Soon to be a Major Motion Picture In the ebullient spirit of Ocean’s 8, The Heist, and Thelma & Louise, a sensational and entertaining memoir of the world’s most notorious jewel thief—a woman who defied society’s prejudices and norms to carve her own path, stealing from elite jewelers to live her dreams. Growing up during the Depression in the segregated coal town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, Doris Payne was told her dreams were unattainable for poor black girls like her. Surrounded by people who sought to limit her potential, Doris vowed to turn the tables after the owner of a jewelry store threw her out when a white customer arrived. Neither racism nor poverty would hold her back; she would get what she wanted and help her mother escape an abusive relationship. Using her southern charm, quick wit, and fascination with magic as her tools, Payne began shoplifting small pieces of jewelry from local stores. Over the course of six decades, her talents grew with each heist. Becoming an expert world-class jewel thief, she daringly pulled off numerous diamond robberies and her boyfriend fenced the stolen gems to Hollywood celebrities. Doris’s criminal exploits went unsolved well into the 1970s—partly because the stores did not want to admit that they were duped by a black woman. Eventually realizing Doris was using him, her boyfriend turned her in. She was arrested after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars. But even prison couldn’t contain this larger-than-life personality who cleverly used nuns as well as various ruses to help her break out. With her arrest in 2013 in San Diego, Doris’s fame skyrocketed when media coverage of her astonishing escapades exploded. Today, at eighty-seven, Doris, as bold and vibrant as ever, lives in Atlanta, and is celebrated for her glamorous legacy. She sums up her adventurous career best: “It beat being a teacher or a maid.” A rip-roaringly fun and exciting story as captivating and audacious as Catch Me if You Can and Can You Ever Forgive Me?—Diamond Doris is the portrait of a captivating anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society.

"Doris Payne is an unapologetic badass." - Tessa Thompson, Actress This is the sensational and compelling memoir of the world's most notorious jewel thief - a woman who defied society's prejudices and norms to carve her own path, and live out her dreams. She stole diamonds from the people who underestimated her, she exploited the men who tried to domesticate her, and she consistently defied society's assumptions and prejudices to create a new life for herself. For fans of Catch Me If You Can, The Wolf of Wall Street and Molly's Game, this is the newest must-read crime autobiography. Growing up during the Depression in the segregated coal town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, Doris Payne was told her dreams were unattainable for poor black girls like her. Surrounded by people who sought to limit her potential, Doris vowed to turn the tables and neither racism nor poverty would hold her back. Using her southern charm, quick wit, and light fingers as her tools, Payne began shoplifting small pieces of jewellery from local stores. Over the course of six decades, her talents grew with each heist. Becoming an expert world-class jewel thief, she daringly pulled off numerous diamond robberies whilst her boyfriend fenced the stolen gems to Hollywood celebrities. A rip-roaringly fun and exciting story as captivating and audacious as Ocean's 8 and as honest and compelling as Hidden Figures - Diamond Doris is the portrait of a captivating anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society.

The newly appointed Protector of an intergalactic city-ship, Adrian Mercati is urged by his predecessor to strengthen his position by locating the Sawyer Crown, an alien artifact that will give him superiority over his enemies. Original.

By the award-winning author of Team of Rivals and The Bully Pulpit, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans. We meet the people who most influenced Goodwin’s early life: her mother, who taught her the joy of books but whose debilitating illness left her housebound: and her father, who taught her the joy of baseball and to root for the Dodgers of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges. Most important, Goodwin describes with eloquence how the Dodgers’ leaving Brooklyn in 1957, and the death of her mother soon after, marked both the end of an era and, for her, the end of childhood.

This inspiring book accompanies the first traveling exhibition about Doris Duke’s estate Shangri La and its influential synthesis of modernist architecture and Islamic art and design. Situated on five acres of terraced gardens and pools overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Honolulu’s Diamond Head, Shangri La was the idyllic paradise of philanthropist Doris Duke, reflecting her personal passion for the art, architecture, and design of the Islamic world. The estate incorporates unique architectural features, such as carved marble doorways, jalis, and floral ceramic tiles, and the decor includes artifacts, such as silk textiles, jewel-toned chandeliers, and gilt and coffered ceilings, many collected during her travels. This volume presents an exclusive tour of Shangri La’s breathtaking interiors and landscape, including the splendid furnishings and art. Archival photographs of Duke and friends as well as correspondence and drawings provide a view into a lifestyle defined by the highest sense of aesthetics. Doris Duke’s Shangri La is sure to inspire both art and design lovers.

