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Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford
by Donald SpotoJoan Crawford was one of the most incandescent film stars of all time, yet she was also one of the most misunderstood. In this brilliantlyresearched, thoughtful, and intimate biography, bestselling author Donald Spoto goes beyond the popular caricature—the abusive, unstable mother portrayed in her adopted daughter Christina Crawford’s memoir, Mommie Dearest—to give us a three-dimensional portrait of a very human woman, her dazzling career, and her extraordinarily dramatic life and times.Based on new archival information and exclusive interviews, and written with Spoto’s keen eye for detail, Possessed offers a fascinating portrait of a courageous, highly sexed, and ambitious womanwhose strength and drive made her a forerunner in the fledgling film business. From her hardscrabble childhood in Texas to her early days as a dancer in post–World War I New York to her rise to stardom,Spoto traces Crawford’s fifty years of memorable performances in classics like Rain, The Women, Mildred Pierce, and Sudden Fear, which are as startling and vivid today as when they were filmed.In Possessed, Spoto goes behind the myths to examine the rise and fall of the studio system; Crawford’s four marriages; her passionate thirty year, on-and-off-again affair with Clark Gable; her friendships and rivalries with other stars; her powerful desire to become a mother; the truth behind the scathing stories in her daughter Christina’s memoir; and her final years as a widow battling cancer. Spoto explores Crawford’s achievements as an actress, her work with Hollywood’s great directors (Frank Borzage, George Cukor, Otto Preminger) and actors (Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, John Barrymore), and later, her role as a highly effective executive on the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola.Illuminating and entertaining, Possessed is the definitive biography of this remarkable woman and true legend of film.
Possessing Me: A Memoir of Healing
by Jane AlexanderThe author describes in exacting detail, her eventual path to healing from childhood neglect and abandonment, post traumatic stress disorder and manic depression, as she discovers the secret to lasting happiness.
Possible Side Effects: True Stories
by Augusten BurroughsFrom the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection of true stories yet. From nicotine gum addiction to lesbian personal ads to incontinent dogs, Possible Side Effects mines Burroughs's life in a series of uproariously funny essays. These are stories that are uniquely Augusten, with all the over-the-top hilarity of Running with Scissors, the erudition of Dry, and the breadth of Magical Thinking. A collection that is universal in its appeal and unabashedly intimate, Possible Side Effects continues to explore that which is most personal, mirthful, disturbing, and cherished, with unmatched audacity. A cautionary tale in essay form. Be forewarned--hilarious, troubling, and shocking results might occur.
Possum Living (Almost) No Money: How To Live Well Without A Job And With (almost) No Money
by Dolly FreedAfter being out of print for decades, Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and (Almost) No Money is being reissued with an afterword by an older and wiser Dolly Freed. In the late seventies, at the age of eighteen and with a seventh-grade education, Dolly Freed wrote Possum Livingabout the five years she and her father lived off the land on a half-acre lot outside of Philadelphia. At the time of its publication in 1978, Possum Living became an instant classic, known for its plucky narration and no-nonsense practical advice on how to quit the rat race and live frugally. In her delightful, straightforward, and irreverent style, Freed guides readers on how to buy and maintain a home, dress well, cope with the law, stay healthy, save money, and be lazy, proud, miserly, and honest, all while enjoying leisure and keeping up a middle-class façade. Thirty years later, Freed's philosophy is world-renowned andPossum Living remains as fascinating, inspirational, and pertinent as it was upon its original publication. This updated edition includes new reflections, insights, and life lessons from an older and wiser Dolly Freed, whose knowledge of how to live like a possum has given her financial security and the confidence to try new ventures.
