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Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir
by Chris MitchellThis is the story that Disney would never tell you. What do you do when everything in your life falls apart? If you're Chris Mitchell, you run away from home--all the way to Disney World, a place where no one ever dies--and employees, known as Cast Members, aren't allowed to frown. Mitchell shares the behind-the-scenes story of his year in the Mouse's army. From his own personal Disneyfication, to what really happens in the hidden tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom and what not to eat at the Mousketeria, it was a year filled with more adventure--and surprises--than he could ever have "imagineered." Funny and moving, Mitchell tracks his ascent through the backstage social hierarchy in which princesses rule, and his escapades in the "Ghetto" where Cast Members live and anything goes. Along the way, he unmasks the misfits and drop-outs, lifers and nomads who leave their demons at the stage door as they preserve the magic that draws millions to this famed fantasyland--the same magic that Mitchell seeks and ultimately finds in the last place he ever expected. Chris Mitchell is an action sports photographer and journalist who grew up in Los Angeles. He was a senior at UCLA when he started his first magazine, an inline skating publication, and sold it to Sports & Fitness Publishing. Within a few years, he was working on five magazines within The Surfer Group. He continues to work closely with a number of publications and websites, as well as event and TV production companies like ESPN, ASA Entertainment and Lifelounge. He is a recognized expert in action sports, and as such, has stunt coordinated dozens of productions, including Batman and Robin, Brink! and Airborne. He is also the Chairman of the International Inline Stunt Federation for the advancement of extreme skating as a healthy and safe activity. After spending a year working as a photographer at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, he moved back to Los Angeles, where he currently lives.
Cast No Shadow
by Mary S. LovellThe legend of Betty Pack is simple enough. She was a beautiful American spy recruited first by the British Secret lntelligence Service in 1938 and later by the American OSS. Her method of obtaining information was singular: seduction. In Cast No Shadow Mary Lovell, author of Straight On Till Morning, the internationally acclaimed and best-selling biography of Beryl Markham, gives us for the first time the complete story behind the legend of this modern-day Mata Hari, a story more astounding than the legend.Betty Pack's milieu was the aristocratic world of international diplomatic society The wife of a career British diplomat-the marriage for both partners had quickly become an arrangement of convenience, not passion - Betty would be witness to and participant in many of the most intense historic moments of the twentieth century: in civil war-torn Madrid, besieged Warsaw occupied Paris, wartime Washington. In each locale, Betty's entrée into diplomatic circles and her own penchant for seeking out men at the center of conflict made her a spy whose love of adventure was matched only by her talent for uncovering the enemy's secrets. Betty often knew what information her spymasters wanted; more important, she knew whom to approach and seduce in order to obtain it.Relying on top-secret and heretofore unrevealed documents from British Intelligence as well as on Betty's own memoir written shortly before her death, Mary Lovell offers a remarkable portrait of a woman whose adeptness for intrigue in affairs of espionage and passion is astonishing. Cast No Shadow is a story of subterfuge and romantic expediency the exposes the hidden human intrigue of World War II and the life of a woman whose contribution to the Allied effort was invaluable and unique.
Cast No Shadow
by Mary S. LovellThe legend of Betty Pack is simple enough. She was a beautiful American spy recruited first by the British Secret lntelligence Service in 1938 and later by the American OSS. Her method of obtaining information was singular: seduction. In Cast No Shadow Mary Lovell, author of Straight On Till Morning, the internationally acclaimed and best-selling biography of Beryl Markham, gives us for the first time the complete story behind the legend of this modern-day Mata Hari, a story more astounding than the legend.Betty Pack's milieu was the aristocratic world of international diplomatic society The wife of a career British diplomat-the marriage for both partners had quickly become an arrangement of convenience, not passion - Betty would be witness to and participant in many of the most intense historic moments of the twentieth century: in civil war-torn Madrid, besieged Warsaw occupied Paris, wartime Washington. In each locale, Betty's entrée into diplomatic circles and her own penchant for seeking out men at the center of conflict made her a spy whose love of adventure was matched only by her talent for uncovering the enemy's secrets. Betty often knew what information her spymasters wanted; more important, she knew whom to approach and seduce in order to obtain it.Relying on top-secret and heretofore unrevealed documents from British Intelligence as well as on Betty's own memoir written shortly before her death, Mary Lovell offers a remarkable portrait of a woman whose adeptness for intrigue in affairs of espionage and passion is astonishing. Cast No Shadow is a story of subterfuge and romantic expediency the exposes the hidden human intrigue of World War II and the life of a woman whose contribution to the Allied effort was invaluable and unique.
Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of The New Yorker
by Thomas VinciguerraThe professional and personal lives of the pioneers of an enduring magazine. From its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, The New Yorker slowly but surely took hold as the country's most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In Cast of Characters, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine's cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, brilliant writers and editors. He introduces us to Wolcott Gibbs, theater critic, all-around wit, and author of an infamous 1936 parody of Time magazine. We meet the demanding and eccentric founding editor Harold Ross, who would routinely tell his underlings, "I'm firing you because you are not a genius," and who once mailed a pair of his underwear to Walter Winchell, who had accused him of preferring to go bare-bottomed under his slacks. Joining the cast are the mercurial, blind James Thurber, a brilliant cartoonist and wildly inventive fabulist, and the enigmatic E. B. White--an incomparable prose stylist and Ross's favorite son--who married The New Yorker's formidable fiction editor, Katharine Angell. Then there is the dashing St. Clair McKelway, who was married five times and claimed to have no fewer than twelve personalities, but was nonetheless a superb reporter and managing editor alike. Many of these characters became legends in their own right, but Vinciguerra also shows how, as a group, The New Yorker's inner circle brought forth a profound transformation in how life was perceived, interpreted, written about, and published in America. Cast of Characters may be the most revealing--and entertaining--book yet about the unique personalities who built what Ross called not a magazine but a "movement."
Cast of Riverdale: Issue #3 (Scoop! The Unauthorized Biography #3)
by C. H. MitfordIntroducing a new series of unauthorized biographies on the world's biggest names and rising stars in entertainment, sports, and pop culture! Complete with quizzes, listicles, trivia, and a full-color pull-out poster of the star, this is the definitive collection to get the full Scoop! and more on your favorite celebrities.Riverdale has got it all: • Dangerous gangs. Check. • Murder mysteries. Plenty. • High-school drama. *Side eye roll* • Awkward love triangles. Where do we even begin? While we can all agree Hiram is LITERALLY the worst, one question remains: Will Jughead ever take off his beanie???Get the full Scoop! and more on your favorite cast's on-screen drama, their IRL relationships, and to find out who your spirit character is...Are you a Betty Cooper or a Veronica Lodge? An Archie or Jughead? Or maybe you're a Hiram after all?
The Cast-Off Kids
by Trisha MerryOne hot summer's afternoon, two abandoned infants are brought to Trisha and Mike Merry's door, forlorn and afraid. Their mother walked out on them. (They don't remember her.) Their grandmother tried, but couldn't manage them. And now their young father has given up on them too. These cast-off kids desperately need somewhere to live and a family to love them. They've come to the right place. Trisha and Mike welcome them into their home and their hearts. There are now ten children under five in this household, where every day is filled with cuddles, fun . . . and more than a few challenges. After ten eventful years of love and laughter, they are reclaimed by their jealous mother, a stranger, who sets fire to their memories and sends them to a succession of care homes. Finally the younger one sets out on a quest to find the only two people who have ever loved him.
Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness
by Robert Aquinas McNallyJohn Muir is widely and rightly lauded as the nature mystic who added wilderness to the United States&’ vision of itself, largely through the system of national parks and wild areas his writings and public advocacy helped create. That vision, however, came at a cost: the conquest and dispossession of the tribal peoples who had inhabited and managed those same lands, in many cases for millennia. Muir argued for the preservation of wild sanctuaries that would offer spiritual enlightenment to the conquerors, not to the conquered Indigenous peoples who had once lived there. &“Somehow,&” he wrote, &“they seemed to have no right place in the landscape.&”Cast Out of Eden tells this neglected part of Muir&’s story—from Lowland Scotland and the Wisconsin frontier to the Sierra Nevada&’s granite heights and Alaska&’s glacial fjords—and his take on the tribal nations he encountered and embrace of an ethos that forced those tribes from their homelands. Although Muir questioned and worked against Euro-Americans&’ distrust of wild spaces and deep-seated desire to tame and exploit them, his view excluded Native Americans as fallen peoples who stained the wilderness&’s pristine sanctity. Fortunately, in a transformation that a resurrected and updated Muir might approve, this long-standing injustice is beginning to be undone, as Indigenous nations and the federal government work together to ensure that quintessentially American lands from Bears Ears to Yosemite serve all Americans equally.
Castaway
by Lucy IrvineTHE SHOCKING STORY OF A DESERT ISLAND DREAM THAT WENT SOUR'Writer seeks "wife" for a year on tropical island.' The opportunity to escape from it all was irresistible. Lucy Irvine answered the advertisement - and found herself alone on a remote desert island with a 'husband' she hardly knew.Lucy Irvine fell in love with the seductive, if cruel, beauty of that untouched Eden, whose power to enslave and enchant her never slackened throughout the whole of her amazing adventure.Uncompromisingly candid and sometimes shocking, Castaway is her compulsively readable account of a desert island dream which threatened to turn into a nightmare of illness, thirst and personal antipathy.Now a film by Nicholas Roeg starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed,
Castaway: The remarkable true story of the French cabin boy abandoned in nineteenth-century Australia
by Robert Macklin'Macklin recounts, with beautiful detail, the following years of Narcisse's life and his transformation . . . a great read for anyone interested in Australia and its overlooked history'Ronan Breathnach, Irish Examiner 'A truly remarkable account drawing upon a version Pelletier gave when he eventually returned to his native France and also on anthropological studies of the Daintree people.' Piers Akerman, Daily Telegraph, Sydney 'An unforgettable tale of transformation and upheaval.'Stuart McLean, Daily Telegraph, SydneyA young boy abandoned in an alien landscape thousands of miles from home is adopted by local people and becomes one of them, welcomed into their community, marrying a wife and raising a child. After seventeen years, he is stolen back to his 'real' life, where he has another family, but dreams constantly of what he has left behind.This is the remarkable true story of a French cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier who, after disembarking from his ship the Saint-Paul with the rest of its crew in search of drinking water, found himself separated from his shipmates and in the end abandoned on the north coast of Queensland, Australia. Narcisse was adopted by an Aboriginal group who welcomed him as one of their own for seventeen years, during which time he had a family of his own. In 1875, though, he was kidnapped by the brig John Bell and was returned eventually to his family in Saint-Gilles, France, where he became a lighthouse keeper. Robert Macklin makes skilful use of Narcisse's own memoir Chez les sauvages along with new research to tell this extraordinary story.Robert is a Queenslander so knows the terrain and the people of the area in which Narcisse was left behind. Through Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute, he has arranged to meet descendants of the people who took the French cabin boy in and who know the stories of his time in Australia. Robert has also had access to a great deal of material on the early history of the Cape through the Australian National Library. He has drawn on the significant resources of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) in Canberra on Aboriginal culture and history in Queensland and the Cape. In addition, he has made use of Narcisse Pelletier's own writings, including his account of his time in Australia, as well as several contemporaneous accounts of the Kennedy expedition to the area, including one from a member of the party. The author has made several trips to Cape York and one to Saint-Gilles and Saint-Nazaire in France.
