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The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presidential Diplomacy
by Strobe TalbottDuring the past ten years, few issues have mattered more to America's vital interests or to the shape of the twenty-first century than Russia's fate. To cheer the fall of a bankrupt totalitarian regime is one thing; to build on its ruins a stable democratic state is quite another. The challenge of helping to steer post-Soviet Russia-with its thousands of nuclear weapons and seething ethnic tensions-between the Scylla of a communist restoration and the Charybdis of anarchy fell to the former governor of a poor, landlocked Southern state who had won national election by focusing on domestic issues. No one could have predicted that by the end of Bill Clinton's second term he would meet with his Kremlin counterparts more often than had all of his predecessors from Harry Truman to George Bush combined, or that his presidency and his legacy would be so determined by his need to be his own Russia hand. With Bill Clinton at every step was Strobe Talbott, the deputy secretary of state whose expertise was the former Soviet Union. Talbott was Clinton's old friend, one of his most trusted advisers, a frequent envoy on the most sensitive of diplomatic missions and, as this book shows, a sharp-eyed observer. The Russia Handis without question among the most candid, intimate and illuminating foreign-policy memoirs ever written in the long history of such books. It offers unparalleled insight into the inner workings of policymaking and diplomacy alike. With the scope of nearly a decade, it reveals the hidden play of personalities and the closed-door meetings that shaped the most crucial events of our time, from NATO expansion, missile defense and the Balkan wars to coping with Russia's near-meltdown in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The book is dominated by two gifted, charismatic and flawed men, Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, who quickly formed one of the most intense and consequential bonds in the annals of statecraft. It also sheds new light on Vladimir Putin, as well as the altered landscape after September 11, 2001. The Russia Handis the first great memoir about war and peace in the post-cold war world. From the Hardcover edition.
Making an Elephant: Writing from Within
by Graham Swift‘An immensely readable volume. On every page, Swift emerges as a considerable essayist, who upholds the sterling virtue of good writing combined with emotional and intellectual engagement’Evening StandardAs a novelist, Graham Swift delights in the possibilities of the human voice, imagining his way into the minds and hearts of an extraordinary range of characters. In Making an Elephant, his first ever work of non-fiction, the voice is his own. Swift brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry, and reflections on his life in writing, full of insights into his passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family, and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar, Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard, and Ted Hughes shares the secrets of a Devon river. There are private moments, too, with long-dead writers, as well as musings on history and memory that readers of Swift’s novels will recognize and love. ‘A rewarding collection, with the same humanity and flair for detail that distinguishes Swift’s fiction’TLS‘Revealing, self-deprecating, full of fascinating details. ’Edward Marriott, Observer‘Swift’s essays display the same quiet intensity as his fiction, a capacity for subtle storytelling with dark emotional undercurrents’Financial Times
Antarctica 2041: My Quest to Save the Earth's Last Wilderness
by Robert Swan Gil ReavillAdventurer-turned-environmentalist Swan illuminates the perils facing the planet come 2041--the year when the international treaty protecting Antarctica is up for review. The author provides information people need to know to understand the world's environmental crisis, and the tools they need to combat it.
Sinatra: The Life
by Anthony Summers Robbyn SwanSinatra fans will relish this biography, though they should prepare to learn about Frank's darker side. Much material is included on the singer's marriages, Mafia connections, Rat Pack years, the Kennedys, and his later career, richly told with excerpts and quotes from interviews and other sources. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
The Suicide Run: Five Tales of the Marine Corps
by William StyronThe four narratives which make up this posthumous collection draw upon William Styron's experiences in the US Marine Corps, and give us an insight into the early life of one of America's greatest modern writers. William Styron earned a commission as second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1945, shortly after his twentieth birthday. He was scheduled to participate in the assault on mainland Japan, most likely as the leader of a mortar platoon, but in early August the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war. Before he was discharged Styron served a six-week stint as an officer at the military prison on Harts Island in Long Island Sound. In December 1945 he was mustered out of the Marine Corps, and lived with his father and stepmother at their home in Newport News, Virginia, before completing his bachelor degree at Duke University and embarking on his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness. Early in 1951, as he was composing the last two chapters of his manuscript, Styron was recalled into the Marine Corps for service in Korea. The stories of The Suicide Run are set in the grueling camps and sweltering training fields that marked the limbo point between civilian life and the horrors of war. Fictional yet autobiographical, the narratives of this collection focus on young men who, broiling in the claustrophobia of military life, always conscious of the imminence of action, try to maintain their sanity in the wake of their abrupt removal from normal life. In The Suicide Run, two young men at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina embark on suicidal 36 hour leave periods Â- crossing the 500 miles to New York and back at breakneck speed for a few hours with their mistresses and a reprieve from the 'sexual famine' of army life. In Blankenship a young idealist and deserter at a military prison hits a nerve in a model officer, with disastrous consequences for both, and in My Father's House, the young protagonist returns home from war to be met by the cold war of his stepmother's disapproval, and be haunted by all the battles he almost fought. Imbued with a sense of frustration and looming fear, keenly rendered in Styron's pithy and acutely observational prose, this collection is a fascinating insight into military life and the 'mysterious community of men' that comprises the US Marine Corps, and a posthumous glimpse into the mind of a mighty writer.