Post Grad: Five Women and Their First Year Out of College
by Caroline KitchenerAn honest and deeply reported account of five women and the opportunities and frustrations they face in the year following their graduation from an elite university.Recent Princeton graduate Caroline Kitchener weaves together her experiences from her first year after college with that of four of her peers in order to delve more deeply into what the world now offers a female college graduate, and how the world perceives them.Each of the five girls in this diverse group were expected to attend college—but most had no clear expectations for their futures post-graduation. And as Kitchener follows each member of the group, it becomes harder to reduce them to stereotypes, harder either to defend or to judge their choices. Kitchener navigates expertly between the very personal and the wider sociological perspectives as she outlines a chronological year in the lives of all five women, illuminating and clarifying each one of their choices, victories, and foibles. Both a broad and an intensely individual exploration, Post Grad is a portrait of the shifting environment of that important year after graduation, as well as an intimate look at how a select group of very different individuals handles its challenges—navigating family tensions, relationships, jobs, and that ever-elusive notion of independence.
Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: One Woman's Desperate, Funny, and Healing Journey to Explore 30 Religions by Her 30th Birthday
by Reba RileyWritten with humor and personality, this debut memoir recounts a woman’s spiritual quest of experiencing thirty religions before her thirtieth birthday. Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is for questioners, doubters, misfits, and seekers of all faiths, and tackles the universal struggle to heal what life has broken.On her twenty-ninth birthday, while guests were arriving downstairs, Reba Riley was supposedly upstairs getting dressed. In actuality, she was slumped on the floor sobbing about everything from the meaning of life to the pile of dirty laundry on the floor. Life without God was crashing in on her. And she was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. She uttered a desperate prayer, and then the idea came to her—thirty by thirty. And thus she embarked on a year-long quest to experience thirty religions by her thirtieth birthday. During her spiritual sojourn, Riley: -Was interrogated about her sex life by Amish grandmothers -Disco danced in a Buddhist temple -Fasted for thirty days without food—or wine -Washed her lady parts in a mosque bathroom -Was audited by Scientologists -Learned to meditate with an urban monk -Snuck into a Yom Kippur service with a fake grandpa in tow -And finally discovered she didn’t have to choose a religion to choose God In a debut memoir that is funny and earnest, Riley invites questioners, doubters, misfits, and curious believers to participate in the universal search to heal what life has broken. Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome takes you by the hand and reminds you that sometimes you first have to be lost in order to be found.
Post-it Note Diaries
by Arthur JonesPersonal stories from an all-star lineup-immortalized in beautiful, black Sharpie(r). When Arthur Jones cocreated a reading series centered around ubiquitous Post-Its(r), the series struck a chord. It grew in popularity and was ultimately featured on a This American Life live simulcast broadcast across the nation.Inspired by the series and spanning a wide and weird range of topics from an A-list roster of contributors, Post-It(r) Note Diaries captures everyday occurrences from a job interview gone hilariously awry and a nude run-in with a neighbor to hair-raising events like an overnight encounter at Nicholas Cage's house (it's not what you think!), and nearly drowning while trying to paddle across the East River in a homemade canoe. Post-It(r) Note Diaries is perfect for NPR addicts and fans of unique graphic favorites like Postsecret and Blankets.Diarists include: John Hodgman, David Rakoff, Hanna Tinti, Arthur Bradford, Chuck Klosterman, Andrew Solomon, Starlee Kine, Kristen Schaal, Mary Roach and Andrew Bird.
Postal Culture
by Gabriella RomaniThe nationalization of the postal service in Italy transformed post-unification letter writing as a cultural medium. Both a harbinger of progress and an expanded, more efficient means of circulating information, the national postal service served as a bridge between the private world of personal communication and the public arena of information exchange and production of public opinion. As a growing number of people read and wrote letters, they became part of a larger community that regarded the letter not only as an important channel in the process of information exchange, but also as a necessary instrument in the education and modernization of the nation.In Postal Culture, Gabriella Romani examines the role of the letter in Italian literature, cultural production, communication, and politics. She argues that the reading and writing of letters, along with epistolary fiction, epistolary manuals, and correspondence published in newspapers, fostered a sense of community and national identity and thus became a force for social change.
