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  Twilight at Monticello - The...

  Alan Pell Crawford

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  Much has been written about Thomas Jefferson, with good reason: His life was a great American drama-one of the greatest-played out in compelling acts. He was the architect of our democracy, a visionary chief executive who expanded this nation's physical boundaries to unimagined lengths. But Twilight at Monticello is something entirely new: an unprecedented and engrossing personal look at the intimate Jefferson in his final years that will change the way audiences think about this true American icon. It was during these years-from his return to Monticello in 1809 after two terms as president until his death in 1826-that Jefferson's idealism would be most severely, and heartbreakingly, tested.Based on new research and documents culled from the Library of Congress, the Virginia Historical Society, and other special collections-including hitherto unexamined letters from family, friends, and Monticello neighbors-Alan Pell Crawford paints an authoritative and deeply moving portrait of Thomas Jefferson as private citizen, the first original depiction of the man in more than a generation.Here, told with grace and masterly detail, is Jefferson with his family at Monticello, dealing with illness and the indignities wrought by early-nineteenth-century medicine; coping with massive debt and the immense costs associated with running a grand residence; navigating public disputes and mediating family squabbles; and receiving dignitaries and correspondingwith close friends, including John Adams, the Marquis de Lafayette, and other heroes from the Revolution. Enmeshed as he was in these affairs during his final years, Jefferson was still a viable political force, advising his son-in-law Thomas Randolph during his terms as Virginia governor, helping the administration of his good friend President James Madison during the "internal improvements" controversy, and establishing the first wholly secular American institution of higher learning, the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. We also see Jefferson's views on slavery evolve, along with his awareness of the costs to civil harmony exacted by the Founding Fathers' failure to effectively reconcile slaveholding within a republic dedicated to liberty.Right up until his death on the fiftieth anniversary of America's founding, Thomas Jefferson remained an indispensable man, albeit a supremely human one. And it is precisely that figure Crawford introduces to us in the revelatory Twilight at Monticello.

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  Last Days of the Reich - The...

  Folke Bernadotte

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  Count Folke Bernadotte was one of those rare figures in war ' a man trusted by both sides alike.  Shortly before the war ended, Bernadotte was the leader of a rescue operation to transfer western European inmates to Swedish hospitals in the so-called 'White Buses'.  This work through the Swedish Red Cross involved mercy missions to Germany and it was through this link that Bernadotte came into touch with prominent Nazi leaders in the 1940s.  During the last months of the war, Bernadotte was introduced to Heinrich Himmler ' one of the most sinister men of the Third Reich. Bernadotte was asked by Himmler to approach the Allies with the proposal of a complete surrender to Britain and the US ' providing Germany could continue to fight the Soviet Union.  The offer was passed to Winston Churchill and Harry Truman, but rejected. The course of these negotiations is narrated in this book with a simple, compelling clarity and thrilling immediacy.  This new edition of Bernadotte's memoir includes a Preface by his two sons, and an Introduction by a leading Swedish author discussing Count Bernadotte's wartime record and his post-war assassination.

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  How Santa Claus Came to...

  Bret Harte

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  Originally published in Harte's 1875 short-story collection The Tales of the Argonauts, How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar is set in California in the early 1860s and, like the rest of the tales in that collection, features the gold-seeking Argonauts. In this tale, like many of Harte's others, the folly and grit of human existence balance any good intentions, good cheer, or hope, resulting in a more complicated and somewhat bleak ending than is commonly found in most Christmas tales. This recording of How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar was recorded as part of Dreamscape's Classic Christmas Stories: A Collection of Timeless Holiday Tales.

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  Confessions of a Convert

  Robert Hugh Benson

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  Robert Hugh Benson was the youngest son of Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury  and his wife Mary.  Benson was was a prolific and popular writer during his time, and in 1903 he became a prominent convert to the Roman Catholic Church from Anglicanism . In 1904 he was ordained a Catholic priest.This book is his personal story of his journey to the Catholic faith, containing comparisons between Catholicism and the Anglican religion. (Summary by Maria Therese)

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  The Beatles from A to Zed - An...

  Peter Asher

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  This program is read by the author.A legendary record producer and performer takes listeners on an alphabetical journey of insights into the music of the Beatles and individual reminiscences of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. 
  Peter Asher met the Beatles in the spring of 1963, the start of a lifelong association with the band and its members. He had a front-row seat as they elevated pop music into an art form, and he was present at the creation of some of the most iconic music of our times. 
  But Asher was also a talented musician in his own right, with a great ear for what was new and fresh. Once, when Paul McCartney wrote a song that John Lennon didn't think was right for the Beatles, Asher asked if he could record it. "A World Without Love" became a global number-one hit for his duo, Peter and Gordon. A few years later Asher was asked by Paul McCartney to help start Apple Records and the first artist Asher discovered and signed up was a young American singer-songwriter named James Taylor. Before long he would be not only managing and producing Taylor but also (having left Apple and moved to Los Angeles) working with Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Robin Williams, Joni Mitchell and Cher, among others.  
  In The Beatles from A to Zed, based upon twenty-six episodes of his current and highly popular radio show "From Me to You" on the Beatles Channel of SiriusXM, Peter Asher shares his memories and insights about the Fab Four, weaving his reflections into a whimsical alphabetical journey that focuses not only on songs whose titles start with each letter, but also on recurrent themes in the Beatles' music, the instruments they played, the innovations they pioneered, the artists who influenced them, the key people in their lives, and the cultural events of the time.

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  Bard of the Middle Ages - The...

  Professor Michael Drout

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  Chaucer's works are today widely studied and serve as models for current literature around the world. Chaucer holds a place of esteem as the earliest and one of the foremost writers in the English language.

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