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The Astor Orphan
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Book Synopsis The Astor Orphan by : Alexandra Aldrich
Download or read book The Astor Orphan written by Alexandra Aldrich and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Astor Orphan is an unflinching debut memoir by a direct descendant of John Jacob Astor, Alexandra Aldrich. She brilliantly tells the story of her eccentric, fractured family; her 1980s childhood of bohemian neglect in the squalid attic of Rokeby, the family’s Hudson Valley Mansion; and her brave escape from the clan. Aldrich reaches back to the Gilded Age when the Astor legacy began to come undone, leaving the Aldrich branch of the family penniless and squabbling over what was left. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs that bring this faded world into focus, The Astor Orphan is written with the grit of The Glass Castle and set amid the aristocratic decay of Grey Gardens.
Book Synopsis The Second Mrs. Astor by : Shana Abe
Download or read book The Second Mrs. Astor written by Shana Abe and published by Kensington Publishing Corporation. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After losing her husband on the RMS Titanic, Madeleine Astor, who is constantly surrounded by scandal, finds her status elevated to that of a virtuous, tragic heroine and must decide whether to accept the role assigned to her or carve out her own extraordinary path.
Book Synopsis The Astor Orphans by : Lately Thomas
Download or read book The Astor Orphans written by Lately Thomas and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Orphan Trains by : Marylin Irvin Holt
Download or read book Orphan Trains written by Marylin Irvin Holt and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1994-02-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From 1850 to 1930 America witnessed a unique emigration and resettlement of at least 200,000 children and several thousand adults, primarily from the East Coast to the West. This 'placing out,' an attempt to find homes for the urban poor, was best known by the 'orphan trains' that carried the children. Holt carefully analyzes the system, initially instituted by the New York Children's Aid Society in 1853, tracking its imitators as well as the reasons for its creation and demise. She captures the children's perspective with the judicious use of oral histories, institutional records, and newspaper accounts. This well-written volume sheds new light on the multifaceted experience of children's immigration, changing concepts of welfare, and Western expansion. It is good, scholarly social history."—Library Journal
Book Synopsis The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story by : Frances Kiernan
Download or read book The Last Mrs. Astor: A New York Story written by Frances Kiernan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-05-17 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Kiernan's sharp-eyed biography brings back a woman who, far into her 90s, relished the dance of life." —O, The Oprah Magazine This biography, based on firsthand knowledge and interviews with Mrs. Astor’s friends and the heads of New York’s great cultural institutions, gives us back the woman so loved and admired. At the age of 51, Brooke Astor wedded the notoriously ill-tempered Vincent Astor, who died in 1959. In a highly publicized courtroom battle, she fought off an attempt to break Vincent’s will, which left $67 million to the Vincent Astor Foundation. As the foundation’s president, Mrs. Astor would use this legacy to benefit New York City. She would personally visit every grant applicant and charm anyone she met. At her hundredth birthday, princes and presidents honored her, but in 2006 a grandson petitioned the courts to have his father removed as Brooke’s guardian. Once again an Astor court battle became the stuff of headlines.
Book Synopsis Archie and Amelie by : Donna M. Lucey
Download or read book Archie and Amelie written by Donna M. Lucey and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with glamour, mystery, and madness, Archie and Amélie is the true story chronicling a tumultuous love affair in the Gilded Age. John Armstrong "Archie" Chanler was an heir to the Astor fortune, an eccentric, dashing, and handsome millionaire. Amélie Rives, Southern belle and the goddaughter of Robert E. Lee, was a daring author, a stunning temptress, and a woman ahead of her time. Archie and Amélie seemed made for each other—both were passionate, intense, and driven by emotion—but the very things that brought them together would soon tear them apart. Their marriage began with a “secret” wedding that found its way onto the front page of the New York Times, to the dismay of Archie’s relatives and Amélie’s many gentleman friends. To the world, the couple appeared charmed, rich, and famous; they moved in social circles that included Oscar Wilde, Teddy Roosevelt, and Stanford White. But although their love was undeniable, they tormented each other, and their private life was troubled from the start. They were the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of their day—a celebrated couple too dramatic and unconventional to last—but their tumultuous story has largely been forgotten. Now, Donna M. Lucey vividly brings to life these extraordinary lovers and their sweeping, tragic romance. “In the Virginia hunt country just outside of Charlottesville, where I live, the older people still tell stories of a strange couple who died some two generations ago. The stories involve ghosts, the mysterious burning of a church, a murder at a millionaire’s house, a sensational lunacy trial, and a beautiful, scantily clad young woman prowling her gardens at night as if she were searching for something or someone—or trying to walk off the effects of the morphine that was deranging her. I was inclined to dismiss all of this as tall tales Virginians love to spin out; but when I looked into these yarns I found proof that they were true. . . .” —Donna M. Lucey on Archie and Amélie
Book Synopsis When We Were Orphans by : Kazuo Ishiguro
Download or read book When We Were Orphans written by Kazuo Ishiguro and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2001-01-16 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and author of the Booker Prize–winning novel The Remains of the Day comes this stunning work of soaring imagination. Born in early twentieth-century Shanghai, Banks was orphaned at the age of nine after the separate disappearances of his parents. Now, more than twenty years later, he is a celebrated figure in London society; yet the investigative expertise that has garnered him fame has done little to illuminate the circumstances of his parents' alleged kidnappings. Banks travels to the seething, labyrinthine city of his memory in hopes of solving the mystery of his own painful past, only to find that war is ravaging Shanghai beyond recognition—and that his own recollections are proving as difficult to trust as the people around him. Masterful, suspenseful and psychologically acute, When We Were Orphans offers a profound meditation on the shifting quality of memory, and the possibility of avenging one’s past.
