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Simon & Schuster, December 2011
eBook, 208 pages
ISBN-10: 143914267X
ISBN-13: 9781439142677
Celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this timeless classic with a special edition featuring a new introduction by the author and a message that is more relevant today than when it was first published. Since the late 1940s, Ray Bradbury has been revered for his works of science fiction and fantasy. With more than five million copies in print, Fahrenheit 451 -- originally published in 1953 -- remains his most acclaimed work.
Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper burns. Fahrenheit 451 is a novel set in the (perhaps near) future when "firemen" burn books forbidden by a totalitarian "brave new world" regime. The hero, according to Mr. Bradbury, is "a book burner who suddenly discovers that books are flesh-and-blood ideas and cry out silently when put to the torch." Today, when libraries and schools in this country and all over the world are still "burning" certain books, Fahrenheit 451 remains a brilliantly readable and suspenseful work of even greater impact and timeliness.
A nation defines itself by the kind of army it creates for its protection. By that standard, America at the close of the twentieth century is large, powerful, and technologically sophisticated. But it is also muscle-bound, confused, wasteful, and desperately in search of a mission. In The Minuteman, former Senator Gary Hart proposes a provocative and radical restructuring of America's armed forces, asking the questions that have gone unanswered for too long: Why do we have 1.5 million men and women under arms with no major threat to our security? Why is our military budget at the same level as during the Cold War? Why are we spending more money for fewer weapons? Why are the best service personnel taking early retirement? Why is it taboo even to question the structure of our bloated military establishment?
Drawing on his long experience as a leader in the field of military reform (including twelve years on the Senate Armed Services Committee), Hart proposes a return to the oldest principles of the republic, making an impassioned case for replacing the present Cold War military with a smaller standing army and a much larger, well-trained citizen reserve -- an "army of the people." The professional nucleus would be a rapid-response force responsible for dealing with immediate crises and low-intensity conflicts, while the larger army of citizen-soldiers would be called up when national interests required a larger, sustained military presence.
From ancient times to the present, the heroes of democracy have consistently upheld two principles: that it is dangerous to maintain a large standing army in peacetime; and that free people have a civic duty to participate in their own defense. Contemporary America, by contrast, has sunk into "Eisenhower's Nightmare," beholden to a powerful military-industrial complex embracing the armed forces, military contractors, unions, Congress, and military communities economically dependent on military spending. The only way to break this cycle of dependence, Hart argues, is to restore a citizen military -- a true militia, like the one that defended Lexington and Concord. If we reject this path, he warns, we risk being truly ill-prepared for the challenges facing our nation in the century about to dawn.
November 2011
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
Simon & Schuster, November 2011
Hardcover, 928 pages
ISBN-10: 1451647727
ISBN-13: 9781451647723
A sweeping four-part epic of the American West that could only come from the boundless skill and imagination of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry.
Over a career that spans fifty years, Larry McMurtry has been celebrated as "one of America's great storytellers" (The Wall Street Journal) and a writer who "stands among our best not only because of his uncanny ability to compress a cogent narrative arc but also because his eye for the moving detail is infallible" (Los Angeles Times). In The Berrybender Narratives, now published in a single volume for the first time, the author of Lonesome Dove delivers the unforgettable story of an idiosyncratic pioneer family and a truly unique view of the American West, reminding us again that his writing "has the power to clutch the heart and also to exhilarate" (The New Yorker).
In 1830, the Berrybender family—British, aristocratic, and fiercely out of place—abandons their home in England to embark on a journey through the American West just as the frontier is beginning to open up. Accompanied by a large and varied collection of retainers, Lord and Lady Berrybender intend to travel up the Missouri and settle in Texas, hoping to broaden the perspectives of their children, including Tasmin, a young woman of grit, beauty, and cunning. But when Tasmin's fast-developing relationship with Jim Snow, a frontiersman and ferocious Indian fighter, begins to dictate the family's course, they move further into the expansive and hostile wilderness and into the path of Indians, pioneers, mountain men, and explorers. As Lord Berrybender's health falters, and the rest of the family goes to pieces around him, Tasmin finds herself taking command of their collective fate and is finally forced to decide where her future lies.
