leader Stephane

My Odyssey
$35.95

It is quite fitting that on the 60th anniversary of the amazing rescue of every single one of Bulgaria's 50,000 Jews, Stephane Groueff, the internationally renowned author of "The Manhattan Project" and seven other books, who also happens to be Bulgarian, has published a long-awaited and elegantly written memoir. Parallel to the plight of the lucky Bulgarian Jews, Groueff was also saved and not from the Nazis but rather from their successors, the Bulgarian Communists who, along with the tacit assistance of Roosevelt, and with the overt muscle of the Soviet army quickly over-ran Bulgaria at the tail end of World War II. Luckily, at that time young Groueff was safely studying law in Geneva and was spared the unlawfully brutal arrest and execution of his father Pavel, secretary to the former monarch King Boris, at the bloody hands of the Communist post-war People's Tribunal Courts. These bloodthirsty kangaroo courts, in the new spirit of brotherhood and communitas, handed down sentences of execution for 2,730 home-grown enemies of the newly improved, more fraternal People's State of Bulgaria. Perhaps in appreciation for Bulgaria's refusal to send troops against any other country in WWII including their own patrons, the Soviet Union, the newly empowered Bulgarian Communists rewarded their Bulgarian brothers by killing an extraordinarily high number of them. In stark contrast, the People's State of Romania executed only four of their own citizens even though Romanian troops fought directly against the Soviet Union. Only 11 of Germany's wartime leaders were sentenced to death at the Nuremberg Trials while Japan sentenced seven. Over the next 45 years tens of thousands of Bulgarians were executed or persecuted in forced labor camps as the Soviets securely handcuffed geo-strategically important Bulgaria allowing no one except certain Communists to travel freely outside the country.

With the remaining Groueff family painfully trapped in this new Communist paradise, which specifically for them was closer to hell, young Stephane is saddled with survivor guilt. But he fights through his inner turmoil courageously, refusing to lose hope for his beloved family and country. Individually powerless to change the new Balkan order and unable to contact his family behind this recently descended curtain of iron, he is nonetheless moved to action. After Geneva, he goes to Paris, where he helps found a number of organizations dedicated to freeing Bulgaria and making her plight known to the free world. Next is Munich, where he starts the Bulgarian Desk at Radio Free Europe. Throughout his memoir we are also privileged to meet other interesting exiles as Groueff paints a strikingly incisive portrait of the human drama unfolding in the post-Communist miasma. Yet while this memoir is partially a narrative of longing and loss, displacement, and powerlessness to effect national change, it is also an inspiring story of impressive personal and professional success. Written with a self-effacing sense of humor and in a sophisticated yet elegantly modest style, we discover that Groueff was involved in the founding of the internationally successful magazine "Paris Match," where he quickly rose to New York bureau chief. During an illustrious career as a journalist, Groueff hobnobbed with the international jet set, and has counted luminaries as diverse as George Soros, William Buckley, Henry Fonda, and members of European royalty as friends. His polymath interests also led to his writing books on topics such as the making of the atomic bomb, the mafia, oceanography, and the cosmos, as well as the famous biography of Bulgaria's wartime monarch King Boris, "The Crown of Thorns." Tall, urbane, and dashing with piercing blue eyes, Groueff has lived an exciting life and his adventures leap from the pages.Without giving too much away, one favorite episode features a few compatriots at "Paris Match" conspiring to get the Communist Government of Bulgaria to do something. But in trying to exact concessions from the recalcitrant dictator Todor Zhivkov, the journalist Dominique Lapierre is subjected to hours of Zhivkov's pontifications on Communist achievements and steel production figures. In another episode, the young and penniless ���migr��� is a guest at the stately home of one of the heirs to the Guinness beer fortune. Groueff relates his initiation into the world of the very rich by describing his hilarious daily dealings with a pompous valet who ritualistically comments on his only suit while constantly ironing his two shirts. And in the early days of Fidel Castro's reign, Groueff and his photographer comically chase the office-less Castro all over Havana for an interview while dealing with Castro's supporting cast of motley characters. Along with these comic scenes are those of danger with Groueff dodging bullets in the Far East, braving the extreme temperatures of Antarctica, or going hundreds of meters underwater in the early days of aquatic exploration. In poignant counterpoint to his worldly accomplishments, the otherworldly life in the Eastern bloc continuously torments Groueff. Much of the strength and meaning of this memoir resides in the poignant expression of this double consciousness. Despite Groueff's many successes as an active political exile, his tender, compassionate yet frustrating attempts to deal with the inhumanity that the Communists have wrought on family, friends and country serve as an impassioned plea for human rights and political tolerance. This memoir is a moving testimonial of the displaced ���migr��� generation of post-World War II--the "lost generation" of 1945-1990 and it is an extraordinary chronicle of life in a period when the West prospered while political injustices stalled progress and ruined lives in the Eastern bloc. At the same time, it is the story of a man in love with his country. Rising above national distinctions, this could easily be the story of a dispossessed Pole, Czech, Hungarian, or Cuban. Groueff's work invigorates by its example of success in the face of adversity; the lessons of a generation live deeply and richly in this energetic memoir which should be required reading for everyone who dares forget the Communist era.

Escott Reid: Diplomat And Scholar
$65.00
Jack Granatstein introduces Reid and the forces that shaped his progressive idealism in the 1920s and 1930s. Hector Mackenzie assesses Reid's contribution to the creation of the United Nations in the mid-1940s, while David Haglund and Stephane Roussel examine Reid's crucial role in the negotiations to establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Greg Donaghy, Bruce Muirhead, and Alyson King write, respectively, about Reid as high commissioner to India, as an important influence on World Bank policy in the early 1960s, and, finally, as founding principal of York University's Glendon College.

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
$9.95
Milla Jovovich looks fantastic and so is her acting. I've never seen a movie that is so believable. The supporting cast is absolutely the best I've seen. I've never heard about most of them but they are great and along with Mill Jovovich make this the best movie I have ever seen. Do yourself a favor and watch this movie. After seeing this by accident I bought all of Milla Jovovich's movies {They, along with all other movies don't come close to this Masterpiece].