A Fighting Chance
Elizabeth Warren, 2014
Henry Holt & Co.
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627790529
Summary
An unlikely political star tells the inspiring story of the two-decade journey that taught her how Washington really works—and really doesn’t
As a child in small-town Oklahoma, Elizabeth Warren yearned to go to college and then become an elementary school teacher—an ambitious goal, given her family’s modest means. Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?
Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect consumers from predatory bankers and was denied the opportunity to run it. Finally, at age 62, she decided to run for elective office and won the most competitive—and watched—Senate race in the country.
In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class—and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America’s government can and must do better for working families. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 22, 1949
• Where—Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.S., University of Houston; J.D., Rutgers University
• Currently—lives in Washington, DC and Massachusetts
Elizabeth Ann Warren (nee Herring) is an American academic and politician, who is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. She was previously a Harvard Law School professor specializing in bankruptcy law. Warren is an active consumer protection advocate whose work led to the conception and establishment of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has written a number of academic and popular works, and is a frequent subject of media interviews regarding the American economy and personal finance.
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, Warren served as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). She later served as Assistant to the President and Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Barack Obama. In the late 2000s, she was recognized by publications such as the National Law Journal and the Time 100 as an increasingly influential public policy figure.
In September 2011, Warren announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, challenging Republican incumbent Scott Brown. She won the general election on November 6, 2012, to become the first female Senator from Massachusetts. She was assigned to the Senate Special Committee on Aging; the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Warren is in favor of increasing the minimum wage and has argued that if the minimum wage had followed increases in worker productivity in the United States, it would now be at least $22 an hour.
Early life, education, and family
Warren was born on June 22, 1949, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to working class parents Pauline (née Reed) and Donald Jones Herring. She was their fourth child, with three older brothers. When she was twelve, her father, a janitor, had a heart attack—which led to many medical bills, as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work. Eventually, this led to the loss of their car from failure to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog-order department at Sears and Elizabeth began working as a waitress at her aunt's restaurant.
She became a star member of the debate team at Northwest Classen High School and won the title of "Oklahoma's top high-school debater" while competing with debate teams from high schools throughout the state. She also won a debate scholarship to George Washington University at the age of 16. Initially aspiring to be a teacher, she left GWU after two years to marry her high-school boyfriend, Jim Warren.
She moved to Houston with her husband, who was a NASA engineer. There she enrolled in the University of Houston and was graduated in 1970 with a degree in speech pathology and audiology. For a year, she taught children with disabilities in a public school, based on an "emergency certificate," as she had not taken the education courses required for a regular teaching certificate.
Warren and her husband moved to New Jersey for his work where, after becoming pregnant with their first child, she decided to become a stay-at-home mom. After her daughter turned two, Warren enrolled at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark. She worked as a summer associate at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Shortly before her graduation in 1976, Warren became pregnant with her second child, and began to work as a lawyer from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings.
After having two children, Amelia and Alexander, she and Jim Warren divorced in 1978. In 1980, Warren married Bruce Mann, a Harvard law professor, but retained the surname, Warren.
Political affiliation
Warren voted as a Republican for many years saying, "I was a Republican because I thought that those were the people who best supported markets." She states that in 1995 she began to vote Democratic because she no longer believed that to be true, but she says that she has voted for both parties because she believed that neither party should dominate.
Career
During the late-1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s, Warren taught law at several universities throughout the country, while researching issues related to bankruptcy and middle-class personal finance. Warren taught at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark during 1977–1978, the University of Houston Law Center from 1978 to 1983, and the University of Texas School of Law from 1981 to 1987, in addition to teaching at the University of Michigan as a visiting professor in 1985 and as a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin from 1983 to 1987.
She joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1987 and became a tenured professor. She began teaching at Harvard Law School in 1992, as a visiting professor, and began a permanent position as Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law in 1995.
In 1995 Warren was asked to advise the National Bankruptcy Review Commission. She helped to draft the commission's report and worked for several years to oppose legislation intended to severely restrict the right of consumers to file for bankruptcy. Warren and others opposing the legislation were not successful; in 2005 Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005.
