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Proust's Overcoat: The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust
Par Lorenza Foschini. 2010
“A rare and wonderfully written book of literary detection that is heartbreaking as well as thrilling.”—Michael Ondaatje, author of The…
English PatientIn the tradition of Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman comes Proust’s Overcoat by Lorenza Foschini—the charming, endlessly intriguing story of a collector’s obsessive search for the personal effects of legendary author Marcel Proust. This fascinating true story introduces readers to a truly delightful character—Jacques Guérin, owner of a perfume company in France—and enthralls them with his relentless lifelong pursuit of all things Proustian, even the author’s most mundane possessions.Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
Par Jonathan Eig. 2005
The definitive account of the life and tragic death of the legendary New York Yankee: “Luckiest Man stands in the…
first rank of sports biographies.” —Kevin Baker, The New York Times Book ReviewLou Gehrig was a baseball legend—the Iron Horse, the stoic New York Yankee who was the greatest first baseman in history, a man whose consecutive-games streak was ended by a horrible disease that now bears his name. But as this definitive new biography makes clear, Gehrig’s life was more complicated—and, perhaps, even more heroic—than anyone really knew.Drawing on new interviews and more than two hundred pages of previously unpublished letters to and from Gehrig, Luckiest Man gives us an intimate portrait of the man who became an American hero: his life as a shy and awkward youth growing up in New York City, his unlikely friendship with Babe Ruth (a friendship that allegedly ended over rumors that Ruth had had an affair with Gehrig’s wife), and his stellar career with the Yankees, where his consecutive-games streak stood for more than half a century. What was not previously known, however, is that symptoms of Gehrig’s affliction began appearing in 1938, earlier than is commonly acknowledged. Later, aware that he was dying, Gehrig exhibited a perseverance that was truly inspiring; he lived the last two years of his short life with the same grace and dignity with which he gave his now-famous “luckiest man” speech.Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Jonathan Eig’s Luckiest Man shows us one of the greatest baseball players of all time as we’ve never seen him before.“A first-class biography.” —Bill Syken, Sports IllustratedHerod the Great: Jewish King in a Roman World (Jewish Lives)
Par Martin Goodman. 2024
A vivid account of the political triumphs and domestic tragedies of the Jewish king Herod the Great during the turmoil…
of the Roman revolution &“Herod the Great is typical of Yale&’s Jewish Lives series: short, clear, deeply knowledgeable, deeply illuminating.&”—Dominic Green, Wall Street Journal Herod the Great (73–4 BCE) was a phenomenally energetic ruler who took advantage of the chaos of the Roman revolution to establish himself as a major figure in a changing Roman world and transform the landscape of Judaea. Both Jews and Christians developed myths about his cruelty and rashness: in Christian tradition he was cast as the tyrant who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents; in the Talmud, despite fond memories of his glorious Temple in Jerusalem, he was recalled as a persecutor of rabbis. The life of Herod is better documented than that of any other Jew from antiquity, and Martin Goodman examines the extensive literary and archaeological evidence to provide a vivid portrait of Herod in his sociopolitical context: his Idumaean origins, his installation by Rome as king of Judaea and cultivation of leading Romans, his massive architectural projects, and his presentation of himself as a Jew, most strikingly through the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. Goodman argues that later stories depicting Herod as a monster derived from public interest in his execution of three of his sons after dramatic public trials foisted on him by a dynastic policy imposed by the Roman emperor.A Lady of Cotton: Hannah Greg, Mistress of Quarry Bank Mill
Par David Sekers. 2012
In 1789 Hannah Lightbody, a well-educated and intelligent young woman of means, married Samuel Greg and found herself at the…
centre of his cotton empire in the industrial heart of England. It was a man’s world, in which women like Hannah were barred from politics, had few rights and were expected to be little more than good, dutiful wives. Struggling to apply herself to household management, Hannah instead turned her attention to the well-being of the cotton mill workers under her husband’s control. Over the next four decades she fought to improve the education, health and welfare of cotton girls and pauper apprentices at the mill. Her legacy helped turn the north-west into the pioneering heart of reform in Britain. Here, the story of Hannah’s remarkable life is told for the first time.Kaiser Wilhelm II: Germany's Last Emperor
