Even as part of an elite unit he experienced the casual brutality and suffering of the fighting troops which he noted with his eye for detail and recorded herein.A First World War One memoir controversial at the time of publication and still every inch a classic.
College of One: The Story of How F. Scott Fitzgerald Educated the Woman He Loved (Neversink)
by Sheilah Graham Wendy W. FaireyThe moving story of how F. Scott Fitzgerald--washed up, alcoholic and ill--dedicated himself to devising a heartfelt course in literature for the woman he loved.In 1937, on the night of her engagement to the Marquess of Donegall, Sheilah Graham met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a party in Hollywood. Graham, a British-born journalist, broke off her engagement, and until Fitzgerald had a fatal heart attack in her apartment in 1940, the two writers lived the fervid, sometimes violent affair that is memorialized here with unprecedented intimacy. When they met, Fitzgerald's fame had waned. He battled crippling alcoholism while writing screenplays to support his daughter and institutionalized wife. Graham's star, however, was rising, to the point where she became Hollywood's highest-paid, best-read gossip columnist. But if Fitzgerald had lived out his "crack-up" in public, Graham kept her demons secret--such as that she believed herself to be "a fascinating fake who pulled the wool over Hollywood's eyes.'' Most poignantly, she keenly felt her lack of education, and Fitzgerald rose to the occasion. He became her passionate tutor, guiding her through a curriculum of his own design: a college of one. Graham loved him the more for it, writing the book as a tribute. As she explained, "An unusual man's ideas on what constituted an education had to be preserved. It is a new chapter to add to what is already known about an author who has been microscopically investigated in all the other areas of his life."From the Trade Paperback edition.
In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart
by Ruth Graham Stacy MattinglyThis book deals with the troubles in Ruth Graham's life and she provides hope for those hurting.
In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart: Hope for the Hurting
by Ruth Graham Stacy MattinglyRuth Graham - daughter of beloved evangelist Billy Graham - offers a guide for those who are hurting or those who love them. She illustrates through personal stories and Scripture how nothing can keep you from experiencing the fullness of God's grace. Run with Ruth to the arms of the God you can trust, the Father God who embraces, sustains, and redeems your brokenness.Ruth Graham has discovered through bitter personal experience that God does his great work in the ruins of our lives. As Ruth's life descended through divorce, depression, and shame; as she bore heartrending parental struggles; and as she faltered trying to make wise choices in the wake of bad ones, she discovered the unending embrace of a faithful, forgiving, and grace-filled God.This book surpasses the testimony of her fascinating story as she brings sharp new insight from the Word of God for all who fear their actions may be beyond forgiveness or their broken circumstances may keep them from being used by God ever again. Through the words of Jeremiah - the weeping prophet - Ruth reveals the God who makes wasted places come to life. You'll explore the parable of the Prodigal Son as never before as Ruth discloses her own likeness to each character:The indignant older brother, struggling to understand God&’s grace toward her husband's infidelityThe prodigal, wading through the deep shame and painful circumstances of her own actionsThe father, running to embrace her children in the midst of bulimia, drug abuse, and unplanned pregnancyRuth includes practical steps in every chapter anyone can take to offer care, support, and hope to the broken people they encounter in their lives and in the pews beside them every Sunday.
Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend
by Graham Russell Gao HodgesAnna May Wong remains one of Hollywood's best-known Chinese American actors. Between 1919 and 1960, Anna May Wong starred in over fifty movies, sharing billing with stars such as Douglas Fairbanks Sr., Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Ramon Novarro, and Warner Oland. Her life, though, is the prototypical story of an immigrant's difficult path through the prejudices of American culture. Born in Los Angeles in 1905, she was the second daughter of seven children born to a laundryman and his wife. Childhood experience fueled her fascination with Hollywood. By 1919 she secured a small part in her first film, The Red Lantern, and she continued to act up until her death. Her most famous film roles were in The Toll of the Sea, Peter Pan, The Thief of Baghdad, Old San Francisco, and Shanghai Express. But discrimination against Asiana, in both in the film industry and society, was commonplace, and when it came time to make a film version of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, she was passed over for the Chinese female lead role, which was ultimately given to the white actor Luise Rainer.In a narrative that recalls the pathos of life in Los Angeles's Chinese neighborhoods and the glamour of Hollywood's pleasure palaces, Graham Russell Gao Hodges recovers the life of a Hollywood legend.