Book Synopsis The Girl With No Name by : Marina Chapman
Download or read book The Girl With No Name written by Marina Chapman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1954, in a remote mountain village in South America, a little girl was abducted. She was four years old. Marina Chapman was stolen from her housing estate and abandoned deep in the Colombian jungle. That she survived is a miracle. Two days later, half-drugged, terrified, and starving, she came upon a troop of capuchin monkeys. Acting entirely on instinct, she tried to do what they did: copying their actions she slowly learned to fend for herself. So begins the story of her five years among the monkeys, during which time she gradually became feral; lost the ability to speak, lost all inhibition, lost any sense of being human, replacing human society with the social mores her new simian family. But society was eventually to reclaim her. At age ten she was discovered by a pair of hunters who took her to the lawless Colombian city of Cucuta where, in exchange for a parrot, they sold her to a brothel. When she learned that she was to be groomed for prostitution, she made her plans to escape. But her adventure was not over yet... In the vein of Slumdog Millionaire and City of God, this rousing story of a lost child who overcomes the dangers of the wild to finally reclaim her life will astonish readers everywhere.
Download or read book The Orphan Mother written by Robert Hicks and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic account of one remarkable woman's quest for justice from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country. In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock--the "Widow of the South"--has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. But when her ambitious, politically minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah--no stranger to loss--finds her world once more breaking apart. How could this happen? Who wanted him dead? Mariah's journey to uncover the truth leads her to unexpected people--including George Tole, a recent arrival to town, fleeing a difficult past of his own--and forces her to confront the truths of her own past. Brimming with the vivid prose and historical research that has won Robert Hicks recognition as a "master storyteller" (San Francisco Chronicle)./DIV
Download or read book The Baroness written by Hannah Rothschild and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beautiful, romantic and spirited, Pannonica, known as Nica, named after her father’s favorite moth, was born in 1913 to extraordinary, eccentric privilege and a storied history. The Rothschild family had, in only five generations, risen from the ghetto in Frankfurt to stately homes in England. As a child, Nica took her daily walks, dressed in white, with her two sisters and governess around the parkland of the vast house at Tring, Hertfordshire, among kangaroos, giant tortoises, emus and zebras, all part of the exotic menagerie collected by her uncle Walter. As a debutante, she was taught to fly by a saxophonist and introduced to jazz by her brother Victor; she married Baron Jules de Koenigswarter, settled in a château in France and had five children. When World War II broke out, Nica and her five children narrowly escaped back to England, but soon after, she set out to find her husband who was fighting with the Free French Army in Africa, where she helped the war effort by being a decoder, a driver and organizing supplies and equipment. In the early 1950s Nica heard “’Round Midnight” by the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and, as if under a powerful spell, abandoned her marriage and moved to New York to find him. She devoted herself to helping Monk and other musicians: she bailed them out of jail, paid their bills, took them to the hospital, even drove them to their gigs, and her convertible Bentley could always be seen parked outside downtown clubs or up in Harlem. Charlie Parker would notoriously die in her apartment in the Stanhope Hotel. But it was Monk who was the love of her life and whom she cared for until his death in 1982. Hannah Rothschild has drawn on archival material and her own interviews in this quest to find out who her great-aunt really was and how she fit into a family that, although passionate about music and entomology, was reactionary in always favoring men over women. Part musical odyssey, part love story, The Baroness is a fascinating portrait of a modern figure ahead of her time who dared to live as she wanted, finally, at the very center of New York’s jazz scene.
