Exclusive Book Excerpt | February 19, 2025
Exclusive book excerpt from Meryl Gordon’s latest triumph
The Woman Who Knew Everyone: The Power of Perle Mesta, Washington’s Most Famous Hostess
Perle Mesta was a force to be reckoned with. In her heyday, this wealthy globe-trotting Washington widow was one of the most famous women in America, garnering as much media attention as Eleanor Roosevelt. Renowned for her world-class parties featuring politicians and celebrities, she was a regular at the White House for four decades and had very close ties to three presidents—Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson.
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A pioneering supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, she was a prodigious Democratic fundraiser and rescued Harry Truman’s financially flailing 1948 campaign. In return, he named Perle as envoy to Luxembourg, only the third woman in American history to hold a diplomatic post.
In her intensely researched biography, author Meryl Gordon chronicles Perle’s lavish life and society adventures in Newport, Manhattan and Washington, while highlighting her important, but nearly forgotten contribution to American politics and the feminist movement.
Book Excerpt: The Watchdog | April 24, 2024
The Watchdog
How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two
By Steve Drummond
Winner of the 2024 Harry S. Truman Book Award
EXCERPT FROM THE WATCHDOG
Portland, Oregon, January 16, 1943
SATURDAY NIGHT WAS QUIETER THAN USUAL in war-booming Portland. A cold snap on Friday had killed two people in a storm that brought high winds and left a thin blanket of snow across the city. Temperatures were expected to sink into the low twenties.