Old Man Ontario: Leslie M. Frost
by Roger GrahamFor most of the twentieth century, Progressive Conservatives have governed Ontario. One of the great consolidators of the Ontario Tory dynasty was Leslie Frost, premier from 1949 to 1961. This biography explores the life and career of one of the province's most successful politicians. Frost was born in Orillia, in central Ontario, in 1895. He served in the First World War, was severely wounded, and underwent a lengthy convalescence. In 1921 he graduated from Osgoode Hall and established a law practice in Lindsay with his brother. He became an active member of the Conservative party and was elected to the provincial legislature in 1937, during the years of Liberal government under Mitchell Hepburn. When the Conservatives came into power in 1943, Premier George Drew appointed Frost provincial treasurer and minister of mines. Six years later, when Drew stepped down as party leader, Frost succeeded him. Personally genial and politically pragmatic, Frost consciously exemplified the values of small-town Ontario. He led his party through three elections and swept to victory each time. During his term in office Ontario underwent enormous economic development. His government initiated progressive legislation in health, education, and human rights, and encouraged growth in the private sector through fiscal policy and public investment. Ironically, the burgeoning economy that was fuelled by Frost's programs led to a dramatic increase in urbanization and a substantial erosion of the small-town values on which his political image was built. But that small irony did no political harm to him or to the Tories. When he stepped down as party leader and premier in 1961 he handed over to John Robarts the reins of a party that was not to be shaken from power for another quarter of a century.
Dove
by Robin Lee Graham Derek L.T. GillInspiring true story of 16-year-old Robin Graham's incredible voyage around the world in a 24-foot sloop.
The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon
by Philip GrahamThe author offers an expanded edition of a popular series of dispatches originally published on McSweeneys, an exuberant yet introspective account of a year's sojourn in Lisbon with his wife and daughter.
Whatever Remains: A True Story of Secret Lives and Hidden Families
by Penny F. GrahamWhatever Remains is a true story. The fall of Singapore is considered one of Britain’s worst defeats of the Second World War. For Penny Graham’s father, however, it became a life-changing opportunity to shed once and for all, all of the shackles of a family he no longer wanted. From 1942 onwards her parents would carry passports that gave them backgrounds that had nothing to do with reality. In 2010, a recognised Australian author claimed that her father and mother were involved in espionage for the British Government before, during and after World War 2. Although he worked in Australian naval intelligence during the war, there is no evidence whatsoever that he was an MI6 spy. He clearly had his own motives for the change of identity but they had nothing to do with espionage. Penny Graham spent most of her adult life unravelling the truth about her family history. Her journey took her around the world twice, on many twists and turns, false leads and dead ends as she discovers hew her father managed to hoodwink so many people in his long and complex life. Whatever Remains is a beautifully written story about solving mysteries, conquering adversity and ultimately finding where you belong in the world. It’s a slice of history worth telling.
In Memory of Bread: A Memoir
by Paul GrahamWhen Paul Graham was suddenly diagnosed with a serious wheat allergy at the age of thirty-six, he was forced to say goodbye to traditional pasta, pizza, sandwiches, and more. Gone, too, were some of his favorite hobbies, including brewing beer with a buddy and gorging on his wife's homemade breads. Struggling to understand why he and so many others had become allergic to wheat, barley, rye, oats, and other dietary staples, Graham researched the production of modern wheat and learned that not only has the grain been altered from ancestral varieties but it's also commonly added to thousands of processed foods. In writing that is effortless and engaging, Paul explores why incidence of the disease is on the rise while also grappling with an identity crisis--given that all his favorite pastimes involved wheat in some form. His honest, unflinching, and at times humorous journey towards health and acceptance makes an inspiring read.
Rawls
by Paul GrahamThis illuminating guide covers the most interesting and important aspects of Rawls' work in a stimulating manner, highlighting the foundations that underlie his conception of Justice, and explaining the rationale for his famous starting point, The Veil of Ignorance. Also detailing the criticisms that have met his arguments, this study will prove essential reading for students, scholars, and interested readers alike.
