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Lincoln At Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln's Family Life
by David Herbert DonaldThis little book offers two glimpses of President Lincoln's life as a family man. The first section describes the Lincolns' life in the White House during the war whilst the second represents a collection of all the known letters exchanged by Abraham and Mary Lincoln and their children. Though most of the vast literature about Abraham Lincoln deals with his public life it is important to remember that Lincoln, during these critical events, also led a private life, defined by his intimate relationship with his wife and by his devotion to their children. Thus, by bringing these letters together, this book seeks to offer a portrait of Mrs. Lincoln unmarred by gossip and Abraham Lincoln as a devoted, if often desperately busy and distracted, family man.
Chamique
by Chamique Holdsclaw Jennifer FreyShe has been called the best woman basketball player ever, the player with the power to decide the direction of the WNBA. But the popularity of twenty-three-year-old Chamique Holdsclaw is rooted not only in her basketball status but also in her remarkable and inspiring life. Here, Chamique takes us on her journey, revealing her unstable and anxiety-ridden childhood with her parents and the escape she ultimately found by moving to her grandmother's housing project, where she discovered the restorative comforts of structure, focus, and basketball. As she finishes her first full year playing for the Washington Mystics and training for the 2000 Olympics, Chamique describes her ambitions, insecurities, frustrations, drives, and dreams, and credits a good part of her success and well-being to her disciplined, humble youth in Astoria, Queens -- a background that inspires in her fierce loyalty and pride. In these pages, Chamique relates what it felt like the first time she ever held a basketball in her hands, how she practiced dunking at age thirteen on a hidden court overlooking New York's East River, her four seasons playing at Tennessee and her transformative relationship with Coach Pat Summit, and her exhausting and exhilarating first year playing professionally and living on her own. She also looks inside to examine her strengths and weaknesses; what motivates her; why she doesn't drink; and how she thinks, both on and off the court. The unparalleled confidence she drew from discovering and nurturing her talent and her lifelong need for focus and discipline have infused both her adult personality and her basketball playing. She reveals her complicated and turbulent relationship with her parents; her total devotion to her younger brother, Davon; her complete admiration for and gratitude to her grandmother. Along the way, she shows the impact all of this has had on who she is and how she lives and plays. Interspersed with short testimonies from the people who know Chamique best -- her family, friends, coaches, and fellow players -- this book offers inspiration, insight, and a window on her life that speak not only to any child with a basketball and a dream, but also to the adults involved in their lives.
Beyond Valor
by Patrick K. O'DonnellPrevious books have promised to describe the combat experience of the World War II GI, but there has never been a book like Patrick O'Donnell's Beyond Valor. Here is the first combat history of the war in Europe in the words of the men themselves, and perhaps the most honest and brutal account of combat possible on the printed page. For more than fifty years the individual stories that make up this narrative -- shockingly frank reflections of sacrifice and courage -- have been bottled up, buried, or circulated privately. Now, nearing the ends of their lives, our WWII soldiers have at last unburdened themselves. Beyond Valor recaptures their hidden history. A pioneering oral historian, Patrick O'Donnell used his award-winning website, The Drop Zone, to solicit oral- and "e-histories" from individual soldiers. Gradually, working from within the community, O'Donnell convinced some of the war's most battle-hardened soldiers to tell their stories. The result is WWII seen through the eyes of the men who saw the most intense of its action. O'Donnell focuses on the elite units of the war -- the Rangers, Airborne, and 1st Special Service Force -- troops that spearheaded the most dangerous operations and often made the difference between victory and defeat. From more than 650 interviews O'Donnell has chosen oral- and e-histories that form a seamless story line, a pointillistic history of the war in Europe from the first parachute drops in North Africa through the final battles in Germany and the long trip home. It is the story of the war not discussed in polite company. O'Donnell presents the wreckage of entire battalions nearly annihilated, invisible personal scars, and haunting revelations of wartime atrocities. But more important are the men who recount lives risked without hesitation for comrades and cause, and those who did not return: the friends who died in their arms. Their stories remind all of us that victory came only at the highest price. Remembering the infamous cliffs at Pointe-du-Hoc, bloody Omaha Beach, the bitter fighting at the Battle of the Bulge, and Hill 400 in the Hürtgen Forest, the soldiers reveal war as seen, heard, and smelled by the GIs on the front line. Also included is the unique story of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, and the trailblazing African-American "Experimental" Test Platoon that had to fight its own battle behind the lines. Beyond Valor captures the truths that exist among soldiers. It is one of the most inspiring accounts of the war ever produced.
Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War
by Nick TaylorIn 1957 Gordon Gould, then an obscure physicist and perennial graduate student, conceived one of the revolutionary inventions of the twentieth century -- the laser. But before he could submit a patent application, a prominent professor of physics whose office was next door to Gould's filed his own laser patent claims. Gould fought to reclaim the rights to his work, beginning a battle that would last nearly thirty years. Many millions of dollars, as well as the integrity of scientific claims, were at stake in the litigation that ensued. Laseris Gould's story -- and an eye-opening look at the patent process in America, the nexus of the worlds of business and science. Gould was struggling to finish his Ph. D. thesis when he struck upon the concept for the laser, or Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Light waves, Gould realized, would form a single concentrated beam when reflected between two mirrors inside a gas-filled chamber. Even as he was sketching his invention, Gould foresaw the tremendous potential of the laser in industry, communications, and the military. For three days he feverishly documented his ideas in a notebook, which he had notarized in a candy store near his Bronx apartment. A small technology firm took a great interest in Gould's laser and soon won a Defense Department contract to develop lasers for the military. Ironically, Gould was denied a security clearance because of his past communist associations, and so was unable to work on his own invention. He could only watch from the sidelines as colleagues tried to build a working laser in a desperate race with larger, better-funded research labs. Meanwhile, Gould's rival, Charles Townes, had everything that Gould lacked, most notably important academic and government appointments and esteem in the scientific community. In the dispute between the two men, few doubted Townes's word, while nearly everyone scoffed at Gould's claims. But Gould's determination was unyielding, and he fought everyone who stood in his way, including the U. S. Patent Office, major corporations, and the entire laser industry, until he finally won. Gordon Gould, the courts ruled, had invented the laser. Laseris a grand story of technology and law. Nick Taylor has extensively interviewed Gould as well as other key participants in the battle over the laser's invention and patents. In this riveting account of genius, rivalry, and greed, he shows just how difficult it is for the legendary lone inventor to prevail when the license to a valuable invention is at stake.
The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton
by Peter BakerThe journalist who co-wrote the original article breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal for the Washington Post reveals the complete story behind the headlines: a riveting, in-depth account of an event unique in American history -- the first impeachment of an elected president. "For all of the titillation about thongs and cigars, the story of the impeachment and trial of William Jefferson Clinton was not so much about sex as it was about power. It may have started with an unseemly rendezvous near the Oval Office, but it mushroomed into the Washington battle of a generation, ultimately dragging in all three branches of government.... "Clinton opened his second term vowing to bring the parties together, to become the 'repairer of the breach.' But the last half of the presidency demonstrated that the breach was wider than anyone had anticipated." -- from the Prologue With unprecedented access to all the players -- major and minor -- Washington Post reporter Peter Baker reconstructs the compelling drama that gripped the nation for six critical months: the impeachment and trial of William Jefferson Clinton. The Breach vividly depicts the mind-boggling political and legal events as they unfolded, a day-by-day and sometimes hour-by-hour account beginning August 17, 1998, the night of the president's grand-jury testimony and his disastrous speech to the nation, through the House impeachment hearings and the Senate trial, ending on February 12, 1999, the day of his acquittal. Using 350 original interviews, confidential investigation files, diaries, and tape recordings, Baker goes behind the scenes and packs the book with newsworthy revelations -- the infighting among the president's advisers, the pressure among Democrats to call for Clinton's resignation, the secret back-channel negotiations between the White House and Congress, a tour of the War Room set up by Tom DeLay to force Clinton out of office, the agonizing of various members of Congress, the anxiety of lawmakers who feared the exposure of their own sex lives, and Hillary Clinton's learning that her husband would admit his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The Breach is contemporary history at its best -- shocking, revealing, and consequential. It is a tale of how Washington became lost in "the breach" of its own partisan impulses. All of this, and much more, makes The Breach one of the most important and illuminating volumes of history and contemporary politics of our generation.
Chocolate for a Woman's Blessings
by Kay AllenbaughInspirational stories are themselves like chocolate--they warm our hearts and lift our spirits. These incredibly touching and true stories narrate how women have played important roles as mothers, wives and friends, sharing each other's joys and sorrows through the years. Here readers can learn lessons that teach us how we should appreciate what we have, to love the life we are given and to be as strong as the lighthouses that withstand the fury of the stormy sea, guiding lost sailors to their right destinations.
