Carmel lies on the shores of Lake Gleneida, some 50 miles north-northeast of New York City, not far from the Connecticut border. It has served as the county seat for Putnam County since 1812 and has emerged over the years as the region's governmental and legal center. The vintage postcards presented in Carmel portray the elegant Putnam County Courthouse, a national historic landmark; the picturesque lake and agricultural pursuits; the corner dam and watershed development; Drew Seminary and other local
institutions; the days of steam trains and Model Ts; and the community's eventual suburbanization.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers comes a revelatory, insider’s look at how President Joe Biden and his team have battled to achieve their agenda—based on the author’s extraordinary access to the White House during two years of crises at home and abroad. In January of 2021, the Biden administration inherited the most daunting array of challenges since FDR’s presidency: a lethal pandemic, a plummeting economy, an unresolved twenty-year war, and the aftermath of an attack on the Capitol that polarized the country. Waves of crises followed, including the fallout from a divisive Supreme Court, raging inflation, and Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Now prizewinning journalist Chris Whipple takes us inside the Oval Office as the critical decisions of Biden’s presidency are being made. With remarkable access to both President Biden and his inner circle—including Chief of Staff Ron Klain, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and CIA Director William Burns—Whipple pulls back the curtain on the internal power struggles and back-room compromises. Featuring shocking new details about how renegade Trump officials enabled the transfer of power, which key staffers really make the White House run (it’s probably not who you think), why Joe Biden no longer speaks freely around his security detail, and what he really thinks of Vice President Kamala Harris, the press, and living in the White House, The Fight of His Life “is a valuable first draft of history� (Publishers Weekly).

This is the sixth title by Dorothy Whipple that Persephone Books has published. The first was Someone at a Distance in 1999, and since then there have been They Knew Mr Knight, The Priory, They Were Sisters and The Closed Door and Other Stories. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day may be Persephone's bestselling title but Dorothy Whipple is their bestselling author - the first print run for HIGH WAGES is 7000, such has been the advance interest. HIGH WAGES (1930) is about a girl who works in a draper's shop just before WW1 and then sets up her own dress shop. It is as readable, touching and interesting as all of Dorothy Whipple's books. The Preface is by Jane Brocket, who has a very popular website about the domestic arts. She writes: 'As well as being a marvellously engrossing and deeply caring novel, High Wages has tremendous historical value. And because of the author's light touch, her enjoyment of the subject matter and her desire to tell a good story rather than lecture the reader, the book chimes in with serious present-day discussions of our consumer culture, concepts of 'retail therapy', debates about women's clothing, and the question of whether intelligent, educated women should be interested in something as frivolous as fashion. This is a gem of a novel with a very special, endearing character and charm.'

'A very good novel indeed about the fragility and also the tenacity of love' commented the "Spectator" about this 1953 novel by Dorothy Whipple, which was ignored fifty years ago because 'editors are going mad for action and passion' (as she was told by her publisher). But this last novel by a writer whose books had previously been bestsellers is outstandingly good by any standards. Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage' (Nina Bawden in the Preface) yet 'it makes compulsive reading' in its description of an ordinary family ('Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife') struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl.Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm intelligence in the tradition of Mrs Gaskell (both wrote in the "Midlands" and had similar preoccupations). 'The prose is simple, the psychology spot on' said the "Telegraph", and John Sandoe Books commented: 'We have all delighted in this unjustly forgotten novel; it is well written and compelling'.

