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New & Coming-Soon History and Biographies JULY 2017
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Click on the 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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Dinner with DiMaggio : memories of an American hero
by Rock G Positano
A portrait of the iconic Yankee star by his doctor and friend describes how they supported one another throughout DiMaggio's final years, in an account that discusses such topics as DiMaggio's career-ending injuries and his relationships with first wife Dorothy Arnold and Marilyn Monroe.
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Love and trouble : a midlife reckoning
by Claire Dederer
The best-selling author of Poser describes the erotic reawakening she experienced at midlife that completely derailed her family life and career, recounting how she attempted to reconnect with her husband and reconcile her teen past with the woman she became.
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The bright hour : a memoir of living and dying
by Nina Riggs
Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship and memory—even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson—an author who has been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer explores what makes a meaningful life when one has limited time.
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I Can't Make This Up : Life Lessons
by Kevin Hart
The award-winning actor and comedian presents an inspirational memoir on the importance of believing in oneself, sharing stories about the addiction and abuse that marked his childhood and how his unique way of looking at the world enabled his survival and successful career.
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The revolution of Robert Kennedy : from power to protest after JFK
by John R. Bohrer
A groundbreaking account of how Robert F. Kennedy transformed horror into hope between 1963 and 1966. On November 22nd, 1963, Bobby Kennedy received a phone call that altered his life forever. The president, his brother, had been shot. JFK would not survive.In The Revolution of Robert Kennedy , journalist John R. Bohrer focuses in intimate and revealing detail on Bobby Kennedy's life during the three years following JFK's assassination. Torn between mourning the past and plotting his future, Bobby was placed in a sudden competition with his political enemy, Lyndon Johnson, for control of the Democratic Party. No longer the president's closest advisor, Bobby struggled to find his place within the Johnson administration, eventually deciding to leave his Cabinet post to run for the U.S. Senate, and establish an independent identity. Those overlooked years of change, from hardline Attorney General to champion of the common man, helped him develop the themes of his eventual presidential campaign. The Revolution of Robert Kennedy follows him on the journey from memorializing his brother's legacy to defining his own. John R. Bohrer's rich, insightful portrait of Robert Kennedy is biography at its best--inviting readers into the mind and heart of one of America's great leaders
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You don't have to say you love me : a memoir
by Sherman Alexie
The National Book Award-winning author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian presents a literary memoir of poems, essays and intimate family photos that reflect his complicated feelings about his disadvantaged childhood on a Native American reservation with his siblings and alcoholic parents. 100,000 first printing.
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Surpassing Certainty : What My Twenties Taught Me
by Janet Mock
The transgender activist and best-selling author of Redefining Realness presents a memoir of her search for purpose, love and self-realization in an early adulthood marked by her education at the University of Hawaii, a defining relationship and her entry into journalism.
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Sting-ray afternoons : a memoir
by Steve Rushin
A bittersweet memoir of the author's 1970s childhood nostalgically tours the era's products, history and cultural rebirth, sharing laugh-out-loud observations of his family life as it was shaped by influences ranging from the Steve Miller Band and Saturday morning cartoons to Bic pens and Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes. 35,000 first printing.
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A stone of hope : a memoir
by Jim St. Germain
The co-founder of the Preparing Leaders of Tomorrow nonprofit for at-risk youth shares the story of his experiences as an impoverished alcoholic's son who participated in illegal gang activities before a rehabilitation program saved his life and gave him purpose. 50,000 first printing.
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Fall down 7 times get up 8 : a young man's voice from the silence of autism
by Naoki Higashida
A follow-up to The Reason I Jump shares the author's experiences as a young adult with severe autism, exploring in short, evocative chapters his observations on education, identity, family life, society and personal growth while sharing insights into the unique mental steps that are required for him to register his environments.
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The last Palestinian : the rise and reign of Mahmoud Abbas
by Grant Rumley
Draws on interviews with key figures in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Washington to trace the Palestinian leader's youth in Galilee, his family's escape from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, his education abroad, his emergence as a pivotal contributor to the Oslo peace process and his unsuccessful attempt to promote nonviolence during the Second Intifada.
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Churchill and Orwell : the fight for freedom
by Thomas E Ricks
A dual portrait of Winston Churchill and George Orwell focuses on the pivotal years from the mid-1930s through the 1940s, describing how both suffered nearly fatal injuries before their vision and campaigns inspired action to preserve democracy throughout the world.
