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The Soong Sisters
by Emily Hahn&“If the story of the Soong family were told as fiction, people would say it was fascinating but too improbable. . . . A dramatic human chronicle . . . engrossing.&” —The New York Times Book Review In the early twentieth century, few women in China were to prove so important to the rise of Chinese nationalism and liberation from tradition as the three extraordinary Soong sisters—Eling, Chingling and Mayling—who would each marry historic figures. Told with wit and verve by New Yorker correspondent Emily Hahn, a remarkable woman in her own right, the biography of the Soong sisters reveals the story of China through both World Wars. It also chronicles the changes to Shanghai as they relate to a very eccentric family that had the courage to speak out against the ruling regime. Greatly influencing the history of modern China, they interacted with their government and military to protect the lives of those who could not be heard, and appealed to the West to support China during the Japanese invasion. &“[A] first-rate reportorial job on three distinguished women.&” —Kirkus Reviews &“A spirited, well-informed book . . . a fascinating saga . . . Hahn skillfully interweaves the personal material which she has collected in abundance with some indispensable background knowledge of Chinese history.&” —The Atlantic
Voices of the Second World War: A Child's Perspective
by Sheila A. RenshawVoices of the Second World War: A Childs Perspective is a collection of firsthand accounts from people who experienced the Second World War from all over Europe: stretching from Russia to the Channel Islands, and Norway to Malta.While some children appear to have been hardly aware of the war, for those who lived through bombing, occupation, deprivation, starvation and fear, the memories remain with them even today.The accounts have been relayed according to their perspective at the time and the contributors were happy to share their experiences and memories, keen in the knowledge that they were being documented as personal chroniclers of one of the twentieth century's most catastrophic events.
The Wisdom of the Heart
by Henry MillerAn essential collection of writings, bursting with Henry Miller’s exhilarating candor and wisdom In this selection of stories and essays, Henry Miller elucidates, revels, and soars, showing his command over a wide range of moods, styles, and subject matters. Writing “from the heart,” always with a refreshing lack of reticence, Miller involves the reader directly in his thoughts and feelings. “His real aim,” Karl Shapiro has written, “is to find the living core of our world whenever it survives and in whatever manifestation, in art, in literature, in human behavior itself. It is then that he sings, praises, and shouts at the top of his lungs with the uncontainable hilarity he is famous for.” Here are some of Henry Miller’s best-known writings: an essay on the photographer Brassai; “Reflections on Writing,” in which Miller examines his own position as a writer; “Seraphita” and “Balzac and His Double,” on the works of other writers; and “The Alcoholic Veteran,” “Creative Death,” “The Enormous Womb,” and “The Philosopher Who Philosophizes.”
The Big Sea: An Autobiography (American Century)
by Langston HughesIntroduction by Arnold Rampersad.Langston Hughes, born in 1902, came of age early in the 1920s. In The Big Sea he recounts those memorable years in the two great playgrounds of the decade--Harlem and Paris. In Paris he was a cook and waiter in nightclubs. He knew the musicians and dancers, the drunks and dope fiends. In Harlem he was a rising young poet--at the center of the "Harlem Renaissance."Arnold Rampersad writes in his incisive new introduction to The Big Sea, an American classic: "This is American writing at its best--simpler than Hemingway; as simple and direct as that of another Missouri-born writer...Mark Twain."
Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives
by Mary Laura PhilpottFrom the bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink and &“writer of singular spark and delight&” (Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author) comes a poignant and powerful new memoir that tackles the big questions of life, death, and existential fear with humor and hope.A lifelong worrier, Philpott always kept an eye out for danger, a habit that only intensified when she became a parent. But she looked on the bright side, too, believing that as long as she cared enough, she could keep her loved ones safe. Then, in the dark of one quiet, pre-dawn morning, she woke abruptly to a terrible sound—and found her teenage son unconscious on the floor. In the aftermath of a crisis that darkened her signature sunny spirit, she wondered: If this happened, what else could happen? And how do any of us keep going when we can&’t know for sure what&’s coming next? Leave it to the writer whose critically acclaimed debut had us &“laughing and crying on the same page&” (NPR) to illuminate what it means to move through life with a soul made of equal parts anxiety and optimism (and while she&’s at it, to ponder the mysteries of backyard turtles and the challenges of spatchcocking a turkey). Hailed by The Washington Post as &“Nora Ephron, Erma Bombeck, Jean Kerr, and Laurie Colwin all rolled into one,&” Philpott returns in her distinctive voice to explore our protective instincts, the ways we continue to grow up long after we&’re grown, and the limits—both tragic and hilarious—of the human body and mind.