Postales de una vida
by Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza"En todos los textos sobresale el ojo del novelista para el detalle y perfecto, la capacidad del periodista de elegir lo que interesa y decir mucho con poco, el contador oral de anécdotas que captura a su auditorio y el tipo de buena entraña del que uno quisiera ser amigo. Uno emerge de la lectura de estas páginas con ganas locas de beberse un whisky con el autor para prolongar la conversación" Álvaro Vargas Llosa En Postales de una vida, Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza revisita lo más valioso de su pasado: lugares en los que vivió o que lo marcaron al recorrerlos (Bogotá, Barranquilla, Boyacá, París, Roma, Lisboa, Moscú, Caracas, La Habana), hombres y mujeres que conoció de cerca o de lejos y que fueron fundamentales en su vida (Gabriel García Márquez, Marvel Moreno, Fenando Botero, Camilo Torres, Pablo Neruda, Robert Graves, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Perón), y momentos de una significación extraordinaria no sólo para él, sino para el devenir de la cultura, la política y la literatura de Colombia y Latinoamérica desde mediados del siglo pasado hasta la actualidad.
Postcards from Cookie: A Memoir of Motherhood, Miracles, and a Whole Lot of Mail
by Caroline ClarkeAn “elegant, funny, and poignant” memoir of a journalist’s discovery of her birth mother—a daughter of Nat King Cole—and the bond that formed between them (Essence).Caroline Clarke, award-winning journalist and host of Black Enterprise Business Report, was born in an era when adoptions were shameful, secret, and sealed. While she wondered about her biological parents, she kept her curiosity in check, until a series of small health problems raised concerns about her genetic heritage and its consequences for her two children’s lives and her own.Though Spence-Chapin Family Service, the agency that handled her adoption, could not reveal the name of her birth mother, it was able to provide details that led to a shocking truth. Caroline’s birth mother and her family were related to a friend. The woman who gave her life was none other than Carole “Cookie” Cole, the daughter of crooner and pianist Nat King Cole.Drawing on details provided by the agency and her own investigative skills, Caroline embarked on a life-changing journey of discovery that stretched from coast to coast, forged through e-mail, phone calls, and postcards. The constancy, volume, and intimacy of her steady correspondence with Cookie filled the days and distance between them. Through brief yet heartfelt messages squeezed onto three-inch squares, mother and daughter revealed themselves, sharing secrets, taking risks, and ultimately building a bond like no other. An inspiring tribute to both Caroline’s adoptive parents and her biological mother, Postcards from Cookie illuminates the power of love to shape and guide our lives.“A moving account of a woman who finally finds out who she is.” —The New York Times Book Review“Deeply personal [and] gripping.” —Kirkus Reviews“Downright riveting.” —EbonyIncludes photos
Postcards from Heaven: Messages of Love from the Other Side
by Dan Gordon"Nearly all of us either have had or have heard of an experience in which a soul already departed reaches back to us who have been left behind.... Sometimes, it's no more than a whisper, a familiar smell in the air, or just the feeling of presence as vivid as when the loved one was still alive. These moments are just that...moments, a glimpse behind the veil; not a letter from heaven, but a postcard." (Dan Gordon, Postcards from Heaven) A postcard from heaven is not a revelation from on high -- rather, it's "a whisper, a familiar smell in the air, or just the feeling of presence" of someone who's passed away. It is just enough of a message to imply that what we call life is not ended by what we call death. Dan Gordon has been receiving these postcards all his life -- from his father, his older brother, and his son Zaki, who was killed in a car accident when he was only twenty-two. Postcards from Heaven is the beautiful, inspirational memoir of four generations of a remarkable family and how they remain interconnected, a part of one another's stories, even after passing to the other side. Here is the span of his father's long life, moving and funny, from the Russian Revolution to his improbable Depression-era courtship of a woman named Goddess -- Gordon's mother -- to his spiritual later years in Israel; his incorrigible older brother's mischievous magic, able to find humor even in cancer treatment; and his brilliant son, a natural storyteller who looked destined to follow his father into the movie business. These are the stories of their lives on earth as well as after death. Full of humor, compassion, and love, Postcards from Heaven comforts and assures us that those we loved can reach back to those of us still on earth -- and, if only we are attentive enough to listen, we can hear them say, Got here safe. It's really beautiful. Much love, till we meet again.
