Book: Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser
Meeting: August 27, 7:00 PM
Book Description:
The self-proclaimed Sun King, Louis XIV ruled over the most glorious and extravagant court in seventeenth-century Europe. Now, Antonia Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of Louis’s accomplishments and follies, exploring in riveting detail his intimate relationships with women.
The king’s mother, Anne of Austria, had been in a childless marriage for twenty-two years before she gave birth to Louis XIV. A devout Catholic, she instilled in her son a strong sense of piety and fought successfully for his right to absolute power. In 1660, Louis married his first cousin, Marie-Thérèse, in a political arrangement. While unfailingly kind to the official "Queen of Versailles," Louis sought others to satisfy his romantic and sexual desires. After a flirtation with his sister-in-law, his first important mistress was Louise de La Vallière, who bore him several children before being replaced by the tempestuous and brilliant Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. Later, when Athénaïs’s reputation was tarnished, the king continued to support her publicly until Athénaïs left court for a life of repentance. Meanwhile her children’s governess, the intelligent and seemingly puritanical Françoise de Maintenon, had already won the king’s affections; in a relationship in complete contrast to his physical obsession with Athénaïs, Louis XIV lived happily with Madame de Maintenon for the rest of his life, very probably marrying her in secret. When his grandson’s child bride, the enchanting Adelaide of Savoy, came to Versaille she lightened the king’s last years—until tragedy struck.
With consummate skill, Antonia Fraser weaves insights into the nature of women’s religious lives—as well as such practical matters as contraception—into her magnificent, sweeping portrait of the king, his court, and his ladies.
-from: Amazon.com
About the Author:
Since 1969 ANTONIA FRASER has written many acclaimed historical works that have been international bestsellers. She is the recipient of many literary awards, including the Wolfson Prize for History, the Saint Louis Literary Award, and the 2000 Norton Medlicott Medal of Britain’s Historical Association. Her works include the biographies Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell, the Lord Protector and Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration. Four highly praised books focus on women in history: The Weaker Vessel, The Warrior Queens, The Six Wives of Henry VIII and, most recently, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. She is editor of the book The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England. Antonia Fraser is married to Harold Pinter -from: Amazon.com
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Saturday, July 07, 2007
July Book
Book: The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey
Meeting: July 23, 2007, 7:00 PM, Room 221
Book Description
A vivid and surprising portrait of life in England at the turn of the last millenniuma world that already knew brain surgeons and property developers and, yes, even the occasional gossip columnist. Chapters follow the structure of an ancient calendar, and overflow with such facts as the recipe for a medieval form of Viagra, what clothing was like in a world without buttons, and much more. A standout among millennium books, offering a revealing comparison of the end of the first millennium with the end of the second. -from: Amazon.com
About the Author
Robert Lacey is the coauthor of The Year 1000 and the author of such bestselling books as Majesty, The Kingdom, and The Queen Mother’s Century. He lives in London. -from: Amazon.com
Links:
Meeting: July 23, 2007, 7:00 PM, Room 221
Book Description
A vivid and surprising portrait of life in England at the turn of the last millenniuma world that already knew brain surgeons and property developers and, yes, even the occasional gossip columnist. Chapters follow the structure of an ancient calendar, and overflow with such facts as the recipe for a medieval form of Viagra, what clothing was like in a world without buttons, and much more. A standout among millennium books, offering a revealing comparison of the end of the first millennium with the end of the second. -from: Amazon.com
About the Author
Robert Lacey is the coauthor of The Year 1000 and the author of such bestselling books as Majesty, The Kingdom, and The Queen Mother’s Century. He lives in London. -from: Amazon.com
Links:
Saturday, May 26, 2007
June Book
Meeting Date: June 26 2007, 7:00 PM
Book: The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Book Description:
For more than twenty years, Sultan Khan has defied the authorities, whether communist or Taliban, to supply books to the people of Kabul. He has been arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and has watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Yet he has persisted in his passion for books, shedding light in one of the world's darkest places. This is the intimate portrait of a man of principle and of his family - two wives, five children, and many relatives sharing a small four-room apartment in this war-ravaged city. As they endure the extraordinary trials and tensions of Afghanistan's upheavals, they also still try to live ordinary lives, with work, relaxation, shopping, cooking, marriages, rivalries, and shared joys. Most of all, this is an intimate portrait of family life under Islam. Even after the Taliban's collapse, the women in Khan's family must submit to arranged marriages, polygamous husbands, and crippling limitations on their ability to travel, learn, and communicate with others. Seierstad lived with Khan's family for months, experiencing first-hand Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it. Stepping back from the page, she allows the Khans to speak for themselves, giving us a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and of a country of great cultural riches and extreme contradictions.
-from: amazon.com
About the Author:
Åsne Seiserstad was born in 1970 and studied Russian, Spanish and the history of Philosophy at Oslo University. She has worked as a war correspondent, first in Russia between 1993 and 1996, then in China in 1997. Between 1998 and 2000 she reported on the war in Kosovo for Norwegian television, and in 2000 she published With Their Backs to the Wall: Portraits from Serbia. In autumn 2001 she spent three months in Afghanistan, reporting for a number of major Scandinavian newspapers. In spring 2003 she reported on the war in Iraq from Baghdad.
Åsne Seiserstad has received numerous awards for her journalism. The Bookseller of Kabul is one of the bestselling Norwegian Books of all time, and has been translated into many languages.
-from: www.virago.co.uk
Links
Asne Seierstad: Profile: Virago
Sarah Waters - profile, interview and extracts from Sarah Waters's works.
Asne Seierstad interview.
A Baghdad Journal - Asne Seierstad.
Amazon.com: The Bookseller of Kabul: Books: Asne Seierstad
A Hundred & One Days: An Interview with Asne Seierstad
Asne Seierstad - A biography of Asne Seierstad.
Book reviews of The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad.
Book: The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Book Description:
For more than twenty years, Sultan Khan has defied the authorities, whether communist or Taliban, to supply books to the people of Kabul. He has been arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and has watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Yet he has persisted in his passion for books, shedding light in one of the world's darkest places. This is the intimate portrait of a man of principle and of his family - two wives, five children, and many relatives sharing a small four-room apartment in this war-ravaged city. As they endure the extraordinary trials and tensions of Afghanistan's upheavals, they also still try to live ordinary lives, with work, relaxation, shopping, cooking, marriages, rivalries, and shared joys. Most of all, this is an intimate portrait of family life under Islam. Even after the Taliban's collapse, the women in Khan's family must submit to arranged marriages, polygamous husbands, and crippling limitations on their ability to travel, learn, and communicate with others. Seierstad lived with Khan's family for months, experiencing first-hand Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it. Stepping back from the page, she allows the Khans to speak for themselves, giving us a genuinely gripping and moving portrait of a family, and of a country of great cultural riches and extreme contradictions.
