Charlemont - Tyler Memorial Library

In 1995, Iowa native Bill Bryson took a motoring trip around Britain to explore that green and pleasant land. The uproarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, is one of the most acute portrayals of the United Kingdom ever written. Two decades later, Bryson--now a British citizen--set out again to rediscover his adopted country. In these pages, he follows a straight line through the island--from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath--and shows us...

A surprising and intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher, the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. One of the 20th century's most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male-dominated world.

"From the moment of her ascension to the throne at age twenty-five, Queen Elizabeth II has been the object of unparalleled admiration and 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, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith pulls back the curtain to show in extraordinary detail the public and private lives of one of...

A magnificent biography of Queen Victoria by International New York Times columnist Julia Baird. Drawing on previously unpublished papers, 'Victoria: The Queen' is a stunning new portrait of the real woman behind the myth--a story of love and heartbreak, of devotion and grief, of strength and resilience. When Victoria was born, in 1819, the world was a very different place. Revolution would begin to threaten many of Europe's monarchies in the coming...

"A sweeping, tenderhearted love story, Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash tells the story of two families living through World War II on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the shy, irresistible young woman who will call them both her own. As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: they decide to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America. There,...

Presents an account of the period immediately following Winston Churchill's ascendancy to Prime Minister and how he met the challenges of the Blitzkrieg. "May 1940. Britain is at war. The horrors of blitzkrieg have seen one Western European democracy after another fall in rapid succession to Nazi boot and shell. Invasion seems mere hours away. Just days after becoming prime minister, Winston Churchill must deal with this horror--as well as a skeptical...

"Harry Potter and Sense and Sensibility actor Alan Rickman builds upon his legacy as a world-class actor, a tireless political activist, an avid traveler, and more through his diaries--a twenty-five-year passion project in which Rickman invites readers backstage and into his life. Alan Rickman remains the one of the most beloved actors of all time across almost every genre in the American and British markets, from his breakout role as Die Hard's Hans...

"The King's Speech" presents a sideways glance at a crucial period in 20th-century history--as the monumentally awkward Prince Albert, or Bertie, becomes King George VI unexpectedly in 1936 when his older brother Edward VIII abdicates to marry American divorcée Wallis Simpson. In imperial Britain between the wars, that was problem enough, but Bertie suffered from a chronic stammer that made his public appearances painful for everyone. In an age of...

"No British monarch has had a tougher act to follow. Now, after seventy years of waiting and preparation, King Charles III is not just the head of the most famous family in the world. He is the custodian of a thousand-year-old institution that must redefine its place in the digital age while others insist on rewriting the past. With unrivaled access to the king, the royal family, and the court, leading royal authority Robert Hardman brings us the...

"Monarchs : they're just like us. They entertain their friends and eat and worry about money. Henry VIII tripped over his dogs. George II threw his son out of the house. James I had to cut back on the alcohol bills. In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the reader on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by...