|
|
Biography & Autobiography | - 141 items found in your search |
Click on Title to view full description |
|
|
|
|
1 |
by
0687168945 / 9780687168941 Book Used: Good Book
Good. No Jacket as Issued Good condition, crease and light wear to covers. Text is clean and complete. Excellent reading copy. "'"The authoritative and inspiring story of a great religious leader-the crusader who spearheaded the Protestant Reformation.
Price:
2.95 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
2 |
A. Scott Berg Kate Remembered
Putnam Adult 2003-07 0399151648 / 9780399151644 Hardcover Used: Very Good Hardcover
Published a mere 13 days after the death of Katharine Hepburn, Kate Remembered is best appreciated as a valentine of devoted friendship. It's a moving study of mutual trust and admiration between Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer A. Scott Berg and legendary Hollywood icon Hepburn, who'd established an instant rapport in 1983, beginning a 20-year conversation that blossomed into this enchanting "biographical memoir." As a casual but authoritative survey of Hepburn's career, Berg's book offers little new information to anyone who's read previous Hepburn biographies or Me: Stories of My Life, Hepburn's bestselling 1991 memoir. But the duality of Berg's title reinforces his purpose: "More than my remembrances," writes Berg in his author's note, "this book intends to convey hers." As such, Kate Remembered offers a rare, unvarnished portrait of one of the 20th century's most influential women, achieving a personal intimacy while making the reader feel welcomed in Hepburn's private world of privilege. Although Berg (the acclaimed biographer of legendary editor Max Perkins, producer/mogul Samuel Goldwyn, and aviator Charles Lindbergh) had written all but the final paragraphs by 2001, Hepburn insisted this book remain unpublished until after her death, which came, in quiet dignity at age 96, on June 29, 2003. Given the book's pre-publication secrecy, it's hardly tabloid-worthy, serving instead to correct or clarify details from Hepburn's glory days--especially her long-term affair with Spencer Tracy--while offering choice bits of Hollywood gossip, Hepburn's frequently scathing assessments of other actors, and amusing encounters with such luminaries as Michael Jackson and Warren Beatty (both of whom appear as mock suitors with selfish motivations). It's a brisk read but a substantial one, richly emotional and as dignified as Hepburn herself, whose faults and foibles make her even more appealing than her beloved public persona. --Jeff Shannon
Price:
0.01 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 |
Al Franken Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot
Delacorte Press 1996-01-01 0385314744 / 9780385314749 Hardcover Used: Very Good Hardcover
Bookplate. No markings.Franken, a writer and performer on Saturday Night Live and in feature films, does to Limbaugh what the conservative talk-show host has been doing to Democratic politicians for years. Using admitted half-truths and out-of-context quotes, he skewers Rush & Friends as no liberal has done in years. Franken does a retrospective of Limbaugh's life from when he "fed off the largesse of the government in the form of unemployment insurance"; how he failed to register to vote until he was 35; how he used two airline coach seats to fit his opulent hind-quarters; and how he got a 4-F deferment because of a pilonidal cyst. There are two hilarious sketches: "My 'Conversation' with Rush Limbaugh" uses out-of-context quotes to corner Rush in much the same way that Limbaugh once had a "conversation" with Hillary Clinton; and "Operation Chickenhawk," with Ollie North leading Vietnam draft-dodgers Limbaugh, Quayle, Buchanan, George Will and Clarence Thomas to their demises in Asian rice paddies. Franken also doesn't have anything nice to say about Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Phil Gramm and others of the haranguing right. A mean-spirited, albeit funny, diatribe that will delight liberals.
Price:
0.01 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
10 |
Andrew Nagorski Reluctant Farewell
Henry Holt & Co 1988-05 0030050693 / 9780030050695 Hardcover Used: Very Good Hardcover
From School Library JournalYA Originally published in 1985, this new edition contains new material to put in perspective the new Soviet policy of ``openness.'' Nagorski argues that this new policy is really just the old policy with a new approachthe Soviet intent was and still is to prevent independent reporting of the U.S.S.R. This book remains an entertaining and informative look at a fascinating and complex society, and especially at the day-to-day lives of its people.Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
1.49 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
12 |
Anthony Holden Prince Charles
Encore Editions 1979-09 0689109989 / 9780689109980 Hardcover Used: Acceptable Hardcover
Jacket has crease inside flap and water stain on back bottom edge. Book is a good reading copy.
Price:
0.01 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
13 |
Arthur Meier Schlesinger The Imperial Presidency
Houghton Mifflin 1973-11 0395177138 / 9780395177136 Hardcover Used: Good Hardcover
Small tear back of jacket. No markings. Clean, crisp pages. Nice copy. Reader review:Whatever his shortcomings (see below), historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has a great mind and writes with a silver pen. I am immensely impressed with his book on the growth of presidential power in America and cannot imagine a better introduction to my future studies on this important subject. The book's organization is superb. Appropriately, it first discusses the Founding Fathers' likely intentions in regard to the Presidency and where they disagreed amongst themselves. Next it explains the Presidency and its war power, tracing its development through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, and paying special attention to the Second World War, the Korean War and Vietnam. Most of a 64-page chapter is devoted to President Richard M. Nixon's radical ideas and practices. Democracy and foreign policy is then treated, followed by the Presidency and its powers of secrecy, and finally, the Presidency and its future. As these subjects are dealt with, many facts are thrown at the reader, the totality being hard to absorb. Fortunately, nothing is explained in isolation. The author constantly backtracks, providing new historical context and rehashing material already covered. This practice, plus good organization and a high degree of literary skill (Dr. Schlesinger can *write*), make this book highly readable. Of particular interest is Dr. Schlesinger's discussion of philosopher John Locke's idea of presidential prerogative, of which I was previously unaware (and which I am still mulling over). This is the view that extraordinary national emergencies create temporary exceptions to normal constitutional restrictions on a president's power to act. This prerogative is supposed to come into play during clear threats to the republic that require immediate action and that are recognized by Congress and the people as legitimate emergencies; a president is also supposed to submit himself to the judgment of Congress (e.g., for possible impeachment) after exercising this prerogative, and not pretend that he had been acting within the Constitution (which might set a dangerous precedent). This idea is important because of its influence on the Founding Fathers, who were steeped in Locke, and because of its consequences. Correctly or not, President Abraham Lincoln invoked it during the Civil War, as did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II. President Richard M. Nixon also made use of it... with far less justification. Dr. Schlesinger's treatment of President Nixon, the size of whose index entry dwarfs that of any other topic in the book, is also fascinating. Dr. Schlesinger clearly is appalled by the man and devotes many pages to his schenanigans and his almost monarchical views of Presidential power. He demonstrates just how significant a departure was the Presidency under Nixon from the Presidency as conceived by the Founding Fathers. In a statement that is very true, Dr. Schlesinger calls Nixon's Presidency "a culmination, not an aberration, and potentially the best thing to have happened to the Presidency in a long time" (paraphrasing from memory, since I lost the page). It is unfortunate that Congress did not make the most of Watergate and put the Presidency into its proper place (e.g., see its shameful War Powers Act or the Presidency of Bill Clinton). This, Congress's own role in the expansion of Presidential power (its unwise, Cold War-inspired delegation of foreign policy discretion to the Presidency, its evasion of responsibility, its cowardice, etc.), is also given just and ample