Recommended Books

An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963
Author:
Robert Dallek
ISBN 13:
978-0316907927
Drawing on previously unavailable material and never-before-opened archives, An Unfinished Life is packed with revelations large and small -- about JFK's health, his love affairs, RFK's appointment as Attorney General, what Joseph Kennedy did to help his son win the White House, and the path JFK would have taken in the Vietnam entanglement had he survived. Robert Dallek succeeds as no other biographer has done in striking a critical balance -- never shying away from JFK's weaknesses, brilliantly exploring his strengths -- as he offers up a vivid portrait of a bold, brave, complex, heroic, human Kennedy.

The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (Vintage Classics)
Authors:
Langston Hughes
,
Arnold Rampersad
ISBN 13:
978-0679764083
The definitive sampling of a writer whose poems were “at the forefront of the Harlem Renaissance and of modernism itself, and today are fundamentals of American culture” ( OPRAH Magazine). Here, for the first time, are all the poems that Langston Hughes published during his lifetime, arranged in the general order in which he wrote them. Lyrical and pungent, passionate and polemical, the result is a treasure of a book, the essential collection of a poet whose words have entered our common language. The collection spans five decades, and is comprised of 868 poems (nearly 300 of which never before appeared in book form) with annotations by Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel. Alongside such famous works as "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" and Montage of a Dream Deferred, The Collected Poems includes Hughes's lesser-known verse for children; topical poems distributed through the Associated Negro Press; and poems such as "Goodbye Christ" that were once suppressed.

1944: FDR and the Year That Changed History
Author:
Jay Winik
ISBN 13:
978-1501125362
**New York Times Bestseller** Jay Winik brings to life in “gripping” detail ( The New York Times Book Review ) the year 1944, which determined the outcome of World War II and put more pressure than any other on an ailing yet determined President Roosevelt. 1944 was a year that could have stymied the Allies and cemented Hitler’s waning power. Instead, it saved those democracies—but with a fateful cost. Now, in a “complex history rendered with great color and sympathy” ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review), Jay Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history “with cinematic force” ( Time) . 1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But millions of lives were at stake as President Roosevelt learned about Hitler’s Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an infirm Roosevelt, who faced a momentous decision. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world’s reach, one challenge—saving Europe’s Jews—seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt’s grasp. “Compelling….This dramatic account highlights what too often has been glossed over—that as nobly as the Greatest Generation fought under FDR’s command, America could well have done more to thwart Nazi aggression” ( The Boston Globe ). Destined to take its place as one of the great works of World War II, 1944 is the first book to retell these events with moral clarity and a moving appreciation of the extraordinary actions of many extraordinary leaders.