No one believed it could happen in their town. But it did. Valarie Clark Miller seemed to have it all. Smart and beautiful with a wealthy, successful husband and growing family, Valarie appeared to be the picture-perfect Mormon wife. But it was all a façade. Inside, she was crumbling from the pressures of long-repressed memories of a childhood filled with sexual and physical abuse. In Hometown Betrayal , author Emily Benedek brings you behind the closed doors of the remote Mormon community of Clarkston, Utah. With the help of hundreds of individual stories, she pieces together not only what happened to Valarie, but also the conditions and culture that allowed it. Hometown Betrayal culminates in an account of the Miller family's fight to hold accountable the men--including the local cop-- who abused Valarie and controlled the systems designed to look the other way.

Traces the life of the Polish exile who became an important influence on the development of European socialism and explains why she became politically active

A funny, candid, insightful, and unflinchingly honest memoir from one of New York City's most spirited and outspoken mayors Ed Koch—the bold, colorful, forthright, and impassioned three-term mayor of the city of New York—lived his eighty-eight years to the fullest. In I'm Not Done Yet Koch reflects on life after politics, taking readers through his various career turns since losing the Democratic mayoral primary to David Dinkins in 1989, during which time he worked as a radio talk-show host, a newspaper columnist, a college instructor, a SlimFast spokesman, and an arbitrator on the television show The People's Court. With occasional looks back at his childhood in the Bronx and his political experiences, Koch speaks openly about the ups and downs of what he calls "the third act" of his storied career, offering a frank account of his health and medical challenges, and considering what it has meant to live a life without a partner or children. I'm Not Done Yet is a fearless account of an extraordinary man's under-standing of what it means to reach one's autumn years, and offers proof that the healthiest outlook on advancing age is to keep active at the work you love.

Deborah Solomon's biography sets Jackson Pollock in his time and portrays him as a shy, often withdrawn person, full of insecurities and self-doubts, and frequently unable to express himself about his art or its meaning. Solomon interviewed two hundred people who knew Pollock and his work and she has drawn extensively on Pollock's own writings and other personal papers. She examines the artist's relationships with his family; his wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner; art patron Peggy Guggenheim; the painters Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and many more.

""The Indispensable Man: The Story Of Thomas Alva Edison's Life And Inventive Genius"" by David Sarnoff is a detailed biography of one of the most influential inventors of all time. Thomas Alva Edison is known for his inventions that changed the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the electric light bulb. The book explores Edison's life, from his early years as a curious child to his rise as a successful inventor and entrepreneur. It covers his struggles and failures, as well as his many successes, including his development of the first industrial research laboratory. Sarnoff delves into Edison's creative process, examining how he came up with his ideas and how he worked to turn them into reality. The book also explores Edison's personal life, including his relationships with his family and his colleagues. Overall, ""The Indispensable Man"" provides a comprehensive look at the life and work of Thomas Alva Edison, offering insights into his genius and his lasting impact on the world.The Story Of Thomas Alva Edison's Life And Inventive Genius Seen In 130 Photographs, The Most Unusual Collection About The Inventor Ever Assembled. Additional Authors Are Thomas W. Martin, Giorgio Valerio, Sherman R. Knapp, And Walker L. Cisler. Edited By George E. Probst.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

From This American Life alum David Rakoff comes a hilarious collection that single-handedly raises self-deprecation to an art form. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, or learning primitive survival skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff clearly demonstrates how he doesn’t belong–nor does he try to. In his debut collection of essays, Rakoff uses his razor-sharp wit and snarky humor to deliver a barrage of damaging blows that, more often than not, land squarely on his own jaw–hilariously satirizing the writer, not the subject. Joining the wry and the heartfelt, Fraud offers an object lesson in not taking life, or ourselves, too seriously.

A take-no-prisoners tale of growing up without knowing who you are David Matthews was born on the line between races. His mother was white, but she disappeared when he was an infant, leaving him with pale skin and the prospect of a Jewish identity. His father was black, a journalist and activist who counted Malcolm X among his friends. So growing up in the Baltimore ghetto in the 1980s, Matthews had a choice. He took one look at the school lunchroom and chose white. But that choice took on new implications when he came home to a neighborhood where his chosen race was a liability, if not a hazard. In the years that followed, Matthews slipped in and out of identities as the situation demanded, making use of each to get what he needed. He read the culture around him, soaked up its expectations, biases, and passwords, and fashioned a character that could only exist in this generation in America, an exuberant, open-minded, opportunistic young man making up his life and identity on the fly.

