Milking the Moon, already a Washington Post bestseller in hardcover, is destined to become a Southern classic.

    When Kevin and Jeff die within nine months of one another—Kevin, a student enrolled in the University of Kentucky’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, commits suicide and Jeff, who served in the Army as a second lieutenant, dies as a result of an IED attack in Iraq—Mark and his wife Carol find themselves reeling after the loss of two of their three children. As they begin to gather their bearings and contemplate a life without their sons, they must also come to terms with the terrible stigma that surrounds suicide in the military. This stigma is brought into high relief through the Grahams’ own experience of how their tight-knit military community marked their sons’ very different deaths. The Grahams commit themselves to fighting the military’s suicide epidemic and making sure that the families of troops who take their own lives receive the dignity and compassion that were the hallmarks of both of their sons’ lives. The Invisible Front is the story of their quest to do so. As Mark ascends the military hierarchy and eventually takes command of Fort Carson, Colorado—a sprawling base with one of the highest suicide rates in the armed forces—the Grahams assume a larger platform from which to work to reduce the stigma that surrounds mental health in the military and to develop new ways of keeping troubled troops from killing themselves. Their efforts put them in direct conflict with an entrenched military bureaucracy that considered mental health problems to be a display of weakness and that refused to acknowledge, until far too late, the severity of its suicide problem. The Grahams refuse to back down, using the pain and grief that their sons’ deaths inspired to fight to change the institution that is the cornerstone of their lives.  Yochi Dreazen, an award-winning journalist who has covered the military since 1999, has been granted remarkable access to the Graham family and, as a result, is able to tell the story of Kevin and Jeff’s legacy in the full context of America’s two long wars. The Invisible Front places the Graham family’s story against the backdrop of the military’s suicide spike, caused in part by the military’s own institutional shortcomings and its resistance to change. With great sympathy and deep understanding, The Invisible Front examines America's problematic treatment of its soldiers and offers the Graham family’s work as a new way of understanding how to minimize the risk of suicide, substance abuse and PTSD in the military.

    They embody our society’s genetic code. In the masterful hands of the subject’s greatest living historian, the story of the evolution of our laws serves to lay bare the deciding struggles over power and justice that have shaped this country from its birth pangs to the present. Law in America is a supreme example of the historian’s art, its brevity a testament to the great elegance and wit of its composition.From the Hardcover edition.

    But it hasn’t all been fun and games. After his near career-ending injury, Gronk astonished his fellow players and fans by returning to the game he loved by making an incredible comeback in the 2015 Super Bowl XLIX, solidifying his legacy in American football. Now, discover the highs and lows in his superstar life off the field and his astonishing, game-changing plays in this fascinating memoir.

    In this tenth anniversary edition, Rhodes offers new reflections on the abuse he and his older brother endured at the hands of their terrorizing stepmother and negligent father. He also describes readers' powerful and moving responses to his book, considers his changing sentiments as the years have passed, and provides additional details on his brother Stanley, who remains the author's true hero in this moving memoir.

    As mayor of Boston, as a United States congressman, as governor of Massachusetts, Curley rose from the slums of South Boston in a career extending from the Progressive Era of Teddy Roosevelt to the ascendancy of the Kennedy sons. While Curley lived, he represented both the triumph of Irish Americans and the birth of divisive politics of ethnic and racial polarization; when he died, over one million mourners turned out to pay their respects in the largest wake Boston had ever seen.Nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, Beatty's spellbinding story of "the Kingfish of Massachusetts" is also an epic of his city, its immigrant people, and its turbulent times. It is simply biography at its best."Beatty's book is a delight--rich, witty, flowing, and full of insight about the nature of political corruption."--Constance Casey, Los Angeles Times"A panoramic, exquisitely incisive biography that illuminates the triumphs, debacles, and personal sorrows of the irrepressible man known as Boston's 'Mayor of the Poor.'"--Robert Wilson, USA Today

    This dark fantasy delves into the psychological and motivational depths of Grail and its residents. Miss Sedele mixes up green cocktails called 'cryptoverdes' at Le Bon Chance. Vida Dumars, owner of the Moonlight Diner, peers into the deepest realms of her customers' hearts as though they were picture windows. Town spirit Good Gray Man has promised good fortune to the town as long as it hangs onto tradition. A quirky, fantastical town's heart and soul are slowly, often painfully revealed in this dark and captivating novella.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

    It is also a reflection on the meanings of wilderness to the colonists and natives of the New World. From the Quaker colony's founding in the 1680s into the 1750s, Merrell shows us how the go-betweens survived in the woods, dealing with problems of food, travel, lodging, and safety, and how they sought to bridge the vast cultural gaps between the Europeans and the Indians. The futility of these efforts became clear in the sickening plummet into war after 1750. "A stunningly original and exceedingly well-written account of diplomacy on the edge of the Pennsylvania wilderness."--Publishers Weekly

    For decades, the myth has persisted that the statue was a grand gift from France, but now Liberty's Torch reveals how she was in fact the pet project of one quixotic and visionary French sculptor, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. Bartholdi not only forged this 151-foot-tall colossus in a workshop in Paris and transported her across the ocean, but battled to raise money for the statue and make her a reality.A young sculptor inspired by a trip to Egypt where he saw the pyramids and Sphinx, he traveled to America, carrying with him the idea of a colossal statue of a woman. There he enlisted the help of notable people of the age - including Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph Pulitzer, Victor Hugo, Gustave Eiffel, and Thomas Edison - to help his scheme. He also came up with inventive ideas to raise money, including exhibiting the torch at the Phildaelphia world's fair and charging people to climb up inside. While the French and American governments dithered, Bartholdi made the statue a reality by his own entrepreneurship, vision, and determination.

