The 2012 Author
Breakfast Series Lineup
JANUARY 2012
Friday, Jan 20th
(moderated by Parker Ladd)
Andrew Gross-
Eyes Wide Open
Andrew Gross is an author of
thriller novels including four New
York Times bestsellers. Best known
for his collaborations with suspense
writer James Patterson, Gross’s
books feature close family
bonds characterized by loss or
betrayal that generally lead
to crimes and cover-ups. His latest
book, Eyes Wide Open, took shape
from two real life events straight
from his own past. One was the
suicide of his young nephew, a
troubled boy found at the bottom of
a landmark cliff in central
California. The second was a chance
encounter he had 40 years ago with
Charles Manson. The book weaves
a suspenseful thread about how the
two stories link.
Ivana Lowell- Why Not Say What Happened:
A Memoir.
Born into one of the most celebrated
Anglo-Irish families, the Guinnesses,
Lowell grew up at the whim of two
literary heavyweights—her mother, writer
Lady Caroline Blackwood, and stepfather,
poet Robert Lowell. With an incisive
eye and a wicked sense of humor, she
shares the stories we’ve always wanted
to hear about the Queen Mother, about
her own childhood accident, about her
stints in rehab, and, finally, about
discovering the secret her mother
successfully kept from Ivana her entire
life.
Friday, Jan. 27th (moderated
by Jackie Weld)
Alice Hoffman- The Dovekeepers.
Over five years in the writing, this is
Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing
novel, set in ancient Israel. In 70 C.E.,
nine hundred Jews held out for months
against armies of Romans on Masada, a
mountain in the Judean desert. According
to the ancient historian Josephus, two
women and five children survived. Based
on this tragic and iconic event,
Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale
of the lives of four complex and
fiercely independent women, whose lives
intersect in the desperate days of the
siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are
also keeping secrets—about who they are,
where they come from, who fathered them,
and whom they love.
Chris Matthews- Jack Kennedy: Elusive
Hero
News anchor and political commentator,
known for his nightly MSNBC talk show,
Hardball with Chris Matthews, has
written an extraordinary biography
based on personal interviews with those
closest to JFK, that include oral
histories, documents from his years as a
student at Choate, and notes from
Jacqueline Kennedy’s first interview
after Dallas. He cites the origins of
JFK’s inaugural call to “Ask what you
can do for your country,” his role in
the genesis of the Peace Corps, his
stand on civil rights, his push to put a
man on the moon, his ban on nuclear arms
testing, and the unsettling aspects of
his personal life. As Matthews writes,
“I found a fighting prince never free of
pain, never far from trouble, never
accepting the world he found, never
wanting to be his father’s son. He was a
far greater hero than he ever wished us
to know.”
FEBRUARY 2012
Friday, Feb. 17
(moderated by Parker Ladd)
Nelson DeMille- The Rich and The Dead.
This bestselling author introduces
twenty original tales by today’s most
elite mystery writers including a tale
of his own. These stories explore the
life (and death) styles of the rich and
infamous, who live in another world from
their multi-national businesses to their
palatial mansions to their exotic
vacations at glamorous places all around
the world, they do everything in a big
way -- and sometimes, that even includes
crime. These mystery and crime stories
go behind the scenes of the lifestyles
of the two percent of the world that
controls sixty percent of its
riches--and just how far they'll go to
stay on top.
Cherie Burns- Searching for Beauty: The
Life of Millicent Rogers-
Nobody knew how to live the high life
like Millicent Rogers. Born into
luxury, she lived in a whirl
of beautiful homes, European vacations,
exquisite clothing and handsome men. In
this book, Burns
chronicles Rogers's glittering life from
her days as a young girl afflicted
with rheumatic fever to her debutante
debut and her Taos finale. A rebellious
icon of the age, she eloped with a
penniless baron, divorced, remarried
and romanced, among others, Clark
Gable. She electrified the fashion
world by becoming the muse to designer
Charles James, appearing in Vogue and
Harper's Bazaar and - at the end of her
life - retreating to Taos, New Mexico.
Like style icons Diana Vreeland and Babe
Paley, Rogers put her distinctive stamp
on American style.
Friday, Feb. 24
(moderated by Parker Ladd)
Nigel Hamilton – American Caesars: Lives
of the Presidents from Franklin D.
Roosevelt to George W. Bush.
Modeled on one of the most famous
histories of ancient Rome (The Twelve
Caesars), Hamilton’s book looks
afresh at the lives and careers of the
twelve leaders of the American empire
since World War II, from Franklin D.
Roosevelt to George W. Bush. President
by president, Hamilton relates and
examines the presidents’ unique
characters, their paths to Pennsylvania
Avenue, their effectiveness as global
leaders, and their lessons in
governance, both good and bad. With
uncompromising candor he looks at how
these powerful men responded to the
challenges that defined their
presidencies
Jeanne Darst- Fiction Ruined My Family.
