Growing up in Poland in the 1930s, Rita Braun had many hopes and dreams for the future. When she was nine years old, however, World War II touched her once-idyllic life, transforming paradise on earth into an indescribable hell. In Fragments of my Life, Braun tells her story--from her birth in 1930 to living in Brazil today, where she works to ensure no one forgets the more than six million Jewish people who lost their lives during the Holocaust.

Including many photos, Fragments of my Life provides firsthand insight into the horrors of the war. As a nine-year old on her school vacation, Braun watched as military aircraft streaked across the skies above her parents' farm. She never imagined they would leave behind much more than a trail of smoke. This memoir details what she experienced as a Jewish girl trying to stay alive during World War II. Braun describes watching the selection process and deportation of friends and family, living under both Russian and German rule, using a fake identity, surviving in a gated and guarded ghetto, escaping and hiding for her life, and witnessing the many tragedies of war.

Candid and detailed, Fragments of my Life chronicles one survivor's experiences from a woman of the final generation who can say, "I lived through the Holocaust."

In 1970, a working-class, Jewish man from New York City married an African American woman from rural, segregated North Carolina. From their union, "Michael Wenger" has three children, four grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Years later, "Mr. Wenger" served as Deputy Director for Outreach and Program Development for President Clinton's Initiative on Race, an opportunity that confirmed for him the conscious and unconscious bias that people of color confront daily in the United States.

Both personally and professionally, "Mr. Wenger" has peered into a world far beyond the comprehension of most white people in our society. His book, deeply moving and tenderly written, shares the discoveries he's made. He masterfully weaves his personal and professional journeys and helps readers of all races to become more aware of the pain that well-meaning white Americans inflict on people of color, often without knowing it, and to recognize the richness that awaits those with the courage to embrace our nation's growing diversity.

"Mr. Wenger's" remarkable and inspirational story will, at times, move you to tears while occasionally triggering a knowing laugh as he recounts the struggles and triumphs of his journey. It will awaken you to the stark realities of life for some in America today, while fostering hope for and a commitment to a more racially equitable and harmonious future for all.

An intimate look at the founders--George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison--and thewomen who played essential roles in their lives

With his usual storytelling flair and unparalleled research, notedhistorian Thomas Fleming examines the relationships between theFounding Fathers and the women who were at the center of theirlives. They were the mothers who powerfully shaped their sons'visions of domestic life, from hot-tempered Mary Ball Washington to promiscuous Rachel Lavien, Hamilton's mother. Lovers and wives played even more critical roles. We learn of the youthful Washington's tortured love for the coquettish Sarah Fairfax, a close friend's wife; of Franklin's two "wives," one in London and one in Philadelphia; of how lonely, deeply unhappy Abigail kept home and family togetherfor years on end during Adams's long absences; of Hamilton's adulterous betrayal of his wife and their eventual reconciliation; of how the brilliant Madison, jilted by a flirtatious fifteen-year-old, went on to marry the effervescent Dolley, who helped make this shy man into a popular president. Jefferson's controversial relationshipwith Sally Hemings is also examined, reinterpreting where his heart truly lay.

Born in 1853, Jared Flagg was the black sheep of an illustrious New York family. His father, Jared Bradley Flagg, was a noted portraitist and Episcopalian minister who served as Rector of Grace Church, in Brooklyn Heights. His older brothers were prominent, Paris-trained artists in their own right. A younger brother became a famous architect, while another went on to found a major Wall Street brokerage. One of his younger sisters married publisher Charles Scribner, II; another was a member of the famed "400" Manhattan socialites. Jared, Jr., on the other hand, took to the seamier side of American life, instigating any number of illegal schemes, ranging from leasing furnished flats to facilitate prostitution, to finding chorus line and modeling jobs for pretty but talentless young women, to a phony investment scheme that paid 52% a year, to the sale of worthless bonds backed by heavily mortgaged real estate. Frequently penalized for his criminal and unethical activities by the time of his death in 1926, Jared Flagg barreled his way through Gilded and Jazz Age America, offering a fascinating and heretofore unknown view of how a rising empire evolved at a crucial through crucial eras in its history.