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Dearest Ones At Home: Clara Taylor's Letters from Russia, 1917-1919
by Katrina Maloney Patricia M. MaloneyOn November 5, 1917, Taylorville, Illinois native Clara Taylor stepped off a Trans-Siberian Railway train into a city then called Petrograd, Russia. Employed by the YWCA as an industrial expert, Clara had been sent to Russia to help establish Associations in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and Moscow. Her main charge while in Russia was to survey and report on factory conditions, but Clara only spent a fraction of her stay in Russia visiting factories; due to the vagaries of the political, social, and economic revolution—the upheaval of an entire culture—Clara and her colleagues spent most of their first year in Russia teaching English, home economics, book keeping, literature, and basketball, and sponsoring lectures, dances and sing-alongs for Russian working women. Clara&’s letters, collected in this book, tell of both the mundane and the extraordinary: what the YW staff ate for dinner; how the Bolshevik suppression of free speech impacted Americans&’ ability to communicate with those at home; shootings in the streets; bartering for pounds of sugar; conversing with nobility, with intellectuals, and with workers; attending the opera; and sight-seeing at monasteries. Together, Clara&’s letters to her family—her &“dearest ones at home&”—tell a compelling story of one American woman&’s experiences in Revolutionary Russia.
Dearest Vicky, Darling Fritz: Queen Victoria's Eldest Daughter and the German Emperor
by John Van der KisteThis work tells the love story of the royal couple against the changing background of 19th-century Germany. It looks at the differing political sympathies of the couple, revealed through letters, and re-examines the prevailing view that the domineering Vicky never bothered to conceal her distaste for everything Prussian and flaunting her sense of British superiority. In many ways ahead of her time, she was something of a pioneer feminist, refusing to accept the oft-accepted maxim that women were second-class citizens. Insufficient consideration has been given to her health and the possibility that her judgement and reason may sometimes have been affected, albeit mildly, by the family's inheritance of porphyria that led to the 'madness' of her great-grandfather George III.
Dearest Wilding
by Yvette Eastman Thomas P. RiggioA candid and intimate chapter in the life of a modern woman, Yvette Eastman's vivid narrative also contributes richly to the life story of Theodore Dreiser. Dearest Wilding: A Memoir records the journey that took Yvette Szekely from an upper-middle-class scholar's home in Budapest to the intellectual and artistic centers of urban America in the 1920s and 1930s.In 1929 sixteen-year-old Yvette Szekely met Dreiser, who was fifty-eight at the time, and within a year he became her lover. Dreiser remained central to her life--as lover, father figure, and mentor--until his death in 1945. Her portrait of Dreiser, who is by no means idealized, is of a complex man--often troubled, suspicious, and jealous, but also caring and supportive.The book is much more than an account of a sixteen-year relationship, however. It describes Eastman's attempt to understand her bond with Dreiser, forcing her back to her childhood, to memories of her distinguished but distant father who remained in Hungary, and to the early experiences that made the aging Dreiser so important to her life. In an afterword, the author thoughtfully reflects on the patterns of love and loss that form part of her past.Dearest Wilding is a valuable primary source in literary history and among the last documents from this era. One of the most important figures in the memoir is Max Eastman, whose early relationship with Yvette Szekely resulted in marriage years later.As perhaps the last reminiscence of Dreiser and his circle that will ever appear, Dearest Wilding: A Memoir promises rewarding reading.
Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child
by Bob SpitzIt's rare for someone to emerge in America who can change our attitudes, our beliefs, and our very culture. It's even rarer when that someone is a middle-aged, six-foot three-inch woman whose first exposure to an unsuspecting public is cooking an omelet on a hot plate on a local TV station. And yet, that's exactly what Julia Child did. The warble-voiced doyenne of television cookery became an iconic cult figure and joyous rule-breaker as she touched off the food revolution that has gripped America for more than fifty years. Now, in Bob Spitz's definitive, wonderfully affectionate biography, the Julia we know and love comes vividly -- and surprisingly -- to life. In Dearie, Spitz employs the same skill he brought to his best-selling, critically acclaimed book The Beatles, providing a clear-eyed portrait of one of the most fascinating and influential Americans of our time -- a woman known to all, yet known by only a few.At its heart, Dearie is a story about a woman's search for her own unique expression. Julia Child was a directionless, gawky young woman who ran off halfway around the world to join a spy agency during World War II. She eventually settled in Paris, where she learned to cook and collaborated on the writing of what would become Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that changed the food culture of America. She was already fifty when The French Chef went on the air -- at a time in our history when women weren't making those leaps. Julia became the first educational TV star, virtually launching PBS as we know it today; her marriage to Paul Child formed a decades-long love story that was romantic, touching, and quite extraordinary. A fearless, ambitious, supremely confident woman, Julia took on all the pretensions that embellished tony French cuisine and fricasseed them to a fare-thee-well, paving the way for everything that has happened since in American cooking, from TV dinners and Big Macs to sea urchin foam and the Food Channel. Julia Child's story, however, is more than the tale of a talented woman and her sumptuous craft. It is also a saga of America's coming of age and growing sophistication, from the Depression Era to the turbulent sixties and the excesses of the eighties to the greening of the American kitchen. Julia had an effect on and was equally affected by the baby boom, the sexual revolution, and the start of the women's liberation movement. On the centenary of her birth, Julia finally gets the biography she richly deserves. An in-depth, intimate narrative, full of fresh information and insights, Dearie is an entertaining, all-out adventure story of one of our most fascinating and beloved figures.From the Hardcover edition.
The Death and Afterlife of the North American Martyrs
by Emma AndersonIn the 1640s--a decade of epidemic and warfare across colonial North America--eight Jesuit missionaries met their deaths at the hands of native antagonists. With their collective canonization in 1930, these men, known to the devout as the North American martyrs, would become the continents first official Catholic saints. In "The Death and Afterlife of the North American Martyrs," Emma Anderson untangles the complexities of these seminal acts of violence and their ever-changing legacy across the centuries. While exploring how Jesuit missionaries perceived their terrifying final hours, the work also seeks to comprehend the motivations of the those who confronted them from the other side of the axe, musket, or caldron of boiling water, and to illuminate the experiences of those native Catholics who, though they died alongside their missionary mentors, have yet to receive comparable recognition as martyrs by the Catholic Church. In tracing the creation and evolution of the cult of the martyrs across the centuries, Anderson reveals the ways in which both believers and detractors have honored and preserved the memory of the martyrs in this "afterlife," and how their powerful story has been continually reinterpreted in the collective imagination over the centuries. As rival shrines rose to honor the martyrs on either side of the U. S. -Canadian border, these figures would both unite and deeply divide natives and non-natives, francophones and anglophones, Protestants and Catholics, Canadians and Americans, forging a legacy as controversial as it has been enduring.
Death and Deprivation on the Forgotten Sumatra Railway: A Prisoner's Story
by James H. BantonJames Henry Banton was born in Burton on Trent in 1920. He worked as a driver of a steam locomotive used to transport beer and supplies to breweries around the town. When war broke out Jim joined the RAF, eventually becoming a Leading Aircraftsman as part of the RAF’s ground crew. During this time Jim had met the love of his life Dorothy Mason. Jim didn't know that when he left Gladstone Dock in Liverpool he would not see home or his family including Dorothy for another four and a half years. Eventually posted to the Far East he was captured by the Japanese in the hills on the island of Java. Used as slave labour, starved, beaten and witnessing death on a daily basis he was later put to work on the building of the Sumatra Railway. The Far East Prisoners of war became known as the Forgotten Army, however there has been little reference paid to the Sumatra Railway compared with other theatres of WW2. With this in mind the prisoners who worked on the Sumatra Railway could be considered to be the ‘Forgotten of the Forgotten Army’. In August 1945 the world celebrated victory in Europe, however for the FEPOW’s the war dragged on. As parts of the world were trying to return to normality Jim and his colleagues were being made to dig their own graves in the Sumatra jungle. The FEPOW’s lives hung in the balance as orders had been issued to murder all POW’s should mainland Japan be invaded by the Allies. This book is Jim’s story and it is hoped it will also be a reminder not only of the sacrifice of the Forgotten Army but also highlight the suffering of the ‘Forgotten of the Forgotten Army’ – The Sumatra Railway POW’s.