A Boy's Own Story: A Novel (Modern Library #47)
by Edmund White&“An extraordinary novel&” about growing up gay in the 1950s American Midwest (The New York Times Book Review). Critically lauded upon its initial publication in 1982 for its pioneering depiction of homosexuality, A Boy&’s Own Story is a moving tale about coming-of-age in midcentury America. With searing clarity and unabashed wit, Edmund White&’s unnamed protagonist yearns for what he knows to be shameful. He navigates an uneasy relationship with his father, confounds first loves, and faces disdain from his peers at school. In the embrace of another, he discovers the sincere and clumsy pleasures of adolescent sexuality. But for boys in the 1950s, these desires were unthinkable. Looking back on his experiences, the narrator notes, &“I see now that what I wanted was to be loved by men and to love them back but not to be a homosexual.&” From a winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, this trailblazing autobiographical story of one boy&’s youth is a moving, tender, and heartbreaking portrait of what it means to grow up.
Dashing for the Post: The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor
by Patrick Leigh FermorA revelatory collection of letters written by the author of The Broken Road.Handsome, spirited and erudite, Patrick Leigh Fermor was a war hero and one of the greatest travel writers of his generation. He was also a spectacularly gifted friend. The letters in this collection span almost seventy years, the first written ten days before Paddy's twenty-fifth birthday, the last when he was ninety-four. His correspondents include Deborah Devonshire, Ann Fleming, Nancy Mitford, Lawrence Durrell, Diana Cooper and his lifelong companion, Joan Rayner; he wrote his first letter to her in his cell at the monastery Saint Wandrille, the setting for his reflections on monastic life in A Time to Keep Silence. His letters exhibit many of his most engaging characteristics: his zest for life, his unending curiosity, his lyrical descriptive powers, his love of language, his exuberance and his tendency to get into scrapes - particularly when drinking and, quite separately, driving. Here are plenty of extraordinary stories: the hunt for Byron's slippers in one of the remotest regions of Greece; an ignominious dismissal from Somerset Maugham's Villa Mauresque; hiding behind a bush to dub Dirk Bogarde into Greek during the shooting of Ill Met by Moonlight, the film based on the story of General Kreipe's abduction; his extensive travels. Some letters contain glimpses of the great and the good, while others are included purely for the joy of the jokes.
Dashing for the Post: The Letters of Patrick Leigh Fermor
by Patrick Leigh FermorA revelatory collection of letters written by the author of The Broken Road.Handsome, spirited and erudite, Patrick Leigh Fermor was a war hero and one of the greatest travel writers of his generation. He was also a spectacularly gifted friend. The letters in this collection span almost seventy years, the first written ten days before Paddy's twenty-fifth birthday, the last when he was ninety-four. His correspondents include Deborah Devonshire, Ann Fleming, Nancy Mitford, Lawrence Durrell, Diana Cooper and his lifelong companion, Joan Rayner; he wrote his first letter to her in his cell at the monastery Saint Wandrille, the setting for his reflections on monastic life in A Time to Keep Silence. His letters exhibit many of his most engaging characteristics: his zest for life, his unending curiosity, his lyrical descriptive powers, his love of language, his exuberance and his tendency to get into scrapes - particularly when drinking and, quite separately, driving. Here are plenty of extraordinary stories: the hunt for Byron's slippers in one of the remotest regions of Greece; an ignominious dismissal from Somerset Maugham's Villa Mauresque; hiding behind a bush to dub Dirk Bogarde into Greek during the shooting of Ill Met by Moonlight, the film based on the story of General Kreipe's abduction; his extensive travels. Some letters contain glimpses of the great and the good, while others are included purely for the joy of the jokes.
The Earth Is the Lord's: A Novel
by Taylor CaldwellFrom a #1 New York Times–bestselling author: A “magnificent” epic based on the early life of Genghis Khan (New York Herald Tribune). This sweeping saga captures life in the Far East during the Middle Ages and dramatizes the events that transformed a Mongol tribesman named Temujin into the man who would conquer Asia and be known to the world for centuries to come as Genghis Khan. Raised by an indomitable woman and educated by his outcast uncle, Temujin becomes a fearsome warrior who inspires loyalty in his friends and hatred in his enemies. But he is also blessed with a keen intelligence and the charisma of a natural born leader. In an era marked by treachery and savage violence, these gifts lead Temujin to a relentless pursuit of power. From the Gobi Desert to Samarkand, Taylor Caldwell transports readers to a distant world and shines a brilliant light on one of history’s most enigmatic figures. On her “huge historical canvas . . . blood spurts from the knife; beads of sweat stand out on straining flesh; lusts are consummated and revenges achieved” (New York Herald Tribune).
