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  A Rare Recording of Helen...

  Helen Keller, Annie Sullivan,...

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  Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Though born with the ability to see and hear, at 19 months-old she contracted an acute illness that left her both deaf and blind. Eventually, 20-year-old Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired, became Keller's speech instructor. It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship during which Sullivan evolved into Keller's governess and eventually her companion. In 1914, Sullivan's health began to fail, so a young woman from Scotland, Polly Thompson was hired to keep house. Though she had no experience with deaf or blind people, Thompson progressed to working as a secretary, and eventually a constant companion to Keller. Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She was a suffragist, a pacifist, a radical socialist, and a birth control advocate. In 1915 she and George Kessler founded the Helen Keller International organization, devoted to research in vision, health and nutrition. In 1920 she helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union.
  
  ©2013 Listen & Live Audio, Inc. (P)2013 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.

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  A Very Queer Family Indeed - Sex...

  Simon Goldhill

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  “We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love story of anything like the usual kind.” So begins A Very Queer Family Indeed, which introduces us to the extraordinary Benson family. Edward White Benson became Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign, while his wife, Mary, was renowned for her wit and charm—the prime minister once wondered whether she was “the cleverest woman in England or in Europe.” The couple’s six precocious children included E. F. Benson, celebrated creator of the Mapp and Lucia novels, and Margaret Benson, the first published female Egyptologist. What interests Simon Goldhill most, however, is what went on behind the scenes, which was even more unusual than anyone could imagine. Inveterate writers, the Benson family spun out novels, essays, and thousands of letters that open stunning new perspectives—including what it might mean for an adult to kiss and propose marriage to a twelve-year-old girl, how religion in a family could support or destroy relationships, or how the death of a child could be celebrated. No other family has left such detailed records about their most intimate moments, and in these remarkable accounts, we see how family life and a family’s understanding of itself took shape during a time when psychoanalysis, scientific and historical challenges to religion, and new ways of thinking about society were developing. This is the story of the Bensons, but it is also more than that—it is the story of how society transitioned from the high Victorian period into modernity.  

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  Outrageous Misfits - Female...

  Brian Bradley

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  Lights! Camera! Outrageous! Superstar female impersonator Craig Russell and the birth of drag on the international stage. 
   
   
   
  Craig Russell was an internationally admired entertainer and actor, known for his outrageous impersonations of some of Hollywood's greatest female celebrities: Mae West, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Carol Channing, and Judy Garland, to name a few. Lori Russell Eadie, a shy theater lover, was Craig's number-one fan and, eventually, his wife. 
   
   
   
  Together they were fun, fabulous, and eschewed convention. But behind the curtains, Craig and Lori's lives were troubled by their mental health, drug addiction, sexual assault, and abuse. 
   
   
   
  Through nearly one hundred interviews and extensive research, Outrageous Misfits reveals the life and legacy of one of the world's most popular female impersonators and his biggest fan.

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  The Zapple Diaries - The Rise...

  Barry Miles

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  This is the first full-length look at Zapple—the Beatles' label for experimental music and spoken word recordings and the most ambitious expression of the group's determination to be leading members of the counterculture movement in the late 1960s. Barry Miles, the acclaimed author, was the Zapple label manager and has written an engaging and slightly gossipy you-are-there review of this fascinating period in Beatles history. The book provides insight into the lives and working methods of leading literary and cultural figures of the time, including Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, William Burroughs, and Frank Zappa. The Zapple Diaries is the fascinating story of an ill-fated experimental venture and a revealing account of the little-known last chapter of Beatles history.

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  The Love of a Bad Man

  Laura Elizabeth Woollett

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  A schoolgirl catches the eye of the future leader of Nazi Germany. An aspiring playwright writes to a convicted serial killer, seeking inspiration. A pair of childhood sweethearts reunite to commit rape and murder. A devoted Mormon wife follows her husband into the wilderness after he declares himself a prophet. The twelve stories in The Love of a Bad Man imagine the lives of real women, all of whom were the lovers, wives, or mistresses of various “bad” men in history. Beautifully observed, fascinating, and, at times, horrifying, the stories interrogate power, the nature of obsession, and the lengths some women will go to for the men they love.

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  The Murders at White House Farm...

  Carol Ann Lee

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  The Sunday Times bestseller and the definitive story behind the ITV factual drama White House Farm, about the horrific killings that took place in 1985. On 7 August 1985, Nevill and June Bamber, their daughter Sheila and her two young sons Nicholas and Daniel were discovered shot to death at White House Farm in Essex. The murder weapon was found on Sheila's body, a bible lay at her side. All the windows and doors of the farmhouse were secure, and the Bambers' son, 24-year-old Jeremy, had alerted police after apparently receiving a phone call from his father, who told him Sheila had 'gone berserk' with the gun. It seemed a straightforward case of murder-suicide, but a dramatic turn of events was to disprove the police's theory. In October 1986, Jeremy Bamber was convicted of killing his entire family in order to inherit his parents' substantial estates. He has always maintained his innocence.Drawing on interviews and correspondence with many of those closely connected to the events – including Jeremy Bamber – and a wealth of previously unpublished documentation, Carol Ann Lee brings astonishing clarity to a complex and emotive case. She describes the years of rising tension in the family that culminated in the murders, and provides clear insight into the background of each individual and their relationships within the family unit.Scrupulously fair in its analysis, The Murders at White House Farm is an absorbing portrait of a family, a time and a place, and a gripping account of one of Britain's most notorious crimes.

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