The Glory Cloak
From childhood, Susan Gray and her cousin Louisa May Alcott have shared a safe, insular world of
outdoor adventures and grand amateur theater — a world that begins to evaporate with the outbreak
of the Civil War. Frustrated with sewing uniforms and wrapping bandages, the two women journey to
Washington, D.C.'s Union Hospital to volunteer as nurses. Nothing has prepared them for the horrors
of this grueling experience. There they meet the remarkable Clara Barton — the legendary Angel of
the Battlefield — and she becomes their idol and mentor. Soon one wounded soldier begins to
captivate and puzzle them all — a man who claims to be a blacksmith, but whose appearance and sharp
intelligence suggest he might not be who he says he is.
Through the Civil War and its chaotic aftermath to the apex of Louisa's fame as the author of Little Women and Lincoln's appointment of Clara to the job of finding and naming the war's missing and dead, this novel is ultimately the story of friendship between women — women who broke the mold society set for them, while still reckoning with betrayal, love, and forgiveness.
I Know Just What You Mean
Pulitzer prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman and novelist-journalist Patricia O'Brien provide a
thoughtful, deeply personal look at the enduring bonds of friendship between women. Friends for
twenty-seven years, they have served as confessors and advisers to each other during romantic,
career, and child-raising crises, and have shopped together, laughed together, and enjoyed a bond
unlike any other.
Drawing on interviews with numerous women, the authors take readers into the heart of "the place where women do the work of their lives, the growing, the understanding, the reflection," and illuminate both the fragility and strength of relationships that are irreplaceable lifelines.