Happy Days: 1880-1892 (H.L. Mencken's Autobiography)
by H. L. MenckenWith a style that combined biting sarcasm with the "language of the free lunch counter," Henry Louis Mencken shook politics and politicians for nearly half a century. Now, fifty years after Mencken's death, the Johns Hopkins University Press announces The Buncombe Collection, newly packaged editions of nine Mencken classics: Happy Days, Heathen Days, Newspaper Days, Prejudices, Treatise on the Gods, On Politics, Thirty-Five Years of Newspaper Work, Minority Report, and A Second Mencken Chrestomathy. Most of these autobiographical writings first appeared in the New Yorker. Here Mencken recalls memories of a safe and happy boyhood in the Baltimore of the 1880s.
Il Salotto Della Contessa Maffei
by Raffello BarbieraPortrait of Countess Clara Maffei, Milanese noblewoman during the Italian 'Risorgimento' and of the historical figures who surrounded her remarkable life. (Text in Italian)
Johnson without Boswell: A Contemporary Portrait of Samuel Johnson (Routledge Revivals)
by Hugh KingsmillFirst published in 1940, Johnson without Boswell is about Samuel Johnson, the dictator of eighteenth-century English letters. It has become almost axiomatic never to mention that mammoth of wit and wisdom without linking him at least in thought with his great biographer, James Boswell. But there were others who knew him well, and who set down what they knew – among them Johnson himself in his letters and autobiographical fragments, his great friend Mrs. Thale in her Anecdotes, and Sir John Hawkins in his Life. From these and others, excerpted and skilfully pieced together in this volume by Hugh Kingsmill, there emerges a portrait of Johnson more domestic and less alarming than Boswell’s. But something of curmudgeon still, who could terrorise his table-companions by brandishing a knife and bellowing that by God he could eat a bit more. The result is a volume richly readable and informative, which can be read with pleasure either wholly or in part, especially by students of English literature.
The Life and Writings of Abraham Lincoln (Modern Library Classics)
by Abraham Lincoln Allan Nevins Philip Van SternAbraham Lincoln, the greatest of all American presidents, left us a vast legacy of writings, some of which are among the most famous in our history. Lin-coln was a marvelous writer--from the humblest letter to his great speeches, including his inaugural addresses, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Gettysburg Address. His sentences were so memorably crafted that many resonate across the years. "Fourscore and seven years ago," begins the Gettysburg Address, "our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." In 1940, the prolific author and historian Philip Van Doren Stern produced this volume as a guide to Lincoln's life through his writings. Stern's "Life of Abraham Lincoln" is a full biography of the man and includes a detailed chronology. Stern has collected all the essential texts of Lincoln's public life, from his first public address--a stump speech in New Salem, Illinois, in 1832 for an election he went on to lose--to his last piece of public writing, a pass to a congressman who was to visit the president the day after Lincoln went to Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865. Some 275 such documents are collected and placed in their historical context. Together with the "Life" and the Introduction, "Lincoln in His Writings," by noted historian Allan Nevins, they give a full and vivid picture of Abraham Lincoln.The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.
Moonless Night: The Second World War Escape Epic
by B A James“James is the sort of person they write legends about. A participant in the mass escape that was the basis for the movie The Great Escape.” —AudioFileFrom the moment he was shot down to the final whistle, Jimmy James’ one aim as a POW of the Germans was to escape. Moonless Night describes his experiences and those of his fellow prisoners in the most gripping and thrilling manner. The author made more than twelve escape attempts including his participation in The Great Escape, where fifty of the seventy-six escapees were executed in cold blood on Hitler’s orders.On re-capture, James was sent to the infamous Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp where, undeterred, he tunneled out. That was not the end of his remarkable story.Moonless Night has strong claim to be the finest escape story of the Second World War.“An amazing story.” —The Sunday Express
One Foot in Heaven: The Life of a Practical Parson
by Hartzell SpenseIn Stratford, Ontario in 1904, William Spence (a medical student on the verge of becoming a doctor) receives "The Call" while attending a Methodist revival at the request of a friend. His bride-to-be, Hope Morris, accepts his decision to enter the ministry with a whole heart despite the disappointment of her prominent and affluent parents. Will "dives right in", but with no vacancies in Canada, is posted as a circuit minister to a small town in rural Iowa, beginning a life for them of frequent moves around the district, dingy parsonages, and scraping a living from poor boxes and performing weddings. Hope yearns for a decent parsonage and a sense of permanence for their children, but uncomplainingly provides them a good life and a supportive home for Will and their 3 children.
