"A very personal journey through Jewish history (and Cohen's own), and a passionate defense of Israel's legitimacy. Richard Cohen's book is part reportage, part memoir--an intimate journey through the history of Europe's Jews, culminating in the establishment of Israel. A veteran, syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, Cohen began this journey as a skeptic, wondering in a national column whether the creation of a Jewish State was "a mistake." As he recounts, he delved into his own and Jewish history and fell in love with the story of the Jews and Israel, a twice-promised land--in the Bible by God, and by the world to the remnants of Europe's Jews. This promise, he writes, was made in atonement not just for the Holocaust, but for the callous indifference that preceded World War II and followed it--and that still threatens. Cohen's account is full of stories--from the nineteenth century figures who imagined a Zionist country, including Theodore Herzl, who thought it might resemble Vienna with its cafes and music; to what happened in twentieth century Poland to his own relatives; and to stories of his American boyhood. Cohen describes his relationship with Israel as a sort of marriage: one does not always get along but one is faithful"--

Our captain and leader has not left us, today, tomorrow, this year, next … Our endeavors will reflect our love and admiration for him.” —Honorary plaque to Munson in Yankee Stadium Thurman Munson is remembered by fans as the fiercely competitive, tough, and—most of all—inspiring Yankee captain and champion from the wild Bronx Zoo years. He is also remembered for his tragic death, at age thirty-two, when the private plane he was piloting crashed in Canton, Ohio, on August 2, 1979. Munson is the intimate biography of a complex and larger-than-life legend. Written by former Yankees public relations director Marty Appel, who worked closely with Thurman throughout his career, Munson captures the little-known details of the young man from Canton and his meteoric rise to stardom in baseball’s most storied franchise. Appel examines the tumultuous childhood that led Thurman to work feverishly to escape Canton—and also the marriage and cultural roots that continually drew him back. Appel also opens a fascinating door on the famed Yankees of the 1970s, recounting moments and stories that have never been told before. From the clubhouse and the dugout to the front office and the owner’s box, this thoughtful baseball biography delves into the affectionately gruff captain’s relationships with friends, fans, and teammates such as Lou Piniella, Bobby Murcer, Graig Nettles, and Reggie Jackson, as well as his colorful dealings with manager Billy Martin and his surprisingly close bond with owner George Steinbrenner. Munson paints a revealing portrait of a private Yankee superstar, as well as a nostalgic and revelatory look at the culture—and amazing highs and lows—of the 1970s New York Yankees teams. More than a biography, Munson is the definitive account of a champion who has not been forgotten and of the era he helped define—written with the intimate detail available only to a true insider. www.doubleday.com

When twelve-year-old Arcady is sent to a children's home after his parents are declared enemies of the state in Soviet Russia, soccer becomes a way to secure extra rations, respect, and protection but it may also be his way out if he can believe in and love another person--and himself.

"From the bestselling master espionage writer, hailed by Vince Flynn as "the best in the business," comes a riveting novel about the French Resistance in Nazi-occupied Paris. Paris, 1941. The City of Light, occupied by the Nazis, is dark and silent at night. Streetlamps are painted blue and apartment windows draped or shuttered in the blackout ordered by the Germans. But when the clouds part, the silvery moonlight defies authority, and so does a leader of the French Resistance, known as Mathieu. In Paris and in the farmhouses, barns, and churches of the French countryside, small groups of ordinary men and women are determined to take down the occupying forces of Adolf Hitler. Mathieu leads one such Resistance cell, helping downed British airmen escape back to England. This suspenseful, fast-paced thriller by the author whom Vince Flynn calls "the most talented espionage novelist of our generation" captures this dangerous time as no one ever has before. Alan Furst brings Paris and occupied France to life, along with courageous citizens who outmaneuver collaborators, informers, blackmailers, and spies, risking everything to fulfill perilous clandestine missions. Aiding Mathieu as part of his covert network are Lisette, a seventeen-year-old student and courier; Max de Lyon, an arms dealer turned nightclub owner; Chantal, a woman of class and confidence; Daniel, a Jewish teacher fueled by revenge; Joëlle, who falls in love with Mathieu; and Annemarie, a willful aristocrat with deep roots in France, and a desire to act. As the German military police heighten surveillance, Mathieu and his team face a new threat, dispatched by the Reich to destroy them all. Shot through with the author's trademark fine writing, breathtaking suspense, and intense scenes of seduction and passion, Alan Furst's A Hero of France is at once one of the finest novels written about the French Resistance and the most gripping novel yet by the living master of the spy thriller. Praise for Alan Furst "Furst never stops astounding me."--Tom Hanks "Suspenseful and sophisticated. No espionage author, it seems, is better at summoning the shifting moods and emotional atmosphere of Europe before the start of World War II than Alan Furst."--The Wall Street Journal "Though set in a specific place and time, Furst's books are like Chopin's nocturnes: timeless, transcendent, universal. One does not so much read them as fall under their spell."--Los Angeles Times "[Furst] remains at the top of his game."--The New York Times "A grandmaster of the historical espionage genre."--The Boston Globe"--