Par John Kiste. 2013
Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, this biography examines the complex personality of Germany's last emperor. Born in…
1859, the eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria, Prince Wilhelm was torn between two cultures - that of the Prussian Junker and that of the English liberal gentleman.In the Footsteps of William Wallace: In Scotland and Northern England
Par Alan Young, Michael J Stead. 2010
For nearly 700 years debate has raged over the true nature of William Wallace and his role in Scotland’s turbulent…
history. Was he the Braveheart of Blind Harry’s legendary account, the bold, but savage, hero of the Scottish wars? Or, as some contemporary chroniclers attested, nothing but a villainous thief and vagrant fugitive? This book draws on a wide range of contemporary and modern sources to look behind the figure of legend to find Wallace’s true character. Through superb photographs, we trace the journey of Wallace from his modest upbringing in south-west Scotland and his first victory as a ‘guerilla’ leader and military commander at Stirling Bridge to his painful death seven years later. We see his ‘invasion’ of Northumberland and Cumberland. This is an essential travelling companion for a journey through Wallace’s kingdom and to learn more about the myth and the man.A Dangerous Game: Growing Up East of the Oder Under the Nazis and Soviets
Par Luise Urban. 2013
Luise Urban was born in 1933 into a world about to be turned upside down. Her family lived east of…
the river Oder. Fatefully, her family were not Nazi Party members and suffered as a result. As the Third Reich crumbled and the Red Army advanced, she was one of 15 million Germans trapped in a war zone during the terrible winter of 1945. Weakened by starvation and forced to flee their home, it was only the bravery of Luise’s mother that saved the family from total destruction.The Oder–Neisse line (Oder-Neiße-Grenze) is the German–Polish border drawn in the aftermath of the war. The line primarily follows the Oder and Neisse rivers to the Baltic Sea west of the city of Stettin. All pre-war German territory east of the line and within the 1937 German boundaries was discussed at the Potsdam Conference in 1945. Germany was to lose 25 per cent of her territory under the agreement. Crucially, Stalin, Churchill and Truman also agreed to the expulsion of the German population beyond the new eastern borders. This meant that almost all of the native German population was killed, fled or was driven out by force.In A Dangerous Game, Luise relives that harrowing time, written in memory of her mother, to whom she owes her life. It is the story of a child, but it is not a story for children.M: MI5's First Spymaster
Par Andrew Cook. 2011
This is the amazing true story of the real 'M', William Melville, MI5's founding father and the inspiration for Ian…
Flemings's character in "James Bond". Melville was one of the most influential counter-espionage figures of the twentieth century. From a tiny outfit based in Victoria Street, London, the counter-intelligence organisation that Melville lobbied the Government to create is today a household name and one of the world's leading intelligence agencies. He was perfect for the job, a velvet-gloved hardman who had run Scotland Yard's Special Branch and whose career had already taken in some of London's great crime dramas including the Jack the Ripper Investigation, countering Irish Republican terrorism, assassination attempts on Queen Victoria and anarchist bomb plots. Now, with the help of recently declassified records, family material and documents that have still not officially seen the light of day, the story of his Secret Service career - including the breaking of German spy rings prior to the outbreak of World War I - can finally be told.Rasputin: An Introduction (Essential Biographies)
Par Harold Shukman. 2011
Gregory Rasputin features in Russian history as a malign and destructive force, a man with an unhealthy influence on the…
Empress Alexandra and undue power in Russian politics. Yet his purposes were ostensibly beneficent. An uneducated peasant, he left Siberia to become a wandering 'holy man' and soon acquired a reputation as a healer. The empress was desperate to find a cure for haemophilia from which her son Alexei suffered, and in 1905 Rasputin was presented at court. His positive effect on the heir's health made him indispensible. But his religious teachings were unorthodox, and his charismatic presence aroused in many ladies of the St Petersburg aristocracy an exalted response, which he exploited sexually. Shady financial dealings added to the atmosphere of debauchery and scandal, and he was also seen as a political threat. He was assassinated in 1916.Last Night at the Viper Room: River Phoenix and the Hollywood He Left Behind
Par Gavin Edwards. 2013
