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Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains
by Anita Yasuda**A CALDECOTT HONOR BOOK!****A New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year!**Anita Yasuda’s evocative picture book biography about Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Everest, is equal parts grit and grace. Dazzlingly illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Yuko Shimizu.“An inspiring biography of a trailblazing woman, lyrically told and lushly illustrated. This important story reminds us that pursuing our dreams can not only empower us but others as well.” —Andrea Wang, bestselling author of the Newbery Honor– and Caldecott Medal–winning Watercress“A heartwarming and inspiring story of how climbing can ultimately connect us back down with the earth and those around us.” —Ashima Shiraishi, bestselling author of How to Solve a Problem: The Rise (and Falls) of a Rock-Climbing Champion“If the world doesn't know who Junko Tabei was, then this is the introduction.” —Ken Mochizuki, bestselling author of Baseball Saved UsJunko Tabei dreamed of a life climbing mountains. But men refused to climb with her. Sponsors told her to stay home. And gloves were not made to fit her hands. Junko, eager and unstoppable, wouldn’t let these obstacles get in her way.Instead, she planned an expedition to summit Mount Everest with an all-women team. Battling icy peaks, deep crevasses, and even an avalanche, Junko refused to give up. She climbed step by step . . . up, up, ever up!After summiting the world’s tallest peak, Junko took on a new challenge: protecting the wild spaces she loved for future generations.This gorgeously illustrated celebration of a trailblazing climber who shattered gender stereotypes invites us to dare to reach our dreams—no matter how big.
Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story
by Victor BockrisThe Velvet Underground is arguably one of the most influential American rock bands ever. Based on interviews with former members Lou Reed, John Cale, and Sterling Morrison, as well as others from Andy Warhol's circle of artistic collaborators, Up-Tight is the definitive oral and visual history of the band and its revolutionary, often avant-garde music. Bockris and Malanga's intelligent and entertaining approach-which does not shy away from the drugs, sleaze, and controversy that enveloped the band seemingly from its inception-provides compulsive reading.
Up: A Mother and Daughter's Peakbagging Adventure
by Patricia Ellis HerrWhen Trish Herr became pregnant with her first daughter, Alex, she and her husband, Hugh, vowed to instill a bond with nature in their children. By the time Alex was five, her over-the-top energy levels led Trish to believe that her very young daughter might be capable of hiking adult-sized mountains.In Up, Trish recounts their always exhilarating--and sometimes harrowing--adventures climbing all forty-eight of New Hampshire's highest mountains. Readers will delight in the expansive views and fresh air that only peakbaggers are afforded, and will laugh out loud as Trish urges herself to "mother up" when she and Alex meet an ornery--and alarmingly bold--spruce grouse on the trail. This is, at heart, a resonant, emotionally honest account of a mother's determination to foster independence and fearlessness in her daughter, to teach her "that small doesn't necessarily mean weak; that girls can be strong; and that big, bold things are possible."
Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War: Letters of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore Families, 1853–1865
by Tom Moore CraigThis collection of Civil War correspondence chronicles the lives and concerns of three Confederate families in Piedmont, South Carolina.The letters in Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War provide valuable firsthand accounts of both battlefronts and the home front, sharing rich details about daily life as well as evolving attitudes toward the war. As the men of service age from each family join the Confederate ranks, they begin writing from military camps in Virginia and the Carolinas, describing combat in some of the war’s more significant battles. Though they remain staunch patriots to the Southern cause until the bitter end, the surviving combatants write candidly of their waning enthusiasm in the face of the realities of combat. The corresponding letters from the home front offer a more pragmatic assessment of the period and its hardships. Emblematic of the fates of many Southern families, the experiences of these representative South Carolinians are dramatically illustrated in their letters from the eve of the Civil War through its conclusion.