Scandalmonger
by William SafireThis book is set at the end of the eighteenth century, and it reveals details about the intimate lives of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. The author recounts the dramatic clash of the Founders and the first journalists, drawn from actual events of the nation's beginnings. Scandalmonger is dramatized history at its best and presidential politics at its most fascinating.
Feasting the Heart
by Reynolds PriceIn the fall of 1993, Alice Winkler of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" asked Reynolds Price to write a short story for a Christmas morning broadcast. This assignment would result in NPR's inviting Price to join its varied group of commentators on "All Things Considered." The laws of radio require a concision that has become a welcome new discipline for Price; and here are all the personal essays which he has broadcast since July 25, 1995. Whether recounting events from his past, examining the details of his current experience as a writer, teacher, traveler, and general witness of the world, Price demonstrates in his direct prose that a writer can instantly connect with his audience. He discusses a few predictable topics -- family, the poisonous mysteries of racial intolerance, and faith -- but he also deals with new matters: capital punishment, Gone With the Wind, his adventures while navigating an immensely inaccessible America in a wheelchair; and he provides a memorable piece on childlessness. Throughout, Price never loses sight of the origin of either the word or the spirit of the essay -- the French word connotes a try, an attempt -- and each piece here is a well-formed, revealing, often amusing and refreshing foray into a moment unlike any we've encountered in other forms from him. We're unlikely to read more thought-provoking work from a commentator for a great time to come.
On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft
by Stephen KingTwentieth Anniversary Edition with Contributions from Joe Hill and Owen KingONE OF TIME MAGAZINE&’S TOP 100 NONFICTION BOOKS OF ALL TIME Immensely helpful and illuminating to any aspiring writer, this special edition of Stephen King&’s critically lauded, million-copy bestseller shares the experiences, habits, and convictions that have shaped him and his work. &“Long live the King&” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King&’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer&’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King&’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.
Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara
by Jerry StillerThe current generation knows him as the serenity-seeking Frank Costanza from Seinfeld. An older generation knows him as one-half of the comedy team Stiller and Meara. But, as his memoir,Married to Laughter, reveals, Jerry Stiller has had a lifelong love affair with entertainment. Growing up during the Depression in Brooklyn and on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Jerry Stiller discovered the power of comedy when, as a child, he saw Eddie Cantor transform an audience. Jerry's father often took him to vaudeville performances, where Jerry decided that he, too, wanted to make people laugh. He studied drama at Syracuse University, where a charismatic professor inspired Jerry to believe that he could achieve his dream and become a successful actor. After Syracuse, Jerry returned to New York to begin a life in the theater. Jerry soon met Anne Meara. Even before he fell in love with her, he knew she was a remarkable person. At first they encouraged each other in their separate performances, but eventually they began doing a comedy act in the coffeehouses of New York's Greenwich Village. They created a brilliantly successful act with two characters who were exaggerated versions of themselves. Before long, they were regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show, the most popular television program of the day. Stiller and Meara was a smash hit. But Jerry's first love has always been the theater, and he writes with fondness and charm about his nearly fifty years in show business -- from summer stock to the early days of Joe Papp's pioneering Shakespeare in the Park, from his Broadway performance in Hurlyburly to his roles in such films as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Ritz, Seize the Day, and Hairspray. He describes the genesis of the hugely successful Blue Nun radio commercials that he and Anne recorded, the first of many award-winning advertisements they would make together. Jerry takes us inside his life offstage, describing with great candor his personal and professional neuroses, including some unusual experiences in therapy. He recounts hilarious stories about the Stiller family and tells wonderful tales about such friends and colleagues as Walter Matthau, Colleen Dewhurst, Mike Nichols, F. Murray Abraham, and Henny Youngman. But most of all, he describes life with Anne, showing us his admiration for her as a performer and describing how she gave him the insight into acting that he'd long sought. Married to Laughter is a great love story about two people who found their place in show business without ever losing sight of each other.
