"The story of Bunny Mellon, the great landscape architect and interior designer, becomes a revelatory exploration of extreme wealth in the American century"--

Relates how the death of the author's photojournalist son at the hands of an angry mob in Somalia led her to transform her grief into something positive by embracing the role of philanthropist and activist to preserve his legacy.

"Maggie's story begins in suburban New Jersey, in a comfortable middle-class family that supports her decision to travel the world during a gap year before starting college. During her travels, the trajectory of her life alters when she has a surprise encounter with a Nepali girl breaking rocks in a quarry. Maggie decides to invest her life savings of five thousand dollars to buy a piece of land and open a children's home in Nepal. That home becomes...

"A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th Century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art and fashion. Bunny Mellon, who died in 2014 at age 103, was press-shy during her lifetime. With the co-operation of Bunny Mellon's family, author Meryl Gordon received access to thousands of...

The story of the family that established the model for the modern luxury hotel industry sheds new light on its enigmatic patriarch Conrad Hilton--who struggled with emotional detachment, failed marriages, and conflicted Catholicism--and his children.

In Searching for Beauty, Cherie Burns chronicles Rogers's rebellious life from her days as a young girl afflicted with rheumatic fever to her final days as one of the legendary chatelaines of New Mexico. She eloped with a penniless baron; danced tangos in European nightclubs; romanced Roald Dahl, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, and Hollywood icon Clark Gable; and triumphed in the world of fashion. She was muse to legendary American designer...

The influential fashion designer and author of Diane: A Signature Life describes her pursuit of a creativity and independence, providing coverage of such topics as her childhood in Brussels, her struggles with cancer and her creation of a genre-defining dress design. "Von Furstenberg reflects on her extraordinary life from childhood in Brussels to her days as a young, jet-set princess, to creating the dress that came to symbolize independence and...

"Founder of a beauty empire, Madam C. J. Walker was celebrated as America's first self-made female millionaire in the early 1900s. Known as a leading African American entrepreneur, Walker was also devoted to an activist philanthropy aimed at empowering African Americans and challenging the injustices inflicted by Jim Crow. Tyrone McKinley Freeman's biography highlights how giving shaped Walker's life before and after she became wealthy. Poor and widowed...

"The definitive biography of movie executive and philanthropist Sherry Lansing traces her groundbreaking journey to become the first female head of a major motion picture studio, shares behind-the-scenes tales from movie sets and Hollywood boardrooms, and explains what inspired her to walk away from it all to start the Sherry Lansing Foundation. When Sherry Lansing became the first woman ever to be named president of a major studio, the news ricocheted...