Full of real and fascinating characters, famous shoot-outs, adventure, humor, love, and loss, The Berrybender Narratives is an epic of the American West during its period of transformation, a landscape that nobody understands better than Larry McMurtry.
An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler,
a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny
By Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski
Howard Books, November 2011
Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN-10: 1451642512
ISBN-13: 9781451642513
When Laura Schroff first met Maurice on a New York City street corner, she had no idea that she was standing on the brink of an incredible and unlikely friendship that would inevitably change both their lives. As one lunch at McDonald's with Maurice turns into two, then into a weekly occurrence that is fast growing into an inexplicable connection, Laura learns heart-wrenching details about Maurice's horrific childhood.
The boy is stuck in something like hell. He is six years old and covered in small red bites from chinches—bed bugs—and he is woefully skinny due to an unchecked case of ringworm. He is so hungry his stomach hurts, but then he is used to being hungry: when he was two years old the pangs got so bad he rooted through the trash and ate rat droppings. He had to have his stomach pumped. He is staying in his father's cramped, filthy apartment, sleeping with stepbrothers who wet the bed, surviving in a place that smells like something died. He has not seen his mother in three months, and he doesn't know why. His world is a world of drugs and violence and unrelenting chaos, and he has the wisdom to know, even at six, that if something does not change for him soon, he might not make it.
Sprinkled throughout the book is also Laura's own story of her turbulent childhood. Every now and then, something about Maurice's struggles reminds her of her past, how her father's alcohol-induced rages shaped the person she became and, in a way, led her to Maurice.
It is the heartwarming story of a friendship that has spanned thirty years, that brought life to an over-scheduled professional who had lost sight of family and happiness and hope to a hungry and desperate boy whose family background in drugs and crime and squalor seemed an inescapable fate.
He had, inside of him, some miraculous reserve of goodness and strength, some fierce will to be special. I saw this in his hopeful face the day he asked for spare change, and I see it in his eyes today. Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some might call it heart. Whatever it was, it drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread.
And whatever it is, it binds us still.
October 2011
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
From New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, a wonderfully strange and brilliant novel about a boy, his dog, and their struggle to escape the wrath of demons. Young Samuel Johnson is in trouble. Not only is his eyesight so poor that he mistakenly asks out a letter box on a date, but an angry demon is seeking revenge for Samuel's part in foiling the invasion of Earth by the forces of evil. It wants to get its claws on Samuel, and when Samuel and his faithful dachshund, Boswell, are pulled through a portal into the dark realm, the home of the Infernals, it gets its chance.
But catching Samuel is not going to be easy, for the Infernals have not reckoned on the bravery and cleverness of a boy and his dog, or the loyalty of Samuel's friend, the hapless demon Nurd, or the presence of two clueless policemen and the unlucky, if cheerfully optimistic, driver of an ice-cream van.
Most of all, no one has planned on the intervention of an unexpected band of little men, for Samuel and Boswell are not the only inhabitants of Earth who have found themselves in the underworld. If you thought demons were frightening, just wait until you meet Mr. Merryweather's Elves. . . .
These nuggets of wisdom are offered by an Academy Award–nominated actor (James Woods), a popular comedian (Aasif Mandvi), and a world-famous novelist (Jodi Picoult) to their sixteen-year-old selves. No matter how accomplished and confident they seem today, at sixteen, they were like the rest of us—often unsure, frequently confused, and usually in need of a little reassurance.
In Dear Me, 75 celebrities, writers, musicians, athletes, and actors have written letters to their younger selves that give words of comfort, warning, humor, and advice. These letters present intimate, moving, and witty insights into some of the world's most intriguing and admired individuals. By turns funny, surprising, raw, and uplifting, this singular collection captures the universal conditions that are youth, life, and growing up.
