Author: George Stephanopoulos
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1999 My Rating: 0
Summary: A Rhodes scholar with a healthy ego, the young idealist George Stephanopoulos thought he was ready for the obscure governor of Arkansas. But soon after he signed on as his presidential-campaign manager, the odds of Clinton's triumph soared, and so did the chance for calamity via Gennifer Flowers and other scandals. Stephanopoulos scrambled behind the scenes, squelching rumors, spinning major news organizations, artfully knifing Clinton rivals, and second-guessing public opinion--lessons that would serve him well when Clinton won.
For the next four years, Stephanopoulos was a few feet from the president, advising him on everything from Iraq and Waco to gays in the military and Paula Jones. More than any book yet--including Monica Lewinsky's--Stephanopoulos's memoir reveals what went on in the scary, occasionally hilarious world backstage at the White House. He casts stark light on characters from Yeltsin, "like a boiled potato slathered in sour cream," to the author's nemesis Dick Morris, whom he depicts bellowing for Clinton to bomb Bosnia. And nobody who's talking knows as well as Stephanopoulos the most passionate, mystifying affair of all, between Bill and Hillary.
But years of backroom scheming, screaming, and relentless political attacks took a toll. Stephanopoulos's face erupted in hives; he grew a beard. Slammed by clinical depression, he dangerously delayed medical attention, fearing the story might leak. This memoir could've been titled "Prisoner of Spin". Written with the jittery cadence of a bookie, "All Too Human" is a lively look at the complex and motley cast of characters who rule the world. "--Rebekah Warren"
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1999 My Rating: 0
Summary: A Rhodes scholar with a healthy ego, the young idealist George Stephanopoulos thought he was ready for the obscure governor of Arkansas. But soon after he signed on as his presidential-campaign manager, the odds of Clinton's triumph soared, and so did the chance for calamity via Gennifer Flowers and other scandals. Stephanopoulos scrambled behind the scenes, squelching rumors, spinning major news organizations, artfully knifing Clinton rivals, and second-guessing public opinion--lessons that would serve him well when Clinton won.
For the next four years, Stephanopoulos was a few feet from the president, advising him on everything from Iraq and Waco to gays in the military and Paula Jones. More than any book yet--including Monica Lewinsky's--Stephanopoulos's memoir reveals what went on in the scary, occasionally hilarious world backstage at the White House. He casts stark light on characters from Yeltsin, "like a boiled potato slathered in sour cream," to the author's nemesis Dick Morris, whom he depicts bellowing for Clinton to bomb Bosnia. And nobody who's talking knows as well as Stephanopoulos the most passionate, mystifying affair of all, between Bill and Hillary.
But years of backroom scheming, screaming, and relentless political attacks took a toll. Stephanopoulos's face erupted in hives; he grew a beard. Slammed by clinical depression, he dangerously delayed medical attention, fearing the story might leak. This memoir could've been titled "Prisoner of Spin". Written with the jittery cadence of a bookie, "All Too Human" is a lively look at the complex and motley cast of characters who rule the world. "--Rebekah Warren"
Author: Lucien Price
Publisher: Reinhardt
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1954 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Publisher: Reinhardt
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1954 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Author: Abdirahman A. Hussein
Publisher: Verso
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Sep 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: The only intellectual biography of the groundbreaking author of "Orientalism", published on the first anniversary of Said's death.
Few public intellectuals have had such a big impact outside the academy as Edward Said, whose work has been the subject of much debate and discussion over the last two decades. From critiques of ideology mixed with philosophical reflections, to intellectual histories, literary criticism, and radical sociopolitical analysis he has single-handedly sustained a permanent insurrection against the status quo.
This, the first full-length intellectual biography of the groundbreaking author of "Orientalism," reveals some startling observations. Abdirahman Hussein argues that underneath Said's carefully constructed eclecticism there is a global method in his work. His key text is not "Orientalism" but "Beginnings," and the Palestinian experience informs all his texts, not simply those that deal explicitly with the catastrophe of 1948. Palestinian life has been scattered, discontinuous, and affected by what he calls the "synchronized rhythms of disturbed time." Edward Said's oeuvre mirrors this state but simultaneously transcends it in a permanent search for a new synthesis. Hussein argues that this informs Said's approach not only to Conrad, Swift, and Eliot, but also to Lukács, Williams, Gramsci, and Adorno.