The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story
by Aaron Bobrow-StrainOne of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All TimeWinner of the 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Award | Winner of the 2020 Washington State Book Award | Named a 2019 Southwest Book of the Year | Shortlisted for the 2019 Brooklyn Public Library Literary PrizeWhat happens when an undocumented teen mother takes on the U.S. immigration system?When Aida Hernandez was born in 1987 in Agua Prieta, Mexico, the nearby U.S. border was little more than a worn-down fence. Eight years later, Aida’s mother took her and her siblings to live in Douglas, Arizona. By then, the border had become one of the most heavily policed sites in America.Undocumented, Aida fought to make her way. She learned English, watched Friends, and, after having a baby at sixteen, dreamed of teaching dance and moving with her son to New York City. But life had other plans. Following a misstep that led to her deportation, Aida found herself in a Mexican city marked by violence, in a country that was not hers. To get back to the United States and reunite with her son, she embarked on a harrowing journey. The daughter of a rebel hero from the mountains of Chihuahua, Aida has a genius for survival—but returning to the United States was just the beginning of her quest.Taking us into detention centers, immigration courts, and the inner lives of Aida and other daring characters, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez reveals the human consequences of militarizing what was once a more forgiving border. With emotional force and narrative suspense, Aaron Bobrow-Strain brings us into the heart of a violently unequal America. He also shows us that the heroes of our current immigration wars are less likely to be perfect paragons of virtue than complex, flawed human beings who deserve justice and empathy all the same.
The Death and Life of Malcolm X
by Peter GoldmanThe Death and Life of Malcolm X provides a dramatic portrait of one of the most important black leaders of the twentieth century. Focusing on Malcolm X's rise to prominence and the final year of his life, the book details his rift with the Nation of Islam and its leader, Elijah Muhammad, leading to death threats and eventually assassination at the hands of a death squad. In a new preface for this edition, Peter Goldman reflects on the forty years since the book's first publication and considers new information based on FBI surveillance that has since come to light.
Death and the Sisters (A Mary Shelley Mystery #1)
by Heather RedmondBefore there was Frankenstein, a young Mary Shelley, her stepsister Jane &“Claire&” Clairmont, and poet Percy Bysshe Shelley are drawn into a shocking murder investigation in this deliciously captivating new historical mystery revolving around the real-life trio who would later scandalize 19th century England even as they transformed the literary world.London, 1814: Mary Godwin and her stepsister Jane Clairmont, both sixteen, possess quick minds bolstered by an unconventional upbringing. Mary, whose mother famously advocated for women&’s rights, rejects the two paths that seem open to her—that of an assistant in her father&’s bookshop, or an ordinary wife. Though quieter and more reserved than the boisterous Jane, Mary&’s imagination is keen, and she longs for real-world adventures.One evening, an opportunity arrives in the form of a dinner guest, Percy Bysshe Shelley. At twenty-one, Shelley is already a renowned poet and radical. Mary finds their visitor handsome and compelling, but it is later that evening, after the party has broken up, that events take a truly intriguing turn. When Mary comes downstairs in search of a book, she finds instead a man face down on the floor—with a knife in his back.Mary, Jane, and Shelley are all drawn to learn the truth behind the tragedy, especially as each discovery seems to hint at a tangled web that includes many in Shelley&’s closest circle. But as the attraction between Mary and the married poet intensifies, it sparks a rivalry between the sisters, even as it kindles the creative fire within . . .
Death and the Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I and the Dark Scandal That Rocked the Throne
by Chris SkidmoreIn the tradition of Alison Weir's New York Times bestselling Mary, Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, comes the most sensational crime story of Tudor England. On the morning of September 8, 1560, at the isolated manor of Cunmor place, the body of a young woman was found at the bottom of a staircase, her neck broken. But this was no ordinary death. Amy Robsart was the wife of Elizabeth I's great favorite, Robert Dudley, the man who many believed she would marry, were he free. Immediately people suspected foul play and Elizabeth's own reputation was in danger of serious damage. Many felt she might even lose her throne. An inquest was begun, witnesses called, and ultimately a verdict of death by accident was reached. But the mystery refused to die and cast a long shadow over Elizabeth's reign. Using recently discovered forensic evidence from the original investigation, Skidmore is able to put an end to centuries of speculation as to the true causes of Robsart's death. This is the story of a treacherous period in Elizabeth's life: a tale of love, death, and tragedy, exploring the dramatic early life of England's Virgin Queen.
