DescriptionWhen the United States declared war against Spain in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt resigned his post as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry - dubbed by an adoring public as "the Rough Riders." It was his recruitment and leadership of this unorthodox military unit that made "Teddy" a household name - and eventually president. The Rough Riders is Roosevelt's firsthand account of his adventures.
DescriptionIn December 1917, Vaslav Nijinsky, the most famous male dancer in the Western world, moved into a Swiss villa with his wife and 3-year-old daughter and began to go mad. A prodigy from his youth in Russia, Nijinsky came to international fame as a principal dancer in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. When psychosis struck, he began to imagine himself as married to God. Although he lived another 30 years, he never regained his sanity. This dairy, which he kept in 4 notebooks for 6 weeks, is Nijinsky's confession and his prophecy, the only sustained, on-the-spot account we have by a major artist of the experience of entering psychosis.
DescriptionWith a world record in the heptathlon, the national record in the long jump, and 6 Olympic medals, Jackie Joyner-Kersee is arguably the world's greatest female athlete. But her life story reads as one of pitfalls as well as triumphs. Jackie's poor family grew up in a house in East St. Louis once described as little more than wallpaper and sticks. Later, she experienced discrimination on the athletic field, struggled to keep her family together after her mother's untimely death, and suffered through a controversial marriage to coach Bob Kersee. But Jackie overcame these obstacles, as well as injuries and life-threatening asthma, in a poignant testament to the power of desire, dedication, and determination.
DescriptionOnce, she felt lucky to be part of the Jackson clan. A former teenage runaway who had barely survived, she felt fortunate to become the wife of Jermaine Jackson. But in 1993, Margaret Maldonado Jackson found herself running for her life with her children. Now Jermaine's former wife tells the shocking inside story of the Jacksons - a story of greed, jealousy, adultery, and violence. She reveals a world in which greed and sexual swordsmanship erode the family fabric, and violence is a negotiating tool. With honesty and anecdotal humor, Maldonado Jackson reveals the underside of one of show business's most famous families.