Hussein's biography itself is bound to become the object of criticism and counter-criticism, a vital book that spotlights the collected writings of one of our most gifted cultural theorists.
Publisher: Verso
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Sep 2004 My Rating: 0
Summary: The only intellectual biography of the groundbreaking author of "Orientalism", published on the first anniversary of Said's death.
Few public intellectuals have had such a big impact outside the academy as Edward Said, whose work has been the subject of much debate and discussion over the last two decades. From critiques of ideology mixed with philosophical reflections, to intellectual histories, literary criticism, and radical sociopolitical analysis he has single-handedly sustained a permanent insurrection against the status quo.
This, the first full-length intellectual biography of the groundbreaking author of "Orientalism," reveals some startling observations. Abdirahman Hussein argues that underneath Said's carefully constructed eclecticism there is a global method in his work. His key text is not "Orientalism" but "Beginnings," and the Palestinian experience informs all his texts, not simply those that deal explicitly with the catastrophe of 1948. Palestinian life has been scattered, discontinuous, and affected by what he calls the "synchronized rhythms of disturbed time." Edward Said's oeuvre mirrors this state but simultaneously transcends it in a permanent search for a new synthesis. Hussein argues that this informs Said's approach not only to Conrad, Swift, and Eliot, but also to Lukács, Williams, Gramsci, and Adorno.
Hussein's biography itself is bound to become the object of criticism and counter-criticism, a vital book that spotlights the collected writings of one of our most gifted cultural theorists.
Author: Thomas L. Friedman
Publisher: Anchor
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Aug 1995 My Rating: 0
Summary: Winner of the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction, this extraordinary bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. Thomas L. Friedman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, and now the Foreign Affairs columnist on the op-ed page of the "New York Times", drew on his ten years in the Middle East to write a book that "The Wall Street Journal" called "a sparkling intellectual guidebook... an engrossing journey not to be missed." Now with a new chapter that brings the ever-changing history of the conflict in the Middle East up to date, this seminal historical work reaffirms both its timeliness and its timelessness. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it." -- Seymour Hersh. ""From Beirut To Jerusalem" is the most intelligent and comprehensive account one is likely to read." -- "New York Times Book Review".
Publisher: Anchor
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Aug 1995 My Rating: 0
Summary: Winner of the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction, this extraordinary bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. Thomas L. Friedman, twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, and now the Foreign Affairs columnist on the op-ed page of the "New York Times", drew on his ten years in the Middle East to write a book that "The Wall Street Journal" called "a sparkling intellectual guidebook... an engrossing journey not to be missed." Now with a new chapter that brings the ever-changing history of the conflict in the Middle East up to date, this seminal historical work reaffirms both its timeliness and its timelessness. "If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it." -- Seymour Hersh. ""From Beirut To Jerusalem" is the most intelligent and comprehensive account one is likely to read." -- "New York Times Book Review".
Author: Geoffrey Goodman
Publisher: Pluto Press
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Sep 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: Part autobiography/ part history of British political and trade union life since the Second World War, Geoffrey Goodman's From Bevin to Blair: Fifty Years' Reporting from the Political Front Line is a pleasure to read. Indeed, it serves as a reminder not only of far off events, but how those same events have shaped and formed the current political scene in Britain.
Taking as his starting point his childhood in Stockport, subsequent service in the Second World War and early path to a career on fleet street with a succession of newspapers, most notably the Daily Mirror, Goodman skilfully blends not only the details of his own career as a journalist, but also the relationship between the Labour party and the trade unions.
In the hands of another writer this could seem contrived and unconvincing, however, Goodman reveals a remarkable talent for being present at the turn of events. Rather like a journalistic version of Zelig, he manages to pop up exactly when far-reaching decisions are to be made.
Friends with such Labour lights as Minister of Health Aneurin Bevin, Prime Ministers Wilson and Callaghan, as well as a sprinkling of Conservative luminaries such as Willie Whitelaw, Goodman had a front seat at much of the trade union turmoil that swirled around successive Labour governments leading to their eventual downfall in 1979 and the emergence of Thatcherism.