Our Pioneers and Patriots
by Philip J. FurlongA famous 5th-8th grade American history textbook written in 1940 with Catholic faith and patriotic love of country. From early exploration and settlement through the 20th century.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
by Dylan ThomasThis volume of autobiographical stories shows Thomas' waggish humor at its best.
Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled
by Tim HealdElegant and sophisticated biography of Princess Margaret, the controversial sister of Queen Elizabeth II, the Princess Diana of her day'A fascinating insight into the life of the party girl who became an icon in postwar Britain' DAILY EXPRESS'She was a witty, intelligent, stimulating companion - happily Tim Heald captures all these qualities in his admirably well-balanced biography' LITERARY REVIEWThe almost universal conception is that the life of Princess Margaret (1930-2002) was a tragic failure, a history of unfulfilment.Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluring - even more so than Princess Diana, years later - and whose reputation for naughtiness co-existed with the glamour. The mythology is that Margaret's life was 'ruined' by her not being allowed to marry the one true love of her life - Group Captain Peter Townsend - and that therefore her marriage to Lord Snowdon and her well-attested relationships with Roddy Llewellyn and others were mere consolation prizes. Margaret's often exotic personal life in places like Mustique is a key part of her story. The author has had extraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), as well as three of her private secretaries and many of her ladies in waiting. These individuals have not talked to any previous biographer. He has also had the Queen's permission to use the royal archives.Heald asks why one of the most famous and loved little girls in the world, who became a juvenile wartime sweetheart, ended her life a sad wheelchair-bound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict. The biography is packed with good stories. Princess Margaret was never ignored; what she said and did has been remembered and recounted to Tim Heald.
Princess Margaret: A Life Unravelled
by Tim HealdElegant and sophisticated biography of Princess Margaret, the controversial sister of Queen Elizabeth II, the Princess Diana of her day'A fascinating insight into the life of the party girl who became an icon in postwar Britain' DAILY EXPRESS'She was a witty, intelligent, stimulating companion - happily Tim Heald captures all these qualities in his admirably well-balanced biography' LITERARY REVIEWThe almost universal conception is that the life of Princess Margaret (1930-2002) was a tragic failure, a history of unfulfilment.Tim Heald's vivid and elegant biography portrays a woman who was beautiful and sexually alluring - even more so than Princess Diana, years later - and whose reputation for naughtiness co-existed with the glamour. The mythology is that Margaret's life was 'ruined' by her not being allowed to marry the one true love of her life - Group Captain Peter Townsend - and that therefore her marriage to Lord Snowdon and her well-attested relationships with Roddy Llewellyn and others were mere consolation prizes. Margaret's often exotic personal life in places like Mustique is a key part of her story. The author has had extraordinary help from those closest to Princess Margaret, including her family (Lord Snowdon and her son, Lord Linley), as well as three of her private secretaries and many of her ladies in waiting. These individuals have not talked to any previous biographer. He has also had the Queen's permission to use the royal archives.Heald asks why one of the most famous and loved little girls in the world, who became a juvenile wartime sweetheart, ended her life a sad wheelchair-bound figure, publicly reviled and ignored. This is a story of a life in which the private and the public seemed permanently in conflict. The biography is packed with good stories. Princess Margaret was never ignored; what she said and did has been remembered and recounted to Tim Heald.
A Queen's Command
by Anna KuhnThis is the story of St. Bernadette of Lourdes, canonized by the Catholic Church in 1933. It is her biography replete with poverty, misunderstanding, sickness, and the Blessed Virgin's appearance.