treatment. I am concerned about Dr. Schlesinger's possible biases. He discloses, for example, that he was an aide in President John F. Kennedy's administration, and indeed his view of Kennedy's Presidency is relatively rosey. He is also kind to President Roosevelt and must admire him, else he would not be a leading member of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. And as David S. Wyman contends in his definitive history of America's response to the Holocaust, *The Abandonment of the Jews*, Dr. Schlesinger has long maintained (though it does not come up in this volume) that Roosevelt did all he could to save European Jews from the Nazis during World War II--in utter contradiction of the facts. My main criticism of *The Imperial Presidency* is theoretical. I am a strict constructionist, Dr. Schlesinger believes in a looser, evolutionary interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. He says as much in his first chapter. Quoting President Woodrow Wilson--that despot of democracy whose own collectivist impulses and subversion of the Constitution forced our American boys into the bloody trenches of a European war--he objects to the Constitution's being treated as "a mere legal document, to be read as a will or contract," and advocates that its meaning be determined "by the exigencies and the new aspects of life itself." I will state here simply that under this view of the Constitution, the document's meaning becomes anything anybody at any time wishes it to be--in which case it loses all utility, we might as well have no Constitution and kiss our individual rights goodbye to unscrupulous men and prevailing philosophies that might not, in fact, be in our best interest. We have the power of Amendment for a reason. I dare not speculate how Dr. Schlesinger's beliefs might have affected his scholarship. I will note with irony, however, that the constitutional views he expouses have greatly contributed to the "imperial presidency" he so decries. Was Nixon the chief culprit in Watergate--or was he the culmination of intellectuals like Dr. Schlesinger? Despite these criticisms, there is more good in *The Imperial Presidency* than bad. I will repeatedly refer back to it whenever I have questions about what powers our presidents have and how they got them. I might buy a more recent edition. Mine was published shortly after Watergate, the constitutional crisis that occasioned the book's writing, but according to Amazon.com's description of it, it is supposed to cover the Presidency through Ronald Reagan. My curiosity is piqued.
Price:
2.95 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
14 |
Barbara Mandrell Get to the Heart: My Story
Bantam 1990-09-01 0553057995 / 9780553057997 Hardcover Used: Good Hardcover
Light wear to edges of jacket. Books is in clean, tightly bound condition. In the folksy style favored by country music stars and their devoted fans, Mandrell invites us in the front door of her life for a 400-page heart-to-heart. A professional musician playing Las Vegas at 10, touring with Johnny Cash, George Jones, and Patsy Cline at 13, Mandrell cut her first record, got married, and entertained troops in Vietnam while still a teenager. In 1984, at the zenith of her career, she and her two oldest children were in an automobile accident that resulted in the death of the other driver and significant injuries to Mandrell. Alternating chapters juxtapose a standard autobiography with events preceding and following the accident; the two are distinct yet often dovetail. Throughout, Mandrell freely dispenses her opinions on everything from abortion to the appropriate length of men's hair. Recommended for public libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/90.- Barry Miller, Austin P.L., Tex.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
1.49 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
15 |
Barbara Mandrell; George Vecsey Get to the Heart: My Story
Bantam 1991-09-01 0553292439 / 9780553292435 Mass Market Paperback Used: Good Mass Market Paperback
In the folksy style favored by country music stars and their devoted fans, Mandrell invites us in the front door of her life for a 400-page heart-to-heart. A professional musician playing Las Vegas at 10, touring with Johnny Cash, George Jones, and Patsy Cline at 13, Mandrell cut her first record, got married, and entertained troops in Vietnam while still a teenager. In 1984, at the zenith of her career, she and her two oldest children were in an automobile accident that resulted in the death of the other driver and significant injuries to Mandrell. Alternating chapters juxtapose a standard autobiography with events preceding and following the accident; the two are distinct yet often dovetail. Throughout, Mandrell freely dispenses her opinions on everything from abortion to the appropriate length of men's hair.
