1472 results for "Biography"

First cameraman: documenting the Obama presidency in real time

Chaudhary, Arun
"The first official White House videographer chronicles his time capturing behind-the-scenes moments of the president and his administrationFrom the early months of the 2008 campaign and through the first two and a half years of the Obama administration, Arun Chaudhary had a unique perspective on the president of the United States. "I'm sort of like President Obama's wedding videographer," he explains, "if every day was a wedding with the same groom but a constantly rotating set of hysterical guests."Some of the moments Chaudhary captures are small, like the president throwing warm-up pitches deep inside Busch Stadium in St. Louis before the All-Star game. Some are intensely emotional, as when Obama comforts a grieving teenager whose father had died in a devastating tornado. And some are just plain bizarre--like getting thrown out of the Indian parliament by his belt, or being trapped in a White House bathroom while Obama conducts a YouTube town hall on the other side of the door. Film and politics have been intertwined ever since the first Edison reels rattled in projection halls a century ago. But with the advent of new technologies and a new public that is hungry for images of their leaders, Chaudhary has been in the right place at the right time to participate in the interplay of film and politics at the very highest level. His entertaining and eye-opening book--which includes stories and images of key players such as Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton, among others--gives readers a unique view of their government and their president in these historic and challenging times"--
Times Books 2012-08-21 306 pages

Moving pictures

MacGraw, Ali
In this candid, courageous autobiography, MacGraw discusses her artistic, emotionally cold parents, her schooling at Wellesley College and her stint as Diana Vreeland's "girl" at Harper's Bazaar. The focus, however, is on her struggle with addiction--alcoholism and "male dependency"--that grew as her acting career and personal life sputtered. A sudden star in her first major role 'Goodbye, Columbus' in 1969, and the following year with the even more popular 'Love Story' she felt immediately that she was "in way over my head," mainly because of her fear of the camera ("I was scarcely trained at all as an actress"). Alcohol compounded problems and she continued to run after unavailable or hard-drinking or cold men. (Third husband Steve McQueen forbade MacGraw from working yet convinced her to sign a prenuptial agreement that left her penniless after their divorce). In 1986, the actress spent a month at the Betty Ford clinic. Although she receives few film or TV job offers today, MacGraw is sober and "growing up at last."
Bantam Books 1991 228 pages

The Destruction of Hillary Clinton

Bordo, Susan
"If you want to understand not only what happened in 2016, but what's going to happen tomorrow, this book is essential reading. Susan Bordo brings a scholar's rigor and a lioness' heart to this important work." --Paul Begala "Among the best books I've read on the 2016 election . . . the perfect companion to Clinton's What Happened ." --Peter Daou The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an answer to the question many have been asking: How did an extraordinarily well-qualified, experienced, and admired candidate--whose victory would have been as historic as Barack Obama's--come to be seen as a tool of the establishment, a chronic liar, and a talentless politician? In this masterful narrative of the 2016 campaign year and the events that led up to it, Susan Bordo unpacks the Rights' assault on Clinton and her reputation, the way the left provoked suspicion and indifference among the youth vote, the inescapable presence of James Comey, questions about Russian influence, and the media's malpractice in covering the candidate. Urgent, insightful, and engrossing, The Destruction of Hillary Clinton is an essential guide to understanding the most controversial presidential election in American history.
Melville House 2017 244 pages