The Wizard of Menlo Park
by Randall StrossAt the height of his fame Thomas Alva Edison was hailed as “the Napoleon of invention” and blazed in the public imagination as a virtual demigod. Newspapers proclaimed his genius in glowing personal profiles and quipped that “the doctor has been called” because the great man “has not invented anything since breakfast. ” Starting with the first public demonstrations of the phonograph in 1878 and extending through the development of incandescent light, a power generation and distribution system to sustain it, and the first motion picture cameras—all achievements more astonishing in their time than we can easily grasp today—Edison’s name became emblematic of all the wonder and promise of the emerging age of technological marvels. But as Randall Stross makes clear in this critical biography of the man who is arguably the most globally famous of all Americans, Thomas Edison’s greatest invention may have been his own celebrity. Edison was certainly a technical genius, but Stross excavates the man from layers of myth-making and separates his true achievements from his almost equally colossal failures. How much credit should Edison receive for the various inventions that have popularly been attributed to him—and how many of them resulted from both the inspiration and the perspiration of his rivals and even his own assistants? How much of Edison’s technical skill helped him overcome a lack of business acumen and feel for consumers’ wants and needs? This bold reassessment of Edison’s life and career answers these and many other important questions while telling the story of how he came upon his most famous inventions as a young man and spent the remainder of his long life trying to conjure similar success. We also meet his partners and competitors, presidents and entertainers, his close friend Henry Ford, the wives who competed with his work for his attention, and the children who tried to thrive in his shadow—all providing a fuller view of Edison’s life and times than has ever been offered before. The Wizard of Menlo Park reveals not only how Edison worked, but how he managed his own fame, becoming the first great celebrity of the modern age.
Standing Tall: A Memoir of Tragedy and Triumph
by Laura Tucker C. Vivian Stringer"Lots of people have dreams, but C. Vivian Stringer . . . lives that dream, teaching others to rise up to meet challenges, turning underdogs into champions again and again--on and off the court. This is the quintessential American story, of a woman and of a family pulling together against the odds"--John Chaney, Hall of Fame college basketball coach.
Napoleon in Egypt: The Greatest Glory
by Paul StrathernIn 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte, only twenty-eight, set sail for Egypt with 335 ships, 40,000 soldiers, and a collection of scholars, artists, and scientists to establish an eastern empire. He saw himself as a liberator, freeing the Egyptians from oppression. But Napoleon wasn't the first--nor the last--who tragically misunderstood Muslim culture. Marching across seemingly endless deserts in the shadow of the pyramids, pushed to the limits of human endurance, his men would be plagued by mirages, suicides, and the constant threat of ambush. A crusade begun in honor would degenerate into chaos. And yet his grand failure also yielded a treasure trove of knowledge that paved the way for modern Egyptology--and it tempered the complex leader who believed himself destined to conquer the world.
Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain
by Chris StewartDriving Over Lemonsis that rare thing: a funny, insightful book that charms you from the first page to the last. . . and one that makes running a peasant farm in Spain seem like a distinctly good move. Chris transports us to Las Alpujarras, an oddball region south of Granada, and into a series of misadventures with an engaging mix of peasant farmers and shepherds, New Age travellers and ex-pats. The hero of the piece, however, is the farm that he and Ana bought, El Valero - a patch of mountain studded with olive, almond and lemon groves, sited on the wrong side of a river, with no access road, water supply or electricity. Could life offer much better than that? 'An idyllic life in a remote, sunny part of Europe is a fantasy normally punctured by harsh realities, and abandoned. Chris is made of sterner stuff. Driving Over Lemonsis a wonderful account of his Andalucian adventure. ' Peter Gabriel, former Genesisbandmate
Educating Alice: Adventures of a Curious Woman
by Alice SteinbachWhen Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Alice Steinbach decided to take a year off to explore Europe and rediscover what it was like to be an independent woman, she left her job, family, friends and routine behind. The result, WITHOUT RESERVATIONS, became a bestseller and inspired women everywhere to take that leap, if not in reality, at least in their imaginations. But having opened the door to a new way of living, Steinbach found herself unwilling to return to the old routine. She quit her job and left home again, only this time her objective was to find a way to combine three of her greatest passions: travelling, writing and learning. EDUCATING ALICE is the intimate, funny and richly entertaining story of her adventures roaming the world to conquer new challenges, large and small. Whether she is learning how to cook at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, tackling the intricacies of traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, making a pilgrimage to Jane Austen's birthplace in England, uncovers the secrets of border collie training in Scotland or surrendering to the spontaneous joy of music and memories in Havana, Steinbach allows you to relish the adventure with her.
Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer
by Tim StarkOne evening, 14 years ago, Tim Stark chanced upon a dumpster full of discarded lumber. He carried the lumber home and built a germination rack for thousands of heirloom tomato seedlings. His crop soon outgrew the brownstone in which it had sprouted, forcing him to cart the seedlings to his family's farm, where they were transplanted into the ground by hand. When favorable weather brought a bumper crop, Tim hauled his unusual tomatoes to N.Y. City's Union Square Greenmarket at a time when the tomato was unanimously red. The rest is history. Today, Eckerton Hill Farm does a booming trade in heirloom tomatoes and obscure chile peppers. An inspiring memoir about rediscovering an older and still vital way of life.
The Rise and Fall of an American Army
by Shelby L. Stanton“THE MEN WHO SACRIFICED FOR THEIR COUNTRY ARE RIGHTFULLY HERALDED . . . This is an honest book–one well worth reading. . . . Stanton has laid his claim to the historian’s ranks by providing his reader with well-documented, interpretive assessments. ” –Parameters The Vietnam War remains deep in the nation’s consciousness. It is vital that we know exactly what happened there–and who made it happen. This book provides a complete account of American Army ground combat forces–who they were, how they got to the battlefield, and what they did there. Year by year, battlefield by battlefield, the narrative follows the war in extraordinary, gripping detail. Over the course of the decade, the changes in fighting and in the combat troops themselves are described and documented. The Rise and Fall of an American Armyrepresents the first total battlefield history of Army ground forces in the Vietnam War, containing much previously unreleased archival material. It re-creates the feel of battle with dramatic precision. “Stanton’s writing . . . gives the reader a terrifying graphic description of combat in the many mini-environments of Vietnam. ” –TheNew York Times “[A] MOVING, IMPORTANT BOOK. ” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies
by Donald SpotoSpellbound by Beauty examines Alfred Hitchcock's well known collaborations with the leading ladies of his day, and, in so doing, delves into his creative life and his uniquely curious professional and personal relationships. The result is a singular kind of life story u a book about film and film stars; business and power; sex and fantasy; romance and derailed psychology. Drawing on explosive, never-before-published material and details gleaned through his friendship with Hitchcock, along with archival material and personal collections only recently made available, Donald Spoto casts a new light on this most famous of directors. He traces Hitchcock's professional and social rise and deals frankly with his strange marriage to Alma Reville, his distance from his daughter, Patricia, and his obsessive relationships with a number of his leading ladies from Grace Kelly and Kim Novak to Tippi Hedren.
Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn
by Donald SpotoMore than a decade after her death in 1993, Audrey Hepburn remains an incomparable icon of movie style, of high fashion and mid-twentieth-century elegance. Born in Brussels in 1929, Audrey was the daughter of a British father and a Dutch Baroness. But when she was five, her father deserted the family, and it was not until she was 30 that Audrey found him again. With the outbreak of war in 1939, her mother thought they would be safer in Holland than Holland Park, but, although they survived the German Occupation, the experience left its physical and emotional scars. Back in England again, Audrey studied ballet with Marie Rambert. After a few West End musicals and a few minor film parts, she was spotted by the colourful and eccentric author, Colette, to star in a stage version of her novel, Gigi. And then Audrey's career took off. Her debut screen role was the Princess in William Wyler's enchanting Roman Holiday. It won her an Oscar. Audrey often described herself as an actress who didn't have much technique because she never learned to act. But she had that rare, instinctive ability to reach out to an audience. Billy Wilder, who directed her in Sabrina said, 'She was just born with this kind of quality and she made it look so unforced, so simple, so easy. . . You cannot learn it. God kissed her on the cheek and there she was. 'She brought a unique grace and high spirits to a number of highly acclaimed films - from Funny Face and The Nun's Story to My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, Wait Until Dark and Robin and Marian. For a while it looked as though her personal life would follow the Hollywood dream. But her marriage to Mel Ferrer, with whom she starred in War and Peace, was not to last. There were passionate but short-lived affairs, some revealed for the first time in this book. She married and divorced a second time. But she pretty much retired from movie-making, and dedicated the last years of her life, as Special Ambassador for UNICEF, to touring Africa and South America to help hungry children. With all the insight, background knowledge and innate sympathy for his subject, qualities that have made his biographies of Hitchcock, Dietrich, Monroe and Bergman such international successes, Donald Spoto truly captures the spirit of an elusive, beautiful, talented and vulnerable woman.
Bowie: A Biography
by Marc Spitz<P>David Bowie is one of the most protean figures in rock music, one of the ten highest-selling acts in British pop history, and a subject of perennial fascination even when artistically lying low. It is a decade since the last major biography, and now Marc Spitz considers afresh Bowie's remarkable life and music. <P>From south London beginnings immediately after the war, Bowie embarked on a life of endless self re-invention: first he took the surname of an American frontiersman and joined the nascent sixties R&B scene in London among bands like Manfred Mann and the Stones. By the early seventies he had become the androgynous, white-faced waifs of Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. <P>Then there was the lounge-lizard classiness of the Thin White Duke, followed by his pensive, austere Berlin period, and subsequently the raucous racket-making aberration of his Tin Machine phase. Along the way he became a distinguished film actor in The Man Who Fell to Earth and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence. <P>But now that Bowie, happily married to Iman, is into his sixties, has he said goodbye to his musical career, or is he just biding his time before another yet another unexpected and wrong-footing renaissance? <P>One thing is for sure: this succession of alter egos has always been symptomatic of a restless musical creativity and endless quest for innovation. His astonishing run of canonical albums, from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust through Young Americans and Low to Scary Monsters, and countless classic tracks of which Changes, Sound and Vision and Space Oddity are just a taste, span psychedelia, glam-rock, 'plastic soul', electronic and industrial influences to disco, pop and even heavy metal. <P>Now, Marc Spitz has talked to those who know or have worked with Bowie to produce an even-handed, thoroughly researched and quirkily readable portrait of an enigmatic and elusive individual, for whose recent musical silence we are all the poorer. <P><b>A New York Times Bestseller</b>
The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes
by Ted Y. Mashima Lucy H. SpelmanA moray eel diagnosed with anorexia... A herd of bison whose only hope is a crusading female doctor from Paris... A vet desperately trying to save an orphaned whale by unraveling the mystery of her mother's death... This fascinating book offers a rare glimpse into the world of wild animals and the doctors who care for them. Here pioneering zoological veterinarians--men and women on the cutting edge of a new medical frontier--tell real-life tales of daring procedures for patients weighing tons or ounces, treating symptoms ranging from broken bones to a broken heart, and life-and-death dramas that will forever change the way you think about wild animals and the bonds we share with them. At once heart-quickening and clinically fascinating, the stories in this remarkable collection represent some of the most moving and unusual cases ever taken on by zoological vets. A chronicle of discovery, compassion, and cutting-edge medicine, The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes is must reading for animal lovers, science buffs, and anyone who loves a well-told tale.