Castaway: The extraordinary survival story of Narcisse Pelletier, a young French cabin boy shipwrecked on Cape York in 1858
by Robert MacklinIn 1858, 14-year-old Narcisse Pelletier sailed from Marseilles in the French trader Saint-Paul. With a cargo of Bordeaux wine, they stopped in Bombay, then Hong Kong, and from there they set sail with more than 300 Chinese prospectors bound for the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo. Around the eastern tip of New Guinea, however, the ship became engulfed in fog, struck reefs and ran aground. Scrambling aboard a longboat, the survivors undertook a perilous voyage, crossing almost 1000 kilometres of the Coral Sea before reaching the shores of the Daintree region in far north Queensland, where, abandoned by his shipmates and left for dead, Narcisse was rescued by the local Aboriginal people. For seventeen years he lived with them, growing to manhood and participating fully in their world - until in 1875 he was discovered by the crew of a pearling lugger and wrenched from his Aboriginal family. Taken back to his 'real' life in France, he became a lighthouse keeper, married and had another family, all the while dreaming of what he had left behind...Drawing from firsthand interviews with Narcisse after his return to France and other contemporary accounts of exploration and survival, and documenting the spread of European settlement in Queensland and the brutal frontier wars that followed, Robert Macklin weaves an unforgettable tale of a young man caught between two cultures in a time of transformation and upheaval.
Castaway Kid
by R. B. MitchellRob Mitchell is one of the last “lifers” raised in an American orphanage. Left by a dysfunctional family in an Illinois children's home, he grew up with kids who were not friends but rather “co-survivors.” After becoming a Christian as a teenager, Rob found what he was looking for, home and family, in a relationship with God. Rob was able to overcome his past, forgiving his relatives and forging healthy family relationships of his own.
Castelo: Diario de un ironista
by Carla Castelo Daniela CasteloLa vida del humorista y periodista contada por sus hijas. Un Castelo íntimo y desconocido, atravesado siempre por las anécdotas desopilantes, la inteligencia y la elegancia. Castelo se definía a sí mismo como un ironista. Por eso sus hijas eligieron este término para contar su historia. Su trabajo fue tan irreverente y novedoso que llegó mucho más lejos de lo que alguna vez imaginó. Fue un transgresor popular. De la mano del humor absurdo y la sátira creó memorables publicaciones, fue pionero de los programas radiales a la medianoche y revolucionó la televisión con ciclos como «Semanario insólito» y «La noticia rebelde». Trabajó con la pasión de un artista que al final del recorrido encuentra cómo decir lo que quiere y que lo entienda la gran mayoría de la gente. Pero Castelo fue también el pibe de la pelota de trapo, el hijo de la portera, el joven de Don Bosco, el enamorado incondicional de Elena a pesar de su infidelidad crónica, el papá de Daniela y Carla. Recién después de los cuarenta su genio se hizo público. El hombre que logró informar y entretener con calidad.
Castile for Isabella (Isabella and Ferdinand Trilogy #1)
by Jean PlaidyWith fifteen-century Spain rent with intrigue and threatened by civil war, Isabella became the pawn of her ambitious, half-crazed mother and a virtual prisoner at the licentious court of her half-brother, Henry IV. Was she, at sixteen, fated to be the victim of the Queen's revenge, the Archbishop's ambition and the lust of Don Pedro Giron, one of the most notorious lechers in Castile? Numbed with grief and fear, Isabella yet remained steadfast in her determination to marry Ferdinand, the handsome young Prince of Aragon, her only true betrothed . . .
El Castillo de San Miguel
by Laura CaputoUna periodista, un conocido boss de la camorra que está en la cárcel desde hace años, pero que sigue siendo poderoso y temido. La periodista se desplaza a su pueblo natal, haciendo preguntas y tratando de entender. Conoce a la esposa, a la familia, a los amigos y a los enemigos. Naturalmente, se encuentra con la camorra, y, mientras el boss sugiere la posibilidad de colaborar, ella vive una experiencia real, entre amenazas e intimidaciones de todo tipo.