The main theme of "They Were Sisters" (1943) is that three sisters' choice of husband dictates whether they have homes, and whether, in their homes, they will be allowed to flourish, be tamed or repressed. We see three different choices and three different husbands: the best-friend, soul-mate husband of the one sister, who brings her great joy; the would-be companionable husband of another, who over-indulges and finally bores her; and, the bullying husband who turns a high-spirited, naive young girl into a deeply unhappy woman. It is the last husband, Geoffrey, who is the most horrifying character in "They Were Sisters". Man's cruelty to woman is a frequent theme in Dorothy Whipple's novels, but nowhere was there more scope for man to be cruel to his wife than in Britain before the reform of the divorce laws.As Celia Brayfield writes in her Persephone Preface: 'Coupled with their financial dependence, but largely taken for granted because it would have been a fact of life for Whipple's readers, is the bitter truth that the middle-class woman of this time had almost no chance of freeing herself from a bad husband. Even after the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1937 a divorced woman suffered grave social disadvantages'. What has not changed is that some men are bullies and some women are married to them. 'Described as a woman who loves too much decades before those words became the title of a book about women drawn to dysfunctional partners, Charlotte marries Geoffrey, a boorish, hard-drinking salesman who swiftly evolves into a domestic dicator. Yet his blood-curdling sadism towards his wife and children is evoked without any physical violence or the use of a word stronger than 'damn". "They Were Sisters" is a compulsively readable but often harrowing novel by one of Persephone's best writers.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Gatekeepers, a remarkable, behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to run the world's most powerful intelligence agency, and how the CIA is often a crucial counterforce against presidents threatening to overstep the powers of their office. Only 11 men and one woman are alive today who have made the life-and-death decisions that come with running the world's most powerful and influential intelligence service. With unprecedented, deep access to nearly all these individuals, Chris Whipple tells the story of an agency that answers to the United States president, but whose activities - spying, espionage, and covert action - take place on every continent. At pivotal moments, the CIA acts as a brake on rogue presidents, starting in the mid-seventies with DCI Richard Helms' refusal to conceal Richard Nixon's criminality and continuing recently as the actions of a CIA whistleblower ignited impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump. Since its inception in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency has been a powerful player on the world stage, operating largely in the shadows to protect American interests. For The Spymasters, Whipple conducted extensive, exclusive interviews with nearly every living CIA director, pulling back the curtain on the world's elite spy agency and showing how the CIA partners - or clashes - with counterparts in Britain, France, Germany, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Russia. Topics covered in the book include attempts by presidents to use the agency for their own ends; simmering problems in the Middle East and Asia; rogue nuclear threats; and cyberwarfare. The Spymasters recounts seven decades of CIA activity and elicits predictions about the issues - and threats - that will engage the attention of future operatives and analysts. Including eye-opening interviews with George Tenet, John Brennan, Leon Panetta and David Petraeus, as well as those who've just recently departed the agency, this is a timely, essential and important contribution to current events.

'A very good novel indeed about the fragility and also the tenacity of love' commented the Spectator recently about this 1953 novel by Dorothy Whipple, which was ignored fifty years ago because 'editors are going mad for action and passion' (as she was told by her publisher). But this last novel by a writer whose books had previously been bestsellers is outstandingly good by any standards. Apparently 'a fairly ordinary tale about the destruction of a happy marriage' (Nina Bawden in the Preface) yet 'it makes compulsive reading' in its description of an ordinary family ('Ellen was that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife') struck by disaster when the husband, in a moment of weak, mid-life vanity, runs off with a French girl. Dorothy Whipple is a superb stylist, with a calm intelligence in the tradition of Mrs Gaskell (both wrote in the Midlands and had similar preoccupations). 'The prose is simple, the psychology spot on' said the Telegraph, and John Sandoe Books commented: 'We have all delighted in this unjustly forgotten novel; it is well written and compelling.'

The setting for this, the third novel by Dorothy Whipple Persephone have published, is Saunby Priory, a large house somewhere in England which has seen better times. We are shown the two Marwood girls, who are nearly grown-up, their father, the widower Major Marwood, and their aunt; then, as soon as their lives have been described, the Major proposes marriage to a woman much younger than himself - and many changes begin.'"The Priory" is the kind of book I really enjoy', wrote Salley Vickers in the "Spectator", 'funny, acutely observed, written in clear, melodious but unostentatious prose, it deserves renewed recognition as a minor classic. Whipple is not quite Jane Austen class but she understands as well as Austen the enormous effects of apparently minor social adjustments...Christine is a true heroine: vulnerable, valient, appealing, and the portrait of her selfless maternal preoccupation, done without sentiment and utterly credible, is one of the best I have ever come across. The final triumph of love over adversity is described with a benevolent panache which left me feeling heartened about human nature...A delightful, well-written and clever book'.

Get nose to bloom with one of the most beloved subjects of painters for generations of artists with Expressive Flower Painting and master pedals, stems, colors, and more. It's almost always one of the first things someone tries to paint--center, petals, stem, voila! Expressive Flower Painting's exercises have a loose, free, contemporary style the likes of which you'd see in galleries, in shops, and even on clothing and home design goods. It's not intimidating, and yet the paintings are colorful, immediate, and joyful and speak to the artist's desire to play, be loose, and to create freely. Lynn Whipple paints wildly and in small to large formats with a combination of acrylic paint, charcoal, and colorful soft pastel. Expressive Flower Painting presents a range of creative painting exercises that help readers develop vibrant nature paintings. This exciting book is an in-depth expansion of Lynn's class called Big Bold Bloom Wild Painting, with additional content. Expressive Flower Painting covers mark making, layering techniques, how to do "spin drawings," color methods, painted backgrounds, working from life, and how to successfully combine a wide variety of media for the maximum effect.

Originally just a thoroughfare connecting St. Petersburg with Pass-a-Grille, the area on St. Petersburg Beach immediately south of the Corey Causeway would, in time, become a destination of its own. As Florida recovered from the Great Depression, real estate developers the Upham Company carefully turned a swampy and mosquito-infested property into a successful commercial district, eventually to be called St. Pete Beach's Downtown. Over the years, many businesses would come and go, but several of the earliest continue into the 21st century, and the offices of the largest municipality on Pinellas County's barrier islands are now located there.