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New & Coming-Soon HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY August 2018
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Click on a title to check availability and to log into your account to place holds online. To place holds by phone, please call us 708-366-5205. When we are open, you can also chat with us by clicking on this link to our website: www.riverforestlibrary.org.
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Born Trump : inside America's first family
by Emily Jane Fox
The Wall Street and Silicon Valley Hive reporter presents an insider's account of the Trump family that discusses the experiences and perspectives that have shaped their controversial political and cultural views, as well as the upbringings of the family's younger members. 150,000 first printing. Media tie-in.
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Room to Dream : A Life
by David Lynch
In this unique hybrid of biography and memoir, David Lynch opens up for the first time about a life lived in pursuit of his singular vision, and the many heartaches and struggles he's faced to bring his unorthodox projects to fruition. Lynch's lyrical, intimate, and unfiltered personal reflections riff off biographical sections written by close collaborator Kristine McKenna and based on more than one hundred new interviews with surprisingly candid ex-wives, family members, actors, agents, musicians, and colleagues in various fields who all have their own takes on what happened.
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Little Panic : Dispatches from an Anxious Life
by Amanda Stern
The world never made any sense to Amanda Stern--how could she trust time to keep flowing, the sun to rise, gravity to hold her feet to the ground, or even her own body to work the way it was supposed to? Deep down, she knows that there's something horribly wrong with her, some defect that her siblings and friends don't have to cope with. Growing up in the 1970s and 80s in New York, Amanda experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching-that her mother will die, or forget she has children and just move away-Amanda treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Amanda has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true. Tenderly delivered and expertly structured, Amanda Stern's memoir is a document of the transformation of New York City and a deep, personal, and comedic account of the trials and errors of seeing life through a very unusual lens.
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Confessions of a Recovering Racist
by George O’hare
George O'Hare's was born and raised on the West Side of Chicago in 1927 during the height of Jim Crow, when racism was a way of life for most white people. He went to an all-white grammar and high school, and was raised by an extremely racist uncle. George learned to be a racist at an early age, but when he joined Sears Roebuck as a salesman and his manager insisted that he become a member of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, he found himself in the company of African Americans for the first time in his life. He met some of the most iconic African Americans in the country, and became good friends with Dr. Martin Luther King, comedian Dick Gregory, Father George Clements, Muhammad Ali, State Senator Barack Obama, and many others. Racism became a very hot topic of discussion in America in 2017 with an outgoing Black president and an incumbent president who is known for his racist remarks, legislature, and appointees. Confessions of a Recovering Racist addresses the fallacy of racism in a unique, honest, and sometimes humorous way. It causes white people to take a second look at their prejudices, and informs Black people that a white man can be a hero in the Black community.
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Don't You Ever : My Mother and Her Secret Son
by Mary Carter Bishop
While applying for a passport as an adult, Mary Carter Bishop made a shocking discovery: she had a secret half brother. Her mother told Mary Carter that the abandoned boy was a "youthful mistake" from an encounter with a married man. Nine years later, Mary Carter tracked Ronnie down at the barbershop where he worked and found a near-broken man -- someone kind and happy to meet her, but someone deeply and irreversibly damaged by a life of neglect and abuse at the hands of an uncaring system. He was also disfigured due to a rare condition that would eventually kill him. Digging deep into her family's lives for understanding, Mary Carter unfolds a sweeping narrative of religious intolerance, poverty, fear, ambition, class, and social expectations. A riveting memoir about a family haunted by a shameful secret, Don't You Ever is a powerful story of a woman's search for her long-hidden sibling and of the factors that profoundly impact our individual destinies.
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From the Corner of the Oval : A Memoir
by Rebecca Dorey-stein
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. She got to know everyone from the White House butler to the secret servicemen, advance team, speechwriters, photographers, and press secretaries, and on whirlwind trips across time zones, she forged friendships with a tight group of fellow travelers in the bubble--young men and women who, like her, left their real lives behind to hop aboard Air Force One in service of the president. 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 glamor, 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.
