By day he made thousands of dollars a minute. By night hespent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and internationalglobe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht,crashed a Gulfstream jet, and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to thewife and kids who waited for him at home, and the fast-talking,hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did hisbidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of theill-fated genius they called… In the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notoriousinvestment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamousnames in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper wholed his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Streetand into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astoundingand hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story ofgreed, power, and excess no one could invent. Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmontturned microcap investing into a wickedly
In his life and in his music, Cole Porter was "the top"--thepinnacle of wit, sophistication, and success. His songs--"I Get aKick Out of You," "Anything Goes," and hundreds more--were instantpop hits, and their musical and emotional depths have made themlasting standards. William McBrienhas captured the creator of these songs, whose life was not merelyone of wealth and privilege. A prodigal young man, Porter found hisemotional anchor in a long, loving, if sexless marriage, arelationship he repeatedly risked with a string of affairs withmen. His last eighteen years were marked by physical agony but alsounstinting artistic achievement, including the great Hollywoodmusicals High Society, Silk Stockings, and Kiss Me Kate (recentlyand very successfully revived on Broadway). Here, at last is a lifethat informs the great music and lyrics through illuminatingglimpses of the hidden, complicated, private man.
Jack Stewart was a longtime editor at the New York Times.Linda was the U.S. representative of a French publishingconsortium. Theirs was a marriage graced with good luck, a unionfrom which each drew strength and joy in equal measure. In hisearly seventies, Jack opted for retirement but continued to work asa freelance editor and literary agent. The passing years wereenriched by travel, strong family ties, and the delight offriendships. Illness descended abruptly one October afternoon. Jack, awakingconfused and disoriented from a nap, was rushed to the hospital.There the diagnosis was both swift and horrifying: Alzheimer'sdisease. It was a pronouncement that instantly overwhelmed allother considerations. Against her husband's loss of self-awareness,Linda quickly found she had no preparation, no defense. As hismemory vanished, the essence of who he was vanished as well. 25Months documents the struggle of a husband and wife to navigate thetreacherous terrain of illness. Alzheimer's is being diag
Edith Kermit Carow grew up in New York City in the same circlesas did Theodore Roosevelt. But only after TR's first wife died atage twenty-two did the childhood friends forge one of the mostsuccessful romantic and political partnerships in American history.Sylvia Jukes Morris's access to previously unpublished letters anddiaries brings to full life her portrait of the Roosevelts andtheir times. During her years as First Lady (1901-09), Edith KermitRoosevelt dazzled social and political Washington as hostess,confidante, and mother of six, leading her husband to remark, "Mrs.Roosevelt comes a good deal nearer my ideal than I do myself."
Originally a New Deal liberal and aggressive anticommunist,Senator Eugene McCarthy famously lost faith with the Democraticparty over Vietnam. His stunning challenge to Lyndon Johnson in the1968 New Hampshire primary inspired young liberals and was one ofthe greatest electoral upsets in American history. But the 1968election ultimately brought Richard Nixon and the Republican Partyto power, irrevocably shifting the country’s political landscape tothe right for decades to come. Dominic Sandbrook traces one of the most remarkable andsignificant lives in postwar politics, a career marked by bothcourage and arrogance. Sandbrook draws on extensive new research –including interviews with McCarthy himself – to show convincinglyhow Eugene McCarthy’s political experience embodies the largerdecline of American liberalism after World War II. These weretumultuous times in American politics, and Sandbrook vividlycaptures the drama and historical significance through his intimateportrait of a singularly
Themostremarkablethingthathappenedtotheworldeconomyafter9/11was...nothing.Whatwouldhaveoncemeantacripplingshocktothesystemwasabsorbedastonishinglyquickly,partlyduetotheeffortsofthethenChairmanoftheFederalReserveBoard,AlanGreenspan.Thepost9/11globaleconomyisanewandturbulentsystem—vastlymoreflexible,resilient,open,self-directing,andfast-changingthanitwaseventwentyyearsago.TheAgeofTurbulenceisanincomparablereckoningwiththenatureofthisnewworld—howwegothere,whatwe'relivingthrough,andwhatliesoverthehorizon,forgoodorill,channelledthroughGreenspan'sownexperiencesworkinginthecommandroomoftheglobaleconomyforlongerandwithgreatereffectthananyothersinglelivingfigure.--ThistextreferstoanalternatePaperbackedition.
