Book picks similar to
Reagan Remembered by Gilbert A. Robinson
presidents
biography
politics
essays
Why Romney Lost
David Frum - 2012
David Frum urges a Republican party that is culturally modern, economically inclusive, and environmentally responsible - a party that can meet the challenges of the Obama years and lead a diverse America to a new age of freedom and prosperity.
On Mutiny
David Speers - 2018
If we really do get the government we deserve, On Mutiny might provoke a civilian rebellion.
One of the Family
John George Pearson - 2003
Moreover, he was as legendary a figure on the streets of New York as on the streets of London.Pearson persuaded the mysterious criminal leader to talk to him - and the result was a story even more extraordinary than that of the Kray twins. Here Pearson reveals the true story of the Englishman who became the adopted son of Joey Pagano, the head of one of the major New York crime families. Here the Englishman tells the story that no-one else dared to tell.
American Legends: The Life of James Cagney
Charles River Editors - 2013
*Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality." Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast. While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year. American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.
Gimson's Presidents: Brief Lives From Washington to Trump
Andrew Gimson - 2020
Helping to bring these forgotten figures into the light, Andrew Gimson's illuminating accounts are accompanied by sketches from Guardian sartirical cartoonist, Martin Rowson, making this the perfect gift for all lovers of history and politics.
Cold Cases Solved Vol. 2: More True Stories of Murders That Took Years or Decades to Solve
Mike Riley - 2015
2: This follow-up book to Cold Cases Solved continues where the first book left off detailing more true stories of criminal cases that went cold and were eventually solved, sometimes many years later. Some of the cases include:
Martha Moxley – the case with a Kennedy connection,
Jeanine Nicarico – the case that took over 20 years to solve,
Sherri Rasmussen – fresh eyes caught the right clue,
The 16th Baptist Church Bombing – solved after 14 years,
Leslie Long – the young mother kidnapped, raped and murdered,
The Outlaw Clubhouse Murders – a motorcycle gang wiped out,
and many others.
The closure attained by solving these cases must at least provide a modicum of relief for the friends and family of the victims. The authorities involved in the investigations and in bringing the perpetrators to justice must also feel a sense of accomplishment when they are able to successfully close a long-standing case.Grab your copy TODAY and read about more Cold Cases Solved!
Ronald Reagan
James B. Sutherland - 2008
He entered the White House in 1981, a time when many Americans were wondering if their country's best days were behind them. But things had changed by the time he left office--the economy was thriving and the Cold War was coming to a close.The child of an alcoholic, he was an intensely private man, yet he was so charming that he routinely befriended even his enemies. Reagan was both a complex man and political figure, and his legacy strongly influences politics today.
This is Gail
Gail O'Brien - 2016
In 2008, inspirational surgeon Chris O'Brien published his bestselling memoir of his battle with brain cancer, NEVER SAY DIE. But he wasn't the only person in the O'Brien household with a powerful story to tell. Since Chris passed away in 2009, his wife Gail has gone on a journey of her own: from a busy surgeon's wife and mother of a picture-perfect family to a widow in her mid-50s, grieving not only her husband but also her son Adam, who died as a result of epilepsy a short time after Chris's death. Yet in the midst of her grief, Gail discovered resolve and strength deep within herself. When Chris was alive, Gail was the woman behind the great man. But after his death, she stepped forward to make her own mark on the world. While coming to terms with both a public and private loss, Gail took on Chris's legacy as steward of the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse cancer centre, navigating the often bruising politics of boards and committees to ensure his vision was realised. She also went back to work as a physio after being out of the workforce for 20 years, while still holding her shattered family together. She reinvented herself and found that she could survive and even thrive in a world without her soul mate. A moving, inspiring, deeply poignant and often joyous story of family, love and loss - and ultimately, about finding your purpose in the world.
Pale Native: Memories of a Renegade Reporter
Max Du Preez - 2003
Sometimes wacky, sometimes profound, the title is always entertaining, with the odd bit of sleaze.
Roosevelt
Brett Harper - 2014
Theodore Roosevelt, known to all but his friends as Teddy, was born a sickly child but transformed himself into an outdoorsman, a cowboy, and a warrior who led his Rough Riders up the San Juan Heights of Cuba in a charge that still ranks among the world's military legends. But Roosevelt was also a man of letters who churned out some forty books, a gifted politician who charmed the nation, and a statesman who could settle a war as well as wage one. His wily acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone set up an engineering feat that has lasted a century, and it's safe to predict that we'll never again see his match for exuberance, force of character, patriotism, and sheer energy. His story will grip you like his handshake.
