Books & Beyond

As part of a program aimed at supporting children of military families, Jill Biden gave a public reading of her book, "Don't Forget, God Bless Our Troops." Speaker Biography: Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joseph Biden, is a mother, grandmother and lifelong educator. She has worked to bring attention to the sacrifices made by military families, to highlight the importance of community colleges to America???s future and to raise awareness of issues with particular importance to women, including breast cancer prevention. She also teaches English full-time at a community college in Northern Virginia. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5946&loclr=itu

James Srodes discussed and signed his book, "On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Progressives Who Shaped Our World." Speaker Biography: James Srodes is a former Washington bureau chief for Forbes and Financial World magazines. He is the author of several books, including "Franklin: The Essential Founding Father," "Allen Dulles: Master of Spies" and, most recently, "On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Progressives Who Shaped Our World." For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5901.

Italian Anarchists Professed Innocence Until Their Deaths It was a bold and brutal crime: robbery and murder in broad daylight on the streets of South Braintree, Mass., in 1920. Tried for the crime and convicted, two Italian-born laborers, anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, went to the electric chair in 1927, professing their innocence. Journalist Susan Tejada has spent years in the Library of Congress and elsewhere investigating the case, sifting through diaries and police reports and interviewing descendants of its major figures. She discovers little-known facts about Sacco, Vanzetti and their supporters, and develops a tantalizing theory about how a doomed insider may have been coerced into helping professional criminals plan the heist. Tejada's close-up view of the case allows readers to see those involved as individual personalities. She also paints a fascinating portrait of a bygone era: Providence gangsters and Boston Brahmins; nighttime raids and midnight bombings; and immigration, unionism, draft-dodging and violent anarchism in the turbulent early years of the 20th century. In many ways this is as much a cultural history as a true-crime mystery or courtroom drama. Because the case played out against a background of domestic terrorism, it offers a new appreciation of the potential connection between fear and the erosion of civil liberties and miscarriages of justice. Tejada is a former writer and editor at the National Geographic Society, where she was the editor-in-chief of National Geographic World magazine and the author or managing editor of geography books for young readers. A native of Providence, R.I., she served with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5566.

Understanding how congressional political parties use floor procedure to advance a legislative agenda is fundamental to understanding how Congress operates. In "Party and Procedure in the United States Congress" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), author Jacob R. Straus and contributors Jennifer Hayes Clark, Matthew Glassman and Colleen J. Shogan offer students and researchers an in-depth understanding of the procedural tools available to congressional leaders and committee chairs and how those tools are implemented in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and during negotiations between the chambers. Divided into four sections (Leadership, House of Representatives, Senate, and Legislative Reconciliation between the Chambers), the contributors present relevant examples of procedure throughout the legislative process. While other books provide the party or the procedural perspective, "Party and Procedure" combines these two features to create a robust analysis on the role that party can play in making procedural decisions. Additionally, the contributors provide an opportunity to take a holistic look at Congress and understand the changing dynamics of congressional power and its implementation over time. A concluding chapter, "Legislative Sausage-Making: Health Care Reform in the 111th Congress," summarizes the book's major themes through an examination of this legislative topic. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5577.

The red brick of old Georgetown, the streetcar lines of Tenleytown and the eclectic and stately homes of Cleveland Park -- the neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park -- were the setting for the remarkable history of the United States capital. Amid the gardens of their Friendship Estate, the McLean family held lavish parties until they were laid low by the rumored curse of the Hope Diamond, and it was the fashionable residences of Woodley Park that attracted the senators and Cabinet members of the 1920s and 1930s. From the history of Georgetown College and American University to stories of runaway slaves seeking protection at Fort Reno, historian Mark N. Ozer charts the evolution of the storied neighborhoods of the nation's capital in "Northwest Washington, D.C.: Tales from West of the Park" (The History Press, 2011). Mark N. Ozer is a former professor of neurology at the Georgetown University Medical School and is currently a study group leader at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at American University. There he has lectured extensively on the history of most of the great cities of the world. He has translated this interest in a series of books on Washington. The first, "Washington, DC: Politics and Place," was followed by "Massachusetts Avenue in the Gilded Age," published in 2010. For captions, transcripts, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5572.

