-Titulo Original : Zerozerozero-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: An electrifying, internationally bestselling investigation of the global cocaine trade now a series on Prime Video starring Andrea Riseborough, Dane DeHaan, and Gabriel Byrne, from the author of the #1 international bestseller Gomorrah “Zero zero zero” flour is the finest, whitest available. It is also the nickname among narcotraffickers for the purest cocaine on the market. And it is the title of Roberto Saviano’s unforgettable exploration of the inner workings of the global cocaine trade-its rules and armies, and the true depth of its reach into the world economy. Saviano’s Gomorrah, his explosive account of the Neapolitan mob, the Camorra, was a worldwide sensation. It struck such a nerve with the Camorra that Saviano has lived with twenty-four-hour police protection for more than eight years. During this time he has come to know law enforcement agencies and officials around the world. With their cooperation, Savaiano has broadened his perspective to take in the entire global “corporate” entity that is the drug trade and the complex money-laundering operations that allow it to function, often with the help of the world’s biggest banks. The result is a harrowing and groundbreaking synthesis of literary narrative and geopolitical analysis exploring one of the most powerful dark forces in our economy. Saviano tracks the shift in the cocaine trade’s axis of power, from Colombia to Mexico, and relates how the Latin American cartels and gangs have forged alliances with crime syndicates across the globe. He charts the increasing sophistication of these criminal entities as they diversify into other products and markets. He also reveals the astonishing increase in the severity of violence as they have fought to protect and extend their power. Saviano is a writer and journalist of rare courage and a thinker of impressive intellectual depth, able to see connections between far-flung phenomena and bind them into a single epic story. Most drug-war narratives feel safely removed from our own lives; Saviano offers no such comfort. Both heart-racing and eye-opening, ZeroZeroZero is an investigative story like none other. Praise for ZerZeroZero: “[Saviano] has developed a literary style that switches from vivid descriptions of human depravity to a philosophical consideration of the meaning of violence in the modern world. . . . Most important of all is the hope Saviano gives to countless victims of criminal violence by standing up to its perpetrators.” -Financial Times Review The Economist: Taken as a whole, [ZeroZeroZero] is an angry rebuke to all those-traffickers and politicians alike-who perpetuate the violence….By reminding readers of the senseless suffering wrought by the cocaine trade, this book makes a powerful case for a new approach.” Financial Times: In articulating [his] cri de coeur, [Saviano] has developed a literary style that switches from vivid descriptions of human depravity to a philosophical consideration of the meaning of violence in the modern world. Indeed, when he revisits his work on Naples - the city where he was brought up and from which he is now excluded - his reflections soar into the realm of the poetic. But for me, most important of all is the hope Saviano gives to countless victims of criminal violence by standing up to its perpetrators, especially those from his home country.Booklist (starred review): “With keen observation and deep probing, Saviano is an anthropologist and philosopher as much as a journalist. This is an epic account of how the modern cocaine trafficking business came to be and how widespread, how impenetrable, and how intertwined with international commerce and politics-and our everyday lives-it is.”Kirkus:“This revealing new book, with a strong focus on Mexicos cartels, surges with fast-moving prose detailing the lives of drug lords and pushers, the inner workings of their violent world, and how their lucrative business (between $25 bill...

-Titulo Original : Farm City The Education Of An Urban Farmer-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: One of New York Times “Top 10 Books of 2009” (Dwight Garner)“Easily the funniest, weirdest, most perversely provocative gardening book Ive ever read. I couldnt put it down . . . The writing soars.” -The New York Times Book Review“Captivating . . . By turns edgy, moving, and hilarious, Farm City marks the debut of a striking new voice in American writing.” -Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivores Dilemma and Food RulesWhen Novella Carpenter-captivated by the idea of backyard self-sufficiency as the daughter of two back-to-the-earth hippies-moves to a ramshackle house in inner-city Oakland and discovers a weed-choked, garbage-strewn abandoned lot next door, she closes her eyes and pictures heirloom tomatoes, a beehive, and a chicken coop.What starts out as a few egg-laying chickens leads to turkeys, geese, and ducks. And not long after, along came two 300-pound pigs. And no, these charming and eccentric animals aren’t pets. Novella is raising these animals for dinner.An unforgettably charming memoir, full of hilarious moments, fascinating farmer’s tips, and a great deal of heart, Farm City offers a beautiful mediation on what we give up to live the way we do today. Review “Easily the funniest, weirdest, most perversely provocative gardening book Ive ever read. I couldnt put it down . . . The writing soars.” -The New York Times Book Review“Captivating . . . By turns edgy, moving, and hilarious, Farm City marks the debut of a striking new voice in American writing.” -Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivores Dilemma and Food Rules“Fresh, fearless, and jagged around the edges, Ms. Carpenters book . . . puts me in mind of Julie Powells Julie & Julia and Elizabeth Gilberts Eat, Pray, Love.” -The New York Times“Carpenter, with [her] humor and step-by-step clarity, make[s] it seem utterly possible to grow the kind of food you want to eat, wherever you live.” -Los Angeles Times About the Author NOVELLA CARPENTER grew up in rural Idaho and Washington State. She studied biology and English at the University of Washington, where she had many odd jobs, including assassin bug handler and 16-millimeter film projectionist. After moving to California, she attended UC Berkeleys Graduate School of Journalism where she studied with Michael Pollan. Her writing has appeared on Salon and sfgate and in Mother Jones and Food and Wine. Her adventures in urban agriculture began with honeybees and a few chickens, then some turkeys, until she created an urban homestead called GhostTown Farm near downtown Oakland, where she and her boyfriend, Bill, live today. Her most recent book, The Essential Urban Farmer (co-authored with Willow Rosenthal), was published by Penguin Books in 2011. novellacarpenter ...

-Titulo Original : Whatever Happened To Margo-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: *With a foreword from Gerald Durrell* In 1947, returning to the UK with two young children to support, Margaret Durrell starts a boarding house in Bournemouth. But any hopes of respectability are dashed as the tenants reveal themselves to be a host of eccentrics: from a painter of nudes to a pair of glamorous young nurses whose late-night shifts combined with an ever-revolving roster of gentleman callers leading to a neighbourhood rumour that Margo is running a brothel. Margos own two sons, Gerry and Nicholas, prove to be every bit as mischievous as their famous Uncle Gerald - and he himself returns periodically with weird and wonderful animals, from marmosets to monkeys, that are quite unsuitable for life in a Bournemouth garden...

-Titulo Original : Call The Midwife A Memoir Of Birth, Joy, And Hard Times (the Midwife Trilogy)-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The highest-rated drama in BBC history, Call the Midwife will delight fans of Downton Abbey Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in Londons East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women-from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who cant speak English, to the prostitutes of the citys seedier side.An unfortgettable story of motherhood, the bravery of a community, and the strength of remarkable and inspiring women, Call the Midwife is the true story behind the beloved PBS series, which will soon return for its sixth season. Review Jennifer Worths memories of her years as a midwife were at once hilarious and tremendously moving. -Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Other Impossible PursuitsWorth is indeed a natural storyteller. . . . Her detailed account of being a midwife in Londons East End is gripping, moving, and convincing from beginning to end. -Literary ReviewI loved the people, the nuns, the tough dockers, the prostitutes and pimps, seen with the fresh eyes of youth. -The Guardian Readers will fall in love with Call the Midwife . . . an affirmation of life during the best and worst of times. -Elizabeth Brundage, author of The Doctors Wife About the Author Jennifer Worth trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. She then moved to London to train as a midwife. She later became a staff nurse at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, and then ward sister and sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Euston. Music had always been her passion, and in 1973 Jennifer left nursing in order to study music intensively, gaining the Licentiate of the London College of Music in 1974 and a Fellowship ten years later. Jennifer married Philip Worth in 1963 and they lived together in Hertfordshire. She died in May 2011, leaving her husband, two daughters and three grandchildren. Her memoirs are the basis for the popular TV series Call the Midwife...

