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  Hollywood’s Gangster Icons: The...

  Charles River Editors

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  Americans have always loved movie stars, and there have been no shortage of Hollywood icons, but one man has long been considered the greatest male star. From the time he first became a leading man, Humphrey Bogart’s screen image has resonated with viewers more than perhaps any other actor. At the end of the 20th century, when the American Film Institute assembled its list of the 50 Greatest American Screen Legends, Bogart was at the top of the list. His persona as a tough guy who manages to maintain his sense of virtue no matter how compromising the situation features in some of the most famous films ever made, including Casablanca (1942), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Key Largo (1949).  
  	Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned James Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly and grippingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast.  
  	For most enthusiasts of film history, Edward G. Robinson’s name is virtually synonymous with the Depression-era gangster films of the 1930s. After all, Robinson starred in Little Caesar (1931), which was one of the first major gangster films and is perhaps the most representative example of the genre. Little Caesar remains his most iconic gangster role, but he acted in several other notable gangster films over the course of the decade, including The Little Giant (1933) and A Slight Case of Murder (1938). Even in the 1940s, after the gangster genre had ceded much of its standing to the postwar film noir genre, Robinson retained his ties to gangster films.

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  Lionel Barrymore - Character and...

  Kathleen Spaltro

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  Once called "the most gifted character actor of our time," Lionel Barrymore (1878-1954) was part of the illustrious Barrymore acting dynasty. Although he garnered success on stage and screen and was a talented actor, writer, director, visual artist, and composer, he never escaped the shadow of his family. Barrymore won the Academy Award for Best Actor in A Free Soul and was nominated for Best Director for Madame X. He is best known for his role as Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life and as the voice of Ebenezer Scrooge. He spent the last two decades of his career playing versions of his signature character—the curmudgeonly but lovable gentleman—in a variety of films. Barrymore worked alongside some of Hollywood's most recognizable names, and his legacy is enshrined at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 
   
   
   
  In Lionel Barrymore, Kathleen Spaltro examines Barrymore as an individual. This comprehensive study divides Barrymore's life into three acts. Act One follows Barrymore's early days. Act Two details Barrymore's establishment as a fixture at MGM. Act Three expounds on Barrymore's curation of his trademark character and his fateful final years. Spaltro unearths Barrymore's personal challenges, recounts his difficulties with his family, and delves into the devastating losses Barrymore suffered. Lionel Barrymore is a multifaceted portrait of a brilliant character actor.

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  A Middle-Sized Artist - From...

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

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  Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born on 3rd July 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, to an unaffectionate mother and a father who abandoned her and her older brother to a life of poverty. 
  Inevitably her schooling was limited and by 15 she had attended seven different schools but received only four years education.  However Charlotte was resourceful and did spend time with her father’s aunts – the suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker and the ‘Uncle Tom Cabin’s’ author, Harriet Beecher Stowe as well as many hours at the public library studying ancient civilisations. 
  In 1878, she enrolled in classes at the Rhode Island School of Design where she met Martha Luther and they developed a close relationship until Luther married in 1881. Charlotte was devastated and detested romance and love until she met and married the artist Charles Walter Stetson.  
  Their only child, Katharine Beecher Stetson, was born in 1885 but left Charlotte with post-natal depression, then often dismissed as a case of hysteria or nerves.  Unsuited to domestic life she ruptured her life and moved to California with Katherine.  She divorced in 1894 and then sent Katharine east to live with her father and his second wife confirming that his paternal rights be acknowledged and that Katherine establish a relationship with her father. 
  After her mother died in 1893, Charlotte moved back east and became involved with her first cousin, Wall Street attorney, Houghton Gilman who she married in 1900. After his death she moved back to California, where Katherine now lived.   
  Her most popular story is ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ which touched on her own post-partum depression and underlined the need for women to be responsible for their mental and physical well-being, as the narrator is ordered by her husband/doctor to take compete rest in her room where she is isolated and becomes obsessed with the revolting yellow wallpaper.   
  She wrote other notable short stories the best of which we also include.   
  Charlotte lectured widely for social reform, wrote important non-fiction works that questioned our patriarchal system and left a legacy as a leading and positive spokesperson for feminism.  
  She was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer in 1932 and, as she wrote in her suicide note and autobiography, she ‘chose chloroform over cancer’    
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman took her own life on 17th August 1935, aged 75, in Pasadena, California.

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  The Killing of The Reavey...

  Ken Murray, Eugene Reavey

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  In this gripping memoir, Eugene Reavey takes readers on a harrowing journey through the darkest chapter of his life during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Reavey relives the tragic night in 1976 when his three brothers—John Martin, Anthony, and Brian—were brutally murdered in their family home in Whitecross, South Armagh.
  As Reavey grapples with profound loss and an unrelenting quest for justice, he uncovers a web of treachery and collusion that shakes the very foundations of Northern Ireland's past. Through meticulous research and firsthand testimony, Reavey exposes the alarming truths behind the covert protection afforded to the notorious Glenanne Gang, a loyalist paramilitary group, by key institutions. He navigates a sinister labyrinth of threats and schemes orchestrated by the feared Ulster Defence Association (UDA) enforcer, Jimmy Craig, and confronts the shocking false allegations made by Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Leader Ian Paisley in the House of Commons, which were challenged but never retracted.
  Perhaps the most chilling revelation is the Reavey family's accidental discovery of a staggering 84-year embargo on the release of crucial British files related to the murders. This startling find raises the question: why the silence?
  Reavey's compelling narrative captures the intrigue, drama, and profound human cost of the Troubles. It serves as a powerful testament to the lengths people will go to uncover the truth and the devastating impact of sectarian violence on families and communities. It is a searing chronicle of a society fractured by conflict and a family's unwavering determination to find answers in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
  This book is a must-read for readers of true crime, Northern Ireland history and stories of injustice and resilience. It is also perfect for fans of Patrick Radden Keefe's 'Say Nothing', Henry Hemmings 'Four Shots in the Night', and similar works that explore the human impact of The Troubles.

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  The Migrant Rain Falls in...

  Vinh Nguyen

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  An unconventional memoir of conjuring the uncertain past and a long-lost homeland, and a vital document of one family's journey through world history. 
   
   
   
  With the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the U.S. war in Vietnam ended, but the refugee crisis was only beginning. Among the millions of people who fled Vietnam by boat were Vinh Nguyen, along with his mother and siblings, and his father, who left separately and then mysteriously vanished. 
   
   
   
  Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for the story of his father. What he discovers is a sea of questions drifting above sunken truths. To come to terms with the past, Nguyen must piece together the debris of history with family stories that have been scattered across generations and continents, kept for decades in broken hearts and guarded silences. 
   
   
   
  The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse takes listeners on a poignant tour of disappeared refugee camps, abandoned family homes, and the lives that could have been. As the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, this powerful memoir is timelier and more important than ever, illuminating the stories, real and imagined, that become buried in the rubble of war.

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  Autobiography of Mother Jones

  Mary Harris Jones

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  Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1830-1930) was a fierce and tireless advocate of the labor movement. A trade union organizer, a feminist, and a working class hero, Mother Jones spent years fighting for the labor rights of miners, industrial workers, and children.

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