Running in the Family
by Michael Ondaatje
from Vintage
In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India, " Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.
Nemesis: The True Story of Aristotle Onassis, Jackie O, and the Love Triangle That Brought Down the Kennedys
by Peter Evans
from Harper Paperbacks
Peter Evans's biography of Aristotle Onassis, Ari, met with great acclaim when it was published in 1986. Ari provided the world with an unprecedented glimpse of the Greek shipping magnate's orbit of dizzying wealth, twisted intrigues, and questionable mores. Not long after the book appeared, however, Onassis's daughter Christina and his longtime business partner Yannis Georgakis hinted to Evans that he had missed the "real story" -- one that proved Onassis's intrigues had deadly results. "I must begin," Georgakis said, "with the premise that, for Onassis, Bobby Kennedy was unfinished business from way back..."
His words launched Evans into the heart of a story that tightly bound Onassis not to Jackie's first husband, but to his ambitious younger brother Bobby. A bitter rivalry emerged between Bobby and Ari long before Onassis and Jackie had even met. Nemesis reveals the tangled thread of events that linked two of the world's most powerful men in their intense hatred for one another and uncovers the surprising role played by the woman they both loved. Their power struggle unfolds against a heady backdrop of international intrigue: Bobby Kennedy's discovery of the Greek shipping magnate's shady dealings, which led him to bar Onassis from trade with the United States; Onassis's attempt to control much of Saudi Arabia's oil; Onassis's untimely love affair with Jackie's married sister Lee Radziwill; and his bold invitation to First Lady Jackie to join him on his yacht -- without the president. Just as the self-made Greek tycoon gloried in the chance to stir the wrath of the Kennedys, they struggled unsuccessfully to break his spell over the woman who held the key to all of their futures. After Jack's death, Bobby became ever closer to Camelot's holy widow, and fought to keep her from marrying his sworn rival. But Onassis rarely failed to get what he wanted, and Jackie became his wife shortly after Bobby was killed.
Through extensive interviews with the closest friends, lovers, and relatives of Onassis and the Kennedys, longtime journalist Evans has uncovered the shocking culmination of the Kennedy-Onassis-Kennedy love triangle: Aristotle Onassis was at the heart of the plot to kill Bobby Kennedy. Meticulously tracing Onassis's connections in the world of terrorism, Nemesis presents compelling evidence that he financed the assassination -- including a startling confession that has gone unreported for nearly three decades. Along the way, this groundbreaking work also daringly paints these international icons in all of their true colors. From Evans's deeply nuanced portraits of the charismatic Greek shipping magnate and his acquisitive iconic bride to his probing and revelatory look into the events that shaped an era, Nemesis is a work that will not be soon forgotten.
MemoraBEALEia: A Private Scrapbook About Edie Beale of Grey Gardens First Cousin To First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
by Walter Newkirk
from AuthorHouse
memoraBEALEia : A Private Scrapbook about Edie Beale of Grey Gardens by Walter Newkirk, celebrates and pays tribute to Edith "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale. Miss Beale was the first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and is best known for her participation in the famous documentary Grey Gardens (1976). This book was specifically created for fans of the film. On April 22, 1976 college journalist Walter Newkirk traveled to Grey Gardens, the Beale estate on Long Island, to interview Edie Beale about Grey Gardens, for his college newspaper, The Rutgers Daily Targum. In the 1970s, Edie Beale and her mother Edith Bouvier Beale -- the respective cousin and aunt of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - former society ladies - were living in a cat-infested, filthy, crumbling estate called Grey Gardens in East Hampton. The interview for the Rutgers newspaper was conducted shortly after the release of the film. Newkirk and Beale kept in touch for several years, by phone and by mail. After the estate was sold and her mother died, Beale moved to New York ( from 1980-1983) and the author escorted her to luncheons, parties and special events. She later moved to Florida, and died in January 2002. memoraBEALEia contains never-before-seen photographs of Edie Beale and Grey Gardens, the Rutgers Targum interview along with a few other obscure newspaper clippings, reproductions of letters written by Little Edie (along with cards she created), and art inspired by Grey Gardens. There are also essays about Miss Beale by photojournalist/paparazzo Ron Galella, former literary agent Pat Loud (An American Family, PBS TV series, 1973) and the artist Maria Manhattan. A new movie about Edie Beale and her mother, also called Grey Gardens, starring Drew Barrymore as Little Edie and Jessica Lange as her mother Big Edie will be released during 2008.