-Titulo Original : In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse The Story Of Leonard Peltier And The Fbis War On The American Indian Movement-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: An “indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent (Los Angeles Times Book Review) chronicle of a fatal gun-battle between FBI agents and American Indian Movement activists by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), author of the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard and the novel In Paradise On a hot June morning in 1975, a desperate shoot-out between FBI agents and Native Americans near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, left an Indian and two federal agents dead. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges, and one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted and is now serving consecutive life sentences in a federal penitentiary. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book. Kept off the shelves for eight years because of one of the most protracted and bitterly fought legal cases in publishing history, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse reveals the Lakota tribe’s long struggle with the U.S. government, and makes clear why the traditional Indian concept of the earth is so important at a time when increasing populations are destroying the precious resources of our world. Review “By the time I had turned the final page, I felt angry enough […] to want to shout from the rooftops, ‘Wake up, America, before it’s too damned late!’ For Matthiessen, in this extraordinary, complex work, powerfully propounds several large and disturbing themes which the white majority in America will ignore at extreme peril.” -Nick Kotz, The Washington Post “A giant of a book . . . indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent.” -The Los Angeles Times “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse is really about contemporary America and the way American law is seen through the eyes of American Indians. . . . It is one of those rare books that permanently change one’s consciousness about important, yet neglected, facets of our history.” -The New York Times Book Review “[Matthiessen] is neither gullible nor uncritical. He realistically portrays individuals, landscapes, customs, and problems that, though wholly American, are unfamiliar to most American citizens.” -The New Yorker “One of the most dramatic demonstrations of endemic American racism that has yet been written-a powerful, unsettling book that will force even the most ethno-pious reader to inspect the limits of his understanding.” -The New York Review of Books About the Author Peter Matthiessen was the cofounder of the Paris Review and is the author of numerous works of nonfiction, including In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Indian Country, and The Snow Leopard, winner of the National Book Award. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION The buffalos I, the buffalos I . . .I am related to the buffalos, the buffalos.Clear the way in a sacred manner!I come.The earth is mine.The earth is weeping, weeping.On June 26, 1975, in the late morning, two FBI agents drove onto Indian land near Oglala, South Dakota, a small village on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Here a shoot-out occurred in which both agents and an Indian man were killed. Although large numbers of FBI agents, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, state troopers, sheriff’s deputies, and vigilantes surrounded the property within an hour of the first shots, the numerous Indians involved in the shoot-out escaped into the hills.The death of the agents inspired the biggest manhunt in FBI history. Of the four men eventually indicted for the killings, one was later released because the evidence was “weak,” and two others were acquitted in July 1976 when a jury concluded that although they had fired at the agents, they had done so in self-defense. The fourth man, Leonard Peltier, indicted on the same charges as his companions but not tried until the following year, after extradition from Canada, was convicted on tw...

-Titulo Original : The Poison Squad One Chemists Single-minded Crusade For Food Safety At The Turn Of The Twentieth Century-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A New York Times Notable Book The inspiration for PBSs AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film The Poison Squad.From Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times-bestselling author Deborah Blum, the dramatic true story of how food was made safe in the United States and the heroes, led by the inimitable Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, who fought for changeBy the end of nineteenth century, food was dangerous. Lethal, even. Milk might contain formaldehyde, most often used to embalm corpses. Decaying meat was preserved with both salicylic acid, a pharmaceutical chemical, and borax, a compound first identified as a cleaning product. This was not by accident; food manufacturers had rushed to embrace the rise of industrial chemistry, and were knowingly selling harmful products. Unchecked by government regulation, basic safety, or even labelling requirements, they put profit before the health of their customers. By some estimates, in New York City alone, thousands of children were killed by embalmed milk every year. Citizens--activists, journalists, scientists, and womens groups--began agitating for change. But even as protective measures were enacted in Europe, American corporations blocked even modest regulations. Then, in 1883, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, a chemistry professor from Purdue University, was named chief chemist of the agriculture department, and the agency began methodically investigating food and drink fraud, even conducting shocking human tests on groups of young men who came to be known as, The Poison Squad. Over the next thirty years, a titanic struggle took place, with the courageous and fascinating Dr. Wiley campaigning indefatigably for food safety and consumer protection. Together with a gallant cast, including the muckraking reporter Upton Sinclair, whose fiction revealed the horrific truth about the Chicago stockyards; Fannie Farmer, then the most famous cookbook author in the country; and Henry J. Heinz, one of the few food producers who actively advocated for pure food, Dr. Wiley changed history. When the landmark 1906 Food and Drug Act was finally passed, it was known across the land, as Dr. Wileys Law. Blum brings to life this timeless and hugely satisfying David and Goliath tale with righteous verve and style, driving home the moral imperative of confronting corporate greed and government corruption with a bracing clarity, which speaks resoundingly to the enormous social and political challenges we face today. Review Full of fascinating detail . . . a valuable contribution to understanding the politics of food.”-Nature “[Blum’s] prose is graceful, and her book is full of vivid, unsettling detail. . . . The Poison Squad offers a powerful reminder that truth can defeat lies, that government can protect consumers and that an honest public servant can overcome the greed of private interests.”-Eric Schlosser, New York Times Book Review“A detailed, highly readable history of food and drink regulation in the United States. . . . [THE POISON SQUAD] shows the push and pull of competing economic, political and social interests. The journey our country has taken in establishing food, drink and drug regulation is an important one to understand because it is still going on.”-Wall Street Journal “Blum draws from her meticulous research to re-create the battle between regulation in the name of consumer protection and production in the name of profits.”-Scientific American“Riveting. . . . Blum isn’t just telling one scientist’s story but a broader one about the relationship between science and society. . . . [A] timely tale about how scientists and citizens can work together on meaningful consumer protections.”-Science magazine “[E]ngrossing. . . . Blum’s well-informed narrative-complete with intricate battles between industry lobbyists and a coalition of scientists, food activists, and women’s groups-illuminates the birth of the modern regulatory state and its tangle of reformist zeal, p...

-Titulo Original : Ludwig Wittgenstein The Duty Of Genius-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Great philosophical biographies can be counted on one hand. Monks life of Wittgenstein is such a one.-The Christian Science Monitor. From Publishers Weekly According to Monk, philosopher and reluctant Cambridge don Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was driven by spiritual as much by intellectual concerns, exchanged academia for solitude whenever possible and was drawn to brilliant younger men. Monk has done an excellent job of elucidating the twin journeys of an extraordinary mind and soul, said PW. Photos. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Ray Monk is the author of Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, for which he was awarded the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. He is also the author of Robert Oppenheimer and a two-volume biography of Bertrand Russell. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton...

-Titulo Original : Recollections Of My Nonexistence A Memoir-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for BiographyLonglisted for The Orwell Prize for Political WritingAn electric portrait of the artist as a young woman that asks how a writer finds her voice in a society that prefers women to be silent, from the author of Orwells RosesIn Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher, and of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself. She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer--books themselves; the gay community that presented a new model of what else gender, family, and joy could mean; and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West. Beyond being a memoir, Solnits book is also a passionate argument: that women are not just impacted by personal experience, but by membership in a society where violence against women pervades. Looking back, she describes how she came to recognize that her own experiences of harassment and menace were inseparable from the systemic problem of who has a voice, or rather who is heard and respected and who is silenced--and how she was galvanized to use her own voice for change. Review Praise for Recollections of My Nonexistence:“Much more than a feminist manifesto . . . Solnit movingly describes her efforts to fashion ‘the self who will speak’ . . . There are phrases, such as ‘women’s stories,’ ‘silencing,’ or ‘gaslighting,’ that contemporary discourse has emptied out. Solnit revives these terms with the breath of their own histories.” -Katy Waldman, The New Yorker At the same time that [Solnit] describes her forays into her past, she invites us to connect pieces of her story to our own, as a measure of how far weve come and how far we have left to go. -Jenny Odell, The New York Times Book Review“Throughout her rich body of work, essayist and critic Rebecca Solnit has revealed pieces of herself in writings about the beauty of getting lost, the joys of walking both for pleasure and with purpose, and perhaps most famously, the indignity of being mansplained to. At last, she uses her eagle eye to explore her own life. Recollections of My Nonexistence is a marvel: a memoir that details her awakening as a feminist, an environmentalist, and a citizen of the world. Every single sentence is exquisite.” -Maris Kreizman, Vulture“[A] splendid memoir of longings and determinations, of resistances and revolutions, personal and political, illuminating the kiln in which one of the boldest, most original minds of our time was annealed.” -Maria Popova, Brain Pickings“A clarion call of a memoir, chronicling, in unfettered, poetic prose, her coming-of-age . . . and her emergence as one of our most potent cultural critics.” -O, The Oprah Magazine“A resonant and moving portrait of how challenging life can be in the female body.” -Time, “100 Must-Read Books of 2020” “A deeply intimate and deeply internal book about how Solnit became one of the defining feminist thinkers of the twenty-first century [and] a nostalgic love letter to the San Francisco of her youth . . . Solnit writes beautifully and with much compassionate nuance about how the threat of violence and not just its execution colors all parts of a woman’s life, and how actual physical violence is just one of myriad ways that women are controlled, subjugated and silenced . . . This [book] is electrifying in its precision of thought and language.” -San Francisco Chronicle“Solnit has valiantly been making the case that misogynist speech and violence are on a spectrum for decades, long before mainstream acceptance of the idea . . . In Recollections of My Nonexistence, S...