Updike
by Adam Begley“A brilliant biography. . . . The joys are . . . discovering the autobiographical content of the . . . details that populate Updike’s vast fictional universe.” —Orhan Pamuk, The New York Times Book ReviewAdam Begley offers an illuminating portrait of John Updike, Pulitzer prize–winning novelist, poet, short-story writer, and critic who saw himself as a literary spy in small-town and suburban America, who dedicated himself to the task of transcribing “middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities.”Updike explores the writer’s beloved home turf of Berks County, Pennsylvania; his escape to Harvard; his working life as the golden boy at The New Yorker; his family years in suburban Ipswich, Massachusetts; his extensive travel abroad; and his retreat to Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, where he remained until his death in 2009. Drawing from in-depth research as well as interviews with the writer’s colleagues, friends, and family, Begley explores how Updike’s fiction was shaped by his tumultuous personal life—including his enduring religious faith, his two marriages, and his first-hand experience of the “adulterous society” he was credited with exposing in the bestselling Couples.With a sharp critical sensibility, Begley probes Updike’s best-loved works—from Pigeon Feathers to The Witches of Eastwick to the Rabbit tetralogy—and reveals a surprising and deeply complex character fraught with contradictions. Updike offers an admiring yet balanced look at one of American literature’s most treasured authors.“A superb achievement. . . . as rewarding as Updike’s best fiction.” —Scott Stossel, The Boston Globe“A monumental treatment of a towering American writer.” —The New York Observer“A highly literate illumination of a supremely literate human being.” —Louis Menand, The New Yorker
Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail
by Andrea LaniOne grouchy husband. Three reluctant kids. Five hundred miles of wilderness. And one woman, determined to escape the humdrum existence of modern parenting and a toxic work environment and to confront the history of environmental damage wreaked by westward expansion and the Anthropocene. In Uphill Both Ways Andrea Lani walks us through the Southern Rockies, describing how the region has changed since the discovery of gold in 1859. At the same time, she delves into the history of her family, who immigrated to Leadville to work in the mines, and her own story of hiking the trail in her early twenties before returning two decades later, a depressed middle-aged mom in East Coast exile seeking happiness in a childhood landscape. On the 489-mile trek from Denver to Durango on the Colorado Trail, Lani&’s family traveled through stunning scenery and encountered wildflowers, wildlife, and too many other hikers. They ate cold oatmeal in a chilly, wet tent and experienced scorching heat, torrential thunderstorms, and the first nip of winter. Her kids grew in unimaginable ways, and they became known as &“the family of five,&” an oddity along a trail populated primarily by solo men. As they inched along the trail, Lani began to exercise disused smile muscles, despite the challenges of hiking in a middle-aged body, maintaining her children&’s safety and happiness, and contending with marital discord. She learned that being a slow hiker does not make one a bad hiker and began to uncover the secret to happiness.
Uphill Walkers: Portrait of a Family
by Madeleine BlaisIn 1952, Madeleine Blais's father died suddenly, leaving his pregnant wife and their five young children to face their future alone. Uphill Walkers is the story of how the Blais family pulled together to survive and ultimately thrive in an era when a single-parent family was almost unheard-of. As they came of age in an Irish-American household that often struggled to make ends meet, the Blais children would rise again and again above all obstacles — at every step of the way inspired by a mother who expected much but gave even more, as she saved and sacrificed to provide each child with the same education they would have received had their father lived. Beautiful, heartbreaking, and full of wonderful insights about sisterhood, brotherhood, and the ties that bind us together, Uphill Walkers is a moving portrait of the love it takes to succeed against the odds — and what it means to be a family. "In plain-spoken prose ... Uphill Walkers has a remarkable dignity and eloquence." — Carmela Ciuraru, USA Today "Beautiful ... This is the story of a family, united by blood, pride, and the bonds that defy logic." — Ellen Kanner, The Miami Herald "Scrupulously candid and deeply compassionate...." — Reeve Lindbergh, The Washington Post Book World
Uphill: A Memoir
by Jemele HillOne of Oprah Daily's Best Fall Nonfiction Books of 2022An empowering, unabashedly bold memoir by the Atlantic journalist and former ESPN SportsCenter coanchor about overcoming a legacy of pain and forging a new path, no matter how uphill life’s battles might be.Jemele Hill’s world came crashing down when she called President Trump a “white supremacist”; the White House wanted her fired from ESPN, and she was deluged with death threats. But Hill had faced tougher adversaries growing up in Detroit than a tweeting president. Beneath the exterior of one of the most recognizable journalists in America was a need—a calling—to break her family’s cycle of intergenerational trauma. Born in the middle of a lively routine Friday night Monopoly game to a teen mother and a heroin-addicted father, Hill constantly adjusted to the harsh realities of not only her own childhood but the inherited generational pain of her mother and grandmother. Her escape was writing. Hill’s mother was less than impressed with the brassy and bold free expression of her diary, but Hill never stopped discovering and amplifying her voice. Through hard work and a constant willingness to learn, Hill rose from newspaper reporter to columnist to new heights as the coanchor for ESPN’s revered SportsCenter. Soon, she earned respect and support for her fearless opinions and unshakable confidence, as well as a reputation as a trusted journalist who speaks her mind with truth and conviction. In Jemele Hill’s journey Uphill, she shares the whole story of her work, the women of her family, and her complicated relationship with God in an unapologetic, character-rich, and eloquent memoir.