On May 1, 1893, the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago opened its gates to an expectant public eager to experience firsthand its architectural beauty, technological marvels and vast array of cultural treasures gathered from all over the world. Among the most popular of the fair's attractions was the Woman's Building, a monumental exhibit hall filled with the products of women's labor, including more than 8,000 volumes of writing, by women and collected by women -- the first important library of its kind. Hundreds of thousands of women visited the library and took what they learned to develop local libraries. Speaker Biography: Sarah Wadsworth is associate professor of English at Marquette University and author of "In the Company of Books: Literature and Its 'Classes' in Nineteenth-Century America." Speaker Biography: Wayne A. Wiegand is F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus at Florida State University and author, most recently, of "Main Street Public Library: Community Places and Reading Spaces in the Rural Heartland, 1876-1956." For transcript, captions, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5514.

Was Roger Williams too pure for the Puritans, and what does that have to do with Rhode Island? Why did Augustine Herman take 10 years to complete the map that established Delaware? How did Rocky Mountain rogues help create the state of Colorado? All this and more is explained in Mark Stein's new book. Speaker Biography: Mark Stein is a playwright and screenwriter. His plays have been performed off-Broadway and at theaters throughout the country. Stein has also taught writing and drama at American University and Catholic University. His previous book, "How the States Got Their Shapes," a New York Times best-seller, was the basis for The History Channel's documentary of the same name. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5447.

Drawing heavily on the rich aeronautical archives of the Library of Congress, including personal correspondence, "Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution" is the first detailed examination of French-born and self-trained civil engineer Octave Chanute's life and his immeasurable contributions to engineering and transportation, from the ground-transportation revolution of the mid-19th century to the early days of aviation. Speaker Biography: Simine Short is an aviation historian who has researched and written extensively on the history of motorless flight. Her first book, "Glider Mail: An Aerophilatelic Handbook," received numerous research awards worldwide and is considered a standard reference by aerophilatelists and aviation researchers. For transcript, captions, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5471.

New York physician Robert L. Dickinson was stationed in Washington during World War I and in his free time was a prolific artist. An avid nature lover, he explored both sides of the Potomac River, sketching the woodsy and idyllic scenery that captured a now-vanished way of life. His work is the subject of a new book by Gail Dickersin Spilsbury. Speaker Biography: Gail Dickersin Spilsbury is also the author of "Rock Creek Park" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), and she has been an editor at the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. For transcript, captions, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5472.

During the 1920s and 1930s, thousands of European and American writers, professionals, scientists, artists and intellectuals made a pilgrimage to experience the "Soviet experiment" for themselves. The reception of these intellectuals and fellow travelers and their encounters in order to analyze Soviet attitudes toward the West are the subject of a new book by Michael David-Fox. Speaker Biography: Michael David-Fox is associate professor in the Department of History and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of "Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning Among the Bolsheviks, 1918-1929" and a founding editor of the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5444.

"Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare and the Assault on Civil Liberties" brings to life the nationwide Palmer raids of 1919-20 and the coming of age of the seminal FBI director, including his four-year career (1913-17) at the Library of Congress. Speaker Biography: Kenneth Ackerman is a writer and attorney in Washington, and a veteran of senior positions in Congress, the executive branch, financial regulation and private law. His previous books are "Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York," "Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of James A. Garfield" and "The Gold Ring: Jim Fisk, Jay Gould and Black Friday, 1869." For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5385.

W. Joseph Campbell discusses his new book on the ten greatest misreported stories in American journalism. W. Joseph Campbell is a tenured professor in the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5165.