From November 2006 to November 2010, Warren was a member of the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion. She is a member of the National Bankruptcy Conference, an independent organization that advises the U.S. Congress on bankruptcy law. She is a former Vice-President of the American Law Institute and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Public life
Warren has had a high public profile; she has appeared in the documentary films, Maxed Out and Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. She has appeared numerous times on television programs including Dr. Phil and The Daily Show, and has been interviewed frequently on cable news networks and radio programs.
TARP oversight
On November 14, 2008, Warren was appointed by United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to chair the five-member Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the implementation of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Panel released monthly oversight reports that evaluate the government bailout and related programs. During Warren's tenure, these reports covered foreclosure mitigation, consumer and small business lending, commercial real estate, AIG, bank stress tests, the impact of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) on the financial markets, government guarantees, the automotive industry, and other topics.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Warren was an early advocate for the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The bureau was established by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law by President Obama in July 2010. In anticipation of the agency's formal opening, for the first year after the bill's signing, Warren worked on implementation of the bureau as a special assistant to the president. While liberal groups and consumer advocacy groups pushed for Obama to nominate Warren as the agency's permanent director, Warren was strongly opposed by financial institutions and by Republican members of Congress who believed Warren would be an overly zealous regulator.
Reportedly convinced that Warren could not win Senate confirmation as the bureau's first director, Obama turned to former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and in January 2012, over the objections of Republican Senators, appointed Cordray to the post in a recess appointment.
2012 election - U.S. Senate
On September 14, 2011, Warren declared her intention to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 election in Massachusetts for the United States Senate. The seat had been won by Republican Scott Brown in a 2010 special election after the death of Ted Kennedy. A week later, a video of Warren speaking in Andover became popular on the internet. In it, Warren replies to the charge that asking the rich to pay more taxes is "class warfare," pointing out that no one grew rich in America without depending on infrastructure paid for by the rest of society, stating:
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.... You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
President Barack Obama later echoed her sentiments in a 2012 election campaign speech.
Warren ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination, and won it on June 2, 2012, at the state Democratic convention with a record 95.77% of the votes of delegates. She was endorsed by the Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. Warren and her opponent Scott Brown agreed to engage in four televised debates, including one with a consortium of media outlets in Springfield and one on WBZ-TV in Boston.
Results by Municipality
Warren encountered significant opposition from business interests. In August 2012, Rob Engstrom, political director for the United States Chamber of Commerce, claimed that "no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren." She nonetheless raised $39 million for her campaign, the most of any Senate candidate in 2012.
Warren received a primetime speaking slot at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, immediately before Bill Clinton, on the evening of September 5, 2012. Warren positioned herself as a champion of a beleaguered middle class that "has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered." According to Warren, "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: They're right. The system is rigged." Warren said that Wall Street CEOs "wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs" and that they "still strut around congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them."
Native American controversy
In April 2012, the Boston Herald drew attention to Warren's law directory entries from 1986 to 1995, in which she had self-identified as having Native American ancestry. Because of these entries, Harvard Law School had added her to a list of minority professors in response to criticisms about a lack of faculty diversity. Warren said that she was unaware that Harvard had done so until she read about it in a newspaper. She said that Native American ancestry was a part of her family folklore.
The New England Historical Genealogical Society found no documentary proof of Warren having Native American lineage, but a spokesperson from the Oklahoma Historical Society said "finding a definitive answer about Native American heritage can be difficult, not only because of intermarriage, but also because some Native Americans opted not to be put on federal rolls, while others who were not Native American did put their names on rolls to get access to land."
Her ethnicity claims became the focus of the media's election coverage for a certain time, during which her opponents bought ads asking her for explanations and to "come clean about her motivations" and some members of the Cherokee Nation asked how her claim influenced universities interested in hiring her. Colleagues and supervisors at the schools where she had worked publicly supported her statement that she did not receive preferential treatment. In polls, 72% of voters said the issue would not impact their vote in the election.
