"I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."- President Abraham Lincoln, when confronted about General Ulysses Grant's excessive drinking.Blood, gunfire, and whiskey: they are the three things that defined Civil War battlefields. In this fascinating, booze-drenched history of the war that almost tore America apart, historian Mark Will-Weber (author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt) weaves together lighthearted stories of drunken generals and out-of-control soldiers with the gritty reality of battlefields where whiskey was the only medicine-and sometimes the only food.Muskets and Applejack paints a full, complex picture of the surprisingly large role alcohol played in the Civil War: how it helped heal physical and emotional wounds, form friendships, and cause strife.
Regnery History
|
9781621575092
|
Hardcover
May Cause Love
By Underwood, Kassi
In this powerful memoir, told with fierce honesty and surprising humor, a young woman goes on a journey of healing after abortion - a road trip across the United States with a diverse crew of spiritual teachers and a caravan of new friends.Nineteen years old, a thousand miles from her Kentucky home, Kassi Underwood sat in a doctor's office, shaking with fear. She was pregnant - and broke, unwed, and struggling with alcohol. In a decision that obliterated her southern moral code, she checked into an abortion clinic. Afterward, to her surprise, she felt free. Three years later, accomplishing her wildest dreams had left her unfulfilled and thinking about the pregnancy she didn't keep. When her ex-boyfriend had a baby with someone else, she shattered. But in the depths of despair, Kassi refused to believe she would "never get over" her abortion. So she created a road map of recovery. Determined to transform, she traveled across the United States on a journey that led her to a Buddhist "water baby" ritual, a Roman Catholic retreat for abortion healing staffed by picketers, a crash course in grief from a Planned Parenthood counselor, a night in a motel with a "Midwife for the Soul," a Jewish "wild woman" celebration hosted by an eccentric rabbi - and a wedding ceremony. Dazzling with warmth and leavened by humor, this absorbing memoir captures one woman's journey of self-discovery that enraged her, changed her, and ultimately enlightened her.
HarperOne
|
9780062458636
|
Print book
Bill Monroe
By Ewing, Tom
The Father of Bluegrass Music, Bill Monroe was a major star of the Grand Ole Opry for over fifty years; a member of the Country Music, Songwriters, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame; and a legendary figure in American music. This authoritative biography sets out to examine his life in careful detail--to move beyond hearsay and sensationalism to explain how and why he accomplished so much. Former Blue Grass Boy and longtime music journalist Tom Ewing draws on hundreds of interviews, his personal relationship with Monroe, and an immense personal archive of materials to separate the truth from longstanding myth. Ewing tells the story of the Monroe family's musical household and Bill's early career in the Monroe Brothers duo. He brings to life Monroe's 1940s heyday with the Classic Bluegrass Band, the renewed fervor for his music sparked by the folk revival of the 1960s, and his declining fortunes in the years that followed.
UNIV OF ILLINOIS PRESS
|
9780252041891
|
Hardcover
Orange Is the New Black
By Kerman, Piper
NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES * #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424 - one of the millions of people who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman's story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison - why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they're there. Praise for Orange Is the New Black "Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can't unbind." - People (four stars) "I loved this book. It's a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it." - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love "This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter." - Los Angeles Times "Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre's usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you." - USA Today "It's a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one - both for the reader and for Kerman." - Newsweek.com Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more.
Spiegel & Grau
|
9780385523394
|
Paperback
Home Work
By Andrews, Julie
In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews shares reflections on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria. In Home, the number one New York Times international bestseller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage. With this second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Andrews picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her phenomenal rise to fame in her earliest films--Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Andrews describes her years in the film industry -- from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she discuss her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television, she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, the end of her first marriage, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films, including Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations. Cowritten with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and told with Andrews's trademark charm and candor, Home Work takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an extraordinary life that is funny, heartrending, and inspiring.
Hachette Books
|
9780316349253
|
Hardcover
The Jersey Brothers
By Freeman, Sally Mott
The extraordinary, real-life adventure of three brothers at the center of the most dramatic turning points of World War II and their mad race to change history - and save one of their own.They are three brothers, all Navy men, who end up coincidentally and extraordinarily at the epicenter of three of the war's most crucial moments. Bill is picked by Roosevelt to run his first Map Room in Washington. Benny is the gunnery and anti-aircraft officer on the USS Enterprise, one of the only carriers to escape Pearl Harbor and by the end of 1942 the last one left in the Pacific to defend against the Japanese. Barton, the youngest and least distinguished of the three, is shuffled off to the Navy Supply Corps because his mother wants him out of harm's way. But this protection plan backfires when Barton is sent to the Philippines and listed as missing-in-action after a Japanese attack. Now it is up to Bill and Benny to find and rescue him. Based on ten years of research drawn from archives around the world, interviews with fellow shipmates and POWs, and primary sources including diaries, unpublished memoirs, and letters half-forgotten in basements, The Jersey Brothers is a remarkable story of agony and triumph - from the home front to Roosevelt's White House, and Pearl Harbor to Midway and Bataan. It is the story, written with intimate, novelistic detail, of an ordinary young man who shows extraordinary courage as the Japanese do everything short of killing him. And it is, above all, a story of brotherly love: of three men finding their loyalty to each other tested under the tortures of war - and knowing that their success or failure to save their youngest brother will shape their family forever.