One of the most interesting elements of From Bevin to Blair is Goodman's ability to look back at the relationship between the Labour party and the TUC and show how there were hints of the rise of Thatcherism long before it had even coalesced around the Iron Lady. When doing this, he is painfully honest - and fully aware of the opinion changing power of hindsight.
Was there anything that could have been done to avoid the Winter of Discontent? Were the Unions and the Labour party staring at the abyss long before this time. My impression of Goodman is that he believes they were. Goodman hints at tectonic shifts in society long before the late 1970's, particularly in the 1960s. For this reason Thatcherism appears as a late arrival, catching up with the already changing mores and perceptions of society.
As a result, in parts of this book, there is a sense of oncoming doom and of an attendant powerlessness in the face of changes that were only half understood by the Labour leadership. Goodman paints a vivid picture of Harold Wilson, tired, burnt out, wanting to resign -- perhaps sensing the changes in society -- and a feisty James Callaghan, only half understanding what was coming, but railing like Lear against the rush of events: succumbing only in the last few days of the 1979 election.
In other parts of the book, Goodman provides a timely investigation of the possible plots against Harold Wilson, who with his pipe and "white heat" apparently represented such a threat to the establishment. He also gives some excellent insights into the complicated man that was Robert Maxwell, even offering his own view on the man's demise.
Journalists or readers from other countries, particularly the United States, might be surprised at Goodman's willingness to work for the Wilson and Callaghan governments in the Anti-Inflation Unit. In the U.S., where Roger Ailes received criticism for offering advice to President George Bush after September 11, the fact that there is such a thin veil between British politics and media will add another interesting dimension to the book.
Overall, this is a must read book, not only for those interested in the history of post-war journalism and industrial relations but also for those puzzled by their parent's use of so many candles in those distant 1970's. For those born after this date, the book is a reminder that the trade unions once occupied a very different position in British society to the one they do today.
At the beginning of the book, Goodman quotes from Gore Vidal's Palimpsest autobiography that "before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt." From this autobiography it is clear that Goodman took the hand fate dealt him and played it pretty well.
Publisher: Pluto Press
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Sep 2003 My Rating: 0
Summary: Part autobiography/ part history of British political and trade union life since the Second World War, Geoffrey Goodman's From Bevin to Blair: Fifty Years' Reporting from the Political Front Line is a pleasure to read. Indeed, it serves as a reminder not only of far off events, but how those same events have shaped and formed the current political scene in Britain.
Taking as his starting point his childhood in Stockport, subsequent service in the Second World War and early path to a career on fleet street with a succession of newspapers, most notably the Daily Mirror, Goodman skilfully blends not only the details of his own career as a journalist, but also the relationship between the Labour party and the trade unions.
In the hands of another writer this could seem contrived and unconvincing, however, Goodman reveals a remarkable talent for being present at the turn of events. Rather like a journalistic version of Zelig, he manages to pop up exactly when far-reaching decisions are to be made.
Friends with such Labour lights as Minister of Health Aneurin Bevin, Prime Ministers Wilson and Callaghan, as well as a sprinkling of Conservative luminaries such as Willie Whitelaw, Goodman had a front seat at much of the trade union turmoil that swirled around successive Labour governments leading to their eventual downfall in 1979 and the emergence of Thatcherism.
One of the most interesting elements of From Bevin to Blair is Goodman's ability to look back at the relationship between the Labour party and the TUC and show how there were hints of the rise of Thatcherism long before it had even coalesced around the Iron Lady. When doing this, he is painfully honest - and fully aware of the opinion changing power of hindsight.
Was there anything that could have been done to avoid the Winter of Discontent? Were the Unions and the Labour party staring at the abyss long before this time. My impression of Goodman is that he believes they were. Goodman hints at tectonic shifts in society long before the late 1970's, particularly in the 1960s. For this reason Thatcherism appears as a late arrival, catching up with the already changing mores and perceptions of society.
