Dennis Rodman shoots from the lip as he talks about everythingfrom the NBA and his game, his sexuality, dating, his wild flingwith superstar Madonna, and morality. Reprint."
Elizabeth Taylor passed away on March 23, 2011 in Los Angelesat the age of 79. For decades, Elizabeth Taylor has been a part of our lives. Nowacclaimed biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli looks past the tabloidversion of Elizabeth's life and offers the first‐ever fullyrealized portrait of this American icon. You'll meet hercontrolling mother who plotted her daughter's success from birth,see the qualities that catapulted Elizabeth to stardom in 1940sHollywood, understand the psychological and emotional underpinningsbehind the eight marriages, and, finally, rejoice in Elizabeth'smost bravura performance of all: the new success in family,friendships, and philanthropy she achieved despite substance abuseand chronic illness. It's the story of the woman you thought youknew, and now can finally understand.
In 1955, Garcia Marquez was working for El Espectador, a newspaper in Bogota, when in February of that year eight crew members of the Caldas, a Colombian destroyer, were washed overboard and disappeared. Ten days later one of them turned up, barely alive, on a deserted beach in northern Colombia. This book, which originally appeared as a series of newspaper articles, is Garcia Marquez's account of that sailor's ordeal. Translated by Randolf Hogan.
A breakaway bestseller since its first printing, AllSouls takes us deep into Michael Patrick MacDonald's Southie,the proudly insular neighborhood with the highest concentration ofwhite poverty in America. Rocked by Whitey Bulger's crime schemesand busing riots, MacDonald's Southie is populated by sharply hewncharacters like his Ma, a miniskirted, accordion-playing singlemother who endures the deaths of four of her eleven children.Nearly suffocated by his grief and his community's code of silence,MacDonald tells his family story here with gritty but movinghonesty.
The first complete, unvarnished history of Southern rock’slegendary and most popular band, from its members’ hardscrabbleboyhoods in Jacksonville, Florida and their rise to worldwide fameto the tragic plane crash that killed the founder and the band’srise again from the ashes. In the summer of 1964 Jacksonville, Florida teenager Ronnie VanZant and some of his friends hatched the idea of forming a band toplay covers of the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Yardbirds and thecountry and blues-rock music they had grown to love. Naming theirband after Leonard Skinner, the gym teacher at Robert E. Lee SeniorHigh School who constantly badgered the long-haired aspiringmusicians to get haircuts, they were soon playing gigs at parties,and bars throughout the South. During the next decade LynyrdSkynyrd grew into the most critically acclaimed and commerciallysuccessful of the rock bands to emerge from the South since theAllman Brothers. Their hits “Free Bird” and “Sweet Home Alabama”became classics. The
After two thousand years of flawed history, here at last is amagnificent new biography of Mary Magdalene that draws her out ofthe shadows of history and restores her to her rightful place ofimportance in Christianity.Throughout history, Mary Magdalene hasbeen both revered and reviled, a woman who has taken on manyforms—witch, whore, the incarnation of the eternal feminine, thedevoted companion (and perhaps even the wife) of Jesus. In thisbrilliant new biography, Bruce Chilton, a renowned biblicalscholar, offers the first complete and authoritative portrait ofthis fascinating woman. Through groundbreaking interpretations ofancient texts, Chilton shows that Mary played a central role inJesus’ ministry and was a seminal figure in the creation ofChristianity. Chilton’s de*ions of who Mary Magdalene was and what she didchallenge the male-dominated history of Christianity familiar tomost readers. Placing Mary within the traditions of Jewish femalesavants, Chilton presents a visionary figure who was fully imm
In the spring of 1884 Ulysses S. Grant heeded the advice of MarkTwain and finally agreed to write his memoirs. Little did Grant orTwain realize that this seemingly straightforward decision wouldprofoundly alter not only both their lives but the course ofAmerican literature. Over the next fifteen months, as the two menbecame close friends and intimate collaborators, Grant racedagainst the spread of cancer to compose a triumphant account of hislife and times—while Twain struggled to complete and publish hisgreatest novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Inthis deeply moving and meticulously researched book, veteran writerMark Perry reconstructs the heady months when Grant and Twaininspired and cajoled each other to create two quintessentiallyAmerican masterpieces. In a bold and colorful narrative, Perry recounts the early careersof these two giants, traces their quest for fame and elusivefortunes, and then follows the series of events that brought themtogether as friends. The reason Grant let Twain talk
In this richly detailed biography, Victoria Glendinning bringsalive the great Anglo-Irish novelist whose literary achievementswere equaled only by her unbounded gift for living. Taking us from Elizabeth Bowen's ancestral home in Ireland, Bowen’sCourt, to Oxford where she met Yeats and Eliot, to her service asan air-raid warden in London during World War II, this penetratingbiography lifts the thin veil between Bowen's imaginative world andthe complex emotional life that fired her shimmering novels. We seeher at elegant parties, where such friends as Virginia Woolf,Eudora Welty, and Evelyn Waugh fell under her spell; in post-warVienna with Graham Greene; and in war-torn London, where she fellin love with a younger man who was unprepared for life at the pitchshe lived it. We see her bound through several affairs to acomfortable marriage, living "life with the lid on." The world ofElizabeth Bowen was akin to that of her novels: no one behavedshockingly, yet the passions that stirred within made her a mastero