-Titulo Original : Valiant Ambition George Washington, Benedict Arnold, And The Fate Of The American Revolution (the American Revolution Series) Book Cover May Vary-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A New York Times BestsellerWinner of the George Washington PrizeA surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold, from the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and In the Hurricanes Eye.May be one of the greatest what-if books of the age-a volume that turns one of America’s best-known narratives on its head.”-Boston GlobeClear and insightful, [Valiant Ambition] consolidates Philbricks reputation as one of Americas foremost practitioners of narrative nonfiction.-Wall Street JournalIn the second book of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns to the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental army under an unsure George Washington evacuated New York after a devastating defeat by the British army. Three weeks later, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeded in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have lost the war. As this book ends, four years later Washington has vanquished his demons, and Arnold has fled to the enemy. America was forced at last to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from withinComplex, controversial, and dramatic, Valiant Ambition is a portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation. Review May be one of the greatest what-if books of the age-a volume that turns one of America’s best-known narratives on its head.”-Boston Globe“A suspenseful, richly detailed, and deeply researched book about the revolutionary struggle that bound George Washington and Benedict Arnold together and almost disastrous dysfunction of America’s revolutionary government that helped drive them apart.”-The New York Review of BooksClear and insightful, it consolidates his reputation as one of Americas foremost practitioners of narrative nonfiction.-Wall Street JournalPhilbrick is both a meticulous historian and a captivating storyteller. The book has unforgettable novelistic details [and] also contains much astute historical analysis and argument. Philbrick sees Arnold not as the man who almost lost the war so much as the catalyst that helped to win it.-Christian Science Monitor“This is history at its most compelling: political machinations, military jostling and outright treachery. And Philbrick’s vivid writing brings the whistling cannon balls and half-frozen soldiers to life (and death) in vivid detail….He peels back the mythology to reveal a teetering war effort, a bickering Congress, discordant states unwilling to coalesce to support the new national government and - above all - a traitor who sought to sell out his own country for personal gain and achieved instead the one thing that no other revolutionary could: a unification of the Americans and an end to the war. And for that, we have much to thank Benedict Arnold. -Seattle Times Benedict Arnold takes center stage in Nathaniel Philbrick’s vivid and in some ways cautionary tale of the Revolutionary War. The near-tragic nature of the drama hinges not on any military secrets Arnold gave to the British but on an open secret: the weakness of the patriot cause….Arnold’s betrayal still makes for great drama, proving once again that the supposed villains of a story are usually the most interesting.-New York Times Book Review “Philbrick wants his readers to experience the terror, the suffering and the adrenaline rush of battle, and he wants us to grit our teeth at our early politicians who, by their pettiness and shortsightedness, shape military events as profoundly as generals and admirals do. Finally, he reveals the emotional and physical cost of war on colonial society. He succeeds on all fronts.”-Washington Post“Philbrick has the ability to take seemingly dry facts of history and turn them in...

-Titulo Original : The Art Of Intelligence Lessons From A Life In The Cias Clandestine Service-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “A lively account . . . combines the derring-do of old-fashioned spycraft with thoughtful meditations on the future of warfare and intelligence work. It deserves to be read.” -The Washington Post“Offer[s] an exceptionally deep glimpse into the CIA’s counterterrorism operations in the last decade of the twentieth century.” -Harper’sA legendary CIA spy and counterterrorism expert tells the spellbinding story of his high-risk, action-packed careerRevelatory and groundbreaking, The Art of Intelligence will change the way people view the CIA, domestic and foreign intelligence, and international terrorism. Henry A. “Hank” Crumpton, a twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA’s Clandestine Service, offers a thrilling account that delivers profound lessons about what it means to serve as an honorable spy. From CIA recruiting missions in Africa to pioneering new programs like the UAV Predator, from running post-9/11 missions in Afghanistan to heading up all clandestine CIA operations in the United States, Crumpton chronicles his role-in the battlefield and in the Oval Office-in transforming the way America wages war and sheds light on issues of domestic espionage. Review “Crumptons narrative, especially when chronicling the response to the 9/11 attacks, moves like a thriller, presenting a story of ingenuity and courage under fire . . . a compelling account of the changes that have allowed the CIA to fight the war on terror with unprecedented resources and success. There is no doubt that the CIA will in the future have to devote more resources to intelligence gathering. The agency should apply to its traditional operations the same ruthless, results-oriented ethos that Mr. Crumpton and his colleagues applied to fighting al Qaeda.” -The Wall Street Journal“A lively account . . . combines the derring-do of old-fashioned spycraft with thoughtful meditations on the future of warfare and intelligence work. It deserves to be read.” -The Washington Post“Offer[s] an exceptionally deep glimpse into the CIA’s counterterrorism operations in the last decade of the twentieth century.” -Harper’s “[A] colorful inside account.” -San Francisco Chronicle“Hank Crumpton’s riveting account of his life in the CIA and the run up to the war in Afghanistan is a treasure for every citizen who wants to know the sacrifices, courage and strategic vision of the clandestine services in war and peace.” -Tom Brokaw “The Art of Intelligence reflects the character of its author: Honest, smart, direct and impressive. Crumpton offers important new insights into the C.I.A.’s role in the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001, as well as a wider portrait of modern intelligence that is frank and compelling.” -Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S “[A] fascinating glimpse into the CIA’s most secret-and secretive-department.” -Kirkus About the Author Henry A. Crumpton is the chairman and CEO of Crumpton Group LLC, a global business advisory firm. After a twenty-four-year career in the CIA’s Clandestine Service, he served as the U.S. coordinator for counterterrorism with the rank of Ambassador at Large. He lives in the Washington, D.C., area. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. IntroductionIn the summer of 2002, I embarked on a new mission. After two decades in the CIA’s Clandestine Service, including the last ten months leading the CIA’s Afghanistan campaign, it was time for a change.This mission was a departure for me. There were no Mi-17 helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Predators, M4 assault rifles, Glock model 19 pistols, ceramic-plated body armor, inoculations, polygraphs, disguises, cover, or even basic tradecraft. There was no surveillance to avoid, agents to run, or terrorists to nullify. The assignment did, however, require that I enter a strange culture, readjust my attitude, and assume a different identity.I returned to university as a student.The CIA granted me an academic sabbati...