"In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She's spent her whole life in the coal-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries--and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren't coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle"--

War is coming to Europe. French and German intelligence operatives are locked in a life-and-death struggle on the espionage battlefield. At the French embassy, in Warsaw, the new military attaché, Colonel Jean-François Mercier, a decorated hero of the 1914 war, is drawn into a world of abduction, betrayal, and intrigue in the diplomatic salons and back alleys of the city. At the same time, the handsome aristocrat finds himself in a passionate love affair with a Parisian woman of Polish heritage, a lawyer for the League of Nations. Risking his life, Colonel Mercier must work in the shadows, amid an extraordinary cast of venal characters, some known to Mercier as spies, some never to be revealed --

"In 1887, an Egyptian woman made an astonishing discovery among the ruins of the heretic king Akhenaten's capital city, a site now known as Amarna. She found a cache of cuneiform tablets, nearly four hundred in all, that included correspondence between the pharaohs and the mightiest powers of the day, such as the Hittites, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Love, War, and Diplomacy tells the story of the Amarna Letters and the dramatic world of the Bronze Age they revealed. Blending scholarly expertise with painstaking detective work, Eric Cline describes the spectacular discovery, the fierce competition among dealers and museums to acquire the tablets, and the race by British and German scholars to translate them. Dating to the middle of the fourteenth century BCE and the time of Tutankhamun's immediate predecessors, Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaten, the Amarna Letters are the only royal archive from New Kingdom Egypt known to exist. In them, we learn of royal marriages, diplomatic negotiations, gift-giving, intrigue, and declarations of brotherly love between powerful rulers as well as demands made by the petty kings in Canaan who owed allegiance to Egypt's pharaohs. A monumental achievement, Love, War, and Diplomacy transports readers to the glorious age of the Amarna Letters and the colonial era that brought them to light and reveals how the politics, posturing, and international intrigues of the ancient Near East are not so unlike today's." -- Provided by publisher.

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) wrote some 130 plays, chiefly for the puppet theater, many of which are still performed today by puppet operators and Kabuki actors. The plays included in the volume—three of the most popular domestic dramas and one history play—provide a representative selection of Chikamatsu’s work for Western readers. In his introduction to the translations, Dr. Keene provides the reader with the background essential for an understanding of Chikamatsu’s work. He discusses customs and beliefs in Chikamatsu’s time, their reflection in the behavior ofhis characters, and the essential features of Japanese drama as they developed entirely independently of foreign influence. The four plays included in the book “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki”“The Battles of Coxinga”“The Uprooted Pine”“The Love Suicides at Amijima”

A crucial guide to life before—and after—Tinder, IVF, and robots. What will happen to our notions of marriage and parenthood as reproductive technologies increasingly allow for newfangled ways of creating babies? What will happen to our understanding of gender as medical advances enable individuals to transition from one set of sexual characteristics to another, or to remain happily perched in between? What will happen to love and sex and romance as our relationships migrate from the real world to the Internet? Can people fall in love with robots? Will they? In short, what will happen to our most basic notions of humanity as we entangle our lives and emotions with the machines we have created? In Work Mate Marry Love , Harvard Business School professor and former Barnard College president Debora L. Spar offers an incisive and provocative account of how technology has transformed our intimate lives in the past, and how it will do so again in the future. Surveying the course of history, she shows how marriage as we understand it resulted from the rise of agriculture, and that the nuclear family emerged with the industrial revolution. In their day, the street light, the car, and later the pill all upended courtship and sex. Now, as we enter an era of artificial intelligence and robots, how will our deepest feelings and attachments evolve? In the past, the prevailing modes of production produced a world dominated by heterosexual, mostly-monogamous, two-parent families. In the future, however, these patterns are almost certain to be reshaped, creating entirely new norms for sex and romance, and for the construction of families and the raising of children. Steering clear of both techno-euphoria and alarmism, Spar offers a bold and inclusive vision of how our lives might be changed for the better.

