"To begin with I was in love, and I am in love so that's not hard," Barbara Bush told her granddaughter Ellie LeBlond Sosa on her porch in Kennebunkport, Maine. Sosa had asked for the secret to her and President George H.W. Bush's77-year love affair that withstood World War II separation, a leap of faith into the oil fields of West Texas, the painful loss of a child, a political climb to the highest office, and after the White House, the transition...

He was an actor, newly divorced, whose controversial tenure as president of the Screen Actors Guild was drawing more attention than his fading film career. She was a contract player at MGM, unmarried and rapidly growing too old to play the starlet. It was time, she decided, to settle down and become Mrs. Somebody Important. So, Nancy Davis contrived an introduction to Ronald Reagan, and the Reagans march into history began. “The Reagans: Portrait...

"...an insider's look at Melania Trump, from her childhood in Slovenia to her days in the White House, and everything in between." -- inside front jacket flap. Bennett gives readers an insider's look at Melania Trump, from her childhood in Slovenia to her days in the White House, and everything in between. In comparing her to other First Ladies, Bennett shows just how different Trump is and why she matters. A reluctant pillar in a controversial presidential...

A New York Times bestseller: A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at life on Pennsylvania Avenue with America's first families, by the man who spent nearly three decades in their midst J. B. West, chief usher of the White House, directed the operations and maintenance of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue-and coordinated its daily life-at the request of the president and his family. He directed state functions; planned parties, weddings and funerals, gardens...

A look at the parents of the American presidents, full of facts and anecdotes as well as psychological profiles based on Wead's findings. He analyzes the types of families into which our presidents were born, and sheds a fascinating light on how their destinies were shaped during childhood. Using papers and letters, as well as private conversations and interviews with six presidents and first ladies, Wead focuses on the early life of George Washington;...

James Madison led one of the most influential and prolific lives in American history, and his story — although all too often overshadowed by his more celebrated contemporaries — is integral to that of the nation. Madison helped to shape our country as perhaps no other Founder: collaborating on the Federalist Papers and the Bill of Rights, resisting government overreach by assembling one of the nation's first political parties (the Republicans,...

Focuses on the lives of presidents as parents, husbands, pet-owners, and neighbors while also including humorous anecdotes about hairstyles, attitudes, diets, fears, and sleep patterns.

Shares fun facts and memorable quotes while introducing middle grade readers to the important jobs of the nearly one hundred residence staff members who work at the White House.

On February 22, 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln was laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, Abraham Lincoln arrives at the cemetery under cover of darkness and visits the crypt, alone, to spend time with his son's body. Set over the course of that one night and populated by ghosts of the recently passed and the long dead, Lincoln in the Bardo is a thrilling exploration of death,...