Alexandra "Al" Silber seems to have everything a teenager could want: brilliance, beauty, and talent in spades. But when her beloved father dies after a decade-long battle with cancer when she is just a teenager, it feels like the end of everything. Lost in grief, Al and her mother hardly know where to begin with the rest of their lives. Into this grieving house burst Al's three friends from theater camp, determined to help out as only drama students know how--and they're moving in for the duration. Over the course of that winter, the now five-strong household will do battle with everything Death can throw at them--meddling relatives, merciless bureaucracy, soul-sapping sadness, the endless Tupperware. They will learn (almost) everything about love and will eventually return to the world, altered in different ways by their time in a home by a river. Told with raw passion, candor, and wit, White Hot Grief Parade is an ode to the restorative power of family and friendship--and the unbreakable bond, even in death, between father and daughter.

Felix Gilbert begins this book of memoirs by describing his peaceful and protected childhood in Germany before the First World War. That war, and the revolutionary events that followed it, strongly influenced his choice of profession; he studied history at Heidelberg, Munich, and the University of Berlin. He gives a firsthand account of the intellectually stimulating and politically restless atmosphere in 1920s Berlin. During the first six months of 1933, when the Nazi takeover occurred in Germany, Mr. Gilbert was at work in the archives in Italy. There he received letters from relations and friends in Germany; published here, these letters convey the impact of Nazism on the daily lives of these people. In other chapters of the book Mr. Gilbert, who served as a member of the OSS, vividly describes wartime London, liberated Paris, and occupied Germany. These memoirs end with an account of a mission to Berlin which, for Mr. Gilbert, was also a search for what remained of a world that once had been.

Harry Stein gives us the conversations of a group of older men who meet every week for lunch to reflect on their lives and the state of the world. What is a well-lived life? What is honour, and does it have a place in our society? A profound and poignant meditation on the meaning of honour, told through the words of men who lived life according to the forgotten rules of trust and responsibility. From these conversations, Stein shows us men who lived their lives according to values that have since been declared relative or obsolete: honour, responsibility, decency, and an uncynical commitment to being the best men they could be. Stein presents the stories of this remarkable group of men who lived through the difficult time of the mid-20th century and all its wars and social upheavals. We meet Moe Turner, Stein's father-in-law, a mathematician involved in research on the H-bomb who is Stein's connection to the group. We meet Boyd Huff, a survivor of the Nazi prisoner camps, whose youngest son was killed in a gun accident and oldest is a hospitalized schizophrenic. We meet Gene Cooper, an electrical engineer and the emotional centre of the group. These three men, and the rest of the club, have had difficult lives and plenty of trying moments, yet all of them have survived with their sense of right and wrong, of honour and love, fully intact. Stein connects their background, stories and lives, to the valuable views and ideas they share with him now. What the reader comes away with is a renewed sense of purpose, a new confidence in the strength of courage and conviction in your beliefs—even as those of the world change around you.

Ivan T. Berend is Distinguished Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Director of the European Studies Program. He was one of the masterminds of regime change in Hungary. He made a career in Hungary as a university professor, Rector of the University of Economics (1973–79), and President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1985–90). He was President of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (1995–2000), and Vice-President of the International Economic History Association (1986–1994). His research interests are the complex economic, social, ideological, and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th–20th century; economic modernization; problems of European backwardness; transition from state socialism to capitalism. He published and 26 books and more than 120 studies. Before he became a professor at UCLA, Ivan Berend had survived five regime changes and two revolutions in Hungary, had been in prison and German concentration camp in 1944–45. His memoir offers an interesting case study, a subjective addition to the "objective" historical works on Central and Eastern European state socialism. It describes the hard choices of intellectuals in a dictatorial state: 1. remain in isolation, concentrate on scholarly works, and exclude politics in your personal life; 2. be in opposition, criticize and unveil the regime, accept discrimination and exclusion; 3. remain within the establishment and work for reforming the country using legal possibilities to criticize the regime and to achieve changes from within. Berend’s book raises basic historical questions and debates, compares East European and American higher education systems, and presents an eyewitness’ insights on life in the United States.

In 1975, at the age of forty, Richard Raskind, a renowned eye surgeon and highly ranked amateur tennis player, "died," and Renée Richards was "born," in what was to become the most public and highly scrutinized sex reassignment to date. It was not until Renée Richards was discovered playing in an amateur tennis tournament that the world took notice. Extensive media coverage and criticism thrust Renée reluctantly into the spotlight, sparking an intense public debate over her private life. Now, at seventy-two, Richards looks back and speaks frankly about all aspects of her complicated and often notorious life in this eye-opening, thought-provoking memoir. Richards' honest and compelling narrative explores the dichotomy between the successful life she lived as Dr. Richard Raskind, who seemed to have everything (devoted friends, a beautiful wife and son, a stellar record of academic and professional achievement, and outstanding athletic ability), and a secret life of struggle with a drive that could not be suppressed, even by years of psychotherapy and the force of a considerable will. Richards takes readers through her difficult decision to undergo surgery and the complex mixture of relief and continued frustration that came with the realization of her new identity. Discussing life after her transformation, Richards candidly relates the details, trials, and pleasures of her romantic life as well as fascinating stories about her tennis career, including her experiences as Martina Navratilova's coach. She also provides an intimate account of her difficult but rewarding relationship with her rebellious son: runaway teenager, high-stakes Vegas gambler, karate champion, and entrepreneur. She describes the deterioration of a once-loving marriage and the challenges of reclaiming her place at the forefront of her demanding medical specialty. Having lived as a woman almost as long as she lived as a man, Richards draws on a personal history that illuminates thirty years of remarkable change in society's attitude toward gender issues. Her absorbing and inspiring story, at once heartbreaking and uplifting, is a testimony to how far we have progressed in our ability to discuss and accept sexuality in all its iterations, as well as a reminder of how far we still must travel.