history « Crown Publishing

Posts Tagged ‘history’

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey

Thursday, January 12th, 2012

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey tells the story behind Highclere Castle, the real-life inspiration and setting for Julian Fellowes’s Emmy Award-winning PBS show Downton Abbey, and the life of one of its most famous inhabitants, Lady Almina, the 5th Countess of Carnarvon. Drawing on a rich store of materials from the archives of Highclere Castle, including diaries, letters, and photographs, the current Lady Carnarvon has written a transporting story of this fabled home on the brink of war.

Read this post »

Tags: Broadway Books, downtown abbey, england, history, lady almina and the real downtown abbey, lady carnarvon, pbs, television
Posted in Book Talk

Anka Muhlstein on Balzac’s Omelette, Perfect for Food Lovers and Bookworms

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

“In my view, The Human Comedy is the best restaurant guide you could ask for, for the era,” suggests Anka Muhlstein, author of Balzac’s Omelette. “Balzac was a regular at some forty restaurants, and he sent his characters off into the most refined establishments, as well as into the lowliest ones. The result is both an ideal Michelin Guide of gastronomical delights (and disasters) in nineteenth-century Paris, and an enchanting introduction to the work of one of the greatest French novelists.”

Read this post »

Tags: anka muhlstein, balzac's omelette, biography, france, history, other press, Paris
Posted in Meet the Author

Ella March Chase on Researching Her Tudor Novel Three Maids for a Crown

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

“A glimpse into the hearts and minds, hopes and fears of women who lived through turbulent times is the gift historical fiction gives readers as we move through our own lives: A connection to people who refused to be crushed by circumstances beyond their control,” writes Ella March Chase, author of Three Maids For A Crown. “This bridge to the past and the lessons it teaches is an ongoing study for me – my addiction to researching the history, especially of women – continues to be one of my greatest passions. It is that passion that has compelled me to write a series of three essays connected to Three Maids For A Crown, in which I will explore in more depth historical incidents connected to the Grey sisters.”

Read this post »

Tags: Broadway Books, ella march chase, historical fiction, history, the grey sisters, tudors
Posted in Meet the Author

Celebrated Writers Rave about The Unconquered by Scott Wallace

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

In this gripping first-person account of adventure and survival, author Scott Wallace chronicles an expedition into the Amazon’s uncharted depths, discovering the rainforest’s secrets while moving ever closer to a possible encounter with one such tribe – the mysterious flecheiros, or “People of the Arrow,” seldom-glimpsed warriors known to repulse all intruders with showers of deadly arrows. Writers Francisco Goldman, Sebastian Junger, Peter Matthiessen, and David Grann (author of The Lost City of Z) are all fans.

Read this post »

Tags: adventure, amazon, biography, brazil, crown publishing group, history, memoir, scott wallace, south america, travel, unconquered
Posted in Critics Rave

David King on His True-Crime Thriller Death in the City of Light

Friday, September 9th, 2011

“Death in the City of Light begins at 21 rue La Sueur in the heart of Paris’s fashionable 16th arrondissement. It is a March evening in 1944 when two police offers arrive at a townhouse after receiving complaints of a thick, black smoke emanating from the building. Upon entering, they discover a horrific scene – hands, feet, skulls, and bodies in various states of decomposition. Down in the basement they discover the source of the smoke: two coal stoves stuffed with charred remains. Within minutes the search is on for Marcel Petiot, the owner of the home . . . Here, author David King shares with Read It Forward how he stumbled upon this incredibly gripping true-crime thriller, which has already been compared to the likes of Eric Larson’s incredible narrative nonfiction.

Read this post »

Tags: crown publishing group, david king, death in the city of light, Erik Larson, history, mystery, nonfiction, Paris, thriller, true crime, World War II
Posted in Read It First

Lucia Greenhouse’s Journey Out of Christian Science

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

“In the back of my mind,” writes Lucia Greenhouse, author of fathermothergod, “was a little boy I didn’t know named Ian Lundman. In 1989, three years after my mother died, Ian Lundman died of untreated juvenile diabetes. His mother had been a Christian Scientist. When Ian became ill, his mother called a Christian Science practitioner (it could have been my father, but wasn’t) instead of a doctor. A Christian Science nurse sat beside this little boy as he lay dying of something that insulin would have successfully treated.” RIFers! In a book group? Check out the end of this post for a special offer for your group.

Read this post »

Tags: autobiography, crown publishers, crown publishing group, fathermothegod, history, lucia greenhouse, memoir, nonfiction, religion
Posted in Read It First

Geoffrey Gray on SKYJACK: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

“Who was he?” asks Geoffrey Gray, author ofSkyjack. “To know D.B. Cooper was such a man, and he had a name other than his alias Dan Cooper, and a family, maybe a sister or brother, a job, and a reason to commit the only unsolved hijacking in our time, and that I might have the ability to determine once and for all who he was became the ingredients for an obsession. How else to explain the three days I spent in the basement of the Rutgers University library, flipping through year backs from postwar years ’46, ’47, ’48, and ’49, looking for faces on the track team that matched an FBI sketch that might not even look like Cooper himself?”

Read this post »

Tags: Crown, crown publishing group, Geoffrey Gray, history, nonfiction, SKYJACK, suspense, thriller, true crime
Posted in Meet the Author

David Roberts on Finding Everett Ruess

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

“It may be that the mystery of Everett’s disappearance will never be solved,” writes David Roberts, author of Finding Everett Ruess. “But thanks to the controversy that swirled around Comb Ridge, we have more hints and clues about the wanderer’s fate – and about his character – than we have ever had before. In that sense, Finding Everett Ruess may form the appropriate rubric for a collective quest to solve a riddle that has no parallel in the history of the American West.”

Read this post »

Tags: adventure, biography, Broadway Books, DAVID ROBERTS, finding everett ruess, history, jon krakauer, nature
Posted in Read It First

Book Group Reacts to Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

Debby’s book group – the Temple Har Shalom Evening Book Group from Warren, NJ – met recently and had a lively discussion of In the Garden of Beasts. “As a group of Jewish women,” Debby shared with RIF, “we were interested in the Jewish issues that came up throughout the book, including the anti-Semitism of some U.S. government officials – and perhaps the Dodds themselves – as well as the often-asked question of what could have been done to stop Hitler, if anything.”

Read this post »

Tags: Berlin, book club, book group, crown publishing group, Devil in the White City, Erik Larson, history, In the Garden of Beasts, Nazis, nonfiction, reading group, World War II
Posted in Reader Reviews

Howard Blum on What Makes a Good Character

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

I wanted to write a story about the intrepid men who traveled from the newly civilized West to a place that remained excitingly dangerous, a fierce and lawless land. I wanted to write about heroes, villains, and dreamers who joined the great stampede to the frozen north. And, oh yeah, as I said, if all that wasn’t challenge enough, I wanted to write a true story, to boot.

Read this post »

Tags: American history, American Lightning, crown publishing group, gold rush, history, howard blum, The Floor of Heaven, Yukon
Posted in Read It First