2009's Bestselling Celebrity Books
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From Bill O'Reilly to Bob Barker, the year's 15 bestselling memoirs of movie stars, TV personalities, and the rich and famous. Rankings provided by Nielsen BookScan.
I Was an Astor Trial Juror
Philip Bump, a technology and communications consultant in New York City, served for six months as a juror in the case of the People of the State of New York vs. Anthony Marshall and Francis Morrissey. He writes a column, 'The Wayback Machine,' for Mediate.com. Mr. Bump lives in Manhattan with his wife, China, and his dog, Lucy.
For six months, I was sequestered with 11 other jurors to decide the fate of Brooke Astor's son, Anthony Marshall. Inside the fraught jury deliberations.
Inside the Astor Verdict
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
Brooke Astor's son and his lawyer have been handed a guilty verdict, but Ralph Gardner Jr. still can't crack the trial's central mystery: What made them think they'd get away with defrauding a New York social icon?
The Astor Trial's Final Days
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
As closing arguments get under way, the attorneys in the epic trial fire their parting shots, and try to weave four months of testimony into a narrative for the exhausted jury.
The Nurse Who Saw It All
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
Could Pearline Noble, who dubbed the Marshalls "Miss Piggy" and "the golden retriever," help get Brooke Astor's son Anthony off the hook by painting his wife as a villain?
Brooke Astor's $60 Million Signature
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
The lawyers were on trial this week in the Brooke Astor case, as her son's lawyers defended their apparent credulity about her state of mind before signing away her fortune.
What the Butler Saw
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
There are no secrets from the servants. After weeks of celebrity witnesses, Brooke Astor's maid and butler take the stand. Ralph Gardner Jr. reports.
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Gerald Posner is The Daily Beast's Chief Investigative Reporter. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.
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