Tenure
On November 6, 2012, Warren defeated incumbent Scott Brown with a total of 53.7% of the votes. She is the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, as part of a sitting U.S. Senate that has 20 female senators currently in office, the largest female U.S. Senate delegation in history, following the November 2012 elections. In December 2012, Warren was assigned a seat on the Senate Banking Committee, the committee that oversees the implementation of Dodd-Frank and other regulation of the banking industry. Warren was sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden on January 3, 2013. Upon John Kerry's resignation to become United States Secretary of State, Warren became the state's senior senator after having served for less than a month, making her the most junior senior senator.
At Warren's first Banking Committee hearing on February 14, 2013, she pressed several banking regulators to answer when they had last taken a Wall Street bank to trial and stated, "I'm really concerned that 'too big to fail' has become 'too big for trial.'" Videos of Warren's questioning became popular on the internet, amassing more than 1 million views in a matter of days. At a Banking Committee hearing in March, Warren questioned Treasury Department officials why criminal charges were not brought against HSBC for its money laundering practices. With her questions being continually dodged and her visibly upset, Warren then compared money laundering to drug possession, saying "if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail... But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night."
In May, Warren sent letters to Justice Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve, questioning their decisions that settling rather than going to court would be more fruitful.
In May 2013, Warren introduced her first bill, the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, which would allow students to take out government education loans at the same rate that banks such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase pay to borrow from the federal government. Suggesting that students should get "the same great deal that banks get," Warren proposed that new student borrowers be able to take out a federally subsidized loan at 0.75%, the rate paid by banks, compared with the current 3.4% student loan rate. Endorsing her bill days after its introduction, Independent Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders stated: "the only thing wrong with this bill is that [she] thought of it and I didn't" on The Thom Hartmann Program. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/12/2014.)
Book Reviews
Warren, the freshman senator from Massachusetts turned Democratic rock star, serves up a frank and lively account of how she became the banking and finance industry's fiercest nemesis.... The book is more memoir than manifesto; Warren emerges as a committed advocate with real world sensibility, who tasted tough economic times at an early age and did not forget its bitterness.
Publishers Weekly
In the world of ordinary citizens vs. big banks, U.S. senator Warren sees the match as the battle between David and Goliath. She warns readers that often the story doesn't have a happy ending and that sometimes it ends with David getting the slingshot shoved down his throat—sideways. —Jill Ortner, SUNY Buffalo Libs.
Library Journal
A passionate memoir of one woman’s personal story and the larger story of corruption in financial circles and the need for reform that balances the interests of the American middle class against those of the corporate sector…. [Warren] offers a behind-the-scenes look at the political dealmaking and head-butting machinations in efforts to restore the nation’s financial system.
Booklist
In this engaging memoir, Massachusetts Sen. Warren introduces her family and recounts the battles that shaped her career as a teacher and politician.... A frankly partisan memoir that provides shrewd insights into both national politics and the state of the middle class.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames
Kai Bird, 2014
Crown Publishing
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307889751
Summary
The Good Spy is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird’s compelling portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most important operatives in CIA history—a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between Arabs and the West.
On April 18, 1983, a bomb exploded outside the American Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people. The attack was a geopolitical turning point. It marked the beginning of Hezbollah as a political force, but even more important, it eliminated America’s most influential and effective intelligence officer in the Middle East – CIA operative Robert Ames.
What set Ames apart from his peers was his extraordinary ability to form deep, meaningful connections with key Arab intelligence figures. Some operatives relied on threats and subterfuge, but Ames worked by building friendships and emphasizing shared values—never more notably than with Yasir Arafat’s charismatic intelligence chief and heir apparent Ali Hassan Salameh (aka “The Red Prince”). Ames’ deepening relationship with Salameh held the potential for a lasting peace. Within a few years, though, both men were killed by assassins, and America’s relations with the Arab world began heading down a path that culminated in 9/11, the War on Terror, and the current fog of mistrust.
Bird, who as a child lived in the Beirut Embassy and knew Ames as a neighbor when he was twelve years old, spent years researching The Good Spy. Not only does the book draw on hours of interviews with Ames’ widow, and quotes from hundreds of Ames’ private letters, it’s woven from interviews with scores of current and former American, Israeli, and Palestinian intelligence officers as well as other players in the Middle East “Great Game.”
