The Song of Names


Norman Lebrecht - 2002
    Martin already loves Dovidl Rapoport, an eerily gifted Polish violin prodigy whose parents left him in the Simmonds’s care before they perished in the Holocaust. For a time the two boys are closer than brothers. But on the day he is to make his official debut, Dovidl disappears. Only 40 years later does Martin get his first clue about what happened to him. In this ravishing novel of music and suspense, Norman Lebrecht unravels the strands of love, envy and exploitation that knot geniuses to their admirers. In doing so he also evokes the fragile bubble of Jewish life in prewar London; the fearful carnival of the Blitz, and the gray new world that emerged from its ashes. Bristling with ideas, lambent with feeling, The Song of Names is a masterful work of the imagination.

The Wit & Wisdom of Winston Churchill


James C. Humes - 1994
    An extremely entertaining compendium of bon mots, anecdotes, and trivia about Winston Churchill from a leading Churchill lecturer and performer -- useful for speakers, students, of history, and World War II buffs, as well as general readers.

Emily the Strange


Rob Reger - 2001
    Famous for her barbed commentary and independent spirit, this rebel-child in black has spawned an Internet and merchandising phenomenon (Emily's Web site gets 35,000 hits per month!). Emily the Strange, her first book, captures the quintessential Emily, featuring her most beloved quips and a host of new ones. Anarchist, heroine, survivor, this little girl with a big personality appeals to the odd child in us all.

Fiddler on the Roof


Joseph Stein - 1964
    "One of the great works of the American musical theatre. It is darling, touching, beautiful, warm, funny and inspiring. It is a work of art." -John Chapman, Daily News

Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman


William T. Sherman - 1886
    Written with the propulsive energy and intelligence that marked his campaigns, Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman describes striking incidents and anecdotes and collects dozens of his incisive and often outspoken wartime orders and reports. This complex self-portrait of an innovative and relentless American warrior provides vivid, firsthand accounts of the war’s crucial events—Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Atlanta campaign, the marches through Georgia and the Carolinas.Born in Ohio in 1820, Sherman spent many of his prewar years moving between the old South and the new West. His recollections of shipwrecks, gold rushes, vigilance committees, and banking panics colorfully evoke the restless and often reckless spirit of a nation in transformation. A conservative terrified by the anarchy he saw in secession, Sherman resigned his position as superintendent of a Louisiana military academy in 1861 and went North to endure defeat at Bull Run and humiliation in the press for his pessimistic views of Union prospects in Kentucky. His fortunes changed at Shiloh, where he regained his confidence and won the admiration and friendship of Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman became Grant’s most trusted subordinate, and over the next 18 months learned much from his commander about the irrelevancy of orthodox strategy to the realities of civil war in America.By the fall of 1864 Sherman’s thinking focused on the Southern society that supported the armies opposing him. Shunning supply lines and frontal assaults, he struck directly at the economic and psychological underpinnings of Confederate resistance. That this strategy inflicted pain and suffering upon the South he loved was a hard truth Sherman never tried to evade. “You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will,” he told the citizens of Atlanta before expelling them from their homes. “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it….” Nor does he deny the exhilaration he felt while directing his terrifyingly powerful army. Yet Sherman’s near-apocalyptic campaign through the Carolinas ended in fierce controversy when he unsuccessfully tried to grant the South more lenient peace terms than favored by most in the North.Called hero and demon, liberator and destroyer, Sherman is an indelible figure of the American past. Nowhere is he more alive than in the pages of his illuminating and uncompromising Memoirs. This volume reprints the text of the revised edition of 1886, and includes a series of detailed maps prepared at Sherman’s request and appendices containing dozens of letters written in response to the 1875 first edition.

The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews


Peter Duffy - 2003
    In July 1944, after two and a half years in the woods, more than one thousand Jewish men, women and children, emerged from the woods triumphant and alive.It is one of the most remarkable dramas of World War II -- untold until now. In 1941, three young men -- brothers, sons of a miller -- witnessed their parents and two other siblings being led away to their eventual murders. It was a grim scene that would, of course, be repeated endlessly throughout the war. What makes this particular story of interest is how the survivors responded. Instead of running or capitulating or giving in to despair, these brothers -- Tuvia, Zus, and Asael Bielski -- did something else entirely. They fought back, waging a guerrilla war of wits and cunning against both the Nazis and the pro-Nazi sympathizers. Along the way they saved well over a thousand Jewish lives. Using their intimate knowledge of the dense forests surrounding the Belorussian towns of Novogrudek and Lida, the Bielskis evaded the Nazis and established a hidden base camp, then set about convincing other Jews to join their ranks. When the Nazis began systematically eliminating the local Jewish populations -- more than ten thousand were killed in the first year of the Nazi occupation alone -- the Bielskis intensified their efforts, often sending fighting men into the ghettos to escort Jews to safety. As more and more Jews arrived each day, a robust community began to emerge, a "Jerusalem in the woods." They slept in camouflaged dugouts built into the ground. Lovers met, were married, and conceived children. The community boasted a synagogue, a bathhouse, a theater, and cobblers so skilled that Russian officers would wait in line to have their boots reshod. But as its notoriety grew, so too did the Nazi efforts to capture the rugged brothers; and on several occasions they came so near to succeeding that the Bielskis had to abandon the camp and lead their massive entourage to newer, safer locations. And while some argued in favor of a smaller, more mobile unit, focused strictly on waging battle against the Germans, Tuvia Bielski was firm in his commitment to all Jews. "I'd rather save one old Jewish woman," he said, "than kill ten Nazis." In July 1944, after two and a half years in the woods, the Bielskis learned that the Germans, overrun by the Red Army, were retreating back toward Berlin. More than one thousand Bielski Jews emerged -- alive -- on that final, triumphant exit from the woods. The Bielski Brothers is a dramatic and heartfelt retelling of a story of the truest heroism, a historic testament to courage in the face of unspeakable adversity.

