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  Capote - A Biography

  Gerald Clarke

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  The national bestselling biography and the basis for the film Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in an Academy Award–winning turn.   One of the strongest fiction writers of his generation, Truman Capote became a literary star while still in his teens. His most phenomenal successes include Breakfast at Tiffany’s, In Cold Blood, and Other Voices, Other Rooms. Even while his literary achievements were setting the standards that other fiction and nonfiction writers would follow for generations, Capote descended into a spiral of self-destruction and despair.   This biography by Gerald Clarke was first published in 1988—just four years after Capote’s death. In it, Clarke paints a vivid behind-the-scenes picture of the author’s life—based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the man himself and the people close to him. From the glittering heights of notoriety and parties with the rich and famous to his later struggles with addiction, Capote emerges as a richly multidimensional person—both brilliant and flawed.   “A book of extraordinary substance, a study rich in intelligence and compassion . . . To read Capote is to have the sense that someone has put together all the important pieces of this consummate artist’s life, has given everything its due emphasis, and comprehended its ultimate meaning.” —Bruce Bawer, The Wall Street Journal   “Mesmerising . . . [Capote] reads as if it had been written alongside his life, rather than after it.” —Molly Haskell, The New York Times Book Review

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  The Secret Life of John le Carre

  Adam Sisman

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  The extraordinary secret life of a great novelist, which his biographer could not publish while le Carré was alive.  
   
  Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man; yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. 
  Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy - cover stories, cut-outs and dead letter boxes. These clandestine operations brought an element of danger to his life, but they also meant deceiving those closest to him. Small wonder that betrayal became a running theme in his work. 
  In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed. 
  The Secret Life of John le Carré reveals a hitherto-hidden perspective on the life and work of the spy-turned-author and a fascinating meditation on the complex relationship between biographer and subject. “Now that he is dead,” Sisman writes, “we can know him better.”

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  A Surprised Queenhood in the New...

  Angela Jackson

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  Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the great American literary icons of the twentieth century and the first black person awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Over nearly six decades, her poetry showed complex portraits of black American life and served as witness to the stark realities of urban living. A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun delves deep into the rich fabric of Brooks's work and world and traces the literary arc of her long career, using forty-three of her most soul-stirring poems as a guide. It is a commemoration of a writer who negotiated black womanhood and incomparable brilliance with a changing, restless world-an artistic maverick ahead of her time.

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  Amy My Daughter

  Mitch Winehouse

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  Revealing details about icon Amy Winehouse’s childhood, musical influences and substance abuse, this biography by her father “can’t fail to move”(The Sunday Times). 
   
  The intimate, inside story of the life of multiple Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse is told by the one person most able to tell it—Amy’s closest advisor, her inspiration, and best friend: her father, Mitch. 
   
  Sifting fact from fiction, Mitch Winehouse reveals the events and the people that shaped Amy’s youth—from her mischievous childhood to her grandmother’s Jazz Age stories, to her father singing Frank Sinatra around the house. Shedding light on Amy’s musical coming-of-age, Mitch explores how she honed her distinctive sound, created her unforgettable look, and channeled her own life into hits such as “You Know I’m No Good”, “Rehab”, and “Back to Black” —some of the most memorable and personal pop music in years. 
   
  Mitch holds nothing back about Amy’s addiction to drugs and alcohol and the toll it took on the family and friends who refused to give up on her. Dispelling many of the rumors about her tumultuous marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil, Mitch exposes the years of behind-the-scenes drama and explains how, for those who knew Amy in her last months, the greatest tragedy of all was that she finally appeared to be conquering her demons. 
   
  Amy, My Daughter includes exclusive, never-before-seen photos and paints an open and honest portrait of one of the greatest musical talents of our time. 
   
  “An unsparing portrait of addiction.” —The Times  
   
  “Mitch does a fine job of fleshing out his daughter in all contradictory glory.” —Observer  
   
  “An unflinchingly honest memoir.” —Independent

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  Taking Heat - The President the...

  Ari Fleischer

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  The early years of the twenty-first century were a tumultuous time in America. The country faced a hotly contested presidential election, the largest terrorist attack in the nation's history, and the early stages of war. Through it all, President George W. Bush surrounded himself with a handful of close advisers. During this time the man beside the President was Ari Fleischer, his press secretary and one of his most trusted confidants. In this role, Fleisher was present for every decision and became an eyewitness to history.In this riveting account, Fleischer goes behind the scenes as he recalls his experiences in the West Wing. Through the ups and downs of this time, he took the heat, fielded the questions, and brought the President's message into living rooms around the world.In Taking Heat, Fleischer, for the first time, gives his perspective on:The 2000 election, from the recounts to the transition to powerSeptember 11, 2001, its aftermath, and the anthrax scareThe pressure-filled buildup to the war in Iraq and the President's thoughts as the war beganLife in the White House, from learning to adjust to the pace of the West Wing and his early briefings to his relationship with the pressThe White House press corps, who they are, and how they report the newsThe factors that led to his decision to leave Washington behind.This is the story of the men and women of the White House press corps and the cornerstones of democracy: freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. Fleischer presents an in-depth, insider's view on the Washington political arena from a perspective few have seen.Fleischer writes of his belief that the press has a bias in Washington. It's not a question of partisanship or press-driven ideology. Instead, it's a focus on conflict, particularly if it's a conflict they can attach to the President. It's the nature of the White House press corps, regardless of who's in power. The members of the White House press corps are masters at being devil's advocate, able to take with passion the opposite side of whatever issue the President supports. Fleischer's job was to calmly field their questions, no matter how pointed.Taking Heat is an introspective exploration of the top political events in the first half of the Bush administration, as well as the candid observations of a professional who stood in the bright lights of the world stage.

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  Out of the Shadows - Six...

  Emily Midorikawa

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  Queen Victoria's reign was an era of breathtaking social change, but it did little to create a platform for women to express themselves. But not so within the social sphere of the séance—a mysterious, lamp-lit world on both sides of the Atlantic, in which women who craved a public voice could hold their own. 
   
   
   
  Out of the Shadows tells the stories of the enterprising women whose supposedly clairvoyant gifts granted them fame, fortune, and, most important, influence, as they crossed rigid boundaries of gender and class as easily as they passed between the realms of the living and the dead. The Fox sisters inspired some of the era's best-known political activists and set off a transatlantic séance craze. While in the throes of a trance, Emma Hardinge Britten delivered powerful speeches to crowds of thousands. Victoria Woodhull claimed guidance from the spirit world as she took on the millionaires of Wall Street before becoming America's first female presidential candidate. And Georgina Weldon narrowly escaped the asylum before becoming a celebrity campaigner against archaic lunacy laws. 
   
   
   
  Drawing on diaries, letters, and rarely seen memoirs and texts, Emily Midorikawa illuminates a radical history of female influence that has been confined to the dark until now.

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