Book picks similar to
The Nympho and Other Maniacs by Irving Wallace
sexuality
biography
history
non-fiction
The Accidental Empress
Allison Pataki - 2015
With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry.Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth, “Sisi,” Duchess of Bavaria, travels to the Habsburg Court with her older sister, who is betrothed to the young emperor. But shortly after her arrival at court, Sisi finds herself in an unexpected dilemma: she has inadvertently fallen for and won the heart of her sister’s groom. Franz Joseph reneges on his earlier proposal and declares his intention to marry Sisi instead. Thrust onto the throne of Europe’s most treacherous imperial court, Sisi upsets political and familial loyalties in her quest to win, and keep, the love of her emperor, her people, and of the world.With Pataki’s rich period detail and cast of complex, bewitching characters, The Accidental Empress offers a captivating glimpse into one of history’s most intriguing royal families, shedding new light on the glittering Hapsburg Empire and its most mesmerizing, most beloved “Fairy Queen.”
The Lost Tudor Princess: The Life of Lady Margaret Douglas
Alison Weir - 2016
Royal Tudor blood ran in her veins. Her mother was a Queen, her father an Earl, and she herself was the granddaughter, niece, cousin and grandmother of monarchs.Beautiful and tempestuous, she created scandal not just once but twice by falling in love with unsuitable men. Fortunately the marriage arranged for her turned into a love match.
Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within
Elif Shafak - 2007
After the birth of her first child in 2006, Turkish writer Elif Shafek suffered from postpartum depression that triggered a profound personal crisis. Infused with guilt, anxiety, and bewilderment about whether she could ever be a good mother, Shafak stopped writing and lost her faith in words altogether. In this elegantly written memoir, she retraces her journey from free-spirited, nomadic artist to dedicated but emotionally wrought mother. Identifying a constantly bickering harem of women who live inside of her, each with her own characteristics--the cynical intellectual, the goal-oriented go-getter, the practical-rational, the spiritual, the maternal, and the lustful--she craves harmony, or at least a unifying identity. As she intersperses her own experience with the lives of prominent authors such as Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Ayn Rand, and Zelda Fitzgerald, Shafak looks for a solution to the inherent conflict between artistic creation and responsible parenting. With searing emotional honesty and an incisive examination of cultural mores within patriarchal societies, Shafak has rendered an important work about literature, motherhood, and spiritual well-being.
Cranky Ladies of History
Tansy Rayner RobertsKirstyn McDermott - 2015
Some of our most memorable historical figures were outspoken, dramatic, brave, feisty, rebellious and downright ornery.Cranky Ladies of History is a celebration of 22 women who challenged conventional wisdom about appropriate female behaviour, from the ancient world all the way through to the twentieth century. Some of our protagonists are infamous and iconic, while others have been all but forgotten under the heavy weight of history.Sometimes you have to break the rules before the rules break you.CONTENTS:Introduction by Tansy Rayner Roberts Queenside by Liz Barr The Company Of Women by Garth Nix Mary, Mary by Kirstyn McDermottA Song For Sacagawea by Jane Yolen Look How Cold My Hands Are by Deborah BiancottiBright Moon by Foz MeadowsCharmed Life by Joyce ChngA Beautiful Stream by Nisi Shawl Neter Nefer by Amanda Pillar The Dragon, The Terror, The Sea by Stephanie Lai Due Care And Attention by Sylvia Kelso Theodora by Barbara Robson For So Great A Misdeed by Lisa L. Hannett The Pasha, The Girl And The Dagger by Havva Murat Granuaile by Dirk Flinthart Little Battles by L.M. Myles Another Week In The Future, An Excerpt by Kaaron Warren The Lioness by Laura Lam Cora Crane And The Trouble With Me by Sandra McDonald Vintana by Thoraiya Dyer Hallowed Ground by Juliet MarillierGlorious by Faith Mudge
Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
Eula Biss - 2009
Eula Biss explores race in America and her response to the topic is informed by the experiences chronicled in these essays -- teaching in a Harlem school on the morning of 9/11, reporting for an African American newspaper in San Diego, watching the aftermath of Katrina from a college town in Iowa, and settling in Chicago's most diverse neighborhood.As Biss moves across the country from New York to California to the Midwest, her essays move across time from biblical Babylon to the freedman's schools of Reconstruction to a Jim Crow mining town to post-war white flight. She brings an eclectic education to the page, drawing variously on the Eagles, Laura Ingalls Wilder, James Baldwin, Alexander Graham Bell, Joan Didion, religious pamphlets, and reality television shows.These spare, sometimes lyric essays explore the legacy of race in America, artfully revealing in intimate detail how families, schools, and neighborhoods participate in preserving racial privilege. Faced with a disturbing past and an unsettling present, Biss still remains hopeful about the possibilities of American diversity, "not the sun-shininess of it, or the quota-making politics of it, but the real complexity of it."
