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The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad (November 2004)
782.43 R795 2005
Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus have assembled more than a dozen novelists, essayists, performers and critics to explore the power of the American ballad in words and in drawings.
- Abboud, Joseph
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Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion (November 2004)
746.92 A134t 2004
One of America's top menswear designers weaves a gossipy tell-all about how the fashion business really works — stitch by stitch, snitch by snitch, from the inside out.
- Adkins, Lesley
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Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon (December 2004)
B-Ra1996a 2004
Imperial adventurer Henry Rawlinson triumphed in deciphering the lost languages of Persia and Babylonia, becoming a celebrity and archeologist who solved some of the mysteries of ancient history while proving to the Victorian public that people and places in the Old Testament really existed.
- Alvarez, A. (Alfred)
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The Writer's Voice (December 2004)
801.95 A473w 2005
Poet, author and critic A. Alvarez defines "voice" as the vehicle by which a writer expresses his aliveness, hooks his readers and keeps them listening.
- Burge, James
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Heloise & Abelard: A New Biography (December 2004)
B-H482b 2003
Newly discovered letters from Heloise to Abelard shed fresh light on one of the most famous romances in history.
- Conquest, Robert
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The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History (December 2004)
306.09 C753d 2005
From the onset of the Enlightenment to the excesses of democracy, Stalinism and liberalism, the author masterfully examines how false remedies have infected academia, politicians and the public, and resulted in a ruinous cycle of turbulence and war.
- Dary, David
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The Oregon Trail: An American Saga (November 2004)
978.02 D228o 2004
Using diaries, journals, company and expedition reports and newspaper accounts, the author presents a history of the Oregon Trail from its earliest beginnings to the present. He offers a panoramic look at the romance, colorful stories, hardships and joys of the pioneers who made this historic migration.
- Dirda, Michael
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Bound to Please: An Extraordinary One-Volume Literary Education: Essays on Great Writers and Their Books (December 2004)
028.1 D598b 2005
This work features scores of Dirda's essays, all intended to introduce readers to wonderful writers, from the anecdotal Herodotus and James Boswell to the sensuous Colette and Steven Millhauser and European masters including Joseph Roth, Flann O'Brien and Penelope Fitzgerald.
- Furgurson, Ernest B.
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Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (November 2004)
973.7 F983f 2004
A portrait of the life of the capital city at one of its most vital moments, this is the history of how the Civil War transformed the nation's capital from a provincial city to one of the most important cultural and social centers in America.
- Graubard, Stephen Richards
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Command of Office: How War, Secrecy and Deception Transformed the Presidency, from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush (November 2004)
973.099 G774c 2004
In his provocative account of the enormous shift of power to the office of the American presidency, Graubard draws upon his knowledge of every president since FDR to reveal the transformation of the executive branch in the last 100 years.
- Haney, Lynn
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Gregory Peck: A Charmed Life (December 2004)
791.43028 P366h 2004
Irreverent and candid, Haney's biography not only charts the career of the star who took the Oscar for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, but also plumbs Gregory Peck's complexity in his off-screen roles as husband, father, lover and son.
- Hazlewood, Nick
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The Queen's Slave Trader: John Hawkyns, Elizabeth I, and the Trafficking in Human Souls (December 2004)
382.44 H431q 2004
In the 17th and 18th centuries, England became the greatest slave trading nation in the world. This biography of Jack Hawkyns, the queen's personal slave trader, explores his life and chronicles the rise of the English slave trade.
- Kater, Michael H.
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Hitler Youth (November 2004)
943.086 K19h 2004
Drawing on original reports, letters, diaries and memoirs, Kater traces the history of the Hitler Youth, examining the means, degree and impact of conversion, and the subsequent fate of young recruits.
- Laskin, David
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The Children's Blizzard (November 2004)
977 L345c 2004
January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent. By Friday morning, January 13, some 500 people lay dead on the drifted prairie, many of them children who had perished on their way home from country schools. With the storm as its focal point, Laskin captures this moment in American history by tracing the stories of five families.
- Ledgin, Stephanie P.
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Homegrown Music: Discovering Bluegrass (November 2004)
781.642 L473h 2004
Ledgin offers an informative background for readers who want to explore the multifaceted history of bluegrass music and its current popularity.
- MacNeil, Robert
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Do You Speak American?: A Companion to the PBS Television Series (December 2004)
427.973 M169d 2005
MacNeil leads us on a linguistic travelogue through the United States, providing additional background to his upcoming PBS special.
- Morgenstern, Dan
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Living With Jazz: A Reader (November 2004)
781.65 M851L 2004
From liner notes and reviews to profiles and extended analyses, all of Dan Morgenstern's most significant work is included, unified by his poised, always generous voice and by the depth of his knowledge. His appreciations of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, among many others, transform the way the music of these artists is listened to and understood.
- Nicholl, Charles
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Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind (November 2004)
709.2 L581ni 2004
Nicholl creates a portrait of the artist for our time — a biography that brings Leonardo to life as a complex man living in a fascinating, dangerous, quickly changing world.
- Richman, Alan
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Fork It Over: The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater (November 2004)
641.01 R532f 2004
From 10-time James Beard Award winner Richman comes a witty, globe-trotting smorgasbord of culinary escapades.
- Solomon, Burt
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The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation's Capital (November 2004)
973.91 S689w 2004
The story of the American capital is told through the lives of three prominent families who each symbolize a different aspect of the city and nation it represents.
- Thompson, Laura
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Life in a Cold Climate: Nancy Mitford: The Biography (October 2004)
B-M6832t 2004
Thompson has fashioned a portrait of a courageous and contradictory woman: a woman who expressed anti-feminist views while living a life of financial and emotional independence; a woman who appeared quintessentially English but who was only wholly able to be herself once she moved to France; a woman who believed implacably that the best response to life's pain was laughter.
- Wilson, William Scott
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The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi (November 2004)
B-Mi699w 2004
The life of Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), Japan's greatest samurai swordsman, is chronicled in this first English-language biography of the warrior.