Uplifting Stories: True Tales to Inspire You to Take Action
by Ione ButlerThis collection of inspirational narratives, curated by the popular founder of Uplifting Content, is sure to change your perspective—and maybe even restore your faith in humanity.If you can&’t bear to watch the news lately, you&’re not alone. Luckily, Ione Butler is here to offer you an alternative—and maybe even restore your faith in humanity. As the founder of Uplifting Content, a social media platform followed by over 1.4 million people, she has interviewed some of the most inspiring people in the world. Here, she shares their remarkable stories and the lessons they&’ve learned to help you through life&’s many challenges. Among the amazing folks you&’ll meet is Kyle Maynard, a motivational speaker and the first quadruple amputee to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro without the aid of prosthetics—thanks to his &“no excuses&” attitude. You&’ll also meet Destiny Watford, a high school student whose passionate activism helped save her town, once dubbed &“the most polluted zip code in America,&” and Kouhyar Mostashfi and Greg Smith, two men from Ohio with completely opposing political views who have done the seemingly impossible and set aside their differences to become great friends. At the end of each story, you&’ll also find exercises to help you take action in your own life—whether by asking deeper questions about what&’s important to you, forging new connections and nurturing existing relationships, or reflecting on the contributions you wish to make in the world. The stories explore themes like human connection, service to others, and the pursuit of passion. Butler, who struggled with depression herself, firmly believes that focusing on the good in the world helped bring her back from the brink. Uplifting Stories reminds you that the world is still full of great people—even if their voices sometimes get lost in the noise.
Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary, 1939–1944
by Aranka SiegalThe classic true story of one child's experiences during the holocaust.Nine-year-old Piri describes the bewilderment of being a Jewish child during the 1939-1944 German occupation of her hometown (then in Hungary and now in the Ukraine) and relates the ordeal of trying to survive in the ghetto. Upon the Head of the Goat is the winner of the 1982 Boston Globe - Horn Book Award for Nonfiction and a 1982 Newbery Honor Book.“This is a book that should be read by all those interested in the Holocaust and what it did to young and old.” —Isaac Bashevis Singer
Upon the Ruins of Liberty: Slavery, the President's House at Independence National Historical Park, and Public Memory
by Roger C. AdenThe 2002 revelation that George Washington kept slaves in his executive mansion at Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park in the 1790s prompted an eight-year controversy about the role of slavery in America's commemorative landscape. When the President's House installation opened in 2010, it became the first federal property to feature a slave memorial. In Upon the Ruins of Liberty, Roger Aden offers a compelling account that explores the development of this important historic site and how history, space, and public memory intersected with contemporary racial politics. Aden constructs this engrossing tale by drawing on archival material and interviews with principal figures in the controversy-including historian Ed Lawler, site activist Michael Coard, and site designer Emanuel Kelly. Upon the Ruins of Liberty chronicles the politically-charged efforts to create a fitting tribute to the place where George Washington (and later, John Adams) shaped the presidency while denying freedom to the nine enslaved Africans in his household. From design to execution, the plans prompted advocates to embrace stories informed by race, and address difficulties that included how to handle the results of the site excavation. As such, this landmark project raised concerns and provided lessons about the role of public memory and how places are made to shape the nation's identity.
Upper Bohemia: A Memoir
by Hayden HerreraA poignant coming-of-age memoir by the daughter of artistic, bohemian parents—set against a backdrop of 1950s New York, Cape Cod, and Mexico.Hayden Herrera&’s parents each married five times; following their desires was more important to them than looking after their children. When Herrera was only three years old, her parents separated and she and her sister moved from Cape Cod to New York City to live with their mother and their new hard-drinking stepfather. They saw their father only during summers on the Cape, when they and the other neighborhood children would be left to their own devices by parents who were busy painting, writing, or composing music. These adults inhabited a world that Herrera&’s mother called &“upper bohemia,&” a milieu of people born to privilege who chose to focus on the life of the mind. Her parents&’ friends included such literary and artistic heavyweights as artist Max Ernst, writers Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, architect Marcel Breuer, and collector Peggy Guggenheim. On the surface, Herrera&’s childhood was idyllic and surreal. But underneath, the pain of being a parent&’s afterthought was acute. Upper Bohemia captures the tension between a child&’s excitement at every new thing and her sadness at losing the comfort of a reliable family. For her parents, both painters, the thing that mattered most was beauty—and so her childhood was expanded by art and by a reverence for nature. But her early years were also marred by abuse and by absent, irresponsible adults. Herrera would move from place to place, parent to parent, relative to family friend, and school to school—eventually following her mother to Mexico. The step-parents and step-siblings kept changing, too. Intimate and honest, Upper Bohemia is a celebration of a wild and pleasure-filled way of living—and a poignant reminder of the toll such narcissism takes on the children raised in its grip.