-from: amazon.com
About the Author:
Åsne Seiserstad was born in 1970 and studied Russian, Spanish and the history of Philosophy at Oslo University. She has worked as a war correspondent, first in Russia between 1993 and 1996, then in China in 1997. Between 1998 and 2000 she reported on the war in Kosovo for Norwegian television, and in 2000 she published With Their Backs to the Wall: Portraits from Serbia. In autumn 2001 she spent three months in Afghanistan, reporting for a number of major Scandinavian newspapers. In spring 2003 she reported on the war in Iraq from Baghdad.
Åsne Seiserstad has received numerous awards for her journalism. The Bookseller of Kabul is one of the bestselling Norwegian Books of all time, and has been translated into many languages.
-from: www.virago.co.uk
Links
Asne Seierstad: Profile: Virago
Sarah Waters - profile, interview and extracts from Sarah Waters's works.
Asne Seierstad interview.
A Baghdad Journal - Asne Seierstad.
Amazon.com: The Bookseller of Kabul: Books: Asne Seierstad
A Hundred & One Days: An Interview with Asne Seierstad
Asne Seierstad - A biography of Asne Seierstad.
Book reviews of The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad.
Monday, April 02, 2007
May Book
Meeting Date: May 21, 7:00 PM
Book: Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt
Book Description:
He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents’ sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind.
In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.
Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus’ famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny.
Anthony Everitt’s biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics—where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another’s sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories—about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on—make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.
Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome
(from: Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Anthony Everitt’s fascination with ancient Rome began when he studied classics in school and has persisted ever since. He read English literature at Cambridge University and served four years as secretary general of the Arts Council for Great Britain. A visiting professor of arts and cultural policy at Nottingham Trent University and City University, Everitt has written extensively on European culture and development, and has contributed to the Guardian and Financial Times since 1994. Cicero, his first biography, was chosen by both Allan Massie and Andrew Roberts as the best book of the year in the United Kingdom. Anthony Everitt lives near Colchester, England’s first recorded town, founded by the Romans, and [has written] a biography of Augustus.
(from: Amazon.com)
Links:
Book: Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt
Book Description:
He squared off against Caesar and was friends with young Brutus. He advised the legendary Pompey on his somewhat botched transition from military hero to politician. He lambasted Mark Antony and was master of the smear campaign, as feared for his wit as he was for exposing his opponents’ sexual peccadilloes. Brilliant, voluble, cranky, a genius of political manipulation but also a true patriot and idealist, Cicero was Rome’s most feared politician, one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of all times. Machiavelli, Queen Elizabeth, John Adams and Winston Churchill all studied his example. No man has loomed larger in the political history of mankind.
In this dynamic and engaging biography, Anthony Everitt plunges us into the fascinating, scandal-ridden world of ancient Rome in its most glorious heyday. Accessible to us through his legendary speeches but also through an unrivaled collection of unguarded letters to his close friend Atticus, Cicero comes to life in these pages as a witty and cunning political operator.
Cicero leapt onto the public stage at twenty-six, came of age during Spartacus’ famous revolt of the gladiators and presided over Roman law and politics for almost half a century. He foiled the legendary Catiline conspiracy, advised Pompey, the victorious general who brought the Middle East under Roman rule, and fought to mobilize the Senate against Caesar. He witnessed the conquest of Gaul, the civil war that followed and Caesar’s dictatorship and assassination. Cicero was a legendary defender of freedom and a model, later, to French and American revolutionaries who saw themselves as following in his footsteps in their resistance to tyranny.
Anthony Everitt’s biography paints a caustic picture of Roman politics—where Senators were endlessly filibustering legislation, walking out, rigging the calendar and exposing one another’s sexual escapades, real or imagined, to discredit their opponents. This was a time before slander and libel laws, and the stories—about dubious pardons, campaign finance scandals, widespread corruption, buying and rigging votes, wife-swapping, and so on—make the Lewinsky affair and the U.S. Congress seem chaste.
Cicero was a wily political operator. As a lawyer, he knew no equal. Boastful, often incapable of making up his mind, emotional enough to wander through the woods weeping when his beloved daughter died in childbirth, he emerges in these pages as intensely human, yet he was also the most eloquent and astute witness to the last days of Republican Rome
(from: Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Anthony Everitt’s fascination with ancient Rome began when he studied classics in school and has persisted ever since. He read English literature at Cambridge University and served four years as secretary general of the Arts Council for Great Britain. A visiting professor of arts and cultural policy at Nottingham Trent University and City University, Everitt has written extensively on European culture and development, and has contributed to the Guardian and Financial Times since 1994. Cicero, his first biography, was chosen by both Allan Massie and Andrew Roberts as the best book of the year in the United Kingdom. Anthony Everitt lives near Colchester, England’s first recorded town, founded by the Romans, and [has written] a biography of Augustus.
(from: Amazon.com)
Links:
Sunday, April 01, 2007
April Book
Meeting Date: April 23, 2007 7:00 PM
Book: Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr
Book Description:
Since his execution by guillotine in July 1794, Maximilien Robespierre has been contested terrain for historians, at once the most notorious leader of the French Revolution and the least comprehensible. Was he a bloodthirsty charlatan or the only true defender of revolutionary ideals? Was his extreme moralismhe was known as The Incorruptiblea heroic virtue or a ruinous flaw? Was he the first modern dictator or the earliest democrat? Against the dramatic backdrop of the French Revolution, historian Ruth Scurr follows the trajectory of Robespierres paradoxical life, from his unprepossessing beginnings as a provincial lawyer opposed to repressive authority and the death penalty, to his meteoric rise in Paris politics as a devastatingly efficient revolutionary leader, righteous and paranoid in equal measure. She explores his reformist zeal, his role in the trial of the king and the fall of the monarchy, his passionate attempt to design a modern republic, even his extraordinary effort to found a perfect religion. And she follows him into the depths of the Terror, as he makes summary execution the order of the day, himself falling victim to the violence at the age of thirty-six. Written with epic sweep, full of nuance and insight, Fatal Purity is a fascinating portrait of a man who identified with the Revolution to the point of madness, and in so doing changed the course of history.
About the Author:
Born in 1971, Ruth Scurr studied at Oxford and Cambridge, where she currently teaches politics and history. A prominent literary critic, she has written for The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. Fatal Purity is her first book.
