Einstein: His Life and Universe

Einstein was a rebel and nonconformist from boyhood days, and these character traits drove both his life and his science. In this narrative, Walter Isaacson explains how his mind worked and the mysteries of the universe that he discovered.
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Death in the Castle

An ancient castle, a cash-strapped and psychologically unstable aristocratic couple, and the rumor of ghosts weave together in this sparkling historical mystery from Pearl S. Buck Sir Richard Sedgeley and Lady Mary are broke and without an heir to the castle that’s been in their family for centuries. Tourists are infrequent, and the offers they’ve received are not ones they can live with: a state-run prison or a museum in America. What is the remedy, and is it true that there’s treasure hidden somewhere under their noses? Featuring a cast of outsize characters—timid Mary, her possibly mad husband, Wells the Butler, and his mysterious daughter Kate—Death in the Castle is a suspenseful delight by the author of The Good Earth. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.
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Complete Stories of Eveyln

Collected for the first time in a single volume: all of the short fiction by one of the 20th century's wittiest and most trenchant observers of the human comedy.
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Lizzie Leigh

A poignant tale about illicit love, regret ending in delight. It deals with the story of a young girl Lizzie who commits a sin and its repercussions. Gaskell brilliantly portraits the deep and true relations of a family and ends the story with a moving reunion. Touching and emotional!
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The Poor Clare

A departure from the stories Elizabeth Gaskell wrote for Charles Dickens’s Household Words magazine, The Poor Clare is a dark, gothic novella of thwarted love and a family curse that vividly illustrates the social tensions of Victorian England. The purposeful slaying of lonely Bridget’s beloved dog unleashes a torrent of rage that surges down through the generations. In her desire for revenge, Bridget utters a fearsome curse upon the dog’s killer: All that the murderer loves most, he will lose. This haunting story of “the sins of the father being visited upon the children” brilliantly shows off Gaskell’s pioneering understanding of the tensions between Catholics and Protestants, and the harsh realities of class society. The Poor Clare stands as an innovative and exciting gem in Elizabeth Gaskell’s oeuvre. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Empire: A Novel

Empire, the fourth novel in Gore Vidal's monumental six-volume chronicle of the American past, is his prodigiously detailed portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twentieth century as it begins to emerge as a world power. ------While America struggles to define its destiny, beautiful and ambitious Caroline Sanford fights to control her own fate. One of Vidal's most in-spired creations, she is an embodiment of the complex, vigorous young nation. From the back offices of her Washington newspaper, Caroline confronts the two men who threaten to thwart her ambition: William Randolph Hearst and his protégé, Blaise Sanford, Caroline's half brother. In their struggles for power the lives of brother and sister become intertwined with those of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, as well as Astors, Vanderbilts, and Whitneys--all incarnations of America's Gilded Age. ------"Mr. Vidal demonstrates a political imagination and insider's sagacity equaled by no other practicing fiction writer," said The New York Times Book Review. "Like the earlier novels in his historical cycle, Empire is a wonderfully vivid documentary drama." ------With a new Introduction by the author. From the Hardcover edition.
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Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

Published in the bicentenary year of Frederick Douglass’s birth and in a Black Lives Matter era, this edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass presents new research into his life as an activist and an author. A revolutionary reformer who traveled in Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales as well as the US, Douglass published many foreign-language editions of his Narrative. While there have been many Douglasses over the decades and even centuries, the Frederick Douglass we need now is no iconic, mythic, or legendary self-made man but a fallible, mortal, and human individual: a husband, father, brother, and son. His rallying cry inspires today’s activism: “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” Recognizing that Douglass was bought and sold on the northern abolitionist podium no less than on the southern auction block, this edition introduces readers to Douglass’s multiple declarations of independence. The Narrative appears alongside his private correspondence as well as the early speeches and writings in which he did justice to the “grim horrors of slavery.” This volume also traces Douglass’s activism and authorship in the context of the reformist work of his wife, Anna Murray, and of his daughters and sons.
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than of marble. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin seems to turn to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. By bringing Franklin to life, Isaacson shows how he helped to define both his own time and ours. He was, during his 84-year life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical—though not most profound—political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky and commonwealths less corrupt. He organized neighborhood constabularies and international alliances, local lending libraries and national legislatures. He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise. He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of America: the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor, democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism. But the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity. Through it all, he trusted the hearts and minds of his fellow "leather-aprons" more than he did those of any inbred elite. He saw middle-class values as a source of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people." Few of his fellow founders felt this comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.
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Practicing History: Selected Essays

Celebrated for bringing a personal touch to history in her Pulitzer Prize–winning epic The Guns of August and other classic books, Barbara W. Tuchman reflects on world events and the historian’s craft in these perceptive, essential essays.   From thoughtful pieces on the historian’s role to striking insights into America’s past and present to trenchant observations on the international scene, Barbara W. Tuchman looks at history in a unique way and draws lessons from what she sees. Spanning more than four decades of writing in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, The Nation, and The Saturday Evening Post, Tuchman weighs in on a range of eclectic topics, from Israel and Mao Tse-tung to a Freudian reading of Woodrow Wilson. This is a splendid body of work, the story of a lifetime spent “practicing history.”   Praise for Practicing History “Persuades and enthralls . . . I can think of no better primer for the nonexpert who wishes to learn history.”—Chicago Sun-Times   “Provocative, consistent, and beautifully readable, an event not to be missed by history buffs.”—Baltimore Sun  * “A delight to read.” —The New York Times Book Review *
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Come, My Beloved