Death at Seaworld: Shamu and the Dark Side of Killer Whales in Captivity
by David KirbyFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Evidence of Harm and Animal Factory- a groundbreaking scientific thriller that exposes the dark side of SeaWorld, America's most beloved marine mammal park. Death at SeaWorld centers on the battle with the multimillion-dollar marine park industry over the controversial and even lethal ramifications of keeping killer whales in captivity. Following the story of marine biologist and animal advocate at the Humane Society of the US, Naomi Rose, Kirby tells the gripping story of the two-decade fight against PR-savvy SeaWorld, which came to a head with the tragic death of trainer Dawn Brancheau in 2010. Kirby puts that horrific animal-on-human attack in context. Brancheau's death was the most publicized among several brutal attacks that have occurred at Sea World and other marine mammal theme parks. Death at SeaWorld introduces real people taking part in this debate, from former trainers turned animal rights activists to the men and women that champion SeaWorld and the captivity of whales. In section two the orcas act out. And as the story progresses and orca attacks on trainers become increasingly violent, the warnings of Naomi Rose and other scientists fall on deaf ears, only to be realized with the death of Dawn Brancheau. Finally he covers the media backlash, the eyewitnesses who come forward to challenge SeaWorld's glossy image, and the groundbreaking OSHA case that challenges the very idea of keeping killer whales in captivity and may spell the end of having trainers in the water with the ocean's top predators.
Death be Not Proud: A Memoir
by John GuntherBook Description Johnny Gunther was only seventeen years old when he died of a brain tumor. During the months of his illness, everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and, above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair.
Death Be Not Proud
by John J. Gunther"If courage is the antidote to pain and grief, the disease and the cure are both in this book. . . . A story of great unselfishness and great heroism." —New York TimesJohnny Gunther was only seventeen years old when he died of a brain tumor. During the months of his illness, everyone near him was unforgettably impressed by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness, and, above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair. This deeply moving book is a father's memoir of a brave, intelligent, and spirited boy.
Death Before Glory!: The British Soldier in the West Indies in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793–1815
by Martin R. HowardDeath Before Glory! is a highly readable, thoroughly researched and comprehensive study of the British army's campaigns in the West Indies during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period and of the extraordinary experiences of the soldiers who served there. Rich in sugar, cotton, coffee and slaves, the region was a key to British prosperity and it was perhaps even more important to her greatest enemy France. Yet, until now, the history of this vital theatre of the Napoleonic Wars has been seriously neglected. Not only does Martin Howard describe, in graphic detail, the entirety of the British campaigns in the region between 1793 and 1815, he also focuses on the human experience of the men the climate and living conditions, the rations and diet, military discipline and training, the treatment of the wounded and the impact of disease. Martin Howard's thoroughgoing and original work is the essential account of this fascinating but often overlooked aspect of the history of the British army and the Napoleonic Wars.
Death by Fame: A Life of Elisabeth, Empress of Austria
by Andrew SinclairA biography of the Empress of Austria—a tale of rebellion, scandal, and murder that paints a vivid, tragic picture of nineteenth-century European royalty.In 1898, anarchist Luigi Lucheni fatally stabbed Elisabeth, Empress of Austria, on Lake Geneva as she prepared to board a steamer from the Mont Blanc pier. Her life had been one of both profound sadness and inspiring perseverance, and in its course she set the style for the royal rebels who would follow her, including Diana, Princess of Wales.While still a child, Elisabeth was married to the Hapsburg prince Franz Josef, heir to the Austrian Empire. She gave him three children, one of whom, Crown Prince Rudolf, would later commit suicide at Mayerling. Finding the atmosphere of the Austro-Hungarian court stifling, the increasingly erratic empress traveled incessantly. Abandoning her husband to the attentions of the Viennese comic actress Katharina Schratt, Elisabeth went on errands of mercy to the docks and slums of London and Liverpool, Barcelona and Naples, Smyrna and Marseilles. She was the despair of local police, who could not protect her, even though she wore disguises. She supported independence movements in Ireland, where she hunted superbly alongside her close companion, the English cavalryman “Bay” Middleton, and also in Hungary, an integral part of her husband’s deteriorating empire.When Lucheni assassinated the empress, he killed the most alluring royal figure of the Victorian age. But fame was her real executioner. Her celebrity had led to her death. Elisabeth had been driven into loneliness until she had lost all sense of reality—pursuing a desperate liberty that a confined marriage would never allow her. This biography tells her colorful, tragic, fascinating story.“A well-written, thoroughly researched story of a popular and beautiful empress, who, while self-indulgent, sought a life of privacy and peace, and showed sympathy and charity toward the poor.” —Kirkus Reviews
