David Laskin

Thousands of impoverished Northern European immigrants were promised that the prairie offered "land, freedom, and hope." The disastrous blizzard of 1888 revealed that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled, and America’s heartland would never be the same. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

The Children's Blizzard

Recounting how the author's nineteenth-century ancestors were separated by upheavals in western Russia and went on to become the founders of the Maidenform Bra Company, pioneers in the contentious birth of Israel, and victims of the Holocaust.

Three Journeys Into the Heart of the Twentieth Century

The Family

The gripping story of an epic prairie snowstorm that killed hundreds of newly arrived settlers and cast a shadow on the promise of the American frontier. January 12, 1888, began as an unseasonably warm morning across Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Minnesota, the weather so mild that children walked to school without coats and gloves. But that afternoon, without warning, the atmosphere suddenly, violently changed. One moment the air was calm; the next the sky exploded in a raging chaos of horizontal snow and hurricane-force winds. Temperatures plunged as an unprecedented cold front ripped through the center of the continent. By Friday morning, January 13, some five hundred people lay dead on the drifted prairie, many of them children who had perished on their way home from country schools. In a few terrifying hours, the hopes of the pioneers had been blasted by the bitter realities of their harsh environment. Recent immigrants from Germany, Norway, Denmark, and the Ukraine learned that their free homestead was not a paradise but a hard, unforgiving place governed by natural forces they neither understood nor controlled. With the storm as its dramatic, heartbreaking focal point, The Children's Blizzard captures this pivotal moment in American history by tracing the stories of five families who were forever changed that day. Drawing on family interviews and memoirs, as well as hundreds of contemporary accounts, David Laskin creates an intimate picture of the men, women, and children who made choices they would regret as long as they lived. Here too is a meticulous account of the evolution of the storm and the vain struggle of government forecasters to track its progress. The blizzard of January 12, 1888, is still remembered on the prairie. Children fled that day while their teachers screamed into the relentless roar. Husbands staggered into the blinding wind in search of wives. Fathers collapsed while trying to drag their children to safety. In telling the story of this meteorological catastrophe, the deadliest blizzard ever to hit the prairie states, David Laskin has produced a masterful portrait of a tragic crucible in the settlement of the American heartland.

Combining literary biography with astute reporting and moral insight, David Laskin shows how sex, politics, and art affected relationships among the Partisan Review writers: Mary McCarthy, Edmund Wilson, Philip Rahv, Robert Lowell, Jean Stafford, Elizabeth Hardwick, Hannah Arendt, Allen Tate, Caroline Gordon, and Diana Trilling. It is the women who steal the show with their their groundbreaking work, their harrowing experiences of marriage, abuse, and betrayal, their passion for writing and disdain for feminism, their struggles and achievements.

Marriage, Politics, and Betrayal Among the New York Intellectuals

Partisans

Four Generations of American Literary Friendships and Influence

A Common Life

“The Long Way Home is a riveting remembrance of the Great War by a master writer…. Deeply compelling.” — Douglas Brinkley “Moving, revealing, and lovingly researched, this book is a must read, and a great read, for any of us whose forebears came from overseas-meaning just about all of us.” — Erik Larson The author of the award-winning The Children’s Blizzard, David Laskin, returns with a remarkable true story of the immigrants who risked their lives fighting for America during the Great War.

An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War

The Long Way Home

"A striking coming-of-age novel set in New York City at the beginning of 1970 as a young man escapes his Long Island suburb to Manhattan where he becomes swept up in the radical causes of the era. As the 1960s turn into 1970 in the Long Island suburb of Great Neck, seventeen-year old Sam Stein is falling in love for the first time. Kim is a young radical in a place where bourgeois white families consign the raising of their children to their live-in black maids, and as Sam struggles to understand his connection to their maid Tutu, the woman who raised him, the disaffected teenagers escape to the drug-soaked East Village of Manhattan, where they pledge themselves to radical causes. Blacks and whites, domestic servants and Black Panthers, vivid drug trips, first love, Weathermen, and parents who understand nothing--this is the world of American disaffection when the 1960s came home to roost. David Laskin's novel addresses the big questions that still haunt American life, and is a tender and painful story about loss of innocence, a reminder that even across divides we can save each other"--

