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Biography and MemoirMarch 2014
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"...no country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more." ~ Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author, The Gilded Age
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New and Recently Released!
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| Glitter and Glue: A Memoir by Kelly CorriganWhen author Kelly Corrigan was a child, her mother would explain that while Kelly's father provided "glitter" with his ebullient personality, her mother was the "glue" that held the family together. As a young woman seeking interesting experiences, Kelly came to appreciate her mother's saying when she became a nanny to the children of a widowed Australian man. Glitter and Glue relates her experiences as a stand-in mother, during which she drew on her own mother's pragmatic wisdom despite having resented it when she was younger. This conversational, humorous memoir offers insight and inspiration into growing up and serves as a prequel to Corrigan's earlier memoir, The Middle Place. |
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| Mermaid: A Memoir of Resilience by Mary Eileen CroninBorn with legs that ended at her knees, author Eileen Cronin was one of 11 children in a boisterous family without quite enough parental attention to go around. Though her family didn't make her feel different, once she got to school she had to learn to stand up to bullies and deal with social alienation. Eventually, the stresses of being "disabled" made her turn to alcohol, and she spent years battling to recover from addiction. In Mermaid, Cronin recounts "with a winning combination of candor, grace and humor" (Kirkus Reviews) her long search for the cause of her deformity and her gradual adjustment to a life that included marriage and a career. |
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| Things I've Learned From Dying: A Book About Life by David R. DowTexas attorney David Dow specializes in representing clients on death row by appealing their cases in state and Federal courts. Though he has seen the effects of these cases on the defendants, the victims, and the families of both, Things I've Learned from Dying also addresses his personal experiences when both his father-in-law and his dog become terminally ill. Portraying the difficulty of his job while relating how death confronts him within his own family, Dow offers a meditation on the meaning of life that plumbs the darkness of grief and guilt while bearing witness to the triumph of hope. |
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| Flyover Lives: A Memoir by Diane JohnsonDrawing on letters and other remarkable records by two distant ancestors, critically acclaimed author Diane Johnson weaves an engaging family saga that depicts women who are striving for better lives. Though as a child Johnson thought her native Midwest was boring, her ancestors' papers revealed how interesting their lives really were. Her memoir adds her own intriguing life to her family's history as she becomes fascinated with a past where she once saw only bland people and a landscape to be dismissed as "flyover" territory. Flyover Lives provides an "enjoyable peek" (Publishers Weekly) into the ways in which the past shapes the present. |
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| Little Failure: A Memoir by Gary ShteyngartIn this irresistibly funny memoir by novelist Gary Shteyngart, nobody, including the author, escapes his agile, razor-sharp wit. Though shredding is not his main purpose, he lays bare the challenges, joys, frustrations, and triumphs of his life. Shteyngart, a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in New York as a child, had to adjust to an entirely different culture while growing up among his and his elders' memories and customs from Leningrad. Though lonely in school, wild and frequently drunk in college, and floundering in his first efforts as a writer, Shteyngart eventually found himself and learned to write award winning novels. His engaging, vivid storytelling in Little Failure will absorb you into his remarkable life. |
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Focus on: People in the Gilded Age
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The Gilded Age (from the 1870s to just after 1900), so named by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, was a period of glitz, glamour, astonishing wealth, and colorful characters in all walks of life.
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| The President Is a Sick Man: Wherein the Supposedly Virtuous Grover Cleveland... by Matthew AlgeoIn this unusual snapshot from President Grover Cleveland's life, biographer Matthew Algeo explores the events surrounding Cleveland's secret surgery for cancer. Known for his openness and honesty, Cleveland nevertheless briefly dropped out of sight and had his operation at sea. Algeo sets this clandestine action in context, relating the political atmosphere at the time, the monetary crisis that demanded an appearance of stability in government, and the fact that mentioning cancer was taboo. Thoroughly researched, vividly portrayed, and stylistically engaging, The President is a Sick Man offers an intriguing glimpse into the Gilded Age. |
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| Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life by Natalie DykstraMarian "Clover" Hooper was a brilliant, highly educated woman -- one of Boston's elite. She married another prominent Bostonian, Henry Adams, and together they presided over the intellectual gatherings of Washington, D.C. Clover, a shining light among Gilded Age luminaries, embraced the new medium of photography and produced artistic, moving portraits. But 13 years after marrying Henry, Clover committed suicide, and the reasons for her suicide have never been explained. In this absorbing, carefully reconstructed life, scholar Natalie Dykstra (whose PhD is in American Studies) examines letters, Clover's photographs, and other documents to create a portrait of Clover herself, tracing possible reasons why she committed suicide. Clover Adams brings to life a remarkable woman's poignant story. |
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| The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by Thom HatchThe Last Outlaws chronicles how Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Longabaugh became the Gilded Age celebrity outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Raised in stable, religious, hard-working families, the boys drifted westward independently. A shared love of the frontier's finer hobbies (gambling, booze, and whoring) soon prompted the resourceful duo to abandon cattle rustling in favor of daring, lucrative bank robberies. While many details of their restless lives and violent deaths may never be fully known, premier Western historian Thom Hatch delivers an "immersive and entertaining" (Publishers Weekly) joint biography, accompanied by photos, maps, and a comprehensive list of sources. |
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| Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath MorrisThough born into humble surroundings in 1847 Hungary, Joseph Pulitzer nevertheless climbed to the very top of American journalism. In this biography, author James McGrath Morris charts Pulitzer's spectacular rise to power and wealth, from his immigration to the U.S. during the Civil War to his pioneering use of "yellow journalism," a hallmark of the Gilded Age that focused on sensationalized human interest stories. Morris also looks at the dark parts of Pulitzer's life, including his volatile and unscrupulous side. Don't miss this epic biography, which Booklist calls a "fascinating portrayal of the man, his era, and his long-ranging impact." |
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| The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet WallachThough Hetty Green, a woman as rich as John D. Rockefeller, was equally praised and derided during her life, she's nowhere near as well known today, despite the perennial popularity of biographies of other Gilded Age financiers including Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan. Offering insight into Green's extremely frugal ways -- after she was abandoned by her mother as a child, Quaker values marked her life -- and the investment practices that caused her to be alternately heralded and denounced, author Janet Wallach provides an evenhanded and enjoyable account of an incredibly successful and admittedly eccentric woman. For another recent biography of Green, read Charles Slack's Hetty. |
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