The official companion to the second season of the PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria by award-winning creator and screenwriter Daisy Goodwin. More than 16 million viewers watched the first season of the Masterpiece presentation of Victoria, created and written by Daisy Goodwin—the highest-rated PBS drama in twenty years, second only to Downton Abbey . But what happened after the Queen married her handsome prince? Did they live happily ever after, or did their marriage, like so many royal marriages past and present, fizzle into a loveless round of duty? This all-new companion book by Daisy Goodwin and Sara Sheridan transports us to the private world of Victoria and Albert. Though first cousins, they could not have been more different: Victoria was impulsive, emotional, and capricious, Albert cautious, self-controlled, and logical. But together they forged a bond with each other and with their people that would change the world. Drawing on letters and diaries and fresh insights into royal history, this gorgeous book charts the constant ebb and flow of power within the couple’s surprisingly ardent and modern marriage. Sumptuously illustrated and full of rich insider detail, Victoria & Albert takes us behind the scenes of the magnificent TV drama, including fascinating, in-depth information on the actors, the props, and the costumes – and bringing an extraordinary royal marriage even more fully to life.

An inside look at America’s largest newspaper— The Wall Street Journal ”Phillips offers fascinating insights about American business, politics, and journalism. He traveled in the circles of CEOs, U.S. presidents, prime ministers, and royalty; always at his core he was a reporter. That is the beauty of Newspaperman .” —Vernon E. Jordan Jr., civil rights leader; senior managing director, Lazard Freres & Company; adviser to President Bill Clinton “[Phillips] captures the fabulous stories of a scrawny, precocious boy from reporter to publisher and then CEO, participating in and then presiding over the Journal ’s years of greatest growth.” —Joan Konner, Dean Emerita, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism “Phillips fell in love with newspapers when he was a boy. He’s still infatuated but he doesn’t skip over his tough times or mistakes. That’s what makes Newspaperman such a telling guide to the newsroom and to the top office in the executive suite.” —Lou Boccardi, former president and chief executive, Associated Press; former chairman, Pulitzer Prize Board “This lovely book recounts the life of a wise, thoughtful, and admired newspaper editor and publisher. The tiny Wall Street Journal Warren Phillips joined grew up to be a giant. Newspaperman tells that story.” —Donald E. Graham, chairman and chief executive, The Washington Post Company “[Phillips provides] perceptive commentaries on Germany, Greece, Turkey, England, Spain, China, Russia, and the Middle East. All is told with modest good humor, but repeatedly emphasizes the need for integrity and high standards.” —George B. Munroe, retired chairman and chief executive, Phelps Dodge Corporation “The story of a boy born in Brooklyn, a reporter, an editor, a publisher, a corporate executive, and now the author of a fascinating book.” —James Q. Riordan, former vice chairman, Mobil Corporation “In spite of a few hiccups, honestly related here, Dow Jones was rated by Fortune magazine as the second most-admired company in the United States, and so proved that an outstanding newspaperman can also achieve enormous success as a business builder and leader.” —Hamish Maxwell, former chairman and CEO, Philip Morris Companies Inc. “A memoir from a man who helped transform The Wall Street Journal from a local newspaper to a global operation.. . . Throughout the book, Phillips looks at his part in shaping the Journal ’s news and editorial coverage, and these sections provide insight into his highly successful methods. The author includes many anecdotes culled from his diaries, some very funny, which illustrate the variegated aspects of his life and the people who shared in it.. . . A well-rounded autobiography about the journalism industry and the people who shaped the news over the past 50 years.” —Kirkus Reviews “The sections about the rise of the Wall Street Journal 's quality and influence are fascinating - for journalists and non-journalists alike.” — Philadelphia Inquirer ”Phillips provides an arresting retrospective on modern world history that general readers will find informative and delightful.” — Star-Telegram About the Book When Warren Phillips was eleven years old, his father took him on a guided tour of the New York Daily News , where he got his first look at the frenzied yet surprisingly ordered and controlled world of newspaper publishing. He saw everything from the industrial printing presses churning out newspapers at astonishing speeds to reporters hunched over their typewriters, writing the very stories those presses would be producing within hours—or even minutes. Phillips was hooked. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. Newspaperman tells the story of how an immigrant’s shy son from Queens, New York, rose to the top of his industry powered by little more than passion, brains, and hard work. Phillips began his career working as a copyboy for the New York Herald Tribune for sixteen dollars a week—and ended it as publisher of The Wall Street Journal and CEO of its parent corporation, Dow Jones & Company. The life story of Warren Phillips is the story of the American newspaper business. Here, the details of his vast experience come together to create a broad picture of the newspaper business— revealing how news is discovered, reported, edited, published, and disseminated. Sharing vivid tales of working as a reporter around the world and describing the many colorful characters he meets along the way, Phillips provides a level of insight that only a leading figure in the industry could offer. Newspaperman gives you an up-close look at one of the most influential people in the history of The Wall Street Journal —and an unprecedented view of the business, from its rapid modernization during the post–WWII , cold war era to the early years of digital publishing and the rise of the Internet, which may mark the decline of the printed page forever. Phillips’s entertaining, penetrating, and impressively detailed account is a must-read for both devotees of America’s most iconic business publication and anyone with an interest in how news is reported.

