Life In The Fantastic 40s

More than 450 personal stories and photos from the United States in the 1940s, plus inspiring quotes and vintage ads.

The stories and photos in this book were shared by Reminisce readers and capture the best of the past with plenty of heartwarming moments, humor and patriotic spirit.

A memorable look at a decade that sums up all that is exciting about the American spirit. A lively, full-color celebration of an automotive era that began with '30s-fashion cars and ended with recognizably modern vehicles. It's also the story of how America's automakers helped the Allies win World War II. Uses the proven picture-caption format, with over 1,400 photos of every major make of 1940s American car, plus classic independents, such as Hudson and Studebaker. Also includes period "lifestyle" photos, contemporary auto ads, and compelling war-production art. Shows how carmakers emerged from the Great Depression, turning out guns and fighting aircraft before basking in a postwar seller's market.

Carol Vorderman is everywoman: a single working mother, a businesswoman and a devoted daughter. And now, for the first time, she has decided to tell it like it is. Since 1982, Carol was much loved as co-presenter of Countdown with Richard Whiteley. Joining the show at the age of twenty-one after her mother secretly posted off an application, she became the first woman to appear on Channel Four. Vorderman and Whiteley went on to form one of the most endearing partnerships in British TV history. His death in 2005 devastated Carol but she continued to present Countdown until July 2008, when, after twenty-six unbroken years with the show, it was announced that she was stepping down. Carol’s life has been a rollercoaster. The youngest of three children, she was just three weeks old when her parents separated. Her father refused to acknowledge Carol, leaving her mother to hold down multiple jobs as the family’s only provider. There was a stint in the circus; there have been two marriages; she has juggled a career with two children, whom she adores; she is a detox advocate and has hosted more shows than any other female presenter, including Tomorrow’s World, Better Homes, Pride of Britain and, of course, Countdown. In IT ALL COUNTS, Carol tells the engrossing story of her life from an early age through to today - the personal struggles, the good times, the sad times, and lifts the lid on what really goes on behind the scenes in a TV studio and the full story behind her shocking Countdown departure.

Montreal in the 1940s and '50s was Canada's largest, richest, most vibrant and colourful city. It was, at the end of those prosperous decades, "bursting at the seams" and still growing. William Weintraub, writing with insight and affection, brings the Montreal of his youth vividly, entertainingly and wittily to life. The Montreal he describes so well was a city with two communities, English and French, who lived separate lives. They met along the dividing line that was "the Main" -- St Lawrence Boulevard and the nearby streets, where gambling joints, bordellos and night clubs prospered, and where striptease artiste Lili St. Cyr became the toast of the town and gangsters raked in profits while the police looked the other way. It was the Montreal of the charismatic Mayor Camilien Houde within the repressive Quebec of Premier Maurice Duplessis. Weintraub also looks at what he calls the Third Solitude, Montreal's Jewish community, which brought not just smoked meat and delicatessens to the vibrant area around the Main but a lively community that has played a major part in shaping the city and from which sprang such writers as Mordecai Richler and Irving Layton. William Weintraub looks at all aspects of life in Montreal in what Mordecai Richler called "an engaging, evocative book about Montreal's prime-time".

"In this warm, wise, and witty overview, Jonathan Rauch combines evidence and experience to show his fellow adults that the best is yet to come.” —Steven Pinker, bestselling author of Enlightenment Now This book will change your life by showing you how life changes. Why does happiness get harder in your 40s? Why do you feel in a slump when you’re successful? Where does this malaise come from? And, most importantly, will it ever end? Drawing on cutting-edge research, award-winning journalist Jonathan Rauch answers all these questions. He shows that from our 20s into our 40s, happiness follows a U-shaped trajectory, a “happiness curve,” declining from the optimism of youth into what’s often a long, low slump in middle age, before starting to rise again in our 50s. This isn’t a midlife crisis, though. Rauch reveals that this slump is instead a natural stage of life—and an essential one. By shifting priorities away from competition and toward compassion, it equips you with new tools for wisdom and gratitude to win the third period of life. And Rauch can testify to this personally because it was his own slump, despite acclaim as a journalist and commentator that compelled him to investigate the happiness curve. His own story and the stories of many others from all walks of life—from a steelworker and a limo driver to a telecoms executive and a philanthropist—show how the ordeal of midlife malaise reboots our values and even our brains for a rebirth of gratitude. Full of insights and data and featuring many ways to endure the slump and avoid its perils and traps, The Happiness Curve doesn’t just show you the dark forest of midlife, it helps you find a path through the trees. It also demonstrates how we can—and why we must—do more to help each other through the woods. Midlife is a journey we mustn’t walk alone.

A collection of personal letters and photographs in which the authors share their memories of special old-time Christmas celebrations, telling of festive foods, school pageants, unforgettable gifts and trees, decorations, and family traditions.

Engaging and accessible, Gendering Women explores the constructions of femininity and how they fundamentally affect women's mental well being through the lifecourse. Drawing on accounts from women of growing up and growing older in the north of England, the book shows how experiences of becoming and being a woman--in family life, education, employment, motherhood, and in the presence of violence--both enable and erode self-confidence and self-esteem. The volume draws a critical link between contemporary gender theory and the lived experiences of women today and will appeal to students and scholars in sociology and the broader social sciences.