Reading|Local Event
Whitelam Books to Host Author Christopher C. Gorham at Monthly Nonfiction Book Club
Event Details
Whitelam Books is excited to welcome author Christopher C. Gorham to our nonfiction book club on Thursday, June 11 at 7:00PM. Our monthly drop-in nonfiction book club will be discussing Christopher’s book The Confidante.
This event is free and open to the public – all are welcome! Whitelam Books is located in downtown Reading at 610 Main Street, near the intersection of Haven Street and Main Street.
About the event:
Join us for a special nonfiction book club meeting as we host author Christopher C. Gorham and discuss his book The Confidante. The Confidante is the first-ever biography of Anna Marie Rosenberg, the Hungarian Jewish immigrant who became FDR’s closest advisor during World War II and whose influence on American history, from the New Deal to the Cold War and beyond, has never before been told.
As Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s special envoy to Europe in World War II she went where the president couldn’t go. She was among the first Allied women to enter a liberated concentration camp, and stood in the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s mountain retreat, days after its capture. Though Anna Rosenberg emerged from modest immigrant beginnings with only a high school education, she was the real power behind national policies critical to America winning the war and prospering afterward. Astonishingly, her story remains largely forgotten.
Rosenberg advanced from a career in public relations in 1920s Manhattan to become FDR’s unofficial adviser, and soon wielded enormous influence—no less potent for being subtle. Roosevelt dubbed her “my Mrs. Fix-It.” Her extraordinary career continued after his death as she fought tirelessly for causes from racial integration to women’s equality to national health care.
The Confidante explores who gets to be at the forefront of history, and why. Rosenberg’s position as “the power behind,” combined with her status as an immigrant and a Jewish woman, served to diminish her importance. In this inspiring, impeccably researched, and revelatory book, Christopher C. Gorham at last affords Anna Rosenberg the recognition she so richly deserves.