Links:
Book: Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr
Book Description:
Since his execution by guillotine in July 1794, Maximilien Robespierre has been contested terrain for historians, at once the most notorious leader of the French Revolution and the least comprehensible. Was he a bloodthirsty charlatan or the only true defender of revolutionary ideals? Was his extreme moralismhe was known as The Incorruptiblea heroic virtue or a ruinous flaw? Was he the first modern dictator or the earliest democrat? Against the dramatic backdrop of the French Revolution, historian Ruth Scurr follows the trajectory of Robespierres paradoxical life, from his unprepossessing beginnings as a provincial lawyer opposed to repressive authority and the death penalty, to his meteoric rise in Paris politics as a devastatingly efficient revolutionary leader, righteous and paranoid in equal measure. She explores his reformist zeal, his role in the trial of the king and the fall of the monarchy, his passionate attempt to design a modern republic, even his extraordinary effort to found a perfect religion. And she follows him into the depths of the Terror, as he makes summary execution the order of the day, himself falling victim to the violence at the age of thirty-six. Written with epic sweep, full of nuance and insight, Fatal Purity is a fascinating portrait of a man who identified with the Revolution to the point of madness, and in so doing changed the course of history.
About the Author:
Born in 1971, Ruth Scurr studied at Oxford and Cambridge, where she currently teaches politics and history. A prominent literary critic, she has written for The New York Review of Books and The Times Literary Supplement. Fatal Purity is her first book.
Links:
- French Revolution - Victorian Web
- French Revolution chronology
- The Origins of the French Revolution
- The Project Gutenberg EBook of The French Revolution, by Thomas Carlyle
- The Avalon Project : Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789
- Pamphlets and Periodicals of the French Revolution of 1848
- Links on the French Revolution
Thursday, March 01, 2007
March Book
Meeting Date: Monday March 26, 7:00 PM
Book:Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
Book Description:
Galileo Galilei's telescopes allowed him to discover a new reality in the heavens. But for publicly declaring his astounding argument--that the earth revolves around the sun--he was accused of heresy and put under house arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Living a far different life, Galileo's daughter Virginia, a cloistered nun, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength through the difficult years of his trial and persecution.
Drawing upon the remarkable surviving letters that Virginia wrote to her father, Dava Sobel has written a fascinating history of Medici--era Italy, a mesmerizing account of Galileo's scientific discoveries and his trial by Church authorities, and a touching portrayal of a father--daughter relationship. Galileo's Daughter is a profoundly moving portrait of the man who forever changed the way we see the universe.
(from: amazon.com)
About the Author:
Dava Sobel is an award--winning former science writer for the New York Times and has written frequently about science for several magazines, including Audubon, Discover, Life, the New York Times Magazine, and the New Yorker.
(from: amazon.com)
Links
Book:Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
Book Description:
Galileo Galilei's telescopes allowed him to discover a new reality in the heavens. But for publicly declaring his astounding argument--that the earth revolves around the sun--he was accused of heresy and put under house arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Living a far different life, Galileo's daughter Virginia, a cloistered nun, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength through the difficult years of his trial and persecution.
Drawing upon the remarkable surviving letters that Virginia wrote to her father, Dava Sobel has written a fascinating history of Medici--era Italy, a mesmerizing account of Galileo's scientific discoveries and his trial by Church authorities, and a touching portrayal of a father--daughter relationship. Galileo's Daughter is a profoundly moving portrait of the man who forever changed the way we see the universe.
(from: amazon.com)
About the Author:
Dava Sobel is an award--winning former science writer for the New York Times and has written frequently about science for several magazines, including Audubon, Discover, Life, the New York Times Magazine, and the New Yorker.
(from: amazon.com)
Links
Thursday, February 01, 2007
February Book
- Meeting Date: Monday February 26, 2007 7:00 PM
Book: Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America by Paul Schneider
Book Description:
One part Lewis and Clark, one part Heart of Darkness, Brutal Journey tells the story of an army of would-be conquerors who came to the New World on the heels of Corts. Bound for glory, they landed in Florida in 1528. But only four of the four hundred would survive: eight years and a 5,000-mile journey later, three Spaniards and a black Moroccan wandered out of the wilderness to the north of the Rio Grande and into Cortss gold-drenched Mexico. The survivors brought nothing back other than their story, but what a tale it was. They had become killers and cannibals, torturers and torture victims, slavers and enslaved. They became faith healers, arms dealers, canoe thieves, spider eaters, and finally, when there were only the four of them left in the high Texas desert, they became itinerate messiahs. They became, in other words, whatever it took to stay alive long enough to reach Mexico, the only place where they were certain they would find an outpost of the Spanish empire. The journey of the Narvez expedition is one of the greatest survival epics in the history of American exploration. By combining the accounts of the explorers with the most recent findings of archaeologists and academic historians, Brutal Journey offers an authentic narrative to replace a legend of North American exploration.
(from: amazon.com)
About the Author:
Biography
Born and raised in Massachusetts, mostly Amherst, a college town in the western half of the state. Went to public high school then Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. After stints working with refugees in Thailand, prep-school students in Switzerland, and a brief career as a wire-service stringer in Kenya, I settled into magazine journalism in New York City. On staff at Esquire, and freelancing all over town, (including Vanity Fair where I met my wife) I eventually found myself writing mostly about environmental issues, primarily for the National Aububon Magazine.
That work led to my first book, The Adirondacks, A History of America's First Wilderness, which was a New York Times notable book of 1997. My second book, The Enduring Shore, A History of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket, was also published by Henry Holt and was well received.
Sometime in between those two books I came across a very brief mention of the Cabeza de Vaca story in an obscure book on the old trails west. I knew immediately that I had to know more about this incredible story of four who survived and crossed America out of 400 who landed in Florida in 1528. That obsession eventually resulted in Brutal Journey, my newest book, which the New York Times called "hard to believe, and impossible to forget."
(from: amazon.com)
Links - Author Profile
- Cabeza de Vaca in North America
- PBS "The West"
- Online verion of Cabeza de Vaca's La relación
Monday, January 01, 2007
January Book
Meeting Date: Monday January 22nd, 7:00 PM
Book: Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa by Nicholas Shrady
Book Description:
In Tilt, author Nicholas Shrady reveals how the campanile, or bell tower, in Pisa's Campo dei Miracoli became the iconic Tower of Pisa. Even standing straight and true, the tower's marble and lime fa‡ade would be instantly recognizable the world over. Yet its distinctive tilt, which measured 1.6 degrees from vertical when construction was completed in 1370, has long been a mystery. Was it the result of shoddy workmanship or the brainchild of a hunchback maestro who skewed the tower to avenge his own condition? Nearly a millennium since its construction, the tower still stands (more than 4 meters -- or 5 degrees -- askew) in defiance of logic, gravity, and soaring odds -- a mute witness to history as it has unfolded.
