"The President Has Been Shot!": The Assassination of John F. Kennedy


James L. Swanson - 2013
    As he did in his bestselling Scholastic YA book, CHASING LINCOLN'S KILLER, Swanson will deploy his signature "you are there" style -- a riveting, ticking-clock pace, with an unprecedented eye for dramatic details and impeccable historical accuracy -- to tell the story of the JFK assassination as it has never been told before.

Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon


Larry Tye - 2016
    Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight. But Kennedy—nurtured on the rightist orthodoxies of his dynasty-building father—started his public life as counsel to the left-baiting, table-thumping Senator Joseph McCarthy.A bare-knuckled political operative who masterminded his brother’s whatever-it-takes bids for senator and president, Kennedy okayed FBI wiretaps of Martin Luther King Jr. and cloak-and-dagger operations against communist Cuba that included blowing up railroad bridges, sabotaging crops, and plotting the elimination of President Fidel Castro.Remembered now as a rare optimist in an age of political cynicism, RFK’s profoundly moving journey from cold warrior to hot-blooded liberal also offers a lens into two of the most chaotic and confounding decades of twentieth century America.

Where Were You? America Remembers the JFK Assassination


Gus Russo - 2013
    A policeman’s wife was fetching their sick child from school. A young shoe store manager had no idea what lay in wait for him that day. A future president was tending to his farm. A future vice president was standing on the steps of his college library. A Georgetown student was looking forward to playing the piano for the president when he returned to Washington, DC, that evening. A future movie star was attending his second-grade art class.     Then the news rang out across airwaves, through telephone lines, and by word of mouth, plunging the country into shock and sorrow. It’s hard to imagine how the last fifty years would have unfolded if President John F. Kennedy had lived. Would Vietnam have dragged on until 1974? Would Nixon have come into power? It’s difficult to say—but, combining evocative archival images with the unique, first-person stories of those who lived through it, Where Were You? says what the history books can’t and offers a fresh look at what was, what is, and what might have been since that fateful day.    In the two-hour NBC documentary event that this volume accompanies, special correspondent Tom Brokaw interviewed people close to the tragedy as well as former heads of state, politicians, authors, journalists, performers, musicians, and more. He asked them five simple questions, starting with: Where were you? Together, their words paint a rich and moving picture of a hopeful nation torn asunder by grief. It will remind those who lived it of a pivotal moment in American history, and it bears witness for all who follow.

Inside Gilligan's Island: A Three-Hour Tour Through The Making Of A Television Classic


Sherwood Schwartz - 1988
    Join the creator of Gilligan's Island for a three-hour tour!Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,A tale of a fateful show,That started as just one man's dream,A long, long time ago.That man was a mightily wily guy,With smarts enough for eight.If the brass upstairs let him be,The program would be great.The program would be great.The meddlesome executivesBlew up a mighty storm,If not for the courage of the fearless man,The program would be lost.The program would be lost.The show's preserved in the leaves of thisTerrific kooky book.With anecdotes, synopses too,Rare photographs and drawings.The whole storyAnd lots, lots moreAre here Inside Gilligan's Island!Find out: Where the Howells got all those clothes!Learn: Did Gilligan and the Skipper ever get hurt when the coconuts hit them on the head?Discover: What was "Lovey's" real name?Imagine: What kind of a pet the studio almost gave Gilligan!Sing: The original lyrics to the theme song!

Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter


Kate Clifford Larson - 2015
    The daughter they secreted away made all the difference.Joe and Rose Kennedy’s strikingly beautiful daughter Rosemary attended exclusive schools, was presented as a debutante to the Queen of England, and traveled the world with her high-spirited sisters. And yet, Rosemary was intellectually disabled — a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and glamorous family.  Major new sources — Rose Kennedy’s diaries and correspondence, school and doctors' letters, and exclusive family interviews — bring Rosemary alive as a girl adored but left far behind by her competitive siblings. Kate Larson reveals both the sensitive care Rose and Joe gave to Rosemary and then — as the family’s standing reached an apex — the often desperate and duplicitous arrangements the Kennedys made to keep her away from home as she became increasingly intractable in her early twenties. Finally, Larson illuminates Joe’s decision to have Rosemary lobotomized at age twenty-three, and the family's complicity in keeping the secret.  Rosemary delivers a profoundly moving coda: JFK visited Rosemary for the first time while campaigning in the Midwest; she had been living isolated in a Wisconsin institution for nearly twenty years. Only then did the siblings understand what had happened to Rosemary and bring her home for loving family visits. It was a reckoning that inspired them to direct attention to the plight of the disabled, transforming the lives of millions.

Power Forward: My Presidential Education


Reggie Love - 2015
    As “body man” to Obama during his first presidential campaign, Love’s job was to stay one step behind the candidate, but think and act three steps ahead during a typical eighteen-hour workday. As President Obama’s personal aide during that momentous first term, Love sat yards from the Oval Office and often spent more time with the President than anyone else. While his experiences were unique, the lessons he learned during his tenure with the President are universal. Persistence. Responsibility. Passion for a cause greater than yourself. In short, maturity.Love has been singularly lucky in his mentors. At Duke University, where he was a walk-on and a captain of its fabled basketball team, Love learned from Coach Krzyzewski that sports builds character—from President Obama, Love learned that how you conduct your life defines your character.Accountability and serving with honor were learned during unsought moments: co-coaching with Malia Obama’s and Sasha Obama’s basketball team with the President; lending Obama his tie ahead of a presidential debate; managing a personal life when no hour is truly your own. From his first interview with Senator Obama, to his near-decision not to follow the President-elect to the White House, Love drew on Coach K’s teachings as he learned to navigate Washington. But it was while owning up to (temporarily) losing the President’s briefcase, playing pick-up games in New Hampshire to secure votes, babysitting the children of visiting heads of state, and keeping the President company at every major turning point of his historic first campaign and administration, that Love learned how persistence and passion can lead not only to success, but to a broader concept of adulthood.Power Foward is a professional coming of age story like no other.

