The fascinating story of two American giants - Henry Ford and Thomas Edison - whose annual summer sojourns introduced the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life, even as their own relationship altered dramatically. In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on. Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America's roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life. In The Vagabonds Jeff Guinn shares the story of this pivotal moment in American history. But he also examines the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford's reputation, even as Edison's diminished. The automobile had come of age and it would transform the American landscape, the American economy, and the American way of life. Guinn brings to life this seminal moment when a new industry created a watershed cultural shift and a famous businessman became a prominent political figure. The Vagabonds is a wonderful story of two American giants and the transformation of the country.
Simon & Schuster
|
9781501159305
|
Hardcover
Not Dead Yet
By Collins, Phil
Phil Collins pulls no punches - about himself, his life, or the ecstasy and heartbreak that's inspired his music. In his much-awaited memoir, Not Dead Yet, he tells the story of his epic career, with an auspicious debut at age 11 in a crowd shot from the Beatles' legendary film A Hard Day's Night. A drummer since almost before he could walk, Collins received on the job training in the seedy, thrilling bars and clubs of 1960s swinging London before finally landing the drum seat in Genesis. Soon, he would step into the spotlight on vocals after the departure of Peter Gabriel and begin to stockpile the songs that would rocket him to international fame with the release of Face Value and "In the Air Tonight." Whether he's recalling jamming with Eric Clapton and Robert Plant, pulling together a big band fronted by Tony Bennett, or writing the music for Disney's smash-hit animated Tarzan, Collins's storytelling chops never waver. And of course he answers the pressing question on everyone's mind: just what does "Sussudio" mean? Not Dead Yet is Phil Collins's candid, witty, unvarnished story of the songs and shows, the hits and pans, his marriages and divorces, the ascents to the top of the charts and into the tabloid headlines. As one of only three musicians to sell 100 million records both in a group and as a solo artist, Collins breathes rare air, but has never lost his touch at crafting songs from the heart that touch listeners around the globe. That same touch is on magnificent display here, especially as he unfolds his harrowing descent into darkness after his "official" retirement in 2007, and the profound, enduring love that helped save him. This is Phil Collins as you've always known him, but also as you've never heard him before.
Crown
|
9781101907474
|
Print book
Believer
By Axelrod, David
New York Times Book Review"A stout defense--indeed, the best I have read--of the Obama years."A New York Times BestsellerDavid Axelrod has always been a believer. Whether as a young journalist investigating city corruption, a campaign consultant guiding underdog candidates against entrenched orthodoxy, or as senior adviser to the president during one of the worst crises in American history, Axelrod held fast to his faith in the power of stories to unite diverse communities and ignite transformative political change. Now this legendary strategist, the mastermind behind Barack Obama's historic election campaigns, shares a wealth of stories from his forty-year journey through the inner workings of American democracy. Believer is the tale of a political life well lived, of a man who never gave up on the deepest promises our country has to offer.
Penguin Press
|
9781594205873
|
Hardcover
The Impossible First
By O'brady, Colin
Colin O'Brady's awe-inspiring memoir recounts his triumphant recovery from a tragic accident and his gripping 932-mile crossing of the landmass of Antarctica solo, unsupported, and human powered - the first to accomplish this extraordinary feat. Prior to December 2018, no individual had ever crossed the landmass of Antarctica alone and without any outside assistance. Yet Colin O'Brady was determined to do just that, even if, upon taking the first steps of what was to be a nearly two-month journey, he had his doubts. He was compelled by a curiosity for the unknown, his own competitive instincts, and the encouragement of his wife. His challenge was made even more intense by a head-to-head battle that emerged with British polar adventurer Captain Louis Rudd - also striving to be "the first.
Scribner
|
9781982133115
|
Hardcover
Race, Religion, and the Pulpit
By Robinson, Julia Marie
During the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West, the local black church was essential in the making and reshaping of urban areas. In Detroit, there was one church and one minister in particular that demonstrated this power of the pulpit-Second Baptist Church of Detroit ("Second," as many members called it) and its nineteenth pastor, the Reverend Robert L. Bradby. In Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit, author Julia Marie Robinson explores how Bradby's church became the catalyst for economic empowerment, community building, and the formation of an urban African American working class in Detroit. Robinson begins by examining Reverend Bradby's formative years in Ontario, Canada; his rise to prominence as a pastor and community leader at Second Baptist in Detroit; and the sociohistorical context of his work in the early years of the Great Migration.
