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Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft
by Simon Houpt
My Life in France
by Julia Child
Book of Lost Books
by Stuart Kelly
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
by Lawrence Wright
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
by Dale Brown
Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the
by Brad Matsen
Cancer Vixen
by Marisa Acocella Marchetto
Epileptic
by Daniel B
The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie
by Andrew Eames
Human cargo
by Caroline Moorehead
The Ode Less Travelled
by Stephen Fry
Queen of the Oddballs
by Hillary Carlip
Poet’s Choice
by Edward Hirsch
Encyclopedia of an ordinary life : volume one
by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
To rule the waves : how the British Navy shaped the modern world
by Arthur Herman
Tab Hunter confidential : the making of a movie star
by Tab Hunter
Truck : a love story
by Michael Perry
The United States of Arugula : how we became a gourmet nation
by David Kamp
River of doubt : Theodore Roosevelt's darkest journey
by Candice Millard
Reading Like a Writer
by Francine Prose
Best American Essays of 2006
by Lauren Slater, guest ed.
One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer
by Nathaniel Fick
War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today
by Max Boot
Shadow of the Bear: Travels in Vanishing Wilderness
by Brian Payton
Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft
by Simon Houpt
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks
by Ed Viesturs with David Roberts
The Bill from My Father
by Bernard Cooper
The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine
by Paul Collins
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million
by Daniel Mendelsohn
The Worst Hard Time
by Timothy Egan
Viva la Repartee: Clever Comebacks & Witty Retorts...
by Mardy Grothe
This is Your Brain on Music : the science of a human obsession
by Daniel J. Levitin
Dead Reckoning : great adventure writing from the golden age of exploration
by Helen Whybrow
Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw : travels in search of Canada
by Will Ferguson
Stuffed : adventures of a restaurant family
by Patricia Volk
The Judgment of Paris
by Ross King
The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial
by Susan Eaton
Fowl Weather
by Bob Tarte
Walt Disney
by Neal Gabler
The House on Boulevard Street: New and Selected Poems
by David Kirby
The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed
by John Vaillant
The Great War for Civilisation
by Robert Fisk
Barrow’s Boys
by Fergus Fleming
Sunday money : speed, lust, madness, death.
by Jeff MacGregor
The Long Road Home
by Marth Raddatz
The Eiger Obsession
by John Harlin III
Book Description
I have a distinct memory of reading about Dolly Madison in one of those orange covered books in the “Childhood of Famous Americans” series when I was a child. I remember being totally fascinated with her romance and marriage to the much older James Madison, as well as her thrilling experiences during the War of 1812, in which she saved a portrait of George Washington from the burning White House. (I didn’t know then that it was the famous portrait of Washington by Gilbert Stuart.) So I was thrilled to reacquaint myself with her life and times in A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation by Catherine Allgor. Madison was loved and admired by all (with the exception of her husband’s political enemies) for the three decades she spent in the public spotlight; she was the first First Lady to carve out an important role for herself in the everyday workings of the new nation. Collaborating with her husband to bring the still fractious states (and their leaders) together, Dolley turned the White House into a salon, where men from all sides of the political spectrum, as well as foreign diplomats, kings, and potentates, could come together and, mellowed by good food and wine and an attractive and charming hostess, begin to work out their differences. She was a true partner to her husband – one political opponent believed that Madison never would have won the presidency without Dolley at his side. Allgor’s lively biography brings this vivacious and intelligent woman back into the spotlight she so deserves.
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