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A covert affair : Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS
Summary:A stunning account of Julia Child’s early life as an OSS agent in the Far East.
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France is a feast : the photographic journey of Paul and Julia Child
Summary:Through intimate and compelling photographs taken by her husband Paul Child, a gifted photographer, France is a Feast documents how Julia Child first discovered French cooking and the French way of life. Paul and Julia moved to Paris in 1948 where he was cultural attaché for the US Information Service, and in this role he met Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Brassai, and other leading lights of the photography world. As Julia recalled: “Paris was wonderfully walkable, and it was a natural subject for Paul.” Their wanderings through the French capital and countryside, frequently photographed by Paul, would help lead to the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Julia’s brilliant and celebrated career in books and on television. Though Paul was an accomplished photographer (his work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art), his photographs remained out of the public eye until the publication of Julia’s memoir, My Life in France, in which several of his images were included. Now, with more than 200 of Paul’s photographs and personal stories recounted by his great-nephew Alex Prud’homme, France is a Feast not only captures this magical period in Paul and Julia’s lives, but also brings to light Paul Child’s own remarkable photographic achievement.
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Beautiful fools : the last affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald : a novel
Summary:In 1939 Scott is living in Hollywood, a virulent alcoholic and deeply in debt. Despite his relationship with gossip columnist Sheila Graham, he remains fiercely loyal to Zelda, his soul mate and muse. In an attempt to fuse together their fractured marriage, Scott arranges a trip to Cuba, where, after a disastrous first night in Havana, the couple runs off to a beach resort outside the city. But even in paradise, Scott and Zelda cannot escape the dangerous intensity of their relationship.
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Sometimes madness is wisdom : Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald: a marriage
Summary: In Sometimes Madness Is Wisdom, Kendall Taylor has created the definitive Fitzgerald biography. Written with sympathy, original insight, and dazzling style–and featuring memorable appearances from Edmund Wilson, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway, among others–this is a stunning portrait of a marriage, an age, and a fabulous but tragic woman.
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Bright star
Summary:Nineteenth century poet John Keats and the girl next door, Fanny Brawne, started out as unlikely lovers who were totally at odds with each other. However, when Brawne offers to help Keats nurse his seriously ill brother, the two soon became involved in an unstoppable romance that only his untimely death at age 25 could bring to a shattering end.
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Charles and Emma : the Darwins’ leap of faith
Summary:Charles Darwin and his wife, Emma, were deeply in love and very supportive of each other, but their opinions often clashed. Emma was extremely religious, and Charles questioned God’s very existence.
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Churchill
Summary:Acclaimed historian Paul Johnson shows how Churchill’s immense adaptability combined with his natural pugnacity to make him a formidable leader for the better part of a century. Rich with anecdote and quotation, Johnson’s narrative illustrates the British statesman’s humor, resilience, courage, and eccentricity as no other biography before.
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Clementine : the life of Mrs. Winston Churchill
Summary:A portrait of Winston Churchill’s extraordinary wife and her lesser-known role in World War II discusses her relationship with political mentor Eleanor Roosevelt, her role in safeguarding Churchill’s health throughout key historical events and her controversial family priorities.
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Cleopatra and Antony : power, love, and politics in the ancient world
Summary: Preston views the drama and romance of Cleopatra and Antony’s personal lives as an integral part of the great military, political, and ideological struggle that culminated in the full-fledged rise of the Roman Empire, joined east and west. Perhaps not until Joanna in fourteenth-century Naples or Elizabeth I of England would another woman show such political shrewdness and staying power as did Cleopatra during her years atop the throne of Egypt. Her lengthy affair with Julius Caesar linked the might of Egypt with that of Rome; in the aftermath of the civil war that erupted following Caesar’s murder, her alliance with Antony, and his subsequent split with Octavian, set the stage for the end of the Republic. With the keen eye for detail, abundant insight, and storytelling skill that have won awards for her previous books, Diana Preston sheds new light on a vitally important period in Western history. Indeed, had Cleopatra and Antony managed to win the battle of Actium, the centuries that followed, which included the life of Jesus himself, could well have played out differently.
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Franklin and Eleanor : an extraordinary marriage
Summary:Hazel Rowley describes the remarkable courage and lack of convention–private and public–that kept FDR and Eleanor together. She reveals a partnership that was both supportive and daring–a partnership that they created according to their own ambitions and needs.
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Eleanor and Hick : the love affair that shaped a First Lady
Summary:A warm, intimate account of the love between Eleanor Roosevelt and reporter Lorena Hickok–a relationship that, over more than three decades, transformed both women’s lives and empowered them to play significant roles in one of the most tumultuous periods in American history.,”In 1933, as her husband assumed the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt embarked on the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the First Lady with dread. By that time, she had put her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her and developed an independent life–now threatened by the public role she would be forced to play. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press: Lorena Hickok. Over the next thirty years, until Eleanor’s death, the two women carried on an extraordinary relationship.