Price:
0.01 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
16 |
Ben Bradlee A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures
Simon & Schuster 1995-10-01 0684808943 / 9780684808949 Hardcover Used: Acceptable Hardcover
Former library copy with usual markings. Slightly tilted spine. Good, clean condition. Executive editor of the Washington Post from 1965 to 1991, Bradlee helped remake the newspaper into the influential voice it is today. His fluid memoir ably recounts his rich life but offers few revelations (he claims he knew nothing of his friend JFK's promiscuity) and little deep self-criticism. Shaped more by his naval service than by Harvard, in 1951 the well-born Bostonian gave up a journalism job in Washington to become a press attache in Paris, where he buddied up with Art Buchwald and moved to Newsweek. Transferred back to Washington, he was assigned to cover his neighbor JFK, who was then a senator, and rose to power at the magazine's newly purchased Post. Bradlee's tales of Watergate, the Pentagon papers and other big stories are told well enough, and he thoughtfully ventilates in-house debates on issues of privacy and national security. Candid about his marital difficulties and affairs, Bradlee found happiness in 1978 by marrying writer Sally Quinn; he's now involved in civic projects and fatherhood. First serial to Newsweek. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Price:
2.49 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
18 |
Bob Colacello Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House--1911 to 1980
Warner Books 2004-09-23 044653272X / 9780446532723 Hardcover Used: Very Good Hardcover
Reader review:Bob Colocello has produced an honorable, historically valuable, and oh-so readable account of the formation of America's two most iconoclastic political figures. Honorable because given the extraordinary, unique access he enjoyed to the Reagan family and their closest friends Mr. Colocello resisted the temptation to quickly write a hugely popular and profitable, juicy, inside-gossipy, but simplistic piece of hard-backed journalism. This decision also surely involved fending off, tolerating, and finally ignoring incessant pleas from friends, family and editors in an impatient chorus of "Where is it already?" "Hurry up or soon nobody will still be interested in the Reagans anymore." Instead, Mr. Colocell hunkered down and researched, researched, researched, devoting five or six years to understanding the formation of the now near-mythical Ronald and Nancy Reagan, finally producing "Ronnie and Nancy", a remarkable, meticulously detailed intinerary of the unplanned, unexpected odyssey of two normal, not at all politically ambitious people, from middle-class America to the White House; to counting some of history's most meaningful world leaaders as their friends, and for those same historical figures to consider themselves blessed by the friendship of the Reagans. It is an exquisite work. "Ronnie and Nancy" is the American Dream if ever there was one, told with an historian's detail and detachment, combined with a popular writer's ability to combine those facts with the human, page-turning material that describes how hard it was, yet how good it was. The passages in which the author quotes people who were there from the beginning to the end, the legendary Kitchen Cabinet, are priceless in their charm and intimacy and authenticity. I loved this book. I know of no other like it. And because of it I will never again be able to look at a major political figure and his wife or her husband, of whatever ideology, without sympathy for how hard and long a road he or she traveled to get there, to be scorned or lionized, but to make a huge difference. "Ronnie and Nancy" ends as the movie actor, then Governor of California, is elected President of the United States of America. The eight White House years and beyond will appear in a second volume. This reader can hardly wait. Some 100,000 books are published annually in America. "Ronnie and Nancy" is one of the few important ones. (...)
Price:
2.95 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
19 |
Bob Woodward The Choice
Simon & Schuster 1996-07-02 0684813084 / 9780684813080 Hardcover Used: Good Hardcover
Very slight water damage. Previous owner's name written inside. All pages are separate and all text is clean. Good reading copy.ReviewMr. Clinton and Mr. Dole emerge from these pages as bizarre political twins; as portrayed by Mr. Woodward, the subjects of The Choice offer little choice at all. -- The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani
Price:
1.49 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
|
|
20 |
Bob Woodward The Choice
Simon & Schuster 1996-07-02 0684813084 / 9780684813080 Hardcover Used: Very Good Hardcover
No one gets the inside story like Bob Woodward, the reporter of the Watergate scandal who has made a career of investigating -- and writing about -- the inner workings of the highest levels of government. In The Choice he has produced a look at the two candidates for the 1996 presidential race, Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, published before the two parties' political conventions. The book details the political maneuvers endemic to the current climate: strategies, sessions, spins and ads aimed at repositioning and re-focusing either of the candidates in the light most favorable to the latest poll. It is the private not the public faces of our politicians that engage Woodward's skeptical gaze.
Price:
1.00 USD
|
|
Add to Shopping Cart
|
|
|
|