Wayne State University Press
|
9780814332917
|
Hardcover
Leave It As It Is
By Gessner, David
An urgent call to protect America's public lands, told through New York Times bestselling author David Gessner's American road trip with our greatest conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt, as his guide. "Leave it as it is," Theodore Roosevelt announced while viewing the Grand Canyon for the first time. "The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it." Roosevelt's rallying cry signaled the beginning of an environmental fight that still wages today. With America's wilderness under threat - from corporate interests, from politicians, and from the extremes of climate change - Roosevelt's awakening into conservationist-in-chief gives us a roadmap for protecting our wild spaces today. To reconnect with the American land and with the president who courageously protected it, acclaimed naturalist and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner embarked on a great American road trip with Roosevelt as his spirit guide.
Simon & Schuster
|
9781982105044
|
Hardcover
Remember the Time
By Beard, Javon
Hounded by the tabloid media, driven from his self-made sanctuary at Neverland, Michael Jackson spent his final years moving from city to city, living with his three children in virtual seclusiona futile attempt to escape a world that wouldnt leave him alone. During that time, two men served as the singers personal security team Bill Whitfield, a former cop and veteran of the security profession, and Javon Beard, a brash, untested rookie, both single fathers themselves. Stationed at his side nearly , their job was to see and hear everything that transpired, and to keep everyone else out, making them the only two men who know what million fans around the world still want to know What really happened to the King of Pop? Driven by a desire to show the world who Michael Jackson truly was, Whitfield and Beard have produced the only definitive, first-person account of Michael Jacksons last years the extreme measures necessary to protect Jackson and his family, the simple moments of happiness they managed to share in a time of great stress, the special relationship Jackson shared with his fans, and the tragic events that culminated in the singers ill-fated comeback,This Is It.
Weinstein Books
|
9781602862500
|
Hardcover
A Fine Romance
By Bergen, Candice
In the follow-up to Knock Wood - her bestselling "engaging, intelligent, and wittily self-deprecating autobiography" (The New York Times) - Candice Bergen shares the big events: her marriage to a famous French director, the birth of her daughter, Murphy Brown, widowhood, falling in love again, and watching her daughter blossom.A Fine Romance begins with Bergen's charming first husband, French director Louis Malle, whose huge appetite for life broadened her horizons and whose occasional darkness never diminished their love for each other. But her real romance begins when she discovers overpowering love for her daughter after years of ambivalence about motherhood. As Chloe grows up, Bergen finds her comic genius in the biggest TV role of the 80s, Murphy Brown, and makes unwanted headlines when Dan Quayle pulls her into the 1992 presidential campaign.
Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition
|
9780684808277
|
Hardcover
Lincoln's Greatest Case
By Mcginty, Brian
The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.In the early hours of May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge -- the first railroad bridge ever to span the Mississippi River. Soon after, the newly constructed vessel, crowded with passengers and livestock, erupted into flames and sank in the river below, taking much of the bridge with it.As lawyer and Lincoln scholar Brian McGinty dramatically reveals in Lincoln's Greatest Case, no one was killed, but the question of who was at fault cried out for an answer. Backed by powerful steamboat interests in St. Louis, the owners of the Effie Afton quickly pressed suit, hoping that a victory would not only prevent the construction of any future bridges from crossing the Mississippi but also thwart the burgeoning spread of railroads from Chicago. The fate of the long-dreamed-of transcontinental railroad lurked ominously in the background, for if rails could not cross the Mississippi by bridge, how could they span the continent all the way to the Pacific?The official title of the case was Hurd et al. v. The Railroad Bridge Company, but it could have been St. Louis v. Chicago, for the transportation future of the whole nation was at stake. Indeed, was it to be dominated by steamboats or by railroads? Conducted at almost the same time as the notorious Dred Scott case, this new trial riveted the nation's attention. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, already well known as one of the best trial lawyers in Illinois, was summoned to Chicago to join a handful of crack legal practitioners in the defense of the bridge. While there, he succesfully helped unite the disparate regions of the country with a truly transcontinental rail system and, in the process, added to the stellar reputation that vaulted him into the White House less than four years later.Re-creating the Effie Afton case from its unlikely inception to its controversial finale, McGinty brilliantly animates this legal cauldron of the late 1850s, which turned out to be the most consequential trial in Lincoln's nearly quarter century as a lawyer. Along the way, the tall prairie lawyer's consummate legal skills and instincts are also brought to vivid life, as is the history of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi, the progress of railroads west of the Appalachians, and the epochal clashes of railroads and steamboats at the river's edge.Lincoln's Greatest Case is legal history on a grand scale and an essential first act to a pivotal Lincoln drama we did not know was there. 18 illustrations
Liveright; 1 edition
|
9780871407849
|
Print book
The Book of Charlie
By Drehle, David Von
When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship - and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie's sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru's president.