John Lennon, My Brother


Julia Baird - 1988
    

When We Were the Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine


Monica Wood - 2012
    The Wood family is much like its close, Catholic, immigrant neighbors, all dependent on a father’s wages from the Oxford Paper Company. Until the sudden death of Dad, when Mum and the four closely connected Wood girls are set adrift. Funny and to-the-bone moving, When We Were the Kennedys is the story of how this family saves itself, at first by depending on Father Bob, Mum’s youngest brother, a charismatic Catholic priest who feels his new responsibilities deeply. And then, as the nation is shocked by the loss of its handsome Catholic president, the televised grace of Jackie Kennedy—she too a Catholic widow with young children—galvanizes Mum to set off on an unprecedented family road trip to Washington, D.C., to do some rescuing of her own. An indelible story of how family and nation, each shocked by the unimaginable, exchange one identity for another.

Crypt 33 - Saga of Monroe the Saga of Marilyn Monroe-- The Final Word


Adela Gregory - 1993
    Dozens of books have been written about her life and the details surrounding her demise, with theories ranging from accidental death to suicide to murder. But all failed to solve the case until now. Crypt 33 - which was the number on the vault in the Los Angeles morgue where Marilyn's body was placed - provides the final word on the life and death of Marilyn Monroe. It clears the CIA of alleged conspiracy in the murder, but indicts previously unnamed underworld killers verified by separate but well-connected independent sources. The book implicates those at the highest level of government, and it names the man who brought the killers into the star's home - a friend who betrayed her. Crypt 33 provides all the sordid and previously unknown details, including a day-by-day account of aspiring actress Norma Jeane Baker's transformation into the screen icon Marilyn Monroe; intimate details of the actress's romance with Frank Sinatra; Marilyn's involvement with Sam Giancana; the fact that teamster ruler Jimmy Hoffa bugged Marilyn's phones hoping to catch incriminating conversations with her lover, Robert Kennedy; and Crypt 33 answers the ultimate question: Who ordered the "hit" on Marilyn? The book documents the actual instruments of death which gave a homicide the appearance of a suicide.

His Excellency: George Washington


Joseph J. Ellis - 2004
    Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt


Edmund Morris - 1979
    The publication of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt on September 14th, 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt becoming president.

Napoleon


J. Christopher Herold - 2015
    Christopher Herold tells the fascinating story of a legendary leader who changed the world in every aspect - political, cultural, military, and commercial. Napoleon Bonaparte's rise from common origins to the pinnacle of power, as well as his defeat at Waterloo, still influences our daily lives, from the map of Europe to the metric system. Here's the fascinating story of the great soldier-statesman.

Talking Back: ...to Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels


Andrea Mitchell - 2005
    She's been labeled a pushy broad, yet her intelligence, tenacity, and ability to always be where the action is have catapulted her to the top of her profession. As one of America's most watched correspondents, Mitchell has regularly shared her observations with millions of television viewers for more than three decades.Time and again, Mitchell has proven herself by taking on the tough assignments— starting with her first posting abroad in Guyana after the previous NBC correspondent had been murdered by Jim Jones’s henchmen. She has had unique access to all the presidents and their staffs from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush, and here gives us her unvarnished insights into these men and those who surround them. Whether it was revealing that Ronald Reagan’s napping caused the delay of a space shuttle landing, conducting exclusive interviews with Fidel Castro, or accompanying Condoleezza Rice on her first trip abroad as secretary of state, she is known as the one to beat to the story.But what sets this book apart is not only the unique front-row seat Mitchell has in the political world, but also the role she plays in the glamorous social scene in Washington. Her marriage to Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, has created professional challenges, but also given her special entrée to the “A” list drawing rooms of Washington and other capitals. Here she gives us glimpses of what it’s like to go from a 7 p.m. newscast to an 8 p.m. black-tie party, to go from being the reporter staking out a state dinner to being one of the invited guests.Smart and candidly written, Mitchell’s memoir will be a must read for anyone interested in politics and current affairs and will also fascinate anyone who wonders what it’s like to be a powerful woman in a man’s world.

With All Due Respect: Defending America With Grit and Grace


Nikki R. Haley - 2019
    The New York Times and USA Today bestsellerA revealing, dramatic, deeply personal book about the most significant events of our time, written by the former United States Ambassador to the United NationsNikki Haley is widely admired for her forthright manner (“With all due respect, I don’t get confused”), her sensitive approach to tragic events, and her confident representation of America’s interests as our Ambassador to the United Nations during times of crisis and consequence.In this book, Haley offers a first-hand perspective on major national and international matters, as well as a behind-the-scenes account of her tenure in the Trump administration.This book reveals a woman who can hold her own—and better—in domestic and international power politics, a diplomat who is unafraid to take a principled stand even when it is unpopular, and a leader who seeks to bring Americans together in divisive times.

The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat


Bob Woodward - 2005
    The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat