Grover Gardner
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This is the story of a political miracle--the perfect match of man and moment. FDR took office in 1933 as America touched bottom. Banks were closing, millions of people lost everything--the Great Depression had caused a national breakdown. Journalist Alter brings us closer than ever before to the Roosevelt magic. Facing the gravest crisis since the Civil War, instead of circumventing Congress and becoming the dictator so many thought they needed,...
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"In the aftermath of the Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multilayered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers...
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Ron Chernow tells the story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow's biography argues that the political and economic greatness of today's America is the result of Hamilton's countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. Chernow here recounts...
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NOBEL PRIZE WINNER • One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century is the story of a family of Southern aristocrats on the brink of personal and financial ruin.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the...
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the...
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The enthralling story of one of the greatest accomplishments in our nation's history, the building of what was then the longest suspension bridge in the world. The Brooklyn Bridge rose out of the expansive era following the Civil War, when Americans believed all things were possible. So daring a concept as spanning the East River to join two great cities required vision and dedication of the kind that went into building Europe's great cathedrals....
7) The jungle
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A documentary novel portraying industry's conditions at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Sinclair's novel prompted public outrage which led President Theodore Roosevelt to demand an official investigation. This eventually led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug laws.
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This grand old childhood classic relates a small-town boy's pranks and escapades with humor and wisdom that appeal to readers of every age. In addition to his everyday stunts (searching for buried treasure, trying to impress the adored Becky Thatcher), Tom experiences a dramatic turn of events when he witnesses a murder, runs away, and returns to attend his own funeral and testify in court.
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"In June 1846, General Stephen Watts Kearny rode out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with two thousand soldiers, bound for California. At the time, the nation was hell-bent on expansion: James K. Polk had lately won the presidency by threatening England over the borders in Oregon, while Congress had just voted, in defiance of the Mexican government, to annex Texas. After Mexico declared war on the United States, Kearny's Army of the West was sent out,...
11) Andrew Carnegie
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The definitive account of the life of Andrew Carnegie Celebrated historian David Nasaw, whom The New York Times Book Review has called "a meticulous researcher and a cool analyst," brings new life to the story of one of America's most famous and successful businessmen and philanthropists-in what will prove to be the biography of the season. Born of modest origins in Scotland in 1835, Andrew Carnegie is best known as the founder of Carnegie Steel....
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Fresh from his escapades with Tom Sawyer, with six thousand dollars in the bank and the Widow Douglas as his guardian, Huck Finn faces a new challenge: his father, Pap, who is so determined to get his hands on Huck's fortune that he kidnaps Huck and threatens to kill him. Escaping from Pap, Huck meets the runaway slave, Jim, who plans to head north and buy his wife and children our of slavery. Huck joins Jim on a salvaged raft, and together the two...
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"Historian David O. Stewart restores James Madison, sometimes overshadowed by his fellow Founders, to his proper place as the most significant framer of the new nation. Short, plain, balding, neither soldier nor orator, low on charisma and high on intelligence, Madison cared more about achieving results than taking the credit. To reach his lifelong goal of a self-governing constitutional republic, he blended his talents with those of key partners....
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The product of eleven years of research, The Story of Philosophy is an endlessly inspiring and instructive chronicle of the world's greatest thinkers, from Socrates to Santayana. Written with exacting and scrupulous scholarship, it was designed both to command the respect of educators and to capture the interest of the layman.
Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous "monarchs of the mind" as Plato, Aristotle,
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In a biography that looks past the storybook hero who cast aside family and fortune to advance the transcendent aims of liberty and justice, Laura Auricchio gives us a rich portrait of a man driven by dreams of glory and felled by tragic, human weaknesses. We come to understand the personal struggles, social quandaries, and idealistic visions that inspired an orphaned young nobleman to cross an ocean at age nineteen to fight a war that was none of...
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Why might some sex education programs result in more teen pregnancies? Why did reading that self-help book make you feel less happy? What's the best way to recover from trauma? Can we actually improve our lives by redirecting our thinking? We tell ourselves stories to make sense of the world. These stories ultimately determine if we will lead healthy, productive lives or get into trouble. Renowned psychologist Timothy Wilson proposes a radical new...