An American millionaire builds a Christian seminary in India, furthering his spiritual mission—and setting into motion a generations-spanning cycle of miscommunication and fracture within his family Beginning in the 1890s, Come, My Beloved describes an American family’s involvement with India over four generations. Touched by the poverty he encounters in Bombay, self-made millionaire David MacArd establishes a seminary for Christian missionary workers, and in so doing shapes the fates of his son and grandson. The choices made by each generation parallel one another, distinctly marked by the passage of time—though the patriarch remains in New York, the second David becomes a missionary in India himself, while his own son, Ted, goes even further, opting to live in a remote village—and these choices come with unforeseen sacrifices. Nor does their religious journey necessarily mean any growing harmony with their surroundings—something that is powerfully brought home when Ted refuses to let his daughter marry across racial lines. Featuring an unforgettable rendering of India during Gandhi’s rise to power, Come, My Beloved is a family saga of rare power and sensitivity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.
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The Big Wave

The author of The Good Earth tells a poignant story about two boys whose friendship and courage help them survive an overwhelming tragedy On a mountainside in Japan, two boys enjoy a humble life governed by age-old customs. Jiya belongs to a family of fishermen; his best friend, Kino, farms rice. But when a neighboring volcano erupts and a tidal wave swallows their village—including Jiya’s family—life as they know it is changed forever. The orphaned Jiya must learn to come to terms with his grief. Now facing a profoundly different life than the one he’d always taken for granted, he must decide on a new way forward. Written with graceful simplicity, The Big Wave won the Children’s Book Award of the Child Study Association of America when it was first released. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.
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Famous Affinities of History: The Romance of Devotion. Volume 1

COMPLETE 4 VOLUMES - Classic Love Stories from History - Famous Affinities of History - The Romance of Devotion - Volumes 1-4, Complete By Lyndon Orr – THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love story of Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the most remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the plastic and the graphic arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose narrators. It has appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and it appeals as much to the imagination to-day as it did when Antony deserted his almost victorious troops and hastened in a swift galley from Actium in pursuit of Cleopatra. The wonder of the story is explained by its extraordinary nature. Many men in private life have lost fortune and fame for the love of woman. Kings have incurred the odium of their people, and have cared nothing for it in comparison with the joys of sense that come from the lingering caresses and clinging kisses. Cold-blooded statesmen, such as Parnell, have lost the leadership of their party and have gone down in history with a clouded name because of the fascination exercised upon them by some woman, often far from beautiful, and yet possessing the mysterious power which makes the triumphs of statesmanship seem slight in comparison with the swiftly flying hours of pleasure. But in the case of Antony and Cleopatra alone do we find a man flinging away not merely the triumphs of civic honors or the headship of a state, but much more than these—the mastery of what was practically the world—in answer to the promptings of a woman's will. Hence the story of the Roman triumvir and the Egyptian queen is not like any other story that has yet been told. The sacrifice involved in it was so overwhelming, so instantaneous, and so complete as to set this narrative above all others. Shakespeare's genius has touched it with the glory of a great imagination. Dryden, using it in the finest of his plays, expressed its nature in the title "All for Love." THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA ABELARD AND HELOISE QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF LEICESTER MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD BOTHWELL QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI KING CHARLES II. AND NELL GWYN MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART THE EMPRESS CATHARINE AND PRINCE POTEMKIN MARIE ANTOINETTE AND COUNT FERSEN THE STORY OF AARON BURR GEORGE IV. AND MRS. FITZHERBERT CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND ADAM LUX NAPOLEON AND MARIE WALEWSKA THE STORY OF PAULINE BONAPARTE THE STORY OF THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE AND COUNT NEIPPERG THE WIVES OF GENERAL HOUSTON LOLA MONTEZ AND KING LUDWIG OF BAVARIA LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON LADY BLESSINGTON AND COUNT D'ORSAY BYRON AND THE COUNTESS GUICCIOLI THE STORY OF MME. DE STAEL THE STORY OF KARL MARX FERDINAND LASSALLE AND HELENE VON DONNIGES THE STORY OF RACHEL DEAN SWIFT AND THE TWO ESTHERS PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY AND MARY GODWIN THE STORY OF THE CARLYLES THE STORY OF THE HUGOS THE STORY OF GEORGE SAND THE MYSTERY OF CHARLES DICKENS HONORE DE BALZAC AND EVELINA HANSKA CHARLES READE AND LAURA SEYMOUR
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Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45

Tuchman uses the epic life of Vinegar Joe Stilwell, commander of United States forces and allied chief of staff to Chiang Kai-shek, to explore the history of China from the revolution of 1911 to the turmoil of World War II, when China's Nationalist government faced attack from Japanese invaders and Communist insurgents.
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Burr

Burr is the opening volume in Gore Vidal's great fictional chronicle of American history, each of which is being republished in the Modern Library .  Burr From the Hardcover edition.
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The Emigrants

At first The Emigrants appears simply to document the lives of four Jewish émigrés in the twentieth century. But gradually, as Sebald's precise, almost dreamlike prose begins to draw their stories, the four narrations merge into one overwhelming evocation of exile and loss. Written with a bone-dry sense of humour and a fascination with the oddness of existence The Emigrants is highly original in its heady mix of fact, memory and fiction and photographs.
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