April 2023 MBR The Biography Shelf

The Biography Shelf

Grant at 200
Chris Mackowski, editor
Frank J. Scaturro, editor
Savas Beatie
PO Box 4527, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
www.savasbeatie.com
9781611216141, $32.95, HC, 288pp

https://www.amazon.com/Grant-200-Reconsidering-Legacy-Ulysses/dp/1611216141

Synopsis: Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822 - July 23, 1885) stood at the center of the American Civil War maelstrom. The Ohio native answered his nation's call to service and finished the war as a lieutenant general in command of the U.S. Army. Four years later, he ascended to the presidency to better secure the peace he had helped win on the battlefield. Despite his major achievements in war and peace, political and sectional enemies battered his reputation. For nearly a century, his military and political career remained deeply misunderstood.

Since the Civil War centennial, however, Grant's reputation has blossomed into a full renaissance. His military record garners new respect and, more recently, an appreciation for his political career (particularly his strong advocacy for equal rights) is quickly catching up.

Throughout these decades, his personal memoirs marking him as a significant American "Man of Letters" have never gone out of print. Collaboratively compiled and co-edited by Chris Mackowski and Frank J. Scaturro, "Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant" celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of a man whose towering impact on American history has often been overshadowed and, in many cases, ignored. This collection of essays by some of today's leading Grant scholars offers fresh perspectives on Grant's military career and presidency, as well as underexplored personal topics such as his faith and family life.

Critique: Featuring a complete listing of the contributors and their credentials, "Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant" is an extraordinarily informed and informative work of collective scholarship and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library 19th Century American Biography collections and supplemental curriculum Civil War History studies lists. It should be noted for students, academia, Civil War history buffs, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "Grant at 200" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $13.49).

Editorial Note #1: The author or co-author more than a dozen books on the Civil War, Chris Mackowski is the editor in chief of Emerging Civil War. He is also a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University as well as the historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield. (authored or coauthored more than a dozen books on the Civil War)

Editorial Note #2: Frank Scaturro (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Scaturro) is an attorney and author. His previous writings include President Grant Reconsidered (1998) and The Supreme Court's Retreat from Reconstruction (2000). He is also the president of the Grant Monument Association, which is dedicated to the preservation of Grant's Tomb. Frank served as Counsel for the Constitution for the Senate Judiciary Committee and as special counsel to the House Select Investigative Panel. He currently serves as vice-president and senior counsel of the Judicial Crisis Network.

Anne Boleyn, An Illustrated Life of Henry VIII's Queen
Roland Hui
Pen & Sword Books
c/o Casemate (US distribution)
www.casematepublishers.com
https://www.penandswordbooks.com
9781399087575, $34.95, HC, 216pp

https://www.amazon.com/Boleyn-Illustrated-Henry-VIIIs-Queen/dp/1399087576

Synopsis: 'If you remember my love in your prayers as strongly as I adore you, I shall hardly be forgotten, for I am yours,' - Henry Rex, forever

This was written by King Henry VIII to his sweetheart, the seductive and vivacious Anne Boleyn, his passion for her would be so great that Henry would make Anne his queen, launch the Protestant church in Britain, and change the course of English history.

But the woman whom Henry had promised to love for all time would go from palace to prison, charged with heinous crimes. Her life ended on a bloody scaffold in the Tower of London.

Critique: The subject of numerous movies and a basic story found in many a novel and academic study, with the publication of "Anne Boleyn, An Illustrated Life of Henry VIII's Queen", historian Roland Hui brings a new perspective to this the dramatic story romance and tragedy that was the life and times of Anne Boleyn -- arguably the most famous and controversial of Henry VIII's six wives. While a welcome and recommended addition to personal, community, college, and university library British Royal Biographies, it should be noted that this exciting and profusely illustrated account of her life told in both words and pictures is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99).

Editorial Note: Roland Hui (https://www.tudorsociety.com/roland-hui-tudor-society) received his degree in Art History from Concordia University in Canada. After completing his studies, he went on to work for California State Parks, The U.S. Forest Service, and The National Park Service in interpretive media. Roland is also the author of "The Turbulent Crown: The Story of the Tudor Queens" (2017) and is the co-creator of "The Mary Queen of Scots coloring Book" (2019). He blogs about Tudor art and personalities at Tudor Faces: https://tudorfaces.blogspot.ca

Memoirs of an Ordinary Guy
Daniel Stuart Olmes
Post Hill Press
www.posthillpress.com
9781637587317, $17.99, PB, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Ordinary-Guy-Everyday-Experiences/dp/1637587317

Synopsis: By most measures, Daniel Olmes is an ordinary guy -- but he's learned how to live an extraordinary life. With the publication of "Memoirs of an Ordinary Guy: The Everyday Experiences that Changed My Life", Daniel asserts that we are all capable of being extraordinary and redefines what it means to be just another ordinary person. He is living proof that extraordinary is there for all of us.