Queen Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, reigned from 1558 until her death in 1603 and is remembered not only as a powerful, often ruthless and successful monarch but also as a virtuous, gracious, and caring ruler. This new biography of Elizabeth I, by a leading scholar, reveals a tough and determined "Virgin Queen", whose education, wit, and wisdom enabled her to succeed in the often turbulent and hostile world of her reign. Charting Elizabeth's childhood, schooling, and family life as well as her relationships with her ministers and suitors, Susan Doran discusses her motivation and the personal qualities that sustained her as queen. Her years in power were often dominated by political intrigue, marriage proposals, disputes over the succession, plots against her life, and warfare. Elizabeth made clever use of events, such as the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and unique interests and attributes, such as her love of theatrical pageant, to enhance her reputation and status. In an era of political and religious upheaval, Elizabeth I emerges as one of the most skillful and formidable monarchs in history. Illustrated throughout with portraits, rare historical documents, and letters in Elizabeth's own hand, this book provides an engaging, authoritative account of Queen Elizabeth I's life and times.

Okay, who was the first flatterer? If you guessed Satan, you'd be close, but according to You're Too Kind, flattery began with chimpanzees, who groom each other all day long. In fact, flattery is an adaptive behavior that has helped us survive since prehistoric times. Our flattery is strategic praise, and to illustrate its myriad forms, Richard Stengel takes us on a witty, idiosyncratic tour, from chimps to the God of the Old Testament to the troubadour poets of the Middle Ages, all the way through Dale Carnegie and Monica Lewinsky's adoring love letters to her "Big Creep." Flattery thrives in hierarchical settings like royal courts or Fortune 500 boardrooms, and it flows both upward and downward. Downward is usually easier, but studies show it works best on those who already have high opinions of themselves. Stengel sees public flattery as an epidemic in our society, and private praise as being all too scarce. Most often, though, flattery these days is just a harmless deception, a victimless crime that often ends up making both the giver and the receiver feel a little better. In short, flattery works.

"The tumultuous early years of the young Jewish state are brought to vivid life through the eyes of two German Jewish brothers. Arie survived the Holocaust in Europe. Peter, one year older, was sent to America before the war began. They find each other again in Israel, learning everyone else in their family has been murdered. Peter becomes a top Mossad agent, deeply involved in many of the key spy adventures of the era. Arie becomes a scheming businessman, among the richest men in Israel: one brother is building the state, the other protecting it. But they have fallen in love with the same woman, a Jewish refugee from Egypt. The brothers' jealousies and intrigues are mirrored by the young nation's very own struggles to survive"--

Jill and Leon Uris came to Ireland looking for answers. Why was Ireland bled by one internal war after another? How can one country contain such greatness and grief? What they discovered was more than the Ireland of peat fires and pubs, of fabled Irish wit and the haunts of the banshees. What they found was a people--trapped in mutual mistrust, but with a courage and kindness that brought them through centuries of bitter occupation and civil dissension, in a land as complexly beautiful as the people themselves. This then is the Urises' "love song" to the Irish and to Ireland.