September 2011
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
Solaris, September 2011
Mass Market Paperback, 400 pages
ISBN-10: 1907992057
ISBN-13: 9781907992056
They live among us, abhorred, marginalised, despised. They are vampires, known politely as Sunless. The job of policing their community falls to the men and women of the Sunless Housing and Disclosure Executive – SHADE. Captain John Redlaw is London's most feared and respected SHADE officer.
But when the vampires start rioting in their ghettoes, and angry humans respond with violence of their own, even Redlaw may not be able to keep the peace. Especially when political forces are aligning to introduce a radical answer to the Sunless problem, one that will resolve the situation once and for all...
Redlaw is New York Times best selling author James Lovegrove at his very best.
The Women of the Cousins’ War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother
By Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, and Michael Jones
Touchstone, September 2011
Hardcover, 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1451629540
ISBN-13: 9781451629545
#1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory teams with two eminent historians to explore the historical characters in the real-life world behind her Wars of the Roses novels.
PHILIPPA GREGORY and her fellow historians describe the extraordinary lives of the heroines of her Cousins' War books: Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV; and Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII.
In her essay on Jacquetta, Philippa Gregory uses original documents, archaeology, and histories of myth and witchcraft to create the first-ever biography of the young duchess who survived two reigns and two wars to become the first lady at two rival courts. David Baldwin, established authority on the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the first commoner to marry a king of England for love; and Michael Jones, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes of Margaret Beaufort, the almost-unknown matriarch of the House of Tudor.
In the introduction, Gregory writes revealingly about the differences between history and historical fiction. How much of a role does speculation play in writing each? How much fiction and how much fact should there be in a historical novel? How are female historians changing our view of women in history?
The Women of the Cousins' War is beautifully illustrated with rare portraits and source materials. As well as offering fascinating insights into the inspirations behind Philippa Gregory's fiction, it will appeal to all with an interest in this period.
August 2011
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
Heaven knows, we need never be ashamed of our wolfish cravings. . . .
Bristly, sensitive, and meat-hungry Pip is a robust young whelp, an orphan born under a full moon. Between hunting escaped convicts alongside zombified soldiers, trying not to become one of the hunted himself, and hiding his hairy hands from the supernaturally beautiful and haughty Estella, whose devilish moods keep him chomping at the bit, Pip is sure he will die penniless or a convict like the rest of his commonly uncommon kind.
But then a mysterious benefactor sends him to London for the finest werewolf education money can buy. In the company of other furry young gentlemen, Pip tempers his violent transformations and devours the secrets of his dark world. When he discovers that his beloved Estella is a slayer of supernatural creatures, trained by the corpse-like vampire Miss Havisham, Pip's desire for her grows stronger than his midnight hunger for rare fresh beef. But can he risk his hide for a truth that will make Estella his forever—or will she drive one last silver stake through his heart?
Gallery, August 2011
Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1451621426
ISBN-13: 9781451621426
Lucky—that's how Jennifer would describe herself. She had a successful law career, met the love of her life in Doug, married him, had an apartment in New York City, a house in the Hamptons, two beautiful children, and was still madly in love after nearly seven years of marriage. Jennifer was living the kind of idyllic life that cliches are made of.
Until Doug was killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center, and she became a widow at age thirty-five—a "9/11 widow," no less, a member of a select group bound by sorrow, of which she wanted no part. Though completely devastated, Jennifer still considered herself blessed. Doug had loved her enough to last her a lifetime, and after his sudden death, she was done with the idea of romantic love—fully resigned to being a widowed single mother . . . until a chance encounter with a gregarious stranger changed everything. Without a clue how to handle this unexpected turn of events, Jennifer faced the question asked by anyone who has ever lost a loved one: Is it really possible to feel joy again, let alone love?
With unvarnished emotion and clear-eyed sardonic humor, Jennifer tells an ordinary woman's extraordinary tale of unimaginable loss, resilience, friendship, love, and healing—which is also New York City's narrative in the wake of September 11. Where You Left Me is an unlikely love story, a quintessentially New York story—at once Jennifer's tribute to the city that gave her everything and proof that second chances are possible.
Simon & Schuster, July 2011
Hardcover, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 1451617291
ISBN-13: 9781451617290
THE PROCEDURE HAS BEGUN . . .