A Novel

What Sammy Knew

Getting Into Advertising

Based on the latest research and interviews with parents, this guide provides detailed information on all aspects of child safety and describes the most effective methods of instilling safety-consciousness in children

Parents Book of Child Safety

"Laskin's narrative captures it all--the fervor, the drugs, the sex, the politics, the magic, the tragedy of the 60s and 70s and most of all the angst of that wonderful, terrible time. A fun, transporting, and evocative read." --Daniel James Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat A turbulent coming-of-age novel about a young man who loses his innocence and finds his soul in the ferment of New York City in 1970 On the brink of a new decade, as the radical 1960s turns to the 1970s, seventeen-year-old Sam Stein is about to grow up in a hurry. Raised in a cushy Long Island suburb where his parents consign him to the care of Tutu Carter, their live-in housekeeper, Sam is learning uncomfortable truths about his place and privilege in his relationship with Tutu and in the world. When he stumbles into a New Year's party and meets firebrand Kim Goodman, his life is changed forever. In short order, he falls in love and flees with her to the drug-soaked East Village of Manhattan, and gets swept up in the revolutionary political movements of the time. An aspiring writer, Sam bears witness to the seismic upheavals of the day while remaining utterly blind to a high-stakes plot that Kim and her comrades are executing right under his nose. As seemingly unrelated events click into place, what Sammy knew and what Sammy didn't know become matters of life and death - not only for himself and Kim, but for Tutu and her grandson Leon in Harlem, and for the radical protest movement teetering between disillusion and revolution. Compulsively readable, peopled by unforgettable characters, crackling with wit and suspense, What Sammy Knew brilliantly evokes a chaotic, dangerously polarized, and historically important moment in America.

A study of American weather explains how volatile and violent weather has shaped American culture, from ancient times to the present, detailing the history of weather prediction, the storms that have ravaged the landscape, and more

The Stormy History of American Weather

Braving the Elements

Holly Hughes

The complete guide to starting and sustaining a reading group, with annotated lists of 250 titles for provocative discussion. This lively, down-to-earth book, based on the experiences of groups across the country, is a complete guide to reading groups—from getting a new one going to sparking lively discussions to revitalizing a long-established group. This one-stop handbook covers the history of reading groups, how to attract people who love good books and good conversation, and even what food to serve. Authors David Laskin and Holly Hughes provide wise advice on choosing the right people for the group; where, when, and how often to meet; whether or not to select a leader; and—most important—finding the right books to read. What makes this book especially inviting are the annotated lists of more than 250 books by category—southern writers, all-time favorites, memoirs, biographies, travel books, Nobelists, and dozens more. Filled with funny and insightful stories from book group members, independent booksellers, and even a sociologist who has studied the phenomenon, this distinctive guide will inspire the start-up of new groups and provide existing groups with renewed inspiration and fresh ideas.

The Comp Gd to Starting and Sustaining a Reading Group...

The Reading Group Book

The author of the The Children’s Blizzard delivers an epic work of twentieth century history through the riveting story of one extraordinary Jewish family In tracing the roots of this family—his own family—Laskin captures the epic sweep of the twentieth century. A modern-day scribe, Laskin honors the traditions, the lives, and the choices of his ancestors: revolutionaries and entrepreneurs, scholars and farmers, tycoons and truck drivers. The Family is a deeply personal, dramatic, and emotional account of people caught in a cataclysmic time in world history. A century and a half ago, a Torah scribe and his wife raised six children in a yeshivatown at the western fringe of the Russian empire. Bound by their customs and ancient faith, the pious couple expected their sons and daughter to carry family traditions into future generations. But the social and political crises of our time decreed otherwise. The torrent of history took the scribe’s family down three very different roads. One branch immigrated to America and founded the fabulously successful Maidenform Bra Company; another went to Palestine as pioneers and participated in the contentious birth of the state of Israel; the third branch remained in Europe and suffered the onslaught of the Nazi occupation. With cinematic power and beauty, bestselling author David Laskin brings to life the upheavals of the twentieth century through the story of one family, three continents, two world wars, and the rise and fall of nations.

David Laskin

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