The Death Class: A True Story About Life
by Erika HayasakiThe poignant, “powerful” (The Boston Globe) look at how to appreciate life from an extraordinary professor who teaches about death: “Poetic passages and assorted revelations you’ll likely not forget” (Chicago Tribune).Why does a college course on death have a three-year waiting list? When nurse Norma Bowe decided to teach a course on death at a college in New Jersey, she never expected it to be popular. But year after year students crowd into her classroom, and the reason is clear: Norma’s “death class” is really about how to make the most of what poet Mary Oliver famously called our “one wild and precious life.” Under the guise of discussions about last wills and last breaths and visits to cemeteries and crematoriums, Norma teaches her students to find grace in one another. In The Death Class, award-winning journalist Erika Hayasaki followed Norma for more than four years, showing how she steers four extraordinary students from their tormented families and neighborhoods toward happiness: she rescues one young woman from her suicidal mother, helps a young man manage his schizophrenic brother, and inspires another to leave his gang life behind. Through this unorthodox class on death, Norma helps kids who are barely hanging on to understand not only the value of their own lives, but also the secret of fulfillment: to throw yourself into helping others. Hayasaki’s expert reporting and literary prose bring Norma’s wisdom out of the classroom, transforming it into an inspiring lesson for all. In the end, Norma’s very own life—and how she lives it—is the lecture that sticks. “Readers will come away struck by Bowe’s compassion—and by the unexpectedly life-affirming messages of courage that spring from her students’ harrowing experiences” (Entertainment Weekly).
Death Clutch: My Story of Determination, Domination, and Survival
by Paul Heyman Brock LesnarThe “baddest man on the planet,” undisputed, three-time WWE Champion and current UFC World Heavyweight Champion, Brock Lesner, shares his true personal story of determination, domination, and survival in Death Clutch. A raw, no-holds-barred memoir from one of the most popular—and polarizing—figures in sports entertainment and professional mixed martial arts, Death Clutch is an essential volume for every WWE and Ultimate Fighting fan.
Death Confetti: Pickers, Punks, and Transit Ghosts in Portland, Oregon
by Jennifer RobinWith savage humor, Death Confetti features performance artist Jennifer Robin's autobiographical sketches of Portland, Oregon, from the grunge-era obscurity of the '90s to its current media-darling status.As an only child raised by reclusive grandparents in upstate New York, Jennifer recalls that she felt "anemic for the real." At seventeen she broke loose and made her way to the west coast."Civilization is a nightmare-illusion," Jennifer writes, "a three-dimensional spreadsheet perpetuated by machines that hypnotize meat."In a city that's stranger than fiction, grocery-store checkers and meth-heads loom as lost gods. We're introduced to the lady tweaker "Chew Toy," who wears moon boots and sings hair metal songs all night as she collects recyclable bottles. Jennifer visits a bar where executives simulate doggie-style sex acts on the dance floor. Then there's all the tales of late-night life on the city's buses and light rail.Jennifer reflects on her early terror in Catholic school and phone calls with her far-out mother, who disclosed that her gynecologist was a murderer. In the all-too-true pages of Death Confetti, Robin remembers her life among noise musicians, junkies, and her escape from a boyfriend who insisted on reviving the lives of hundreds of deceased fruit flies.Death Confetti jolts the senses, and lingers like a mosquito bite to the Portland of everybody's soul.
Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz
by Steven Paskuly Rudolf HossBy his own admission, SS Kommandant Rudolf Höss was history's greatest mass murderer, having personally supervised the extermination of approximately two million people, mostly Jews, at the death camp in Auschwitz, Poland. Death Dealer is the first complete translation of Höss' memoirs into English.These bone-chilling memoirs were written between October 1946 and April 1947. At the suggestion of Professor Sanislaw Batawia, a psychologist, and Professor Jan Shen, the prosecuting attorney for the Polish War Crimes Commission in Warsaw, Höss wrote a lengthy and detailed description of how the camp developed, his impressions of the various personalities with whom he dealt, and even the extermination of millions in the gas chambers. This written testimony is perhaps the most important document attesting to the Holocaust, because it is the only candid, detailed, and (for the most part) honest description of the Final Solution from a high-ranking SS officer intimately involved in carrying out the plans of Hitler and Himmler.With the cold objectivity of a common hit-man, Höss chronicles the discovery of the most effective poison gas, and the technical obstacles that often thwarted his aim to kill as efficiently as possible. Staring at the horror without reacting, Höss allowed conditions at Auschwitz to reduce human beings to walking skeletons - then he labelled them as subhumans fit only to die. Readers will witness Höss's shallow rationalizations as he tries to balance his deeds with his increasingly disturbed, yet always ineffectual, conscience.