What emerges is a masterpiece-level narrative of the making of a CIA officer, a uniquely insightful history of twentieth-century conflict in the Middle East, and an absorbing hour-by-hour account of the Beirut Embassy bombing. Even more impressive, Bird draws on his reporter’s skills to deliver a full dossier on the bombers and expose the shocking truth of where the attack’s mastermind resides today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1951
• Where— Eugene, Oregon, USA
• Education—B.A., Carleton College; M.S., Northwestern University
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize; National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives in Miami Beach, Florida and/or Lima, Peru
Kai Bird is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist, best known for his biographies of political figures.
Kai Bird was born in Eugene, Oregon. His father was a U.S. Foreign Service officer, and he spent his childhood in Jerusalem, Beirut, Dhahran, Cairo and Mumbai. He finished high school in 1969 at Kodaikanal International School in Tamil Nadu, South India. He received his BA from Carleton College in 1973 and a M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University in 1975. Bird is married to Susan Goldmark, country director of the World Bank. They have a son.
Literary career
After graduation from Carleton, Bird received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, which enables students to do a year of independent study outside the United States. He used the fellowship to do a photojournalism project in Yemen. Two years later, Goldmark was also awarded a Watson fellowship and the two of them spent 15 months as freelance journalists traveling through Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. "We filed weekly stories with papers like the Christian Science Monitor and Hong Kong’s Far Eastern Economic Review," Bird says. "We hardly made any money, but we enjoyed what we were doing." Bird was an associate editor of The Nation magazine from 1978–82 and then a Nation columnist.
Published works
Bird's biographical works include The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy, Brothers in Arms (1998), The Chairman: John J. McCloy and the Making of the American Establishment (1992) and Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy (1998), which he co-edited with Lawrence Lifschultz.
In April 2010, his Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956–1978, was released by Scribner. It is a meld of memoir and history, fusing his early life in the Arab world with an account of the American experience in the Middle East.
The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames was released in 2014.
Recognition
Bird is a recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship (1973), an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship (1981), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1982), and a John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Grant for Research and Writing (1993–95). In 2001-2002 he was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Bird and co-author Martin J. Sherwin won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in biography for American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005). He and Sherwin also won the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award for their biography of Oppenheimer. In 2008, they also won the Duff Cooper Prize.
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in the "Autobiography" category. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/12/14.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [E]xciting...Bird recreates the life of C.I.A. superspy Robert Ames, an operative with a skill for appreciating the turns and twists of Mideast politics.... Bird’s meticulous account of Ames’s career amid an ongoing Mideast climate of caution and suspicion is one of the best books on American intelligence community.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This is a moving biography within a balanced presentation of the complex diplomacy over the Palestinian quest for statehood and the Israeli need for security, complicated by a disintegrating Lebanon and a revolutionary Iran. Bird's view of a CIA committed to analysis and policy development contrasts with the agency depicted in Hugh Wilford's recent America's Great Game. —Elizabeth Hayford, formerly with Associated Coll. of the Midwest, Evanston, IL
Library Journal
A poignant tribute to a CIA Middle East operative who helped get the Palestinians and Israelis to talk to each other—and died for it. Accomplished, wide-ranging author Bird...has great sympathy for Philadelphia native Robert Ames (1934-1983).... A low-key, respectful life of a decent American officer whose quietly significant work helped lead to the Oslo Accords.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance—What Women Should Know
Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, 2014
HarperCollins
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062230621
Summary
Confidence. We want it. We need it. But it can be maddeningly enigmatic and out of reach. The authors of the New York Times bestseller Womenomics deconstruct this essential, elusive, and misunderstood quality and offer a blueprint for bringing more of it into our lives.
Is confidence hardwired into the DNA of a lucky few—or can anyone learn it? Is it best expressed by bravado, or is there another way to show confidence? Which is more important: confidence or competence? Why do so many women, even the most successful, struggle with feelings of self-doubt? Is there a secret to channeling our inner confidence?
In The Confidence Code, journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman travel to the frontiers of neuroscience on a hunt for the confidence gene and reveal surprising new research on its roots in our brains. They visit the world's leading psychologists who explain how we can all chose to become more confident simply by taking action and courting risk, and how those actions change our physical wiring. They interview women leaders from the worlds of politics, sports, the military, and the arts to learn how they have tapped into this elemental resource. They examine how a lack of confidence impacts our leadership, success, and fulfillment.