Only Child
by Daphne Uviller Deborah SiegelWhat is it really like to be an only child? In this insightful and entertaining collection, writers including Judith Thurman, Kathryn Harrison, John Hodgman, and Peter Ho Davies reflect on a lifetime of being an only. They describe what it’s like to be an only child of divorce, an only because of the death of a sibling, an only who reveled in it, or an only who didn’t. As adults searching for partners, they are faced with the unique challenge of trying to turn their family units of three into units of four, and as they watch their parents age, they come face-to-face with the onus of being their families’ sole historians. Whether you’re an only child, the partner or spouse of an only, a parent pondering whether to stop at one, or a curious sibling,Only Childoffers a look behind the scenes and into the hearts of twenty-one smart and sensitive writers as they reveal the truth about growing up–and being a grown-up–solo.
I Killed: True Stories of the Road from America's Top Comics
by Rich Shydner Mark SchiffThe biggest names in standup comedy reveal the howlingly funny, completely shocking, and disturbingly bizarre moments they've experienced on the road.
Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace
by Avi ShlaimFor most of his long reign (1953-1999) Hussein of Jordan was one of the dominant figures in Middle Eastern politics, and one of the most consistent proponents of peace with Israel. This is the first major account of his life and reign, written with access to many of his surviving papers, with the co-operation (but not approval) of his family and staff, and extensive interviews with policy-makers of many different nationalities. Shlaim reveals that for the sake of dynastic and national survival, Hussein initiated a secret dialogue with Israel in 1963, and spent over 1000 hours in talks with Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, Itzhak Shamir, Itzhak Rabin, and countless other Israeli officials. Shlaim reconstructs this dialogue across the battle-lines from new Israeli records and first-hand accounts by many of the key participants, demonstrating that Israeli intransigence was largely responsible for the failure to achieve a peaceful settlement to the conflict between 1967 and 1994.
Managing Martians
by Danelle Morton Donna ShirleyThe leader of the team that created the revolutionary Mars Sojourner rover chronicles her trailblazing career in space exploration and tells the fascinating, behind-the-scenes story of the celebrated Mars Pathfinder mission. Donna Shirley's 35-year career as an aerospace engineer reached a jubilant pinnacle in July 1997 when Sojourner--the solar-powered, self-guided, microwave-oven-sized rover--was seen exploring the Martian landscape in Pathfinder's spectacular images from the surface of the red planet. The event marked a milestone in space exploration--no vehicle had ever before roamed the surface of another planet. But for Donna Shirley, the manager of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Exploration Program who headed the mostly male team that designed and built Sojourner, it marked a triumph of another kind. Since her childhood in Oklahoma, Shirley had dreamed of traveling to Mars, and, through Pathfinder, she did just that. Managing Martiansis Shirley's captivating memoir of a life and career spent reaching for the stars. From her seemingly outlandish aspiration at age ten to build aircraft, to abandoning high school Home Ec in favor of mechanical drawing, and, at sixteen, becoming a licensed pilot, Shirley defied expectations from the beginning. The only female engineering student in her college class, Shirley earned a degree in aerospace/mechanical engineering (while picking up a beauty contest title along the way) and, in 1966, began a career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that has spanned twenty-four different projects, including Mariner 10's trip to Venus and Mercury and a 1991 assignment as chief engineer of a $1. 6 billion project to explore asteroids, a comet, and Saturn. Shirley's innovations in automation and robotics paved the way to her being named the first woman ever to manage a NASA program. For Pathfinder she assembled a brilliant band of upstarts (her fellow "Martians") and embarked on an improbable mission: to put an untethered, fully automated rover on Mars--at a fraction of the cost of any previous Mars project. In a vivid narrative, rich with anecdotes and thrilling turning points, Shirley recounts the intense battles she waged to defend her vision and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of her committed team. Her moment-by-cliffhanging-moment account of Pathfinder's landing and Sojourner's first tentative foray across the sands of Mars brilliantly captures the fulfillment of a lifelong dream as it heralds a brave new era of space exploration.