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The trial of Adolf Hitler : the Beer Hall Putsch and the rise of Nazi Germany
by David King
Documents the lesser-known story of the scandalous courtroom drama that paved the way for the rise of the Nazi Party, recounting the 1923 trial of Hitler and nine associates who successfully threw off charges of high treason and used the trial to gain international attention and launch an improbable path to power.
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Revolution Against Empire : Taxes, Politics, and the Origins of American Independence
by Justin Du Rivage
Sets the story of American independence within a long and fierce clash over the political and economic future of the British Empire. Justin du Rivage traces this decades-long debate, which pitted neighbors and countrymen against one another, from the War of Austrian Succession to the end of the American Revolution.
As people from Boston to Bengal grappled with the growing burdens of imperial rivalry and fantastically expensive warfare, some argued that austerity and new colonial revenue were urgently needed to rescue Britain from unsustainable taxes and debts. Others insisted that Britain ought to treat its colonies as relative equals and promote their prosperity. Drawing from archival research in the United States, Britain, and France, this book shows how disputes over taxation, public debt, and inequality sparked the American Revolution--and reshaped the British Empire
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Hannah's Dress : Berlin 1904-2014
by Pascale Hugues
Hannah's Dress tells the dizzying story of Berlin's modern history. Curious to learn more about the city she has lived in for over twenty years, journalist Pascale Hugues investigates the lives of the men, women and children who have occupied her ordinary street during the course of the last century. We see the street being built in 1904 and the arrival of the first families of businessmen, lawyers and bankers. We feel the humiliation of defeat in 1918, the effects of economic crisis, and the rise of Hitler's Nazi party. We tremble alongside the Jewish families, whose experience is so movingly captured in the story of two friends, Hannah and Susanne. When only Hannah is able to escape the horrors of deportation, the dress made for her by Susanne becomes a powerful reminder of all that was lost.
In 1945 the street is all but destroyed; the handful of residents left want to forget the past altogether and start afresh. When the Berlin Wall goes up, the street becomes part of West Berlin and assumes a rather suburban identity, a home for all kinds of petite bourgeoisie, insulated from the radical spirit of 1968. However, this quickly changes in the 1970s with the arrival of its most famous resident, superstar David Bowie. Today, the street is as tranquil and prosperous as in the early days, belying a century of eventful, tumultuous history.
This engrossing account of a single street, awarded the prestigious 2014 European Book Prize, sheds new light on the complex history not only of Berlin but of an entire continent across the twentieth century.
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Churchill, Roosevelt & company : studies in character and statecraft
by Lewis E. Lehrman
During World War II the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain cemented the alliance that won the war in the West. But the ultimate victory of that partnership has obscured many of the conflicts behind Franklin Roosevelt's charm and Winston Churchill's victory signs--the clashes of principles and especially personalities between and within the leadership of the two nations. Synthesizing an impressive variety of sources from memoirs and letters to histories and biographies, Lewis E. Lehrman explains how the Anglo-American alliance worked--and occasionally did not work--by presenting portraits and case studies of the men who worked the back channels and back rooms, the generals and the admirals, the secretaries and under secretaries, ambassadors and ministers, responsible for carrying out Roosevelt's and Churchill's agendas while also pursuing their own. The President and the Prime Minister had the difficult task, not always well-performed, of managing their subordinates. Churchill and Roosevelt frequently chose to conduct foreign policy directly between themselves, and with Stalin. Scrupulous in its research and fair in its judgments, Lehrman's book reveals the personal diplomacy, the character and statecraft, at the core of the leadership of the Anglo-American alliance.
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The Holocaust : a new history
by Laurence Rees
A historian who has an unrivaled archive of firsthand testimony from both the perpetrators and victims of the Holocaust presents almost all of this evidence for the first time in an authoritative and accessible account of the greatest crime against humanity.
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The only language they understand : forcing compromise in Israel and Palestine
by Nathan Thrall
A leading analyst on the Arab-Israeli conflict describes how the involvement of American administrations in negotiation, collaboration and state-building have had a counterproductive effect, actually lessening Israel’s incentives to relinquish control of the West Bank and Gaza and undermining Palestinian unity.
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We crossed a bridge and it trembled : voices from Syria
by Wendy Pearlman
Chronicles the lives of ordinary Syrians during the 2011 Arab Spring through the ensuing civil war and resulting humanitarian catastrophe, based on the first-hand testimonies of displaced citizens who face their uncertain future with hope, courage and conviction. 50,000 first printing.
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