Envisioned as a display of wealth and power in Pisa's medieval heyday, the tower was revolutionary in its design. Architectural sleight of hand lent the campanile the appearance of weightlessness even as it supported seven colossal bronze bells. Technical achievements and rare beauty aside, it is the tower's glaring folly that has attracted legions of admirers and would-be saviors -- even as it alarmed engineers.
In addition to having defied the known laws of physics, the tower's cylindrical masonry has concealed a storied past. Galileo was said to have launched his experiments on the velocity of falling bodies from atop its heights. Lord Byron, the Shelleys, and their Romantics frolicked in its listing shadow. Benito Mussolini tried to right the tower by ordering that cement be injected into its foundation. During World War II, the "Tiltin' Hilton" was a suspected enemy hideout and narrowly escaped being bombed. Following a $30 million stabilization and restoration effort lasting more than a decade and into the twenty-first century, Pisa's Leaning Tower has been preserved for the ages as an architectural marvel and a paragon of modern tourism.
Tilt encapsulates the tower's singular history in a hugely entertaining and informative narrative, by turns learned and whimsical, reverent and surprising. Here is a "biography" that, like its subject, is all the more delightful for its thorough improbability. It is a celebration of inspired vision and human machinations, of supreme ambition and spiritual enlightenment, of science and superstition, of faith and miracles. (from: amazon.com)
About the Author:
Nicholas Shrady is the author of Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail. His articles have appeared in Architectural Digest, The New York Times Book Review, Travel & Leisure, Forbes, and Town & Country. Since 1986, he has made his home in Barcelona. His wife, Eva Ortega, and his sons divide their time between Barcelona and their olive grove in the hills above the Ebro Delta. (from: amazon.com)
Links
Book: Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa by Nicholas Shrady
Book Description:
In Tilt, author Nicholas Shrady reveals how the campanile, or bell tower, in Pisa's Campo dei Miracoli became the iconic Tower of Pisa. Even standing straight and true, the tower's marble and lime fa‡ade would be instantly recognizable the world over. Yet its distinctive tilt, which measured 1.6 degrees from vertical when construction was completed in 1370, has long been a mystery. Was it the result of shoddy workmanship or the brainchild of a hunchback maestro who skewed the tower to avenge his own condition? Nearly a millennium since its construction, the tower still stands (more than 4 meters -- or 5 degrees -- askew) in defiance of logic, gravity, and soaring odds -- a mute witness to history as it has unfolded.
Envisioned as a display of wealth and power in Pisa's medieval heyday, the tower was revolutionary in its design. Architectural sleight of hand lent the campanile the appearance of weightlessness even as it supported seven colossal bronze bells. Technical achievements and rare beauty aside, it is the tower's glaring folly that has attracted legions of admirers and would-be saviors -- even as it alarmed engineers.
In addition to having defied the known laws of physics, the tower's cylindrical masonry has concealed a storied past. Galileo was said to have launched his experiments on the velocity of falling bodies from atop its heights. Lord Byron, the Shelleys, and their Romantics frolicked in its listing shadow. Benito Mussolini tried to right the tower by ordering that cement be injected into its foundation. During World War II, the "Tiltin' Hilton" was a suspected enemy hideout and narrowly escaped being bombed. Following a $30 million stabilization and restoration effort lasting more than a decade and into the twenty-first century, Pisa's Leaning Tower has been preserved for the ages as an architectural marvel and a paragon of modern tourism.
Tilt encapsulates the tower's singular history in a hugely entertaining and informative narrative, by turns learned and whimsical, reverent and surprising. Here is a "biography" that, like its subject, is all the more delightful for its thorough improbability. It is a celebration of inspired vision and human machinations, of supreme ambition and spiritual enlightenment, of science and superstition, of faith and miracles. (from: amazon.com)
About the Author:
Nicholas Shrady is the author of Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail. His articles have appeared in Architectural Digest, The New York Times Book Review, Travel & Leisure, Forbes, and Town & Country. Since 1986, he has made his home in Barcelona. His wife, Eva Ortega, and his sons divide their time between Barcelona and their olive grove in the hills above the Ebro Delta. (from: amazon.com)
Links
Friday, December 01, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
November Book
Meeting Date: Monday November 27th, 7:00 PM
Book: Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose
Book Description:
Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors–including the spymaster at the heart of it all.
In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy.
Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn’t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception–and proved an adept spymaster.
The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners–that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington’s Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy.
(from: Amazon.com)
About the Author
ALEXANDER ROSE earned his doctorate from Cambridge University, where his prizewinning research focused on political and scientific history. He is the author of Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History, and his writing has appeared in the New York Observer, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He lives in New York City.
(from: Amazon.com)
Links:
Book: Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose
Book Description:
Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors–including the spymaster at the heart of it all.
In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy.
Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn’t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception–and proved an adept spymaster.
The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners–that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington’s Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy.
(from: Amazon.com)
About the Author
ALEXANDER ROSE earned his doctorate from Cambridge University, where his prizewinning research focused on political and scientific history. He is the author of Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History, and his writing has appeared in the New York Observer, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He lives in New York City.
(from: Amazon.com)
Links:
Sunday, October 01, 2006
October Book
Meeting Date: October 23, 7:00 PM
Book: Selected Genghis Khan Biographies
Book: Selected Genghis Khan Biographies
- Genghis Khan : conqueror of the world / Leo de Hartog.
- Genghis Khan / James Chambers.
- Genghis Khan : his life and legacy / Paul Ratchnevsky
- Genghis khan / Brenda Lange.
This month we are doing things a little different. We are taking on the life of a person as opposed to a single book.
Friday, September 01, 2006
September Book
Meeting Date: September 25, 7:00 PM
Book: The Pirate Hunter : The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks
Book Description:
Everybody knows the legend of Captain Kidd, Americas most ruthless buccanneer. Few people realize that the facts of his life make for a much better tale. Kidd was actually a tough New York sea captain hired to chase pirates, a married war hero whose secret mission took a spectacularly bad turn. This harrowing tale traces Kidds voyages in the 1690s from his home near Wall Street to Whitehall Palace in London, from the ports of the Caribbean to a secret pirate paradise off Madagascar. Author Richard Zacks, during his research, also unearthed the story of a long forgotten rogue named Robert Culliford, who dogged Kidd and led Kidds crew to mutiny not once but twice. The lives of Kidd and Culliford play out like an unscripted duel: one man would hang in the harbor, the other would walk away with the treasure. Filled with superb writing and impeccable research, The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and a ripping good yarn, and it delivers something rare: an authentic pirate story for grown-ups.