Originally published in Poland in 1948, and acclaimed as one of the finest postwar Polish novels, Ashes and Diamonds takes place in the spring of 1945, as the nation is in the throes of its transformation to People' Poland. Communists, socialists, and nationalists; thieves and black marketeers; servants and fading aristocrats; veteran terrorists and bands of murderous children bewitched by the lure of crime and adventure--all of these converge on a provincial town's chief hotel, a microcosm of an uprooted world.

At the southernmost tip of New Jersey lie the resort town of Cape May and its sparkling sandy beaches, sheltering the Delaware Bay. Formed by melting glaciers thousands of years past, the Delaware River flows from its headwaters to spill into the Delaware Bay. And for thousands of years, fragments of quartz rock have ridden the river, plucked from the mountains lining its banks. Polished and buffed as they tumble along, these rock particles dazzle like gemstones when tossed onto Cape May's sandy shores. Beloved by beachcombers, these "diamonds" are the daughters of the river, linking the state's past and present. Delving into the natural beauty of New Jersey's famous coastline, storyteller Trinka Hakes Noble has crafted a wondrous tale explaining the origin of the Cape May Diamond.Trinka Hakes Noble's award-winning picture books include The Last Brother, The Scarlet Stockings Spy (an IRATeachers' Choice, 2005), and the popular Jimmy's Boa series. Her awards include ALANotable Children's Book, IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and several Junior Literary Guild Selections. She lives in Bernardsville, New Jersey. E.B. Lewis is the acclaimed illustrator of numerous award-winning picture books, including the 2005 Caldecott Honor Book, Coming On Home Soon. He teaches illustration at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and is a member of the Society of Illustrators in New York City. He lives in Folsom, New Jersey.

The Earth teemed with life of all kinds, and many besides man had intelligence and the gift of speech. But chaos ruled. And violence. And despair. Then, in the Valley of the Dead, Sheen first entered the world, and all of the life would bend to the might of the Supreme One before the final push to the stars.

The plot could have been inspired by Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies, but unlike Waugh's novel – which parodies the era of the ‘Bright Young Things’ – The Mistress of Mayfair is a real-life story of scandal, greed, corruption and promiscuity at the heart of 1920s and ’30s high society, focusing on the wily, willful socialite Doris Delevingne and her doomed relationship with the gossip columnist Valentine Browne, Viscount Castlerosse. Marrying each other in pursuit of the finer things in life, their unlikely union was tempestuous from the off, rocked by affairs (with a whole host of society figures, including Cecil Beaton, Diana Mitford and Winston Churchill, amongst others) on both sides, and degenerated into one of London’s bitterest, and most talked about, divorce battles. In this compelling new book, Lyndsy Spence follows the rise and fall of their relationship, exploring their decadent society lives in revelatory detail and offering new insight into some of the mid twentieth century’s most prominent figures.

Seventeen-year-old Ruby Thomas, newly responsible for her two young nieces after a devastating tragedy, is determined to keep her family safe in the vast, swirling world of 1920s New York City. She’s got street smarts, boundless determination, and one unusual skill: the ability to throw a ball as hard as the greatest pitchers in a baseball-mad city. From Coney Island sideshows to the brand-new Yankee Stadium, Diamond Ruby chronicles the extraordinary life and times of a girl who rises from utter poverty to the kind of renown only the Roaring Twenties can bestow. But her fame comes with a price, and Ruby must escape a deadly web of conspiracy and threats from Prohibition rumrunners, the Ku Klux Klan, and the gangster underworld. Diamond Ruby “is the exciting tale of a forgotten piece of baseball’s heritage, a girl who could throw with the best of them. A real page-turner, based closely on a true story” (Kevin Baker, author of Strivers Row).