MARVELOUS . . . BREATHTAKING. --The New York Times Book Review "MAILER SHINES . . . Explaining Kennedy's assassination throughthe flaws in Oswald's character has been attempted before, notablyby Gerald Posner in Case Closed and Don Delillo in Libra. Butneither handled Oswald with the kind of dexterity and literaryimagination that Mailer here supplies in great force. . . .Oswald's Tale weaves a story not only about Oswald or Kennedy'sdeath but about the culture surrounding the assassination, one thatremains replete with miscomprehensions, unraveled threads and lackof resolution: All of which makes Oswald's Tale more true-to-lifethan any fact-driven treatise could hope to be. . . . VintageMailer." --The Philadelphia Inquirer "FASCINATING . . . A MASTER STORYTELLER . . . Mailer gives us ourclearest, deepest view of Oswald yet. . . . Inside three pages youare utterly absorbed." --Detroit Free Press "MAILER AT HIS BEST . . . LIVELY AND CONVINCING . . .EXTREMELY LUCI
“Powerful. . . . A challenging, disturbing portrait of ademocratic hero, and an equally challenging case study of thedemocratic system.” —The New York Times “Rich in insight into Jackson’s personality. . . . Burstein makesfair on his promise to look dispassionately at this most passionateof presidents. . . . A very readable, insightful analysis into thecharacter and evolution of the American republic.” —PlainDealer “Excellent. . . . A must-read for anyone interested in thepresidency or early American history.” –Flint Journal “A useful, persuasively critical account of the development ofJackson’s self-image as an honorable patriarch and champion ofrighteous government..” —The Washington Post Book World “Impressive. . . . Persuasive. . . . Argues that the times shapedJackson and thrust him into the White House as the first ‘commoner’elected president because he so personified the young nation’sbold, brash spirit and s
Meredith Hall's moving but unsentimental memoir begins in1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insularNew Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by hermother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hidingher before they finally banish her altogether. After giving herbaby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the MiddleEast, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally herblood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life thatencircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one,her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in grittypoverty with an abusive father—in her own father's hometown. Theirreunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall'sparents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offersthem her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in whichloss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion intowisdom.
In this extraordinary memoir, one of the best young writers inAmerica today transforms into a work of art the darkest passageimaginable in a young woman's life: an obsessive love affairbetween father and daughter that began when Kathryn Harrison,twenty years old, was reunited with a parent whose absence hadhaunted her youth. Exquisitely and hypnotically written, like a bold and terrifyingdream, The Kiss is breathtaking in its honesty and in the power andbeauty of its creation. A story both of taboo and of familycomplicity in breaking taboo, The Kiss is also about love -- aboutthe most primal of love triangles, the one that ensnares a childbetween mother and father. From the Hardcover edition.
After Out on a Limb , MacLaine now offers more of her familybackground, with reproductions of parental game-playingconversations which must evoke poignant recognitions in children ofconflicting adults. Aided by spirit-guided acupuncture, she hasbeen recovering past-life experiences enabling her to deal withthis pain. Most moving is her meeting with her Higher Self, whichcontinues to guide her. Another colorful love affair in Paris andHollywood provides food for the gossip-column fans. More seriousare her ruminations on creative artistry, first as a dancer, thenas a movie star. Even readers put off by MacLaine's uncritical andwholehearted embrace of reincarnation will have to applaud hercandor and zest for discovering the meaning of her life. Jeanne S.Bagby, Tucson P.L., Ariz. Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information,Inc.
“I can tell you that some force within me rejected death at thelast moment and then guided me, blind and stumbling — quiteliterally a dead man walking — into camp and the shaky start of myreturn to life....” In 1996 Beck Weathers and a climbing team pushed toward the summitof Mount Everest. Then a storm exploded on the mountain, rippingthe team to shreds, forcing brave men to scratch and crawl fortheir lives. Rescuers who reached Weathers saw that he was dying,and left him. Twelve hours later, the inexplicable occurred. Weathers appeared,blinded, gloveless, caked with ice — coming down the mountain as a“dead man walking.” In this powerful memoir, Weather describes not only his escape fromhypothermia and the murderous storm that killed nine climbers; hedescribes another journey, a life’s journey. This is the story of aman’s route to a dangerous sport and a fateful expedition, as wellas the road of recovery he has traveled since. In Left for Dead , we are witness to survival in the face ofce
Christopher (Kit) Lukas’s mother committed suicide when hewas a boy. He and his brother, Tony, were not told how she died. Noone spoke of the family’s history of depression and bipolardisorder. The brothers grew up to achieve remarkable success; Tonyas a gifted journalist (and author of the classic book, CommonGround ), Kit as an accomplished television producer anddirector. After suffering bouts of depression, Kit was able toconfront his family’s troubled past, but Tony never seemed to findthe contentment Kit had attained–he killed himself in 1997. Writtenwith heartrending honesty, Blue Genes captures thedevastation of this family legacy of depression and details thestrength and hope that can provide a way of escaping itsgrasp.