-from: Amazon.com
About the Author:
Richard Zacks spent more than three years researching The Pirate Hunter, including months at the Public Record Office in London (where he found a pirate prisoner's long-lost diary). Zacks is the author of two previous books of unusual research: the bestselling History Laid Bare and perennial book club favorite An Underground Education. He lives in Pelham, New York.
-from: Amazon.com
Links:
Author Biographical information
The Pirate Hunter Website
Author Interview
Book Browse Review
Salon.com Review
Pirates of the Caribbean, in Fact and Fiction
Pirates - Fact and Legend
Piracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pirates - National Maritime Museum,
Pirates and Privateers: The History of Maritime Piracy
Elizabeth's Pirates
Book: The Pirate Hunter : The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks
Book Description:
Everybody knows the legend of Captain Kidd, Americas most ruthless buccanneer. Few people realize that the facts of his life make for a much better tale. Kidd was actually a tough New York sea captain hired to chase pirates, a married war hero whose secret mission took a spectacularly bad turn. This harrowing tale traces Kidds voyages in the 1690s from his home near Wall Street to Whitehall Palace in London, from the ports of the Caribbean to a secret pirate paradise off Madagascar. Author Richard Zacks, during his research, also unearthed the story of a long forgotten rogue named Robert Culliford, who dogged Kidd and led Kidds crew to mutiny not once but twice. The lives of Kidd and Culliford play out like an unscripted duel: one man would hang in the harbor, the other would walk away with the treasure. Filled with superb writing and impeccable research, The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and a ripping good yarn, and it delivers something rare: an authentic pirate story for grown-ups.
-from: Amazon.com
About the Author:
Richard Zacks spent more than three years researching The Pirate Hunter, including months at the Public Record Office in London (where he found a pirate prisoner's long-lost diary). Zacks is the author of two previous books of unusual research: the bestselling History Laid Bare and perennial book club favorite An Underground Education. He lives in Pelham, New York.
-from: Amazon.com
Links:
Author Biographical information
The Pirate Hunter Website
Author Interview
Book Browse Review
Salon.com Review
Pirates of the Caribbean, in Fact and Fiction
Pirates - Fact and Legend
Piracy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pirates - National Maritime Museum,
Pirates and Privateers: The History of Maritime Piracy
Elizabeth's Pirates
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
August Book
Meeting Date: August 28, 7:00 PM
Book: A History Of The World In Six Glasses by Tom Standage
Book Description:
Throughout human history. certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.
For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.
About the Author:
Tom Standage is technology editor at the Economist, and the author of The Turk, The Neptune File, and The Victorian Internet. He lives in Greenwich, England.
Links:
Tom Standage's Blog
http://www.tomstandage.com/
Reviews
http://www.portlandonline.com/water/index.cfm?a=baeijc&c=ebeje
http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1590
History of Tea
http://www.stashtea.com/facts.htm
Tea Home Page
http://www.tea.co.uk/
History of Coffee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
http://www.justaboutcoffee.com/index.php?file=history
Coca-Cola website
http://www2.coca-cola.com/
Book: A History Of The World In Six Glasses by Tom Standage
Book Description:
Throughout human history. certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.
For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.
About the Author:
Tom Standage is technology editor at the Economist, and the author of The Turk, The Neptune File, and The Victorian Internet. He lives in Greenwich, England.
Links:
Tom Standage's Blog
http://www.tomstandage.com/
Reviews
http://www.portlandonline.com/water/index.cfm?a=baeijc&c=ebeje
http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm?book_number=1590
History of Tea
http://www.stashtea.com/facts.htm
Tea Home Page
http://www.tea.co.uk/
History of Coffee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee
http://www.justaboutcoffee.com/index.php?file=history
Coca-Cola website
http://www2.coca-cola.com/
Saturday, July 01, 2006
July Book
Meeting Date: July 24, 7:00 PM
Book: Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran
Book Description:
A clever, funny memoir from a young woman who fulfills her Mission: Impossible dreams by joining the CIA, only to discover that the life of a spy is not at all what she expected.
Lindsay Moran was a bright-eyed, idealistic Harvard graduate who hoped to serve her patriotic duty while living a life she'd first dreamed of as a child watching James Bond movies and reading Harriet the Spy. After applying to the CIA and passing lie detector tests, background investigations, and psychological screenings, she soon found herself in training at the Farm, learning how to crash cars through barriers at a hundred miles an hour, not to mention how to withstand interrogation.
But she was simultaneously learning that the life of a spy wasn't nearly the glamorous-not to mention principled-job she thought it would be. Her first posting, to Macedonia, confirmed it, as she witnessed firsthand the culture inside an organization whose intelligence failures led to tragic results during her own tenure. With a true story both thoughtful and funny, a wonderful new talent pulls open the doors to the CIA (from: Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Lindsay Moran is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. From 1998 to 2003, she worked as a case officer for the CIA.
Websites:
official CIA website
http://www.cia.gov/
Wikipedia Entry for CIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA
BookPage Review
http://www.bookpage.com/0502bp/nonfiction/blowing_my_cover.html
Interview with Lindsay Moran
http://www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp.php?ISBN=0399152393
Lindsay Moran's Website
http://www.blowingmycover.com/
Book: Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran
Book Description:
A clever, funny memoir from a young woman who fulfills her Mission: Impossible dreams by joining the CIA, only to discover that the life of a spy is not at all what she expected.
Lindsay Moran was a bright-eyed, idealistic Harvard graduate who hoped to serve her patriotic duty while living a life she'd first dreamed of as a child watching James Bond movies and reading Harriet the Spy. After applying to the CIA and passing lie detector tests, background investigations, and psychological screenings, she soon found herself in training at the Farm, learning how to crash cars through barriers at a hundred miles an hour, not to mention how to withstand interrogation.
But she was simultaneously learning that the life of a spy wasn't nearly the glamorous-not to mention principled-job she thought it would be. Her first posting, to Macedonia, confirmed it, as she witnessed firsthand the culture inside an organization whose intelligence failures led to tragic results during her own tenure. With a true story both thoughtful and funny, a wonderful new talent pulls open the doors to the CIA (from: Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Lindsay Moran is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. From 1998 to 2003, she worked as a case officer for the CIA.