Postcards from the End of America
by Linh DinhRoaming the country by bus and train, on a budget and without any institutional support, Linh Dinh set out to document, in words and pictures, what life is like for people. From Los Angeles, Cheyenne, Portland, and New Orleans, to Jackson and Wolf Point--Linh walked miles and miles through unfamiliar neighborhoods, talking to whoever would talk to him: the homeless living in tent cities, the peddlers, the protestors, the public preachers, the prostitutes. With the uncompromising eye of a Walker Evans or a Dorothea Lange, and the indomitable, forthright prose of a modern-day Nelson Algren or James Agee, Dinh documents the appalling and the absurd with warmth and honesty, giving voice to America's often forgotten citizens and championing the awesome strength it takes to survive for those on the bottom. Growing out of a photo and political writing blog Linh has maintained since 2009, Postcards from the End of America is an unflinching diary of what Linh sees as the accelerating collapse of America. Tracking the economic, political, and social unraveling--from the casinos to the abandoned factories and over all the sidewalks in between--with a poet's incisive tongue, Linh shows us the uncanny power of the people in the face of societal devastation.
Postcards from the Sky: Adventures of an Aviatrix
by Erin SeidemannThe aviation world is a man’s world—it always has been, and it continues to be so today. In fact, women make up a mere 5 to 6 percent of the total pilot population worldwide. But from the first time Erin Seidemann experienced what it was like to see the world from a small plane’s perspective, she was hooked—and she’s spent much of her time since then fighting her way into becoming one of that 5 to 6 percent. Postcards from the Sky: Adventures of an Aviatrix tells of the struggles and adventures one encounters as a woman in the male-dominated space of aviation. With humor and equanimity, Seidemann recounts her varied experiences as a female pilot—from the chauvinistic flight instructor she makes the mistake of falling in love with to the many, many customs agents who insist she can’t possibly be her plane’s owner (“Where’s your boyfriend?”)—while at the same time giving insight about just what makes flying so incredible . . . and so very addictive. Frank, funny, and full of adventure, Postcards from the Sky is an entertaining foray into a world few women have dared enter.
Postcards to Europe: The unique must-have collection
by VariousThis is not a book about politics. It is a book about what makes us British, and what makes us European.Spend time with some of your favourite writers and artists in this truly unique collection spanning everything from art, language, food, music and movies, to war, literature, driving, nudity, geography, smoking and nature.Featuring pieces of exceptional quality from some of our most treasured novelists, historians, journalists, poets and artists, including: Jessie Burton, Richard Herring, Alain de Botton, Tom Bradby, Val McDermid, Matt Haig, Afua Hirsch, Lionel Shriver, Sarah Perry, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Ian Rankin, Owen Jones, Mark Kermode, Robert Macfarlane, Chris Riddell, Former Prime Minister Jim Hacker and many more.A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the times we live in, our relationship with the continent, and ourselves.* * * * *INCLUDES PIECES BY:Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Tom Bradby, Jessie Burton, Ben Collins (aka The Stig), Colonel Tim Collins, Robert Crampton, Adam Dant, Alain de Botton, Kate Eberlen, Matt Frei, Nicci French, Simon Garfield, Jonathan Lynn writing as Former Prime Minister Jim Hacker, Matt Haig, Richard Herring, Jennifer Higgie, Afua Hirsch, Owen Jones, Oliver Kamm, Alex Kapranos, Mark Kermode, Hari Kunzru, Olivia Laing, Marie Le Conte, Amy Liptrot, Robert Macfarlane, Henry Marsh, Val McDermid, Ian McEwan, Hollie McNish, Kate Mosse, Jenni Murray, Sarah Perry, Ian Rankin, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Cathy Rentzenbrink, Chris Riddell, Andrew Roberts, Will Self, David Shrigley, Lionel Shriver, Sunny Singh, Ece Temelkuran, Rob Temple, Bee Wilson, Sarah Winman
Postcolonial Conrad: Paradoxes of Empire (Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures #Vol. 12)
by Terry CollitsWinner of the 2006 NSW Prize for Literary Scholarship. The work of Joseph Conrad has been read so disparately that it is tempting to talk of many different Conrads. One lasting impression however, is that his colonial novels, which record encounters between Europe and Europe’s ‘Other’, are highly significant for the field of post-colonial studies. Drawing on many years of research and a rich body of criticism, Postcolonial Conrad not only presents fresh readings of his novels of imperialism, but also maps and analyzes the interpretative tradition they have generated. Terry Collits first examines the reception of the author’s work in terms of the history of ideas, literary criticism, traditions of ‘Englishness’, Marxism and post-colonialism, before re-reading Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo and Victory in greater depth. Collits’ incisive and wide-ranging volume provides a much needed reconsideration of more than a century of criticism, discussing the many different perspectives born of constantly shifting contexts. Most importantly though, the book encourages and equips us for twenty-first criticism, where we must ask anew how we might read and understand these crucial and fascinating novels.