Inside Power
by Gary SheffieldBecoming a Major League ballplayer for Dwight and me, that was the dream. Dwight is Dwight Gooden. Most people know him for winning the Cy Young Award. To me, though, he’s family, an uncle, but at four years older, really abrother. I can still remember those games of catch with Dwight in the backyard: him rearing back, and me somehow getting my mitt up to stop one of his fireballs. Often the two of us would sit with Grandpa (Dwight’s dad), and he’d tell us how hard it would be to make our dream come true, how just playing our best wouldn’t be enough. He’d talk about “inside power. ” At the time, I didn’t really understand what Grandpa was driving at. But I do now. After twenty years in the “bigs” and seven Major League teams, Iunderstand. When I landed with my first team, Milwaukee, I thought being a ballplayer was about hitting home runs. I’ve always been good at that. It took me longer to learn that “the game” as it’s played at the Major League level with millions on the line and the cameras always turned in your direction asks far more of you. If you’re a go-along guy, it can be great. I’ve just found that too often “going along” gets in the way of being a man. I love this game. Love the feel of the bat in my hand, the grass under my feet, the shouts of encouragement as I step into the box. I draw strength from the fans and play my heart out for them. I just wish those who control the game had more respect for the guys doing the playing. What I want to do in this book is show you what it’s been like taking this strange, wonderful, sometimes immensely frustrating life journey. “Malcontent” . . . “greedy” . . . “selfish” I’ve had plenty of adjectives lobbed my way, and believe me, they’ve stung. There are a lot of stories to tell from a life lived on and off the field: some sweet, others horrific. Everything from soaking up Little League glory to nearly being shot to death, from learning the startling truth of how I came by my last name to playing with and for characters like A-Rod, Jeter, Lasorda, Leyland, and Torre. And, yeah, I’ll finally set the record straight about a guy named Steinbrenner and a guy named Bonds. It’s a story Grandpa would want me to tell. It’s a story Ineedto tell. From the Hardcover edition.
The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty
by Wilfrid SheedFrom Irving Berlin to Cy Coleman, from "Alexander's Ragtime Band" to "Big Spender," from Tin Pan Alley to the MGM soundstages, the Golden Age of the American song embodied all that was cool, sexy, and sophisticated in popular culture. For four glittering decades, geniuses like Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Harold Arlen ran their fingers over piano keys, enticing unforgettable melodies out of thin air. Critically acclaimed writer Wilfrid Sheed uncovered the legends, mingled with the greats, and gossiped with the insiders. Now he's crafted a dazzling, authoritative history of the era that "tripled the world's total supply of singable tunes." It began when immigrants in New York's Lower East Side heard black jazz and blues--and it surged into an artistic torrent nothing short of miraculous. Broke but eager, Izzy Baline transformed himself into Irving Berlin, married an heiress, and embarked on a string of hits from "Always" to "Cheek to Cheek." Berlin's spiritual godson George Gershwin, in his brief but incandescent career, straddled Tin Pan Alley and Carnegie Hall, charming everyone in his orbit. Possessed of a world-class ego, Gershwin was also generous, exciting, and utterly original. Half a century later, Gershwin love songs like "Someone to Watch Over Me," "The Man I Love," and "Love Is Here to Stay" are as tender and moving as ever. Sheed also illuminates the unique gifts of the great jazz songsters Hoagy Carmichael and Duke Ellington, conjuring up the circumstances of their creativity and bringing back the thrill of what it was like to hear "Georgia on My Mind" or "Mood Indigo" for the first time. The Golden Age of song sparked creative breakthroughs in both Broadway musicals and splashy Hollywood extravaganzas. Sheed vividly recounts how Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Jerome Kern, and Johnny Mercer spread the melodic wealth to stage and screen. Popular music was, writes Sheed, "far and away our greatest contribution to the world's art supply in the so-called American Century." Sheed hung out with some of the great artists while they were still writing-and better than anyone, he knows great music, its shimmer, bite, and exuberance. Sparkling with wit, insight, and the grace notes of wonderful songs, The House That George Built is a heartfelt, intensely personal portrait of an unforgettable era. A delightfully charming, funny, and most illuminating portrait of songwriters and the Golden Age of American Popular Song. Mr. Sheed's carefully chosen depictions and anecdotes recapture that amazingly creative period, a moment in time in which I was so fortunate to be surrounded by all that magic." -Margaret Whiting
Leadership and Crisis