The Vagabonds
By Guinn, Jeff
The fascinating story of two American giants - Henry Ford and Thomas Edison - whose annual summer sojourns introduced the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life, even as their own relationship altered dramatically. In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on. Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America's roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life. In The Vagabonds Jeff Guinn shares the story of this pivotal moment in American history. But he also examines the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford's reputation, even as Edison's diminished. The automobile had come of age and it would transform the American landscape, the American economy, and the American way of life. Guinn brings to life this seminal moment when a new industry created a watershed cultural shift and a famous businessman became a prominent political figure. The Vagabonds is a wonderful story of two American giants and the transformation of the country.
Not Dead Yet
By Collins, Phil
Phil Collins pulls no punches - about himself, his life, or the ecstasy and heartbreak that's inspired his music. In his much-awaited memoir, Not Dead Yet, he tells the story of his epic career, with an auspicious debut at age 11 in a crowd shot from the Beatles' legendary film A Hard Day's Night. A drummer since almost before he could walk, Collins received on the job training in the seedy, thrilling bars and clubs of 1960s swinging London before finally landing the drum seat in Genesis. Soon, he would step into the spotlight on vocals after the departure of Peter Gabriel and begin to stockpile the songs that would rocket him to international fame with the release of Face Value and "In the Air Tonight." Whether he's recalling jamming with Eric Clapton and Robert Plant, pulling together a big band fronted by Tony Bennett, or writing the music for Disney's smash-hit animated Tarzan, Collins's storytelling chops never waver. And of course he answers the pressing question on everyone's mind: just what does "Sussudio" mean? Not Dead Yet is Phil Collins's candid, witty, unvarnished story of the songs and shows, the hits and pans, his marriages and divorces, the ascents to the top of the charts and into the tabloid headlines. As one of only three musicians to sell 100 million records both in a group and as a solo artist, Collins breathes rare air, but has never lost his touch at crafting songs from the heart that touch listeners around the globe. That same touch is on magnificent display here, especially as he unfolds his harrowing descent into darkness after his "official" retirement in 2007, and the profound, enduring love that helped save him. This is Phil Collins as you've always known him, but also as you've never heard him before.
Believer
By Axelrod, David
New York Times Book Review"A stout defense--indeed, the best I have read--of the Obama years."A New York Times BestsellerDavid Axelrod has always been a believer. Whether as a young journalist investigating city corruption, a campaign consultant guiding underdog candidates against entrenched orthodoxy, or as senior adviser to the president during one of the worst crises in American history, Axelrod held fast to his faith in the power of stories to unite diverse communities and ignite transformative political change. Now this legendary strategist, the mastermind behind Barack Obama's historic election campaigns, shares a wealth of stories from his forty-year journey through the inner workings of American democracy. Believer is the tale of a political life well lived, of a man who never gave up on the deepest promises our country has to offer.
The Impossible First
By O'brady, Colin
Colin O'Brady's awe-inspiring memoir recounts his triumphant recovery from a tragic accident and his gripping 932-mile crossing of the landmass of Antarctica solo, unsupported, and human powered - the first to accomplish this extraordinary feat. Prior to December 2018, no individual had ever crossed the landmass of Antarctica alone and without any outside assistance. Yet Colin O'Brady was determined to do just that, even if, upon taking the first steps of what was to be a nearly two-month journey, he had his doubts. He was compelled by a curiosity for the unknown, his own competitive instincts, and the encouragement of his wife. His challenge was made even more intense by a head-to-head battle that emerged with British polar adventurer Captain Louis Rudd - also striving to be "the first.
Race, Religion, and the Pulpit
By Robinson, Julia Marie
During the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to the cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West, the local black church was essential in the making and reshaping of urban areas. In Detroit, there was one church and one minister in particular that demonstrated this power of the pulpit-Second Baptist Church of Detroit ("Second," as many members called it) and its nineteenth pastor, the Reverend Robert L. Bradby. In Race, Religion, and the Pulpit: Rev. Robert L. Bradby and the Making of Urban Detroit, author Julia Marie Robinson explores how Bradby's church became the catalyst for economic empowerment, community building, and the formation of an urban African American working class in Detroit. Robinson begins by examining Reverend Bradby's formative years in Ontario, Canada; his rise to prominence as a pastor and community leader at Second Baptist in Detroit; and the sociohistorical context of his work in the early years of the Great Migration.
Leave It As It Is
By Gessner, David
An urgent call to protect America's public lands, told through New York Times bestselling author David Gessner's American road trip with our greatest conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt, as his guide. "Leave it as it is," Theodore Roosevelt announced while viewing the Grand Canyon for the first time. "The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it." Roosevelt's rallying cry signaled the beginning of an environmental fight that still wages today. With America's wilderness under threat - from corporate interests, from politicians, and from the extremes of climate change - Roosevelt's awakening into conservationist-in-chief gives us a roadmap for protecting our wild spaces today. To reconnect with the American land and with the president who courageously protected it, acclaimed naturalist and New York Times bestselling author David Gessner embarked on a great American road trip with Roosevelt as his spirit guide.