Simon & Schuster
|
9781501104145
|
Hardcover
The Good Neighbor
By King, Maxwell
Fred Rogers (1928-2003) was an enormously influential figure in the history of television and in the lives of tens of millions of children. As the creator and star of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, he was a champion of compassion, equality, and kindness. Rogers was fiercely devoted to children and to taking their fears, concerns, and questions about the world seriously. The Good Neighbor, the first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, tells the story of this utterly unique and enduring American icon. Drawing on original interviews, oral histories, and archival documents, Maxwell King traces Rogers's personal, professional, and artistic life through decades of work, including a surprising decision to walk away from the show to make television for adults, only to return to the neighborhood with increasingly sophisticated episodes, written in collaboration with experts on childhood development. An engaging story, rich in detail, The Good Neighbor is the definitive portrait of a beloved figure, cherished by multiple generations.
Abrams Press
|
9781419727726
|
Hardcover
Jerry Lee Lewis
By Bragg, Rick
New York Times BestsellerThe greatest Southern storyteller of our time, New York Times bestselling author Rick Bragg, tracks down the greatest rock and roller of all time, Jerry Lee Lewis - and gets his own story, from the source, for the very first time.A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis spent his childhood raising hell in Ferriday, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi; galvanized the world with hit records like "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire," that gave rock and roll its devil's edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his thirteen-year-old second cousin - his third wife of seven; ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women; nearly met his maker, twice; suffered the deaths of two sons and two wives, and the indignity of an IRS raid that left him with nothing but the broken-down piano he started with; performed with everyone from Elvis Presley to Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Kid Rock - and survived it all to be hailed as "one of the most creative and important figures in American popular culture and a paradigm of the Southern experience.
Harper; 1st edition
|
9780062078223
|
Hardcover
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
By Didion, Joan
These twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review).
Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.
Muskets and Applejack
By Will-weber, Mark
"I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."- President Abraham Lincoln, when confronted about General Ulysses Grant's excessive drinking.Blood, gunfire, and whiskey: they are the three things that defined Civil War battlefields. In this fascinating, booze-drenched history of the war that almost tore America apart, historian Mark Will-Weber (author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt) weaves together lighthearted stories of drunken generals and out-of-control soldiers with the gritty reality of battlefields where whiskey was the only medicine-and sometimes the only food.Muskets and Applejack paints a full, complex picture of the surprisingly large role alcohol played in the Civil War: how it helped heal physical and emotional wounds, form friendships, and cause strife.
May Cause Love
By Underwood, Kassi
In this powerful memoir, told with fierce honesty and surprising humor, a young woman goes on a journey of healing after abortion - a road trip across the United States with a diverse crew of spiritual teachers and a caravan of new friends.Nineteen years old, a thousand miles from her Kentucky home, Kassi Underwood sat in a doctor's office, shaking with fear. She was pregnant - and broke, unwed, and struggling with alcohol. In a decision that obliterated her southern moral code, she checked into an abortion clinic. Afterward, to her surprise, she felt free. Three years later, accomplishing her wildest dreams had left her unfulfilled and thinking about the pregnancy she didn't keep. When her ex-boyfriend had a baby with someone else, she shattered. But in the depths of despair, Kassi refused to believe she would "never get over" her abortion. So she created a road map of recovery. Determined to transform, she traveled across the United States on a journey that led her to a Buddhist "water baby" ritual, a Roman Catholic retreat for abortion healing staffed by picketers, a crash course in grief from a Planned Parenthood counselor, a night in a motel with a "Midwife for the Soul," a Jewish "wild woman" celebration hosted by an eccentric rabbi - and a wedding ceremony. Dazzling with warmth and leavened by humor, this absorbing memoir captures one woman's journey of self-discovery that enraged her, changed her, and ultimately enlightened her.
Bill Monroe
By Ewing, Tom
The Father of Bluegrass Music, Bill Monroe was a major star of the Grand Ole Opry for over fifty years; a member of the Country Music, Songwriters, and Rock and Roll Halls of Fame; and a legendary figure in American music. This authoritative biography sets out to examine his life in careful detail--to move beyond hearsay and sensationalism to explain how and why he accomplished so much. Former Blue Grass Boy and longtime music journalist Tom Ewing draws on hundreds of interviews, his personal relationship with Monroe, and an immense personal archive of materials to separate the truth from longstanding myth. Ewing tells the story of the Monroe family's musical household and Bill's early career in the Monroe Brothers duo. He brings to life Monroe's 1940s heyday with the Classic Bluegrass Band, the renewed fervor for his music sparked by the folk revival of the 1960s, and his declining fortunes in the years that followed.