Book Synopsis Pain, Parties, Work by : Elizabeth Winder
Download or read book Pain, Parties, Work written by Elizabeth Winder and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I dreamed of New York, I am going there." On May 31, 1953, twenty-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at "the intellectual fashion magazine" Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next twenty-six days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended Balanchine ballets, watched a game at Yankee Stadium, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She typed rejection letters to writers from The New Yorker and ate an entire bowl of caviar at an advertising luncheon. She stalked Dylan Thomas and fought off an aggressive diamond-wielding delegate from the United Nations. She took hot baths, had her hair done, and discovered her signature drink (vodka, no ice). Young, beautiful, and on the cusp of an advantageous career, she was supposed to be having the time of her life. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fellow guest editors whose memories infuse these pages, Elizabeth Winder reveals how these twenty-six days indelibly altered how Plath saw herself, her mother, her friendships, and her romantic relationships, and how this period shaped her emerging identity as a woman and as a writer. Pain, Parties, Work—the three words Plath used to describe that time—shows how Manhattan's alien atmosphere unleashed an anxiety that would stay with her for the rest of her all-too-short life. Thoughtful and illuminating, this captivating portrait invites us to see Sylvia Plath before The Bell Jar, before she became an icon—a young woman with everything to live for.
Book Synopsis A Child of the Sea and Life Among the Mormons by : Elizabeth Whitney Williams
Download or read book A Child of the Sea and Life Among the Mormons written by Elizabeth Whitney Williams and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the vivid memoir of a mid-nineteenth-century girlhood spent mostly on the islands of Lake Michigan and the onshore communities of Manistique, Charlevoix, Traverse City, and Little Traverse (now Harbor Springs), written by a woman who grew up to be a lighthouse keeper on Beaver Island and in Little Traverse. Williams was brought up Catholic by a French-speaking mother and an English-speaking father who was a ship's carpenter for entrepreneurs engaged in the mercantile trade to and from these rapidly developing settlements. Williams depicts cordial, even intimate, relationships between her family and the Indians who lived nearby, and describes the courtship and arranged marriage of an Ottawa chief's daughter who lived with her family for an extended period. The major portion of the book, however, is devoted to her eye-witness recollections of James Jesse Strang's short-lived dissident Mormon monarchy on Beaver Island, amplified by stories she heard from disillusioned followers. Strang was expelled from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints after disputing Brigham Young's right to succeed Joseph Smith. Eventually he and his own loyal followers settled on Beaver Island and attracted a stream of new converts; at their demographic peak, the "Strangites" numbered 5,000 strong. Strang saw himself as a prophet and believed the rules he tried to establish were in accord with divine revelations. Williams describes the mounting tensions between Strang's followers and the "gentile" residents who fled the island as Strang's influence grew; incidents connected with Strang's assassination by two former followers; and the ensuing exodus of most Strangites from Beaver Island. She later moved back there with her family, as did many of the earlier inhabitants.
Book Synopsis Alone Together by : Theodora Getty Gaston
Download or read book Alone Together written by Theodora Getty Gaston and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theodora "Teddy" Getty Gaston—now one hundred years old—reveals the glamorous yet painful story of her marriage to J. Paul Getty. As formidable as Getty was, his wife was equally strong-minded and flamboyant, and their clutches and clashes threw off sparks. She knew the vulnerable side of Getty—he underwent painful plastic surgery and suffered terrible phobias—that few, if any, saw. A vivid love story, Alone Together is also a fascinating glimpse into the twentieth century from the vantage point of one of its most remarkable couples. This is how the other half lived—dinner dances, satin gowns, beach houses, hotel suites, first-class cabins on the Queen Mary. Teddy's extra-ordinary life story moves from the glittering nightclubs of 1930s New York City to Mussolini's Italy, where she was imprisoned by the fascist regime, to California in the golden postwar years, where Paul and Teddy socialized with movie stars and the elite. But life with one of the world's richest men wasn't all glitz and glamour. Though terrifically charismatic in person, Getty grew more miserly as his wealth increased. Worse, he often left Teddy and their son, Timothy, behind for years at a time while he built planes for the war effort in the 1940s or brokered oil deals—he was the first American to lease mineral rights in Saudi Arabia, which made him, at his death, the richest man in the world. Even when Timothy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, Getty complained about medical bills and failed to return to the United States to support his wife and son. When Timothy died at age twelve, the marriage was already falling apart. Teddy's unrelenting spirit, her valiant friendship, and her winning lack of vanity transform what could have been a sob story into a nuanced portrait of a brilliant but stubbornly difficult man and the family he loved but left behind, as well as an enchanting view into a bygone era. This was a life lived from the heart.
