Tita S Diary

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist From the acclaimed, award-winning author of Alexander Hamilton: here is the essential, endlessly engrossing biography of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.—the Jekyll-and-Hyde of American capitalism. In the course of his nearly 98 years, Rockefeller was known as both a rapacious robber baron, whose Standard Oil Company rode roughshod over an industry, and a philanthropist who donated money lavishly to universities and medical centers. He was the terror of his competitors, the bogeyman of reformers, the delight of caricaturists—and an utter enigma. Drawing on unprecedented access to Rockefeller’s private papers, Chernow reconstructs his subjects’ troubled origins (his father was a swindler and a bigamist) and his single-minded pursuit of wealth. But he also uncovers the profound religiosity that drove him “to give all I could”; his devotion to his father; and the wry sense of humor that made him the country’s most colorful codger. Titan is a magnificent biography—balanced, revelatory, elegantly written.

Thirty years after the publication of the best-seller Like Water for Chocolate comes Tita's Diary, an intimate look at the life of the main character who embodies love, passion and the communication of emotions through food in early 20th Century Mexico. When Tita falls in love with Pedro, she is told that being the youngest of three sisters, she will never be allowed to marry as she will have to care for her mother. As the second part of a trilogy, Tita's Diary brings to light a secret that will allow readers to rediscover their own intimacy as they turn page after page of never-before-seen photos, hand-pressed flower arrangements, and recipes that were skipped in the original novel. It's the physical manifestation of Tita's dream: to share her thoughts on love, food and alchemy with the world. This touching tale will plunge readers deep into the universe of Like Water for Chocolate, the captivating story that has known no borders.

In 1847 Joseph Banigan, an Irish Potato Famine refugee, established himself in Rhode Island as an entrepreneur. This was a time when "No Irish Need Apply" signs abounded and discrimination against the Irish and other immigrants--institutionalized in the constitution of his adopted state--hindered voting and other human rights. Bucking this trend and belying his humble origins, Banigan succeeded spectacularly in the emerging local rubber footwear industry, becoming the president of the United States Rubber Company--one of the nation's major cartels, and New England's first Irish-Catholic millionaire. Backed by primary and secondary research on two continents, Molloy's inquiry into Bannigan's notoriety and success singularly codifies and elucidates the Irish-American experience during this critical period in American labor history.

In modern memory, Winston Churchill remains the man with the cigar and the equanimity among the ruins. Few can remember that at the age of 40, he was considered washed up, his best days behind him. In Young Titan, historian Michael Shelden has produced the first biography focused on Churchill’s early career, the years between 1901 and 1915 that both nearly undid him but also forged the character that would later triumph in the Second World War. Between his rise and his fall, Churchill built a modern navy, experimented with radical social reforms, survived various threats on his life, made powerful enemies and a few good friends, annoyed and delighted two British monarchs, became a husband and father, took the measure of the German military machine, authorized executions of notorious murderers, and faced deadly artillery barrages on the Western front. Along the way, he learned how to outwit more experienced rivals, how to overcome bureaucratic obstacles, how to question the assumptions of his upbringing, how to be patient and avoid overconfidence, and how to value loyalty. He also learned how to fall in love. Shelden gives us a portrait of Churchill as the dashing young suitor who pursued three great beauties of British society with his witty repartee, political f lair, and poetic letters. In one of many never-before-told episodes, Churchill is seen racing to a Scottish castle to prepare the heartbroken daughter of the prime minister for his impending marriage. This was a time of high drama, intrigue, personal courage, and grave miscalculations. But as Shelden shows in this fresh and revealing biography, Churchill’s later success was predicated on his struggles to redeem the promise of his youth.

Within a decade this former telephone exchange operator was singing on stage at Covent Garden or before royalty at private parties. She must have been fun to know, and from this collection of letters, just over three hundred of them gathered from sources in Britain, America, Canada and Holland, as well as twelve years of her personal diaries, what emerges provides a sunny picture in the gloomy landscape of post-Second World War days."