In Last Night at the Viper Room, acclaimed author and journalist Gavin Edwards vividly recounts the life and tragic death…
of acclaimed actor River Phoenix—a teen idol on the fast track to Hollywood royalty who died of a drug overdose in front of West Hollywood’s storied club, the Viper Room, at the age of 23.Last Night at the Viper Room explores the young star’s life, including his childhood in Venezuela growing up under the aegis of the cultish Children of God. Putting him at the center of a new generation of leading men emerging in the early 1990s— including Johnny Depp, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage, and Leonardo DiCaprio—Gavin Edwards traces the Academy Award nominee’s meteoric rise, couches him in an examination of the 1990s, and illuminates his lasting legacy on Hollywood and popular culture itself.Aimee & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943
Par Erica Fischer. 1994
This powerful, poignant, and inspirational novel, a Lambda Literary Award winner, is the true story of two unlikely lovers set…
against World War II Berlin—a riveting chronicle of love, loyalty, and survival against all odds.“A memorable, vivid, and intimate portrait.” — Entertainment WeeklyBerlin 1942. Lilly Wust, 29, married, four children, led a life as did millions of German women. But then she met the 21-year-old Felice Schragenheim.It was love almost at first sight. Aimée and Jaguar started forging plans for the future. They composed poems and love letters to each other, and wrote their own marriage contract. When Jaguar-Felice admitted to her lover that she was Jewish, this dangerous secret drew the two women even closer to one another. But their luck didn’t last. On August 21, 1944, Felice was arrested and deported.At the age of 80, Lilly Wust told her story to Erica Fischer, who turned it into a poignant testimony. After the book appeared in 1994 she was contacted by additional contemporaries of Aimée and Jaguar, who offered new material that has been integrated into the present edition.The book, translated into twenty languages, and the film based on it—directed by Max Färberböck, with Juliane Köhler and Maria Schrader in the leading roles—have made Aimée and Jaguar’s story known around the world.Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Par Stephen B. Oates. 1994
“The most comprehensive, the most thoroughly researched and documented, the most scholarly of the biographies of Martin Luther King, Jr.”…
—Henry Steele Commanger, Philadelphia InquirerWinner of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award * A New York Times Notable Book of the YearBy the acclaimed biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Nat Turner, and John Brown, Stephen B. Oates's prizewinning Let the Trumpet Sound is the definitive one-volume life of Martin Luther King, Jr. This brilliant examination of the great civil rights icon and the movement he led provides a lasting portrait of a man whose dream shaped American history.“Drawing on interviews with those who knew King, previously unutilized material at Presidential libraries, and the holdings of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, Mr. Oates has written the most comprehensive account of King’s life yet published. . . . He displays a remarkable understanding of King’s individual role in the civil rights movement. . . . Oates’s biography helps us appreciate how sorely King is missed.” —Eric Foner, New York Times Book ReviewRed: My Uncensored Life in Rock
Par Sammy Hagar, Joel Selvin. 2011
Sammy Hagar—legendary lead singer of Van Halen, founder of the Cabo Wabo Tequila brand, and one of rock music’s most…
notoriously successful performers—tells his unforgettable story in this one-of-a-kind autobiography of a life at the top of the charts. From his decade-long journey alongside Eddie Van Halen to his raucous solo career with Chickenfoot and everything in between—the drugs, groupies, and excesses of fame, the outrageous stadium tours, and the thrill of musical innovation—Hagar reveals all in this treasure trove of rock-and-roll war stories. Red is a life-changing look at one of music’s biggest talents—an essential read for music fans and anyone dreaming of becoming rock’s next number one star.The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA
Par Antonio J. Mendez, Malcolm McConnell. 1999
From the author of Argo comes an unforgettable behind-the-scenes story of espionage in action. In the first ever memoir by…
a top-level operative to be authorized by the CIA, Antonio J. Mendez reveals the cunning tricks and insights that helped save hundreds from deadly situations.Adept at creating new identities for anyone, anywhere, Mendez was involved in operations all over the world, from "Wild West" adventures in East Asia to Cold War intrigue in Moscow. In 1980, he orchestrated the escape of six Americans from a hostage situation in revolutionary Tehran, Iran. This extraordinary operation inspired the movie Argo, directed by and starring Ben Affleck.The Master of Disguise gives us a privileged look at what really happens at the highest levels of international espionage: in the field, undercover, and behind closed doors.Peter Evans's biography of Aristotle Onassis, Ari, metwith great acclaim when it was published in 1986. Ariprovided the world with…