Odessa was the Russian Empire's gateway to the Middle East when Catherine the Great created this port city on the Black Sea as a model of enlightenment. Georgetown University professor Charles King recreates this world in his historical account. Speaker Biography: Charles King is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and the author of four books on Eastern Europe, including "The Black Sea: A History." For transcript, captions, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5319.

Adam Goodheart discussed his book "1861: The Civil War Awakening." Adam Goodheart is a historian, journalist and travel writer. He is writing a regular column on the Civil War for The New York Times online. He has written for National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, GQ and The New York Times Magazine, among others, and has worked as an editor of the op-ed page of The New York Times. He is a book reviewer for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the New York Observer. He lives in Washington, D.C., and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he is director of Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Ralph Ellison never produced another novel in his lifetime after his magnum opus "Invisible Man," which won the National Book Award in 1953. Did success ruin him? This is one theme in the new biography of Ellison by Arnold Rampersad, the first scholar given complete access to Ellison's papers at the Library of Congress. Rampersad discussed and signed his book, "Ralph Ellison: A Biography," as part of the Books & Beyond author series organized by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The event was co-sponsored by the Library's Manuscript Division. Ellison's story of an unnamed black man in 1940s New York City who struggles to find his identity and place in society won him the National Book Award for fiction and catapulted him to national prominence. Ellison went on to earn many other honors, including two presidential medals and election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Yet, his failure to publish a second novel, despite years of striving, haunted him for the rest of his life. Speaker Biography: Arnold Rampersad is Sara Hart Kimball Professional in the Humanities and a member of the Department of English at Stanford University. His books include biographies of Langston Hughes and Jackie Robinson, and he collaborated with Arthur Ashe on his memoir, "Days of Grace." He has written for The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic and The Washington Post and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

The assassination of the 16th president is one of the singular events in American history, and historian Anthony Pitch uses primary source material to document and reveal previously unknown facts about Lincoln's death; the murder of his secretary of state, William Seward; and the events that led to the torturous incarceration of John Wilkes Booth's co-conspirators. According to Pitch, Lincoln was under threat of assassination from the time of his first inauguration, in 1861. Gen. Winfield Scott, in charge of military defenses in Washington, feared secessionists would kill Lincoln even before his inauguration. And six weeks before shooting Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, Booth was forcibly restrained from approaching the president as he walked through the rotunda of the Capitol to be sworn in for his second term. Pitch details the murder plots that were unsuccessful as well as the successful one by referencing hundred of sources. Most of his research was conducted at the Library of Congress. Speaker Biography: Historian Anthony Pitch is also the author "The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814." He spoke about that book at the Library in 1998.

Vivian Ann Davidson Hewitt, who, among other achievements, was the first African-American president of the Special Libraries Association (1978-1979), has written an autobiographical history of her remarkable life, called "The One and Only." Speaker Biography: Vivian Ann Davidson Hewitt's association with the Library of Congress dates to 1979-1982, when she served as a member of the Center for the Book's first National Advisory Board. Hewitt has also been chief librarian for the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Showcasing American music and music making during the Great Depression, "Hard Luck Blues" presents more than 200 photographs created by the New Deal's Farm Security Administration photography program. With an appreciation for the amateur and the local, FSA photographers depicted a range of musicians sharing the regular music of everyday life, from informal songs in migrant work camps, farmers' homes, barn dances, and on street corners to organized performances at church revivals, dance halls, and community festivals. "Hard Luck Blues" features photographs by Jack Delano, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Marion Post Wolcott, and others. Speaker Biography: Documentary photographer Rich Remsberg has worked on the professional staff of the Indiana University School of Journalism and as the Visual Resources Specialist with the Indiana University Digital Library Program. In addition to working on his own projects, he works as a photo and film researcher on several programs for PBS. His publication and exhibition credits include the New York Times, MSNBC/Newsweek, and the Christian Science Monitor. He has been a contributing photographer to the Indiana Historical Society's Heartland Documentary Project and has been on the faculty of the American Folklife Center's field school. He lives in North Adams, Massachusetts, with his wife, Lisa Nilsson.

