Foster Memoir

Thanks to one reporter's skill, we can fix the exact moment on November 22, 1963 when the world stopped and held its breath: At 12:34 p.m. Central Time, UPI White House reporter Merriman Smith broke the news that shots had been fired at President Kennedy's motorcade. Most people think Walter Cronkite was the first to tell America about the assassination. But when Cronkite broke the news on TV, he read from one of Smith's dispatches.

This is the real story of the Beatles' harrowing rise to fame, focusing on that seven-year stretch from the time the boys met as teenagers in the 1950s to early 1964, when the Fab Four prepared to invade America. From the boys' humble beginnings in Liverpool, to the cellars of Hamburg, When They Were Boys includes stories never before told, including heartbreaks, lucky breaks, and dramatic twists of timing, fate, loyalty, and betrayal.

With Schwarzkopf is Gus Lee's remembrance of his mentor and friend H. Norman Schwarzkopf, and his firsthand account of how Schwarzkopf shaped his life. In 1966, Lee, a junior-year cadet at West Point, was bright, athletic, and popular. He was also on the verge of getting kicked out. Nearing the bottom of his class due to his penchant for playing poker and reading recreationally instead of studying engineering, he was assigned a new professor: then-Major Norman Schwarzkopf.

At the beginning of 1864, the Civil War was far from won; terrible and bloody Union setbacks and casualties lay ahead. Abraham Lincoln was facing a re-election battle as some northern Democrats were ready to start peace talks that could leave the Confederacy a separate slaveholding American nation and as his secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, challenged him for the Republican nomination. But by the end of the year, the war's end was in sight, and slavery was on the verge of extinction.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tells the story of the self-made billionaire who built the Kendall-Jackson empire from nothing into the biggest-selling brand of premium wines in the U.S. Jess Stonestreet Jackson was one of a small band of pioneering entrepreneurs who put California's wine country on the map. His life story is a compelling slice of history, daring, innovation, feuds, intrigue, talent, mystique, contrarianism, and luck, offering a unique window on the elegant, adventurous, and cut-throat worlds of Jackson's two passions: wine and horseracing.

Anne Frank wrote a diary from the age of 13 as she hid for over two years in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse escaping the horrors of Nazi occupation. An intimate record of adolescence and confinement, anger and heartbreak, it is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Famed throughout the world and read by tens of millions of people in many different translations, it remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit.

An old lady, an antiques dealer, dies in Basel, Switzerland. Her devoted daughter-in-law finally steels herself to do what all families must in the aftermath of a death - she heads upstairs to the attic to sort through the old lady's effects. But this wasn't just any old lady, and this wasn't just any old family house. Helene (Leni) Elias was born Helene Frank, only daughter of Alice Frank and sister of Otto Frank, who in turn was Anne Frank's father.1929 destroyed the Franks' banking business in Frankfurt; the rise of the Nazi party began to destroy their lives.

By the acclaimed author of the classic Patriots and Union 1812, this major work of narrative history portrays four of the most turbulent decades in the growth of the American nation. After the War of 1812, Presidents Monroe, Jackson, Van Buren, and Polk led the country to its Manifest Destiny across the continent, but the forces and hostility unleashed by that expansion led inexorably to Civil War.

Karl Rove, the man who masterminded the rise of George W. Bush from governor of Texas to the presidency, who advised Bush during two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who some claim helped seize the 2004 election for Bush, and who was at the center of the Bush administration's two biggest scandals - is back. Since exiting the Bush administration, Rove has quietly become the country's greatest Republican power broker. This up-to-the-minute journalistic report sheds crucial light on Rove's vital behind-the-scenes role.

For 10 years Bill Stokes was a roving reporter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal. He has written reams of material about his vivid impressions of people, animals, events, personal activities, and "things in general". Bill Stokes obviously enjoys his role as Wisconsin's favorite journalist. In this delightful book he shares that fun with all.

Barry Goldwater was a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism. In an era in which American conservatism has lost its way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over 50 years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life.

One cold November night, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, fifteen-year-old Richard Jahnke Jr., ROTC leader and former Boy Scout, waited for his parents to return from celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the night they met. When his father got out of the car, the boy blasted him through the heart with a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Richard's seventeen-year-old sister, Deborah, was sitting on the living room couch with a high-powered rifle - just in case her brother missed.

For Efrem Harkham, hospitality isn't just a job - it's a way of life. And that attitude is evident when you walk into any of Harkham’s one-hundred-plus luxury hotels. In a true, rags-to-riches American success story, Harkham built a renowned international hotel brand that is synonymous with comfort and refinement.

In 1997, the bodies of young African American men began turning up in the cane fields of New Orleans suburbs. The victims - many of them transient street hustlers - had been brutally raped and strangled, leaving Louisiana's gay community rattled. When no leads were found and the murders continued, detectives Dennis Thornton and Dawn Bergeron came together as task-force partners and were indefatigable in their decade-long effort to track down the killer.

On a quest for enlightenment, Benjamin Shalva journeyed through the wilds of Tibet and took a pilgrimage to a white-walled monastery in Rhode Island. He wrestled with demons, danced with temptresses, and sang with hundreds of voices under the stars. Now, using the lessons and techniques gained through years of religious exploration and inward reflection, Shalva offers simple and powerful ways to connect with your spiritual self, whether it be in a place of worship or the yoga studio, or even while sitting in traffic.

Dr. Hans Holzer is perhaps best known as the famed ghost hunter and paranormal investigator associated with the Amityville horror investigations, which later became the subject of several popular horror films. In January 1977, Holzer, working with the well-known trance medium Ethel Johnson-Meyers, entered 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York. In 1974 this had been the place of a horrific crime when the then-occupant Ronald DeFeo, Jr., murdered his own parents and four siblings.

Bank robbers. Pimps. Wise guys. Murderers...Today's FBI street agents face a never-ending parade of violence and chaos perpetuated by society's most dangerous and sometimes most demented felons. In this action-packed confession of an FBI man, Phil Kerby takes us on a white-knuckle ride through a career that pitted him against militia bombers and black militants, against hardened, hardcore kidnappers, coed hookers, biker drug dealers, bank robbers on the lam, and much, much more. Here are hostage standoffs and cat-and-mouse games with the Mob.

He'd been shot in the head, decapitated, and set on fire. Who could have turned on the real-estate ace with such bloodthirsty fury? Even before the remains were found, circumstantial evidence was building against Rudin's 52-year-old wife, Margaret, who stood to inherit a handsome share of her husband's fortune. Rudin's friends also suspected Margaret, and the victim had thought that his wife was trying to poison him when he was alive. Then a chilling caveat was discovered in Rudin's living trust: should he die under violent circumstances, an investigation should be conducted.

Charismatic, charming, and one of the best orators of his era, Henry Clay seemed to have it all. He offered a comprehensive plan of change for America, and he directed national affairs as Speaker of the House, as Secretary of State to John Quincy Adams - the man he put in office - and as acknowledged leader of the Whig party. As the broker of the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay fought to keep a young nation united when westward expansion and slavery threatened to tear it apart. Yet, despite his talent and achievements, Henry Clay never became president.

Massimo Vacchetta, an Italian veterinarian specializing in large animals, is recently divorced and feeling heartbroken and depressed - until the day that someone brings an orphaned baby hedgehog into his clinic. As the tiny hedgehog cries and whimpers, Massimo immediately understands the extent of the animal's vulnerability and isolation. Recognizing her helplessness and desperation in himself, he connects with her in a way he has never connected with any other animal. In caring for this hedgehog, Massimo uncovers her vibrant personality and rediscovers his own.