Casting into the Light: Tales of a Fishing Life
by Janet MessineoTales of a champion surfcaster: the education of a young woman hell-bent on following her dream and learning the mysterious and profound sport, and art, of surfcasting, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. Janet Messineo knew from the get-go that she wanted to become a great fisherman. She knew she was as capable as any man of catching and landing a huge fish. It took years—and many terrifying nights alone on the beach in complete darkness, in search of a huge creature to pull out of the sea—for her to prove to herself and to the male-dominated fishing community that she could make her dream real. Messineo writes of the object of her obsession: striped bass and how it can take a lifetime to become a proficient striped bass fisherman; of stripers as nocturnal feeders, hard-fighting, clever fish that under the cover of darkness trap bait against jetties or between fields of large boulders near shorelines, or, once hooked, rub their mouths against the rocks to cut the line. She writes of growing up in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Salem, New Hampshire, the granddaughter of textile mill workers, tagging along with her father and brother as they cast off of jetties; of going to art school, feeling from a young age the need to escape, and finding herself, one summer, on the Vineyard. She describes the series of jobs that supported her fishing—waitressing at the Black Dog, Helios, and the Home Port, among other restaurants. She writes of her education in patience and the technique to land a fish; learning the equipment—hooks, sinkers, her first squid jig; buying her first one-ounce Rebel lure. She re-creates the thrill of fishing at night, of being buffeted by the island’s harsh winds and torrential rains; the terror of hooking something mysterious in the darkness that might pull her into water over her head. She gives us a rich portrait of island life and writes of its history and of Chappaquiddick’s (it belonged to the Wampanoags, who originally called it Cheppiaquidne—“separate island”); of the Martha’s Vineyard Derby: its beginning in 1946 as a way to bring tourism to the island during the offseason, and the Derby’s growing into one of the largest tournaments in the world. Messineo describes her dream of becoming a marine taxidermist, of learning the craft and perfecting the art of it. She writes of the men she’s fished with and the women who forged the path for others (among them, Lorraine “Tootie” Johnson, who fished Vineyard waters for more than sixty years, and Lori VanDerlaske, who won the Derby shore division in 1995). And she writes of her life commingled with fishing—her marriage to a singer, poet, activist; their adopting a son with Asperger’s; and her teaching him to fish. She writes of the transformative power of fishing that helped her to shake off drugs and alcohol, and of her profound respect for fish as a magnificent animal. With eighteen of the author’s favorite fish recipes, Casting into the Light is a book about following one’s dreams and about the quiet reckoning with self in the long hours of darkness at the water’s edge, with the sounds of the ocean, the night air, and the jet-black sky.
Casting Lots: A Mother's Story
by Susan SilvermanFrom activist, speaker, mother of five, and rabbi Susan Silverman (sister of comedian Sarah): a funny, moving, sparkling memoir about home, identity, family, and faith.
The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont
by Shawn Levy"Fascinating, dishy, and glimmering with insight." --Cheryl Strayed"A fabulously fizzy account." --Vanity Fair"I want to live inside this book!" --Taylor Jenkins ReidThe definitive history of Hollywood's most iconic, storied, and scandalous hotelFor ninety years, Hollywood's brightest stars have favored the Chateau Marmont as a home away from home. An apartment house-turned-hotel, it has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: 1930s bombshell Jean Harlow took lovers during her third honeymoon there; director Nicholas Ray slept with his sixteen-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Anthony Perkins and Tab Hunter met poolside and began a secret affair; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies, once falling nearly to his death; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose in a private bungalow; Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months.Perched above the Sunset Strip like a fairytale castle, the Chateau seems to come from another world entirely. Its singular appearance houses an equally singular history. While a city, an industry, and a culture have changed around it, Chateau Marmont has welcomed the most iconic and iconoclastic personalities in film, music, and media. It appeals to the rich and famous not just for its European ambiance but for its seclusion: Much of what's happened inside the Chateau's walls has eluded the public eye.Until now. With wit and insight, Shawn Levy recounts the wild revelries and scandalous liaisons, the creative breakthroughs and marital breakdowns, the births and deaths that the Chateau has been a party to. Vivid, salacious, and richly informed, Levy's book is a glittering tribute to Hollywood as seen from inside the walls of its most hallowed hotel.