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Frank & Ava : in love and war
Summary:“The love story of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner has been told piecemeal, from one side or the other, but has never been fully explored or explained–until now. The story begins in Hollywood’s golden age when Ava, ever insecure, was emerging as a movie star. But she fell in (and out of) love too easily. Mickey Rooney married her as a conquest. Artie Shaw treated her like a dumb brunette. Neither marriage lasted a year. Then, after being courted by Howard Hughes and others, along came Sinatra, who was battling his own insecurities–MGM fired him, his record company dropped him, and no one seemed to want him, except Ava. Their encounter led to an affair that broke all the rules of the prudish era. Frank was married with children. Their reputations could be ruined if this got out–and it did, as Frank left his family and pursued Ava across Europe while she taunted him. They married, but then came quarrels, separations, and reconciliations. Finally, there was a divorce, but even afterwards their long, hot, messy, glorious, painful romance stretched right to the finish line. Thoroughly researched and reported, Frank & Ava is not another storybook version of a Hollywood romance but a compelling drama of love and emotional war that left two iconic celebrities wounded for life”–
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Frida & Diego : art, love, life
Summary:Explores the tumultuous lives, marriage, and work of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Summary: Nontraditional, controversial, rebellious, and politically volatile, the Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are remembered for their provocative paintings as well as for their deep love for each other. Their marriage was one of the most tumultuous and infamous in history—filled with passion, pain, betrayal, revolution, and, above all, art that helped define the twentieth century. Catherine Reef’s inspiring and insightful dual biography features numerous archival photos and full-color reproductions of both artists’ work.
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Furious love : Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the marriage of the century
Summary:“The definitive, larger-than-life account of the greatest Hollywood love story ever — the romance of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton”–
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Her husband : Hughes and Plath, portrait of a marriage
Summary: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were husband and wife; they were also two of the most remarkable poets of the twentieth century. In this stunning new account of their marriage, Diane Middlebrook draws on a trove of newly available papers to craft a beautifully written portrait of Hughes as a man, as a poet, and as a husband haunted?and nourished?his entire life by his relationship to Sylvia Plath. Her Husband is a triumph of the biographer’s art and an up-close look at a couple who saw each other as the means to becoming who they wanted to be: writers and mythic representations of a whole generation.
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The silent woman : Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes
Summary: From the moment it was first published in The New Yorker, this brilliant work of literary criticism aroused great attention. Janet Malcolm brings her shrewd intelligence to bear on the legend of Sylvia Plath and the wildly productive industry of Plath biographies. Features a new Afterword by Malcolm.
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Jack and Jackie : portrait of an American marriage
Summary: Traces the relationship of President Kennedy and his wife, discussing the public and private aspects of their marriage.
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These few precious days : the final year of Jack with Jackie
Summary:An account of Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s final year together reveals details of their complex marriage, including rumored infidelities, the president’s hidden medical problems, and the tragic death of their infant son.
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Josephine : a life of the empress
Summary: Josephine’s life story was as turbulent as the age-an era of revolution and social upheaval, of the guillotine, and of frenzied hedonism. With telling psychological depth and compelling literary grace, Carolly Erickson brings the complex, charming, ever-resilient Josephine to life in this memorable portrait, one that carries the reader along every twist and turn of the empress’s often thorny path, from the sensual richness of her childhood in the tropics to her final lonely days at Malmaison.
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Napoleon : a life
Summary:” … The first single-volume, cradle-to-grave biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon’s thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation”–Jacket.
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Lucy & Desi : the legendary love story of television’s most famous couple
Summary: After eight years on the air, Desi Arnaz did not love Lucy any more. On screen, they were dynamite—a comedy pairing more successful than any Hollywood had ever produced. But when the cameras stopped rolling, they fought, screamed and threatened each other more each season. Finally, an argument in Desi’s production office turned violent. Lucy hurled a cocktail glass past his head, and Desi demanded a divorce. He moved out that night. After nearly twenty years, America’s favorite couple was finished.
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Superman/Wonder Woman. Power Couple Volume 1,
Summary:“Beginning a bold new series that details the relationship between The Man of Steel and the Warrior Princess as writer Charles Soule (Swamp Thing) is joined by artist Tony S. Daniel (Batman) to tell the tale of a romance that will shake the stars themselves. These two super-beings love each other, but not everyone shares their joy. Some fear it, some test it–and some will try to kill for it. Some say love is a battlefield, but where Superman and Wonder Woman are concerned it spells Doomsday!”–
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Tête-à-tête : Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre
Summary: Passionate, freethinking existentialist philosopher-writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre are one of the world’s legendary couples. Their committed but notoriously open union generated no end of controversy in their day. Biographer Hazel Rowley offers the first dual portrait of these two colossal figures and their intense, often embattled relationship. Through original interviews and access to new primary sources, Rowley portrays Sartre and Beauvoir up close. Tête-à-Tête magnificently details the passion, daring, humor, and contradictions of a remarkably unorthodox relationship.
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We two : Victoria and Albert : rulers, partners, rivals
Summary:It was the most influential marriage of the nineteenth century, and one of history’s most enduring love stories. Traditional biographies tell us that Queen Victoria inherited the throne as a naive teenager, when the British Empire was at the height of its power, and seemed doomed to find failure as a monarch and misery as a woman until she married her German cousin Albert and accepted him as her lord and master. Here the author turns this familiar story on its head, revealing a strong, feisty queen and a brilliant, fragile prince working together to build a family based on support, trust, and fidelity, qualities neither had seen much of as children.
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