Poster Child: A Memoir
by Emily RappEmily Rapp was born with a congenital defect that required, at the age of four, that her left foot be amputated. By the time she was eight she'd had dozens of operations and her entire leg below the knee had been amputated. She had also become the smiling, always perky, indefatigable poster child for the March of Dimes, and spent much of her childhood traveling around the Midwest making appearances and giving pep talks. All the while she was learning to live with what she called "my grievous, irrevocable flaw," and the paradox that being extraordinary was the only way to be ordinary. Poster Child is Rapp's unflinching, brutally honest and often darkly humorous account of wrestling with the tyranny of self-image as a teenager and then ultimately coming to terms with her own body as a young woman. It's about what it's like to live inside a broken body in a society that values beauty above almost everything else.
Poster Girl
by Beccy ColeBeccy Cole's inspirational memoir from the heart of Australian country music.Beccy Cole has country music in her blood. Daughter of a country music star, Carole Sturtzel, she is one of the most popular country singer-songwriters in Australia today. This is the story of her life - in her own words.At fourteen, Beccy was performing in her mother's group, Wild Oats. By her late teens, Beccy had teamed up with the Dead Ringer Band - Kasey Chambers' family band - and had attracted the attention of the country music world by winning the Star Maker quest: the same award that started the careers of Keith Urban, Lee Kernaghan, James Blundell and Gina Jeffreys. It was just the first of many awards and accolades for this multitalented woman with a big heart.With refreshing candour, Beccy shares her story: leaving everything she knew to pursue her dream, making a name for herself with her own band; her marriage and motherhood; her subsequent divorce, becoming a single mother and maintaining the nurturing love of family. Performing for the Australian troops in Afghanistan. Coming out, and what it has meant for her and her fans. Taking control of her own life - and finding love.Heartfelt and honest, Poster Girl is the inspirational memoir of a strong woman who epitomises the authentic spirit of country music, and of Australia.
Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography
by Stanley PlumlyAn acclaimed American poet reflects on the life and legacy of John Keats. Posthumous Keats is the result of Stanley Plumly's twenty years of reflection on the enduring afterlife of one of England's greatest Romanticists. John Keats's famous epitaph--"Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water"--helped cement his reputation as the archetype of the genius cut off before his time. Keats, dead of tuberculosis at twenty-five, saw his mortality as fatal to his poetry, and therein, Plumly argues, lies his tragedy: Keats thought he had failed in his mission "to be among the English poets."In this close narrative study, Plumly meditates on the chances for poetic immortality--an idea that finds its purest expression in Keats, whose poetic influence remains immense. Incisive in its observations and beautifully written, Posthumous Keats is an ode to an unsuspecting young poet--a man who, against the odds of his culture and critics, managed to achieve the unthinkable: the elevation of the lyric poem to sublime and tragic status.