Kitchen Privileges: A Memoir (Biblioteca Mary Higgins Clark Ser.)
by Mary Higgins ClarkIn her long-awaited memoir, Mary Higgins Clark, America's beloved and bestselling Queen of Suspense, recounts the early experiences that shaped her as a person and influenced her as a writer. Even as a young girl, growing up in the Bronx, Mary Higgins Clark knew she wanted to be a writer. The gift of storytelling was a part of her Irish ancestry, so it followed naturally that she would later use her sharp eye, keen intelligence, and inquisitive nature to create stories about the people and things she observed. Along with all Americans, those who lived in New York City's borough of the Bronx suffered during the Depression. So it followed that when Mary's father died, her mother, deciding to open the family home to boarders, placed a discreet sign next to the front door that read, FURNISHED ROOMS. KITCHEN PRIVILEGES. Very shortly the first in a succession of tenants arrived: a couple dodging bankruptcy who moved in with their wild-eyed boxer; a teacher who wept endlessly over her lost love; a deadbeat who tripped over a lamp while trying to sneak out in the middle of the night. . . The family's struggle to make ends meet; her days as a scholarship student in an exclusive girls' academy; her after-school employment as a hotel switchboard operator (happily listening in on the guests' conversations); the death of her beloved older brother in World War II; her brief career as a flight attendant for Pan Am (a job taken after a friend who flew with the airline said ever so casually, "God, it was beastly hot in Calcutta"); her marriage to Warren Clark, on whom she'd had a crush for many years; sitting at the kitchen table, writing stories, and finally selling the first one for one hundred dollars (after six years and some forty rejections!) -- all these experiences figure into Kitchen Privileges, as does her husband's untimely death, which left her a widowed mother of five young children. Determined to care for her family and to make a career for herself, she went to work writing scripts for a radio show, but in her spare time she began writing novels. Her first, a biographical novel about the life of George Washington titled Aspire to the Heavens, found a publisher but disappeared without a trace when the publisher folded. (Recently it was rediscovered by a descendant of the Washington family and was reissued under the title Mount Vernon Love Story. ) The experience, however, gave her the background and the preparation for writing Where Are the Children? which went on to become an international bestseller. That novel launched her career and was the first of twenty-seven (and still counting!) bestselling books of suspense. As Mary Higgins Clark has said when asked if she might consider giving up writing for a life of leisure, "Never! To be happy for a year, win the lottery. To be happy for life, love what you do. "In Kitchen Privileges, she reflects on the joy that her life as a writer has brought her, and shares with readers the love that she has found.
My Love Affair with America
by Norman PodhoretzIn this touching and delightful memoir, Norman Podhoretz charts the ups and downs of his lifelong love affair with his native land, and warns that to turn against America, from the Right no less than from the Left, is to fall into the rankest ingratitude. While telling the story of how he himself grew up to be a fervent patriot, one of this country's leading conservative thinkers urges his fellow conservatives to rediscover and reclaim their faith in America. A superb storyteller, Podhoretz takes us from his childhood as a working-class kid in Brooklyn during the Great Depression -- the son of Jewish immigrants singing Catholic hymns in a public school staffed by Irish spinsters and duking it out on the streets with his black and Italian classmates -- to his later education, his shifting political alliances, and his arrival at a happy personal and intellectual resolution. My Love Affair with America shows us a gentler and funnier Podhoretz than readers have seen before. At the same time, it presents a picture of someone eager to proclaim, against all comers, that America represents one of the high points in the history of human civilizations. In this powerful, elegantly written, and poignant cautionary tale, Podhoretz pleads with his fellow conservatives not to fall, as some have lately done, into their own special brand of anti-Americanism, as he reminds them of the disastrous consequences that followed the assault by the New Left against the United States in decades gone by. Warm in feeling and brilliantly perceptive, My Love Affair with America points the way back to a thoroughly unabashed love of country -- the kind of patriotism that has rarely been encountered in recent years and that is as invigorating as it is inspiring.
Losing My Mind: An Intimate Look at Life with Alzheimer's
by Thomas DebaggioDiagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 57, the author describes his life as doctors try to treat him for the condition, and his inevitable decline. Also discusses diagnoses and treatments for the disease.
Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War
by Frances FitzgeraldWay Out There in the Blue is a major work of history by the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Fire in the Lake. Using the Star Wars missile defense program as a magnifying glass on his presidency, Frances FitzGerald gives us a wholly original portrait of Ronald Reagan, the most puzzling president of the last half of the twentieth century. Reagan's presidency and the man himself have always been difficult to fathom. His influence was enormous, and the few powerful ideas he espoused remain with us still -- yet he seemed nothing more than a charming, simple-minded, inattentive actor. FitzGerald shows us a Reagan far more complex than the man we thought we knew. A master of the American language and of self-presentation, the greatest storyteller ever to occupy the Oval Office, Reagan created a compelling public persona that bore little relationship to himself. The real Ronald Reagan -- the Reagan who emerges from FitzGerald's book -- was a gifted politician with a deep understanding of the American national psyche and at the same time an executive almost totally disengaged from the policies of his administration and from the people who surrounded him. The idea that America should have an impregnable shield against nuclear weapons was Reagan's invention. His famous Star Wars speech, in which he promised us such a shield and called upon scientists to produce it, gave rise to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Reagan used his sure understanding of American mythology, history and politics to persuade the country that a perfect defense against Soviet nuclear weapons would be possible, even though the technology did not exist and was not remotely feasible. His idea turned into a multibillion-dollar research program. SDI played a central role in U.S.-Soviet relations at a crucial juncture in the Cold War, and in a different form it survives to this day. Drawing on prodigious research, including interviews with the participants, FitzGerald offers new insights into American foreign policy in the Reagan era. She gives us revealing portraits of major players in Reagan's administration, including George Shultz, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Regan and Paul Nitze, and she provides a radically new view of what happened at the Reagan-Gorbachev summits in Geneva, Reykjavik, Washington and Moscow. FitzGerald describes the fierce battles among Reagan's advisers and the frightening increase of Cold War tensions during Reagan's first term. She shows how the president who presided over the greatest peacetime military buildup came to espouse the elimination of nuclear weapons, and how the man who insisted that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire" came to embrace the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and to proclaim an end to the Cold War long before most in Washington understood that it had ended. Way Out There in the Blue is a ground-breaking history of the American side of the end of the Cold War. Both appalling and funny, it is a black comedy in which Reagan, playing the role he wrote for himself, is the hero.
And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer
by Ann RuleFrom the #1 New York Times–bestselling author, the true story of a woman’s disappearance after her affair with a married man is a “true page-turner” (Booklist).The author of fifteen New York Times bestsellers, Ann Rule, a former Seattle policewoman, has researched thousands of homicides and understands every facet of murder investigation. Now, in the most shocking book of her long career, she explores the details of a fatal affair between a beautiful young woman and a widely admired millionaire attorney who was an immensely popular political figure.On June 27, 1996, thirty-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, a secretary for the governor of Delaware, had dinner with a married man she had been having a secret affair with for more than two years. “Tommy” Capano, forty-seven, was perhaps the most politically powerful man in Wilmington. Son of a wealthy contractor, former state prosecutor, partner in a prestigious law firm, advisor to governors and mayors, Tom Capano had a soft-spoken and considerate manner that endeared him to many. But sometime after 9:15 that night when Anne Marie and Tom left the restaurant, something terrible happened to Anne Marie. It would be forty-eight hours before her brothers and sisters realized that she had disappeared entirely.Ann Rule brilliantly traces the lives of both Fahey and Capano as she discloses the intimate details of their ill-fated connection. A vulnerable, trusting woman becomes spellbound by a charming, duplicitous married man, and what begins as a seemingly unremarkable affair is slowly transformed into an obsessive, convoluted, and deadly relationship.“ [A] truly creepy true-crime story.” —People“[Rule] tell[s] the sad story with authority, flair, and pace.” —The Washington Post
The White Sharks of Wall Street: Thomas Mellon Evans and the Original Corporate Raiders
by Diana B. HenriquesIt almost seems that Thomas Mellon Evans was a man so far ahead of his contemporaries that he had moved into the shadows before the full force of his business style had dawned on the rest of corporate America. At every step in his career, he was barging in where few would follow -- at first. But follow they did, at last." -- from the PrologueThe first in-depth portrait of the life and times of the trailblazing financier Thomas Mellon Evans -- the man who pursued wealth and power in the 1950s with a brash ruthlessness that forever changed the face of corporate America. Long before Michael Milken was using junk bonds to finance corporate takeovers, Thomas Mellon Evans used debt, cash, and the tax code to obtain control of more than eighty American companies. Long before investors began to lobby for "shareholder's rights," Evans was demanding that public companies be run only for their shareholders -- not for their employees, their executives, or their surrounding communities. To some, Evans's merciless style presaged much that is wrong with corporate life today. To others, he intuitively knew what was needed to keep America competitive in the wake of a global war. In The White Sharks of Wall Street, New York Times investigative reporter Diana Henriques provides the first biography of this pivotal figure in American business history. She also portrays the other pioneering corporate raiders of the postwar period, such as Robert Young and Louis Wolfson, and shows how these men learned from one another and advanced one another's takeover tactics. She relates in dramatic detail a number of important early takeover fights -- Wolfson's challenge to Montgomery Ward, Young's move on the New York Central Railroad, the fight for Follansbee Steel -- and shows how they foreshadowed the desperate battle waged by Tom Evans's son, Ned Evans, to keep the British raider Robert Maxwell away from his Macmillan publishing empire during the 1980s. Henriques also reaches beyond the business arena to tally the tragic personal cost of Evans's pursuit of success and to show how the family dynasty shattered when his sons were driven by his own stubbornness and pride to become his rivals. In the end, the battling patriarch faced his youngest son in a poignant battle for control at the Crane Company, the once-famous Chicago plumbing and valve company that Tom Evans had himself seized in a brilliant takeover coup twenty-five years earlier. The White Sharks of Wall Street is a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary man, whose career blazed across the sky and then sank into obscurity -- but not before he had provided the template for how American business would operate for the next four decades.