-Titulo Original : The Red Bandanna A Life. A Choice. A Legacy.-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A New York Times bestsellerWhat would you do in the last hour of your life? The story of Welles Crowther, whose actions on 9/11 offer a lasting lesson on character, calling and courage One Sunday morning before church, when Welles Crowther was a young boy, his father gave him a red handkerchief for his back pocket. Welles kept it with him that day, and just about every day to come; it became a fixture and his signature.A standout athlete growing up in Upper Nyack, NY, Welles was also a volunteer at the local fire department, along with his father. He cherished the necessity and the camaraderie, the meaning of the role. Fresh from college, he took a Wall Street job on the 104th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, but the dream of becoming a firefighter with the FDNY remained.When the Twin Towers fell, Welles’s parents had no idea what happened to him. In the unbearable days that followed, they came to accept that he would never come home. But the mystery of his final hours persisted. Eight months after the attacks, however, Welles’s mother read a news account from several survivors, badly hurt on the 78th floor of the South Tower, who said they and others had been led to safety by a stranger, carrying a woman on his back, down nearly twenty flights of stairs. After leading them down, the young man turned around. “I’m going back up,” was all he said. The survivors didn’t know his name, but despite the smoke and panic, one of them remembered a single detail clearly: the man was wearing a red bandanna. Tom Rinaldi’s The Red Bandanna is about a fearless choice, about a crucible of terror and the indomitable spirit to answer it. Examining one decision in the gravest situation, it celebrates the difference one life can make. Review “[A] lovely book...People see the fallen, beat-up world around them and ask: What can I do? Maybe: Be like Welles Crowther. Take your bandanna, change the world.” -Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal“Amid the myriad stories of Sept. 11, there are many moments of heroism. This…book tells one of the most memorable….Rinaldi’s reconstruction of that final morning is gripping. His recounting of how Crowther’s family slowly learned of his valor…and of how many now honor him, is deeply moving….The payoff comes when President Obama tells Crowther’s mother after the death of Osama bin Laden, “I know about your son.” For her, he autographs a red bandanna and adds the message, ‘We won’t forget Welles.’”-The New York Times Book Review“A beautiful book…Through one hero of that day, Rinaldi really tells the story of all of them, all those who saved others and couldnt save themselves. I tell you about a lot of books. Buy this one. In the spirit of all the ones who kept going back up the stairs.” -Mike Lupica, NY Daily News “How often does a book make you feel so deeply you need to just stop and breathe?... Rinaldi is a masterful storyteller…. Sure, the obvious time to have reviewed this gem of a book about a gem of a man would have been on Sept. 11. Yet the obvious time to donate to food pantries is Thanksgiving. The need for both, however, is all year…. a must read.”-Newark Star Ledger“Rinaldi writes a memorable and compelling account of the classic American hero….For those looking for an inspiring modern-day narrative, herein a young man goes beyond himself to help others-and makes the ultimate sacrifice.” -Library Journal“A meticulous and vivid portrait” -Publishers Weekly “The inspirational story of a modern-day hero who escorted dozens to safety during the 9/11 attacks… Rinaldi captures the compelling urgency of the indelible event and fondly tips his hat to Crowther, an exemplary embodiment of human compassion and selflessness. A moving, deeply felt tribute to a courageous individual who sacrificed his life to save others.” -Kirkus Reviews“Tom Rinaldi’s The Red Bandanna could very well become one of those classic books that are handed down through...

-Titulo Original : The Italians-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Washington Post bestsellerLos Angeles Times bestsellerA vivid and surprising portrait of the Italian people from an admired foreign correspondent How did a nation that spawned the Renaissance also produce the Mafia? And why does Italian have twelve words for coat hanger but none for hangover? John Hooper’s entertaining and perceptive new book is the ideal companion for anyone seeking to understand contemporary Italy and the unique character of the Italians. Fifteen years as a foreign correspondent based in Rome have sharpened Hooper’s observations, and he looks at the facts that lie behind the stereotypes, shedding new light on everything from the Italians’ bewildering politics to their love of life and beauty. Hooper persuasively demonstrates the impact of geography, history, and tradition on many aspects of Italian life, including football and Freemasonry, sex, food, and opera. Brimming with the kind of fascinating-and often hilarious-insights unavailable in guidebooks, The Italians will surprise even the most die-hard Italophile. Review “A compact but comprehensive study of the people of Italy. The author puts his finger on the vast diversity of the country through his descriptions of their linguistics, cultures, foods, economies and even journalism. Whats not to love? A thoroughly researched, well-written, ageless narrative of a fascinating people.”-Kirkus, starred review “A sophisticated portrait of the Italians at their best and their worst: charming, imaginative, generous, full of life but also unreliable, more or less corrupt and often downright infuriating. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the humorous twists Mr. Hooper has put to his very perceptive analyses. A worthy and long-overdue successor to Luigi Barzini’s classic The Italians.-Andrea Di Robilant, author of A Venetian Affair“John Hooper takes his readers deep into the Italian labyrinth. And they come out alive, with a smile on their faces! A remarkable achievement.”-Beppe Severgnini, author of Ciao America and La Bella Figura“In vivid and fluid prose, John Hooper has written an indispensible guide to life in Italy past and present. His incisive portrait, at turns hard-hitting and affectionate, reveals the Italians in all their complexity, from their dolce vita and transcendent art to their gut-wrenching social and political struggles.”-Joseph Luzzi, author of My Two Italies“Thanks to his great curiosity, his splendid comparative and analytical perspective, and a fine eye for telling details, John Hooper gets under the skin of a fascinating people in a remarkable and compelling way.”-Bill Emmott, co-author of the documentary about Italy “Girlfriend in a Coma”“Here is the history, passion, culture, and contradictions that make Italy and Italians so fascinating. John Hoopers The Italians is as enjoyable to read as taking a trip to my favorite country!” -Ann Hood, author of An Italian Wife About the Author John Hooper is the Italy correspondent of the Economist and a contributing editor of the Guardian (London). He has also written or broadcast for the BBC, NBC, and Reuters. His book The Spaniards won the Allen Lane Award and was revised and updated as The New Spaniards in 1995 and 2006. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The SpaniardsThe New SpaniardsPublished by the Penguin GroupPenguin Group (USA) LLC375 Hudson StreetNew York, New York 10014USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | Chinapenguin A Penguin Random House CompanyFirst published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2015Copyright © 2015 by John HooperPenguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form wit...

-Titulo Original : At Dawn We Slept The Untold Story Of Pearl Harbor-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Revisit the definitive book on Pearl Harbor in advance of the 78th anniversary (December 7, 2019) of the date which will live in infamyAt 7:53 a.m., December 7, 1941, Americas national consciousness and confidence were rocked as the first wave of Japanese warplanes took aim at the U.S. Naval fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. As intense and absorbing as a suspense novel, At Dawn We Slept is the unparalleled and exhaustive account of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It is widely regarded as the definitive assessment of the events surrounding one of the most daring and brilliant naval operations of all time. Through extensive research and interviews with American and Japanese leaders, Gordon W. Prange has written a remarkable historical account of the assault that-sixty years later-America cannot forget.The reader is bound to feel its power....It is impossible to forget such an account. -The New York Times Book ReviewAt Dawn We Slept is the definitive account of Pearl Harbor. -Chicago Sun-Times From Library Journal ea. vol: Penguin. 2001. photogs. bibliog. index. pap. $20.95.HIST Pranges twin volumes offer everything you always wanted to know about Pearl Harbor but were afraid to ask, plus pictures! Together, these tomes comprise an exhaustive study of the day that will live in infamy. Prange takes a long, hard look at President Roosevelts relationship with Japan and implies that FDR all but goaded the empire into bombing the Hawaiian base. With the 60th anniversary of the attack approaching, there no doubt will be many volumes released and rereleased, but these are among the best. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review Pranges exhaustive interviews of people on both sides enable him to tell the story in such personal terms that the reader is bound to feel its power....It is impossible to forget such an account. -The New York Times Book ReviewDiligent, thorough, and evenhanded...At Dawn We Slept is the definitive account of Pearl Harbor. -Chicago Sun-Times “Fast-paced and engrossing . . . if any book can be called ‘definitive,’ At Dawn We Slept deserves the accolade.”-Los Angeles Herald Examiner“It will be the single, essential work on the subject from now on.”-Houston Chronicle“An unparalleled historical achievement . . . the account reads with the intensity of a suspense novel.”-Milwaukee Journal“From first to last-responsible, intelligent, absorbing . . . the book is most outstanding.” -Kirkus Reviews From the Back Cover THE MONUMENTAL AND DEFINITIVE STUDY OF THE JAPANESE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBORAt 7:53 A.M., December 7, 1941, Americas national consciousness and confidence were rocked as the first wave of Japanese warplanes targeted the U.S. Pacific Fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor. As intense and absorbing as a suspense novel, At Dawn We Slept is an unparalleled, exhaustive account of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor that is widely regarded as the definitive assessment of the events surrounding one of the most daring and brilliant naval operations of all time. Through extensive research and interviews with American and Japanese leaders, Gordon W. Prange assembled a remarkable historical study that examines the assault that -- sixty years later -- America cannot forget. About the Author Gordon W. Prange (1910-1980) served during World War II as an officer in the naval reserve and, during the occupation of Japan, served in the General Headquarters as a civilian. He was chief of General Douglas McArthurs G-2 Historical Section and director of the Military History Section. He taught history at the University of Maryland from 1937 until his death. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1“CANCER OF THE PACIFIC”Long before sunrise on New Year’s Day, 1941, Emperor Hirohito rose to begin the religious service at the court marking the 2,601st anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire. No doubt h...

