February 2, 2014 (REVISED April 23, 2014) "Being a Rockefeller" Is Subject of Book Discussion

Growing up as the youngest of six children with 22 cousins, Eileen Rockefeller learned in childhood that great wealth and fame could open almost any door, but they could not buy a sense of personal worth. Navigating the myriad feelings others harbored about her last name – adulation, judgment, envy and endless curiosity – contributed to her sense of isolation and loneliness as well as her acquired skill in emotional intelligence.

Eileen Rockefeller will discuss and sign her new book, “Being a Rockefeller: Becoming Myself, A Memoir” (Blue Rider Press/Penguin, 2013) on Friday, May 2, at noon in the Montpelier Room, located on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. This Books & Beyond event, sponsored by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, is free and open to the public; no tickets are required.

As a teenager, Rockefeller lived at a farm-based school in the Adirondack Mountains, which gave her a life-long zest for nature, health and environmental sustainability. As a young woman, an extraordinary meeting with Georgia O’Keeffe helped give her the courage to pursue her own path. Inspired by her mentor, Norman Cousins (a pioneering author on the healing power of laughter), she played a pivotal role in legitimizing the field of mind-body connections in health and disease. She later introduced Daniel Goleman to the subject of his best-selling book, “Emotional Intelligence.” Together with several others, they founded a movement to teach social and emotional learning in schools.

Rockefeller is the great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and the youngest child of David and Peggy Rockefeller. With her new memoir, she shares her stories with disarming openness, connecting the extraordinary experience of being a Rockefeller to the universal experience of finding identity and purpose.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs, publications and exhibitions. Many of the Library’s rich resources can be accessed through its website at www.loc.gov.

The Library of Congress Center for the Book, established by Congress in 1977 to “stimulate public interest in books and reading,” is a national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages through its affiliated state centers, collaborations with nonprofit reading- promotion partners and through the Young Readers Center and the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress. For more information, visit read.gov.