Intimate wars

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Jock Soto

In June 2005 Jock Soto, age 40, gave his farewell performance as a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. The program capped one of the most storied careers in ballet history--an ascent that began when Soto was just three years old. After retiring, Soto was determined to embrace a new future, teaching at the School of American Ballet, but he found himself obsessed with questions about his past. This book weaves together the diverse strands of Soto's life: being the offspring of a Puerto Rican-Navajo couple, the gay son of a fiercely macho man, a naive teenager from the desert running in the sophisticated art world of New York, and a driven artist by day and hard-core party animal by night. Soto recalls his professional relationships with such icons as George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Darci Kistler, and Lourdes Lopez, and shares his love of food in recipes marking the pivotal moments in his story.--From publisher description.

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Pat O'Brien

"Growing up, Pat O'Brien was the skinny Midwestern kid with the divorced parents and the alcoholic father. He drove himself to the University of South Dakota after finishing his last late-night shift and moved in while his roommate was asleep. His life was unceremonious--until he was picked up in the student center by a professor who envisioned his future as the household television name he would become. From that day forward, Pat's life became anything but ordinary: from afternoons in the late Bobby Kennedy's living room with Muhammad Ali, to Rangers games in President Bush's suite, to the drugs and drinking and party lifestyle of Los Angeles. Over the course of his career, Pat has met everyone: the Beatles, the Kennedys, Neil Young, and Magic Johnson. In I'll Be Back Right After This, Pat reveals the highs and lows of life spent sharing the mic with the world's most rich and famous"--

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Nadia Higgins

"You may know that Carly Rae Jepsen rose to instant fame after Justin Bieber tweeted about his love for "Call Me Maybe." But did you know that she: had starring roles in Annie, Grease, and The Wiz as a teen? could sing perfectly on key when she was only three years old? writes down song lyrics everywhere she goes, using napkins, receipts, and any other paper she can find? Want to know more about the life of this awesome celeb? Read on to learn all about Carly Rae's family, childhood nickname, love for shoes, philosophy on boys, future plans, and more!"--Back cover.

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Michael B. Oren

Michael Oren served as the Israeli ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013. An American by birth and a historian by training, Oren arrived at his diplomatic post just as Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton assumed office. During Oren's tenure in office, Israel and America grappled with the Palestinian peace process, the Arab Spring, and existential threats to Israel posed by international terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program. Forged in the Truman administration, America's alliance with Israel was subjected to enormous strains, and its future was questioned by commentators in both countries. On more than one occasion, the friendship's very fabric seemed close to unraveling. Ally is the story of that enduring alliance -- and of its divides -- written from the perspective of a man who treasures his American identity while proudly serving the Jewish State he has come to call home. No one could have been better suited to strengthen bridges between the United States and Israel than Michael Oren -- a man equally at home jumping out of a plane as an Israeli paratrooper and discussing Middle East history on TV's Sunday morning political shows. Oren interweaves the story of his personal journey with behind-the-scenes accounts of fateful meetings between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, high-stakes summits with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and diplomatic crises that intensified the controversy surrounding the world's most contested strip of land.