Castle Point in the Great War (Your Towns & Cities in the Great War)
by Ken Porter Stephen WynnPrior to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, the Castle Point District was madeup of four very quaint, peaceful little parishes: Canvey Island, South Benfleet,Hadleigh and Thundersley. The initial enthusiasm shown by the young men of thisarea, who were enthusiastic to be part of an adventure that was to be over byChristmas, was mirrored by thousands of other courageous young men aroundBritain. Most understood that it was their sworn duty to stand up for their king andcountry. They didnt stop to think or even fully appreciate the hardship and fear theywould leave behind on the home front.This book tells of the memories and recollections of some of these brave men whowere fortunate enough to return home to their friends and families. For the ones whowerent so lucky, we hear from the people who endured the pain of a love lost forevermore.Included throughout are a collection of invaluable wartime newspaper reports thatrecount daily life, telling of the sacrifices that those left behind had to endure whilstreading about the war dead, their numbers increasing on an almost daily basis.From the extraordinary role of women during the war, the conscientious objectorsand those exempt from the fighting, to the aftermath of war when the districtcelebrated victory while dealing with the painful loss of 189 men, all aspects ofwartime Castle Point are covered in this remarkable account, interspersed with anumber of wartime poems that further explain in verse what life was like during thesedark days.
Castlereagh
by John BewThe best political biography of the year' Jonathan Sumption, Spectator'Wonderful . . . A Life so nearly complete it need never be written again' Ferdinand Mount, Times Literary SupplementBy the author of the Orwell Prize-winning Citizen ClemDamned in coruscating verse by Shelley and Byron, his coffin hissed at during his funeral, Lord Castlereagh has one of the blackest reputations in British history. But as John Bew shows, this is but a half-drawn portrait. His gripping biography reveals a shy, inarticulate but passionate man; a towering political figure of implacable principles who redrew the map of Europe, fought a duel with a cabinet colleague and would tragically take his own life amid rumours of scandal and madness.
Castles In The Air: The Restoration Adventures of Two Young Optimists and a Crumbling Old Mansion
by Judy CorbettCastles in the Air is a beautifully written, autobiographical story of rescuing an ancient mansion. Gwydir Castle was inhabited by ravers and rats until Judy Corbett and her husband Peter Welford found and acquired this 500-year-old house mouldering in the foothills of Snowdonia. Despite the toads, strange smells and squatters, they decided to mortgage themselves to the hilt to bring the castle back to life.This is an evocatively written and genuinely moving book and is infused with an extraordinary sense of place. The couple's adventures in a gothic wonderland lead them through plots both supernatural and historical. In a museum storeroom in a Bronx warehouse they find a missing room, in the castle's Solar Tower the ghost of a young woman appears and from the far edges of the woods a silent man called Sven emerges to befriend the couple and their beloved castle.For everyone who has ever wanted to live in a glorious house or escape from the mundanity of life - Castles in the Air is pure magic.
Castles in the Sand: The Life and Times of Carl Graham Fisher (Florida History and Culture)
by MARK S. FOSTERThe definitive biography of the famous developer of Miami Beach"The definitive biography of one of the most energetic, versatile entrepreneurs of the early 20th century. In masterminding the development of the Indianapolis Speedway and Miami Beach, Fisher played a major role in teaching adult Americans how to play."--James Crooks, University of North FloridaIn the booming early years of the 20th century, few entrepreneurs rivaled Carl Fisher (1874-1939) for sheer energy and imagination. Born in Indiana, he began as a bicycle racer and salesman, made his first fortune perfecting and marketing the automobile headlight, helped build the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and headed promotion of the Indy 500, and was a moving force behind the development of the Lincoln and Dixie highways, America’s first improved transcontinental roads. But all of these accomplishments were only prologue to his grandest adventure, as primary developer and promoter of Miami Beach.This definitive biography of Fisher, abundantly illustrated and written in an engaging style, captures the headiness of the period. Mark Foster traces Fisher’s transformation of the South Florida landscape into a tourist’s dream of golf, polo, deep sea fishing, and luxury hotels and his animation of that dream with bronzed lifeguards, bathing beauties flashing new swimsuit styles, and visiting dignitaries who generated a stream of tantalizing headlines.Foster also treats Fisher’s troubles with labor and with Miami businessmen, his attempted development of Montauk on Long Island, New York, and the collapse of the entire Fisher enterprise in the wake of the 1926 hurricane and the great stock market crash of 1929. Throughout, he sets Fisher’s insights, triumphs, loves, and shortcomings into the context of the early 20th century.This biography of a great corporate builder reveals the emergence of a new American way of life. The man whose genius for promotion turned a swampy spit of land into a luxurious urban locale also framed aspirations of leisure and entertainment for generations of Americans.