Two Miserable Presidents Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War

Steve Sheinkin
New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient Steve Sheinkin gives young readers the causes and curses that divided America into Union and Confederate nations in Two Miserable Presidents: The Amazing, Terrible, and Totally True Story of the Civil War , illustrated by Tim Robinson. A Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year A Beacon of Freedom Award Winner Get the feeling something big is about to happen? Welcome to the Civil War—one of the scariest, saddest, and occasionally wackiest stories in American History. 1856 : Northern and Southern settlers attack each other in Kansas. 1858 : Congressmen start sneaking guns and knives into the Senate chamber. 1860 : President James Buchanan is heard wailing, “I am the last president of the United States!” Unraveling a very complicated string of events--the small things, the personal ones, the big issues--Steve Sheinkin takes readers behind the scenes that led to The Civil War. It is a time and a war that threatened America's very existence, revealed in the surprising true stories of the soldiers and statesmen who battled it out. “Chatty and accessible, this book does double duty: it introduces Civil War history for readers who don't know much about it and supplies browsable commentary for those familiar with the big picture...Beginning with a look at the role cotton played in the history, his fast-paced narrative is broken into short, tersely titled vignettes...The horrors of slavery and battlefield slaughter are clear, as are achievements of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and many more.” — Booklist Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America
Square Fish 2015-09-22 272 pages

Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist

Philip Dray
The award-winning picture book tells the inspirational story of journalist Ida B. Wells and her crusade for justice and civil rights. A must-have for American, Black, and women's history collections. In 1863, when Ida B. Wells was not yet two years old, the Emancipation Proclamation freed her from the bond of slavery. Blessed with a strong will, an eager mind, and a deep belief in America's promise of "freedom and justice for all," young Ida held her family together, defied society's conventions, and used her position as a journalist to speak against injustice. But Ida's greatest challenge arose after one of her friends was lynched. How could one headstrong young woman help free America from the looming "shadow of lawlessness"? Author Philip Dray tells the inspirational story of Ida B. Wells and her lifelong commitment to end injustice. Stephen Alcorn's remarkable illustrations recreate the tensions that threatened to upend a nation while paying tribute to a courageous American hero.
Holiday House 2021-11-02 48 pages

Capone The Man and the Era

Laurence Bergreen
In this brilliant history of Prohibition and its most notorious gangster, acclaimed biographer Laurence Bergreen takes us to the gritty streets of Chicago where Al Capone forged his sinister empire. Bergreen shows the seedy and glamorous sides of the age, the rise of Prohibition, the illicit liquor trade, the battlefield that was Chicago. Delving beyond the Capone mythology. Bergreen finds a paradox: a coldblooded killer, thief, pimp, and racketeer who was also a devoted son and father; a self-styled Robin Hood who rose to the top of organized crime. Capone is a masterful portrait of an extraordinary time and of the one man who reigned supreme over it all, Al Capone.
Simon and Schuster 1996-08-05 701 pages

Rebel Cinderella From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes

Adam Hochschild
From the best-selling author of King Leopold's Ghost and Spain in Our Hearts comes the astonishing but forgotten story of an immigrant sweatshop worker who married an heir to a great American fortune and became one of the most charismatic radical leaders of her time. Rose Pastor arrived in New York City in 1903, a Jewish refugee from Russia who had worked in cigar factories since the age of eleven. Two years later, she captured headlines across the globe when she married James Graham Phelps Stokes, scion of one of the legendary 400 families of New York high society. Together, this unusual couple joined the burgeoning Socialist Party and, over the next dozen years, moved among the liveliest group of activists and dreamers this country has ever seen. Their friends and houseguests included Emma Goldman, Big Bill Haywood, Eugene V. Debs, John Reed, Margaret Sanger, Jack London, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Rose stirred audiences to tears and led strikes of restaurant waiters and garment workers. She campaigned alongside the country's earliest feminists to publicly defy laws against distributing information about birth control, earning her notoriety as "one of the dangerous influences of the country" from President Woodrow Wilson. But in a way no one foresaw, her too-short life would end in the same abject poverty with which it began. By a master of narrative nonfiction, Rebel Cinderella unearths the rich, overlooked life of a social justice campaigner who was truly ahead of her time.
HarperCollins Publishers 2021-03-02 320 pages

James Madison and the creation of the American republic

Rakove, Jack N.
"As the "father of the Constitution," James Madison's accomplishments are inseparable from the nation he helped create. From his early days in the state legislature of colonial Virginia to his two terms as president, Madison worked tirelessly alongside - and sometimes in opposition to - his political contemporaries to secure the future of a fledging United States. In this biography, author Jack N. Rakove examines both the life and legacy of this Founding Father, showing how the ideological foundation he helped build still supports our nation today."--Back cover.
Pearson/Longman 2007 266 pages