The Nation: A Biography tells the surprising story behind America’s oldest weekly magazine, instigator of progress since 1865—the bickering abolitionists who founded it; the campaigns, causes and controversies that shaped it; the rebels, mavericks and visionaries who have written, edited and fought in its pages for 150 years and counting. The story of The Nation is also the story of our country—and our movement. Entertaining as well as inspiring, Guttenplan’s history of The Nation is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand where we came from—and how to continue the march toward a radical future. “Here’s to The Nation on its 150th birthday,” historian Eric Foner writes in the introduction. “This book makes clear why we should hope that the country’s oldest weekly magazine survives for at least another century and a half.”

In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father—a man conflicted by power who wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as ambassador to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. A masterly writer, Jefferson was an awkward public speaker. A professed proponent of emancipation, he elided the issue of slavery from the Declaration of Independence and continued to own human property. A reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy. With intelligence, insight, eloquence, and wit, Hitchens gives us an artful portrait of a complex, formative figure and his turbulent era.

"It's about time a book came out about one of the most talented and beloved performers in the American theater. Charlotte is the consummate actress, comedienne, entertainer. Her work on stage and screen is always hilarious and somehow also gets you right in the gut. Her story is every bit as brilliant. Read it and smile." -Comedy Legend, Carl Reiner "To think of Charlotte Rae is to smile. Consequently, when I began to read "The Facts of My Life," I was unprepared for the emotional impact it would have on me. By the time I finished the first chapter, dealing as it does with her severely troubled son Andy, I was in tears. "As an old friend of Charlotte's, I thought I knew her fairly well. But as I read on, I discovered that the 'facts of her life' were constantly surprising (as well as amusing and engrossing)! There is so much that I don't know about Charlotte and so much that I now want to know, when the book is finally completed and published, I'll be first in line to get my copy!" -Sheldon Harnick (Composer, Fiddler on the Roof) Charlotte Rae's career spans more than seventy years, from the golden age of television to Shakespeare in the Park, the New York Cabaret scene of the late 1940's and 50's to her hit series, The Facts of Life and well beyond. Off stage and screen, Charlotte's life has been one of joy and challenge, raising an autistic son, coming to terms with alcoholism, the heartache of a broken marriage, the revelation of a gay husband and the sudden challenge of facing middle-age with financial and emotional uncertainties-an crisis she ultimately turned into the determination that brought her stardom. The Facts of My Life is the first opportunity for Charlotte fans to explore the fascinating story of her extraordinary life: poignant and hilarious, a story of courage and triumph, one that speaks for a generation of women breaking barriers, taking on challenges, overcoming personal tragedy, and paving the way for others.

As Reagan's solicitor general, Fried selected and argued cases involving some of the most important legal battles in our time: abortion, flag burning, civil rights, and capital punishment. In this provocative and lively memoir, he gives an inside look at how these controversial cases were part of the larger Reagan judicial revolution.

"The twenty-one chapters in this book celebrate events in which I and my family were intimately involved and became premises for episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show." The book also contains 220 photographs of the stars of yesteryear -- great stars that I trust are fondly remembered by our older readers, and happily introduced to our younger ones" -- preface.

The TV funny man reintroduces the protagonist of Enter Laughing, a Jewish clerk from the Bronx who joins a Shakespeare theater company down South, entertains the troops during World War II, and reaches the brink of comic stardom. 40,000 first printing.

The followup to the New York Times bestseller Stories from Candyland has even better stories to tell--about Candy Spelling's notorious rift and reconciliation with her daughter, Tori, her misadventures in dating and sex, and her new life as a producer, writer, and businesswoman. After thirty-eight happy years of marriage to influential producer Aaron Spelling, raising two children in Hollywood, and co-managing one of the largest estates in the country (finally selling Spelling Manor, as detailed on her HGTV series, for $85 million), Candy is now adjusting to life on her own. In her new uncharted territory, she's ready to share the most intimate details of her life with Aaron; how his illness caused her to question her identity; and how she's reinvented herself as an independent woman, businesswoman, and television personality. Along the way, Candy reveals all-new dishy stories including those of Hollywood friends Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Michael Jackson, Janet Leigh, Dean Martin, and Elizabeth Taylor (her lifelong rival over their jewelry). Engaging, heartwrenching, intimate, and hilarious, Candy at Last shares her story of how family, friends, and her husband's inspiring advice to "follow your dreams" has made her determined to live life to the fullest.

