Free Republic

NEW YORK - Former President Carter, who already has a book coming out this fall about his post-White House years, is working on a memoir about his mother, Lillian, to be published next spring by Simon & Schuster. "Jimmy Carter has inspired millions. Its a great opportunity to meet the woman who inspired him," David Rosenthal, executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster, said Thursday in a statement. The Lillian Carter book, currently untitled, is a "loving, admiring, wry homage" to the activist and former Peace Corps volunteer widely known as the down-to-earth "Miss Lillian." According to Simon...

Lillian B. Gottschalk, who collected hundreds of antique toy cars and wrote a well-regarded book on the subject, has died. She was 84. The Westlake Village resident died July 23 at a hospital from complications of kidney failure, said her son, H. William Gottschalk, of Calabasas. Gottschalk began amassing the toys in the 1960s, inspired by her husband's vintage car collection. "Her first one was a cast-iron car, and it cost maybe 25 or 50 cents," her son told the Los Angeles Times. The collection eventually included buses, taxis, ambulances, and tractors made of everything from paper to lead. Some...