It doesn't mean being rich or famous. It doesn't even mean to be better than others. To Daniel, "extraordinary" means grateful, honest, happy, loving, fearless, and faithful. Doing extraordinary things is not what makes us extraordinary. Being extraordinary is having an extraordinary perspective on our lives and the things that happen to us. Daniel's narrative will inspire everyone to view their lives differently, remind us of the stories that we all share, and spark a renewed curiosity about a world that's anything but ordinary.

Critique: With a very special and valued appeal to readers with an interest in Spiritual Self-Help, this extraordinary life story of Daniel Stuart Olmes is an exceptionally well written and inherently fascinating memoir that is particularly recommended for community library American Biography/Memoir collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "Memoirs of an Ordinary Guy: The Everyday Experiences that Changed My Life" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Daniel Stuart Olmes is a husband, father of twins, entrepreneur, and Aerospace and Defense executive residing outside of Washington, D.C., in the Northern Virginia suburbs. He is currently the president and chief operating officer of a mid-sized government contractor and is an avid reader, runner, and volunteer, spending most of his time on the baseball field as a Little League coach. He has founded two companies: Middleburg Capital being a commercial real estate investment firm, and Hellen Systems, a technology company focused on a national security initiative to create a ground-based back-up for the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Everything That Rises: A Climate Change Memoir
Brianna Craft
https://briannacraft.com
Lawrence Hill Press
c/o Chicago Review Press
814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610
www.chicagoreviewpress.com
9781641608602, $28.99, HC, 288pp

https://www.amazon.com/Everything-That-Rises-Climate-Change/dp/1641608609

Synopsis: Nineteen-year-old Brianna Craft is having a panic attack. A professor's matter-of-fact explanation of the phenomenon known as "climate change" has her white-knuckling the table in her first environmental studies lecture.

This moment changed everything for Brianna. For her first internship, she jumped at the chance to assist the Least Developed Countries Group at the United Nations' negotiations meant to produce a new climate treaty. While working for those most ignored yet most impacted by the climate crisis, she grappled with the negligent indifference of those who hold the most power. This dynamic painfully reminded her of growing up in a house where the loudest voice always won and violence silenced those in need.

Four years later, Brianna witnessed the adoption of the first universal climate treaty, the Paris Agreement. With the publication of "Everything That Rises: A Climate Change Memoir", Brianna deftly blends the political with the personal as she relates from her life experiences just what it means to advocate for the future, and for the people and places you love, all while ensuring your own voice doesn't get lost in the process.

Critique: A fascinating, engaging, and impressively presented life story, "Everything That Rises: A Climate Change Memoir" will have a very special appeal to readers with an interest in the subjects of Climate Change and Environmental Science. While "Everything That Rises" is unreservedly recommended for community and academic library Contemporary American Biography/Memoir collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that it is also readily available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.49).

Editorial Note: Brianna Craft (https://briannacraft.com) is a senior researcher at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Craft works to further equity in the United Nations' climate change negotiations for the world's poorest countries, which have done the least to cause the climate crisis but are the most vulnerable to its impacts. Based in London, she researches climate diplomacy, taking specific interest in the Paris Agreement and provisions to develop and transfer technology. Craft holds a master's degree in environmental studies from Brown University in addition to a bachelor's degree in architectural studies and minors in urban design and planning, and environmental studies from the University of Washington.

Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men
Paul W. Williams
The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, KY 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
9780813196671, $27.95, HC, 312pp

https://www.amazon.com/Harvard-Hollywood-Hitmen-Holy-Men/dp/0813196671

Synopsis: Paul Williams [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Williams_(director)] is an American director, writer, producer, and actor whose true life experiences form a unique and often wild constellation of encounters with star power, political power, and spiritual power -- a life cycle that led to fame and fortune and to integrity and anonymity.

In a mad childhood created by an autocratic English teacher father and an infantilizing mother, he develops a precocious visual acuity to avoid wallops and a writing ability that mollified his father. This skill set wins him a scholarship to Harvard, where he needs to learn how the Wisemen think. He seeks out tutors who reveal themselves: Kissinger, Skinner, Galbraith, Erikson, Alpert, Leary, the Hubleys and Jean Renoir. Howard Gardner is his roommate and Michael Crichton is an editor friend on the college daily, The Crimson. After months, his lover reveals she is the heiress of a great American fortune.

