"Agatha Christie was not only the most successful author of detective stories the world has ever known, she was also a mystery in herself, giving only the rarest interviews--declining absolutely to become any sort of public figure. Distinguished crime novelist H. R. F. Keating brings together a dozen noted writers to throw light on the ever-intriguing Dame Agatha. Some essays analyze Christie's art itself; some explain the reasons for her success....

"History was made at the 2015 Belmont Stakes when American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, the first since Affirmed in 1978. As magnificent as the champion is, the team behind him has been all too human while on the road to immortality. Written by an award-winning New York Times sportswriter, American Pharoah is the definitive account not only of how the ethereal colt won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes, but how he changed lives. Through...

Evenly divided between a book about Smith's process and her life, first as a Southern mountain child and, later, as the parent of a schizophrenic child, this book is interesting and compelling. Despite being surrounded by loving family and being blessed with an active imagination, Lee copes with a mentally ill mother. Later, her son's mental illness and early death brings her to the breaking point but she is saved by her writing.

In 1933, as her husband assumed the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt embarked on the claustrophobic, duty-bound existence of the First Lady with dread. Putting her deep disappointment in her marriage behind her, she had developed an independent life which was threatened by her new public role. A lifeline came to her in the form of a feisty campaign reporter for the Associated Press, Lorena Hickok. Over the next thirty years, until Eleanor's death, the...

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as "human computers" to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. As photography transformed the practice of astronomy, the ladies turned from computation to studying the stars captured nightly on glass photographic plates. The support of Mrs. Anna Palmer Draper, the widow of a pioneer in stellar photography, enabled the women...

"In a career that has spanned more than sixty years Robert Wagner has witnessed the twilight of the Golden Age of Hollywood and the rise of television, becoming a beloved star in both media. During that time he became acquainted, both professionally and socially, with the remarkable women who were the greatest screen personalities of their day. I Loved Her in the Movies is his intimate and revealing account of the charisma of these women on film,...

A portrait of the relationship between McDonald's chairman Ray Croc and his wife, Joan, describes how he helped establish an international brand and amassed a considerable estate before his impassioned wife gave most of the family fortune away to philanthropic pursuits.

"Built on her wildly popular Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a breathtaking memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38 year old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson, mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years, after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

A decade ago, Special Forces warrior Jason Morgan parachuted into the Central American jungle on an anti-narcotics raid. Months later, he regained consciousness in a US military hospital, with no memory of how he'd gotten there-- and a prognosis that he would never walk again. After multiple surgeries and numerous setbacks, Morgan was a single father confined to a wheelchair and tortured by his pain. Light came in the form of Napal, the black Labrador...

A lightbeat, epic account of how the 20-something author brought her giant English Mastiff to her first tiny New York apartment after college, while navigating boyfriends, first jobs, her mother's illness and a bucket list that involves her dog's participation.