Described in a recent review as "one of the best single-volume histories of the war yet published," "World War II: 365 Days" is a unique compilation of riveting text and more than 600 color and black-and-white images (many of them rarely seen) from the Library of Congress's collections. The speakers discuss their work on the book.

River of Words (ROW) is a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting literacy, creative expression and community awareness of our most critical environmental concern: water. River of Words was co-founded by U.S. Poet Laureate (1995-1997) Robert Hass and writer Pamela Michael to help young people make a personal and lasting connection to the environment. Speaker Biography: Robert Hass was born in San Francisco on March 1, 1941. He attended St. Mary's College in Moraga, California and received both an MA and Ph.D. in English from Stanford University. His books of poetry include The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems (Ecco Press, 2010); Time and Materials (2007), which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; Sun Under Wood: New Poems (1996); Human Wishes (1989); Praise (1979); and Field Guide (1973), which was selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets Series.Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. He lives in California with his wife, poet Brenda Hillman, and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.

Historian Jeff Shesol documents FDR's plan to expand the court to 15 justices and to "pack" the new seats with liberals who shared his belief in an expanded version of the Constitution. Speaker Biography: Jeff Shesol is a founding partner of West Wing Writers, a speechwriting and communications strategy firm, and is author of the book, Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court. He is an accidental speechwriter. In 1997, President Clinton read "Mutual Contempt," Jeff's book on the Lyndon Johnson-Robert Kennedy feud, and invited Jeff to become a White House speechwriter. During his three years at the White House, Jeff became the Deputy Chief of Presidential Speechwriting, a member of the senior staff, and took the lead in drafting the State of the Union Address, the President's 2000 convention speech, and the Farewell Address. He covered a range of issues -- from global trade and economic development to information technology, the federal budget, and the arts. He also helped lead the President's team of humor writers' a team that produced the Clinton comedy video, "The Final Days." Jeff lives in Washington with his wife, Rebecca, and their two children.

"The Dickson Baseball Dictionary" is an indispensable resource for hard-core fans as well as anyone newly interested in the national pastime. It has become an essential resource for those who love the game. Drawing on dozens of 19th and early-20th century periodicals as well as contemporary sources, the Dictionary's illuminating definitions trace the earliest appearances of terms both well known and obscure. More than 25 years in the making, with the help of more than 300 baseball and lexical experts, this new third edition expands the second edition by more than 30 percent, to more than 10,000 terms with 18,000 individual entries. It introduces words and phrases from around the world of baseball, including those introduced by Latin American ballplayers and statistical expressions relating to fantasy baseball. Speaker Biography: Paul Dickson is the author of more than 45 nonfiction books and hundreds of magazine articles. Although he has written on a variety of subjects from ice cream to kite flying to electronic warfare, he now concentrates on writing about the American language, baseball and 20th century history.

Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II John Hench tells the little-known story of the vital partnership between American book publishers and the United States government to put carefully selected recent books highlighting American history and values into the hands of civilians liberated from Axis forces. Speaker Biography: John B. Hench has retired from the post of Vice President for Collections and Programs at the American Antiquarian Society. He is coeditor of The Press and the American Revolution and Printing and Society in Early America.

More than 100 leaders from the arts, sciences, politics, business and other fields recall a children's book they loved in a new compilation of essays, "Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book: Life Lessons from Notable People from All Walks of Life." Editor Anita Silvey discusses the book. Speaker Biography: Anita Silvey is a distinguished former publisher of children's books and was editor of The Horn Book, one of the most prestigious magazines devoted to young people's literature.