A member of the inner circle of the "Movie Brats" who led the charge of American New Wave cinema in the 1970s, Williams' idiosyncrasies make him a darling of the era. His stories about his pals (Scorsese, Voight, Christie, DePalma, Coppola, Dreyfuss, Spielberg, De Niro, Lucas) shed new light on a world bursting with creativity and possibility. He helps Terrence Malick make his first film, tries to adjust to the tyranny of the fabulously wealthy, and turns down the offer to direct the smash hits Animal House and Stepford Wives, and to partner on a new Parisian restaurant -- The Hard Rock Cafe; and turns down Lorne Michaels' offer to help him create Saturday Night Live.

With amazing honesty, Williams also recounts the unexpected details of making his own seminal cult classics, Out of It (1969), The Revolutionary (1970) and Dealing (1972). And his adventures with Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver in Algiers, Fidel Castro in Havana, Huey P. Newton in Oakland, and Pope John Paul II in Vatican City.

A seemingly larger than life, experimental, fearlessly audacious and ultimately self-knowing life story,"Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men: A Memoir" is the extraordinary account of a genuine odyssey. Through his anecdotes, shocking and delightful in their humor and authenticity, Williams takes readers on his unique journey to answer life's big questions -- with aides Mescalito (the Peyote guide), Ichazo (the Gurdjieffian Sufi master), and Dilgo Khyentse (the current Dalai Lama's principal teacher), and finally, Vivian (a transcendent love).

Critique: An inherently fascinating, impressively informative, exceptionally well written, and amazingly candid memoir that will have a very special appeal to readers with an interest in Cinematic History/Criticism and Movie Director/Actor Biographies/Memoirs, "Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men: A Memoir" is a welcome and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library American Biography and American Cinematic History collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists. It should be noted that "Harvard, Hollywood, Hitmen, and Holy Men: A Memoir" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $20.99) from the University of Kentucky Press.

Lady of the Army: The Life of Mrs. George S. Patton
Stefanie Van Steelandt
Minnegate Press
www.minnegatepress.com
https://thecerealreader.com
9798986928005, $34.00, HC, 498pp

https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Army-Life-George-Patton/dp/B0BLFZPGBM

Synopsis: General George Patton once remarked that World War II undoubtedly would have lasted a lot longer were it not for his soldiers and his wife. Those who knew the Pattons were aware of the vital role Beatrice Patton played in his reaching his destiny, but few others understood the singular impact of this remarkable woman whom people described as having "a personality which radiates like a brilliant gem".

The arduous army life was alien to Beatrice growing up on Boston's Commonwealth Avenue, but her adventurous spirit and insatiable curiosity allowed her to adapt quickly. She became an immediate asset to her husband's career and continuously fanned the flames of his burning ambition, walking beside him on his path to glory while maintaining her own identity. As comfortable on the back of a magnificent steed as at the helm of a great schooner, she became an authority on Hawaiian legends while stationed on the islands twice.

Critique: A masterpiece of seminal research, "Lady of the Army: The Life of Mrs. George S. Patton" is an extraordinary, detailed, and unique biography of a remarkable woman married to a now legendary American military leader in both World War I and World War II. This exceptionally well written, organized and presented biography is informatively enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of a four page Family Tree, forty-four pages of Notes, a six page Bibliography, and an eight page Index. While available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), "Lady of the Army: The Life of Mrs. George S. Patton" is an especially and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college, and university library 20th Century American Biography and World War II History collections.

Editorial Note: An independent scholar and blogger who spent the last twenty years studying biography, Stefanie Van Steelandt grew up near Belgium's Liberty Road, which General Patton and his Third Army followed during WWII.

Butterfly of Hope: Finding My Wings
JoAnn Santore Dickson
Independently Published
9798844093654, $15.95

https://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Hope-Finding-My-Wings/dp/B0BJH64512

Butterfly of Hope: Finding My Wings is a memoir about facing illness and spiritual roots, and listening to life-changing messages in adversity that push author JoAnn Santore Dickson's life into new directions. It addresses a variety of topics as it moves through Dickson's life, from loss and self-healing to not only getting life back, but delving into the past to consider better choices for the future.

Dickson's goal was to accept herself unconditionally and embrace new facets of spiritual realization that helped form a different personality and perspective on life. This is achieved both in her actions and reactions to her experiences and upon publication of her book, which points the way for others on the same path of self-discovery. As Dickson moves from her Christian Science upbringing that led her to resist going to the doctor after a car accident delivers alarming symptoms weeks later, to a state in which she pays more attention to her body and soul, readers will appreciate her progression. Especially strongly described is her relationship with family, which steeps the story with additional conversations about relationship ideals, spiritual realizations, and a life complicated by health challenges on all sides.