Death, Disease, and Life at War: The Civil War Letters of Surgeon James D. Benton, 111th and 98th New York Infantry Regiments, 1862–1865
by Christopher LoperfidoA collection of letters from a Union surgeon in the American Civil War, revealing what life was like for a doctor and a soldier in that era.Union surgeon James Dana Benton witnessed firsthand the suffering and death brought about by the ghastly wounds, infections, and diseases that wreaked havoc to both the Union and Confederate armies. A native of New York, Dr. Benton penned a series of letters throughout the war to his family relating his experiences with the 111th New York Infantry as an assistant surgeon, and later with the 98th New York as surgeon. This unique correspondence—which covers a wide array of topics beyond medicine and the treatment of the injured—is the basis of Death, Disease, and Life at War: The Civil War Letters of Surgeon James D. Benton, 111th and 98th New York Infantry Regiments, 1862-1865.Dr. Benton was present for some of the war’s most gruesome and important battles, including Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, and the siege of Petersburg. He was also present for the fall of Harpers Ferry, Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural address, and the collapse of Richmond. His pen offers an insightful and honest look into the everyday life of not only a Union surgeon, but also an officer who suffered the same basic hardships other soldiers in the ranks endured. Chris Loperfido’s Death, Disease, and Life at War is a valuable addition to the Civil War bookshelf.“More than 600,00 men perished in the Civil War, and many more were wounded or fell ill. Prompt and timely attention from an army surgeon was often the difference between life and death. James Benton’s letters home provide a compelling glimpse into the everyday life of these doctors—their concerns and frustrations, their patients and colleagues, the places visited, and their opinions on the war. I commend Christopher Loperfido for bringing this interesting slice of the war to light.” —Scott L. Mingus, Sr., award-winning author of Confederate General William “Extra Billy Smith”: From Virginia’s Statehouse to Gettysburg Scapegoat“Loperfido’s excellent arrangement of [Benton’s] letters provide[s] a compelling look at the life of a Union doctor during a time when the practice of medicine was still primitive and an understanding of health in general was scanty at best. Death, Disease, and Life at War is another valuable piece to the puzzle of understanding what it was like to serve in the Civil War.” —Meg Groeling, author of The Aftermath of the Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead
Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders
by William R. DrennanConstructed in 1911 as a summer home for the architect and his mistress, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin residence stood for only a few years. On an August night in 1914, it became the scene of a brutal mass murder and was almost completely destroyed by fire. In this text, Drennan (English, U. of Wisconsin) traces the events that led up to that night, examines the murderer's motives, and considers the effects of the loss of his home and loved ones on Wright's life and career. Terrace Books is a division of the U. of Wisconsin Press. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
A Death in Jerusalem: The Assassination by Jewish Extremists of the First Arab/Israeli
by Kati MartonOn the evening of September 17, 1948, a car carrying Count Folke Bernadotte, the first United Nations-appointed mediator in the Middle East, traveled up a narrow Jerusalem street. As the car shifted gears for the climb toward the New City, an Israeli Army jeep nosed into the road, forcing Bernadotte's car and the two following him to come to a full stop. From the jeep sprang three uniformed men clutching automatic weapons. In a moment that set the stage for a legacy of violence that has since characterized Arab-Israeli negotiations, Count Bernadotte was shot six times and killed. The assassins were never brought to justice. A Death in Jerusalem reveals the forces behind this assassination, the passion that first dictated the tactics of terrorism in Israel and that continue to shape the thinking and actions of those even now determined to block accommodation with the Palestinians. At its birth in 1948, the State of Israel was endangered as much by a fratricidal war between Jewish moderates and extremists as it was by the invading armies of its Arab neighbors. In the first test of its authority, the fledgling United Nations forged a temporary truce between Arabs and Jews and dispatched Count Bernadotte to negotiate a permanent peace. A Swede with a reputation for skillful negotiations with the Nazis for the release of prisoners, including Jewish concentration-camp victims, Bernadotte had seemed the ideal choice for mediator. But he was dangerously unversed in the Israeli underground's passionate visions of a homeland restored to its biblical geographical proportions. To the Stern Gang, led by future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, any concession of land was as threatening to Israel's integrity as the Arabs' invading armies. And the Sternists did not trust Count Bernadotte, whom they saw as threatening Israel's claim to the holy city of Jerusalem. As Bernadotte prepared his plan for the allocation of disputed territory, the Stern Gang plotted his murder. Drawing on previously untapped sources, including Bernadotte's family and former Stern Gang members, Kati Marton tells the vivid and haunting story of what propelled the Sternists, how they achieved their goal, and how and why the assassins were shielded from prosecution.From the Hardcover edition.