A Monetary History of the United States 1867-1960


Milton Friedman - 1963
    Johnson begins with a sentence seemingly calibrated to the scale of the book he set himself to review: The long-awaited monetary history of the United States by Friedman and Schwartz is in every sense of the term a monumental scholarly achievement--monumental in its sheer bulk, monumental in the definitiveness of its treatment of innumerable issues, large and small . . . monumental, above all, in the theoretical and statistical effort and ingenuity that have been brought to bear on the solution of complex and subtle economic issues.Friedman and Schwartz marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to support the claim that monetary policy--steady control of the money supply--matters profoundly in the management of the nation's economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations. In their influential chapter 7, The Great Contraction--which Princeton published in 1965 as a separate paperback--they address the central economic event of the century, the Depression. According to Hugh Rockoff, writing in January 1965: If Great Depressions could be prevented through timely actions by the monetary authority (or by a monetary rule), as Friedman and Schwartz had contended, then the case for market economies was measurably stronger.Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976 for work related to A Monetary History as well as to his other Princeton University Press book, A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957).

Here Was a Man


Norah Lofts - 1936
    Beloved historical novelist Norah Lofts was the queen of royal tales for generations. Loft’s books are back, and in Here Was a Man, one of the greatest adventurers of the sixteenth century vividly and romantically comes to life. When young Walter Raleigh first presented himself before Elizabeth I, he dreamt of carving out an empire in the New World to lay at her feet. But Elizabeth is equally determined to keep this handsome, witty young man at her side. Through years of frustration, violent quarrels, reconciliation, and the challenges and rewards of exploration, Raleigh desperately tries to hold on to his dream. Lofts peoples her rich tale with some of the greatest personalities of the age, including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sir Phillip Sydney, and Sir Francis Drake, painting a detailed portrait of the Elizabethan era in all its colorful, contentious glory. Sweeping readers from the courts of Europe to the jungles of South America, Here Was a Man offers history lovers a feast that only Norah Lofts could deliver.

Robert's Rules of Order


Henry Martyn Robert - 1981
    Robert's classic guide to smooth, orderly, and fairly conducted meetings has sold close to five million copies in nine editions. The only book containing the completely developed Robert's Rules of Order subject matter, this latest edition will continue the book's reputation as the gold standard of meeting procedure for parliamentarians and novice club presidents and members alike. Thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the past decade's technological advances and usage, this tenth edition contains new information on how to conduct meetings over the Internet, on phone and video conference calls, and with members in absentia. The best book from which to learn all about running and taking an effective part in meetings, General Robert's gift of order is as indispensable now as it was a century ago.

Sexus


Henry Miller - 1949
    His searing fictionalized autobiography of this time of liberation was banned for nearly twenty years. Sexus, the first volume in The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, looks back to his early sexual escapades in Brooklyn, and his growing infatuation with the playful, teasing dance hall hostess who will become the great obsession of his life.

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism


Vincent B. Leitch - 2001
    + XXXVIII) ranges from Gorgias and Plato to Sigmund Freud and Mikhail Bakhtin. Each of the 147 contributions has a headnote introducing the writer and making connections to other critics, theorists and movements. An introduction surveys the history of theory and criticism.

The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters


Elisabeth Robinson - 2004
    Telling the story of two sisters-Olivia, a hotshot Hollywood producer whose life is unraveling, and Maddie, an unflaggingly optimistic, seriously ill midwesterner whose idealism has always driven Olivia crazy-The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters offers a startlingly poignant reminder of how hope can grow in even the darkest places.

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette


Judith Thurman - 1999
    Now, in Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh, Colette at last has a biography worthy of her dazzling reputation.Having spent her childhood in the shadow of an overpowering mother, Colette escaped at age twenty into a turbulent marriage with the sexy, unscrupulous Willy--a literary charlatan who took credit for her bestselling Claudine novels. Weary of Willy's sexual domination, Colette pursued an extremely public lesbian love affair with a niece of Napoleon's. At forty, she gave birth to a daughter who bored her, at forty-seven she seduced her teenage stepson, and in her seventies she flirted with the Nazi occupiers of Paris, even though her beloved third husband, a Jew, had been arrested by the Gestapo. And all the while, this incomparable woman poured forth a torrent of masterpieces, including Gigi, Sido, Cheri, and Break of Day. Judith Thurman, author of the National Book Award-winning biography of Isak Dinesen, portrays Colette as a thoroughly modern woman: frank in her desires, fierce in her passions, forever reinventing herself. Rich with delicious gossip, and intimate revelations, shimmering with grace and intelligence, Secrets of the Flesh is one of the great biographies of our time.

Mutiny on the Bounty


Charles Bernard Nordhoff - 1932
    MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY is the thrilling account of the strange, eventful, and tragic voyage of His Majesty's Ship Bounty in 1788-1789, which culminated in Fletcher Christian's mutiny against Captain Bligh.

Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World


Barrington Moore Jr. - 1966
    "A landmark in comparative history and a challenge to scholars of all lands who are trying to learn how we arrived at where we are now." -The New York Times Book Review