Leaders & Notable People in The Books Store

Everyone has heard of Joan of Arc but how many people really know the complete story about this famous person? Perhaps it is the complexity of all that happened to her and the long, hard to read biographies that keep most people from knowing the full story. Ben D. Kennedy solves this problem by delivering an easy to read yet compelling biography that covers the life of Joan of Arc in a way that is both beautiful and inspiring.

The story of Joan of Arc is so remarkable that it is one that everyone should fully know. Called by God to rescue her people from the invading English, she answers the call when she is only sixteen years old. A little over two years later, she is dead but in the brief time she lived, she accomplished as much as anyone in history and became the legendary figure that she remains today.

At first glance, you might wonder how a poem can cover such a story but Kennedy explains: "I can say in a poem in a few lines what it would take pages to say in a regular biography and say it better. In today¿s world, few people have the time or the inclination to read a thousand page biography but Maid of Heaven can be read in less than an hour." The other advantages to the poetic form of writing become apparent as you read Maid of Heaven. The sheer beauty of the easy flowing verse brings to the story a kind of Homeric heroism echoing classic epic poems of the past.

"I was impressed by his clever English prose that was able to combine actual historical fact and the words spoken by Joan herself."
Virginia Frohlick - Founder and Director of the Joan of Arc Center- Albuquerque, NM

"Mr. Kennedy does an amazing job of putting such a lyrical story into capitivating lyrical form. "
Chris Snidow - Author, musician and leader of three Joan of Arc pilgrimages in France.

Illicit love, madness, betrayal--it isn’t always good to be the queen

Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn, and Mary, Queen of Scots. What did they have in common? For a while they were crowned in gold, cosseted in silk, and flattered by courtiers. But in the end, they spent long nights in dark prison towers and were marched to the scaffold where they surrendered their heads to the executioner. And they are hardly alone in their undignified demises. Throughout history, royal women have had a distressing way of meeting bad ends--dying of starvation, being burned at the stake, or expiring in childbirth while trying desperately to produce an heir. They always had to be on their toes and all too often even devious plotting, miraculous pregnancies, and selling out their sisters was not enough to keep them from forcible consignment to religious orders. From Cleopatra (suicide by asp), to Princess Caroline (suspiciously poisoned on her coronation day), there’s a gory downside to being blue-blooded when you lack a Y chromosome. Kris Waldherr’s elegant little book is a chronicle of the trials and tribulations of queens across the ages, a quirky, funny, utterly macabre tribute to the dark side of female empowerment. Over the course of fifty irresistibly illustrated and too-brief lives, Doomed Queens charts centuries of regal backstabbing and intrigue. We meet well-known figures like Catherine of Aragon, whose happy marriage to Henry VIII ended prematurely when it became clear that she was a starter wife--the first of six. And we meet forgotten queens like Amalasuntha, the notoriously literate Ostrogoth princess who overreached politically and was strangled in her bath. While their ends were bleak, these queens did not die without purpose. Their unfortunate lives are colorful cautionary tales for today’s would-be power brokers--a legacy of worldly and womanly wisdom gathered one spectacular regal ruin at a time.

Listen to a ten-minute interview with Margaret Hogan
Host: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane

Read Margaret Hogan's HUP blog posting: "The Romance of John and Abigail Adams"

Watch the video of The Massachusetts Historical Society's November 2007 event at which Deval and Diane Patrick, Edward and Victoria Kennedy, and Michael and Kitty Dukakis read selected letters from My Dearest Friend

Visit the Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive

Watch the March 2008 HBO miniseries--"John Adams"--based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography

In 1762, John Adams penned a flirtatious note to "Miss Adorable," the 17-year-old Abigail Smith. In 1801, Abigail wrote to wish her husband John a safe journey as he headed home to Quincy after serving as president of the nation he helped create. The letters that span these nearly forty years form the most significant correspondence--and reveal one of the most intriguing and inspiring partnerships--in American history.

As a pivotal player in the American Revolution and the early republic, John had a front-row seat at critical moments in the creation of the United States, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to negotiating peace with Great Britain to serving as the first vice president and second president under the U.S. Constitution. Separated more often than they were together during this founding era, John and Abigail shared their lives through letters that each addressed to "My Dearest Friend," debating ideas and commenting on current events while attending to the concerns of raising their children (including a future president).

Full of keen observations and articulate commentary on world events, these letters are also remarkably intimate. This new collection--including some letters never before published--invites readers to experience the founding of a nation and the partnership of two strong individuals, in their own words. This is history at its most authentic and most engaging.