THE STORIES: LUDLOW FAIR. In words of the Village Voice, this ...is a bedtime story about two girl roommates. Rachel is glamorous, fast-living, sometimes lost in her own self-dramatizations; Agnes is plain, matter-of-fact, her shyness masked by a kooky per

"On April 20, 1914, in the small railroad town of Ludlow, Colorado, striking coalminers and state National Guardsmen waged a day-long battle that ended with the burning of a strikers' tent colony. The "Ludlow Massacre," as it is known, was only part of a seven-month war in which at least seventy-five people were killed. In Blood Passion, journalist Scott Martelle explores this largely forgotten American saga of coalminers rising against political and economic corruption, a fight that embraced some of the most volatile social movements of the early twentieth century."--Cover.

The latest guide in Chronicle Books' successful Weekends for Two series offers an exciting insider's look at 50 of New England's most blissfully romantic retreats. From a countrified hideaway in Maine to an elegant Nantucket beachfront resort, this definitive guidebook provides alluring, in-depth descriptions of these accommodations, all accompanied by over 150 enticing, full-color photographs. Complete with dining tips and suggestions for local outings, this luxurious lovers' guide will help transform any weekend into a memorable occasion for harried couples, newlyweds, and incurable romantics alike. For updates on the Weekends for Two books, email [email protected].

The New York Times bestseller from prizewinning author David Michaelis presents a “stunning” (The Wall Street Journal) breakthrough portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt, America’s longest-serving First Lady, an avatar of democracy whose ever-expanding agency as diplomat, activist, and humanitarian made her one of the world’s most widely admired and influential women. In the first single-volume cradle-to-grave portrait in six decades, acclaimed biographer David Michaelis delivers a stunning account of Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarkable life of transformation. An orphaned niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, she converted her Gilded Age childhood of denial and secrecy into an irreconcilable marriage with her ambitious fifth cousin Franklin. Despite their inability to make each other happy, Franklin Roosevelt transformed Eleanor from a settlement house volunteer on New York’s Lower East Side into a matching partner in New York’s most important power couple in a generation. When Eleanor discovered Franklin’s betrayal with her younger, prettier, social secretary, Lucy Mercer, she offered a divorce and vowed to face herself honestly. Here is an Eleanor both more vulnerable and more aggressive, more psychologically aware and sexually adaptable than we knew. She came to accept her FDR’s bond with his executive assistant, Missy LeHand; she allowed her children to live their own lives, as she never could; and she explored her sexual attraction to women, among them a star female reporter on FDR’s first presidential campaign, and younger men. Eleanor needed emotional connection. She pursued deeper relationships wherever she could find them. Throughout her life and travels, there was always another person or place she wanted to heal. As FDR struggled to recover from polio, Eleanor became a voice for the voiceless, her husband’s proxy in the White House. Later, she would be the architect of international human rights and world citizen of the Atomic Age, urging Americans to cope with the anxiety of global annihilation by cultivating a “world mind.” She insisted that we cannot live for ourselves alone but must learn to live together or we will die together. This “absolutely spellbinding,” (The Washington Post) “complex and sensitive portrait” (The Guardian) is not just a comprehensive biography of a major American figure, but the story of an American ideal: how our freedom is always a choice. Eleanor rediscovers a model of what is noble and evergreen in the American character, a model we need today more than ever.