-Titulo Original : The History Of The Kings Of Britain (penguin Classics)-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: About the Author Geoffrey of Monmouth was a Welsh cleric and British historiographer who lived during the twelfth century. He is best known for his chronicle The History of the Kings of Britain, which, though now considered historically unreliable, was widely popular in its day and is cited as an important work of national myth.Lewis Thorpe was professor of French at Nottingham University from 1958 to 1977 and president of the British Branch of the International Arthurian Society. He published many books and articles on Arthur, both on the French and English traditions. He died in 1977. Completed in 1136, this classic chronicle traces the story of the realm from its supposed foundation by Brutus to the coming of the Saxons some two thousand years later. Vividly portraying legendary and semi-legendary figures such as Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin the magician, and the most famous of all British heroes, King Arthur, it is as much myth as it is history, and its veracity was questioned by other medieval writers. But Geoffrey of Monmouth’s powerful evocation of illustrious men and deeds captured the imagination of subsequent generations, and his influence can be traced through the works of Malory, Shakespeare, Dryden, and Tennyson. Lewis Thorpe’s translation from the Latin brings us an accurate and enthralling version of Geoffrey’s remarkable narrative. His introduction discusses in depth the aims of the author and his possible sources, and describes the impact of this work on British literature...

-Titulo Original : Imperfect Union How Jessie And John Fremont Mapped The West, Invented Celebrity, And Helped Cause The Civil War-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Fremont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became Americas first great political couple John C. Fremont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age - known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Fremont. Jessie, the daughter of a United States senator who was deeply involved in the West, provided her husband with entree to the highest levels of government and media, and his career reached new heights only a few months after their elopement. During a time when women were allowed to make few choices for themselves, Jessie - who herself aspired to roles in exploration and politics - threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. She worked to carefully edit and publicize his accounts of his travels, attracted talented young men to his circle, and lashed out at his enemies. She became her husband’s political adviser, as well as a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party. With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Taking advantage of expanding news media, aided by an increasingly literate public, the two linked their names to the three great national movements of the time-westward settlement, women’s rights, and opposition to slavery. Together, John and Jessie Fremont took parts in events that defined the country and gave rise to a new, more global America. Theirs is a surprisingly modern tale of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of social and technological disruption and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. In Imperfect Union, as Inskeep navigates these deeply transformative years through Jessie and John’s own union, he reveals how the Fremonts’ adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul. Review “In the hands of National Public Radio journalist Steve Inskeep, the Fremonts become a vehicle to explore media, the making of modern celebrity, and the fascinating world of mid-nineteenth century American politics . . . [Inskeep’s] contribution is to frame these disparate threads through the lens of a widened Fremont circle, masterfully weaving the narratives together in highly readable prose. What emerges is a rich tapestry of not only the Fremonts’ relationship (an “imperfect union”), but also their imperfect midcentury United States as well.” -Missouri Historical Review“Revelatory . . . a fresh look that brings 21st-century vision to bear on the 19th-century story. In writing about both Fremont and his wife, Jessie, the aggressive promoter of his career, Inskeep does two important things. He shines an unsparing light on his subjects, and he finds unnerving similarities between the Fremonts’ America and our own. Like Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, an improbably thrilling book about the Garfield assassination, Imperfect Union finds a big, resonant, star-studded subject that has been hiding in plain sight. . . . If the book’s purpose is to illuminate and chill, mission accomplished.” -The New York Times “[A] fine new book ...

-Titulo Original : There Was A Country A Memoir-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: From the legendary author of Things Fall Apart-a long-awaited memoir of coming of age in a fragile new nation, and its destruction in a tragic civil warFor more than forty years, Chinua Achebe maintained a considered silence on the events of the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967-1970, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Decades in the making, There Was a Country is a towering account of one of modern Africa’s most disastrous events, from a writer whose words and courage left an enduring stamp on world literature. A marriage of history and memoir, vivid firsthand observation and decades of research and reflection, There Was a Country is a work whose wisdom and compassion remind us of Chinua Achebe’s place as one of the great literary and moral voices of our age. Review Foreign Policy Must Read 2012 by Books from Global Thinkers“Chinua Achebe’s history of Biafra is a meditation on the condition of freedom. It has the tense narrative grip of the best fiction. It is also a revelatory entry into the intimate character of the writer’s brilliant mind and bold spirit. Achebe has created here a new genre of literature in which politico-historical evidence, the power of story-telling, and revelations from the depths of the human subconscious are one. The event of a new work by Chinua Achebe is always extraordinary; this one exceeds all expectation.”-Nadine Gordimer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature“A fascinating and gripping memoir.” -The Wall Street Journal“There Was a Country ought to be essential reading…an eclectic range of insights and fascinating anecdotes.”-Financial Times“Achebe writes in a characteristically modest fashion…Like much of Achebe’s other work, this book about the progress of war and the presence of violence has a universal quality. In a world where sectarian hatreds augmented by political mediocrity have fractured Syria and threaten to bring Israel and Iran to blows, There Was a Country is a valuable account of how the suffering caused by war is both unnecessary and formative.”-NewsweekMemoir and history are brought together by a master storyteller.-The Guardian About the Author Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was born in Nigeria. Widely considered to be the father of modern African literature, he is best known for his masterful African Trilogy, consisting of Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God, and No Longer at Ease. The trilogy tells the story of a single Nigerian community over three generations from first colonial contact to urban migration and the breakdown of traditional cultures. He is also the author of Anthills of the Savannah, A Man of the People, Girls at War and Other Stories, Home and Exile, Hopes and Impediments, Collected Poems, The Education of a British-Protected Child, Chike and the River, and There Was a Country. He was the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University and, for more than fifteen years, was the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College. Achebe was the recipient of the Nigerian National Merit Award, Nigeria’s highest award for intellectual achievement. In 2007, Achebe was awarded the Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. An Igbo proverb tells us that a man who does not know where the rain began to beat him cannot say where he dried his body.The rain that beat Africa began four to five hundred years ago, from the “discovery” of Africa by Europe, through the transatlantic slave trade to the Berlin Conference of 1885. That controversial gathering of the world’s leading European powers precipitated what we now call the Scramble for Africa, which created new boundaries that did violence to Africa’s ancient societies and resulted in tension-prone modern states. It took place without African consultation or representation, to s...