Amelia Earhart
by Elgen M. Long Marie K. LongWhen Amelia Earhart disappeared on July 2, 1937, she was flying the longest leg of her around-the-world flight and was only days away from completing her journey. Her plane was never found, and for more than sixty years rumors have persisted about what happened to her. Now, with the recent discovery of long-lost radio messages from Earhart's final flight, we can say with confidence that she ran out of gas just short of her destination of Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean. From the beginning of her flight, a series of tragic circumstances all but doomed her and her navigator, Fred Noonan. Authors Elgen M. and Marie K. Long spent more than twenty-five years researching the mystery surrounding Earhart's final flight before finally determining what happened. They traveled over one hundred thousand miles to interview more than one hundred people who knew some part of the Earhart story. They draw on authoritative sources to take us inside the cockpit of the Electra plane that Earhart flew and recreate the final flight itself. Because Elgen Long began his own flying career not long after Earhart's disappearance, he can describe the equipment and conditions of the time with a vivid first-hand accuracy. As a result, this book brings to life the primitive conditions under which Earhart flew, in an era before radar, with unreliable communications, grass landing strips, and poorly mapped islands. Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved does more than just answer the question, What happened to Amelia Earhart? It reminds us how daring early aviators such as Earhart were as they risked their lives to push the technology of the day to its limits -- and beyond.
No Tears In Ireland: A Memoir
by Sylvia CouturiéOn a cool, end-of-July morning in 1939, eleven year-old Sylvia Couturie and her eight-year-old sister, Marguerite, escorted by their Irish nanny, "Wally," left their family's elegant French chateau for a fantastically ill-timed vacation. Expecting their parents to join them in a month, they embarked in high spirits on this rare adventure outside their privileged but tightly confined orbit of horses and hunts, servants and boarding schools. They sensed the distant rumblings of trouble on the edges of their world, but it would have been inconceivable that their long-awaited holiday would become a prolonged imprisonment, that their difficult governess would become their tyrannical jailer. It would defy belief to think that these daughters of privilege would soon be forced to fight for survival in a strange land as the world descended into war, with only the indomitable spirit of a little girl to carry them through. Cut off from their family as France falls to the Germans, the penniless threesome is reduced to living in a miserable cottage without indoor plumbing on a remote strip of the Irish coast. As the months turn into years, Sylvia becomes aware that Wally is more concerned with preserving her status as their guardian than with securing their welfare and is slipping into dementia. Denied any meaningful education and cut off by Wally from all but the most fleeting human contact, the girls endure, saved only by Sylvia's extraordinary resourcefulness and the occasional kindness of strangers. Kept from home by Hitler's invaders, they are shocked and wounded by the pro-German sentiments of the anti-British locals. As they strain to make sense of their new and unrecognizable reality and are forced to deal with complex issues of bigotry and adult lunacy, the simplified yet profoundly astute worldview of the child is brilliantly conveyed. As German bombers fleeing British fighters during the battle of Britain terrorize the cowering threesome by dropping unused bombs in the ocean near their cottage, Sylvia finds strength in Churchill's voice on the BBC and promises him not to cry until victory is won, her touchingly unique contribution to the war effort. The painstaking wait for word from home, the daily trials of survival, and the crushing loneliness of childhood are evoked with devastating simplicity. Reconstructed from Couturie's surviving childhood diary, this unforgettable narrative of the resilience of children chronicles her desperate fight for something approaching normalcy. In the process, she delivers an indelible portrait of an obscure corner of the earth, remote from the historic events of the day and yet the starkly beautiful backdrop for the often overlooked story of powerless children on the outer edges of a world gone mad. This is the heartbreaking memoir of a childhood interrupted, of a way of life lost and a new one found, of exile and homecoming in a world restored to peace but forever changed. Sylvia Couturie grew up in France and Ireland. She has lived in New York, where two of her three sons were born, and in Vietnam, where she was "the voice of France in the Far East" on Radio Saigon, She lives in Paris and at Le Mesnil, her country home.
Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945
by Leo MarksLeo Marks, the head of Special Operations Executive, reveals many unknown truths about the Second World War in this memoir. Marks' ingenious work was to devise numeric codes printed on silk and to improve the security of the agent's codes. He played an important part in the deciphering of important enemy codes which culminated in the early end of the war.
HO
by David HalberstamOne of the most influential leaders of the twentieth century, Ho Chi Minh was founder of the Indochina Communist Party and its successor, the Viet-Minh, and was president from 1945 to 1969 of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). In exploring the life and career of Ho Chi Minh, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam provides a window into traditions and culture that influenced the American war in Vietnam, while highlighting the importance of nationalism in determining the war's outcome. As depicted by Halberstam, Ho is first and foremost a nationalist and a patriot. He was also, according to the author, a pragmatist "who was able to turn the abstract into the practical and to embody the concept of revolution to his own people." This edition includes a new preface by the author.
A Time Of Paradox: America Since 1890
by Glen JeansonneIn this lively and provocative synthesis, distinguished historian Glen Jeansonne explores the people and events that shaped America in the twentieth century. Comprehensive in scope, A Time of Paradox offers a balanced look at the political, diplomatic, social and cultural developments of the last century while focusing on the diverse and sometimes contradictory human experiences that characterized this dynamic period. Designed with the student in mind, this cogent text provides the most up to date analysis available, offering insight into the divisive election of 2004, the War on Terror and the Gulf Coast hurricanes. Substantive biographies on figures ranging from Samuel Insull to Madonna give students a more personalized view of the men and women who influenced American society over the past hundred years.
Twelve Greeks and Romans Who Changed the World
by Carl J. RichardIn Twelve Greeks and Romans Who Changed the World, Carl J. Richard brings to life a group of men whose contributions fundamentally altered western society. In this compelling narrative, readers encounter a rich cast of characters, including eloquent Homer, shrewd Pericles, fiery Alexander, idealistic Plato, ambitious Caesar, dedicated Paul, and passionate Augustine. As he vibrantly describes the contributions of the individuals, Richard details the historical context in which each lived, showing how these men influenced their world and ours.
Giants in Their Time: Representative Americans from the Jazz Age to the Cold War
by Norman K. RisjordIn Giants in their Time, the latest volume in the Representative Americans Series, noted historian Norman Risjord uses biographical sketches to create a composite portrait of the United States during this dynamic and trying period. From sketches of Aimee Semple McPherson to Duke Ellington, Robert Oppenheimer to the Nisei Japanese, Risjord makes the past more vivid and concrete, revealing a heritage that present-day readers can feel and experience.
Big Life Lessons from that Still, Small Voice
by Lisa MasonIn Big Life Lessons from that Still, Small Voice, Lisa Mason returns to her journalistic roots to chronicle the way God speaks to us. Combining present-day observations with stories of the past, her tale takes readers on an honest, sometimes heartbreaking, journey. From witnessing the ravages of HIV on the human body, to accepting an Emmy award, to experiencing the shock of the Oklahoma City bombing, this non-fiction text does not attempt to convert readers to Christianity, nor is it filled with scripture. It does, however, remind readers that to know God, one only has to listen for His Still, Small Voice.
Barack Obama
by Sarah ParvisA concise biography with candid photos revealing the story behind the history-making American president. Get an inside look at the remarkable forty-fourth president of the United States. The first African American U.S. president and the first politician to apply twenty-first-century technology to an election and the presidency, he brought change to a nation during his eight years in office—and also changed history. From local community reformer to commander-in-chief, Barack Obama has lived the American dream. This is his story in pictures and in words.