Download or read book The Last Palace written by Norman Eisen and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa’s greatest houses—and the lives of its occupants When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s, and The Last Palace chronicles the upheavals that transformed the continent over the past century. There was the optimistic Jewish financial baron, Otto Petschek, who built the palace after World War I as a statement of his faith in democracy, only to have that faith shattered; Rudolf Toussaint, the cultured, compromised German general who occupied the palace during World War II, ultimately putting his life at risk to save the house and Prague itself from destruction; Laurence Steinhardt, the first postwar US ambassador whose quixotic struggle to keep the palace out of Communist hands was paired with his pitched efforts to rescue the country from Soviet domination; and Shirley Temple Black, an eyewitness to the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring by Soviet tanks, who determined to return to Prague and help end totalitarianism—and did just that as US ambassador in 1989. Weaving in the life of Eisen’s own mother to demonstrate how those without power and privilege moved through history, The Last Palace tells the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the triumph of liberal democracy.
Download or read book The Last Castle written by Denise Kiernan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller with an "engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door. The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy. This is the fascinating, “soaring and gorgeous” (Karen Abbott) story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.
Download or read book Hitler s Chancellery written by Ronald Pawly and published by Crowood Press UK. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the story of the most iconic building of the Third Reich. Hitler's New State Chancellery was designed by Albert Speer specifically to embody the power and arrogance of the new Nazi regime. The dimensions and decoration of its state apartments were devised to instill awe in the visitor, and it was intended to be the first working model for Germania - a whole new capital city for the Thousand-Year Reich. But this book is much more than a catalogue of concrete, glass and marble. It tells the extraordinary story of the Nazi state, for which the Chancellery provided the ceremonial headquarters and the stage for some of its most dramatic moments. Albert Speer deliberately designed Hitler's palace to have 'ruin appeal', foreseeing future centuries when it remains would make as great an impression on the visitor to Germania as the Coliseum in Rome. Instead, it was completely destroyed after barely ten years that today the tourist can locate its very site only with difficulty. Ronald Pawly's book carries the reader on a time-machine trip into a grim past, within living memory, but utterly erased from the physical record.
Download or read book In the Vanishers Palace written by Aliette de Bodard and published by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen series comes a dark retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land... A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village's debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world. A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference. When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement. But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets... Advance praise for In the Vanishers’ Palace “Another stellar offering by Bodard. Her signature intensity is on display in this tale of people (and dragons) struggling to survive in the ruins of an alien conquest. Emotionally complex relationships interweave with richly drawn and deftly nuanced world-building.” —Kate Elliott, author of the Court of Fives series “A transformative experience. With dragons.” —Fran Wilde, Hugo and Nebula nominated author of The Bone Universe and The Gemworld series
Download or read book The Prisoner in His Palace written by Will Bardenwerper and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, this haunting, insightful, and surprisingly intimate portrait of Saddam Hussein provides “a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power” (USA TODAY). The “captivating” (Military Times) The Prisoner in His Palace invites us to take a journey with twelve young American soldiers in the summer of 2006. Shortly after being deployed to Iraq, they learn their assignment: guarding Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution. Living alongside, and caring for, their “high value detainee and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions—about the judicial process, Saddam’s character, and the morality of modern war. Although the young soldiers’ increasingly intimate conversations with the once-feared dictator never lead them to doubt his responsibility for unspeakable crimes, the men do discover surprising new layers to his psyche that run counter to the media’s portrayal of him. Woven from firsthand accounts provided by many of the American guards, government officials, interrogators, scholars, spies, lawyers, family members, and victims, The Prisoner in His Palace shows two Saddams coexisting in one person: the defiant tyrant who uses torture and murder as tools, and a shrewd but contemplative prisoner who exhibits surprising affection, dignity, and courage in the face of looming death. In this thought-provoking narrative, Saddam, known as the “man without a conscience,” gets many of those around him to examine theirs. “A singular study exhibiting both military duty and human compassion” (Kirkus Reviews), The Prisoner in His Palace grants us “a behind-the-scenes look at history that’s nearly impossible to put down…a mesmerizing glimpse into the final moments of a brutal tyrant’s life” (BookPage).
Download or read book The Obsidian Palace written by Benjamin Medrano and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-11 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ruethwyn's life may have been destroyed, but now she's ready.With the blessing of the fey and others who she barely dares dream of, Ruethwyn's body is whole once more. Turning to the future, she sets her sight on her beloved who was stolen away by a dragon. Yet even with all her magic at her command, Ruethwyn stands little chance against such a powerful foe, so she must tread lightly.Other foes threaten to halt Ruethwyn's efforts even now, though, foes that would kill her or imprison her. With her friends at her side, Ruethwyn will face any threats that stand in her way, especially since her friends have become dearer than she'd imagined. Still, any romance will have to wait, for at long last Ruethwyn can act.The only question is if she's ready for an unexpected figure from her past. A figure she thought gone forever.
