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On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1 - 12 of 12 items
By Amanda Foreman. 1998
The story of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, one of the most flamboyant women of the 18th century, and her times.…
Distantly related to the late Princess of Wales, she was, in turn, a compulsive gambler, political savante and operator, drug addict, adulteress and darling of the common people. Georgiana Spencer became the Duchess of Devonshire and mistress of Chatsworth in 1774 and consequently became a public figure. She also became an important campaigning figure in the Whig party. However, her success concealed a personal suffering, with her husband preferring her best friend. Georgiana's extravagances were her undoing - gambling and a pregnancy from an affair resulted in her exile. She returned, dishonoured and disgraced, yet she rose to the challenge and became one of the most respected politicians of the age. 1998.By Laura Hillenbrand. 2010
Details the life of Louis Zamperini (b. 1917), an Olympic runner and World War II bombardier, who survived a plane…
crash and forty-seven days adrift at sea only to become a POW in Japan. Relates Louis's later religious awakening under Billy Graham's ministry. Violence. Bestseller. 2010.By Nelson Mandela. 2010
South African statesman opens his personal archive to reveal private correspondence and meditations. Discusses his 1941-1962 antiapartheid activities, 1962-1990 imprisonment…
and separation from his family, doubts and triumphs, and rise to world prominence, including winning the 1994 presidential election. Companion to “Long Walk to Freedom”. 2010.By Eric Lomax. 1996
Eric Lomax was tortured by the Japanese as a POW working on the Burma-Siam Railway. Fifty years later he met…
one of his tormentors. His is a story of innocence betrayed; of passion and curiosity about the world of machines turned into nightmares, and punished by the cruelty of which only humans are capable. It is also a story of survival and of courage.By Kirby Larson. 2016
New Orleans, 1940s. Polio-survivor Fish Elliot and his neighbor Olympia team up in order to save a starving stray dog…
they call Liberty, and they find other unlikely allies willing to help. For grades 3-6. 2016By Kirby Larson. 2014
When her family is forced into a Japanese internment camp, Mitsi Kashino is separated from her home, her classmates, and…
her beloved dog, Dash. Heartbroken, Mitsi clings to her one connection to Dash: the letters from the kindly neighbor who is caring for him. For grades 3-6. 2014By Gloria Whelan. 2006
Michigan, 1942. With their parents working for the war effort, Mirabelle and her siblings travel to live with their grandparents…
on Turtle Island. Fourteen-year-old Belle is resentful when her more sophisticated fifteen-year-old cousin Caroline joins them, but during the summer they become real family. For grades 6-9. 2006By Gary D. Schmidt. 2007
Long Island, 1967. Seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood knows that Mrs. Baker "hates his guts" because she would have Wednesday afternoons free…
if he went to catechism or Hebrew school like his classmates. Mrs. Baker worries about her husband in Vietnam and introduces a reluctant Holling to Shakespeare. For grades 5-8. Newbery Honor. 2007By Kimberly Holt. 1998
Louisiana, 1950s. Twelve-year-old Tiger Ann Parker begins to feel embarrassed in front of the other kids about the "slowness" of…
her parents. Her grandmother is the one who keeps the family intact. After Granny dies, Tiger has a chance to move to the city with her sophisticated aunt, but she is reluctant to abandon the parents who love her. For grades 6-9By Karen X. Tulchinsky. 2010
Crammed with humour, sorrow, folly, bravery and the richness of the everyday, Tulchinsky's fictional treatment of the Lapinsky family and…
its remarkable fortunes-through the pivotal moment of the 1933 Toronto race riot, the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and its attendant social tensions, World War II, and the post-war era-brings to life the character of an entire community.By Ganeshram Ramin. 2018
Philadelphia 1793. Hercules, President George Washington’s chef, is a fixture on the Philadelphia scene. He is famous for both his…
culinary prowess and for ruling his kitchen like a commanding general. He has his run of the city and earns twice the salary of an average American workingman. He wears beautiful clothes and attends the theater. But while valued by the Washingtons for his prowess in the kitchen and rewarded far over and above even white servants, Hercules is enslaved in a city where most black Americans are free. Even while he masterfully manages his kitchen and the lives of those in and around it, Hercules harbors secrets-- including the fact that he is learning to read and that he is involved in a dangerous affair with Thelma, a mixed-race woman, who, passing as white, works as a companion to the daughter of one of Philadelphia's most prestigious families. Eventually Hercules’ carefully crafted intrigues fall apart and he finds himself trapped by his circumstance and the will of George Washington. Based on actual historical events and people, The General's Cook, will thrill fans of The Hamilton Affair, as they follow Hercules' precarious and terrifying bid for freedom.By Elizabeth Cobbs. 2016
A New York Times Bestseller and one of the best historical fiction books of 2016 and 2017!“A juicy answer to…
Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton…” --CosmopolitanSet against the dramatic backdrop of the American Revolution, and featuring a cast of legendary characters, The Hamilton Affair tells the sweeping, tumultuous, true story of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler, from passionate and tender beginnings of their romance to his fateful duel on the banks of the Hudson River.Hamilton was a bastard and orphan, raised in the Caribbean and desperate for legitimacy, who became one of the American Revolution's most dashing--and improbable--heroes. Admired by George Washington, scorned by Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton was a lightning rod: the most controversial leader of the new nation. Elizabeth was the wealthy, beautiful, adventurous daughter of the respectable Schuyler clan--and a pioneering advocate for women. Together, the unlikely couple braved the dangers of war, the perils of seduction, the anguish of infidelity, and the scourge of partisanship that menaced their family and the country itself.With flawless writing, brilliantly drawn characters, and epic scope, The Hamilton Affair tells a story of love forged in revolution and tested by the bitter strife of young America, and will take its place among the greatest novels of American history ever written.