an unprecedented glimpse of theGreek shipping magnate's orbit of dizzying wealth, twistedintrigues, and questionable mores. Not long after the bookappeared, however, Onassis's daughter Christina and hislongtime business partner Yannis Georgakis hinted toEvans that he had missed the "real story" -- one that provedOnassis's intrigues had deadly results. "I must begin,"Georgakis said, "with the premise that, for Onassis, BobbyKennedy was unfinished business from way back..."His words launched Evans into the heart of a story thattightly bound Onassis not to Jackie's first husband, but tohis ambitious younger brother Bobby. A bitter rivalryemerged between Bobby and Ari long before Onassis andJackie had even met. Nemesis reveals the tangled thread ofevents that linked two of the world's most powerful men intheir intense hatred for one another and uncovers thesurprising role played by the woman they both loved. Theirpower struggle unfolds against a heady backdrop ofinternational intrigue: Bobby Kennedy's discovery of theGreek shipping magnate's shady dealings, which led him tobar Onassis from trade with the United States; Onassis'sattempt to control much of Saudi Arabia's oil; Onassis'suntimely love affair with Jackie's married sister LeeRadziwill; and his bold invitation to First Lady Jackie tojoin him on his yacht -- without the president. Just as theself-made Greek tycoon gloried in the chance to stir thewrath of the Kennedys, they struggled unsuccessfully tobreak his spell over the woman who held the key to all oftheir futures. After Jack's death, Bobby became ever closerto Camelot's holy widow, and fought to keep her frommarrying his sworn rival. But Onassis rarely failed to getwhat he wanted, and Jackie became his wife shortly afterBobby was killed.Through extensive interviews with the closest friends,lovers, and relatives of Onassis and the Kennedys, longtimejournalist Evans has uncovered the shocking culmination ofthe Kennedy-Onassis-Kennedy love triangle: AristotleOnassis was at the heart of the plot to kill Bobby Kennedy.Meticulously tracing Onassis's connections in the world ofterrorism, Nemesis presents compelling evidence that hefinanced the assassination -- including a startling confessionthat has gone unreported for nearly three decades. Alongthe way, this groundbreaking work also daringly paintsthese international icons in all of their true colors. FromEvans's deeply nuanced portraits of the charismatic Greekshipping magnate and his acquisitive iconic bride to hisprobing and revelatory look into the events that shaped anera, Nemesis is a work that will not be soon forgotten.The Private Lives of the Impressionists
Par Sue Roe. 2006
New York Times Bestseller“Anyone who has ever lost themselves in Monet’s color-saturated gardens or swooned over Degas’s dancers will enjoy…
this revealing group portrait of the artists who founded the Impressionist movement. . . . For the armchair dilettante, as well as the art-history student, this is lively, required reading.” — PeopleThe first book to offer an intimate and lively biography of the world’s most popular group of artists, including Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt. Though they were often ridiculed or ignored by their contemporaries, today astonishing sums are paid for their paintings. Their dazzling works are familiar to even the most casual art lovers—but how well does the world know the Impressionists as people?Sue Roe's colorful, lively, poignant, and superbly researched biography, The Private Lives of the Impressionists, follows an extraordinary group of artists into their Paris studios, down the rural lanes of Montmartre, and into the rowdy riverside bars of a city undergoing monumental change. Vivid and unforgettable, it casts a brilliant, revealing light on this unparalleled society of genius colleagues who lived and worked together for twenty years and transformed the art world forever with their breathtaking depictions of ordinary life.The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: A Memoir
Par Justine Cowan. 2021
“Far from growing up in the wealthy, fox-hunting circles she had always suggested, her mother had in fact been raised…