Upper Cut
by Carrie WhiteI was living a hairdresser's dream. I was making my mark in this all-male field. My appointment book was filled with more and more celebrities. And I was becoming competition for my heroes . . . Behind the scenes of every Hollywood photo shoot, TV appearance, and party in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, there was Carrie White. As the "First Lady of Hairdressing," Carrie collaborated with Richard Avedon on shoots for Vogue, partied with Jim Morrison, gave Sharon Tate her California signature style, and got high with Jimi Hendrix. She has counted Jennifer Jones, Betsy Bloomingdale, Elizabeth Taylor, Goldie Hawn, and Camille Cosby among her favorite clients. But behind the glamorous facade, Carrie's world was in perpetual disarray and always had been. After her father abandoned the family when she was still a child, she was sexually abused by her domineering stepfather, and her alcoholic mother was unstable and unreliable. Carrie was sipping cocktails before her tenth birthday, and had had five children and three husbands before her twenty-eighth. She fueled the frenetic pace of her professional life with a steady diet of champagne and vodka, diet pills, cocaine, and heroin, until she eventually lost her home, her car, her career--and nearly her children. But she battled her way back, getting sober, rebuilding her relationships and her reputation as a hairdresser, and today, the name Carrie White is once again on the door of one of Beverly Hills's most respected salons. An unflinching portrayal of addiction and recovery, Upper Cut proves that even in Hollywood, sometimes you have to fight for a happy ending.
Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life
by Carrie WhiteI was living a hairdresser's dream. I was making my mark in this all-male field. My appointment book was filled with more and more celebrities. And I was becoming competition for my heroes . . . Behind the scenes of every Hollywood photo shoot, TV appearance, and party in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, there was Carrie White. As the "First Lady of Hairdressing," Carrie collaborated with Richard Avedon on shoots for Vogue, partied with Jim Morrison, gave Sharon Tate her California signature style, and got high with Jimi Hendrix. She has counted Jennifer Jones, Betsy Bloomingdale, Elizabeth Taylor, Goldie Hawn, and Camille Cosby among her favorite clients. But behind the glamorous facade, Carrie's world was in perpetual disarray and always had been. After her father abandoned the family when she was still a child, she was sexually abused by her domineering stepfather, and her alcoholic mother was unstable and unreliable. Carrie was sipping cocktails before her tenth birthday, and had had five children and three husbands before her twenty-eighth. She fueled the frenetic pace of her professional life with a steady diet of champagne and vodka, diet pills, cocaine, and heroin, until she eventually lost her home, her car, her career--and nearly her children. But she battled her way back, getting sober, rebuilding her relationships and her reputation as a hairdresser, and today, the name Carrie White is once again on the door of one of Beverly Hills's most respected salons. An unflinching portrayal of addiction and recovery, Upper Cut proves that even in Hollywood, sometimes you have to fight for a happy ending. * Includes sixty rare photographs*
Uppity: My Untold Story About The Games People Play
by Bill White Willie MaysThere are very few major personalities in the world of sports who have so much to say about our National Pastime. And even fewer who are as well respected as Bill White.Bill White, who's now in his mid 70s, was an All-Star first baseman for many years with the New York Giants, St.Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies before launching a stellar broadcasting career with the New York Yankees for 18 years. He left the broadcast booth to become the President of the National League for five years. A true pioneer as an African-American athlete, sportscaster, and top baseball executive, White has written his long-awaited autobiography in which he will be candid, open, and as always, most forthcoming about his life in baseball. Along the way, White shares never-before-told stories about his long working relationship with Phil Rizzutto, insights on George Steinbrenner, Barry Bonds, Reggie Jackson, Thurman Munson, Bob Gibson, Bart Giamatti, Fay Vincent, and scores of other top baseball names and Hall of Famers. Best of all, White built his career on being outspoken, and the years fortunately have not mellowed him. UPPITY is a baseball memoir that baseball fans everywhere will be buzzing about.