“You keep fighting, okay?” I whispered. “We’re in thistogether. You and me. You’re not alone. You hear me? You are notalone. ” 5:38 p.m. It was the precise moment Sean Manning was born and thetime each year that his mother wished him happy birthday. But justbefore he turned twenty-seven, their tradition collapsed. A heartattack landed his mom in the hospital and uprooted Manning from hislife in New York. What followed was a testament to a family’sindestructible bond—a life-changing odyssey that broke a boy andmade a man—captured here in Manning’s indelible memoir.
After losing her entire family to the Nazis at age 13, AliciaAppleman-Jurman went on to save the lives of thousands of Jews,offering them her own courage and hope in a time of upheaval andtragedy. Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has a young voice sovividly expressed the capacity for humanity and heroism in the faceof Nazi brutality. HC: Bantam.
To illuminate the mysterious greatness of Anton Chekhov'swritings, Janet Malcolm takes on three roles: literary critic,biographer, and journalist. Her close readings of the stories andplays are interwoven with episodes from Chekhov's life and framedby an account of Malcolm's journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow, andYalta. She writes of Chekhov's childhood, his relationships, histravels, his early success, and his self-imposed "exile"--alwayswith an eye to connecting them to themes and characters in hiswork. Lovers of Chekhov as well as those new to his work will betransfixed by "Reading Chekhov."
modern-day classic. "Gift from the Sea is like a shell itself inits small and perfect form . . . It tells of light and life andlove and the security that lies at the heart."--New York Times BookReview.
When the first Superman movie came out I was frequently asked'What is a hero?' I remember the glib response I repeated somany times. My answer was that a hero is someone who commitsa courageous action without considering the consequences--a soldierwho crawls out of a foxhole to drag an injured buddy tosafety. And I also meant individuals who are slightly largerthan life: Houdini and Lindbergh, John Wayne, JFK, and JoeDiMaggio. Now my definition is completely different. Ithink a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength topersevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles: afifteen-year-old boy who landed on his head while wrestling withhis brother, leaving him barely able to swallow or speak; TravisRoy, paralyzed in the first thirty seconds of a hockey game in hisfreshman year at college. These are real heroes, and so arethe families and friends who have stood by them." The whole world held its breath when Christopher Reeve struggledfor life on Memorial Day, 1995. On the
THE LIBRARY OF CONTEMPORARY THOUGHT is a groundbreaking serieswhere America's finest writers and most brilliant minds tackletoday's most provocative, fascinating, and relevant issues.Striking and daring, creative and important, these original voiceson matters political, social, economic, and cultural, willenlighten, comfort, entertain, enrage, and ignite healthy debateacross the country.
Universally known and admired as a peacemaker, DagHammarskj?ld concealed a remarkable intense inner life which herecorded over several decades in this journal of poems andspiritual meditations, left to be published after his death. Adramatic account of spiritual struggle, Markings has inspiredhundreds of thousands of readers since it was first published in1964. Markings is distinctive, as W.H. Auden remarks in hisforeword, as a record of "the attempt by a professional man ofaction to unite in one life the via activa and the viacontemplativa." It reflects its author's efforts to live his creed,his belief that all men are equally the children of God and thatfaith and love require of him a life of selfless service to others.For Hammarskj?ld, "the road to holiness necessarily passes throughthe world of action." Markings is not only a fascinating glimpse ofthe mind of a great man, but also a moving spiritual classic thathas left its mark on generations of readers.
A PRESIDENTIAL DYNASTY. AN ARAB TERRORIST ATTACK. DEMOCRACYUNDER SIEGE. Mario Puzo envisioned it all in his eerily prescient1991 novel, The Fourth K. President Francis Xavier Kennedy is elected to office, in largepart, thanks to the legacy of his forebears–good looks, privilege,wealth–and is the very embodiment of youthful optimism. Too soon,however, he is beaten down by the political process and, disabusedof his ideals, he becomes a leader totally unlike what he has beenbefore. When his daughter becomes a pawn in a brutal terrorist plot,Kennedy, who has obsessively kept alive the memory of his uncles’assassinations, activates all his power to retaliate in a series ofviolent measures. As the explosive events unfold, the world andthose closest to him look on with both awe and horror.
"Franklin''s is one of the greatest autobiographies inliterature, and towers over other autobiographies as Franklintowered over other men." -William Dean Howells