Remember the Time
By Beard, Javon
Hounded by the tabloid media, driven from his self-made sanctuary at Neverland, Michael Jackson spent his final years moving from city to city, living with his three children in virtual seclusiona futile attempt to escape a world that wouldnt leave him alone. During that time, two men served as the singers personal security team Bill Whitfield, a former cop and veteran of the security profession, and Javon Beard, a brash, untested rookie, both single fathers themselves. Stationed at his side nearly , their job was to see and hear everything that transpired, and to keep everyone else out, making them the only two men who know what million fans around the world still want to know What really happened to the King of Pop? Driven by a desire to show the world who Michael Jackson truly was, Whitfield and Beard have produced the only definitive, first-person account of Michael Jacksons last years the extreme measures necessary to protect Jackson and his family, the simple moments of happiness they managed to share in a time of great stress, the special relationship Jackson shared with his fans, and the tragic events that culminated in the singers ill-fated comeback,This Is It.
A Fine Romance
By Bergen, Candice
In the follow-up to Knock Wood - her bestselling "engaging, intelligent, and wittily self-deprecating autobiography" (The New York Times) - Candice Bergen shares the big events: her marriage to a famous French director, the birth of her daughter, Murphy Brown, widowhood, falling in love again, and watching her daughter blossom.A Fine Romance begins with Bergen's charming first husband, French director Louis Malle, whose huge appetite for life broadened her horizons and whose occasional darkness never diminished their love for each other. But her real romance begins when she discovers overpowering love for her daughter after years of ambivalence about motherhood. As Chloe grows up, Bergen finds her comic genius in the biggest TV role of the 80s, Murphy Brown, and makes unwanted headlines when Dan Quayle pulls her into the 1992 presidential campaign.
Lincoln's Greatest Case
By Mcginty, Brian
The untold story of how one sensational trial propelled a self-taught lawyer and a future president into the national spotlight.In the early hours of May 6, 1856, the steamboat Effie Afton barreled into a pillar of the Rock Island Bridge -- the first railroad bridge ever to span the Mississippi River. Soon after, the newly constructed vessel, crowded with passengers and livestock, erupted into flames and sank in the river below, taking much of the bridge with it.As lawyer and Lincoln scholar Brian McGinty dramatically reveals in Lincoln's Greatest Case, no one was killed, but the question of who was at fault cried out for an answer. Backed by powerful steamboat interests in St. Louis, the owners of the Effie Afton quickly pressed suit, hoping that a victory would not only prevent the construction of any future bridges from crossing the Mississippi but also thwart the burgeoning spread of railroads from Chicago. The fate of the long-dreamed-of transcontinental railroad lurked ominously in the background, for if rails could not cross the Mississippi by bridge, how could they span the continent all the way to the Pacific?The official title of the case was Hurd et al. v. The Railroad Bridge Company, but it could have been St. Louis v. Chicago, for the transportation future of the whole nation was at stake. Indeed, was it to be dominated by steamboats or by railroads? Conducted at almost the same time as the notorious Dred Scott case, this new trial riveted the nation's attention. Meanwhile, Abraham Lincoln, already well known as one of the best trial lawyers in Illinois, was summoned to Chicago to join a handful of crack legal practitioners in the defense of the bridge. While there, he succesfully helped unite the disparate regions of the country with a truly transcontinental rail system and, in the process, added to the stellar reputation that vaulted him into the White House less than four years later.Re-creating the Effie Afton case from its unlikely inception to its controversial finale, McGinty brilliantly animates this legal cauldron of the late 1850s, which turned out to be the most consequential trial in Lincoln's nearly quarter century as a lawyer. Along the way, the tall prairie lawyer's consummate legal skills and instincts are also brought to vivid life, as is the history of steamboat traffic on the Mississippi, the progress of railroads west of the Appalachians, and the epochal clashes of railroads and steamboats at the river's edge.Lincoln's Greatest Case is legal history on a grand scale and an essential first act to a pivotal Lincoln drama we did not know was there. 18 illustrations
The Book of Charlie
By Drehle, David Von
When a veteran Washington journalist moved to Kansas, he met a new neighbor who was more than a century old. Little did he know that he was beginning a long friendship - and a profound lesson in the meaning of life. Charlie White was no ordinary neighbor. Born before radio, Charlie lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie's sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru's president.