Helen Plum Library

"Television correspondent Alix Phillips dodges bullets and breaks rules to bring the most important news to the world--from riots in America to protests on the streets of Tehran. With her daughter in college, and working alongside cameraman Ben Chapman, a deeply private ex-Navy SEAL, Alix revels in the risks and whirlwind pace of her work. But her latest assignment puts her at the center of an explosive story that will reshape many lives, including...

The BBC's New York correspondent delves into the history of this once-great nation to explain how the seeds of Trumpism were sown in the decisions of past administrations, and how the historical clues paved the way for an outsider to take power

Cokie Roberts sheds new light on the generation of heroines, reformers, and visionaries who helped shape our nation with this blend of biographical portraits and behind-the-scenes vignettes chronicling women's public roles and private responsibilities. Drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources--many of them previously unpublished--Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork...

"Thomas Jefferson and John Adams could scarcely have come from more different worlds, or been more different in temperament. Jefferson, the optimist with enough faith in the innate goodness of his fellow man to be democracy's champion, was an aristocratic Southern slave owner, while Adams, the overachiever from New England's rising middling classes, painfully aware he was no aristocrat, was a skeptic about popular rule and a defender of a more elitist...

A fresh and heartwarming story about Abraham Lincoln and the young girl who inspired his signature beard. Abraham Lincoln is one of the most recognizable people, let alone presidents, in the history of the United States. Perhaps it's because his face can be seen everywhere from the $5 bill in your wallet and the penny in your pocket to national monuments across the country. Or maybe it's simply because of his signature beard. Could you ever picture...

A chronicle of the Trump administration from the inside perspective of a White House press correspondent "A seasoned White House correspondent surveys an unusual presidency and answers the most important question: Does Trump matter? Major Garrett has been reporting on the White House for nearly two decades, covering four different presidencies for three news outlets. But if he thought that his distinguished journalistic career had prepared him for...

An up-close look at Edith Wilson, a first lady with unequaled responsibilities during her husband's presidency.After President Woodrow Wilson suffered a paralyzing stroke in the fall of 1919, his wife, First Lady Edith Wilson, began to handle the day-to-day responsibilities of the chief executive. Mrs. Wilson had had little formal education and had only been married to President Wilson for four years, yet in the tenuous peace following the end of...

John and Abigail Adams left a remarkable portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence: both were prolific letter writers (although John conceded that Abigail was the more gifted), and over the years they exchanged more than twelve hundred letters. Joseph J. Ellis distills them to give us an account both intimate and panoramic; part biography, part political history, and part love story. Ellis describes their first meeting as inauspicious--John...

"An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful and secretive colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times bestseller Brothers. America's greatest untold story: the United States' rise to world dominance under the guile of Allen Welsh Dulles, the longest-serving director of the CIA. Drawing on revelatory new materials, including newly discovered...