Download or read book The Man Who Hated Women written by Amy Sohn and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Best History Books of 2021 • "Fascinating . . . Purity is in the mind of the beholder, but beware the man who vows to protect yours.” —Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker Anthony Comstock, special agent to the U.S. Post Office, was one of the most important men in the lives of nineteenth-century women. His eponymous law, passed in 1873, penalized the mailing of contraception and obscenity with long sentences and steep fines. The word Comstockery came to connote repression and prudery. Between 1873 and Comstock’s death in 1915, eight remarkable women were charged with violating state and federal Comstock laws. These “sex radicals” supported contraception, sexual education, gender equality, and women’s right to pleasure. They took on the fearsome censor in explicit, personal writing, seeking to redefine work, family, marriage, and love for a bold new era. In The Man Who Hated Women, Amy Sohn tells the overlooked story of their valiant attempts to fight Comstock in court and in the press. They were publishers, writers, and doctors, and they included the first woman presidential candidate, Victoria C. Woodhull; the virgin sexologist Ida C. Craddock; and the anarchist Emma Goldman. In their willingness to oppose a monomaniac who viewed reproductive rights as a threat to the American family, the sex radicals paved the way for second-wave feminism. Risking imprisonment and death, they redefined birth control access as a civil liberty. The Man Who Hated Women brings these women’s stories to vivid life, recounting their personal and romantic travails alongside their political battles. Without them, there would be no Pill, no Planned Parenthood, no Roe v. Wade. This is the forgotten history of the women who waged war to control their bodies.
Download or read book The Adamantine Palace written by Stephen Deas and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of the Realms depends on its dragons. With their terrifying natures tempered by a mysterious liquid, they are ridden by the aristocracy and bred for hunting and war. But as dangerous political maneuverings threaten the empire, a single dragon has gone missing. And even one dragon-returned to its full intelligence and fury-could spell disaster for the Realms...
Download or read book The Golem and the Jinni written by Helene Wecker and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An intoxicating fusion of fantasy and historical fiction. . . . Wecker’s storytelling skills dazzle." —Entertainment Weekly A marvelous and absorbing debut novel about a chance meeting between two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic. She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free. An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world. Chava and Ahmad meet accidentally and become friends and soul mates despite their opposing natures. But when the golem’s violent nature overtakes her one evening, their bond is challenged. An even more powerful threat will emerge, however, and bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their very existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice. Compulsively readable, The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, in a wondrously inventive tale that is mesmerizing and unforgettable.
Download or read book The Palace Papers written by Tina Brown and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “addictively readable” (The Washington Post) inside story of the British royal family’s battle to overcome the dramas of the Diana years—only to confront new, twenty-first-century crises “Frothy and forthright, a kind of Keeping Up with the Windsors with sprinkles of Keats.”—The New York Times (Notable Book of the Year) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Elle, Town & Country “Never again” became Queen Elizabeth II’s mantra shortly after Princess Diana’s tragic death. More specifically, there could never be “another Diana”—a member of the family whose global popularity upstaged, outshone, and posed an existential threat to the British monarchy. Picking up where Tina Brown’s masterful The Diana Chronicles left off, The Palace Papers reveals how the royal family reinvented itself after the traumatic years when Diana’s blazing celebrity ripped through the House of Windsor like a comet. Brown takes readers on a tour de force journey through the scandals, love affairs, power plays, and betrayals that have buffeted the monarchy over the last twenty-five years. We see the Queen’s stoic resolve after the passing of Princess Margaret, the Queen Mother, and Prince Philip, her partner for seven decades, and how she triumphs in her Jubilee years even as family troubles rage around her. Brown explores Prince Charles’s determination to make Camilla Parker Bowles his wife, the tension between William and Harry on “different paths,” the ascendance of Kate Middleton, the downfall of Prince Andrew, and Harry and Meghan’s stunning decision to step back as senior royals. Despite the fragile monarchy’s best efforts, “never again” seems fast approaching. Tina Brown has been observing and chronicling the British monarchy for three decades, and her sweeping account is full of powerful revelations, newly reported details, and searing insight gleaned from remarkable access to royal insiders. Stylish, witty, and erudite, The Palace Papers will irrevocably change how the world perceives and understands the royal family.
Download or read book The Memory Palace written by Mira Bartok and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gorgeous memoir about the 17 year estrangement of the author and her homeless schizophrenic mother, and their reunion.
Download or read book Playing the Palace written by Paul Rudnick and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Buzzfeed's 39 Excellent LGBTQ Books To Read This Month And Always THEIR LOVE STORY CAPTIVATED THE WORLD…THE CROWN PRINCE AND THAT GUY FROM NEW YORK When a lonely American event planner starts dating the gay Prince of Wales, a royal uproar ensues: is it true love or the ultimate meme? Find out in this hilarious romantic comedy. After having his heart trampled on by his cheating ex, Carter Ogden is afraid love just isn’t in the cards for him. He still holds out hope in a tiny corner of his heart, but even in his wildest dreams he never thought he’d meet the Crown Prince of England, much less do a lot more with him. Yes, growing up he’d fantasized about the handsome, openly gay Prince Edgar, but who hadn’t? When they meet by chance at an event Carter’s boss is organizing, Carter’s sure he imagined all that sizzling chemistry. Or was it mutual? This unlikely but meant-to-be romance sets off media fireworks on both sides of the Atlantic. With everyone having an opinion on their relationship and the intense pressure of being constantly in the spotlight, Carter finds ferocious obstacles to his Happily Ever After, including the tenacious disapproval of the Queen of England. Carter and Price Edgar fight for a happy ending to equal their glorious international beginning. It’s a match made on Valentine’s Day and in tabloid heaven.
Download or read book Palace of the Plague Lord written by C. L. Werner and published by Games Workshop(uk). This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fantasy-roman.
Download or read book Ice Palace written by Edna Ferber and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2023-05-16 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Alaska is the real heroine here—with her advocates and her court attendants the members of the cast. There’s Chris Storm, native daughter, glamorous, colorful, with a story so incredible that it has to be taken on faith. Brought up by two grandfathers, she might well have been caught in the meshes of their friendship, their rivalry, their enmity. One grandfather, Thor Storm, had sought in Alaska in his youth that freedom of the frontier it still afforded—and stayed, victim of their lure, seeking through the weekly he published, to maintain that freedom. The other grandfather, Czar Kennedy, was High Mogul, big time operator, who had made his millions in Alaska, but who milked her and played in with the Outside—men from Seattle and San Francisco and Washington who stripped her of her riches for their own ends. Chris was brought up by the two of them, with Bridie Ballantyne providing the balance wheel, and Chris managed to survive and be a person in her own right.”—Kirkus Review
Download or read book The Red Palace written by June Hur and published by Feiwel & Friends. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June Hur, critically acclaimed author of The Silence of Bones and The Forest of Stolen Girls, returns with The Red Palace—a third evocative, atmospheric historical mystery perfect for fans of Courtney Summers and Kerri Maniscalco. To enter the palace means to walk a path stained in blood... Joseon (Korea), 1758. There are few options available to illegitimate daughters in the capital city, but through hard work and study, eighteen-year-old Hyeon has earned a position as a palace nurse. All she wants is to keep her head down, do a good job, and perhaps finally win her estranged father's approval. But Hyeon is suddenly thrust into the dark and dangerous world of court politics when someone murders four women in a single night, and the prime suspect is Hyeon's closest friend and mentor. Determined to prove her beloved teacher's innocence, Hyeon launches her own secret investigation. In her hunt for the truth, she encounters Eojin, a young police inspector also searching for the killer. When evidence begins to point to the Crown Prince himself as the murderer, Hyeon and Eojin must work together to search the darkest corners of the palace to uncover the deadly secrets behind the bloodshed. Praise for The Red Palace: An ABA Indie Bestseller A Junior Library Guild Selection Forbes Most Anticipated Book of 2022 Selection "A tense political thriller, a beautiful romance, and a coming of age all in one unique package." —School Library Journal, starred review "This atmospheric historical mystery will transport and captivate readers ... A beautifully written story full of historical and cultural details that will leave readers aching for a follow-up." —Booklist, starred review "An expertly choreographed mystery with a touch of romance and an emotionally satisfying conclusion ... The perfect book to curl up with for a cozy winter afternoon of murder and intrigue." —NPR
Download or read book The Bingo Palace written by Louise Erdrich and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 1995-02-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Back on his reservation, Lipsha Morrissey, the illegitimate son of June Kashpaw and Gerry Nanapush, falls in love with Shawnee Ray and is torn between success and meaning, love and money, and the future and the past.
Download or read book Winter Palace Priceless Collection Book 3 written by T. Davis Bunn and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 1993-05-01 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The struggle--for power, wealth, and souls--in the crumbling Soviet Empire Passing through Florian's Gate...having discovered the Amber Room...T. Davis Bunn now takes his readers to the Winter Palace! Jeffrey Sinclair is on top of the world. He is growing in professional success in the antiques trade, in his spiritual quest for a better understanding of God, and in his love for the beautiful Katya. But his world is suddenly shaken when his mentor Alexander falls ill, leaving Jeffrey to take on new responsibilities. What begins as an enjoyable honeymoon visit to Monte Carlo, ends with a mysterious assignment to reclaim a deposed Russian nobleman's winter palace. Thrust into the turbulence of modern-day St. Petersburg, Jeffrey's search constantly links him to the riches of its tsarist history. Here he confronts the dangerous collusion that has emerged between former Communist Party members, KGB agents, and self-styled "Mafia" gangs of criminals and black-marketers. But most striking to him is the material and spiritual hunger which gnaws at the people. Who will meet this incredible need? And is it just the estate Count Markov seeks to recover, or is there something more?