in a foundling hospital for the children of unwed women.”—Editor’s Choice, The New York Times Book Review“Extraordinary … fascinating, moving.”—The Telegraph“This emotional and transatlantic journey is a page-turner.” — Editor’s Pick, Amazon Book Review“Book groups will find as much to discuss here as they have with The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, and Educated by Tara Westover.” — BookListRecommended by The New York Times, The Saturday Evening Post, Amazon Book Review, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus and more, Justine Cowan’s remarkable true story of how she uncovered her mother’s upbringing as a foundling at London’s Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children has received acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.K., it has been featured in The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and The Spectator. The Telegraph calls it “extraordinary and Glamour magazine chose it as the best new book based on real life. The story begins when Justine found her often volatile mother in an unlit room writing a name over and over again, one that she had never heard before and would not hear again for many years – Dorothy Soames. Thirty years later, overcome with grief following her mother’s death, Justine found herself drawn back to the past, uncovering a mystery that stretched back to the early years of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. Established in the eighteenth century to raise “bastard” children to clean chamber pots for England’s ruling class, the institution was tied to some of history’s most influential figures and events. From its role in the development of solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culture continues to reverberate. It is the reason we read Dickens’ Oliver Twist and enjoy Handel’s Messiah each Christmas. It was also the environment that shaped a young girl known as Dorothy Soames, who bravely withstood years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a sadistic headmistress—a resilient child whose only hope would be a daring escape as German bombers rained death from the skies. Heartbreaking, surprising, and unforgettable, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is the true story of one woman’s quest to understand the secrets that had poisoned her mother’s mind, and her startling discovery that her family’s fate had been sealed centuries before.Confident Women: Swindlers, Grifters, and Shapeshifters of the Feminine Persuasion
Par Tori Telfer. 2021
A thoroughly entertaining and darkly humorous roundup of history’s notorious but often forgotten female con artists and their bold, outrageous…
scams—by the acclaimed author of Lady Killers.From Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey to Frank Abagnale and Charles Ponzi, audacious scams and charismatic scammers continue to intrigue us as a culture. As Tori Telfer reveals in Confident Women, the art of the con has a long and venerable tradition, and its female practitioners are some of the best—or worst. In the 1700s in Paris, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy scammed the royal jewelers out of a necklace made from six hundred and forty-seven diamonds by pretending she was best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette.In the mid-1800s, sisters Kate and Maggie Fox began pretending they could speak to spirits and accidentally started a religious movement that was soon crawling with female con artists. A gal calling herself Loreta Janeta Velasquez claimed to be a soldier and convinced people she worked for the Confederacy—or the Union, depending on who she was talking to. Meanwhile, Cassie Chadwick was forging paperwork and getting banks to loan her upwards of $40,000 by telling people she was Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter. In the 1900s, a 40something woman named Margaret Lydia Burton embezzled money all over the country and stole upwards of forty prized show dogs, while a few decades later, a teenager named Roxie Ann Rice scammed the entire NFL. And since the death of the Romanovs, women claiming to be Anastasia have been selling their stories to magazines. What about today? Spoiler alert: these “artists” are still conning. Confident Women asks the provocative question: Where does chutzpah intersect with a uniquely female pathology—and how were these notorious women able to so spectacularly dupe and swindle their victims?Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure
Par Langdon Gilkey. 1966
Summer at Tiffany
Par Marjorie Hart. 2007
“Hart has a genuine gift for conveying the texture of midcentury Manhattan…. [She makes] the dilemmas of her own young…
life both compelling and contemporary.”—USA Today“[A] glorious once upon a time fairytale come true….I loved every moment!” —Adriana Trigiani, author of Very ValentineA memoir acclaimed as “reminiscent of The Best of Everything and Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (BookPage), Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart is the true story of two best friends experiencing the time of their lives in New York City during the summer of 1945. The Cleveland Plain Dealer raves, “Hart writes about that stylish summer with verve, recollecting with a touching purity a magical summer in Manhattan, seen through the eyes of two 21-year-olds, just as the end of World War II approached.”