Ultimately, they argue, while confidence is partly influenced by genetics, it is not a fixed psychological state. That's the good news. You won't discover it by thinking positive thoughts or by telling yourself (or your children) that you are perfect as you are. You also won't find it by simply squaring your shoulders and faking it. But it does require a choice: less people pleasing and perfectionism and more action, risk taking, and fast failure.
Inspiring, insightful, and persuasive, The Confidence Code shows that by acting on our best instincts and by daring to be authentic, women can feel the transformative power of a life on confidence. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
Katty Kay
• Birth—14 November 1964
• Raised—Middle East
• Education—Oxford University
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C., USA
Kay grew up in various Middle East countries, where her father was posted as a British diplomat. She studied modern languages at the University of Oxford and, as a result, speaks fluent French and Italian. After graduation, she briefly worked for the Bank of England. Deciding a career in economics was not for her, she left to work for an aid agency in Zimbabwe.
A short time later, friend Matt Frei came out with a tape recorder and persuaded her to become a journalist. Kay joined the BBC in 1990 as Zimbabwe correspondent for the African section of the BBC World Service. She then returned to London to work for BBC World Service radio, before being posted to Tokyo for BBC News television in 1992 and then Washington, D.C., in 1996. Soon afterwards, she joined The Times news bureau, but returned to the BBC as a freelance journalist in 2002, based in the United States.
From June 2004, Kay co-presented the BBC World news bulletins with Mike Embley in London, shown on 230 public broadcast-television stations throughout the US and on BBC America. From 1 October 2007, Kay became correspondent to presenter Matt Frei of BBC World's one-hour Washington-based news broadcast, BBC World News America, it airs on the BBC News Channel, BBC America, and BBC World. Kay also makes frequent appearances as a guest panelist on The Chris Matthews Show and Meet the Press on NBC, and in the past also appeared on Larry King Live on CNN. She occasionally substitutes for Diane Rehm on The Diane Rehm Show on NPR.
Womenomics, co-written with ABC News' Good Morning America senior national correspondent Claire Shipman, was published in 2009. The book explores the redefinition of success for working women based on recent trends of the value of women to the business world.
Kay is married to ex-BBC reporter and current Control Risks Group senior vice-president Tom Carver. They have four children. She is non-religious and considers herself to be an agnostic. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/8/2014.)
Claire Shipman
• Birth—1962
• Born—Washington, D. C., USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Columbia University
• Award—Peabody Award
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.
Claire Shipman is an American television journalist, currently the senior national correspondent for the ABC program, Good Morning America. She also blogs at the website True/Slant. She is married to Jay Carney, President Barack Obama's White House Press Secretary.
Shipman, born in Washington, D. C. is the daughter of the late Christie Armstrong and Morgan Shipman, Professor of Law at The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law. She graduated from Worthington High School in Worthington, Ohio in 1980. In 2006, she was recognized by Worthington Schools as a Distinguished Alumna during Convocation. She is a 1986 graduate of Columbia College of Columbia University and also holds a master's degree from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. She is divorced from former CNN Moscow bureau chief Steve Hurst. She and her second husband, Jay Carney, have a son and a daughter. Carney was appointed White House press secretary under President Obama on January 27, 2011.
Shipman's broadcast career started with a decade-long stint at CNN. From 1997 to May 2001 Ms. Shipman served as White House Correspondent for NBC News and appeared on NBC Nightly News and The Today Show. She joined ABC News in May 2001, and frequently contributes to other ABC News programs, such as World News Tonight and Nightline. She is a substitute anchor on both Good Morning America and World News Tonight, as well as a regular participant in the "roundtable" segment of ABC News' This Week with Christiane Amanpour. Before joining ABC News, she was a White House correspondent for NBC News.
Shipman co-authored Womenomics (2009) with BBC World News America correspondent Katty Kay. The book explored the redefinition of success for working women based on recent trends of the value of women to the business world.