Fifteen years earlier. Jasper College is buzzing with the news that famed literature professor Richard Aldiss will be teaching a special night class called Unraveling a Literary Mystery—from a video feed in his prison cell. In 1982, Aldiss was convicted of the murders of two female grad students; the women were killed with axe blows and their bodies decorated with the novels of notoriously reclusive author Paul Fallows. Even the most obsessive Fallows scholars have never seen him. He is like a ghost. Aldiss entreats the students of his night class to solve the Fallows riddle once and for all. The author's two published novels, The Coil and The Golden Silence, are considered maps to finding Fallows's true identity. And the only way in is to master them through a game called the Procedure. You may not know when the game has begun, but when you receive an invitation to play, it is an invitation to join the elite ranks of Fallows scholars. Failure, in these circles, is a fate worse than death. Soon, members of the night class will be invited to play along . . .
Present day. Harvard professor Alex Shipley made her name as a member of Aldiss's night class. She not only exposed the truth of Paul Fallows's identity, but in the process uncovered information that acquitted Aldiss of the heinous 1982 crimes. But when one of her fellow night class alums is murdered— the body chopped up with an axe and surrounded by Fallows novels—can she use what she knows about Fallows and the Procedure to stop a killer before each of her former classmates is picked off, one by one?
Grass Roots is a no-nonsense instruction manual that explains exactly what you can do. Scott Hennen—host and founder of the innovative Common Sense Club radio program—shows how everyday Americans just like you are making a difference for our country’s future. This down-to-earth handbook gives you clear, practical, effective actions you can take to preserve the American dream for your children and grandchildren.
President Ronald Reagan once said, “All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” Today, most Americans struggle just to keep food on the dinner table. We are staggering under a crushing burden of big government, out-of-control spending, and towering federal debt. We have become tax slaves—and the people we sent to Washington to represent us are the very ones who sold us there.
We’re angry—and rightly so. But ruling-class politicians have shrugged off our grassroots anger, calling it “Astroturf.” We’re tired of being ignored, patronized, and lied to by the very people who are supposed to be our “public servants.” Not since the original Boston Tea Party of 1773 have so many everyday Americans participated in such a significant display of righteous indignation and freedom-loving patriotism. For the first time in generations, ordinary hardworking, church-going Americans are carrying signs, gathering in large numbers, and making their voices heard.
Big government, beware. A sleeping giant has awakened.
Scott Hennen has drawn up a practical blueprint for change, a handbook for all of us who are ready to roll up our sleeves and do our part to restore America’s goodness—and greatness. Grass Roots is a political manifesto for every American who loves liberty and cares enough to get involved.
Simon & Schuster, June 2011
eBook, 352 pages
ISBN-10: 1451655983
ISBN-13: 9781451655988
Rising star Jan Burke -- whom reviewers have consistently compared to Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, and Robert Parker -- surpasses already high expectations in Liar, her most riveting work to date.
Intrepid sleuth/reporter Irene Kelly barely has time to recover from the shock of learning that her estranged aunt has been killed before being blindsided by an even bigger surprise -- she's the number one suspect! With the LAPD biting fast at her heels, Irene searches for her aunt's son, Travis -- a young man who wants nothing to do with Irene or any of the Kelly clan. The seeds of contention sown by family members no longer living are now being reaped by the next generation in ways no one would ever have expected. As deeply buried family skeletons are unearthed, the line between stalker and stalked becomes increasingly blurred, with dangerous consequences for Irene. She casts her lot with Travis, who she believes is the killer's next target, but her efforts to protect him place her squarely in harm's way. Now Irene must dodge not only the arm of the law but also the reach of a killer who appears to want to settle the score of an age-old family grudge. Only by sorting out the truth from the lies in a skein of old family secrets involving bigamy and adultery, alibis and murder, and secrets encrypted in hobo signs will she learn who has begun to kill again -- and why. In Liar, Jan Burke delivers her trademark skillfully woven tale with complex characters, gripping suspense, and heart-stopping action, but this time Irene Kelly must play a deadly game with the highest and most personal stakes ever.