The Man Who Went to War: A Reporter's Memoir from Libya and the Arab Uprising
by Patrick GrahamAlmost a decade since deciding to give up war reporting full-time, and at the unexpected prodding of his wife, award-winning journalist Patrick Graham travels to the heart of the Libyan Revolution and the Arab Spring. He delivers a story by turns harrowing and comic, rich in both dramatic, on-the-ground reportage and historical detail, of a nation on the brink of transformation. “If you’re a recovering journalist listening to reports of a distant war on the radio, then you know, with the kind of arrogant certainty that sometimes irritates your wife, what you would be doing during these moments because you’re already there in your head. . . . I may have been at home in my kitchen wearing an apron, but my avatar had been doing some heroic work around the globe. Which is why I found myself mocking the guy on the radio: “For fuck’s sake, at least get to Benghazi!” It was around that time that my wife, who had walked in unnoticed, said, “Why don’t you go?” Within a few days of his wife’s suggestion, Graham was on a plane. It had been a while since he had last reported on a war. Though he lacked the security or credentials of a formal assignment, and was more than a little out of practice, he improvised his way from Egypt, then experiencing its own Arab Spring upheavals, and across the frontier into Libya. The result is an intimate eyewitness account – equal parts harrowing and hilarious – of the Libyan revolution as seen from the heart of the uprising in Benghazi. As ragtag militias try to beat back the assaults of Gaddafi’s troops, Graham introduces us to Libyan civilians with haunted pasts and uncertain futures, each of whom must decide whether they, too, will go to war. Meanwhile, Graham encounters both old colleagues and rookie journalists, forcing him to ask questions about the changing nature of war reportage in the age of social media. With a fascinating detour that explores the rebellion’s intellectual and spiritual roots in the Sanusi, a Sufi Muslim political order, The Man Who Went to War is a penetrating and engrossing story of a country on the brink of transformation.
Epic Survival
by Matt Graham Josh YoungMatt Graham, star of the Discovery Channel's Dual Survival and Dude, You're Screwed, details the physical, mental, and emotional joys and harrowing struggles of his life as a modern-day hunter-gatherer.Early on in his life, Matt craved a return to nature. When he became an adult, he set aside his comfortable urban life and lived entirely off the land to learn from the smallest and grandest of all things. In this riveting narrative that brings together epic adventure and spiritual quest, he shows us what extraordinary things the human body is capable of when pushed to its limits. In Epic Survival, written with Josh Young, coauthor of five New York Times bestsellers, Matt relays captivating stories from his life to show just how terrifying--and gratifying--living off the grid can be. He learns the secrets of the Tarahumara Indians that helped him run the 1,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail in just fifty-eight days and endure temperature swings of 100 degrees. He takes us with him as he treks into the wilderness to live alone for half a year, armed with nothing but a loincloth, a pair of sandals, a stone knife, and chia seeds. He recounts near-death experiences of hiking alone through the snowdrifts at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and tells us about the time he entered a three-day Arabian horse race on foot--and finished third. Above all, Epic Survival is a book about growing closer to the land that nurtures us. No matter how far our modern society takes us from the wilderness, the call remains. Whether you're an armchair survivalist or have taken the plunge yourself, Matt's story is both inspiration and invigoration, teaching even the most urbane among us important and breathtaking lessons.
Blood Memory
by Martha Graham Jane RosenmanGraham, the extraordinary creative force who ranks with Picasso and Stravinsky, broke traditional molds and ultimately changed the way we look at the world. Blood Memory invites readers to explore her phenomenal life and highlights the unforgettable images that encompass her work. 100 photographs.
Diario de mi residencia en Chile: en el año 1822
by Maria GrahamDocumento invaluable de los años de formación de la república. El diario de una viajera y naturalista inglesa que se instaló en Valparaíso y viajó por el valle central describiendo las costumbres, los paisajes, la vegetación. La primera mirada femenina de Chile. Viajera y naturalista inglesa, María Graham decide quedarse en Valparaíso un año, después de enterrar en el puerto el cuerpo de su marido, un marino inglés fallecido en el mar, camino a Chile. Durante este tiempo escribe en su diario sus experiencias, cientos de observaciones de paisajes y plantas que conoce y observa, las costumbres de los chilenos, sus amistades -entre ellas Bernardo O'Higgins y Lord Cochrane- las formas de vivir, las artesanías, las bebidas y comidas, y emprende un viaje por el valle central en donde conocerá y describirá en estas páginas Santiago, Colina, Pudahuel, Talagante, El Monte, Viluco, Quinteros, Con Con, entre otros. A cada uno de estos lugares, Graham le dedica exquisitas descripciones, observaciones de sus habitantes y sus costumbres, sus vestimentas y especialmente los árboles, plantas y flores que le fascinaron. Por primera vez en castellano, esta edición incluye los dibujos de María Graham que fueron publicados en su edición original en Londres en 1823. Y un prólogo de Diamela Eltit, Premio Nacional de Literatura. Una edición completa, con los grabados y viñetas, nunca antes publicada en castellano.
