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  The Last Madam - A Life in the...

  Chris Wiltz

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  The “raunchy, hilarious, and thrilling” true story of the incomparable Norma Wallace, proprietor of a notorious 1920s New Orleans brothel (NPR).  Norma Wallace grew up fast. In 1916, at fifteen years old, she went to work as a streetwalker in New Orleans’ French Quarter. By the 1920s, she was a “landlady”—or, more precisely, the madam of what became one of the city’s most lavish brothels. It was frequented by politicians, movie stars, gangsters, and even the notoriously corrupt police force. But Wallace acquired more than just repeat customers. There were friends, lovers . . . and also enemies.   Wallace’s romantic interests ran the gamut from a bootlegger who shot her during a fight to a famed bandleader to the boy next door, thirty-nine years her junior, who became her fifth husband. She knew all of the Crescent City’s dirty little secrets, and used them to protect her own interests—she never got so much as a traffic ticket, until the early 1960s, when District Attorney Jim Garrison decided to clean up vice and corruption. After a jail stay, Wallace went legitimate as successfully as she had gone criminal, with a lucrative restaurant business—but it was love that would undo her in the end.  The Last Madam combines original research with Wallace’s personal memoirs, bringing to life an era in New Orleans history rife with charm and decadence, resurrecting “a secret world, like those uncovered by Luc Sante and James Ellroy” (Publishers Weekly). It reveals the colorful, unforgettable woman who reigned as an underworld queen and “capture[s] perfectly the essential, earthy complexity of the most fascinating city on this continent” (Robert Olen Butler).  

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  Success After Failure

  Tavis Smiley

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  Is there success after failure? Talk show greats Tavis Smiley and Phil Donohue discuss.

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  Battleships of the Bismarck...

  Gerhard Koop, Klaus-Peter Schmolke

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  The warships of the World War II era German Navy are among the most popular subject in naval history with an almost uncountable number of books devoted to them. However, for a concise but authoritative summary of the design history and careers of the major surface ships it is difficult to beat a series of six volumes written by Gerhard Koop and illustrated by Klaus-Peter Schmolke. Each contains an account of the development of a particular class, a detailed description of the ships, with full technical details, and an outline of their service, heavily illustrated with plans, battle maps and a substantial collection of photographs. These have been out of print for ten years or more and are now much sought after by enthusiasts and collectors, so this new modestly priced reprint of the series will be widely welcomed.The first volume, appropriately, is devoted to the Kriesmarine's largest and most powerful units, the battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz, whose careers stand in stark contrast to each other one with a glorious but short life, while the other was to spend a hunted existence in Norwegian fjords, all the time posing a threat to Allied sea communications, while attacked by everything from midget submarines to heavy bombers.

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  Benjamin Franklin - The Great...

  Kelly Mass

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  Benjamin Franklin was an author, physicist, innovator, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political thinker who resided in America. Franklin was just one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, a drafter and signer of the US Declaration, and the first postmaster general of the United States. For his discoveries and views about electrical energy, he was an essential player in the American Knowledge and the history of physics as a researcher. He is most prominent for his developments like as the lightning arrester, bifocals, and the Franklin hotplate. 
  Many Americans know Benjamin Franklin to be an important political figure. Let’s explore more about his life and mission. Let’s see what his legacy is.

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  ¡Ándale Prieta! - A Love Letter...

  Yasmín Ramírez

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  When I tell people who don’t speak Spanish what “prieta” means—“dark” or “the dark one”—their eyes pop open and a small gasp escapes. … How do I tell them that now, even after the cruelty of children, “Prieta” means love? That each time “Prieta” fell from my grandmother’s lips, I learned to love my dark skin. My Ita called me Prieta. When she died, she took the name with her.Yasmín Ramírez spent her twenties feeling lost—working an intensely taxing retail job and turning to bars for comfort. When her beloved grandmother dies, she comes home to El Paso, Texas, where people know how to spell her accented name. As she pulls her life together, she finds comfort in celebrating her Ita, a resilient matriarch who was far from the stereotypical domestic abuelita. Yasmín remembers Ita wistfully singing old Mexican rancheras, her mastectomy scar, the hours they spent watching boxing matches at a dive bar, and of course, Ita’s lesson on how to ball a fist for a good punch. Interviewing her mom and older sister, Yasmín learns even more about why her Ita was so tough—the abusive men, the lost pregnancies, and the toil of almost literally back-breaking jobs. In time, the writer finds her grandmother calling her forth to live with the same bravery and tenacity: “¡Ándale, Prieta!”

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  The 50-Percent Theory of Life -...

  Steve Porter

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  Steve Porter uses his experience on the family farm to explain his "50-Percent Theory of Life" for NPR's This I Believe series.  
  This I Believe is a National Public Radio program that features Americans, from the famous to the unknown, completing the thought that begins with the series title. The pieces that make up the program compel listeners to re-think not only what and how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others. 
  Featuring a star-studded list of contributors that includes John McCain, Isabel Allende, and Colin Powell, as well as pieces from the original 1950's series including Helen Keller and Jackie Robinson, the This I Believe collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer, a woman who sells yellow pages advertising in Fort Worth, TX and a man who serves on the state of Rhode Island's parole board. The result is a stirring, funny and always provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of Americans whose beliefs, and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them, reveal the American spirit at its best.

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