Websites:
official CIA website
http://www.cia.gov/
Wikipedia Entry for CIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA
BookPage Review
http://www.bookpage.com/0502bp/nonfiction/blowing_my_cover.html
Interview with Lindsay Moran
http://www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp.php?ISBN=0399152393
Lindsay Moran's Website
http://www.blowingmycover.com/
Thursday, June 01, 2006
June Book
Meeting date: Monday June 19, 7:00 PM
Book: Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes by Bertran Fields
Book Description:
Notoriously immortalied by Shakespeare and historians, he is history's most infamous royal villian: Richard III, king of England from 1483 to 1485. Crazed with power and paranoia, he is generally supposed to have killed the youthful Prince of Wales and the aged Henry VI, drowned his brother in a vat of wine, poisoned his wife, and, worst of all, murdered his two young nephews, the older of whom was the rightful king--a reign of terror ending only with his own cowardly death on the blood-soaked field of battle.
But is all this true? Modern revisionists, citing the unreliability of Shakespeare's sources and the political agenda of historians in Richard's own day, have offered a far different portrait. A brave and valiant soldier, a loyal brother, and an intelligent, able king popular with his subjects and defeated only through treachery, their Richard is the victim of a deliberate campaign of slander devised by his Tudor successors to the throne.
In this comprehensive, meticulously researched book, renowned litigator Bertram Fields outlines and evaluates the arguments of both sides, sifting through five hundred years of legend to apply his highly successful courtroom techniques to the available evidence. Clearing away the dust of time, Fields reconstructs one of the most dramatic and turbulent episodes in history, analyzing the motives and machinations of the many players and emerging with the most definitive account yet of this most fascinating figure--and a powerful argument against acquiescing to common belief. (from: Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Bertram Fields, the author of two novels published under a pseudonym, is widely regarded as the most prominent entertainment lawyer in the country. He has successfully tried many of the landmark cases in the entertainment and communications industries over the past 20 years. He lives in the hills above Los Angeles, California. Royal Blood was named Ricardian Book of the Year by the Ricardian Society.
Links:
e-text of Malory's History of Richard the Third
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/r3.html
e-texts of Shakespear's Richard the Third
http://absoluteshakespeare.com/plays/richard_III/richard_III.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2257
Richard the Third Society, American BranchOnline Library of Primary Texts and Secondary Sources
http://www.r3.org/bookcase/shaksper/index.html
Wikipedia Entries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England
Richard the Third Foundation
http://www.richard111.com/
Richard the Third Society and the book "Royal Blood"
http://www.r3.org/basics/fields/index.html
http://www.r3.org/basics/fields/field_reviews.html
Reviews
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0060987383/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-0431023-0525618?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155
About Bertram Fields
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Fields
http://www.ggfirm.com/attorneys/attorneys.php3?act=l3&id=36
http://www.harpercollins.com/global_scripts/product_catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=13160
Other Books by Bertran Fields:
Players : the mysterious identity of William Shakespeare (822.394 F463)
Book: Royal Blood: Richard III and the Mystery of the Princes by Bertran Fields
Book Description:
Notoriously immortalied by Shakespeare and historians, he is history's most infamous royal villian: Richard III, king of England from 1483 to 1485. Crazed with power and paranoia, he is generally supposed to have killed the youthful Prince of Wales and the aged Henry VI, drowned his brother in a vat of wine, poisoned his wife, and, worst of all, murdered his two young nephews, the older of whom was the rightful king--a reign of terror ending only with his own cowardly death on the blood-soaked field of battle.
But is all this true? Modern revisionists, citing the unreliability of Shakespeare's sources and the political agenda of historians in Richard's own day, have offered a far different portrait. A brave and valiant soldier, a loyal brother, and an intelligent, able king popular with his subjects and defeated only through treachery, their Richard is the victim of a deliberate campaign of slander devised by his Tudor successors to the throne.
In this comprehensive, meticulously researched book, renowned litigator Bertram Fields outlines and evaluates the arguments of both sides, sifting through five hundred years of legend to apply his highly successful courtroom techniques to the available evidence. Clearing away the dust of time, Fields reconstructs one of the most dramatic and turbulent episodes in history, analyzing the motives and machinations of the many players and emerging with the most definitive account yet of this most fascinating figure--and a powerful argument against acquiescing to common belief. (from: Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Bertram Fields, the author of two novels published under a pseudonym, is widely regarded as the most prominent entertainment lawyer in the country. He has successfully tried many of the landmark cases in the entertainment and communications industries over the past 20 years. He lives in the hills above Los Angeles, California. Royal Blood was named Ricardian Book of the Year by the Ricardian Society.
Links:
e-text of Malory's History of Richard the Third
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/r3.html
e-texts of Shakespear's Richard the Third
http://absoluteshakespeare.com/plays/richard_III/richard_III.htm
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2257
Richard the Third Society, American BranchOnline Library of Primary Texts and Secondary Sources
http://www.r3.org/bookcase/shaksper/index.html
Wikipedia Entries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England
Richard the Third Foundation
http://www.richard111.com/
Richard the Third Society and the book "Royal Blood"
http://www.r3.org/basics/fields/index.html
http://www.r3.org/basics/fields/field_reviews.html
Reviews
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0060987383/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-0431023-0525618?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155
About Bertram Fields
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Fields
http://www.ggfirm.com/attorneys/attorneys.php3?act=l3&id=36
http://www.harpercollins.com/global_scripts/product_catalog/author_xml.asp?authorid=13160
Other Books by Bertran Fields:
Players : the mysterious identity of William Shakespeare (822.394 F463)
Monday, May 01, 2006
May Book
Meeting date: Monday May 22, 7:00 PM
Book: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
Book Description:
Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.
Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history
About the Author:
JUNG CHANG was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from York University in 1982, the first person from the People?s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. She lives in London and has recently completed a biography of Mao.
Book: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
Book Description:
Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.
Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history
About the Author:
JUNG CHANG was born in Yibin, Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a Ph.D. in linguistics from York University in 1982, the first person from the People?s Republic of China to receive a doctorate from a British university. She lives in London and has recently completed a biography of Mao.
Monday, April 03, 2006
April Book
Meeting Date: April 24, 2006, 7:00 PM
Book: Big Chief Elizabeth : The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America by Giles Milton
Book Description:
In April 1586, Queen Elizabeth I acquired a new and exotic title. A tribe of Native Americans had made her their weroanza—a word that meant "big chief". The news was received with great joy, both by the Queen and her favorite, Sir Walter Ralegh. His first American expedition had brought back a captive, Manteo, who caused a sensation in Elizabethan London. In 1587, Manteo was returned to his homeland as Lord and Governor, with more than one hundred English men, women, and children. In 1590, a supply ship arrived at the colony to discover that the settlers had vanished.