As a result, in parts of this book, there is a sense of oncoming doom and of an attendant powerlessness in the face of changes that were only half understood by the Labour leadership. Goodman paints a vivid picture of Harold Wilson, tired, burnt out, wanting to resign -- perhaps sensing the changes in society -- and a feisty James Callaghan, only half understanding what was coming, but railing like Lear against the rush of events: succumbing only in the last few days of the 1979 election.
In other parts of the book, Goodman provides a timely investigation of the possible plots against Harold Wilson, who with his pipe and "white heat" apparently represented such a threat to the establishment. He also gives some excellent insights into the complicated man that was Robert Maxwell, even offering his own view on the man's demise.
Journalists or readers from other countries, particularly the United States, might be surprised at Goodman's willingness to work for the Wilson and Callaghan governments in the Anti-Inflation Unit. In the U.S., where Roger Ailes received criticism for offering advice to President George Bush after September 11, the fact that there is such a thin veil between British politics and media will add another interesting dimension to the book.
Overall, this is a must read book, not only for those interested in the history of post-war journalism and industrial relations but also for those puzzled by their parent's use of so many candles in those distant 1970's. For those born after this date, the book is a reminder that the trade unions once occupied a very different position in British society to the one they do today.
At the beginning of the book, Goodman quotes from Gore Vidal's Palimpsest autobiography that "before the cards that one is dealt by life are the cards that fate has dealt." From this autobiography it is clear that Goodman took the hand fate dealt him and played it pretty well.
Author: Robert B. Reich
Publisher: Vintage
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Feb 1998 My Rating: 0
Summary: On the face of it, here's an improbable book: a memoir of four years as Secretary of ... "Labor." Well, in this case it works because the author is Robert B. Reich, a warm and lively writer who because of his 'Friend Of Bill' status and his strong positions on economic issues was inside virtually every political and ideological tussle of the Clinton administration's first term. What puts the book over the top though is that its author retains his humanity even after walking through the looking glass of official Washington. We experience, for instance, the angst of having to let his two sons and wife go back to the family home in Cambridge because he can't quite yet leave the struggle for such improvements as an increase in the minimum wage. Throughout it all, Reich keeps the sharp eye of the outsider. Witness for example this comment about Newt Gingrich: "His office is adorned with figurines of dinosaurs, as you might find in the bedrooms of little boys who dream of one day being huge and powerful."
Publisher: Vintage
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Feb 1998 My Rating: 0
Summary: On the face of it, here's an improbable book: a memoir of four years as Secretary of ... "Labor." Well, in this case it works because the author is Robert B. Reich, a warm and lively writer who because of his 'Friend Of Bill' status and his strong positions on economic issues was inside virtually every political and ideological tussle of the Clinton administration's first term. What puts the book over the top though is that its author retains his humanity even after walking through the looking glass of official Washington. We experience, for instance, the angst of having to let his two sons and wife go back to the family home in Cambridge because he can't quite yet leave the struggle for such improvements as an increase in the minimum wage. Throughout it all, Reich keeps the sharp eye of the outsider. Witness for example this comment about Newt Gingrich: "His office is adorned with figurines of dinosaurs, as you might find in the bedrooms of little boys who dream of one day being huge and powerful."
Author: Kit Bakke
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Sep 2006 My Rating: 0
Summary: Shouldn't life be more than simply showing up? Is it enough to be part of a family, make another family, earn your living, and then exit stage left? Or should you engage and be engaged in a bit of purposeful shaking and shoving along the way?
These are questions that Kit Bakke urgently needs answered. Tired of self-proclaimed gurus and self-help books, she turns to her childhood role model -- Louisa May Alcott -- for direction. She sends an e-mail to Louisa, and is amazed when she receives a reply. Their correspondence becomes a dance of ideas and tales bridging the mid-1800s and the twenty-first century.
But why Louisa? "Her abolitionist zeal, her women's rights advocacy, her hospital work, her crazy commune days, her heartfelt desire to leave the world a better place, her humor and her energy all materialized in front of me," writes Bakke. "Louisa was serious when she signed her letters, 'Yours for reforms of all kinds.' She made her life, she didn't just live it."