The Private Passion of Jackie Kennedy Onassis: Portrait of a Rider
by Vicky Moon
from Collins Design
America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
by Sarah Bradford
from Penguin (Non-Classics)
Fresh from her well-received life of Queen Elizabeth II, the English historian and biographer Sarah Bradford turns her hand to America's own answer to royalty, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Painstakingly detailed, impressively fair, the result is the most definitive account yet of a woman who captured the imagination of the American public like no First Lady before or after her. Bradford seems to have interviewed almost everyone who had ever been intimate with Onassis, including George Plimpton, Gore Vidal, Joan Kennedy, and even a few ex-lovers. Most notably of all, Jackie's sister Lee Radziwill speaks with unexpected frankness about the mixture of rivalry and affection that marked their relationship since childhood. Jackie-lovers, take note: this is no hagiography, and its subject certainly comes off as no saint. As gracious as this American icon could be, she also had moments of coldness and even greed, including a particularly shocking moment by the bedside of Ari Onassis's dying son. Yet, in the end, non-airbrushed anecdotes like these only serve to make this most private of public figures even more fascinating. Jackie was, as Bradford writes, "a complex woman of many facets, concealed insecurities and intricate defense mechanisms, a strong urge toward the limelight contrasting with a desire for privacy and concealment.... Behind the mask of beauty and fame lay a shrewd mind, a ruthless judgment of people, antennae finely turned to any sign of pretentiousness or pomposity, and a wry, even raunchy sense of humor." The figure who emerges from subsequent pages is as compelling as the heroine of any novel, and it is to Bradford's credit that she doesn't seem to have fallen completely under her subject's spell. Her approach is sympathetic, but never fawning; candid, but never sensationalistic. For those who are curious not about Jackie's glamour but about its source, America's Queen offers an unprecedented look at the flesh-and-blood woman behind the Camelot myth. --Carlotta DeWitt
"Some of the most personally knowledgeable observations about [Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis] that have ever been put into print." (The Boston Globe)
"Compulsively readable." (The Washington Post)
Acclaimed biographer Sarah Bradford explores the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the woman who has captivated the public for more than five decades, in a definitive portrait that is both sympathetic and frank. With an extraordinary range of candid interviews-many with people who have never spoken in such depth on record before-Bradford offers new insights into the woman behind the public persona. She creates a coherent picture out of Jackie's tumultuous and cosmopolitan life-from the aristocratic milieu of Newport and East Hampton to the Greek isles, from political Washington to New York's publishing community. She probes Jackie's privileged upbringing, her highly public marriages, and her roles as mother and respected editor, and includes rare photos from private collections to create the most complete account yet written of this legendary life.
Jackie Handbook
by Naomi West
from Spruce
Jackie O Handbook is a groundbreaking new interpretation of the life of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and the extraordinary influence of the image she so carefully crafted. It is illustrated with some 300 photographs and other images which bring to life Jackie's iconic status. Ten years since her death, fascination with Jackie O remains as strong as ever, especially among women and in the fashion world. The authors explore the woman behind - and in many ways the creator of - the many myths by which we remember a woman of extraordinary poise and single-mindedness. In the Jackie O Handbook, the authors venture behind Jackie's trademark dark glasses and regal bearing to reveal the insecurities, the playfulness, the wit, the loyalty to friends and the ruthlessness with enemies of a woman who seemed more a figure from 18th century Versailles than from 20th century America. The book chronicles Jackie's life from childhood through her student years, her marriages to America's most charismatic politician and to the richest man in the world, her dedication to her children, and her last quiet years in New York. The authors have searched archives from London to Boston, and from Washington to Paris. The book contains five original interviews with contemporaries from the worlds of fashion, design and the arts who Jackie befriended.
The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family
by Richard Avedon
from Collins Design
In the early 1960s, Richard Avedon was commissioned by Harper's Bazaar to create Observations, a column that consisted of a series of nine photographic essays. The subject of the first essay was John F. Kennedy and his young family, who sat for formal black-and-white portraits just three weeks prior to Kennedy's presidential inauguration. Six images appeared in the magazine's February 1961 issue.
That same day, Avedon created more informal color portraits of Kennedy and his family at the Kennedy compound in Palm Beach. One of these images ran as the cover of LOOK magazine's February 28 issue, with photographs by Avedon inside. Just before the magazine hit the newsstands and was delivered to over 6.5 million people, a set of photographs, comprised mostly of the LOOK images, was released by the White House and appeared in newspapers across the country.