Pot Shards: Fragments of a Life Lived in CIA, the White House, and the Two Koreas
by Donald P. Gregg“Donald Gregg’s career . . . would make a great spy novel. This autobiography makes an even better book.” —Tim Weiner, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and bestselling author of EnemiesPot Shards is a memoir, based on the author’s unforgettable experiences. He served as a CIA agent on the island of Saipan, during ten years in Japan, and a tour in Burma. He then spent four years tied up in the Vietnam War, two tours in Korea, the second time as ambassador, and spent ten years in the White House, where he worked for Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.“Don Gregg is that authentic and admirable thing: a great American. He spent most of his life serving his country: in the CIA, at the White House and as a US ambassador. He has stories to tell, many of them gripping, and they are beautifully and movingly recollected here in this memoir of a splendid life.” —Christopher Buckley “A personal witness to decades of largely hidden intelligence and diplomatic history, Donald Gregg recounts his unlikely and amazing career as a CIA officer, national security advisor, and US diplomat. His adventures and insider knowledge of US relations with East Asian nations over many decades make for a lively narrative, entertaining for the general reader and useful for serious scholars alike. Through it all, Ambassador Gregg expresses a natural warmth and concern for humanity that makes his story a truly personal journey.” —Nicholas Dujmovic, PhD, CIA Staff Historian, Center for the Study of Intelligence
Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism
by Ariella AzoulayA passionately urgent call for all of us to unlearn imperialism and repair the violent world we share, from one of our most compelling political theoristsIn this theoretical tour-de-force, renowned scholar Ariella Aïsha Azoulay calls on us to recognize the imperial foundations of knowledge and to refuse its strictures and its many violences.Azoulay argues that the institutions that make our world, from archives and museums to ideas of sovereignty and human rights to history itself, are all dependent on imperial modes of thinking. Imperialism has segmented populations into differentially governed groups, continually emphasized the possibility of progress while it tries to destroy what came before, and voraciously seeks out the new by sealing the past away in dusty archival boxes and the glass vitrines of museums.By practicing what she calls potential history, Azoulay argues that we can still refuse the original imperial violence that shattered communities, lives, and worlds, from native peoples in the Americas at the moment of conquest to the Congo ruled by Belgium's brutal King Léopold II, from dispossessed Palestinians in 1948 to displaced refugees in our own day. In Potential History, Azoulay travels alongside historical companions—an old Palestinian man who refused to leave his village in 1948, an anonymous woman in war-ravaged Berlin, looted objects and documents torn from their worlds and now housed in archives and museums—to chart the ways imperialism has sought to order time, space, and politics. Rather than looking for a new future, Azoulay calls upon us to rewind history and unlearn our imperial rights, to continue to refuse imperial violence by making present what was invented as &“past&” and making the repair of torn worlds the substance of politics.
Pothole Confidential: My Life as Mayor of Minneapolis
by R.T. RybakA pajama party at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport inadvertently helped launch R.T. Rybak&’s political career (imagine a rumba line one hundred protesters long chanting, &“We deserve to sleep, hey!&”), but his earliest lessons in leadership occurred during his childhood. Growing up in a middle-class neighborhood, attending private school with students who had much more than he did, spending evenings at his family&’s store in an area where people lived with much less, he witnessed firsthand the opportunity and injustice of the city he called home. In a memoir that is at once a political coming-of-age story and a behind-the-scenes look at the running of a great city, the three-term mayor takes readers into the highs and lows and the daily drama of a life inextricably linked with Minneapolis over the past fifty years. With refreshing candor and insight, Rybak describes his path through journalism, marketing, and community activism that led to his unlikely (to him, at least) primary election—on September 11, 2001. His personal account of the challenges and crises confronting the city over twelve years, including the tragic collapse of the I-35W bridge, the rising scourge of youth violence, and the bruising fight over a ban on gay marriage (with Rybak himself conducting the first such ceremony at City Hall on August 1, 2013), is also an illuminating, often funny depiction of learning the workings of the job, frequently on the fly, while trying to keep up with his most important constituency, his family. As bracing as the &“fresh air&” campaign that swept him into office, Rybak&’s memoir is that rare document from a politician: one more concerned with the people he served and the issues of his time than with burnishing his own credentials. As such, it reflects what leadership truly looks like.