The youngest of four daughters in an
old, celebrated St. Louis family of
prominent journalists and politicians on
one side, debutante balls and equestrian
trophies on the other, Darst grew up
hearing stories of past grandeur. As a
young girl, the message she internalized
was clear: while things might be a bit
tight right now, it's only temporary.
Soon her father would sell the Great
American Novel and reclaim the family's
former glory. Ultimately, Darst, whose
book was recently excerpted in VOGUE,
sets out to discover if a person can
have the writing without the ruin, if
it's possible to be both sober and
creative, ambitious and happy, a
professional author and a parent.
Filled with brilliantly flawed,
idiosyncratic characters, this book is a
lovingly told, wickedly funny portrait
of an unconventional life.
MARCH 2012
Friday, March 2
(moderated by Parker Ladd)
Sally Bedell Smith- Elizabeth the Queen:
The Life of A Modern Monarch.
In this magisterial new biography,
New York Times bestselling author
Sally Bedell Smith brings to life one of
the world’s most fascinating and
enigmatic women: Queen Elizabeth II.
From the moment of her ascension to the
throne in 1952 at the age of
twenty-five, Queen Elizabeth II has been
the object of unparalleled scrutiny. But
through the fog of glamour and gossip,
how well do we really know the world’s
most famous monarch? Drawing on numerous
interviews and never-before-revealed
documents, this acclaimed biographer
pulls back the curtain to show in
intimate detail the public and private
lives of Queen Elizabeth II, who has led
her country and Commonwealth through the
wars and upheavals of the last sixty
years with unparalleled composure,
intelligence, and grace.
Michael Gross- Unreal Estate: Money,
Ambition and Lust for the Land in Los
Angeles.
Gross is the preeminent chronicler of
America’s rich and powerful, most
recently in 740 Park and Rogues’
Gallery. Los Angeles provides
Michael Gross with his broadest canvas
yet, where he uncovers the very secret
history of the City of Angles,
specifically those wealthiest and most
private of enclaves— Beverly Hills, Bel
Air, Holmby Hills, and Beverly
Park—through their most mind-boggling
estates, and the fascinating folks who
created and populate them. Apart from
the many Hollywood stars who have passed
through these houses—Douglas Fairbanks
Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield,
George Hamilton, Tony Curtis, Cher, to
name just a few. Taken altogether, their
stories read like a cross between Valley
of the Dolls, Hollywood Babylon, and
Gross’s own 740 Park—with
a little of the film Chinatown thrown
in too. Gross will fascinate and
entertain with a story you don’t know
about a place you think you do.
Friday, March 30
(moderated by Jackie Weld)
William Kuhn- Reading Jackie: Her
Autobiography in Books.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis never wrote a
memoir, but she told her life story and
revealed herself in intimate ways
through the nearly 100 books she brought
into print during the last two decades
of her life as an editor at Viking and
Doubleday. Based on archives and
interviews with Jackie's authors,
colleagues, and friends, the book mines
this significant period of her life and
provides a compelling behind-the-scenes
look at Jackie at work: how she
commissioned books and nurtured authors,
as well as how she helped to shape
stories that spoke to her strongly.
Jackie is remembered today for her
marriages to JFK and to Aristotle
Onassis, but her real legacy is the
books that reveal the tastes,
recollections, and passions of an
independent woman.
John Burnham Schwartz - Northwest
Corner-
The New York Times Book Review
called Reservation Road “a
triumph,” and the novel was universally
acclaimed and made into a major motion
picture. Schwartz reintroduces
Reservation Road’s unforgettable
characters in a superb new work of
fiction that stands magnificently on its
own. Northwest Corner is a
riveting story about the complex,
fierce, ultimately inspiring resilience
of families in the face of life’s most
difficult and unexpected challenges.
Told in the resonant voices of everyday
people gripped in the emotional riptide
of lived life, Northwest Corner
is at once tough and heart-lifting, an
urgent, powerful story about family
bonds that can never be broken and the
wayward roads that lead us back to those
we love.
The 2012 Author
Breakfast Series
Lineup
at a Glance
JANUARY
Jan 20 (Parker Ladd)
Alexandra Styron- Reading My Father
Ivana Lowell- Why Not Say What Happened
Jan 27 (Jackie Weld)
Alice Hoffman- The Dovekeepers
Chris Matthews- Jack Kennedy: Elusive
Hero
FEBRUARY
Feb 17 (Parker Ladd)
Nelson DeMille- The Rich and The Dead
Cherie Burns- Searching for Beauty: The
Life of Millicent Rogers
Feb 24- (Parker Ladd)
Nigel Hamilton - American Caesars: Lives
of the Presidents from Franklin D.
Roosevelt to George W. Bush
Jeanne Darst- Fiction Ruined My Family
MARCH
March 2 (Parker Ladd)
Sally Bedell Smith- Elizabeth the Queen:
The Life of a Modern Monarch
Michael Gross- Unreal Estate: Money,
Ambition and Lust for the Land in Los
Angeles
March 30 (Jackie Weld)
William Kuhn- Reading Jackie: Her
Autobiography in Books
John Burnham Schwartz – Northwest Corner