Adult

Chronicling General Lafayette’s years in Washington’s army, Sarah Vowell reflects on the ideals of the American Revolution versus the reality of the Revolutionary War. Riding shotgun with Lafayette, Vowell swerves from the high-minded debates of Independence Hall to the frozen wasteland of Valley Forge, from bloody battlefields to the Palace of Versailles, bumping into John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Lord Cornwallis, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Antoinette, and various kings, Quakers and redcoats along the way.

When former “Good Morning America” host Joan Lunden was diagnosed with breast cancer, she set out to learn everything about it to help her survive. With seven children counting on her, giving up was not an option. After announcing her diagnosis on “GMA,” people all over the country rallied around Joan as she went into Warrior mode. HAD I KNOWN is a chronicle of Joan’s experience and the plan she formulated and followed to battle with her disease and treatment. As Joan reveals, while her journey was not easy, it profoundly changed her in unexpected ways.

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture, we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In THE GIVENNESS OF THINGS, Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.

Young Adelia Monteforte begins the summer of 1941 aboard a crowded ship bound for America, utterly alone yet free of Fascist Italy. Whisked away to the seaside by her well-meaning aunt and uncle, she basks in the noisy affection of the boisterous Irish Catholic boys next door. And although she adores all four of the Connally brothers, it's the eldest, Charlie, she pines for. But all hopes for a future together are throttled by the creep of war and a tragedy that hits much closer to home. Grief-stricken, Addie flees --- first to Washington and then to war-torn London, where she finds a position at a prestigious newspaper, as well as a chance for a new beginning. But the past always nips at her heels. And in a final, fateful choice, Addie will discover that the only way home may be a path she never suspected.

In this fresh and moving account, a son returns to his native South to spend a special autumn with his 95-year-old dad, sharing the unique joys, disappointments and life lessons of Saturdays with their beloved Ole Miss Rebels. As Stuart Stevens began grappling with a profound sense of loss and mortality, he started asking himself some tough questions, not least about his relationship with his father. The two of them had spent little time together for decades. He made a resolution: to invite his father to attend a season of Ole Miss football games together. Now, driving to and from the games, and cheering from the stands, they take stock of their lives as father and son, and as individuals, reminding themselves of their unique, complicated, precious bond.
 

The relationship between Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg transcends party, religion, region and culture. Strengthened by each other’s presence, these groundbreaking judges, the first and second to serve on the highest court in the land, have transformed the Constitution and America itself, making it a more equal place for all women. Linda Hirshman’s dual biography includes revealing stories of how these trailblazers fought for their own recognition in a male-dominated profession.

J. M. Coetzee is one of the world’s most intriguing authors. Compelling, razor-sharp, erudite: the adjectives pile up but the heart of the fiction remains elusive. Now, in J. M. COETZEE AND THE LIFE OF WRITING, David Attwell explores the extraordinary creative processes behind Coetzee’s novels from Dusklands to The Childhood of Jesus.  He shows convincingly that Coetzee’s work is strongly autobiographical, the memoirs being continuous with the fictions, and that his writing proceeds with never-ending self-reflection.

T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Gen. George Armstrong Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer’s legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer’s historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person --- capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years).

In June of 1961, A.E. Hotchner visited an old friend in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital. It would be the last time they spoke: a few weeks later, Ernest Hemingway took his own life. Their final conversation was also the final installment in a story whose telling Hemingway had spread over nearly a decade. In characteristically pragmatic terms, Hemingway divulged to Hotchner the details of the affair that destroyed his first marriage: the truth of his romantic life in Paris, the real part of each literary woman he'd later create. And he told of the mischief that made him a legend: of impotence cured in a house of God; of a plane crash in the African bush; of F. Scott Fitzgerald dispensing romantic advice; of midnight champagne with Josephine Baker; of adventure, human error, and life after lost love.