Better known and more admired in the 1920s and '30s than any politician, movie star, or royal family member, Suzanne Lenglen, lionized by Frenchmen as "The Goddess," and Helen Wills, called "Queen Helen" or simply "The American Girl," revolutionized tennis with their power and grace and beauty, and in the process virtually invented the concept of celebrity athlete. This superb dual biography--the first of either player to appear in English--follows their careers from the time they first set foot on a tennis court through their ascent and descent on the international circuit. Suzanne Lenglen was introduced to the game at age eleven by her father, an overzealous French businessman who is credited with adapting tennis to women's play. "Papa" Lenglen trained his daughter rigorously and throughout her career was her mentor and coach, providing sips of cognac at key moments and watching her every move with a stern parental eye. Lenglen, known by her trademark white ermine cape and diamond-studded headband, became the first non-English-speaking woman to win the Wimbledon singles championship--a title she held six times between 1919 and 1925. But to her fellow Frenchmen she was more than a great athlete: she was a symbol of resurgent French pride after the costly bloodshed of World War I, a national hero on the level of Joan of Arc. Helen Wills beat Lenglen's Wimbledon record although she lost the only match in which they came face to face. In 1938, Wills set a record of eight Wimbledon wins--unparalleled until Martina Navratilova tied it last year. Wills dominated women's tennis as few athletes in any sport have done, winning every singles match she entered from 1926 to 1933. Like Lenglen, Wills was introduced to tennis by her father and played a "man's game." But there the similarities end. Whereas Lenglen was homely and prone to nervous fits, Wills was a great American beauty whose coolness on the court earned her the name "Little Miss Poker face." She was America's heartthrob, a "California girl" whose health and good looks defined the American "New Woman." Engelmann brilliantly brings to life not only the women, their families, and friends, but the whole international sports world of the era. Filled with anecdotes about tennis clubs and the famous of the day--including Charlie Chaplin, Joseph Kennedy, and Bill Tilden--it is at once sports history, social history, and entertaining biography.

The Goddess and the American Girl: The Story of Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills

Biographies & Memoirs

Engelmann, Larry

Community & Culture

Oxford University Press

CBS camera-man Mike Marriott was on the last plane to escape from Danang before it fell in the spring of 1975. The scene was pure chaos: thousands of panic-stricken Vietnamese storming the airliner, soldiers shooting women and children to get aboard first, refugees being trampled to death. Marriott remembers standing at the door of the aft stairway, which was gaping open as the plane took off. "There were five Vietnamese below me on the steps. As the nose of the aircraft came up, because of the force and speed of the aircraft, the Vietnamese began to fall off. One guy managed to hang on for a while, but at about 600 feet he let go and just floated off--just like a skydiver.... What was going through my head was, I've got to survive this, and at the same time, I've got to capture this on film. This is the start of the fall of a country. This country is gone. This is history, right here and now." In Tears Before the Rain, a stunning oral history of the fall of South Vietnam, Larry Engelmann has gathered together the testimony of seventy eyewitnesses (both American and Vietnamese) who, like Mike Marriott, capture the feel of history "right here and now." We hear the voices of nurses, pilots, television and print media figures, the American Ambassador Graham Martin, the CIA station chief Thomas Polgar, Vietnamese generals, Amerasian children, even Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers. Through this extraordinary range of perspectives, we experience first-hand the final weeks before Saigon collapsed, from President Thieu's cataclysmic withdrawal from Pleiku and Kontum, (Colonel Le Khac Ly, put in command of the withdrawal, recalls receiving the order: "I opened my eyes large, large, large. I thought I wasn't hearing clearly") to the last-minute airlift of Americans from the embassy courtyard and roof ("I remember when the bird ascended," says Stuart Herrington, who left on one of the last helicopters, "It banked, and there was the Embassy, the parking lot, the street lights. And the silence"). Touching, heroic, harrowing, and utterly unforgettable, these dramatic narratives illuminate one of the central events of modern history. "It was like being at Waterloo," concludes Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes. "It was so important, so historical. And today it is still very obvious that we Americans have not recovered from Vietnam....Nothing else in my lifetime was as important as that--as important as Vietnam."

Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

History

Asia

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Tears Before The Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

Da Capo

In this stunning history, soldiers and civilians, both American and Vietnamese, tell what it was like in the spring of 1975 as Hanoi carried out its final, successful offensive against the Republic of Vietnam. Generals, ambassadors, pilots, marines, politicians, doctors, seamen, flight attendants, journalists, children, and even Vietcong soldiers describe the growing demoralization, panic, and chaos as the collapse gained momentum. American survivors recall with raw emotions the escape of the last airliner out of Danang, the chilling helicopter airlift from the U.S. embassy roof in Saigon, and the painful abandonment of their South Vietnamese allies. Former boat people relate their hair-raising encounters with Thai pirates; and in a new postscript, an American government official describes the resettlement of 130,000 Vietnamese refugees in America over the ensuing months. Touching, heroic, and unforgettable, these dramatic narratives illuminate the closing act of one of the central events of modern history.

Da Capo Press

Emily Wu’s account of her childhood under Mao opens on her third birthday, as she meets her father for the first time in a concentration camp. A well-known academic, her father had been designated an “ultra-rightist” and class enemy. As a result, Wu’s family would be torn apart and subjected to unending humiliation and abuse. Wu recounts this hidden holocaust in which millions of children and their families died. Feather in the Storm is an unforgettable story of the courage of one child in a quicksand world of endless terror.

Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos

Wu, Emily

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

“It is my hope that this memoir may serve as a reminder and a memorial to all of the children who were lost in the Chaos,” Emily Wu writes at the beginning of Feather in the Storm. Told from a child’s and young girl’s point of view, Wu’s spellbinding account–which spans nineteen years of growing up during the chaos of China’s Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution–opens on her third birthday as she meets her father for the first time in a concentration camp. A well-known academic and translator of American literary classics, her father had been designated an “ultra-rightist” and class enemy. As a result, Wu’s family would be torn apart and subjected to an unending course of humiliation, hardship and physical and psychological abuse. Wu tells her story of this hidden Holocaust, in which millions of children and their families died, through a series of vivid vignettes that brilliantly–and innocently–evoke the cruelty and brutality of what was taking place daily in the world around her. From watching helplessly as the family apartment is ransacked and her father carted off by former students to be publicly beaten, to her own rape and the hard labor and primitive rituals of life in a remote peasant village, Wu is persecuted as a child of the damned. Wu’s narrative is poignant, disturbing and unsentimental, and, despite the nature of what it describes, is filled with the resiliency of youth–and even humor. That Emily Wu survived is remarkable. That she is able to infuse her story with such immediacy, power and unexpected beauty is the greatness of this book. Feather in the Storm is an unforgettable story of the courage and silent suffering of one small child set in a quicksand world of endless terror.

Pantheon

Daughter of China: A True Story of Love and Betrayal

Xu, Meihong

John Wiley&Sons, Inc.

The critically acclaimed memoir of a forbidden love affair in communist China "An important work."-San Francisco Chronicle "Riveting."-Kirkus Reviews "This memoir is a must-read."-San Jose Mercury News Now in paperback, here is the stunning true tale of a remarkable woman trained as an elite soldier in the Chinese army, her forbidden love for an American, and her seemingly impossible escape-with his help-from the nation to which she had pledged her life. An astonishing testament to the enduring resilience of love and the human spirit in the face of even the most oppressive, hopeless conditions, Daughter of China offers a compelling look at life inside the rigid walls of Communist China, revealing in fascinating detail Meihong Xu's inculcation into the system-a process so effective that she would willingly betray a friend or family member to prove her loyalty. Written with clear-eyed candor and stark eloquence, Daughter of China is at once a timeless, deeply moving story of a prohibited love affair and a dramatic depiction of life under Chinese Communism.

Leaders & Notable People

wiley

Tears Before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

Military

Random House Value Publishing

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Engelmann, Larry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Engelmann, Larry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Engelmann, Larry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Goddess and the American Girl: The Story of Suzanne Lenglen and Helen Wills

Tears before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

Tears Before The Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

Tears Before The Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam

Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos

Feather in the Storm: A Childhood Lost in Chaos

Daughter of China: A True Story of Love and Betrayal

Daughter of China: A True Story of Love and Betrayal

Daughter of China: A True Story of Love and Betrayal

Tears Before the Rain: An Oral History of the Fall of South Vietnam