Robert Olen Butler0.0 Robert Olen Butler's acclaimed first novel, "The Alleys of Eden," is one of the finest books ever written about the tragic American experience in Vietnam. In "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," his first book of short fiction, Butler offers a compelling chorus of voices that depicts another, heretofore unspoken, legacy of the Vietnam War - the experiences and memories of the many Vietnamese expatriates living in their adopted home of America.
Элис Макдермот0.0 Slipping effortlessly between past and present, between memory and observation, Alice McDermott's critically acclaimed "At Weddings and Wakes" tells the story of three generations of an Irish-Catholic family through the eyes of its youngest members.
На небольшом островке Чаппаквидик у восточного побережья штата Массачусетс была устроена вечеринка для пятерых мужчин (среди — них сенатор Эдвард Кеннеди) и пятерых молодых женщин, принимавших участие в избирательной компании Роберта Кеннеди. (Среди них — Мэри Джо Копечне, 29-летняя блондинка, бывшая секретарша Роберта ). Выпито было несметное количество самого разнообразного спиртного и около полуночи Эдвард Кеннеди вместе с Мэри Копечне сел в свой Олдсмобил и отбыл с вечеринки. На следующий день рано утром около старого заброшенного моста Дайк Бридж, который соединял Чаппаквидик с находившимся на материке Эдгартауном, в воде был обнаружен полузатонувший автомобиль, а в нем — труп молодой женщины.
David G McCullough0.0 Here at last is the first full-scale biography of Harry S. Truman, his life and times, by David McCullough, distinguished historian and prize-winning author.Huge, ambitious, ten years in the writing, and perfectly realized, "Truman" is an American masterpiece about that most American of presidents, "the man from Missouri, " the seemingly simple, ordinary man who in fact was always much more than met the eye and who would achieve a greatness of his own after coming to office in FDR's giant shadow.No one but David McCullough, with his sure grasp of the American past and his feeling for people, could have written this extraordinary, deeply moving biography, at once spare in style yet rich in emotion and insight.Much of the story is drawn from newly discovered archival material and from extensive interviews with Truman friends, family, and figures once prominent in Truman's Washington. And much will com as a surprise to many readers.The story begins with Truman's origins in the raw, expansive world of the Missouri frontier. It chronicles a small-town, turn-of-the-century boyhood, family love, family tragedy, and young harry's years on the farm - years of relentless, often brutal work always cheerfully performed; of dogged learning, dogged courtship, optimism in the face of defeat, and courage in the face of war in 19418, the experience that changed everthing for Truman.Here in colorful detail is the story of his political beginnings with the powerful Pendergast machine that ruled Kansas City, and of Boss Tom Pendergast who sent Truman to the United States Senate, where rapidly, unexpectedly, he proved himself no small-time party hack but a man of uncommon vitality andstrength of character.With a telling account of Truman at Potsdam and his momentous decision to use the atomic bomb, McCullough's "Truman" shows a gritty, untried, unprepared new President facing responsibilities such as had weighed on no man ever before, confronting a new age and the growing menace of Soviet power, and, in a handful of years, under terrible pressures, defining the course of American politics and diplomacy for the next forty years.
Garry Wills0.0 In a masterly work, Garry Wills shows how Lincoln reached back to the Declaration of Independence to write the greatest speech in the nation’s history.
The power of words has rarely been given a more compelling demonstration than in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was asked to memorialize the gruesome battle. Instead he gave the whole nation “a new birth of freedom” in the space of a mere 272 words. His entire life and previous training and his deep political experience went into this, his revolutionary masterpiece.
By examining both the address and Lincoln in their historical moment and cultural frame, Wills breathes new life into words we thought we knew, and reveals much about a president so mythologized but often misunderstood. Wills shows how Lincoln came to change the world and to effect an intellectual revolution, how his words had to and did complete the work of the guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell that has not yet been broken.
Сьюзен Гриффин0.0 Written by one of America's most innovative and articulate feminists, this book illustrates how childhood experience, gender and sexuality, private aspirations, and public personae all assume undeniable roles in the causes and effects of war.
Ричард Родригес0.0 A new book by the most prominent Hispanic writer and thinker in the United States. Ten years after Hunger of Memory, his controversial essay on American education, Rodriguez has written a book about the moral and spiritual landscapes of Mexico and the United States.
Anne Matthews0.0 Across the nation, but especially in the heartland of America, Frank and Deborah Popper's plan to create a ten-state national reserve out of the Great Plains has been greeted by opponents' shouts of rage and proponents' songs of praise. In Where the Buffalo Roam, Anne Matthews follows the Poppers - he a land-use expert and she a geographer at Rutgers University - as they present their blueprint to return millions of devastated acres to their natural glory.
Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates