| In 2012, Beck Dorey-Stein was just scraping by in DC when a posting on Craigslist landed her, improbably, in the Oval Office as one of Barack Obama's stenographers. For five years, Beck was a part of the elite team of men and women who accompanied the president wherever he went, recorder and mic in hand. But as she learned the ropes of protocol, Beck became romantically entangled with one of the President's closest aides...who was already otherwise engaged... Set against the backdrop of a White House full of glamour, drama, and intrigue, this is the compulsively readable story of a young woman finding friends, falling in love, getting her heart broken, finding her voice as a writer, and finding herself in the process. |
|
|
She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando clam up. She cold-shouldered Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Gore Vidal revered her. Peter Sellers was in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy. Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950's heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death, she had come to personify disappointment. The tale of Princess Margaret is pantomime as tragedy, and tragedy as pantomime. Ma'am Darling is a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.
|
|
|
Charles Ulm : The Untold Story of One of Australia's Greatest Aviation Pioneers
by Rick Searle
Charles Ulm and Charles Kingsford Smith were two of the most important pioneers of Australian aviation. Together they succeeded in a number of record-breaking flights that made them instant celebrities around the world, notably the first ever trans-Pacific flight, then setting up Australian National Airways in late 1928. In this fascinating biography, Rick Searle shows that while Ulm lacked Smithy's prowess as an aviator, he was his superior as a visionary, and a driving force behind the growth of modern global air travel. His untimely death robbed Australia of a huge talent.
|
|
|
Bruce Lee : a life by Matthew PollyThe most authoritative biography--featuring dozens of rarely seen photographs--of film legend Bruce Lee, who made martial arts a global phenomenon, bridged the divide between Eastern and Western cultures, and smashed long-held stereotypes of Asians and Asian-Americans. Forty-five years after Bruce Lee's sudden death at age thirty-two, journalist and bestselling author Matthew Polly has written the definitive account of Lee's life. He breaks down the myths surrounding Bruce Lee and argues that, contrary to popular belief, he was an ambitious actor who was obsessed with the martial arts--not a kung-fu guru who just so happened to make a couple of movies. This is a revealing look at an impressive yet imperfect man whose personal story was even more entertaining and inspiring than any fictional role he played onscreen.
|
|
| Betsy Lerner takes us on a personal literary journey, where we learn a little about Bridge and a lot about life. After a lifetime defining herself in contrast to her mother's ‘don't ask, don't tell’ generation, Lerner finds herself back in her childhood home, not five miles from the mother she spent decades avoiding. When Roz needs help after surgery, it falls to Betsy to take care of her. She expected a week of tense civility; what she got instead were the Bridge Ladies. Impressed by their loyalty, she saw something her generation lacked. |
|
| Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family by Kathy McKeonA charming account of Irish immigrant Kathy McKeon's decade serving as Jacqueline Kennedy's live-in assistant and governess following President Kennedy's 1963 assassination.
|
|
|
An improbable friendship : the remarkable lives of Israeli Ruth Dayan and Palestinian Raymonda Tawil and their forty-year peace mission
by Anthony David
"An Improbable Friendship is the dual biography of Israeli Ruth Dayan, now ninety-seven, who was Moshe Dayan's wife for thirty-seven years, and Palestinian journalist Raymonda Tawil, Yasser Arafat's mother-in-law, now seventy-four. It reveals for the first time the two women's surprising and secret forty-year friendship and delivers the story of their extraordinary and turbulent lives growing up in a war-torn country. Based on personal interviews, diaries, and journals drawn from both women-Ruth lives today in Tel Aviv, Raymonda in Malta-author Anthony David delivers a fast-paced, fascinating narrative that is a beautiful story of reconciliation and hope in a climate of endless conflict. By telling their stories and following their budding relationship,which began after the Six-Day War in 1967, we learn the behind-the-scenes, undisclosed history of the Middle East's most influential leaders from two prominent women on either side of the ongoing conflict. An award-winning biographer and historian, Anthony David brings us the story of unexpected friendship while he discovers the true pasts of two outstanding women. Their story gives voice to Israelis and Palestinians caught in the Middle East conflict and holds a persistent faith in a future of peace. "
|
|
Contact your librarian for more great books!
|
|
|