A few years ago, we wrote YOU: The Owner's Manual, which taught people about the inner workings of their bodies—and how to keep them running strong. But you know what? There's a big difference between an adult's body and your body, between adults' health mysteries and your health mysteries, between their questions and your questions. So, teens, this book is for YOU. We'll talk to you about the biological changes that are happening in your brain and your body. We'll show you how to get more energy, improve your grades, protect your skin, salvage more sleep, get fit, eat well, maximize your relationships, make decisions about sex, and so much more. In fact, in these pages, we answer hundreds of your most pressing health-related questions. And you know what else? We are going to treat you like adults in one very important way: We're not going to preach. We're going to give you straight-up information that you can use to make smart choices about how to live the good life—and enjoy every second of it. Starting right now.
Simon & Schuster Adult, May 2011
Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 1451611056
ISBN-13: 9781451611052
In bleak midwinter, the people of Shipcott are shocked by the murder of an elderly woman in her bed. As snow cuts off the village, local policeman Jonas Holly is torn between catching a brutal killer and protecting his vulnerable wife, Lucy.
When the inquiry is commandeered by an abrasive senior detective, Jonas finds himself derided by his colleagues and ashamed to admit to Lucy that he's been sidelined. It seems his first murder investigation may be over before it's begun. But when he receives a series of increasingly sinister anonymous notes, Jonas is thrust back into the center of the case. Someone in the village is taunting him, blaming him for the tragedy. Someone thinks he's not doing his job; someone seems to know every move he makes. And soon Jonas has to ask: Who's hunting who?
The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral – And How It Changed the American West
By Jeff Guinn
Simon & Schuster, May 2011
Hardcover, 416 pages
ISBN-10: 1439154244
ISBN-13: 9781439154243
On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral shaped how future generations came to view the old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a West populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones, and where law enforcement largely consisted of sheriffs and outlaws facing off at high noon on the main streets of dusty, desolate towns where every man packed at least one six-shooter on his hips. It's colorful stuff—but the truth is even better.
As The Last Gunfight makes clear, the real story of the O.K. Corral and the West is far different from what we've been led to believe by countless TV Westerns and Hollywood films. Drawing on new material from private collections —including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp's own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout's conclusion—as well as documentary research in Tombstone and Arizona archives and dozens of interviews, award-winning author Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what the West was like, who the Earps and Doc Holliday and their cowboy adversaries really were, what actually happened on that cold day in Tombstone, and why.
The gunfight did not actually occur in the O.K. Corral, and it was in no way a defining battle between frontier forces of good and evil. Combining newfound facts with cinematic storytelling, Guinn depicts an accidental if inevitable clash between competing social, political, and economic forces representing the old West of ruggedly independent ranchers and cowboys and the emerging new West of wealthy mining interests and well-heeled town folk.
With its masterful storytelling, fresh research, and memorable characters—the Earps, cattle rustlers, frontier prostitutes, renegade Apaches, and Tombstone itself, a beguiling hybrid of elegance and decadence—The Last Gunfight is both hugely entertaining and illuminating, and the definitive work on the Wild West's greatest shootout.
Simon & Schuster Adult, April 2011
Hardcover, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 1451611056
ISBN-13: 9781451611052
Ever wonder why teens can spend entire weekends playing video games but struggle with just one hour of homework? Why we're addicted to certain websites and steal glances at our smartphones under the dinner table? Or why some people are able to find joy in difficult or repetitive jobs while others burn out? It's not the experiences themselves but the way they're structured that matters.
All our lives we've been told that games are distractions—playful pastimes, but unrelated to success. In Game Frame, Aaron Dignan shows us that the opposite is true: games produce peak learning conditions and accelerated achievement. Here, the crucial connection between the games we love to play and the everyday tasks, goals, and dreams we have trouble realizing is illuminated.
Aaron Dignan is the thirty-something founder of a successful digital strategy firm that studies the transformative power of technology in culture. He and his peers were raised on a steady diet of games and gadgets, ultimately priming them to challenge the status quo of the modern workplace. What they learned from games goes deeper than hand-eye coordination; instead, this generation intrinsically understands the value of adding the elements of games into everyday life.