by Bobby JindalTested by Fire. Bobby Jindal has been tested as few politicians have. And from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster to Hurricane Katrina, he's shown an astounding ability to beat the odds (and beat the bureaucrats) to get things done. Then again, Jindal is not your typical politician. The son of Indian immigrants, a Christian convert from Hinduism, and a Rhodes Scholar, Jindal presided over Louisiana's healthcare system at age 24, headed the University of Louisiana system at 27, became a U. S. congressman at 33, and was elected governor of Louisiana at 36. Throughout his meteoric career, Jindal has dealt with some of the worst crises of our times, from natural disasters in his home state to out-of-control spending in Washington, D. C. His secret: the common sense solutions that bureaucrats (and politicians) ignore in favor of government-as-usual. In Leadership and Crisis, Jindal reveals: How the Obama administration spent too much time worrying about public perception and not enough on actually fighting the oil; How the federal government actually impeded Louisiana's efforts to stem the flood of oil; Why the bureaucratic incompetence during Hurricane Katrina was even worse than you know; How Bobby Jindal took on Louisiana's infamous culture of corruption; His own journey from Hinduism to Christianity, from student at Oxford to Governor of Louisiana, from policy wonk to instant midwife when he had to deliver his third child himself. Filled with behind-the-scenes stories from the oil-slicked beaches of Louisiana to the corridors of power in the U.S. Capitol, Leadership and Crisis offers an insider's view into one of the worst environmental disasters our nation has suffered--and into one of the most unique success stories of American politics.
Eleonora Duse: A Biography
by Helen SheehyA new biography, the first in two decades, of the legendary actress who inspired Anton Chekhov, popularized Henrik Ibsen, and spurred Stanislavski to create a new theory of acting based on her art and to invoke her name at every rehearsal. Writers loved her and wrote plays for her. She befriended Rainer Maria Rilke and inspired the young James Joyce, who kept a portrait of her on his desk. Her greatest love, the poet d'Annunzio, made her the heroine of his novel Il fuoco (The Flame). She radically changed the art of acting: in a duel between the past and the future, she vanquished her rival, Sarah Bernhardt. Chekhov said of her, "I've never seen anything like it. Looking at Duse, I realized why the Russian theatre is such a bore. " Charlie Chaplin called her "the finest thing I have seen on the stage. " Gloria Swanson and Lillian Gish watched her perform with adoring attention, John Barrymore with awe. Shaw said she "touches you straight on the very heart." When asked about her acting, Duse responded that, quite simply, it came from life. Except for one short film, Duse's art has been lost. Despite dozens of books about her, her story is muffled by legend and myth. The sentimental image that prevails is of a misty, tragic heroine victimized by men, by life; an artist of unearthly purity, without ambition. Now Helen Sheehy, author of the much admired biography of Eva Le Gallienne, gives us a different Duse--a woman of strength and resolve, a woman who knew pain but could also inflict it. "Life is hard," she said, "one must wound or be wounded." She wanted to reveal on the stage the truth about women's lives and she wanted her art to endure. Drawing on newly discovered material, including Duse's own memoir, and unpublished letters and notes, Sheehy brings us to an understanding of the great actress's unique ways of working: Duse acting out of her sense of her character's inner life, Duse anticipating the bold aspects of modernism and performing with a sexual freedom that shocked and thrilled audiences. She edited her characters' lines to bare skeletons, asked for the simplest sets and costumes. Where other actresses used hysterics onstage, Duse used stillness. Sheehy writes about the Duse that the actress herself tried to hide--tracing her life from her childhood as a performing member of a family of actors touring their repertory of drama and commedia dell'arte through Italy. We follow her through her twenties and through the next four decades of commissioning and directing plays, running her own company, and illuminating a series of great roles that included Emile Zola's Thérèse Raquin, Marguerite in Dumas's La Dame aux camélias, Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, and Hedda in his Hedda Gabler. When she thought her beauty was fading at fifty-one, she gave up the stage, only to return to the theatre in her early sixties; she traveled to America and enchanted audiences across the country. She died as she was born--on tour. Sheehy's illuminating book brings us as close as we have ever been to the woman and the artist.
We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives: A Swingin' Show-Biz Saga
by David Ritz Paul ShafferFrom Shaffer, lifelong music junkie, hipster, and longtime leader of David Letterman's band, comes a candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir of a life in--and a love of--show business.