As Dickson learns how to stay strong for others as well as herself, she moves into training programs that help her better achieve her emotional, spiritual, and physical goals. By writing her memoir, Dickson does more than explore the process of emergence. She gives wings to her readers, who in turn can use her experiences and lessons to tackle their own possibilities of growth and flight. She offers insights into not just accepting change, but how to run and fly with it.

Libraries looking for memoirs steeped in spiritual and healing processes will find much to like in Butterfly of Hope: Finding My Wings, which is spiced with journal entries that reflect the author's progressive realizations about her life and her approach to it.

Good Morning, Hope
Argita and Detina Zalli
https://www.thezallitwins.com
Sandra Jonas Publishing
www.sandrajonaspublishing.com
9781954861060, $14.95 Paperback/$26.95 Hardcover/$6.99 Ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Morning-Hope-Refugee-Heartbreak/dp/1954861060

Good Morning, Hope: A True Story of Refugee Twin Sisters and Their Triumph over War, Poverty, and Heartbreak belongs in any library interested in stories of refugee experience in general and Albanian history in particular. It is also about family, strength, and the bond between twins, it's likewise for any reader interested in stories of growing up struggling and fighting for a better life. It chronicles the efforts of an Albanian family to flee the financial meltdown in their country in 1997, but it doesn't end with their successful escape to England. In some ways the story is just beginning at that point because the twins and their parents then move into a social milieu nearly as challenging as the environment they fled.

As the story evolves, from mystery helpers who assist the family's flight to circumstances that threaten to separate the family at numerous junctures, Argita and Detina Zalli present the emotional tension both outside and within the family as they confront the pressures of their choices.

Another thought-provoking component to their story is the prejudice against immigrants and refugees, which the children experience in a land that took so much effort to reach and initially showed so much promise.

As events unfold, these ongoing struggles challenge the family to adopt new methods of handling their vastly changed world. The Zalli twins powerfully detail the emotional tides and revelations that force disparate individuals to come together: "I had been a good actress so far, but how could I pretend that the past didn't exist? How could I pretend that we would work well together with two girls who hated us and had caused us so much suffering? How could I forgive them without their asking for forgiveness?"

The result will move beyond readers interested in Albanian experiences and into general audiences attracted to stories of refugee survival, prejudice, and integration processes. This is a book for libraries and readers seeking vivid first-person chronicles that embrace family, a sense of place, and alien territory. Good Morning, Hope is a study in adaptation and courage that chronicles growth against all odds, documenting how one family blossoms even in the midst of social, political, and psychological storms.

Where Yellow Flowers Bloom
Kim Cantin
https://kimcantin.com
Precocity Press
B0BVC7HY42, $9.99 ebook

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Yellow-Flowers-Bloom-Unimaginable-ebook/dp/B0BVC7HY42

Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: A True Story of Hope Through Unimaginable Loss is a mother's memoir of the gripping tragedy that resulted in the loss of her home and the positive life she had built. It opens with a vivid experience that occurred when the family was buried in their home by a landslide. As Kim Cantin documents events from 2017 onward that involved struggles with fire and the products of California's changing weather, readers gain a sense of what it means to survive not just one, but a series of life-altering environmental events. These reach from the crazy weather events of 2017 to the pouring rains of 2018 that produced avalanches that ran through their home at 35 miles per hour.

Where Yellow Flowers Bloom cultivates a "you are here" experience as it narrates the blows Cantin's family endured.

Kim Cantin believed her entire family would die that night. Her house totally destroyed and her loved ones missing, she barely survived, herself. One of the strengths of her story, which lends to its vivid appeal, lies in daughter Lauren's notes about her experiences, juxtaposing with her mother Kim's reflections about being survivors against all odds.

David and Jack Canton, as well as dog Chester, were lost. Jack was not found for three years. The search Kim was to undertake involved the community and brought together strangers who helped: "I witnessed some of the best of human kindness." This joint effort to save her family resulted in compelling examples of kindness and concern from strangers that was to set the course for recovery and the rest of their lives.

Where Yellow Flowers Bloom is more than a portrait of family disaster. It's a riveting account of surviving personal achievement, love, and perseverance that carries a mother and daughter into a new life where kindness becomes intrinsically entwined with survival. The lessons Kim receives are given back in different ways; one of which is the publication of this memoir: "It reminds me to accept my life's changes, and to work to thrive and move forward. I know for sure that this is what my husband and son would want for us. And, maybe, just maybe, they helped this coincidence to happen."

As hope and goodness emerge from inconceivable circumstance and loss, readers gain a sense of how hope and faith become tied to community response and supportive efforts. They also receive a diverse portrait of kindness in action from all types of community members.

Libraries looking for memoirs of tragedy, adversity, grief, and, ultimately, hope will find that Where Yellow Flowers Bloom is an especially powerful portrait - one that should join any other true stories about surviving the impossible.

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