"Whiskey: A Global History" (University of Chicago Press, 2010) is an informative, concise narrative of the drink's history, from its obscure medieval origins to the globally traded product of today. Focusing on three nations -- Scotland, Ireland and the United States -- author Kevin R. Kosar charts how the techniques of distillation moved from ancient Egypt to the British Isles. Kosar is the founder of AlcoholReviews.com. His writings on alcoholic beverages have appeared in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America and NewYorkHangover.com. He is an analyst in American National Government in the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service.

Jon Scieszka made his first official appearance at the Library of Congress since being named National Ambassador. The Librarian of Congress James H. Billington presented Scieszka with the National Ambassador's Medal. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer session with 50 schoolchildren from Brent Elementary School in Washington, D.C. Speaker Biography: Born in Flint, Mich., Jon Scieszka earned a bachelor's degree in writing from Albion College and a master of fine arts degree from Columbia University. He held a number of teaching positions in the first through eighth grades before taking a year off to develop ideas for children's books. He is the author of several bestselling children's titles, including "The Stinky Cheese Man," which won a Caldecott Honor medal, "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" and the Time Warp Trio, a chapter book series. Scieszka is the founder of Guys Read (www.guysread.com), a nonprofit literacy organization.

Noted writer, illustrator and designer Maira Kalman's year-long investigation of democracy and how it works has resulted in her newest book, "And the Pursuit of Happiness." Speaker Biography: Maira Kalman is widely renowned for her contributions to The New York Times, The New Yorker and other major publications.

Part detective tale, part social and cultural narrative, "Black Gotham: A Family History of African-Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York" (Yale University Press, 2011), is Carla Peterson's account of her quest to reconstruct the lives of her 19th-century ancestors. As she shares their stories and those of their friends, neighbors and business associates, she illuminates the greater history of African-American elites in New York City. Speaker Biography: Carla L. Peterson is professor of English at the University of Maryland at College Park. Her expertise includes nineteenth-century African American women writers and speakers in the northern U.S., African-American novelists in the post-Reconstruction era, and gender and culture in historical literature.

Author Douglas Waller discusses "Wild" Bill Donovan and his role in the OSS and modern American espionage, the subject of his new book. Speaker Biography: Douglas Waller, a former veteran correspondent for Newsweek and Time, has reported on the CIA for six years. Waller also covered the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and Congress. Before reporting for Newsweek and Time, he served eight years as a legislative assistant on the staffs of Rep. Edward Markey and Sen. William Proxmire. He is the author of the best-sellers "The Commandos: The Inside Story of America's Secret Soldiers," which chronicled U.S. Special Operations Forces, with a lineage tracing back to the OSS, and "Big Red: The Three-Month Voyage of a Trident Nuclear Submarine." He is also the author of "A Question of Loyalty: Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial that Gripped the Nation," the critically acclaimed biography of the World War I general.

Elizabeth Eisenstein discusses five centuries of ambivalent attitudes toward printing and printers, based on her new book, "Divine Art, Infernal Machine: The Reception of Printing in the West from First Impressions to the Sense of an Ending" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). Speaker Biography: Elizabeth L. Eisenstein is professor emerita of history at the University of Michigan and author of the influential "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe." In 1979, she spent six months at the Library of Congress as the Center for the Book's first scholar-in-residence.

A conversation among Ventura; Denise Wolff and Renato Miracco. The book depicts scenes from the memory of an old circus performer as he looks back on his life. The event was co-sponsored by the Library's Prints and Photographs Division and Center for the Book, and the Embassy of Italy. Speaker Biography: Paolo Ventura is an internationally renowned artist and photographer. Born in Milan, Italy, in 1968, Ventura now spends his time in New York and his native country. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan in the early 1990s. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Forma International Center for Photography in Milan, the Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, France, and Maison Europenne de la Photographie in Paris. Speaker Biography: Denise Wolff is editor of the book program at the Aperture Foundation. Speaker Biography: Renato Miracco is cultural attache at the Embassy of Italy.