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A carnival of losses : notes nearing ninety
by Donald Hall
"New essays from the vantage point of very old age, once again "alternately lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny,"* from the former poet laureate of the United States *(New York Times)"
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Jell-o Girls : A Family History
by Allie Rowbottom
A memoir that braids the evolution of one of America's most iconic branding campaigns with the stirring tales of the women who lived behind its facade - told by the inheritor of their stories. In 1899, Allie Rowbottom's great-great-great-uncle bought the patent to Jell-O from its inventor for $450. The sale would turn out to be one of the most profitable business deals in American history, and the generations that followed enjoyed immense privilege - but they were also haunted by suicides, cancer, alcoholism, and mysterious ailments. More than 100 years after that deal was struck, Allie's mother Mary was diagnosed with the same incurable cancer, a disease that had also claimed her own mother's life. Determined to combat what she had come to consider the "Jell-O curse" and her looming mortality, Mary began obsessively researching her family's past, determined to understand the origins of her illness and the impact on her life of Jell-O and the traditional American values the company championed. Before she died in 2015, Mary began to send Allie boxes of her research and notes, in the hope that her daughter might write what she could not. JELL-O GIRLS is the liberation of that story. A gripping examination of the dark side of an iconic American product and a moving portrait of the women who lived in the shadow of its fractured fortune, JELL-O GIRLS is a family history, a feminist history, and a story of motherhood, love and loss. In crystalline prose Rowbottom considers the roots of trauma not only in her own family, but in the American psyche as well, ultimately weaving a story that is deeply personal, as well as deeply connected to the collective female experience.
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You're on an Airplane : A Self-mythologizing Memoir
by Parker Posey
Have you ever wondered what it would be like talk to Parker Posey? On an airplane, with Parker as your seat companion, perhaps? Parker's irreverent, hilarious, and enchanting memoir gives you the incredible opportunity. Full of personal stories, whimsical how-tos, recipes, and beautiful handmade collages created by the author herself, You're On an Airplane is a delight in every way.
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The Desert and the Sea : 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast
by Michael Scott Moore
Michael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates--a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival.
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The World as it is: a memoir of the Obama White House
by Ben Rhodes
For nearly ten years, Ben Rhodes saw almost everything that happened at the center of the Obama administration ... He started every morning in the Oval Office with the President's Daily Briefing, traveled the world with Obama, and was at the center of some of the most consequential and controversial moments of the presidency. Now he tells the full story of his partnership--and, ultimately, friendship--with a man who also happened to be a historic president of the United States
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Yes We Still Can : Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump
by Dan Pfeiffer
From Obama's former communications director and current co-host of Pod Save America comes a colorful account of how politics, the media, and the Internet changed during the Obama presidency and how Democrats can fight back in the Trump era. On November 9th, 2016, Dan Pfeiffer woke up like most of the world wondering WTF just happened. How had Donald Trump won the White House? How was it that a decent and thoughtful president had been succeeded by a buffoonish reality star, and what do we do now? Instead of throwing away his phone and moving to another country (which were his first and second thoughts), Pfeiffer decided to tell this surreal story, recounting how Barack Obama navigated the insane political forces that created Trump, explaining why everyone got 2016 wrong, and offering a path for where Democrats go from here. Pfeiffer was one of Obama's first hires when he decided to run for president, and was at his side through two presidential campaigns and six years in the White House. Using never-before-heard stories and behind-the-scenes anecdotes, YES WE (STILL) CAN examines how Obama succeeded despite Twitter trolls, Fox News (and their fake news), and a Republican Party that lost its collective mind. An irreverent, no-BS take on the crazy politics of our time, YES WE (STILL) CAN is a must-read for everyone who is disturbed by Trump, misses Obama, and is marching, calling, and hoping for a better future for the country.