    And then the case went cold. By 2007, satellite trucks and reporters had long since abandoned the story of the congressman and the intern in search of other news, fresh scandals. Across the country, Chandra’s parents tried to resume their daily lives, desperately hoping that someday there might be a break in the investigation.And in Washington, the old game of who’s up and who’s down played on without interruption.But Chandra Levy haunted. Six years after the young intern’s disappearance, investigative editors of the Washington Post pitched two Pulitzer Prize– winning reporters their idea: Revisit the unsolved case and find out what happened to Chandra, a task that had eluded police and the FBI.Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz went to work. e result was a thirteen-part series in the Washington Post that focused on a prime suspect the police and the FBI had passed over years before. They had wrongly pursued Condit and chased numerous false leads, including a claim that Chandra had been kidnapped and taken to the Middle East.But the most likely culprit was far less glamorous: an immigrant from El Salvador, a young man in the clutches of alcohol, drugs, and violence who had been stalking the running paths of Rock Creek Park, assaulting female joggers at knifepoint. He had attacked again, even as the police and the press concentrated on a congressman romantically linked to the intern. Finding Chandra explores the bungled police efforts to locate the crime scene and catch a killer, the ambition and hubris of Washington’s power elite and press corps, the twisted culture of politics, the dark nature of political scandal, and the agony of parents struggling to comprehend the loss of a child. Above all, it is a quintessential portrait of a cast of outsiders who came to Washington with dreams of something better, only to be forever changed.

    With several thousand black and white members, the Hairstons share a complex and compelling history: divided in the time of slavery, they have come to embrace their past as one family.The black family's story is most exceptional. It is the account of the rise of a remarkable people—the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of slaves—who took their rightful place in mainstream America.In contrast, it has been the fate of the white family—once one of the wealthiest in America—to endure the decline and fall of the Old South, and to become an apparent metaphor for that demise. But the family's fall from grace is only part of the tale. Beneath the surface lay a hidden history—the history of slavery's curse and how that curse plagued slaveholders for generations.For the past seven years, journalist Wiencek has listened raptly to the tales of hundreds of Hairston relatives, including the aging scions of both the white and black clans. He has crisscrossed the old plantation country in Virginia, North Carolina, and Mississippi to seek out the descendants of slaves. Visiting family reunions, interviewing family members, and exploring old plantations, Wiencek combs the far-reaching branches of the Hairston family tree to gather anecdotes from members about their ancestors and piece together a family history that involves the experiences of both plantation owners and their slaves. He expertly weaves the Hairstons' stories from all sides of historical events like slave emancipation, Reconstruction, school segregation, and lynching.Paradoxically, Wiencek demonstrates that these families found that the way to come to terms with the past was to embrace it, and this lyrical work, a parable of redemption, may in the end serve as a vital contribution to our nation's attempt to undo the twisted historical legacy of the past.

    The innovative cinematography, the unsettling music score, and the stabbing scene in the shower at the Bates Motel, have established "psycho" as an enduring classic. Filled with Janet Leigh's memories, some well-known and some never-before-published photographs, and new interviews with key players, this book takes a revealing look at one of the most famous films ever made.

      Marla Neuborn has found the best post-grad job in the world – as a 'Lamplighter' working on Meditrine Island, an exclusive idyllic paradise owned and operated by a consortium of billionaires. All Lamplighters have to do is tend to the mansions, cook and clean, and turn on lights to make it appear the owners are home. But the job comes with conditions. Marla will not know the exact location of the island, and she will have no contact with the outside world for the duration of her stay.  Once on the island, Marla quickly learns the billionaire lifestyle is not all it is made out to be. The chief of security rules Meditrine with an iron fist. His private police force patrols the shores night and day, and CCTV cameras watch the Lamplighters relentlessly. Soon Marla will also discover first-hand that the island hides a terrible secret. She’ll meet the resident known as the Skin Mechanic. And she’ll find out why so few Lamplighters ever leave the island alive.

    In doing so, he evokes the bitter conflicts between black and white, north and south in America.

    The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln stunned a nation that was just emerging from the chaos and calamity of the Civil War, and the president's untimely death altered the trajectory of postwar history. But to those who knew Booth, the event was even more shocking-for no one could have imagined that this fantastically gifted actor and well-liked man could commit such an atrocity. In Fortune's Fool, Terry Alford provides the first comprehensive look at the life of an enigmatic figure whose life has been overshadowed by his final, infamous act. Tracing Booth's story from his uncertain childhood in Maryland, characterized by a difficult relationship with his famous actor father, to his successful acting career on stages across the country, Alford offers a nuanced picture of Booth as a public figure, performer, and deeply troubled man. Despite the fame and success that attended Booth's career--he was billed at one point as "the youngest star in the world"--he found himself consumed by the Confederate cause and the desire to help the South win its independence. Alford reveals the tormented path that led Booth to conclude, as the Confederacy collapsed in April 1865, that the only way to revive the South and punish the North for the war would be to murder Lincoln--whatever the cost to himself or others. The textured and compelling narrative gives new depth to the familiar events at Ford's Theatre and the aftermath that followed, culminating in Booth's capture and death at the hands of Union soldiers 150 years ago. Based on original research into government archives, historical libraries, and family records, Fortune's Fool offers the definitive portrait of John Wilkes Booth.