When Kit Bakke came of age in the late 1960s, America was going through major social and political turmoil. She and many of her generation elected to pursue radical ways to protest the Vietnam War and civil rights injustices at home, and Bakke joined the notorious Weather Underground. Eventually she left the movement to become a wife, a mother, and a professional nurse, but the persistent questions about the best way to live her life, make her contribution, and find satisfaction remained.
By initiating her extraordinary correspondence with Louisa May Alcott, Kit hopes to "pick up some clues for my friends and myself about how better to live the thirty or so years that might be remaining to us. And besides, we would be giving Louisa a treat that couldn't be beat -- a peek into the future."
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Sep 2006 My Rating: 0
Summary: Shouldn't life be more than simply showing up? Is it enough to be part of a family, make another family, earn your living, and then exit stage left? Or should you engage and be engaged in a bit of purposeful shaking and shoving along the way?
These are questions that Kit Bakke urgently needs answered. Tired of self-proclaimed gurus and self-help books, she turns to her childhood role model -- Louisa May Alcott -- for direction. She sends an e-mail to Louisa, and is amazed when she receives a reply. Their correspondence becomes a dance of ideas and tales bridging the mid-1800s and the twenty-first century.
But why Louisa? "Her abolitionist zeal, her women's rights advocacy, her hospital work, her crazy commune days, her heartfelt desire to leave the world a better place, her humor and her energy all materialized in front of me," writes Bakke. "Louisa was serious when she signed her letters, 'Yours for reforms of all kinds.' She made her life, she didn't just live it."
When Kit Bakke came of age in the late 1960s, America was going through major social and political turmoil. She and many of her generation elected to pursue radical ways to protest the Vietnam War and civil rights injustices at home, and Bakke joined the notorious Weather Underground. Eventually she left the movement to become a wife, a mother, and a professional nurse, but the persistent questions about the best way to live her life, make her contribution, and find satisfaction remained.
By initiating her extraordinary correspondence with Louisa May Alcott, Kit hopes to "pick up some clues for my friends and myself about how better to live the thirty or so years that might be remaining to us. And besides, we would be giving Louisa a treat that couldn't be beat -- a peek into the future."
Author: Elie Wiesel, Stella Rodway, Francois Mauriac
Publisher: Bantam
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Apr 1982 My Rating: 0
Summary: In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night", a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.
Publisher: Bantam
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Apr 1982 My Rating: 0
Summary: In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir "Night", a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers in this harrowing book, which probes life's essential riddles with the lucid anguish only great literature achieves. It marks the crucial first step in Wiesel's lifelong project to bear witness for those who died.
Author: Nathaniel Lachenmeyer
Publisher: Broadway
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Mar 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary: The extraordinary story of a young man's struggle to reconstruct his father's past.
A devastating mental illness with no known cure, schizophrenia strikes people in the prime of their lives. For Charles Lachenmeyer, its onset was a life-altering event. In 1978, Charles was a happily married professor of sociology who lived in the New York suburbs with his wife and his nine-year-old son, Nathaniel. He seemed to have everything: a promising career, a loving family, and a comfortable home. But underneath his sociable exterior, Charles' world was falling apart. Within a few short years, schizophrenia would cost him everything: his sanity, his career, his family, even the roof over his head.
In 1981, Charles and his wife divorced. Haunted by the belief that his wife and the CIA were co-conspirators in a plot to control his thoughts and steal his sociological research, Charles left New York, seeking refuge in cities throughout the Northeast. Over the years, he traveled from city to city, passing in and out of psychiatric hospitals, all the while trying unsuccessfully to return to academia. He continued to correspond with his son, but as Charles' symptoms became more severe, what had once been a close father/son relationship changed dramatically. In 1989, overwhelmed and emotionally drained by his father's erratic behavior and bizarre beliefs, Nathaniel finally broke off all contact, writing: "I can't live in your world, and you can't live in mine." Four years later, Charles was living on the streets.
This powerful story is the result of the author's painstaking efforts, upon learning of his father's death in 1995 and his time on the streets, to retrace Charles Lachenmeyer's movements in the years after he left the family, and to find a way into the alien world in which he lived. As Nathaniel Lachenmeyer gradually weaves together the scattered pieces of his father's life, what emerges is the compelling story of a son struggling to understand what happened to his father, and to know the man he became.
The Outsider is an unsentimental yet profoundly moving look at one family's experience with mental illness. Rich in imagery and poignant symbolism, and framed by the author's highly personal dialogue with the reader, The Outsider moves beyond more straightforward accounts of mental illness to create a suspenseful and moving account of a son's search for the truth behind his father's haunted, solitary existence. It is a beautifully written memoir of a father's fight to survive with dignity, and a son's struggle to know the father he lost to schizophrenia long before he finally lost him to death.
Publisher: Broadway
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Mar 2000 My Rating: 0
Summary: The extraordinary story of a young man's struggle to reconstruct his father's past.
A devastating mental illness with no known cure, schizophrenia strikes people in the prime of their lives. For Charles Lachenmeyer, its onset was a life-altering event. In 1978, Charles was a happily married professor of sociology who lived in the New York suburbs with his wife and his nine-year-old son, Nathaniel. He seemed to have everything: a promising career, a loving family, and a comfortable home. But underneath his sociable exterior, Charles' world was falling apart. Within a few short years, schizophrenia would cost him everything: his sanity, his career, his family, even the roof over his head.
In 1981, Charles and his wife divorced. Haunted by the belief that his wife and the CIA were co-conspirators in a plot to control his thoughts and steal his sociological research, Charles left New York, seeking refuge in cities throughout the Northeast. Over the years, he traveled from city to city, passing in and out of psychiatric hospitals, all the while trying unsuccessfully to return to academia. He continued to correspond with his son, but as Charles' symptoms became more severe, what had once been a close father/son relationship changed dramatically. In 1989, overwhelmed and emotionally drained by his father's erratic behavior and bizarre beliefs, Nathaniel finally broke off all contact, writing: "I can't live in your world, and you can't live in mine." Four years later, Charles was living on the streets.
This powerful story is the result of the author's painstaking efforts, upon learning of his father's death in 1995 and his time on the streets, to retrace Charles Lachenmeyer's movements in the years after he left the family, and to find a way into the alien world in which he lived. As Nathaniel Lachenmeyer gradually weaves together the scattered pieces of his father's life, what emerges is the compelling story of a son struggling to understand what happened to his father, and to know the man he became.
The Outsider is an unsentimental yet profoundly moving look at one family's experience with mental illness. Rich in imagery and poignant symbolism, and framed by the author's highly personal dialogue with the reader, The Outsider moves beyond more straightforward accounts of mental illness to create a suspenseful and moving account of a son's search for the truth behind his father's haunted, solitary existence. It is a beautifully written memoir of a father's fight to survive with dignity, and a son's struggle to know the father he lost to schizophrenia long before he finally lost him to death.
Author: Gloria Steinem
Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T)
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1992 My Rating: 0
Summary: I've read this book at various points in my life and it never fails to ring true. In crappy times it was the voice of clarity and confidence, and with the existing empowerment in the day-to-day, it serves as validation and a nice boost to want to do more. This book should be required reading for every teenaged girl.
Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T)
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1992 My Rating: 0
Summary: I've read this book at various points in my life and it never fails to ring true. In crappy times it was the voice of clarity and confidence, and with the existing empowerment in the day-to-day, it serves as validation and a nice boost to want to do more. This book should be required reading for every teenaged girl.
Author: Alice Walker
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1996 My Rating: 0
Summary: Alice Walker, a writer who had generally shunned public life, reached a period of great achievement in the early 1980s. Her novel, The Color Purple, was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. But when Steven Spielberg made a film of the novel, intense controversy erupted. In this provocative and thoughtful collection of essays, Walker takes, as she puts it, a "lingering look backward at a dangerous crossroad in one's life." How does a serious writer engage popular culture? What are the costs? What are the joys? The eloquent Ms. Walker offers insights.
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1996 My Rating: 0
Summary: Alice Walker, a writer who had generally shunned public life, reached a period of great achievement in the early 1980s. Her novel, The Color Purple, was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. But when Steven Spielberg made a film of the novel, intense controversy erupted. In this provocative and thoughtful collection of essays, Walker takes, as she puts it, a "lingering look backward at a dangerous crossroad in one's life." How does a serious writer engage popular culture? What are the costs? What are the joys? The eloquent Ms. Walker offers insights.