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Empress : The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan
by Ruby Lal
When it came to hunting, she was a master shot. As a dress designer, few could compare. An ingenious architect, she innovated the use of marble in her parents' mausoleum on the banks of the Yamuna River that inspired her stepson's Taj Mahal. And she was both celebrated and reviled for her political acumen and diplomatic skill, which rivaled those of her female counterparts in Europe and beyond.In 1611, thirty-four-year-old Nur Jahan, daughter of a Persian noble and widow of a subversive official, became the twentieth and most cherished wife of the Emperor Jahangir. While other wives were secluded behind walls, Nur ruled the vast Mughal Empire alongside her husband, and governed in his stead as his health failed and his attentions wandered from matters of state. An astute politician and devoted partner, Nur led troops into battle to free Jahangir when he was imprisoned by one of his own officers. She signed and issued imperial orders, and coins of the realm bore her name.Acclaimed historian Ruby Lal uncovers the rich life and world of Nur Jahan, rescuing this dazzling figure from patriarchal and Orientalist clichés of romance and intrigue, and giving new insight into the lives of women and girls in the Mughal Empire, even where scholars claim there are no sources. Nur's confident assertion of authority and talent is revelatory. In Empress, she finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens us to a fascinating history.
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Indianapolis : The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.s. Naval History and the Fifty-year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man
by Lynn Vincent
Just after midnight on July 30, 1945, days after delivering the components of the atomic bomb from California to the Pacific Islands in the most highly classified naval mission of the war, USS Indianapolis is sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea when she is struck by two Japanese torpedoes. The ship is instantly transformed into a fiery cauldron and sinks within minutes. Some 300 men go down with the ship. Nearly 900 make it into the water alive. For the next five nights and four days, almost three hundred miles from the nearest land, the men battle injuries, sharks, dehydration, insanity, and eventually each other. Only 316 will survive. For the better part of a century, the story of USS Indianapolis has been understood as a sinking tale. The reality, however, is far more complicated--and compelling. Now, for the first time, thanks to a decade of original research and interviews with 107 survivors and eyewitnesses, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic tell the complete story of the ship, her crew, and their final mission to save one of their own.
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The King's Assassin : The Secret Plot to Murder King James I
by Benjamin Woolley
An absorbing account of the conspiracy to kill King James I by his handsome lover, the Duke of Buckingham, an historical crime that has remained hidden for 400 years. The rise of George Villiers from minor gentry to royal power seemed to defy gravity. Becoming gentleman of the royal bedchamber in 1615, the young gallant enraptured James, Britain's first Stuart king, royal adoration reaching such an intensity that the king declared he wanted the courtier to become his 'wife'. For a decade, Villiers was at the king's side - at court, on state occasions, and in bed, right up to James's death in March 1625. Almost immediately, Villiers' many enemies accused him of poisoning the king. A parliamentary investigation was launched, and scurrilous pamphlets and ballads circulated London's streets. But the charges came to nothing, and were relegated to a historical footnote. Now, new research suggests that a deadly combination of hubris and vulnerability did indeed drive Villiers to kill the man who made him. It may have been by accident - the application of a quack remedy while the king was weakened by a malarial attack. But there is compelling evidence that Villiers, overcome by ambition and frustrated by James's passive approach to government, poisoned him. In The King's Assassin , acclaimed author Benjamin Woolley examines this remarkable, even tragic story. Combining vivid characterization and a strong narrative with historical scholarship and forensic investigation, Woolley tells the story of King James's death, and of the captivating figure at its center.
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Devil's Mile : The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery
by Alice Sparberg Alexiou
The Bowery was a synonym for despair throughout most of the 20th century. The very name evoked visuals of drunken bums passed out on the sidewalk, and New Yorkers nicknamed it "Satan's Highway," "The Mile of Hell," and "The Street of Forgotten Men." For years the little businesses along the Bowery--stationers, dry goods sellers, jewelers, hatters--periodically asked the city to change the street's name. To have a Bowery address, they claimed, was hurting them; people did not want to venture there. But when New York exploded into real estate frenzy in the 1990s, developers discovered the Bowery. They rushed in and began tearing down. Today, Whole Foods, hipster night spots, and expensive lofts have replaced the old flophouses and dive bars, and the bad old Bowery no longer exists. In Devil's Mile , Alice Sparberg Alexiou tells the story of The Bowery, starting with its origins, when forests covered the surrounding area, and through the pre-Civil War years, when country estates of wealthy New Yorkers lined this thoroughfare. She then describes The Bowery's deterioration in stunning detail, starting in the post-bellum years. She ends her historical exploration of this famed street in the present, bearing witness as the old Bowery buildings, and the memories associated with them, aredisappearing.
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