The Royal W.E. Unique Glimpses of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
Victoria Martinez - 2011
The truth is: politics and innuendo clouded that story from the very beginning, with the result that few people really understand who The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were and what forces propelled them to their infamous fate. The Royal W.E. examines the individual and intertwined lives of Wallis and Edward – or “W.E.” as they referred to themselves – and provides readers with unique glimpses of the real people, as opposed to the sensationalized characters, that were The Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Through careful study of more than 75 years of rhetoric and scholarship, Victoria Martínez takes on the most controversial charges lodged against the couple (Was Wallis a hermaphrodite? Were the Duke and Duchess Nazi sympathizers?) with candor and evenhandedness. In analyzing the early lives of Wallis and the ex-king and their later relationships with other members of the Royal Family, her approach is to deal with all parties as human beings, whose true faults – though significant – were far less sinister than history has led us to believe. Ms. Martínez also addresses the ever-popular subject of the Duchess’s jewels, including new research on the famous 1946 Ednam Lodge jewel heist to dispel the long-held rumors that the Duke and Duchess committed jewel theft and insurance fraud. The subjects in this book are not always mainstream, well-known, or even consistent with “popular” opinion, and the objective is not to make anyone “like” the couple. Instead, readers will find refreshingly honest and accurate portrayals of W.E. that will help them understand the real people behind the myth and hype. “Prejudice and preconception are difficult things to set aside, particularly after so many years of negative stories and sordid rumor, but I think readers here will discover an alternative and convincing look at the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. I am sure they would approve and perhaps, just perhaps, the future may be a little bit kinder to Edward and Wallis because of the efforts of people like Ms. Martínez.” -Greg King, author of The Duchess of Windsor: The Uncommon Life of Wallis Simpson
Zelda Fitzgerald: The Biography
University Press Biographies - 2017
The chafing restrictions of a typical upbringing in upper-class, small town Alabama simply did not apply to Zelda, who was described as an unusual child and permitted to roam the streets with little supervision. Zelda refused to blossom into a typical 'Southern belle' on anyone's terms but her own and while still in high school enjoyed the status of a local celebrity for her shocking behavior. Everybody in town knew the name Zelda Sayre. Queen of the Montgomery social scene, Zelda had a different beau ready and willing to show her a good time for every day of the week. Before meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda's life was a constant pursuit of pleasure. With little thought for the future and no responsibilities to speak of, Zelda committed herself fully to the mantra that accompanied her photo in her high school graduation book: "Why should all life be work, when we all can borrow. Let's think only of today, and not worry about tomorrow." But for now Zelda was still in rehearsal for her real life to begin, a life she was sure would be absolutely extraordinary. Zelda Sayre married F. Scott Fitzgerald on the 3rd of April 1920 and left sleepy Montgomery behind in order to dive headfirst into the shimmering, glamourous life of a New York socialite. With the publication of Scott's first novel, This Side of Paradise, Zelda found herself thrust into the limelight as the very epitome of the Flapper lifestyle. Concerned chiefly with fashion, wild parties and flouting social expectations, Zelda and Scott became icons of the Jazz Age, the personification of beauty and success. What Zelda and Scott shared was a romantic sense of self-importance that assured them that their life of carefree leisure and excess was the only life really worth living. Deeply in love, the Fitzgeralds were like to sides of the same coin, each reflecting the very best and worst of each other. While the world fell in love with the image of the Fitzgeralds they saw on the cover of magazines, behind the scenes the Fitzgerald's marriage could not withstand the tension of their creative arrangement. Zelda was Scott's muse and he mercilessly mined the events of their life for material for his books. Scott claimed Zelda's memories, things she said, experiences she had and even passages from her diary as his possessions and used them to form the basis of his fictional works. Zelda had a child but the domestic sphere offered no comfort or purpose for her. The Flapper lifestyle was not simply a phase she lived through, it formed the very basis of her character and once the parties grew dull, the Fitzgeralds' drinking became destructive and Zelda's beauty began to fade, the world held little allure for her. Zelda sought reprieve in work and tried to build a career as a ballet dancer. When that didn't work out she turned to writing but was forbidden by Scott from using her own life as material. Convinced that she would never leave her mark on the world as deeply or expressively as Scott had, Zelda retreated into herself and withdrew from the people she knew in happier times. The later years of Zelda's life were marred by her detachment from reality as, diagnosed with schizophrenia, Zelda spent the last eighteen years of her life living in and out of psychiatric hospitals. As Scott's life unraveled due to alcohol abuse, Zelda looked back on the years they had spent together, young and wild and beautiful, as the best of her life. She may have been right but she was wrong about one thing, Zelda did leave her mark on the world and it was a deep and expressive mark that no one could have left but her. Zelda Fitzgerald: The Biography
Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Casebook
Joanne M. Braxton - 1998
This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.Perhaps more than any other single text, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings helped to establish the mainstream status of the renaissance in black women's writing. This casebook presents a variety of critical approaches to this classic autobiography, along with an exclusive interview with Angelou conducted specially for this volume and a unique drawing of her childhood surroundings in Stamps, Arkansas, drawn by Angelou herself.
Mafia Boss Sam Giancana: The Rise and Fall of a Chicago Mobster
Susan McNicoll - 2015
Born in 1908, in The Patch, Chicago, Giancana joined the Forty-Two gang of lawless juvenile punks in 1921 and quickly proved himself as a skilled 'wheel man' (or getaway driver), extortionist and vicious killer. Called up to the ranks of the Outfit, he reputedly held talks with the CIA about assassinating Fidel Castro, shared a girlfriend with John F. Kennedy and had friends in high places, including Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Marilyn Monroe and, some say, the Kennedys, although he fell out with them.The story of Sam Giancana will overturn many of your beliefs about America during the Kennedy era. If you want to know Giancana's role in the brother's deaths, and more of the intrigue surrounding that of Marilyn Monroe, this book will fill you in on the murky lives of many shady characters who really ruled the day, both in Chicago and elsewhere.