Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy

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In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be heard and read in this deluxe, illustrated book and 8-CD set.

Shortly after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband's legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy's wishes.

The resulting eight and a half hours of material comprises a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era, providing fresh insights on the many significant people and events that shaped JFK's presidency but also shedding new light on the man behind the momentous decisions. Here are JFK's unscripted opinions on a host of revealing subjects, including his thoughts and feelings about his brothers Robert and Ted, and his take on world leaders past and present, giving us perhaps the most informed, genuine, and immediate portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy we shall ever have. Mrs. Kennedy's urbane perspective, her candor, and her flashes of wit also give us our clearest glimpse into the active mind of a remarkable First Lady.

In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing these beautifully restored recordings on CDs with accompanying transcripts. Introduced and annotated by renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss, these interviews will add an exciting new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of President Kennedy and his time and make the past come alive through the words and voice of an eloquent eyewitness to history.

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Jackie After O: One Remarkable Year When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Defied Expectations and Rediscovered Her Dreams

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Former Boston Globe reporter Tina Cassidy delivers a remarkable account of one year in the life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, America’s favorite first lady and an international icon. 1975 was a year of monumental changes for Jackie: it was the year she lost her second husband, shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, saved one of New York City’s cultural landmarks at Grand Central Station, and found her true calling—not as a powerful man’s wife or the mother of future leaders, but as a woman of the workforce with a keen mind and a dedication to excellence. Readers of Christopher Andersen’s Jackie After Jack and Pamela Clarke Keogh’s Jackie Style will find no better look at the intimate world of America’s Queen of Camelot than Tina Cassidy’s Jackie After O.

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The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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Timed to the publication of the author+s new illustrated children+s book, A Family of Poems, the national bestseller is now available in a specially priced gift editionJacqueline Kennedy Onassis loved literature, especially poetry. -Once you can express yourself,+ she wrote, +you can tell the world what you want from it+All the changes in the world, for good or evil, were first brought about by words.+ Now, Caroline Kennedy shares her mother+s favorite poems and the worlds behind her strong belief in the power of literature. A wonderful volume for reading aloud or by yourself, a meaningful gift or keepsake, The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis offers an intimate view of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis+ world, and a poignant glimpse into her heart.

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America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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Fresh from her well-received life of Queen Elizabeth II, the English historian and biographer Sarah Bradford turns her hand to America's own answer to royalty, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Painstakingly detailed, impressively fair, the result is the most definitive account yet of a woman who captured the imagination of the American public like no First Lady before or after her. Bradford seems to have interviewed almost everyone who had ever been intimate with Onassis, including George Plimpton, Gore Vidal, Joan Kennedy, and even a few ex-lovers. Most notably of all, Jackie's sister Lee Radziwill speaks with unexpected frankness about the mixture of rivalry and affection that marked their relationship since childhood. Jackie-lovers, take note: this is no hagiography, and its subject certainly comes off as no saint. As gracious as this American icon could be, she also had moments of coldness and even greed, including a particularly shocking moment by the bedside of Ari Onassis's dying son. Yet, in the end, non-airbrushed anecdotes like these only serve to make this most private of public figures even more fascinating. Jackie was, as Bradford writes, "a complex woman of many facets, concealed insecurities and intricate defense mechanisms, a strong urge toward the limelight contrasting with a desire for privacy and concealment.... Behind the mask of beauty and fame lay a shrewd mind, a ruthless judgment of people, antennae finely turned to any sign of pretentiousness or pomposity, and a wry, even raunchy sense of humor." The figure who emerges from subsequent pages is as compelling as the heroine of any novel, and it is to Bradford's credit that she doesn't seem to have fallen completely under her subject's spell. Her approach is sympathetic, but never fawning; candid, but never sensationalistic. For those who are curious not about Jackie's glamour but about its source, America's Queen offers an unprecedented look at the flesh-and-blood woman behind the Camelot myth. --Carlotta DeWitt

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Everything Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Book: A portrait of an American icon (Everything Profiles)

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Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis-better known as Jackie O. to the tabloids, "the deb" to the Kennedy clan, and the 35th First Lady to historians-is easily one of the most recognizable Presidential wives. She remains the model of the proper American woman. But what was Jackie O. hiding behind those big, dark shades?

From her New York society upbringing to her time in the White House to her days spent as a Doubleday editor, this is the ultimate biography of a woman everyone recognized but few knew. Did you know that:

• Her first job was as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald?
• Before she started dating Jack Kennedy, she hadn't even voted in a national election?
• She was the only family member strong enough to remove Robert Kennedy from life-support measures after he was shot?
• She asked Rose Kennedy for her blessing before she married Aristotle Onassis?

She was American royalty and is now an American icon. The Everything Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Book delivers everything you always wanted to know about this captivating woman.

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Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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