Strictly Personal

FOR AS LONG AS IT TAKES… When the "Dear Jane" break-up note came over her friend's fax machine, Genna Wade couldn't believe her eyes. Well, she wasn't about to let Mr. Tall, Blond, Rich and Gorgeous off the hook so easily. She was just going to retaliate with a few lessons…in how sweet revenge and seduction could be. Before Nick Marsden had the chance to apologize to the brokenhearted beauty for his brother's cowardly actions, she was making her own moves…on him. Okay, he'd play along. She had just enough spunk and sass to intrigue him. But when she was ready to walk away from their new relationship, would he be able to let her go?

“Can man by searching find out God?” Long before Job, man was asking this question. It has stormed the minds and hearts of all peoples in all lands and cultures. What is God really like? Is He discoverable by those He created? Headhunters in shadow-haunted Africa have tried to beat away their restless questioning. The same necessity to know forced the intellectuals of Athens at the peak of its classical glory to create with their minds their own gods. In man’s primitive desperation to claim a knowing relationship with the Divine, gods have been fashioned after man’s own image. There have been animal gods, bird gods, fish gods. Gods of wood and stone and marble and metal. More cultured civilizations have worshiped reason. A few sensed their limits and saluted an Unknown God. None found rest. Is there one true God? Is He discoverable? “Can man by searching find out God?” Can anyone know God personally? On every page of this new and exciting book by Eugenia Price, these time-old questions are faced honestly and without apology. She writes lucidly, avoiding religious clichés, confessing her own questioning mind and including warmly all who question God for any reason. It is a strictly personal book which vibrates with the tremendous potential of the strictly personal relationship with God which she has found possible for herself and which she believes possible for anyone, regardless of background or intellectual blocks. If you have been wondering if there is a God—for you—this is a book you can read without apology, rebellion or embarrassment. It is written especially for you. Your strictly personal questions demand honest and specific explanations. Generalizations will not do. Pious, pat answers will not do. They are not here. But the door to the realistic adventure of a personal discovery of God is here, and it can open for you as you think through the carefully unfolded chapters of Strictly Personal.

Harry S. Truman made plain speaking his trademark, and it was a common belief that "Give 'em hell" Harry spared few with his words. However, this fascinating collection of 140 amusing, angry, sarcastic, and controversial letters President Truman wrote but never mailed proves that conception wrong. Addressed to admirers and enemies alike, including Adlai Stevenson, Justice William Douglas, Dwight Eisenhower, Joe McCarthy, and Truman's wife, Bess, these intriguing letters cover such diverse subjects as the atomic bomb, running the country, and human greed.

The author's experiences during the first fifteen months of World War 2.

'Clearing my throat, I announce that I havean idea for my next book. My mother smiles encouragingly. My father shows nosign of having heard. He is immersed in an editorial,no doubt another scathing comment on the state ofthe nation. Bravely, I continue. I say I am thinking ofwriting a book about them.' Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan is that book. In 2004, Manmohan Singh became prime minister of India. Over the next ten years he led the country through opportunities and challenges,not without some controversy. But this is not that story. This is the story of what went before, and it is told by his daughter Daman Singh. It charts the journey of a young boy growing up in undivided India, battling family hardship to pursue his dream of higher education, determining his intellectual and moral compass and learning to live life on his own terms. It is equally about Gursharan Kaur, the womanwith whom he made that life. Vivacious and talented Gursharan, the centre of the family and of the circle of friends they shared. And about their three daughters, Upinder, Daman and Amrit, growing up with aresilient mother and a workaholic father who stepped into the limelight. Based on conversations with her parents and hours spent in libraries and archives, this honest and affectionate memoir provides new insights into the former prime minister and his wife. Movingfrom Gah, Nowshera and Peshawar; through Amritsar, Patiala and Hoshiarpur; to Chandigarh, Cambridge and Oxford; then New York, Bombay and Geneva; and on to New Delhi, this intimate portrayal of two lives is also the history of a nation unfolding over half a century.

He was a brilliant teller of tales, one of the most widely read authors of the twentieth century, and at one time the most famous writer in the world, yet W. Somerset Maugham’s own true story has never been fully told. At last, the fascinating truth is revealed in a landmark biography by the award-winning writer Selina Hastings. Granted unprecedented access to Maugham’s personal correspondence and to newly uncovered interviews with his only child, Hastings portrays the secret loves, betrayals, integrity, and passion that inspired Maugham to create such classics as The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage. Hastings vividly presents Maugham’s lonely childhood spent with unloving relatives after the death of his parents, a trauma that resulted in shyness, a stammer, and for the rest of his life an urgent need for physical tenderness. Here, too, are his adult triumphs on the stage and page, works that allowed him a glittering social life in which he befriended and sometimes fell out with such luminaries as Dorothy Parker, Charlie Chaplin, D. H. Lawrence, and Winston Churchill. The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham portrays in full for the first time Maugham’s disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome, a manipulative society woman of dubious morality who trapped Maugham with a pregnancy and an attempted suicide. Hastings also explores Maugham’s many affairs with men, including his great love, Gerald Haxton, an alcoholic charmer and a cad. Maugham’s courageous work in secret intelligence during two world wars is described in fascinating detail—experiences that provided the inspiration for the groundbreaking Ashenden stories. From the West End to Broadway, from China to the South Pacific, Maugham’s restless and remarkably productive life is thrillingly recounted as Hastings uncovers the real stories behind such classics as “Rain,” The Painted Veil, Cakes & Ale, and other well-known tales. An epic biography of a hugely talented and hugely conflicted man, The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham is the definitive account of Maugham’s extraordinary life.

With a foreword by celebrated designer Anna Sui, and rarely seen material from the great fashion houses, Invitation Strictly Personal lets you share in the fashion show experience The fashion show invitation is a statement of intent, providing the first inkling of the designer's vision for that season. Invitation Strictly Personal presents a unique collection of 300 invitations that span the past four decades, from both ready-to-wear and haute couture houses in the fashion capitals of New York, London, Milan, and Paris. Here are some of the key, unforgettable fashion moments such as Alexander McQueen's Memorial "Show" at St. Paul's Cathedral, Stella McCartney's first show for Chloe, and John Galliano's return to the runway in spring 1994 with the support of Anna Wintour. Most of the invitations come from the personal collection of award-winning author Iain Webb, accumulated over his years as a fashion correspondent. This unique volume also features program notes, lookbooks, posters, and promotional objects--all rarely available outside the fashion industry.

A rollicking tour of Chicago, courtesy of the city's legends and everymen.