Shipman received a Peabody Award for her work covering the 1991 Soviet coup and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/8/2014.)
Book Reviews
[A]n engrossing trek through interviews with an array of successful women and seek the counsel of behavioral experts. We journey into rat brains, DNA tests, Christine Lagarde’s daily schedule and even her purse. We are invited to contemplate Title IX legislation and its effect on young women’s prospects to lead and to win. We become privy to the formidable journalism careers of Kay and Shipman, including their own moments of wavering confidence.
Gloria Ryan - New York Times Book Review
The Confidence Code belongs in the bag of every woman in America. It combines groundbreaking scientific research and firsthand accounts from the world’s most powerful woman.
Joanna Cole, Ed.-in-Chief - Cosmopolitan
[Kay and Shipman] have written an enlightening, fascinating book that explains the relationship between confidence, resilience, risk and reward….This book can definitely help you learn to boost your confidence.
Success
[Kay and Shipman dive] into tons of fascinating research and stats that are worth reading…[b]ut most importantly, the book provides some seriously actionable advice from some of the most successful women in the world (authors included).
Self.com
[Kay and Shipman] address the self-confidence gap between women and men, consulting a range of experts to determine what female confidence looks like and how it can be achieved..... All of this research, as well as the authors’ own recounting of experiences with doubt in their professional lives, effectively builds into a comprehensive set of ingredients for the confident woman.
Publishers Weekly
Why are men still higher fliers in business than women? Confidence, argue the authors of the New York Times best-selling Womenomics, who pull on research in gender, cognition, and behavior, as well as personal experience, to argue that business success is about more than just leaning in.
Library Journal
[H]ow a lack of self-confidence hinders women's career advancement. In conversations among successful professional women, the authors have noticed a disturbing pattern: "Compared with men, we don't consider ourselves ready for promotions."... An insightful look at how internalizing cultural stereotypes can hold women back from competing with men.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The True Story: Kenneth Tricky Williams
Kenneth Williams, 2014
Minister of God and Christ Jesus Foundation
260 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780692212196
Summary
The elements of Kenneth Tricky Williams (the conscious of a black nigger) specific biographical portrait are revealed and the people who influenced his life in a negative manner, as well as, in a positive manner.
This read brings together in a narrative format all the information and references about the character of Kenneth Tricky Williams, his biography is a coherent and continuous story. Also for the purposes for this book, it is written for moral purposes (understanding ignorance). This story is very urban-Ghetto from a street projects of the East Coast within the African American Poverty Stricken Culture that is an offspring from the “black slave nigger” to
Negro generations. At the turn of the life of Kenneth Tricky Williams realizing, he was “sick and tired of being sick and tired”, he found his consciousness with God and ultimately became called by God’s choice a “minister, preacher and teacher” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Author Bio
• Birth—March 10, 1966
• Where—Wilmington, Delaware, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—Southern California
Pastor Kenneth Williams is the Executive Radio Broadcast Producer of Faith The Power Tool Christian Radio Show at KTYM 1460 AM – Inglewood, CA, he has served as the Executive Television Producer of Minister of God and Christ Jesus Foundation Broadcasting through Charter Communications, Inc. –Long Beach, CA, he has served as President of Development Officer Training/National Field Representative in Religious Philanthropy at Mega International & Associates Proposals & Grants/Non-Profit Tax Exempt – El Segundo, CA, and Chairman/Director for his Civic Engagement Humanitarian USDA Emergency Food Commodities Program, Independent Agency Food Distribution Program, and Gifts In Kind Program, which provides food, drinks, and clothing in the Urban Los Angeles Communities, feeding the hungry, feeding the poor, feeding the homeless and the needy.