-Titulo Original : Even This I Get To Experience-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Flat out, one of the best Hollywood memoirs ever written . . . an absolute treasure.” -Booklist (starred review) In my ninety-plus years I’ve lived a multitude of lives. In the course of all these lives, I had a front-row seat at the birth of television; wrote, produced, created, or developed more than a hundred shows; had nine on the air at the same time; founded the 300,000-member liberal advocacy group People For the American Way; was labeled the “no. 1 enemy of the American family” by Jerry Falwell; made it onto Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List”; was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton; purchased an original copy of the Declaration of Independence and toured it for ten years in all fifty states; blew a fortune in a series of bad investments in failing businesses; and reached a point where I was informed we might even have to sell our home. Having heard that we’d fallen into such dire straits, my son-in-law phoned me and asked how I was feeling. My answer was, “Terrible, of course,” but then I added, “But I must be crazy, because despite all that’s happened, I keep hearing this inner voice saying, ‘Even this I get to experience.’”Norman Lear’s work is legendary. The renowned creator of such iconic television programs as All in the Family; Maude; Good Times; The Jeffersons; and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Lear remade our television culture from the ground up. At their peak, his programs were viewed by 120 million people a week, with stories that dealt with the most serious issues of the day-racism, poverty, abortion-yet still left audiences howling with laughter. In Even This I Get to Experience, Lear opens up with all the candor, humor, and wisdom to be expected from one of America’s greatest living storytellers.But TV and politics are only a fraction of the tale. Lear’s early years were grounded in the harshness of the Great Depression and further complicated by his parents’ vivid personalities. The imprisonment of Lear’s father, a believer in the get-rich-quick scheme, colored his son’s childhood. During this absence, Lear’s mother left her son to live with relatives. Lear’s comic gifts were put to good use during this hard time, as they would be decades later during World War II, when Lear produced and staged a variety show for his fellow airmen in addition to flying fifty bombing missions.After the war, Lear tried his hand at publicity in New York before setting out for Los Angeles in 1949. A lucky break had a powerful agent in the audience the night Danny Thomas performed a nightclub routine written by Lear, and within days his career in television began. Before long, his work with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (and later Martha Raye and George Gobel) made him the highest-paid comedy writer in the country, and he was spending his summers with the likes of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Movies followed, and soon he was making films starring Frank Sinatra, Dick Van Dyke, and Jason Robards. Then came the ’70s and Lear’s unprecedented string of TV hits.Married three times and the father of six children ranging in age from nineteen to sixty-eight, Lear’s penetrating look at family life, parenthood, and marriage is a volume in itself. A memoir as touching, funny, and remarkable as any of Lear’s countless artistic creations, Even This I Get to Experience is nothing less than a profound gift, endlessly readable and characteristically unforgettable. Review The Wall Street Journal:“The Norman Lear who emerges from “Even This I Get to Experience” is engaging and unpompous, an amusing storyteller who pokes fun at himself and writes with brutal honesty about his life, especially his childhood. And what a story!Associated Press: “An entertaining, penetrating celebration of a richly lived life.”Los Angeles Times: “Immensely likeable…[Lear] isnt always a mensch in Even This I Get to Experience (italics, characteristically, his), but at least he can write like one…. In this ci...

-Titulo Original : Eleanor And Hick The Love Affair That Shaped A First Lady-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A warm, intimate account of the love between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok-a relationship that, over more than three decades, transformed both womens lives and empowered them to play significant roles in one of the most tumultuous periods in American historyIn 1932, as her husband assumed the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt entered the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the First Lady with dread. By that time, she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life-now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next thirty years, until Eleanor’s death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship: They were, at different points, lovers, confidantes, professional advisors, and caring friends. They couldnt have been more different. Eleanor had been raised in one of the nation’s most powerful political families and was introduced to society as a debutante before marrying her distant cousin, Franklin. Hick, as she was known, had grown up poor in rural South Dakota and worked as a servant girl after she escaped an abusive home, eventually becoming one of the most respected reporters at the AP. Her admiration drew the buttoned-up Eleanor out of her shell, and the two quickly fell in love. For the next thirteen years, Hick had her own room at the White House, next door to the First Lady. These fiercely compassionate women inspired each other to right the wrongs of the turbulent era in which they lived. During the Depression, Hick reported from the nation’s poorest areas for the WPA, and Eleanor used these reports to lobby her husband for New Deal programs. Hick encouraged Eleanor to turn their frequent letters into her popular and long-lasting syndicated column My Day, and to befriend the female journalists who became her champions. When Eleanor’s tenure as First Lady ended with FDRs death, Hick pushed her to continue to use her popularity for good-advice Eleanor took by leading the UN’s postwar Human Rights Commission. At every turn, the bond these women shared was grounded in their determination to better their troubled world. Deeply researched and told with great warmth, Eleanor and Hick is a vivid portrait of love and a revealing look at how an unlikely romance influenced some of the most consequential years in American history. Review “The love affair between first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and journalist Lorena “Hick” Hickok has never been treated with as much care or attention as in Susan Quinn’s Eleanor and Hick. Here, Quinn deftly traces the dissimilar but converging paths of these two complex women and gives new life to their intimate, dynamic relationship, against a backdrop of tremendous social upheaval.”- NPR.org, Best Books of 2016“Splendid. . . . Written with style and verve, and vigorously researched . . . filled with delightful details and provocative musings.”-Blanche Wiesen Cook, Women’s Review of Books“Fascinating.”-Susan Dunn, The New York Review of Books“Making sense of this famous relationship has been complicated for historians, and Quinn concedes the impossibility of knowing what, exactly, happened between the two women physically. But, drawing extensively on their letters, she makes a strong case that the bond they shared was indeed romantic. . . .The abiding impression of this book is the intricacy of Roosevelt’s intimate life.”-The New Yorker“A poignant account of a love affair doomed by circumstance and conflicting needs. Combining exhaustive research with emotional nuance, Quinn dives deep to convey the differing characters of president and first lady.”-Richard Norton Smith, The Wall Street Journal “Captivating…In prose that reads as fluidly and mesmerizingly as fiction, Quinn tells the story of the First Ladys marital discontent and determination to live an in...

-Titulo Original : The City Of Falling Angels-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A #1 New York Times Bestseller!Funny, insightful, illuminating . . . -The Boston GlobeTwelve years ago, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil exploded into a monumental success, residing a record-breaking four years on the New York Times bestseller list (longer than any work of fiction or nonfiction had before) and turning John Berendt into a household name. The City of Falling Angels is Berendts first book since Midnight, and it immediately reminds one what all the fuss was about. Turning to the magic, mystery, and decadence of Venice, Berendt gradually reveals the truth behind a sensational fire that in 1996 destroyed the historic Fenice opera house. Encountering a rich cast of characters, Berendt tells a tale full of atmosphere and surprise as the stories build, one after the other, ultimately coming together to portray a world as finely drawn as a still-life painting. Review Funny, insightful, illuminating . . . [Venice] reveals itself, slowly, discreetly, under Berendts gentle but persistent prying. -The Boston GlobeBerendt has given us something uniquely different . . . . Thanks to [his] splendid cityportrait, even those of us far from Venice can marvel. -The Wall Street Journal About the Author John Berendt has been a columnist for Esquire and the editor of New York magazine, and is the author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. An Evening in Venice THE AIR STILL SMELLED OF CHARCOAL when I arrived in Venice three days after the fire. As it happened, the timing of my visit was purely coincidental. I had made plans, months before, to come to Venice for a few weeks in the off-season in order to enjoy the city without the crush of other tourists.If there had been a wind Monday night, the water-taxi driver told me as we came across the lagoon from the airport, there wouldnt be a Venice to come to.How did it happen? I asked.The taxi driver shrugged. How do all these things happen?It was early February, in the middle of the peaceful lull that settles over Venice every year between New Years Day and Carnival. The tourists had gone, and in their absence the Venice they inhabited had all but closed down. Hotel lobbies and souvenir shops stood virtually empty. Gondolas lay tethered to poles and covered in blue tarpaulin. Unbought copies of the International Herald Tribune remained on newsstand racks all day, and pigeons abandoned sparse pickings in St. Marks Square to scavenge for crumbs in other parts of the city.Meanwhile the other Venice, the one inhabited by Venetians, was as busy as ever-the neighborhood shops, the vegetable stands, the fish markets, the wine bars. For these few weeks, Venetians could stride through their city without having to squeeze past dense clusters of slow-moving tourists. The city breathed, its pulse quickened. Venetians had Venice all to themselves.But the atmosphere was subdued. People spoke in hushed, dazed tones of the sort one hears when there has been a sudden death in the family. The subject was on everyones lips. Within days I had heard about it in such detail I felt as if I had been there myself.IT HAPPENED ON MONDAY EVENING, January 29, 1996.Shortly before nine oclock, Archimede Seguso sat down at the dinner table and unfolded his napkin. Before joining him, his wife went into the living room to lower the curtains, which was her long-standing evening ritual. Signora Seguso knew very well that no one could see in through the windows, but it was her way of enfolding her family in a domestic embrace. The Segusos lived on the third floor of Ca Capello, a sixteenth-century house in the heart of Venice. A narrow canal wrapped around two sides of the building before flowing into the Grand Canal a short distance away.Signor Seguso waited patiently at the table. He was eighty-six-tall, thin,...

