Before she turned twenty, Lynne Cox had broken the men’s and women’s world records for swimming the English Channel, swum from Catalina Island to the California mainland, and braved the dangerous Cook Strait between New Zealand’s North and South Islands. But that was just the beginning.
Capturing the thrill of a life dedicated to excellence, Swimming to Antarctica tells the remarkable stories behind Lynne”s victories, which went on to include swimming across the Bering Strait-a feat that, according to Mikhail Gorbachev, helped diminish tensions between “Thrilling, vivid, and lyrical, an inspiring account of a life of aspiration and adventure.”-the U.S.S.R.
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The landmark modern novel Mrs. Dalloway creates a portrait of a single day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway as she orchestrates the last-minute details of a grand party. But before Virginia Woolf wrote this masterwork, she explored in a series of fascinating stories a similar revelry in the mental and physical excitement of a party. Wonderfully captivating, the seven stories in Mrs. Dalloway’s Party create a dynamic and delightful portrait of what Woolf called “party consciousness.” As parallel expressions of the themes of Mrs. Dalloway, these stories provide a valuable window into Woolf’s writing mind and a further testament to her extraordinary genius.
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Born to rough cloth in working-class London in 1748, Mary Saunders hungers for linen and lace. Her lust for a shiny red ribbon leads her to a life of prostitution at a young age, where she encounters a freedom unknown to virtuous young women. But a dangerous misstep sends her fleeing to Monmouth and the refuge of the middle-class household of Mrs. Jones, to become the seamstress her mother always expected her to be and to live the ordinary life of an ordinary girl. Although Mary becomes a close confidante of Mrs. Jones, her desire for a better life leads her back to prostitution.
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Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to “Mister,” a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister’s letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self.
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Anchee Min’s new novel, Becoming Madame Mao (Mariner Books), is a triumph of historical fiction. In Min’s skillful hands, the “white-boned demon,” as Madame Mao is known, is given flesh and blood. The myths surrounding her are systematically unraveled to reveal a woman motivated by ambition, fueled by revenge, and tortured by her unrequited love for Mao Zedong.
To millions, Madame Mao Jiang Ching is evil personified; she has been erased from China’s history books. In Becoming Madame Mao, Anchee Min resurrects her in a sweeping story that moves gracefully from the intimately personal to the great stage of world history.
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Jacqueline Novogratz left a career in international banking to spend her life on a quest to understand global poverty and find powerful new ways of tackling it. From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, Novogratz tells gripping stories with unforgettable characters. She shows, in ways both hilarious and heartbreaking, how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called patient capital can help make people self-sufficient and can change millions of lives. More than just an autobiography or a how-to guide to addressing poverty,
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