Touch and go: a memoir

Terkel, Studs
At nearly 95, Studs Terkel has written about everyone's life, it seems, but his own. Here he offers a memoir which--embodying the spirit of the man himself--is youthful and vivacious. Terkel begins by taking us back to his childhood, describing the hectic life of a family trying to earn a living in Chicago. He then goes on to his experiences--as a poll watcher charged with stealing votes for the Democratic machine, as a young theatergoer, and eventually as an actor himself in both radio and on the stage--giving us a portrait of the Chicago of the 1920s and 1930s. He tells of his beginnings as a disc jockey after World War II and as an interviewer and oral historian--a craft he would come to perfect. Finally, he discusses his involvement with progressive politics, leading to his travails during the McCarthy period when he was blacklisted.--From publisher description.
New Press 2007-11-30 269 pages

She made me laugh: my friend Nora Ephron

Cohen, Richard M.
“A very personal remembrance of Nora Ephron’s life and loves, and her ups and downs” ( USA TODAY ) by her long-time and dear friend Richard Cohen in a hilarious, blunt, raucous, and poignant recollection of their decades-long friendship. Nora Ephron (1941–2012) was a phenomenal personality, journalist, essayist, novelist, playwright, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and movie director ( Sleepless in Seattle ; You’ve Got Mail ; When Harry Met Sally ; Heartburn ; Julie & Julia ). She wrote a slew of bestsellers ( I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman ; I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections ; Scribble, Scribble: Notes on the Media ; Crazy Salad : Some Things About Women ). She was celebrated by Hollywood, embraced by literary New York, and adored by legions of fans throughout the world. Award-winning journalist Richard Cohen, wrote this about She Made Me Laugh : “I call this book a third-person memoir. It is about my closest friend, Nora Ephron, and the lives we lived together and how her life got to be bigger until, finally, she wrote her last work, the play, Lucky Guy , about a newspaper columnist dying of cancer while she herself was dying of cancer. I have interviewed many of her other friends—Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Arianna Huffington—but the book is not a name-dropping star turn, but an attempt to capture a remarkable woman who meant so much to so many other women.” With “the nuanced perspective of a confidant” ( The Washington Post ), She Made Me Laugh “is a fine tribute to a fascinating woman” ( Houston Chronicle ): “Nora would be pleased” ( People , “Book of the Week”).
Simon & Schuster 2016-09 299 pages

Capitol men: the epic story of Reconstruction through the lives of the first Black congressmen

Dray, Philip
Pulitzer Prize finalist Philip Dray shines a light on a little known group of men: the nation's first black members of Congress. These men played a critical role in pushing for much-needed reforms in the wake of a traumatic civil war, including public education for all children, equal rights, and protection from Klan violence. But they have been either neglected or maligned by most historians--their "glorious failure" chalked up to corruption and "ill-preparedness."--From publisher description.
Houghton Mifflin Co 2008 463 pages

Being Mr. Skin: 20 years of nip slips, cheek peeks, and fast-forwarding to the good parts

