After O Connor

From the acclaimed, controversial singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor comes a revelatory memoir of her fraught childhood, musical triumphs, fearless activism, and of the enduring power of song. Blessed with a singular voice and a fiery temperament, Sinéad O'Connor rose to massive fame in the late 1980s and 1990s with a string of gold records. By the time she was twenty, she was world famous--living a rock star life out loud. From her trademark shaved head to her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live when she tore up Pope John Paul II's photograph, Sinéad has fascinated and outraged millions. In Rememberings, O'Connor recounts her painful tale of growing up in Dublin in a dysfunctional, abusive household. Inspired by a brother's Bob Dylan records, she escaped into music. She relates her early forays with local Irish bands; we see Sinéad completing her first album while eight months pregnant, hanging with Rastas in the East Village, and soaring to unimaginable popularity with her cover of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2U." Intimate, replete with candid anecdotes and told in a singular form true to her unconventional career, Sinéad's memoir is a remarkable chronicle of an enduring and influential artist.

“Sandra Day O’Connor takes you behind the closed doors of the Supreme Court to reveal how Justice O’Connor helped craft landmark decisions on abortion, affirmative action, and a host of other critical issues. Joan Biskupic has broken new ground in reporting on O’Connor’s life and historic role on the high court. This lively, fast-paced account will make people rethink how they view this extraordinary woman and her fellow justices. An indispensable read for anyone interested in politics, the law, and power as exercised by one of the most fascinating women of our time.” -Andrea Mitchell Sandra Day O'Connor, America's first woman justice, became the axis on which the Supreme Court turned. She was called the most powerful woman in America, and it was often said that to gauge the direction of American law, one need look only to O'Connor's vote. Then, just one year short of a quarter century on the bench, she surprised her colleagues and the nation by announcing her retirement. Drawing on information from once-private papers of the justices, hundreds of interviews with legal and political insiders, and the insight gained from nearly two decades of covering the Supreme Court, Joan Biskupic examines O'Connor's remarkable career, providing an in-depth account of her transformation from tentative jurist to confident architect of American law. The portrait that emerges is of a complex and multifaceted woman: lawyer, politician, legislator, and justice, as well as wife, mother, A-list society hostess, and competitive athlete. To all appearances, she was the polite lady in pearls, handbag on her arm. But in the back rooms of politics and the law, she was a determined, focused strategist. O'Connor was the feminist who, rather than rebel against the male-dominated system, worked from within -- and succeeded. As Biskupic demonstrates, Justice O'Connor became much more than a "first." During her twenty-four-year tenure, she wrote the decisions on some of the most controversial social battles of our time. O'Connor's tie-breaking opinions on issues such as abortion rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, and religious freedom will have a lasting effect far into the future. O'Connor also cast one of the five votes that cut off the Florida recounts and allowed George W. Bush to take the White House in the 2000 contested presidential election. With an eye to the American people and a keen sense of public attitudes, she worked behind the scenes to shape the law and transform the legal standards by which future cases will be decided. From O'Connor's isolated upbringing on the Lazy B ranch in Arizona through her time as a state legislator to her rise as a justice -- along the way confronting her own personal challenges and crises, including breast cancer -- Biskupic presents a vivid, astute depiction of the justice -- and of the woman beneath the black robe. In so doing, Sandra Day O'Connor also provides an unprecedented look inside the exclusive, famously secretive High Court.

Georgia has produced some of the major figures of modern literature, including Carson McCullers, Erskine Caldwell and, most notably, Flannery O'Connor. While such writers are firmly established in American literary history, all too few readers are aware of how the state's tradition of literary excellence persists in the present day. The thirty stories in After O'Connor were written during the past fifteen years by authors who were born in Georgia or spent a significant part of their lives and careers in this state. Embracing the social, cultural, and ethnic variety in today's Georgia, After O'Connor both advances and helps redefine the great southern storytelling tradition.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The intimate, inspiring, and authoritative biography of Sandra Day O’Connor, America’s first female Supreme Court justice, drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives—as seen on PBS’s American Experience “She’s a hero for our time, and this is the biography for our time.”—Walter Isaacson Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O’Connor’s story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings—doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement, and cowgirl toughness. She became the first ever female majority leader of a state senate. As a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, she stood up to corrupt lawyers and humanized the law. When she arrived at the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she began a quarter-century tenure on the Court, hearing cases that ultimately shaped American law. Diagnosed with cancer at fifty-eight, and caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s, O’Connor endured every difficulty with grit and poise. Women and men who want to be leaders and be first in their own lives—who want to learn when to walk away and when to stand their ground—will be inspired by O’Connor’s example. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women. Praise for First “Cinematic . . . poignant . . . illuminating and eminently readable . . . First gives us a real sense of Sandra Day O’Connor the human being. . . . Thomas gives O’Connor the credit she deserves.”—The Washington Post “[A] fascinating and revelatory biography . . . a richly detailed picture of [O’Connor’s] personal and professional life . . . Evan Thomas’s book is not just a biography of a remarkable woman, but an elegy for a worldview that, in law as well as politics, has disappeared from the nation’s main stages.”—The New York Times Book Review

During the 1950s and early 1960s Flannery O'Connor wrote more than a hundred book reviews for two Catholic diocesan newspapers in Georgia. This full collection of these reviews nearly doubles the number that have appeared in print elsewhere and represents a significant body of primary materials from the O'Connor canon. We find in the reviews the same personality so vividly apparent in her fiction and her lectures--the unique voice of the artist that is one clear sign of genius. Her spare precision, her humor, her extraordinary ability to permit readers to see deeply into complex and obscure truths-all are present in these reviews and letters.

From the award-winning journalist and coach: a biography of “the ‘Rain Man’ of golf. It’s a character drama. It’s an underdog story” (Barry Morrow, Academy Award–winning screenwriter). Documentary now in production! In The Feeling of Greatness, second edition, golf coach Tim O’Connor updates his previous biography of the late great, Canadian golfer Moe Norman, who was famous for introducing the single plane golf swing. This edition includes new anecdotes about Moe both on and off the course by golfers, journalists, friends, and family, and offers a more in-depth portrait of the man and golfer, especially in the last years of his life. O’Connor shares with readers his personal and professional friendships with Moe along the way. Some twenty years later, from a distanced perspective, O’Connor sets the record straight about Norman, promotes his legacy as the legendary golfer he was, and reflects on life lessons learned from their association over the years. Praise for Moe Norman and The Feeling of Greatness “Only two players have ever owned their swings: Moe Norman and Ben Hogan.” —Tiger Woods “Well-written and meticulously researched.” —James McCarten, PGATour.com “Tim O’Connor has helped us better understand one of golf’s most intriguing and disturbing members.” —Hal Quinn, The Financial Post

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER The author of the celebrated Victory tells the fascinating story of the intertwined lives of Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first and second women to serve as Supreme Court justices The relationship between Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—Republican and Democrat, Christian and Jew, western rancher’s daughter and Brooklyn girl—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—battles that would ultimately benefit every American woman. She also makes clear how these two justices have shaped the legal framework of modern feminism, including employment discrimination, abortion, affirmative action, sexual harassment, and many other issues crucial to women’s lives. Sisters-in-Law combines legal detail with warm personal anecdotes that bring these very different women into focus as never before. Meticulously researched and compellingly told, it is an authoritative account of our changing law and culture, and a moving story of a remarkable friendship.

The former Supreme Court justice shares stories about the history and evolution of the Supreme Court that traces the roles of key contributors while sharing the events behind important transformations.