"The long-awaited magnum opus of America's master playwright and activist Forty years in the making, The American People sets forth Larry Kramer's vision of his homeland. As the founder of ACT UP and the author of Faggots and The Normal Heart, Kramer has decisively affected American lives and letters. Here he reimagines our history. This is the story of one nation under a plague, contaminated by greed, hate, and disease and host to transcendent acts of courage and kindness. In this first volume, which runs up to the 1950s, we meet prehistoric monkeys who spread a peculiar virus; a Native American shaman whose sexual explorations mutate into occult visions; and early English settlers who establish loving same-sex couples only to fall prey to the forces of bigotry. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton revel in unexpected intimacies, and John Wilkes Booth's motives for assassinating Abraham Lincoln are thoroughly revised. In the twentieth century, the nightmare of history deepens as a religious sect conspires with eugenicists, McCarthyites, and Ivy Leaguers to exterminate homosexuals and the AIDS virus begins to spread. Against all this, Kramer sets the intimate heartfelt story of a middle-class family outside Washington, D.C., trying to cope with the darkest of times. The American People is a work of ribald satire, prophetic outrage, and dazzling imagination. It is an encyclopedic indictment, written with outrageous love"--

Presents a history of heterosexuality, explores the contemporary psyche of sexual orientation, and shows how culture creates and manipulates thoughts and experiences of desire, love, and relationships.

An inspiring memoir about love, race, identity, and contested narratives told with unflinching mettle. Through her childhood spent in 1940s New York being raised by two mothers, her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the Civil Rights Movement, and raising her own children in the coalfields of West Virginia, Faith S. Holsaert has been defined by the intertwined forces of race, activism, and family. As a young woman on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement, she learned the power of contested narratives and came to understand her whiteness, her queer identity, and her stakes in overturning racism. Later in life, she confronted sexual abuse and mental illness across three generations of women in her family to find that these painful histories have played a significant role in the development of her identity as a woman, activist, and mother. Through a lifetime laid bare in prose and poetry, Holsaert beautifully quilts memoir, social history, and historic events into a gripping and inspirational narrative. This powerful and structurally innovative work lends new categories of meaning to those who would strive to find their place, hope, and sense of belonging in efforts to fight against systemic racism and lead lives characterized by openness and love.

By the award-winning and bestselling author of Journey to the River Sea, a novel that sings with characteristic Ibbotson warmth and wit.Eva Ibbotson's charming and warm-hearted tale, A Secret Countess was originally published as A Countess Below Stairs.Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion. The staff and the family are sure there is something not quite right about their new maid - but she soon wins them over with her warmth and dedication.Then the young Earl returns home from the war - and Anna falls hopelessly in love. But they can never be together: Rupert is engaged to the snobbish and awful Muriel - and anyway, Anna is only a servant. Or so everybody thinks . . .

With Eve's Hollywood Eve Babitz lit up the scene in 1974. The books that followed, among them Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage, have seduced generations of readers with their unfailing wit and impossible glamour. What is less well known is that Babitz was a working journalist for the better part of three decades, writing for the likes of Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Esquire, as well as for off-the-beaten-path periodicals like Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing and Francis Ford Coppola's short-lived City. Whether profiling Hollywood darlings, getting to the bottom of health crazes like yoga and acupuncture, remembering friends and lovers from her days hobnobbing with rock stars at the Troubadour and art stars at the Ferus Gallery, or writing about her beloved, misunderstood hometown, Los Angeles, Babitz approaches every assignment with an energy and verve that is all her own. I Used to Be Charming gathers nearly fifty pieces written between 1975 and 1997, including the full text of Babitz's wry book-length investigation into the pioneering lifestyle brand Fiorucci. The title essay, published here for the first time, recounts the accident that came close to killing her in 1996; it reveals an uncharacteristically vulnerable yet never less than utterly charming Babitz.