Pastor Williams is also Chief Principle of Minister of God and Christ Jesus Foundation, a Public Benefit & Public Charity Corporation, established to lessen the burden of Government in partnership with the United States Federal Government as a 501 © 3 Tax Exempt Non-Profit Corporation, also, Exempt from the Franchise Tax Board in the State of California. Before Pastor Williams was led into Public Ministry and Humanitarian Service, he held numerous positions ranging in scope from the United States Entertainment and Recording Industry in the Production Sector, the Distribution Sector, and the Retail Sector as President/CEO of his Anaheim, CA based Record Company (1992), to a internationally known role, as Entertainment Law & Business Department Head/Head Administrator of the World Famous V.I.P Records(1995)-Long Beach, CA. In addition as, Theme Song Writer/Music Publisher & Vocal Performer to Walt Disney Television Motion Picture and Film, UPN Sitcom-series “Social Studies” (1997), and Cue-sheet Song Writer/Music Publisher to Wilshire Film Ventures, Beverly Hills, CA Motion Picture Film “Animal Instincts 2” (1994), Also, he ranked no. #1 as the Major Advertiser in the Urban Los Angeles Markets for Ten(10) consecutive years(1995-2005) owning & controlling the BET(Black Entertainment Television) Network Commercial Distribution Inventory, securing business relationships with Sony Music, The Gary Group Agency(Universal Music Group, Warner Atlantic Group, and Several Independents). Pastor Williams administrated the Two Million, Four Hundred Thousand Dollar Anti-Piracy Campaign with the APD/RIAA in Washington, D.C. (2003) for Bootleg, Counterfeit, Pirating, and Piracy in Los Angeles.
Pastor Williams held an esteemed position as Director of New Product Development for California Entrepreneur Billionaire, Lawrence J. Winslow and Jeff Bond, introducing resources and capabilities to the busiest deep-water port in the United States, The Port of Long Beach, also, through the U.S. Department of Commerce, Pastor Williams spear-headed the Multilateral Development World Bank Opportunities for the International Law Center(1998-1999), and bridged sound relationships with the U.S Treasury Department, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Customs Management Center and the National Headquarters for Procurement and Contracts, and Seizers Penalty Division-Washington, D.C.
Pastor Williams mastered Intellectual Media and Property as a Counter Intelligence Due-Diligence Research Specialist, and introduced the Method of the Entertainment Industry Structure through the combination of legal principles and business practices(1991-2007), also, he worked in the practice of CD Brokers/ and the Method of Investment of Wellington Management/Financial Portfolio’s for Retail Investments and Major Multi-Million Dollar Investment Distribution with Financial Institutions, regulated through The Securities and Exchange Commission for his Principles in Seal Beach, CA and Laguna Nigel, CA (1995-1996).
Pastor Williams was Awarded Certificate of License to Preach the Gospel Ministry (2003), Awarded Certificate of Ordination and was solemnly and publicly set apart to the work of the Gospel Ministry (2005), and Awarded Bachelors of Arts in Christian Education (2005) at Shekinah Glory College of the Bible/Messiah Full Gospel Bible Fellowship Church/Philadelphia Assemblies of Full Gospel Churches and Apostle Kenneth L. Green, Sr., Ph.D., D.D. Awarded Certificate of Appreciation from the City of Los Angeles in recognition of commitment and dedication to Community Service in Food Distribution/Humanitarian Service.(2009) and became a certified member of Cottonwood Church, Los Alamitos, CA (2010).
Pastor Williams is an esteemed spiritual foundation teacher, public speaker, Author/Writer of 50+ published Christian spirituality books available online @ MINISTER OF GOD AND CHRIST JESUS’ BOOKSTORE , and has written thousands of prayer devotionals and lessons in series( over 15 years), including his signature entertainment independent book “The Trade Secrets” 100%. Pastor Williams has released his first Spoken Word Gospel CD entitled “Faith The Power Tool” on Born Again Records (March 2010), and his second Spoken Word Gospel CD entitled “The Realm of Belief” (October 2010). Since then, he has produced six of his signature “spoken word CD’s.”
Pastor Williams has expanded his humanitarian community service through his Senior Citizen HUD-Qualified Brown Bag Emergency Food Program with distribution and transportation to three Senior Citizen Apartment Complex Properties (2011), Bellflower, CA.
Currently (2014), Ambassador for Christ Kenneth Jerome Williams is a United States Publisher/Printer/Writer/Editor/Author/Vendor with over 25-ISBN and EAN's Pending in the U.S. Agency and for Books in Print through his Kingdom Work @ Minister of God and Christ Jesus Foundation. (From the author.)