Game Frame is the first prescriptive explanation of what games mean to us, the human psychology behind their magnetic pull, and how we can use the lessons they teach as a framework to achieve our potential in business and beyond.
Games are a powerful way to influence and change behavior in any setting. Here, Dignan outlines why games and play are such important trends in culture today, and how our technology, from our iPhones to our hybrid cars, primes us to be instinctive players. Game Frame tackles the challenging task of defining games and the mechanics that make games work from several perspectives, then explores these ideas through the lens of neuroscience. Finally, Dignan provides practical tips for using basic game mechanics in a variety of settings, such as motivating employees at work or encouraging children at home, giving readers the tools to develop their own games to solve problems in their everyday lives.
Illuminated throughout with a series of real-world examples and hypothetical scenarios, Game Frame promises a crash course in game design and behavioral psychology that will leave the reader—and, by extension, the world itself—more productive. Revolutionary, visionary, practical, and time-tested, Game Frame will change the way you approach life.
Simon & Schuster, April 2011
Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1439192316
ISBN-13: 9781439192313
R is a young man with an existential crisis--he is a zombie. He shuffles through an America destroyed by war, social collapse, and the mindless hunger of his undead comrades, but he craves something more than blood and brains. He can speak just a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams.
After experiencing a teenage boy's memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and stragely sweet relationship with the victim's human girlfriend. Julie is a blast of color in the otherwise dreary and gray landscape that surrounds R. His decision to protect her will transform not only R, but his fellow Dead, and perhaps their whole lifeless world.
Scary, funny, and surprisingly poignant, Warm Bodies is about being alive, being dead, and the blurry line in between.
Gallery, March 2011
Hardcover, 464 pages
ISBN-10: 1439199086
ISBN-13: 9781439199084
"They didn't have to kill him…He never drank from the altar of bones."
Cryptic dying words from a murdered homeless woman in present day San Francisco unlock a decades-buried secret that changed history. Now a pair of ruthless assassins are sent to cut the few living "loose ends." And a young, resourceful woman on the run encounters a determined man with his own connected past and vengeful agenda. Forced to partner for survival and answers, a fast-paced and deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, taking them across the globe from the winding streets of Paris to the faded palaces of Budapest to the frozen lakes of Mongolia...where destiny, passion, and further betrayal await them.
The Altar of Bones has it all: The Russian mob. KGB spies. Presidential assasination. A doomed Hollywood legend. Deathbed confessions. Corrosive power. Shattered families. Guardians of an ancient religious icon housing a secret others will kill to possess. The dark promise of immortality. And it delivers on its ambitious premise to leave you stunned and breathless at the end.
Eisenhower 1956
The President's Year of Crisis--Suez and the Brink of War
By David A. Nichols
Simon & Schuster, March 2011
Hardcover, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 1439139334
ISBN-13: 9781439139332
A gripping tale of international intrigue and betrayal, Eisenhower 1956 is the white-knuckle story of how President Dwight D. Eisenhower guided the United States through the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. The crisis climaxed in a tumultuous nine-day period fraught with peril just prior to the 1956 presidential election, with Great Britain, France, and Israel invading Egypt while the Soviet Union ruthlessly crushed rebellion in Hungary.
David A. Nichols, a leading expert on Eisenhower's presidency, draws on hundreds of documents declassified in the last thirty years, enabling the reader to look over Ike's shoulder and follow him day by day, sometimes hour by hour as he grappled with the greatest international crisis of his presidency. The author uses formerly top secret minutes of National Security Council and Oval Office meetings to illuminate a crisis that threatened to escalate into global conflict.
Nichols shows how two life-threatening illnesses—Eisenhower's heart attack in September 1955 and his abdominal surgery in June 1956—took the president out of action at critical moments and contributed to missteps by his administration.
