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Newsweek Condensed Books: The Right Stuff; Kennedy and Roosevelt, The Fall of Fortresses, Heyday, The Dictionary of Misinformation
Newsweek Condensed Books The Right Stuff Kennedy and Roosevelt The Fall of Fortresses Heyday The Dictionary of Misinformation Author:Tom Wolfe, Michael R. Beschloss, Elmer Bendiner, Dore Schary, Tom Burnam The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe — With his extraordinary powers of empathy, he describes the inner world of the early astronauts and tells of the most engrossing side of the great space adventure: the perceptions and goals of the astronauts themselves, aloft and on earth. This is the story of John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and their confr?re... more »s and the hidden Olympus to which they all aspired, the top of the pyramid of the right stuff. The astronauts are presented as full-blooded human beings, giving their triumphs a dimension that raises them above the technological. In the process, man's attempt to explore his galaxy comes alive for the first time.
Kennedy and Roosevelt: The Uneasy Alliance by Michael R. Beschloss
Beschloss has drawn on newly declassified government archives, private papers, and conversations with many of the participants to provide the first full portrait of the relationship between Joseph P. Kennedy and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Against the backdrop of their times, he examines these ambitious men in terms of leadership. This is the story of the struggle of two men, within themselves and with each other, to confront a dilemma with profound meaning for our own day: the uneasy alliance in every national leader between personal power and public principle.
The Fall of Fortresses: A Personal Account of the Most Daring and Deadly American Air Battles of World War II by Elmer Bendiner
He flew in the B-17 Flying Fortresses, and his vivid, poignant recreation of those missions is a major new contribution to the literature of World War II. From the first orders in 1943 to obliterate German industrial installations to his last mission, Bendiner draws on his personal experiences to describe the hell of the bombing runs and the trail of burning Fortresses across Europe. But he also traces the deliberations leading up to the bombings and the bitter interservice rivalries and the motives that climaxed in the bloody German skies. The book is more than just a personal account; it is a highly original and deeply felt meditation on men at war and the myths and realities of air power.
Heyday: An Autobiography by Dore Schary
Recalling twenty-seven tempestuous fruitful, kaleidoscopic years in Hollywood and his meteoric rise through the ranks from aspiring screenwriter to producer, executive, and ultimately head of the biggest, most powerful studio of the era, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He creates an incomparable picture of Hollywood as he knew it: from the palmy days of the Thirties to the Red hunts of the Fifties; the men who molded the industry; the awesome struggles to control studios; the glittering stars; the production of memorable hits. It is a frank and thoughtful portrait of Hollywood.
The Dictionary of Misinformation by Tom Burnam
Burnam tells us that, alas, there is no such thing as an aphrodisiac. Furthermore, Delilah did not cut Samson's hair; goats do not eat tin cans; and Cleopatra was not Egyptian. For reference, rumination, and pure delight, Butnam presents scores of false facts, misquotations, and bits of buncombe, and then sets us straight. As he shows us, we believe what we want to believe; so the world is full of misinformation. Some is harmless; some is harmful. But all of it is interesting.