Author: Booker T. Washington
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1986 My Rating: 0
Summary: Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's "Up from Slavery" is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society.
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1986 My Rating: 0
Summary: Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's "Up from Slavery" is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion, Washington recounts his ascendance from early life as a mulatto slave in Virginia to a 34-year term as president of the influential, agriculturally based Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. From that position, Washington reigned as the most important leader of his people, with slogans like "cast down your buckets," which emphasized vocational merit rather than the academic and political excellence championed by his contemporary rival W.E.B. Du Bois. Though many considered him too accommodating to segregationists, Washington, as he said in his historic "Atlanta Compromise" speech of 1895, believed that "political agitation alone would not save [the Negro]," and that "property, industry, skill, intelligence, and character" would prove necessary to black Americans' success. The potency of his philosophies are alive today in the nationalist and conservative camps that compose the complex quilt of black American society.
Author: Reed Whittemore
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1975 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: Jan 1975 My Rating: 0
Summary:
Author: Laurie Anthony
Publisher: Anthony Publishing
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: May 2003 My Rating: 4
Summary: Real Stories, Untold Truths is a continuation of the authors effort to understand one human being, one man who had within himself the power to achieve greatness, yet fell from grace, only to land at the very bottom. Its a place where none of us wants to go--homeless, and alone.
Publisher: Anthony Publishing
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: May 2003 My Rating: 4
Summary: Real Stories, Untold Truths is a continuation of the authors effort to understand one human being, one man who had within himself the power to achieve greatness, yet fell from grace, only to land at the very bottom. Its a place where none of us wants to go--homeless, and alone.
Author: David Mccullough
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: May 2001 My Rating: 5
Summary: Left to his own devices, John Adams might have lived out his days as a Massachusetts country lawyer, devoted to his family and friends. As it was, events swiftly overtook him, and Adams--who, David McCullough writes, was "not a man of the world" and not fond of politics--came to greatness as the second president of the United States, and one of the most distinguished of a generation of revolutionary leaders. He found reason to dislike sectarian wrangling even more in the aftermath of war, when Federalist and anti-Federalist factions vied bitterly for power, introducing scandal into an administration beset by other difficulties--including pirates on the high seas, conflict with France and England, and all the public controversy attendant in building a nation.
Overshadowed by the lustrous presidents Washington and Jefferson, who bracketed his tenure in office, Adams emerges from McCullough's brilliant biography as a truly heroic figure--not only for his significant role in the American Revolution but also for maintaining his personal integrity in its strife-filled aftermath. McCullough spends much of his narrative examining the troubled friendship between Adams and Jefferson, who had in common a love for books and ideas but differed on almost every other imaginable point. Reading his pages, it is easy to imagine the two as alter egos. (Strangely, both died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.) But McCullough also considers Adams in his own light, and the portrait that emerges is altogether fascinating. "--Gregory McNamee"
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Release: May 2001 My Rating: 5
Summary: Left to his own devices, John Adams might have lived out his days as a Massachusetts country lawyer, devoted to his family and friends. As it was, events swiftly overtook him, and Adams--who, David McCullough writes, was "not a man of the world" and not fond of politics--came to greatness as the second president of the United States, and one of the most distinguished of a generation of revolutionary leaders. He found reason to dislike sectarian wrangling even more in the aftermath of war, when Federalist and anti-Federalist factions vied bitterly for power, introducing scandal into an administration beset by other difficulties--including pirates on the high seas, conflict with France and England, and all the public controversy attendant in building a nation.
Overshadowed by the lustrous presidents Washington and Jefferson, who bracketed his tenure in office, Adams emerges from McCullough's brilliant biography as a truly heroic figure--not only for his significant role in the American Revolution but also for maintaining his personal integrity in its strife-filled aftermath. McCullough spends much of his narrative examining the troubled friendship between Adams and Jefferson, who had in common a love for books and ideas but differed on almost every other imaginable point. Reading his pages, it is easy to imagine the two as alter egos. (Strangely, both died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.) But McCullough also considers Adams in his own light, and the portrait that emerges is altogether fascinating. "--Gregory McNamee"