True stories of sudden death in the classic collection by a master of American journalism “Reporters love murders,” Calvin Trillin writes in the introduction to Killings. “In a pinch, what the lawyers call ‘wrongful death’ will do, particularly if it’s sudden.” Killings, first published in 1984 and expanded for this edition, shows Trillin to be such a reporter, drawn time after time to tales of sudden death. But Trillin is attracted less by violence or police procedure than by the way the fabric of people’s lives is suddenly exposed when someone comes to an untimely end. As Trillin says, Killings is “more about how Americans live than about how some of them die.” These stories, which originally appeared in The New Yorker between 1969 and 2010, are vivid portraits of lives cut short. An upstanding farmer in Iowa finds himself drastically changed by a woman he meets in a cocktail lounge. An eccentric old man in Eastern Kentucky is enraged by the presence of a documentary filmmaker. Two women move to a bucolic Virginia county to find peace, only to end up at war over a shared road. Mexican American families in California hand down a feud from generation to generation. A high-living criminal-defense lawyer in Miami acquires any number of enemies capable of killing him. Stark and compassionate, deeply observed and beautifully written, Killings is “that rarity, reportage as art” (William Geist, The New York Times Book Review ). Praise for Killings “Riveting tales of murder and mayhem. . . . [Calvin] Trillin is a superb writer, with a magical ability to turn even the most mundane detail into spellbinding wonder. Armed with this wealth of material, he utterly shines. Every piece here is a gem.” — The Seattle Times “What Mr. Trillin does so well, what makes Killings literature, is the way he pictures the lives that were interrupted by the murders. Even the most ordinary life makes a terrible noise . . . when it’s broken off.” —Anatole Broyard, The New York Times “Fascinating, troubling . . . In each of these stories is the basis of a Dostoevskian novel.” —Edward Abbey , Chicago Sun-Times “The stories . . . are unforgettable. They leave us, finally, with the awareness of the unknowable opacity of the human heart.” —Bruce Colman , San Francisco Chronicle “[Trillin] writes brilliantly. . . . These stories still hold up, as classics.” — The Buffalo News “In his artful ability to conjure up a whole life and a whole world, Trillin comes as close to achieving the power of a Chekhov short story as can anyone whose material is so implacably tied to fact.” —Frederick Iseman , Harper’s Bazaar “I have a book for you true-crime addicts if you’re caught up on the podcast Serial, the cascade on TV of 48 Hours and Dateline NBC episodes. . . . It’s time to pick up Calvin Trillin’s Killings .” — The New York Times Book Review “Well-crafted and thoughtfully composed, lacking judgment and admonishment, these are a true piece of quality journalism, which clearly continues to captivate audiences.” — Library Journal “With telling detail and shrewd insights, [Calvin Trillin] masterfully evokes the places and personalities that hatched these grim episodes.” — Publishers Weekly

In this moving memoir, a young Polish Jew chronicles his life under the Nazis. In the vain hope of protecting himself and his family, Calel Perechodnik made the wrenching decision to become a ghetto policeman in a small town near Warsaw. The true tragedy of his choice becomes clear when during the Aktion he must witness his own wife and child forced to board a train to the Treblinka extermination camp. Filled with loathing for the Germans, the Poles, his Jewish brethren, and himself, Perechodnik fled the ghetto to shelter with a Polish woman in Warsaw. In the course of 105 terror-filled days in hiding, he poured out his poignant story. Written while Nazi boots pounded the streets of the neighborhood and while his tortured memory was painfully fresh, this memoir has a rare immediacy and raw power. Shortly before his death in 1944, he entrusted the precious diary to a Polish friend. The document was eventually deposited in the Yad Vashem Archives in Jerusalem. Left nearly forgotten for half a century, it was finally published in Poland in 1993. We owe a great debt to historian Frank Fox for bringing us this sensitive translation, which reminds us anew of the power and truth of historical memory.

With warmth and candor, bestselling author Feiler recounts the year he spent as a teacher in the world's most heralded school systems. Through his unique perspective, he demystifies contemporary Japanese life. Index.

Follows the roller-coaster life and career of the veteran actor, from his first appearance in burlesque to his success in "Sugar Babies"

Book by Arthur Loesser; Jacques Barzun

The career of astronomer from a woman astronomer's point of view.