Orange Is the New Black
By Kerman, Piper
NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES * #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424 - one of the millions of people who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman's story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison - why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they're there. Praise for Orange Is the New Black "Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can't unbind." - People (four stars) "I loved this book. It's a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it." - Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love "This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter." - Los Angeles Times "Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre's usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you." - USA Today "It's a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one - both for the reader and for Kerman." - Newsweek.com Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more.
Home Work
By Andrews, Julie
In this follow-up to her critically acclaimed memoir, Home, Julie Andrews shares reflections on her astonishing career, including such classics as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, and Victor/Victoria. In Home, the number one New York Times international bestseller, Julie Andrews recounted her difficult childhood and her emergence as an acclaimed singer and performer on the stage. With this second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Andrews picks up the story with her arrival in Hollywood and her phenomenal rise to fame in her earliest films--Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Andrews describes her years in the film industry -- from the incredible highs to the challenging lows. Not only does she discuss her work in now-classic films and her collaborations with giants of cinema and television, she also unveils her personal story of adjusting to a new and often daunting world, dealing with the demands of unimaginable success, being a new mother, the end of her first marriage, embracing two stepchildren, adopting two more children, and falling in love with the brilliant and mercurial Blake Edwards. The pair worked together in numerous films, including Victor/Victoria, the gender-bending comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations. Cowritten with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, and told with Andrews's trademark charm and candor, Home Work takes us on a rare and intimate journey into an extraordinary life that is funny, heartrending, and inspiring.
The Jersey Brothers
By Freeman, Sally Mott
The extraordinary, real-life adventure of three brothers at the center of the most dramatic turning points of World War II and their mad race to change history - and save one of their own.They are three brothers, all Navy men, who end up coincidentally and extraordinarily at the epicenter of three of the war's most crucial moments. Bill is picked by Roosevelt to run his first Map Room in Washington. Benny is the gunnery and anti-aircraft officer on the USS Enterprise, one of the only carriers to escape Pearl Harbor and by the end of 1942 the last one left in the Pacific to defend against the Japanese. Barton, the youngest and least distinguished of the three, is shuffled off to the Navy Supply Corps because his mother wants him out of harm's way. But this protection plan backfires when Barton is sent to the Philippines and listed as missing-in-action after a Japanese attack. Now it is up to Bill and Benny to find and rescue him. Based on ten years of research drawn from archives around the world, interviews with fellow shipmates and POWs, and primary sources including diaries, unpublished memoirs, and letters half-forgotten in basements, The Jersey Brothers is a remarkable story of agony and triumph - from the home front to Roosevelt's White House, and Pearl Harbor to Midway and Bataan. It is the story, written with intimate, novelistic detail, of an ordinary young man who shows extraordinary courage as the Japanese do everything short of killing him. And it is, above all, a story of brotherly love: of three men finding their loyalty to each other tested under the tortures of war - and knowing that their success or failure to save their youngest brother will shape their family forever.
The Good Neighbor
By King, Maxwell
Fred Rogers (1928-2003) was an enormously influential figure in the history of television and in the lives of tens of millions of children. As the creator and star of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, he was a champion of compassion, equality, and kindness. Rogers was fiercely devoted to children and to taking their fears, concerns, and questions about the world seriously. The Good Neighbor, the first full-length biography of Fred Rogers, tells the story of this utterly unique and enduring American icon. Drawing on original interviews, oral histories, and archival documents, Maxwell King traces Rogers's personal, professional, and artistic life through decades of work, including a surprising decision to walk away from the show to make television for adults, only to return to the neighborhood with increasingly sophisticated episodes, written in collaboration with experts on childhood development. An engaging story, rich in detail, The Good Neighbor is the definitive portrait of a beloved figure, cherished by multiple generations.
Jerry Lee Lewis
By Bragg, Rick
New York Times BestsellerThe greatest Southern storyteller of our time, New York Times bestselling author Rick Bragg, tracks down the greatest rock and roller of all time, Jerry Lee Lewis - and gets his own story, from the source, for the very first time.A monumental figure on the American landscape, Jerry Lee Lewis spent his childhood raising hell in Ferriday, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi; galvanized the world with hit records like "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire," that gave rock and roll its devil's edge; caused riots and boycotts with his incendiary performances; nearly scuttled his career by marrying his thirteen-year-old second cousin - his third wife of seven; ran a decades-long marathon of drugs, drinking, and women; nearly met his maker, twice; suffered the deaths of two sons and two wives, and the indignity of an IRS raid that left him with nothing but the broken-down piano he started with; performed with everyone from Elvis Presley to Keith Richards to Bruce Springsteen to Kid Rock - and survived it all to be hailed as "one of the most creative and important figures in American popular culture and a paradigm of the Southern experience.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean
By Didion, Joan
These twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" (The New York Times Book Review).
Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient.
Mala's Cat
By Kacenberg, Mala