For almost twenty years the fate of Ralegh's colonists was to remain a mystery. When a new wave of settlers sailed to America to found Jamestown, their efforts to locate the lost colony were frustrated by the mighty chieftain, Powhatan, father of , who vowed to drive the English out of America. Only when it was too late did the settlers discover the incredible news that Ralegh's colonists had survived in the forests for almost two decades before being slaughtered in cold blood by henchmen. While Sir Walter Ralegh's "savage" had played a pivotal role in establishing the first English settlement in America, he had also unwittingly contributed to one of the earliest chapters in the decimation of the Native American population. The mystery of what happened to these colonists who seemed to vanish without a trace lies at the heart of this well-researched work of narrative history.
About the Author:
Giles Milton is the author of the critically acclaimed Nathaniel's Nutmeg and The Riddle and the Knight. He lives in London.
Links:
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jmack/algonqin/oberg1.htm
Roanoke Island North Carolina
http://www.ego.net/us/nc/ob/roanoke.htm
Book: Big Chief Elizabeth : The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America by Giles Milton
Book Description:
In April 1586, Queen Elizabeth I acquired a new and exotic title. A tribe of Native Americans had made her their weroanza—a word that meant "big chief". The news was received with great joy, both by the Queen and her favorite, Sir Walter Ralegh. His first American expedition had brought back a captive, Manteo, who caused a sensation in Elizabethan London. In 1587, Manteo was returned to his homeland as Lord and Governor, with more than one hundred English men, women, and children. In 1590, a supply ship arrived at the colony to discover that the settlers had vanished.
For almost twenty years the fate of Ralegh's colonists was to remain a mystery. When a new wave of settlers sailed to America to found Jamestown, their efforts to locate the lost colony were frustrated by the mighty chieftain, Powhatan, father of , who vowed to drive the English out of America. Only when it was too late did the settlers discover the incredible news that Ralegh's colonists had survived in the forests for almost two decades before being slaughtered in cold blood by henchmen. While Sir Walter Ralegh's "savage" had played a pivotal role in establishing the first English settlement in America, he had also unwittingly contributed to one of the earliest chapters in the decimation of the Native American population. The mystery of what happened to these colonists who seemed to vanish without a trace lies at the heart of this well-researched work of narrative history.
About the Author:
Giles Milton is the author of the critically acclaimed Nathaniel's Nutmeg and The Riddle and the Knight. He lives in London.
Links:
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~jmack/algonqin/oberg1.htm
Roanoke Island North Carolina
http://www.ego.net/us/nc/ob/roanoke.htm
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
March Book
Meeting date: Monday March 27, 7:00 PM
Book: Leap of Faith : Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor
Book Description:
Leap of Faith is the dramatic and inspiring story of an American woman's remarkable journey into the heart of a man and his nation.
Born into a distinguished Arab-American family and raised amid privilege, Lisa Halaby joined the first freshman class at Princeton to accept women, graduating in 1974 with a degree in architecture and urban planning. Two years later, while visiting her father in Jordan, she was casually introduced on the airport runway to King Hussein. Widely admired in the Arab world as a voice of moderation, and for his direct lineage to the prophet Muhammad, Hussein would soon become the world's most eligible bachelor after the tragic death of his wife. The next time they met, Hussein would fall headlong in love with the athletic, outspoken daughter of his longtime friend. After a whirlwind, secret courtship Lisa Halaby became Noor Al Hussein, Queen of Jordan.
With eloquence and candor, Queen Noor speaks of the obstacles she faced as a naive young bride in the royal court, of rebelling against the smothering embrace of security guards and palace life, and of her own successful struggle to create a working role as a humanitarian activist In a court that simply expected Noor to keep her husband happy. As she gradually took on the mantle of a queen, Noor's joys and challenges grew. After a heartbreaking miscarriage, she gave birth to four children. Meshing the demands of motherhood with the commitments of her position often proved difficult, but she tried to keep her young children by her side, even while flying the world with her husband in his relentless quest for peace. This mission would reap satisfying rewards, including greater Arab unity and a peace treaty with Israel, and suffer such terrible setbacks as the Gulf War and the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin.
Leap of Faith is a remarkable document. It is the story of a young American woman who became wife and partner to an Arab monarch. It provides a compelling portrait of the late King Hussein and his lifelong effort to bring peace to his wartorn region, and an insider's view of the growing gulf between the United States and the Arab nations. It is also the refreshingly candid story of a mother coming to terms with the demands the king's role as a world statesman placed on her family's private life. But most of all it is a love story—the intimate account of a woman who lost her heart to a king, and to his people. (from Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Born Lisa Najeeb Halaby, August 23, 1951, in Washington, DC; immigrated to Jordan; daughter of Najeeb Elias (a pilot, director of the Federal Aviation Administration, and chairman of Pan-American Airways) and Doris (a homemaker; maiden name, Lundquist) Halaby; married Hussein bin Talal (King Hussein of Jordan), June 15, 1978 (died, February 7, 1999); children: Hamzah and Hashim (sons), Iman and Raiyah (daughters). Education: Princeton University, B.A., 1974. Hobbies and other interests: Skiing, water skiing, sailing, horseback riding, reading, gardening, photography. (from Gale Databse)
Links:
Queen Noor's Offical Webpage
http://www.noor.gov.jo/index.htm
Reading Group Guide
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/leap_of_faith1.asp#discuss
Seniornet Reading Guide
http://www.seniornet.org/php/readerguide.php?GuideID=40&Version=0&Font=0
Amazon Reviews
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0786867175/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-0431023-0525618?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155
CIA World Fact Book: Jordan
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/jo.html
Country Studies: Jordan
http://rs6.loc.gov/frd/cs/jotoc.html
Book: Leap of Faith : Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor
Book Description:
Leap of Faith is the dramatic and inspiring story of an American woman's remarkable journey into the heart of a man and his nation.
Born into a distinguished Arab-American family and raised amid privilege, Lisa Halaby joined the first freshman class at Princeton to accept women, graduating in 1974 with a degree in architecture and urban planning. Two years later, while visiting her father in Jordan, she was casually introduced on the airport runway to King Hussein. Widely admired in the Arab world as a voice of moderation, and for his direct lineage to the prophet Muhammad, Hussein would soon become the world's most eligible bachelor after the tragic death of his wife. The next time they met, Hussein would fall headlong in love with the athletic, outspoken daughter of his longtime friend. After a whirlwind, secret courtship Lisa Halaby became Noor Al Hussein, Queen of Jordan.
With eloquence and candor, Queen Noor speaks of the obstacles she faced as a naive young bride in the royal court, of rebelling against the smothering embrace of security guards and palace life, and of her own successful struggle to create a working role as a humanitarian activist In a court that simply expected Noor to keep her husband happy. As she gradually took on the mantle of a queen, Noor's joys and challenges grew. After a heartbreaking miscarriage, she gave birth to four children. Meshing the demands of motherhood with the commitments of her position often proved difficult, but she tried to keep her young children by her side, even while flying the world with her husband in his relentless quest for peace. This mission would reap satisfying rewards, including greater Arab unity and a peace treaty with Israel, and suffer such terrible setbacks as the Gulf War and the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin.