McBride, Jim (CEO of MrSkin.com),Klickstein, Mathew
Stripping Down, Laughing It Up, and Being Mr. Skin: The Naked Truth Behind a Hilarious and Unlikely Success Story You’ve heard Mr. Skin on The Howard Stern Show . You’ve seen his website in the blockbuster comedy Knocked Up . Maybe you’ve spent some time poking around on MrSkin.com, the world’s #1 resource for celebrity nudity. Now, Jim McBride—“Mr. Skin” himself—tells his story in uproarious, SKINtastic fashion…nip-slips, cheek-peeks, muff-scruffs and all! Being Mr. Skin details how Jim rose from being a suburban teen in the ‘80s with an impressively annotated videotape collection and an expert recall of the most sensational and sensuous scenes from every movie ever made, to his current status as Chief Sexecutive Officer of MrSkin.com—a naked-star-studded pop culture powerhouse. You’ll be riveted as Jim chronicles the unbelievable journey of juggling suburban family life while establishing his online sensation, quickly becoming the “World’s Foremost Authority on Celebrity Nudity.” Throughout this upward (and outward) saga of Tinseltown T&A triumphs, you’ll get the inside skinny on: • The first time Mr. Skin appeared on The Howard Stern Show and how he became a regular on the greatest radio program of all time! • How Judd Apatow turned Mr. Skin into the surprise breakout star of Knocked Up ! • The time, effort, and tissues it takes to track every nude rack and crack in every movie and TV show ever made! • How some of your favorite actresses feel about being featured on the website—including several Anatomy Award winners! • The truth about Mr. Skin, The Family Man—There is a real Mrs. Skin and there are three lovely “skinfants.” • Mr. Skin’s most stunning showcases and shout-outs in top-tier media, including Saturday Night Live , Family Guy , The People’s Choice Awards , American Idol , and The Adam Carolla Show! • How (and why) Mr. Skin.com became one of the first-ever commercially successful websites. Throughout it all, Jim’s story amuses and amazes on every page. Being Mr. Skin supplies one-of-a-kind insights into how he transformed an offbeat passion into a popular and profitable phenomenon against all manner of odds—only some of which involve unclothed body parts—all with the help of his dedicated staff, friends, and, yes…even his mom! Being Mr. Skin is what Jim McBride does, it’s who he is. And now—for the first time in book form—you can enjoy nothing but “the good parts” (no fast-forwarding necessary). Featuring brand-new comics from Eisner Award nominee Johnny Ryan!
Post Hill Press 2019-05-21 198 pages

The Jerusalem syndrome: my life as a reluctant Messiah

Maron, Marc
By the author of Attempting Normal and host of the podcast WTF with Marc Maron, The Jerusalem Syndrome is The Gospel according to Maron: a spiritual memoir of your average hyperintelligent, ultraneurotic, superhip Jewish standup comedian and seeker. The Jerusalem Syndrome is a genuine psychological phenomenon that often strikes visitors to the Holy Land_the delusion that they are suddenly direct vessels for the voice of God. Marc Maron seems to have a distinctly American version of the Jerusalem Syndrome, which has led him on a lifelong quest for religious significance and revelation in the most unlikely of places. Maron riffs on Beat phenomena with its sacred texts, established rituals, and prescribed pilgrimages. He spends some time exploring the dark side of things, as his obsessions with cocaine (known to Maron as “magic powder”), conspiracy theories, and famous self-destructive comedians convince him that the gates of hell open beneath Los Angeles. As his quest matures, he reveals the religious aspects of Corporate America, pontificating on the timeless beauty of the Coca-Cola logo and even taking a trip to the Philip Morris cigarette factory, where the workers puff their own products with a zealot-like fervor. The culmination of Maron’s Jerusalem Syndrome comes during his own tour of the Holy Land, where, with Sony camcorder glued to his eye socket, he comes face-to-face with his own ambiguous relationship to Judaism and reaches the brink of spiritual revelation_or is it nervous breakdown? Marc Maron has considerably adapted and expanded his praised one-man show to craft a genuine literary memoir. Whether he’s a genuine prophet or a neurotic mess, he’ll make you laugh as you question the meaning of life. “Marc Maron is blazingly smart, rapid-fire, and very funny . . . A brilliant and relentless screed.” –David Rakoff, author of Fraud “Marc Maron is the first crazy person I’ve ever envied. In his brainiac-memoir-meets-hilarious-travelogue, he demonstrates the ability to tell a story with an extraordinary provocative intelligence that is regrettably shared by few.” _ Janeane Garofolo, comedian
Broadway Books 2001-10-09 180 pages