Upriver (The Alaska Literary Series)
by Carolyn KremersPoet, nonfiction writer, and lifelong musician Carolyn Kremers moved to Alaska to teach in the remote Bering Sea coast village of Tununak when she was thirty-four. Her first book, Place of the Pretend People: Gifts from a Yup’ik Eskimo Village (a memoir), probed and celebrated that experience. Upriver continues the chronicle of Kremers’ personal journey deep into Alaska and the human soul. Mixing music, Yup’ik language, the natural world, honesty, and an intimate sense of the spiritual and the unobtainable, Kremers presents a cascade of poems made of beauty and pain. The poems fall into five settings—Tununak, the Interior, Shape-Shifting, Return to the Y-K Delta, and Fairbanks. Like salmon swimming instinctively upriver—toward home—this story confronts what it means and how it feels to love a person or a place, no matter the consequences.
Uproot: Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture
by Jace Clayton“A meditation on how sounds are made, circulated and used by people around the world.” —GuardianIn 2001, Jace Clayton was an amateur DJ who recorded a three-turntable, sixty-minute mix called Gold Teeth Thief and put it online to share with his friends. Within months, the mix became an international calling card, whisking Clayton away to a sprawling, multitiered nightclub in Zagreb, a tiny gallery in Osaka, a former brothel in São Paolo, and the atrium of MoMA. And just as the music world made its fitful, uncertain transition from analog to digital, Clayton found himself on the front lines of an education in the creative upheavals of art production in the twenty-first-century globalized world.Uproot is a guided tour of this newly opened cultural space, mapped with both his own experiences and his relationships with other industry game-changers such as M.I.A. and Pirate Bay. With humor, insight, and expertise, Clayton illuminates the connections between a Congolese hotel band and the indie rock scene, Mexican surfers and Israeli techno, Japanese record collectors and hidden rain-forest treasure, and offers an unparalleled understanding of music in a digital age. Uproot takes readers behind the turntable decks to tell a story that only a DJ—and writer—of this caliber can tell.
Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again
by Page Dickey"An intimate, lesson-filled story of what happens when one of America&’s best-known garden writers transplants herself, rooting in to a deeper partnership with nature than ever before." —Margaret Roach, author of A Way to Garden When Page Dickey moved away from her celebrated garden at Duck Hill, she left a landscape she had spent thirty-four years making, nurturing, and loving. She found her next chapter in northwestern Connecticut, on 17 acres of rolling fields and woodland around a former Methodist church. In Uprooted, Dickey reflects on this transition and on what it means for a gardener to start again. In these pages, follow her journey: searching for a new home, discovering the ins and outs of the landscape surrounding her new garden, establishing the garden, and learning how to be a different kind of gardener. The surprise at the heart of the book? Although Dickey was sad to leave her beloved garden, she found herself thrilled to begin a new garden in a wilder, larger landscape. Written with humor and elegance, Uprooted is an endearing story about transitions—and the satisfaction and joy that new horizons can bring.
Uprooted: A Memoir of a Marriage
by Esti SklootWhen pregnant Esther—a young, adventurous, British-born Israeli—follows her new husband, Steve, to America, she has no idea what she’s getting herself into. Even before their baby is born, Esther discovers the dark side of her charming film production manager husband, and learns that she must cope with his moodiness and domineering personality. Left alone day after day in a high-rise apartment in Queens, Esther struggles with culture shock, homesickness, and adapting her husband’s whims—like the baby goat he brings home to their eighth-floor apartment to keep as a pet. Ten years and two more children later, thirty-four-year-old Steve is diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Despite aggressive treatments, he succumbs to the disease, leaving Esther to care for their three children alone, Esther at first feels lost and bewildered; as time goes on, however, she discovers that there is a freedom in her new situation—and that she has a greater inner strength than she ever before realized.
Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We've Left Behind
by Grace Olmstead"A superior exploration of the consequences of the hollowing out of our agricultural heartlands."—Kirkus ReviewsIn the tradition of Wendell Berry, a young writer wrestles with what we owe the places we&’ve left behind. In the tiny farm town of Emmett, Idaho, there are two kinds of people: those who leave and those who stay. Those who leave go in search of greener pastures, better jobs, and college. Those who stay are left to contend with thinning communities, punishing government farm policy, and environmental decay. Grace Olmstead, now a journalist in Washington, DC, is one who left, and in Uprooted, she examines the heartbreaking consequences of uprooting—for Emmett, and for the greater heartland America. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Uprooted wrestles with the questions of what we owe the places we come from and what we are willing to sacrifice for profit and progress. As part of her own quest to decide whether or not to return to her roots, Olmstead revisits the stories of those who, like her great-grandparents and grandparents, made Emmett a strong community and her childhood idyllic. She looks at the stark realities of farming life today, identifying the government policies and big agriculture practices that make it almost impossible for such towns to survive. And she explores the ranks of Emmett&’s newcomers and what growth means for the area&’s farming tradition. Avoiding both sentimental devotion to the past and blind faith in progress, Olmstead uncovers ways modern life attacks all of our roots, both metaphorical and literal. She brings readers face to face with the damage and brain drain left in the wake of our pursuit of self-improvement, economic opportunity, and so-called growth. Ultimately, she comes to an uneasy conclusion for herself: one can cultivate habits and practices that promote rootedness wherever one may be, but: some things, once lost, cannot be recovered.
Upside Down: Madness, Murder, and the Perfect Marriage
by Jerid M. FisherTimothy Wells and Christine Sevilla's love was inspiring. Married for almost twenty years, the husband and wife passionately adored each other. Friends, family, and acquaintances all wished to have a relationship as solid as that of Tim and Christine. There was no sign that their marriage was anything less than ideal-until the day Wells brutally murdered his wife.This deep, disturbing exploration of the psyche of Timothy Wells is not a whodunit but a "whydunit." Written with Wells's cooperation, this riveting account thoroughly presents the circumstances leading up to Sevilla's murder. It features interviews and letters from the Wells and Sevilla families as well as testimony from friends, neighbors, and ex-spouses. Trapped inside his own mind, Wells' emotional insecurities left him with no escape from his severe depression and swiftly multiplying anxieties. In chilling detail, this true narrative traces the path of a man doomed by his own inner demons.
Upstairs At The White House: my life with the first ladies
by J. B. WestJ B West was Assistant usher in the white house from FDR's last term through 1969. he tells what the people who lived there were like in all phases of their time in the white house.
Upstairs at the Roosevelts': Growing Up with Franklin and Eleanor
by Curtis RooseveltCurtis Roosevelt knew what it was like to live with a president. His grandfather was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From the time Curtis, with his sister, Eleanor, and recently divorced mother, Anna Roosevelt Dall, moved into his grandparents’ new home—the White House—Curtis played, learned, slept, ate, and lived in one of the most famous buildings in the world with one of its most famous residents. Curtis Roosevelt offers anecdotes and revelations about the lives of the president and First Lady and the many colorful personalities in this presidential family. From Eleanor’s shocking role in the remarriage of Curtis’s mother to visits from naughty cousins and trips to the “Home Farm,” Upstairs at the Roosevelts’ provides an intimate perspective on the dynamics of one of America’s most famous families and those who visited, were friends, and sometimes even enemies.
Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies
by Mary Lynn Kotz J. B. WestIn this New York Times bestseller, the White House chief usher for nearly three decades offers a behind-the-scenes look at America&’s first families. J. B. West, chief usher of the White House, directed the operations and maintenance of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—and coordinated its daily life—at the request of the president and his family. He directed state functions; planned parties, weddings and funerals, gardens and playgrounds, and extensive renovations; and, with a large staff, supervised every activity in the presidential home. For twenty-eight years, first as assistant to the chief usher, then as chief usher, he witnessed national crises and triumphs, and interacted daily with six consecutive presidents and first ladies, as well as their parents, children and grandchildren, and houseguests—including friends, relatives, and heads of state. J. B. West, whom Jackie Kennedy called &“one of the most extraordinary men I have ever met,&” provides an absorbing, one-of-a-kind history of life among the first ladies. Alive with anecdotes ranging from Eleanor Roosevelt&’s fascinating political strategies to Jackie Kennedy&’s tragic loss and the personal struggles of Pat Nixon, Upstairs at the White House is a rich account of a slice of American history that usually remains behind closed doors.
Upstate
by Sallie BinghamA woman's obsession drives an affair out of control, violating social contracts and devastating the people in its path. For years, Ann and David shared weekends and holidays with country friends Flora and Edwin, even after womanizing Edwin took Ann away to pick grapes and started a year-long affair. The ground rules were clear from the start: Flora accepted what she called Edwin's meaningless "things," and Edwin stipulated no divorces. But Ann's empty marriage (to which David was providing neither money nor sex) and growing need for Edwin causes her to ask for more, leading to estrangement and a startling climax.