Download or read book True Raiders written by Brad Ricca and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: True Raiders is The Lost City of Z meets The Da Vinci Code, from critically acclaimed author Brad Ricca. This book tells the untold true story of Monty Parker, a British rogue nobleman who, after being dared to do so by Ava Astor, the so-called “most beautiful woman in the world,” headed a secret 1909 expedition to find the fabled Ark of the Covenant. Like a real-life version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this incredible story of adventure and mystery has almost been completely forgotten today. In 1908, Monty is approached by a strange Finnish scholar named Valter Juvelius who claims to have discovered a secret code in the Bible that reveals the location of the Ark. Monty assembles a ragtag group of blueblood adventurers, a renowned psychic, and a Franciscan father, to engage in a secret excavation just outside the city walls of Jerusalem. Using recently uncovered records from the original expedition and several newly translated sources, True Raiders is the first retelling of this group’s adventures– in the space between fact and faith, science and romance.
Book Synopsis Orphans of the Storm by : Celia Imrie
Download or read book Orphans of the Storm written by Celia Imrie and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-19 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER The story of a mother's quest to find her children against all odds, set against the epic backdrop of the sinking of the legendary Titanic. 'Smashing . . . I was hooked on page one and literally could not put it down. I loved all that she wrote about the true story behind this thrilling tale' JOANNA LUMLEY Nice, France, 1911: After three years of marriage, young seamstress Marcela Caretto has finally had enough. Her husband, Michael, an ambitious tailor, has become cruel and controlling and she determines to get a divorce. But while awaiting the judges' decision on the custody of their two small boys, Michael receives news that changes everything. Meanwhile fun-loving New York socialite Margaret Hays is touring Europe with some friends. Restless, she resolves to head home aboard the most celebrated steamer in the world – RMS Titanic. As the ship sets sail for America, carrying two infants bearing false names, the paths of Marcela, Michael and Margaret cross - and nothing will ever be the same again. From the Sunday Times-bestselling author, Celia Imrie, Orphans of the Storm dives into the waters of the past to unearth a sweeping, epic tale of the sinking of the Titanic that radiates with humanity and hums with life. _____________________ 'Gripping . . . An epic adventure' ROSIE GOODWIN 'A gripping read' DAILY MIRROR, Summer reads
Book Synopsis Aster and the Accidental Magic by : Thom Pico
Download or read book Aster and the Accidental Magic written by Thom Pico and published by Random House Graphic. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fun, action-packed fantasy adventure about a girl, her dog, and magic gone wrong! Quiet . . . birds . . . nature. . . . That's what Aster expects when her parents move their whole family to the middle of nowhere. It's just her (status: super-bored), her mom and dad (status: busy with science), her brother (status: has other plans), and . . . . . . magic? In her new home, Aster meets a mysterious old woman with a herd of dogs who gives her a canine companion of her own. But when she and her dog Buzz are adventuring in the forest, they run into a trickster spirit who gives Aster three wishes. After wishing for the ability to understand and talk to her dog, she becomes only able to talk in dog language . . . and the trouble she gets into is just starting. Maybe the middle of nowhere will be more interesting than Aster thought. "Crisp, vibrant artwork." -The AV Club
Download or read book Pee-Shy written by Frank Spinelli and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2013-12-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his stunningly honest and poignant memoir, Frank Spinelli recounts a childhood marked by trauma and of finding the courage that ultimately transformed his life. . . Frank Spinelli grew up on Staten Island in the 1970s to Italian-born parents who viewed cops and priests as second only to the Pope in infallibility. His mother, concerned that her son was being bullied at school for being "different," signed Frank up for Boy Scouts when he turned eleven. For the next two years, Frank's life had two realities—one lived in full view of his family, and the other a secret he shared with his Scoutmaster that he couldn't confess to anybody. Eventually Frank went to college, established a thriving medical practice, and found a home in Manhattan. But the emotional and physical effects of his past continued to shadow every aspect of his life. Then a shocking discovery gave Frank the opportunity to overturn thirty years of confusion and self-blame—for himself, and for other boys like him. Pee-Shy is a remarkable story of overcoming the unimaginable to choose resilience over darkness, and love over loss. "A devastatingly heartbreaking look at life after childhood abuse, with wit and piercing insight that can only come from a place of brutal honesty." —Josh Kilmer-Purcell "This is a memoir about a grown-up boy's generous—and healing—heart."—Kevin Sessums "This is one of those horrific, true stories that Dr. Spinelli so courageously reveals. With raw honesty he makes us understand that monsters do exist and a child's innocence is precious. His story is one of too many, but maybe, this one will help open our eyes a little more and shine a light on a taboo subject that many chose not to see or believe." —Whoopi Goldberg