In 1956, more than two thirds of Western Europe's oil supplies transited the Suez Canal, which was run by a company controlled by the British and French, Egypt's former colonial masters. When the United States withdrew its offer to finance the Aswan Dam in July of that year, Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the canal. Without Eisenhower's knowledge, Britain and France secretly plotted with Israel to invade Egypt and topple Nasser.
On October 29—nine days before the U.S. presidential election—Israel invaded Egypt, setting the stage for a "perfect storm." British and French forces soon began bombing Egyptian ports and airfields and landing troops who quickly routed the Egyptian army. Eisenhower condemned the attacks and pressed for a cease-fire at the United Nations.
Within days, in Hungary, Soviet troops and tanks were killing thousands to suppress that nation's bid for freedom. When Moscow openly threatened to intervene in the Middle East, Eisenhower placed American military forces—including some with nuclear weapons—on alert and sternly warned the Soviet Union against intervention.
On November 6, Election Day, after voting at his home in Gettysburg, Ike rushed back to the White House to review disturbing intelligence from Moscow with his military advisors. That same day, he learned that the United Nations had negotiated a cease-fire in the Suez war—a result, in no small measure, of Eisenhower's steadfast opposition to the war and his refusal to aid the allies.
In the aftermath of the Suez crisis, the United States effectively replaced Great Britain as the guarantor of stability in the Middle East. More than a half century later, that commitment remains the underlying premise for American policy in the region.
Historians have long treated the Suez Crisis as a minor episode in the dissolution of colonial rule after World War II. As David Nichols makes clear in Eisenhower 1956, it was much more than that.
January 2011
Selected Simon & Schuster New
Releases
Solaris, January 2011
Mass Market Paperback, 512 pages
ISBN-10: 1907519505
ISBN-13: 9781907519505
Her magic may be the only thing that can save a prince—and the Seven Kingdoms. In a distant corner of the Seven Kingdoms, an ancient curse festers and grows, consuming everything in its path. Only one man can break it: Harkeld of Osgaard, a prince with mage's blood in his veins. But Prince Harkeld has a bounty on his head—and assassins at his heels. Innis is a gifted shapeshifter. Now she must do the forbidden: become a man. She must stand at Prince Harkeld's side as his armsman, protecting and deceiving him. But the deserts of Masse are more dangerous than the assassins hunting the prince. The curse has woken deadly creatures, and the magic Prince Harkeld loathes may be the only thing standing between him and death.
The Truth About Grief
The Myth of Its Five Stages and the New Science of Loss
Simon & Schuster, January 2011
Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN-10: 1439148333
ISBN-13: 9781439148334
The five stages of grief are so deeply imbedded in our culture that no American can escape them. Every time we experience loss—a personal or national one—we hear them recited: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The stages are invoked to explain everything from how we will recover from the death of a loved one to a sudden environmental catastrophe or to the trading away of a basketball star. But the stunning fact is that there is no validity to the stages that were proposed by psychiatrist Elisabeth KÜbler-Ross more than forty years ago.
In The Truth About Grief, Ruth Davis Konigsberg shows how the five stages were based on no science but nonetheless became national myth. She explains that current research paints a completely different picture of how we actually grieve. It turns out people are pretty well programmed to get over loss. Grieving should not be a strictly regimented process, she argues; nor is the best remedy for pain always to examine it or express it at great length. The strength of Konigsberg's message is its liberating force: there is no manual to grieving; you can do it freestyle.
In the course of clarifying our picture of grief, Konigsberg tells its history, revealing how social and cultural forces have shaped our approach to loss from the Gettysburg Address through 9/11. She examines how the American version of grief has spread to the rest of the world and contrasts it with the interpretations of other cultures—like the Chinese, who focus more on their bond with the deceased than on the emotional impact of bereavement. Konigsberg also offers a close look at KÜbler-Ross herself: who she borrowed from to come up with her theory, and how she went from being a pioneering psychiatrist to a New Age healer who sought the guidance of two spirits named Salem and Pedro and declared that death did not exist.
Deeply researched and provocative, The Truth About Grief draws on history, culture, and science to upend our country's most entrenched beliefs about its most common experience.