Leap of Faith is a remarkable document. It is the story of a young American woman who became wife and partner to an Arab monarch. It provides a compelling portrait of the late King Hussein and his lifelong effort to bring peace to his wartorn region, and an insider's view of the growing gulf between the United States and the Arab nations. It is also the refreshingly candid story of a mother coming to terms with the demands the king's role as a world statesman placed on her family's private life. But most of all it is a love story—the intimate account of a woman who lost her heart to a king, and to his people. (from Amazon.com)
About the Author:
Born Lisa Najeeb Halaby, August 23, 1951, in Washington, DC; immigrated to Jordan; daughter of Najeeb Elias (a pilot, director of the Federal Aviation Administration, and chairman of Pan-American Airways) and Doris (a homemaker; maiden name, Lundquist) Halaby; married Hussein bin Talal (King Hussein of Jordan), June 15, 1978 (died, February 7, 1999); children: Hamzah and Hashim (sons), Iman and Raiyah (daughters). Education: Princeton University, B.A., 1974. Hobbies and other interests: Skiing, water skiing, sailing, horseback riding, reading, gardening, photography. (from Gale Databse)
Links:
Queen Noor's Offical Webpage
http://www.noor.gov.jo/index.htm
Reading Group Guide
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/leap_of_faith1.asp#discuss
Seniornet Reading Guide
http://www.seniornet.org/php/readerguide.php?GuideID=40&Version=0&Font=0
Amazon Reviews
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0786867175/ref=dp_proddesc_0/002-0431023-0525618?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155
CIA World Fact Book: Jordan
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/jo.html
Country Studies: Jordan
http://rs6.loc.gov/frd/cs/jotoc.html
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
February Book
Meeting date: February 27, 7:00 PM
Book: Sex with kings : 500 years of adultery, power, rivalry, and revenge by Eleanor Herman.
Book Description
Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them.
Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with women of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped none other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales.
The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts, she was never to be exhausted, complaining, or grief-stricken.
True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions -- some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels, and palaces. Some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur, a royal court was a scorpion's nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition. Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat the royal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends and were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her "sins."
From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. With diaries, personal letters, and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman's trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge, at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, Sex with Kings is a chapter of women's history that has remained unwritten -- until now.
About the Author
Eleanor Herman was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She studied journalism and German at Towson State University and languages in Europe. For eight years she was associate publisher for North America for NATO's Nations and Partners for Peace magazine. She is married and lives in McLean, Virginia, where she writes history from a woman's perspective.
Sex with Kings homepage
http://www.sexwithkings.com/
Washington Post Review
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19416-2004Jun30.html
Royal mistress entry from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_mistress
The Mistresses of Charles IIby Brenda Ralph Lewis
http://www.britannia.com/history/charmist.html
The king's mistress - a royal tradition
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4465399.stm
The mistress with the mostest
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/10-13-2002-28131.asp
Madame de Pompadour
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/pompadou.html
Book: Sex with kings : 500 years of adultery, power, rivalry, and revenge by Eleanor Herman.
Book Description
Throughout the centuries, royal mistresses have been worshiped, feared, envied, and reviled. They set the fashions, encouraged the arts, and, in some cases, ruled nations. Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings takes us into the throne rooms and bedrooms of Europe's most powerful monarchs. Alive with flamboyant characters, outrageous humor, and stirring poignancy, this glittering tale of passion and politics chronicles five hundred years of scintillating women and the kings who loved them.
Curiously, the main function of a royal mistress was not to provide the king with sex but with companionship. Forced to marry repulsive foreign princesses, kings sought solace with women of their own choice. And what women they were! From Madame de Pompadour, the famous mistress of Louis XV, who kept her position for nineteen years despite her frigidity, to modern-day Camilla Parker-Bowles, who usurped none other than the glamorous Diana, Princess of Wales.
The successful royal mistress made herself irreplaceable. She was ready to converse gaily with him when she was tired, make love until all hours when she was ill, and cater to his every whim. Wearing a mask of beaming delight over any and all discomforts, she was never to be exhausted, complaining, or grief-stricken.
True, financial rewards for services rendered were of royal proportions -- some royal mistresses earned up to $200 million in titles, pensions, jewels, and palaces. Some kings allowed their mistresses to exercise unlimited political power. But for all its grandeur, a royal court was a scorpion's nest of insatiable greed, unquenchable lust, and vicious ambition. Hundreds of beautiful women vied to unseat the royal mistress. Many would suffer the slings and arrows of negative public opinion, some met with tragic ends and were pensioned off to make room for younger women. But the royal mistress often had the last laugh, as she lived well and richly off the fruits of her "sins."
From the dawn of time, power has been a mighty aphrodisiac. With diaries, personal letters, and diplomatic dispatches, Eleanor Herman's trailblazing research reveals the dynamics of sex and power, rivalry and revenge, at the most brilliant courts of Europe. Wickedly witty and endlessly entertaining, Sex with Kings is a chapter of women's history that has remained unwritten -- until now.
About the Author
Eleanor Herman was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She studied journalism and German at Towson State University and languages in Europe. For eight years she was associate publisher for North America for NATO's Nations and Partners for Peace magazine. She is married and lives in McLean, Virginia, where she writes history from a woman's perspective.
Sex with Kings homepage
http://www.sexwithkings.com/
Washington Post Review
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19416-2004Jun30.html
Royal mistress entry from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_mistress
The Mistresses of Charles IIby Brenda Ralph Lewis
http://www.britannia.com/history/charmist.html
The king's mistress - a royal tradition
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4465399.stm
The mistress with the mostest
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/10-13-2002-28131.asp
Madame de Pompadour
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/pompadou.html
Sunday, January 01, 2006
January 2006 Book
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Meeting Date: January 23, 2006 7:00 PM
Book Description
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. (from: Amazon.com)
About the Author
John Berendt writes a monthly column for Esquire. He has been the editor of New York magazine and lives in New York. (from: Amazon.com)
Links:
Last Word Book Club: Summary, bio, reviews and more!
Meeting Date: January 23, 2006 7:00 PM
Book Description
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. (from: Amazon.com)
About the Author
John Berendt writes a monthly column for Esquire. He has been the editor of New York magazine and lives in New York. (from: Amazon.com)
Links:
Last Word Book Club: Summary, bio, reviews and more!
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