The Spy With No Name: The Cold War and a Case of Stolen Identity (Kindle Single)
Jeff Maysh - 2017
She was delighted that he had grown into a charming Dutch waiter in London. But Erwin van Haarlem was actually a dangerous Communist spy who had stolen her son’s identity to uncover British and American military secrets.In this true life spy thriller, award-winning journalist Jeff Maysh tracks down the former spy in Prague, who tells his remarkable story. Maysh skillfully reconstructs one of the most unusual cases in espionage history, as Erwin van Haarlem maintains his top secret mission for eleven years... while pretending to be a stranger’s son. Enter a world of betrayal, secret codes, invisible ink and mysterious radio messages, where nobody is beyond suspicion.Jeff Maysh investigates unusual true crimes and urban legends. His deeply immersive stories have appeared in publications including the Atlantic, Playboy, and Smithsonian. His Kindle Single, Handsome Devil, was one of Amazon’s ‘Best Books of 2016’. He is British-American and lives in Los Angeles.
Blood and Vengeance: One Family's Story of the War in Bosnia
Chuck Sudetic - 1998
Perhaps the most notorious and disputed outrage of the war was the massacre of as many as 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica. Although previously designated a safe area by the United Nations Security Council, Srebrenica was overrun by General Ratko Mladic's Bosnian Serb forces while U.N. peacekeeping troops stood by impotently.With novelistic eloquence and journalistic acumen, Sudetic follows several generations of the Celiks, the Muslim family he is related to by marriage, which met their tragic destiny at Srebrenica. His indelible portrait of these inhabitants of a remote mountaintop village outside of Srebrenica not only illumines the historical context of the tragedy but, more important, reveals the human impact of the horror. Blood and Vengeance contains the sweep and power of a panoramic historical painting, yet possesses the heartbreaking intimacy of a family snapshot.
All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages
Saundra MitchellKate Scelsa - 2018
Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens. From a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in war-torn 1870s Mexico featuring a transgender soldier, to two girls falling in love while mourning the death of Kurt Cobain, forbidden love in a sixteenth-century Spanish convent or an asexual girl discovering her identity amid the 1970s roller-disco scene, All Out tells a diverse range of stories across cultures, time periods and identities, shedding light on an area of history often ignored or forgotten.StoriesRoja - Anna-Marie McLemoreThe Sweet Trade - Natalie C. ParkerAnd They Don`t Kiss at the End - Nilah MagruderBurnt Umber - Mackenzi LeeThe Dresser & the Chambermaid - Robin TalleyNew Year - Malinda LoMolly`s Lips - Dahlia AdlerThe Coven - Kate ScelsaEvery Shade of Red - Elliot WakeWillows - Scott TraceyThe Girl with the Blue Lantern - Tess SharpeThe Secret Life of a Teenage Boy - Alex SanchezWalking After Midnight - Kody KeplingerThe End of the World as We Know It - Sara FarizanThree Witches - Tessa GrattonThe Inferno & the Butterfly - Shaun David HutchinsonHealing Rosa - Tehlor Kay Mejia
Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey
Lori PerkinsD.L. King - 2012
The perfect panel of insiders—from the editor who first "discovered" Fifty Shades of Grey, to BDSM experts, to erotic fiction authors, romance authors, and a whole lot more—takes you deeper into the trilogy that has captured the imaginations of so many.From the books' sexual politics and its fanfiction origins to what sets it apart from other erotic fiction and romance (and what doesn’t), everything you ever wanted to know about Fifty Shades of Grey is right here.Whether you loved Fifty Shades of Grey, or just want to know why everyone else does, Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey is the book for you!Contributors:Heather GrahamSylvia DayAndrew ShafferM.J. RoseSinnamon LoveJudith ReganStacy AgdernLaura AntoniouJennifer ArmintroutTish BeatyMala BhattacharjeeRachel Kramer BusselM. ChristianSuzan ColónJoy DanielsSherri DonovanAngela EdwardsMelissa FebosLucy FelthouseRyan FieldSelina FireMegan FramptonSarah FrantzLouise FuryLois GreshCatherine HillerMarci HirschDr. Hilda HutchersonDebra HydeAnne JamisonD.L. KingDr. Logan LevkoffArielle LorenSassafras LowryRachel KenleyPamela MadsenChrisMarks and Lia LetoMidoriMaster RDr. Katherine RamslandTiffany ReiszKatharine SandsJennifer SanzoRakesh SatyalMarc ShapiroLyss SternCecilia TanHope TarrSusan WrightEditor X
The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots: Elizabeth I and Her Greatest Rival
Kate Williams - 2018