Castro
by Reinhard KleistAs America moves closer to normalizing relations with Cuba, this gripping, vivid graphic novel reveals life and times of Fidel Castro, one of the twentieth century's most intriguing, charismatic, and divisive figures. The book is narrated by a German journalist named Karl Mertens, who is plunged into the searing heat of pre-revolutionary Cuba in the mid-1950s. He first meets with Castro while the latter is hiding in the mountains, then follows him through the dramatic revolution and his ascent to the presidency that, despite the Bay of Pigs confrontation and years of international trade blockades, lasts for nearly fifty years. We also witness his involvement in bloody skirmishes, failed missions, and brutal crackdowns, as well as his interactions with and on behalf of the Cuban people, which reveal as much about his fallible human qualities as they do his legend.Castro is the work of acclaimed German graphic novelist Reinhardt Kleist; it was first published in English by Selfmade Hero for the British market, and is now being made available in the United States for the first time. Bristling with energy and alive with the spirit of Cuba, Castro has much to offer about the complex politics of one of the most enduring and controversial figures in modern history.Reinhardt Kleist is the author of fourteen books, including two others available in English: The Boxer and Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness. His many awards include the BZ Cultural Award for outstanding cultural achievement from the City of Berlin.
Casual Affairs: The Life and Fiction of Sally Benson (Excelsior Editions)
by Maryellen V. KeefeIn Casual Affairs, Maryellen V. Keefe vividly follows the life and career of Sally Benson, the New Yorker writer remembered by generations of moviegoers for Meet Me in St. Louis, the film that brought her family to life. Keefe traces Benson's life from her childhood in St. Louis to marriage and motherhood to her award-winning fiction career and her success as a Hollywood screenwriter. Through the Jazz Age and into the 1930s and '40s, Benson negotiated the transition from domesticity to the marketplace, becoming a full-fledged career woman while juggling her responsibilities as a wife and mother and indulging in several "quiet little affairs." She succeeded early in a profession dominated by men, forging her way in a largely male world and winning the support and friendship of colleagues and editors. Benson established herself as a writer known for brutally honest portraits of middle-class women much like herself.
Casualty Figures: How Five Men Survived the First World War
by Michèle BarrettIn this delicate look at history in microcosm, Barrett (literary and cultural theory, Queen Mary, University of London) follows the experience of five soldiers who survived World War I, two in the medical corps and three in the trenches. Their survival was debatable, though each man suffered from shell shock that affected his later life and damaged his relations with family and friends. Using private letters, diaries and military records Barrett paints a harrowing portrait of these men, what they survived and how they coped but never really recovered. This is a beautifully written psychological biography that, sadly, is all too timely. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival
by Amra Sabic-El-Rayess Laura L. SullivanIn 1992, Amra was a teen in Bihac, Bosnia, when her best friend said they couldn't speak anymore. Her friend didn't say why, but Amra knew the reason: Amra was Muslim. It was the first sign her world was changing. Then Muslim refugees from other Bosnian cities started arriving, fleeing Serbian persecution. When the tanks rolled into Bihac, bringing her own city under seige, Amra's happy life in her peaceful city vanished. But there is light even in the darkest of times, and she discovered that light in the warm, bonfire eyes of a stray cat. <p><p>The little calico had followed the refugees into the city and lost her own family. At first, Amra doesn't want to bother with a stray; her family doesn't have the money to keep a pet. But with gentle charm this kitty finds her way into everyone's heart, and after a few near miracles when she seems to save the family, how could they turn her away? <p><p>Here is the stunning true story of a teen who, even in the brutality of war, never wavered in her determination to obtain an education, maintain friendships, and even find a first love and the cat who gave comfort, hope, and maybe even served as the family's guardian spirit.