During his lifetime, Richard Avedon donated more than two hundred images to the Smithsonian Institution, including all of the photographs of the Kennedy family sitting for Harper's Bazaar. Smithsonian curator Shannon Thomas Perich has culled more than seventy-five images from that donation for The Kennedys: Portrait of a Family, making these stunning photographs available for view for the first time. Perich's introductory essay—accompanied by a wealth of archival photographs of both Avedon and the Kennedy family—provides historical background on the two sittings within a political and cultural context and critically examines the work of one of the finest photographers of the twentieth century. A foreword by Robert Dallek, distinguished historian and author of the bet-selling An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963, provides authoritative and compelling insight to one of the most fascinating presidents in American history.
A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House
by Oleg Cassini
from Rizzoli International Publications
During the thousand days of the Kennedy administration, Cassini designed over 300 outfits for Jackie Kennedy--coats, dresses, evening gowns, suits, and day wear. He coordinated every aspect of her wardrobe, from shoes and hats to gloves and handbags.
For the first time, Oleg Cassini offers a fascinating and comprehensive view of his role as Jackie's personal couturier. His international background allowed him to fit comfortably into the Kennedy poltical dynasty, and offered him unprecedented access to both Jackie and John Kennedy as a designer and a trusted friend. From the details of his long-standing friendship with the Kennedy family to his first meetings with the First lady to his thoughts on Jackie's clothes and their legacy, Cassini's recollections are far-ranging and informative.
Cassini's original sketches are accompanied by 200 color and black-and-white photographs of the First Lady as she tours India, France, England, and Italy, shows off the White House, and hosts state dinners and family gatherings. Public moments as well as private ones capture the great elegance and charm of one of the most admired and emulated women in the world.
Jackie: A Life In Pictures
by Yann-Brice Dherbier
from powerHouse Books
From Pierre-Henri Verlhac and Yann-Brice Dherbier, the editors of the best-selling John F. Kennedy: A Life in Pictures, comes its companion, Jackie: A Life in Pictures-a visual voyage through the life of Jackie, also known as Jackie Bouvier, Jackie Kennedy, Jackie Onassis. This iconic volume features the most exquisite photographs, many of which are previously unpublished, ever taken of America's legendary First Lady, as well as a biography, personal notes, and handwritten correspondence. A sumptuous, oversized edition, this 272-page book includes over 400 glamorous, dramatic, and intimate images taken throughout her life. Bringing us into her exclusive and privileged world, Jackie: A Life in Pictures takes us from the early days of her upper class upbringing in the 30s and 40s to her courtship and marriage to J.F.K. in 1953 and her life as a politician's wife. From the Camelot years, when Jackie charmed the world with her classic style and effortless panache, we witness the public and private moments of the famed First Family. After J.F.K.'s tragic death, we follow Jackie as she finds consolation in the arms of Aristotle Onassis, and travel with her among the jet set. And lastly, we spend time with Jackie in her final years in New York City, as a book editor, proud mother, and honorary stateswoman. The book features Jackie's handwritten documents, provided by her daughter, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, and photographs by Magnum photographers Cornell Capa, Raymond Depardon, Eve Arnold, Erich Hartmann, and Philip Jones Griffith; famed paparazzo and Jackie follower Ron Galella; J.F.K. White House photographers Abbie Rowe, Robert Knudsen, and Cecil Stoughton; and Mark Shaw, Stan Kislowski, and Toni Frissell; as well as Miss Porter's School class portraits. The ultimate volume for Jackie's admirers, Jackie: A Life in Pictures offers a rare opportunity to observe the complex and fascinating woman as her life unfolded before the world's eyes.
Everything Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Book: A portrait of an American icon (Everything Series)
by Kathleen Tracy
from Adams Media
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis-better known as Jackie O. to the tabloids, "the deb" to the Kennedy clan, and the 35th First Lady to historians-is easily one of the most recognizable Presidential wives. She remains the model of the proper American woman. But what was Jackie O. hiding behind those big, dark shades?
From her New York society upbringing to her time in the White House to her days spent as a Doubleday editor, this is the ultimate biography of a woman everyone recognized but few knew. Did you know that:
- Her first job was as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald?
- Before she started dating Jack Kennedy, she hadn't even voted in a national election?
- She was the only family member strong enough to remove Robert Kennedy from life-support measures after he was shot?
- She asked Rose Kennedy for her blessing before she married Aristotle Onassis?
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