A Death in Malta: An Assassination and a Family's Quest for Justice
by Paul Caruana Galizia&“A chronicle of the sort of silencing-by-murder that we might have thought happens only in Vladimir Putin&’s Russia. . . . [and] a son&’s distraught but beautiful tribute to his journalist-mother. . . . Exquisite.&” —Wall Street JournalA journalist&’s spellbinding account of the shocking murder of his muckraking mother and a quest for justice that has reverberated far beyond their tiny homelandAn archipelago off the southern coast of Italy, Malta is a picturesque gem eroded by a climate of corruption, polarization, inequality, and a virtual absence of civic spirit. In this unpromising soil, a fearless journalist took root. Daphne Caruana Galizia fashioned herself into the country&’s lonely voice of conscience, her muckraking and editorializing sending shock waves that threatened to topple those in power and made her at once the island&’s best-known figure and its most reviled. In 2017, a campaign of intimidation against her culminated in a car bombing that took her life. Daphne was also he devoted and inspiring mother to three sons, who with their father have carried on the quest for justice and transparency after her death. Spellbindingly narrated by the youngest of them, the award-winning journalist Paul Caruana Galizia, A Death in Malta is at once a study in heroism and the powerful story of a family&’s crusade for accountability in a society built on lies, with reverberations far beyond their homeland.
Death in Slow Motion
by Eleanor CooneyAzheimer's is death in slow motion," says Eleanor Cooney in this jarring and unsentimental memoir about caring for her mother, "and it has the ability to kill love while the person you love still breathes. " When it was all but certain that her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother had Alzheimer's, Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, of the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair. "She was always my favorite person," says Eleanor, "hip, cool, brilliant, funny, sane -- my ultimate confidante and sympathizer. " Now, overwhelmed by the Chinese water torture of endless small worries, endlessly repeated, that dementia thrusts on victim and caregiver, Cooney resorts to booze, tranquilizers, and gallows wit to blunt the edges of the relentless loss and the demands of ministering to thisdevastating disease. But the coping mechanism that finally serves this eloquent writer best is writing, the ability to bring to vivid life the memories her mother is losing. As her mother gropes in the gathering darkness for a grip on the world she once loved, succeeding only in conjuring sad fantasies of places and times with her dead husband, Cooney revisits their true past. "Death in Slow Motion becomes the mesmerizing story of Eleanor's actual childhood, straight
Death in Ten Minutes: The forgotten life of radical suffragette Kitty Marion
by Fern Riddell'Fierce, fresh and feminist, Fern Riddell tells the story of Suffragette Kitty Marion in a way that fizzes and shocks. Exciting, twisty and very very timely.' Lucy WorsleyIn Death in Ten Minutes Fern Riddell uncovers the story of radical suffragette Kitty Marion, told through never before seen personal diaries in Kitty's own hand. Kitty Marion was sent across the country by the Pankhurst family to carry out a nationwide campaign of bombings and arson attacks, as women fought for the vote using any means necessary. But in the aftermath of World War One, the dangerous and revolutionary actions of Kitty and other militant suffragettes were quickly hushed up and disowned by the previously proud movement, and the women who carried out these attacks were erased from our history. Now, for the first time, their untold story will be brought back to life.Telling a new history of the women's movement in the light of new and often shocking revelations, this book will ask the question: Why has the life of this incredible woman, and the violence of the suffragettes been forgotten? And, one hundred years later, why are women suddenly finding themselves under threat again?