The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Russian Research Center Studies #87)
by Loren R. GrahamStalin ordered his execution, but here Peter Palchinsky has the last word. Palchinsky tells of Soviet technology and industry, the mistakes he condemned in his lifetime, the corruption and collapse he predicted, the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this visionary engineer's life and work, as Graham tells it, is also the story of the Soviet Union's industrial promise and failure.
The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Russian Research Center studies ; #No. 87)
by Loren GrahamStalin ordered his execution, but here Peter Palchinsky has the last word. As if rising from an uneasy grave, Palchinsky’s ghost leads us through the miasma of Soviet technology and industry, pointing out the mistakes he condemned in his time, the corruption and collapse he predicted, the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this visionary engineer’s life and work, as Loren Graham relates it, is also the story of the Soviet Union’s industrial promise and failure. We meet Palchinsky in pre-Revolutionary Russia, immersed in protests against the miserable lot of laborers in the tsarist state, protests destined to echo ironically during the Soviet worker’s paradise. Exiled from the country, pardoned and welcomed back at the outbreak of World War I, the engineer joined the ranks of the Revolutionary government, only to find it no more open to criticism than the previous regime. His turbulent career offers us a window on debates over industrialization. Graham highlights the harsh irrationalities built into the Soviet system—the world’s most inefficient steel mill in Magnitogorsk, the gigantic and ill-conceived hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River, the infamously cruel and mislocated construction of the White Sea Canal. Time and again, we see the effects of policies that ignore not only the workers’ and consumers’ needs but also sound management and engineering precepts. And we see Palchinsky’s criticism and advice, persistently given, consistently ignored, continue to haunt the Soviet Union right up to its dissolution in 1991. The story of a man whose gifts and character set him in the path of history, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer is also a cautionary tale about the fate of an engineering that disregards social and human issues.
The Importance of Being Kennedy: A Novel
by Laurie GrahamFrom the fictitious diary of the equally fictitious Kennedy nanny comes an inside look into the early years of the dynasty—with all the juicy bits intact. Newly arrived from Ireland, Nora Brennan finds a position as nursery maid to the Kennedys of Brookline, Massachusetts—and lands at the heart of American history. In charge of nine children practically from the minute they're born—including Joe Jr., Jack, Bobby, Teddy, vivacious "Kick," and tragic Rosemary—she sees the boys coached at their father's knee to believe everything they'll ever want in life can be bought. She sees the girls trained by mother Rose to be good Catholic wives. With her sharp eye and her quiet common sense, Nora is the perfect candidate to report on an empire in the making. Then World War II changes everything.
Have I Told You This Already?: Stories I Don't Want to Forget to Remember
by Lauren GrahamFrom the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and the New York Times bestselling author of Talking as Fast as I Can comes an &“insightful, honest, funny, and moving collection of captivating stories&” (BuzzFeed).&“Graham is fast and furiously funny in her latest collection of essays. . . . Where Graham leads, we will definitely follow.&”—E! OnlineLauren Graham has graced countless television screens with her quick-witted characters and hilarious talk show appearances, earning a reputation as a pop culture icon who always has something to say. In her latest book, Have I Told You This Already?, Graham combines her signature sense of humor with down-to-earth storytelling. Graham shares personal stories about her life and career—from her early days spent pounding the pavement while waitressing in New York City, to living on her aunt&’s couch during her first Los Angeles pilot season, to thoughts on aging gracefully in Hollywood.In &“R.I.P. Barneys New York&” Graham writes about an early job as a salesperson at the legendary department store (and the time she inadvertently shoplifted from it); in &“Ryan Gosling Cannot Confirm,&” she attempts to navigate the unspoken rules of Hollywood hierarchies; in &“Boobs of the &’90s&” she worries her bras haven&’t kept up with the times; and in &“Actor-y Factory&” she recounts what a day in the life of an actor looks like (unless you&’re Brad Pitt). Filled with surprising anecdotes, sage advice, and laugh-out-loud observations, these all-new, original essays showcase the winning charm and wry humor that have delighted Graham&’s millions of fans.