-Titulo Original : Secrets A Memoir Of Vietnam And The Pentagon Papers-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: The true story of the leaking of the Pentagon Papers, the event which inspired Steven Spielberg’s feature film The PostIn 1971 former Cold War hard-liner Daniel Ellsberg made history by releasing the Pentagon Papers - a 7,000-page top-secret study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam - to the New York Times and Washington Post. The document set in motion a chain of events that ended not only the Nixon presidency but the Vietnam War. In this remarkable memoir, Ellsberg describes in dramatic detail the two years he spent in Vietnam as a U.S. State Department observer, and how he came to risk his career and freedom to expose the deceptions and delusions that shaped three decades of American foreign policy. The story of one mans exploration of conscience, Secrets is also a portrait of America at a perilous crossroad.[Ellsbergs] well-told memoir sticks in the mind and will be a powerful testament for future students of a war that the United States should never have fought. -The Washington PostEllsbergs deft critique of secrecy in government is an invaluable contribution to understanding one of our nations darkest hours. -Theodore Roszak, San Francisco Chronicle Review [Ellsbergs] well-told memoir sticks in the mind and will be a powerful testament for future students of a war that the United States should never have fought. (The Washington Post)Ellsbergs deft critique of secrecy in government is an invaluable contribution to understanding one of our nations darkest hours. (Theodore Roszak, San Francisco Chronicle) About the Author Daniel Ellsberg, a Harvard graduate, ex-Marine, and Rand Corporation analyst, was one of the whiz kids recruited to serve in the Pentagon during the Johnson administration. In 1971, Ellsberg made headlines around the world when he released the Pentagon Papers. He is now a prominent speaker, writer, and activist. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. On the evening of October 1, 1969, I walked out past the guards’ desk at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, carrying a briefcase filled with top secret documents, which I planned to photocopy that night. The documents were part of a 7,000-page top secret study of U.S. decision making in Vietnam, later known as the Pentagon Papers. The rest of the study was in a safe in my office. I had decided to copy it all and make it public, perhaps through Senate hearings or the press, if necessary. I believed this course, especially the latter possibility, would probably put me in prison for the rest of my life. How I came to do this is the focus of this memoir. For eleven years, from mid-1964 to the end of the war in May 1975, I was, like a great many other Americans, preoccupied with our involvement in Vietnam. In the course of that time I saw it first as a problem, next as a stalemate, then as a moral and political disaster, a crime. The first three parts of this book correspond roughly to these emerging perceptions. My own personal commitment and subsequent actions evolved along with these changing perspectives. When I saw the conflict as a problem, I tried to help solve it; when I saw it as a stalemate, to help us extricate ourselves, without harm to other national interests; when I saw it as a crime, to expose and resist it, and to try to end it immediately. Throughout all these phases, even the first, I sought in various ways to avoid further escalation of the conflict. But as late as early 1973, as I entered a federal criminal trial for my actions starting in late 1969, I would have said that none of these aims or efforts-neither my own nor anyone else’s-had met with any success. Efforts to end the conflict-whether it was seen as a failed test, a quagmire, or a moral misadventure-seemed no more to have been rewarded than efforts to win it. Why? As I saw it then, the war not only needed to be resisted but remained to be understood. Thirty years later I still believe that t...

-Titulo Original : The Faraway Nearby-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: From the author of Orwells Roses, a personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy-a fitting companion to Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle AwardIn this exquisitely written book by the author of A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative, by imagination. In the course of unpacking some of her own stories-of her mother and her decline from memory loss, of a trip to Iceland, of an illness-Solnit revisits fairytales and entertains other stories: about arctic explorers, Che Guevara among the leper colonies, and Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, about warmth and coldness, pain and kindness, decay and transformation, making art and making self. Woven together, these stories create a map which charts the boundaries and territories of storytelling, reframing who each of us is and how we might tell our story. Review In her famously lyrical prose, Solnit writes about her own life, her family, and her reading, and she revisits the myths and ideas from art and history that have shaped her world.--The New YorkerWhat Solnit offers us, I think, is the future of memoir. Not the story of the self . . . but the ways in which ones story opens into other stories . . . literary nonfiction doesnt get more beautiful and compelling.--The American ScholarA beautiful and profound book of essayistic reflection on memory, family, grief, travel, and storytelling.--The MillionsThe product of a remarkable mind at work, one able to weave a magnificent number of threads into a single story, demonstrating how all our stroies are interconnected.--Bookforum [A] brilliant, genre-refuting book. The power of The Faraway Nearby, as in Solnits previous writing, lies in its juxtaposition, its clusters of narrative nerves. . . . Solnit is a wanderer who collapses distance.--San Francisco Chronicle About the Author Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of seventeen books about environment, landscape, community, art, politics, hope, and feminism, including three atlases, of San Francisco in 2010, New Orleans in 2013, and New York in 2016; Men Explain Things to Me; The Faraway Nearby; A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Wanderlust: A History of Walking; and River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (for which she received a Guggenheim, The National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, and the Lannan Literary Award). She is a columnist at Harpers and a regular contributor to The Guardian. She lives in San Francisco. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. In Praise of Darkness (and Light)One summer some years ago, on a peninsula jutting off another peninsula off the west coast of Iceland, I lived among strangers and birds. The birds were mostly new species I got to know a little, the golden plovers plaintively dissembling in the grass to lead intruders away from their nests, the oystercatchers who flew overhead uttering unearthly oscillating cries, the coastal fulmars, skuas, and guillemots, and most particularly the arctic terns. The impeccable whiteness of their feathers, the sharpness of their scimitar wings, the fierceness of their cries, and the steepness of their dives were all enchanting.Terns were once called sea swallows for their deeply forked tails and grace in the air, and in Latin, arctic terns were named sterna paradisaea by a pietist Danish cleric named Erik Pontoppidan, at the end of a turbulent career. It’s not clear why in 1763 he called the black-capped, white-feathered arctic terns sterna paradisaea: birds -- or terns -- of paradise. He could not have known about their extraordinary migration, back in the day when naturalists -- and Pontoppidan himself in his book on Norway -- thought swallows buried themselves in the mud in winter and hibernated, rather th...