Potomac Fever
by William J. Middendorf IIAfter a highly successful career in investment banking with his own firm and a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, J. William Middendorf became restive and looked for new challenges. Having "learned how to make money," he writes in this memoir, he "wanted to learn how to make a difference." Thus he became actively involved in politics, first at the local level in Connecticut and then with the presidential campaign of Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964 and as treasurer of the Republican National Committee. There followed a series of challenging public service appointments: ambassador to the Netherlands, Under Secretary and later Secretary of the Navy, ambassador to the Organization of American States, and ambassador to the European Community.Middendorf is a first-rate storyteller and has many tales to share--from his World War II Navy service, to his first job wearing a string of pearls in a bank vault, to a failed effort to bring a U.S.-style constitution to post-Soviet Russia. He recounts tales of villains and heroes, of narrow legislative victories on vital programs, of efforts to forestall war in the Falklands and to counter growing Communist control of the island of Grenada, as well as how the Navy won narrow but vital victories on such important programs as the Aegis missile system and the Trident submarine. Writing with the authority of someone who held a number of key government positions, his lively and revealing memoir is filled with many behind-the-scenes stories of critical events of the Cold War.
Poténciate: Conoce tu cuerpo y sácate partido
by Juan AvellanedaJuan Avellaneda, diseñador, icono e influencer de la moda española, y considerado uno de los hombres más elegantes de nuestro país, nos ofrece sus consejos de estilo para sacar el máximo partido de nosotros mismos. «Reconozco que yo también he tenido miedo: miedo al qué dirán, a si me aceptarán... Hasta que aprendí a dejar de lado los prejuicios y aceptar mi cuerpo tal como es. Con este libro, quiero ayudarte a proyectar la mejor imagen de ti mismo, la que habla realmente de ti, gracias a todo lo que he aprendido a lo largo de mi carrera como diseñador: qué estampados o cortes te favorecen más, cuáles son los colores que realzan mejor tu personalidad o cómo puedes potenciar aún más esa parte que tanto te gusta de ti. Ya es hora de reconciliarte con tu silueta y tu aspecto, y de descubrir tu estilo personal, porque lo que más importa es que te sientas bien tal como eres.» Ahora más que nunca toca sacar lo mejor de ti.
Poulenc: A Biography
by Roger NicholsAn authoritative account of the life and work of Francis Poulenc, one of the most prolific and striking figures in twentieth-century classical music Francis Poulenc is a key figure in twentieth-century classical music, as well as an unorthodox and striking individual. Roger Nichols draws upon Poulenc's music and other primary sources to write an authoritative life of this great artist. Although associated with five other French composers in what came to be called “Les Six”, Poulenc was very much sui generis in personality and in his music, where he excelled over a wide repertoire—opera, songs, ballet scores, chamber works, piano pieces, sacred and secular choral works, orchestral works and concertos. This book fully covers this wide range, while also describing the vicissitudes of Poulenc's life and the many important relationships he had with major figures such as Satie, Ravel, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Cocteau and others.
Poulenc: The Life In The Songs
by Graham JohnsonOne of the greatest modernist composers comes alive in this illuminating biography, a must-have for musicians and music-lovers alike. Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) is widely acknowledged as one of the twentieth century’s most significant masters of vocal music —solo, choral, and operatic— quite apart from his achievements in instrumental spheres. But what it cost him, and the determined bravery it took for his unusual talent to thrive, has always been underestimated. In this seminal biography, which will serve as the definitive guide to the songs, acclaimed collaborative pianist Graham Johnson shows that it is in Poulenc’s extraordinary songs, and seeing how they fit into his life —which included crippling guilt on account of his sexuality— that we discover Poulenc heart and soul. With Jeremy Sams’s vibrant new song translations, the first in over forty years, and the insight that comes from a lifetime of performing this music, Johnson provides an essential volume for singers, pianists, listeners, and readers interested in the artistic milieu of modernism in the first half of the twentieth century.