Discussion Questions
1. What do you think about this book?
2. Do you know someone who has experienced the life of the character in this book?
3. How do you feel about what his mother said to him when he was a child?
4. Do you feel the pressure and the pain and the victory from his struggles in your reading?
5. Would you tell others about this book and if so, why?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany
Steven Pressman, 2014
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062237477
Summary
Two Ordinary Americans.
Fifty Innocent Lives.
One Unforgettable Journey.
In early 1939, few Americans were thinking about the darkening storm clouds over Europe. Nor did they have much sympathy for the growing number of Jewish families that were increasingly threatened and brutalized by Adolf Hitler's policies in Germany and Austria.
But one ordinary American couple decided that something had to be done. Despite overwhelming obstacles—both in Europe and in the United States—Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus made a bold and unprecedented decision to travel into Nazi Germany in an effort to save a group of Jewish children.
Fewer than 1,200 unaccompanied children were allowed into the United States throughout the entire Holocaust, in which 1.5 million children perished. The fifty children saved by the Krauses turned out to be the single largest group of unaccompanied children brought to America.
Drawing from Eleanor Kraus's unpublished memoir, rare historical documents, and interviews with more than a dozen of the surviving children, and illustrated with period photographs, archival materials, and memorabilia, 50 Children is a remarkable tale of personal courage and triumphant heroism that offers a fresh, unique insight into a critical period of history. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California, Berkley
• Currently—lives near San Francisco, California
Steven Pressman is an American legal journalist, freelance journalist and investigative journalist. He was born in Los Angeles in 1955 and obtained his B.A. 1977 in political science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Writing
Pressman is the author of a book about Werner Erhard, Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile, published in 1993. Beginning in 2010, he wrote, produced, and directed a documentary film, To Save a Life, about the rescue of 50 Jewish children from Austria during World War II. His 2014 book, 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany, is based on the film.
Pressman has worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. While researching his first book on Erhard, Pressman continued writing for various publications including California Lawyer, Legal Times, California Republic (where he was senior editor), and the Columbia Law Review. He contributed an article on libel law in 1994, for the United States Department of State.
In 1998, Landmark Education spent months in an unsuccessful attempt to compel Pressman to respond to deposition questions aimed at obtaining the confidential sources (used during research on Outrageous Betrayal) for use in the then-active litigation involving the Cult Awareness Network.
Filmmaking
Pressman produced short videos for the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, California. In 2010, he served as writer, director, and producer for the 2013 HBO documentary film To Save a Life (retitled 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus) is the story of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, a Jewish couple from Philadelphia who traveled to Nazi Germany in 1939. With the help of the B'rith Sholom fraternal organization, they saved Jewish children in Vienna from likely death in the Holocaust by finding them new homes in Philadelphia. The heroic Krauses were the grandparents of Pressman's wife, Liz Perle, and the film is based on the manuscript of a memoir left behind by Eleanor Kraus when she died in 1989. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/5/2014.)
Book Reviews
Both an extraordinary humanitarian act and a classic tale of American initiative and perseverance....A rich and rewarding read….Pressman paints a moving picture of the rescue.
Wall Street Journal
It can be challenging to create suspense in a tale for which the ending is known. Pressman does a good job with 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple’s Extraordinary Rescue Mission in the Heart of Nazi Germany, a book whose title pretty much tells it all.
New York Journal of Books
A brilliantly written book that takes the reader on a journey back in time. Yet, it is relevant today because Gil and Eleanor’s story proves that individuals with courage and strength can overcome the odds. … A very insightful read.
Military Press
[S]tirring account of determination against overwhelming odds.... Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus, worked to rescue 50 Viennese Jewish children from occupied territory during the early years of WWII.... In contrast to his praise for the Krauses...Pressman critiques American intransigence alongside more visible Nazi cruelties, and the whole makes for a story as troublingas it is inspirational.
Publishers Weekly
The astonishing story of a Philadelphia couple's resolve to help bring Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied Austria.... The details around selection of the children, leave-taking of their parents and the tearful travels are heart-rending.... With a careful eye to detail and dialogue, Pressman vividly re-creates this epic rescue.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)