Elizabeth and Mary were cousins and queens, but eventually it became impossible for them to live together in the same world. This is the story of two women struggling for supremacy in a man's world, when no one thought a woman could govern. They both had to negotiate with men--those who wanted their power and those who wanted their bodies--who were determined to best them. In their worlds, female friendship and alliances were unheard of, but for many years theirs was the only friendship that endured. They were as fascinated by each other as lovers; until they became enemies. Enemies so angry and broken that one of them had to die, and so Elizabeth ordered the execution of Mary. But first they were each other's lone female friends in a violent man's world. Their relationship was one of love, affection, jealousy, antipathy--and finally death.
The Husband Hunters: Social Climbing in London and New York
Anne de Courcy - 2017
The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so long was breached. The incomers were a group of young women who, fifty years earlier, would have been looked on as the alien denizens of another world - the New World, to be precise. From 1874 - the year that Jennie Jerome, the first known 'Dollar Princess', married Randolph Churchill - to 1905, dozens of young American heiresses married into the British peerage, bringing with them all the fabulous wealth, glamour and sophistication of the Gilded Age.Anne de Courcy sets the stories of these young women and their families in the context of their times. Based on extensive first-hand research, drawing on diaries, memoirs and letters, this richly entertaining group biography reveals what they thought of their new lives in England - and what England thought of them.
Madame Curie: A Biography
Ève Curie - 1937
Written by Curie’s daughter, the renowned international activist Eve Curie, this biography chronicles Curie’s legendary achievements in science, including her pioneering efforts in the study of radioactivity and her two Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry. It also spotlights her remarkable life, from her childhood in Poland, to her storybook Parisian marriage to fellow scientist Pierre Curie, to her tragic death from the very radium that brought her fame. Now updated with an eloquent, rousing introduction by best-selling author Natalie Angier, this timeless biography celebrates an astonishing mind and a extraordinary woman’s life.
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists
Neil Strauss - 2005
And in these lairs, men trade the most devastatingly effective techniques ever invented to charm women. This is not fiction. These men really exist. They live together in houses known as Projects. And Neil Strauss, the bestselling author, spent two years living among them, using the pseudonym Style to protect his real-life identity. The result is one of the most explosive and controversial books of the year -- guaranteed to change the lives of men and transform the way women understand the opposite sex forever.On his journey from AFC (average frustrated chump) to PUA (pick-up artist) to PUG (pick-up guru), Strauss not only shares scores of original seduction techniques but also has unforgettable encounters with the likes of Tom Cruise, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Heidi Fleiss, and Courtney Love. And then things really start to get strange -- and passions lead to betrayals lead to violence. The Game is the story of one man's transformation from frog to prince -- to prisoner in the most unforgettable book of the year.
Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me
Ben Karlin - 2008
That's what this books is about - whether it be major life lessons, like 'If you lie, you will get caught', simple truths like, 'Flowers work', or something wholly unique like, 'Watch out for the high strung brother in the military'.
Women of Character: Profiles of 100 Prominent LDS Women
Susan Easton Black - 2011
Leaders often tell of the wonderful contributions that the women in their lives have made both inside and outside the home. From rearing a faithful posterity to demanding and defending rights in the halls of Congress, Latter-day Saint women have been and continue to be a powerful influence for good in shaping the destiny of future generations. With this book we celebrate noble women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with one hundred inspiring biographies of LDS women who have accomplished the extraordinary, leaving an indelible mark on history. These are stories about life, love, and a remarkable determination to do one’s best—messages that reveal to the reader that neither happiness nor greatness is found in compromising self, but instead is found in reaching to a higher source. By reaching up, these women have reached out to make a valuable difference.