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Nina Burleigh

Born: in Chicago, Illinois
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Burleigh was born in Chicago. She has a Master's degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago, and a Master's in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Biography: Nina Burleigh is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of six books. Her journalism career began by covering the Illinois Statehouse in Springfield, Illinois for the Associated Press. Today, she writes ''The Bombshell'' column at ''The New York Observer'' and has written for numerous publications including ''Rolling Stone'', ''Businessweek'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Time'', ''New York'' and ''The New York Times''. Burleigh currently resides in New York and is a an adjunct professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and has lectured around the United States, in Italy, and in Mexico.


Awards:
  • In 2008, ''Mirage'' was selected as ''The New York Times'' as an editors' choice and won the Society of Women Educators' Award.

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Email: Burleigh
Website: http://www.ninaburleigh.com/
Nina Burleigh on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=nina+burleigh


Selected Titles

A very private woman :
ISBN: 0553380516 OCLC: 42671545

Bantam Books, New York : 1999.

As the wife of a top CIA official and mistress to President John F. Kennedy, Mary Meyer "knew things." Was that why she was murdered? Journalist Nina Burleigh attempts to answer this question as she explores Meyer's links to such notables as spymaster James Angleton and LSD guru Timothy Leary in this fascinating account of the life and death of a very private woman.--From publisher description.

Mirage :
ISBN: 9780060597689 OCLC: 149630713

Harper, New York : ©2007.

Two centuries ago, only the most reckless Europeans dared traverse the Middle East. Its history and peoples were the subject of myth and speculation--and no region aroused greater interest than Egypt. It was not until 1798, when an unlikely band of scientific explorers traveled from Paris to the Nile Valley, that Westerners received their first real glimpse of what lay beyond the Mediterranean. Under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte, a small corps of Paris's brightest left the safety of their laboratories, studios, and classrooms to embark into the unknown--some never to see French shores again. Over 150 astronomers, mathematicians, naturalists, physicists, doctors, chemists, engineers, botanists, artists--even a poet and a musicologist--accompanied Napoleon's troops into Egypt. They approached the land not as colonizers, but as experts in their fields of scholarship, meticulously categorizing and collecting their finds, and secured their place in history as the world's earliest-known archaeologists.--From publisher description.

  Mirage :
ISBN: 9781415945162 OCLC: 191806616

Books on Tape, New York : 2007.

Under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Army, a small and little-known corps of Paris's brightest intellectual lights left the safety of their laboratories, studios, and classrooms to embark on a thirty-day crossing into the unknown--some never to see French shores again. Over 150 astronomers, mathematicians, naturalists, physicists, doctors, chemists, engineers, botanists, artists--even a poet and a musicologist--accompanied Napoleon's troops into Egypt. Carrying pencils instead of swords, specimen jars instead of field guns, these highly accomplished men participated in the first large-scale interaction between Europeans and Muslims of the modern era. And many lived to tell the tale.

The fatal gift of beauty :
ISBN: 0307588599 OCLC: 792747221

Broadway Paperbacks ; New York : 2012.

The stranger and the statesman :
ISBN: 0060002417 OCLC: 52431023

Morrow, New York : ©2003.

"In 1829, a wealthy English naturalist named James Smithson left his library, mineral collection, and entire fortune to the "United States of America, to found ... an establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men"--Even though he had never visited the United States or known any Americans. In this book, Burleigh pieces together the reclusive benefactor's life, beginning with his origins in the splendidly dissipated eighteenth-century aristocracy as the Paris-born bastard son of the first Duke of Northumberland and a wild adventuress who preserved for her son a fortune through gall and determination." "After Smithson's death, nineteenth-century American politicans were given the task of securing his half-million dollars - the equivalent today of fifty million - and then trying to determine how to increase and diffuse knowledge from the muddy, brawling new city of Washington. Burleigh discloses how Smithson's bequest was nearly lost due to fierce battles among many clashing Americans - Southern slavers, state's rights advocates, nation-builders, corrupt frontiersmen, and Anglophobes who argued over whether a gift from an Englishman should even be accepted. She also reveals the efforts of the unsung heroes, mainly former president John Quincy Adams, whose tireless efforts finally saw Smithson's curious notion realized in 1846, with a castle housing the United States' first and greatest cultural and scientific establishment."--Jacket.

Unholy business :
ISBN: 0061458457 OCLC: 191930801

Smithsonian Books/Collins, New York : ©2008.

In 2002, an ancient limestone box called the James Ossuary was trumpeted on front pages as the first material evidence of the existence of Jesus Christ. Today it is exhibit A in a forgery trial involving millions of dollars worth of high-end Biblical-era relics, which could lead to the incarceration of some very wealthy men and embarrass major international institutions, including the British Museum and Sotheby's. Set in Israel, with its 30,000 archaeological digs crammed with biblical-era artifacts, and full of colorful characters--scholars, evangelicals, detectives, and millionaire collectors--this book tells the story of what Israeli authorities have called "the fraud of the century." It takes readers into the murky world of Holy Land relic dealing, from the back alleys of Jerusalem's Old City to New York's Fifth Avenue, and reveals biblical archaeology as it is pulled apart by religious believers on one side and scientists on the other.--From publisher description.

 

 

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