Radio Free Dixie
by Timothy B. TysonThis book tells the remarkable story of Robert F. Williams--one of the most influential black activists of the generation that toppled Jim Crow and forever altered the arc of American history. In the late 1950s, as president of the Monroe, North Carolina, branch of the NAACP, Williams and his followers used machine guns, dynamite, and Molotov cocktails to confront Klan terrorists. Advocating "armed self-reliance" by blacks, Williams challenged not only white supremacists but also Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights establishment. Forced to flee during the 1960s to Cuba--where he broadcast "Radio Free Dixie," a program of black politics and music that could be heard as far away as Los Angeles and New York City--and then China, Williams remained a controversial figure for the rest of his life. Historians have customarily portrayed the civil rights movement as a nonviolent call on America's conscience--and the subsequent rise of Black Power as a violent repudiation of the civil rights dream. But Radio Free Dixie reveals that both movements grew out of the same soil, confronted the same predicaments, and reflected the same quest for African American freedom. As Robert Williams's story demonstrates, independent black political action, black cultural pride, and armed self-reliance operated in the South in tension and in tandem with legal efforts and nonviolent protest."Stunning. . . . Radio Free Dixie presents an engaging portrait of one man's continuous struggle to resist political and social oppression."--Emerge"[A] radiant biography. . . . Tyson is that rarest of writers: a successful scholar who can actually tell a compelling story in clear, even handsome language."--Village Voice Literary Supplement"Tyson's firecracker text crackles with brilliant and lasting images of black life . . . across the South in the '40s, '50s and '60s. . . . Tyson successfully portrays Williams as a troubled visionary, a strong, stubborn and imperfect man, one who greatly influenced what became the Black Power Movement and its young leaders."--Publishers WeeklyThis book tells the riveting story of controversial black activist Robert F. Williams (1925-1996). In the late 1950s, as president of the Monroe, North Carolina, NAACP, Williams organized armed resistance to KKK terrorists--in the process challenging not only white supremacists but also Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights establishment. As Radio Free Dixie reveals, however, the civil rights movement and the Black Power movement grew out of the same soil, confronted the same predicaments, and were much closer than traditional portrayals suggest. In the civil rights-era South, independent black politics, black cultural pride, and "armed self-reliance" operated in tension and in tandem with legal efforts and nonviolent protests in the quest for African American freedom. -->
A Smattering Of Ignorance
by Oscar LevantA series of essays on Oscar Levant's various life experiences, his early days, his studies (which included years of lessons with none other than Arnold Schoenberg), his encounters with famous musicians
Surrender on Demand
by Warren Christopher Varian FryLike Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, Varian Fry risked his life to rescue those targeted by the Gestapo in "the most gigantic man-trap in history." Now, more than fifty years later, the story of this neglected American hero is back in print.Varian Fry, a young editor from New York, traveled to Marseilles after Germany defeated France in the summer of 1940. As the representative of the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private American relief organization, he offered aid and advice to refugees who found themselves threatened with extradition to Nazi Germany under Article 19 of the Franco-German armistice-the "Surrender on Demand" clause.Working day and night in opposition to French and even American authorities, Fry assembled an unlikely band of associates and built an elaborate rescue network. By the time Fry left France after 13 months, he and his colleagues had managed to spirit more than 1,500 people from France, among them some of Europe's most prominent politicians, artists, writers, scientists, and musicians. Their arrival in the United States significantly expanded the intellectual exodus from Europe that began when Hitler came to power, and permanently changed the face of American culture."Surrender on Demand is by turns wildly exciting, horrifying and exalting... an astonishingly good book."-The New York Times Book Review, April 25, 1945"I have read and heard many accounts of escapes from Europe...but none surpasses this restrained and factual narrative in suspense and excitement...It tells of many triumphs and some defeats; it depicts with vividness and often with humor a large number of interesting and frequently distinguished persons; it describes the endless obstacles encountered and the ingenious and constantly changing shifts and devices contrived to overcome them; and throughout it makes one feel the undercurrent of potential tragedy which too often became actual."-New York Herald Tribune Weekly Book Review, May 20, 1945"A novelist would hardly dare pack a novel with so many hair-breadth escapes."-Lewis Gannett, New York Herald Tribune, 1945
Three-a-Penny: Radio 4 Book of the Week
by Lucy MallesonA rediscovered classic memoir - a fascinating insight into the life of a crime writer during and after the First World War - a woman ahead of her time.With a new introduction by Sophie HannahTHREE-A-PENNY describes what it is like to be a woman in a man's world - about the ups and downs of earning a living as a writer in the 1920s and 30s.Lucy Malleson wrote over 70 crime novels and was part of what is often referred to as the Golden Age of crime writing. But in order to be published she used a male pseudonym, and successfully concealed her true identity for many years. From the poignancy of the First World War and its aftermath to the invitation to join the infamous Detection Club, this re-discovered classic gives a fascinating insight into what life was like as a woman living and working in a largely male world during and after the First World War.
Three-a-Penny: Radio 4 Book of the Week
by Lucy MallesonA rediscovered classic memoir - a fascinating insight into the life of a crime writer during and after the First World War - a woman ahead of her time.With a new introduction by Sophie HannahTHREE-A-PENNY describes what it is like to be a woman in a man's world - about the ups and downs of earning a living as a writer in the 1920s and 30s.Lucy Malleson wrote over 70 crime novels and was part of what is often referred to as the Golden Age of crime writing. But in order to be published she used a male pseudonym, and successfully concealed her true identity for many years. From the poignancy of the First World War and its aftermath to the invitation to join the infamous Detection Club, this re-discovered classic gives a fascinating insight into what life was like as a woman living and working in a largely male world during and after the First World War.