-Titulo Original : Cocktail Hour Under The Tree Of Forgetfulness-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: “Fuller brings Africa to life, both its natural splendor and the harsher realities of day-to-day existence, and sheds light on her parents in all their humanness-not a glaring sort of light, but the soft equatorial kind she so beautifully describes in this memoir.” -BookpageA story of survival and war, love and madness, loyalty and forgiveness, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is an intimate exploration of Fuller’s parents, whom readers first met in Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight, and of the price of being possessed by Africa’s uncompromising, fertile, death-dealing land. We follow Tim and Nicola Fuller hopscotching the continent, restlessly trying to establish a home. War, hardship, and tragedy follow the family even as Nicola fights to hold on to her children, her land, her sanity. But just when it seems that Nicola has been broken by the continent she loves, it is the African earth that revives and nurtures her. Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is Fuller at her very best.Alexandra Fuller is the author of several memoirs: Travel Light, Move Fast, Leaving Before the Rains Come and Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight. Review “Electrifying . . .Writing in shimmering, musical prose . . . Ms. Fuller manages the difficult feat of writing about her mother and father with love and understanding, while at the same time conveying the terrible human costs of the colonialism they supported . . . Although Ms. Fuller would move to America with her husband in 1994, her own love for Africa reverberates throughout these pages, making the beauty and hazards of that land searingly real for the reader.” -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “Ten years after publishing Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, Alexandra (Bobo) Fuller treats us in this wonderful book to the inside scoop on her glamorous, tragic, indomitable mother . . . Bobo skillfully weaves together the story of her romantic, doomed family against the background of her mother’s remembered childhood.” -The Washington Post “Another stunner . . . The writers finesse at handling the element of time is brilliant, as she interweaves near-present-day incidents with stories set in the past. Both are equally vivid . . . With Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness Alexandra Fuller, master memoirist, brings her readers new pleasure. Her mum should be pleased.” -Cleveland Plain Dealer “Fullers narrative is a love story to Africa and her family. She plumbs her family story with humor, memory, old photographs and a no-nonsense attitude toward family foibles, follies and tragedy. The reader is rewarded with an intimate family story played out against an extraordinary landscape, told with remarkable grace and style.” -Minneapolis Star Tribune “[Fuller] conveys the magnetic pull that Africa could exert on the colonials who had a taste for it, the powerful feeling of attachment. She does not really explain that feeling-she is a writer who shows rather than tells-but through incident and anecdote she makes its effects clear, and its costs.” -The Wall Street Journal “[A]n artistic and emotional feat.” -The Boston Globe “An eccentric, quixotic and downright dangerous tale with full room for humor, love and more than a few highballs.” -Huffington Post “Cocktail Hour [Under the Tree of Forgetfulness] subtly explores the intersections of personality, history, and landscape in ways that are continually fresh and thoughtful.” -Charleston Post and Courier “Gracefully recounted using family recollections and photos, the author plumbs the narrative with a humane and clear-eyed gaze-a lush story, largely lived within a remarkable place and time.” -Kirkus Reviews “In this sequel to her 2001 memoir, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, which her unflattered mum calls the ‘Awful Book,’ Duller gives a warm yet wry account of her British parents’ arduous life in Africa. . . . With searing honesty and in blazingly vibra...

-Titulo Original : Andrew Carnegie-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: A New York Times bestseller!“Beautifully crafted and fun to read.” -Louis Galambos, The Wall Street Journal“Nasaw’s research is extraordinary.” -San Francisco Chronicle “Make no mistake: David Nasaw has produced the most thorough, accurate and authoritative biography of Carnegie to date.” -Salon The definitive account of the life of Andrew Carnegie Celebrated historian David Nasaw, whom The New York Times Book Review has called a meticulous researcher and a cool analyst, brings new life to the story of one of Americas most famous and successful businessmen and philanthropists-in what will prove to be the biography of the season. Born of modest origins in Scotland in 1835, Andrew Carnegie is best known as the founder of Carnegie Steel. His rags to riches story has never been told as dramatically and vividly as in Nasaws new biography. Carnegie, the son of an impoverished linen weaver, moved to Pittsburgh at the age of thirteen. The embodiment of the American dream, he pulled himself up from bobbin boy in a cotton factory to become the richest man in the world. He spent the rest of his life giving away the fortune he had accumulated and crusading for international peace. For all that he accomplished and came to represent to the American public-a wildly successful businessman and capitalist, a self-educated writer, peace activist, philanthropist, man of letters, lover of culture, and unabashed enthusiast for American democracy and capitalism-Carnegie has remained, to this day, an enigma. Nasaw explains how Carnegie made his early fortune and what prompted him to give it all away, how he was drawn into the campaign first against American involvement in the Spanish-American War and then for international peace, and how he used his friendships with presidents and prime ministers to try to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. With a trove of new material-unpublished chapters of Carnegies Autobiography; personal letters between Carnegie and his future wife, Louise, and other family members; his prenuptial agreement; diaries of family and close friends; his applications for citizenship; his extensive correspondence with Henry Clay Frick; and dozens of private letters to and from presidents Grant, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt, and British prime ministers Gladstone and Balfour, as well as friends Herbert Spencer, Matthew Arnold, and Mark Twain-Nasaw brilliantly plumbs the core of this facinating and complex man, deftly placing his life in cultural and political context as only a master storyteller can. Review “The definitive work on Carnegie for the foreseeable future, and it fully deserves to be.” -John Steele Gordon, The New York Times“Never has this story been told so thoroughly or so well as David Nasaw tells it in this massive and monumental biography.” -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post“Beautifully crafted and fun to read.” -Louis Galambos, The Wall Street Journal“The definitive Carnegie biography has arrived.” -USA Today“Nasaw delivers a vivid history of nineteenth-century capitalism.” -Fortune“Nasaw’s fine book . . . seems sure to be the final word on ‘the Star-spangled Scotchman.’”-Los Angeles Times “Nasaw’s research is extraordinary.” -San Francisco Chronicle “A meticulous account of a paradoxical American original.” -BusinessWeek “Make no mistake: David Nasaw has produced the most thorough, accurate and authoritative biography of Carnegie to date.” -Salon “Nasaw’s . . . very well-written biography is timely and instructive . . . Nasaw does brilliant work in bringing [Carnegie] to life.” -Kirkus (starred review)“A comprehensive and often engrossing biography . . . compelling.” -Booklist “In this lucid, meticulous, and finely detailed biography, David Nasaw has delivered the authoritative volume on Andrew Carnegie that we have long awaited. He captures in persuasive fashion the many sides of this energetic and kaleidoscopic personality-the abrasive industr...

-Titulo Original : Going Solo The Extraordinary Rise And Surprising Appeal Of Living Alone-Fabricante : Penguin Books-Descripcion Original: With eye-opening statistics, original data, and vivid portraits of people who live alone, renowned sociologist Eric Klinenberg upends conventional wisdom to deliver the definitive take on how the rise of going solo is transforming the American experience. Klinenberg shows that most single dwellers-whether in their twenties or eighties-are deeply engaged in social and civic life. Theres even evidence that people who live alone enjoy better mental health and have more environmentally sustainable lifestyles. Drawing on more than three hundred in-depth interviews, Klinenberg presents a revelatory examination of the most significant demographic shift since the baby boom and offers surprising insights on the benefits of this epochal change. Review “A book so important that it is likely to become both a popular read and a social science classic. . . . This book really will change the lives of people who live solo, and everyone else . . . thorough, balanced, and persuasive.” - Psychology Today“Fascinating and admirably temperate . . . [Going Solo] does a good job of explaining the social forces behind the trend and exploring the psychology of those who participate in it.” - Daniel Akst, The Wall Street Journal“Klinenberg convincingly argues that the convergence of mass urbanization, communications technology, and liberalized attitudes has driven this trend.” - Slate“Going Solo examines a dramatic demographic trend: the startling increase in adults living alone. Along the way, the book navigates some rough and complicated emotional terrain, finding its way straight to questions of the heart, to the universal yearning for happiness and purpose. In the end, despite its title, Going Solo is really about living better together-for all of us, single or not.” - The Washington Post“Thought-provoking . . . Mr. Klinenberg argues that singletons comprise a kind of shadow population that’s misunderstood by policymakers and our culture writ large. Going Solo is an attempt to fill in the blanks- to explain the causes and consequences of living alone, and to describe what it looks in everyday life. . . . Klinenberg renders [these] stories vividly but also with nuance.” - The Christian Science MonitorToday, as Eric Klinenberg reminds us in his book, Going Solo, more than 50 percent of adults are single . . . [he] nicely shoes that people who live alone are more likely to visit friends and join social groups. They are more likely to congregate in and create active, dynamic cities. - David Brooks, The New York Times About the Author Eric Klinenberg is a professor of sociology at New York University and the editor of the journal Public Culture. His first book, Heat Wave, won several prizes and was declared a Favorite Book by the Chicago Tribune. He lives in New York City...