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By Angel Au-Yeung, David Jeans. 2023
A Financial Times best business book of 2023In 1998, at the age of 24, Tony Hsieh sold his first company…
to Microsoft for $265 million.In 2009, at the age of 35, he sold his e-commerce company, Zappos, to Amazon for $1.2 billion.In 2020, at the age of 46, he died.Tony Hsieh revolutionized both the tech world and corporate culture. He was a business visionary. He was also a man in search of happiness. So why did it all go so wrong?Tony Hsieh’s first successful venture was in middle school, selling personalized buttons. At Harvard, he made a profit compiling and selling study guides. From there, he went on to build the billion-dollar online shoe empire of Zappos.The secret to his success? Making his employees happy.At its peak, Zappos’s employee-friendly culture was so famous across the tech industry that it inspired copycats and earned a cult following. Then Hsieh moved the Zappos headquarters to Las Vegas, where he personally funded a nine-figure campaign to revitalize the city’s historic downtown area. But as Hsieh fell deeper into his struggles with mental health and drug addiction, the people making up his inner circle began changing from friends to enablers.Drawing on hundreds of interviews with a wide range of people whose lives Hsieh touched, journalists Angel Au-Yeung and David Jeans craft a rich portrait of a man who was plagued by his eternal search for happiness and ultimately succumbed to his own demons.By Candice Bergen. 2015
In this New York Times bestseller, acclaimed actress Candice Bergen “shows how to do a memoir right...The self-possessed, witty, and…
down-to-earth voice that made Bergen’s first memoir a hit when it was published in 1984 has only been deepened by life’s surprises” (The New York Times Book Review).“Candice Bergen is unflinchingly honest” (The Washington Post), and in A Fine Romance she describes her first marriage at age thirty-four to famous French director Louis Malle; her overpowering love for her daughter, Chloe; the unleashing of her inner comic with Murphy Brown; her trauma over Malle’s death; her joy at finding new love; and her pride at watching Chloe blossom. In her decidedly nontraditional marriage to the insatiably curious Louis, Bergen takes readers on world travels to the sets where each made films. Pregnant with Chloe at age thirty-nine, this mature primigravida also recounts a journey through motherhood that includes plundering the Warner Bros. costume closets for Halloween getups and never leaving her ever-expanding menagerie out of the fun. She offers priceless, behind-the-scenes looks at Murphy Brown, from caterwauling with Aretha Franklin to the surreal experience of becoming headline news when Dan Quayle took exception to her character becoming a single mother. Bergen tackles familiar rites of passage with moving honesty: the rigors of caring for a spouse in his final illness, getting older, and falling in love again after she was tricked into a blind date. By the time the last page is turned, “we’re all likely to be wishing Bergen herself—funny, insightful, self-deprecating, flawed (and not especially concerned about that), and slugging her way through her older years with bemused determination—was living next door” (USA TODAY).By Cat Marnell. 2017
From the New York Times bestselling author and former beauty editor Cat Marnell, a &“vivid, maddening, heartbreaking, very funny, chaotic&”…
(The New York Times) memoir of prescription drug addiction and self-sabotage, set in the glamorous world of fashion magazines and downtown nightclubs.At twenty-six, Cat Marnell was an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America—and that&’s all most people knew about her. But she hid a secret life. She was a prescription drug addict. She was also a &“doctor shopper&” who manipulated Upper East Side psychiatrists for pills, pills, and more pills; a lonely bulimic who spent hundreds of dollars a week on binge foods; a promiscuous party girl who danced barefoot on banquets; a weepy and hallucination-prone insomniac who would take anything—anything—to sleep. This is a tale of self-loathing, self-sabotage, and yes, self-tanner. It begins at a posh New England prep school—and with a prescription for the Attention Deficit Disorder medication Ritalin. It continues to New York, where we follow Marnell&’s amphetamine-fueled rise from intern to editor through the beauty departments of NYLON, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and Lucky. We see her fight between ambition and addiction and how, inevitably, her disease threatens everything she worked so hard to achieve. From the Condé Nast building to seedy nightclubs, from doctors&’ offices and mental hospitals, Marnell &“treads a knife edge between glamorizing her own despair and rendering it with savage honesty.…with the skill of a pulp novelist&” (The New York Times Book Review) what it is like to live in the wild, chaotic, often sinister world of a young female addict who can&’t say no. Combining &“all the intoxicating intrigue of a thriller and yet all the sobering pathos of a gifted writer&’s true-life journey to recover her former health, happiness, ambitions, and identity&” (Harper&’s Bazaar), How to Murder Your Life is mesmerizing, revelatory, and necessary.By Jerelyn Johnson, David Johnston. 2024
Juan Mayorga: Six Plays is the first collection of Spanish dramatist Juan Mayorga’s plays in English, offering a compelling insight…
into the extraordinary range and quality of one of the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinctive voices.The six plays are presented in translations that are both readable and eminently performable. Each is accompanied by a translator’s note that discusses the strategies and decisions used in making the play performable in English as well as the play’s key themes. The book also features an introduction to Mayorga’s life and work, emphasising his commitment to plays whose range of forms and innovative theatre-making practice re-imagines the nature of theatre and performance each time anew. The plays themselves are brilliant treatises on our times, inspiring conversation about and critical examination of our troubled world.These scripts will be of interest to professional practitioners but are no less suited to both university and amateur settings, making this the definitive collection of Mayorga’s work in English for theatremakers, students, and scholars.By Arman Azadi. 2024
Arman is just a boy when he is forced to leave his home and embark on the most extraordinary journey.…
Separated from family and friends, he travels across mountains, land and sea to find refuge. After encountering bandits, war and wolves, and surviving a hazardous boat crossing, he arrives at Dover, clinging to the underside of a lorry. Little did he know, his journey had just begun.Unable to speak English, Arman battles loneliness, despair and the reawakening of his traumas in this new strange place. Memories of his family haunt him. The dark clouds almost consume him. And still he persists, step-by-step.What follows is a struggle for self-understanding, and the great strength it takes to overcome the trauma we carry. Running through is the long journey to find peace, and how education is the most powerful tool to seeing one's life through new eyes.This is the unforgettable, heartfelt and transformative story, from a child who deserved to live in safety, not flee in fear. Arman's is a powerful new voice you won't forget and Across Mountains, Land and Sea the perfect book for fans of I Am Malala, Educated and Butterfly.By Beth Nguyen. 2023
Named a Best Memoir of 2023 by Oprah Daily Selected by Time , NPR, and BookPage as a Best Book…
of 2023 "This book...is what memoir writing in the hands of a caring, curious wunderkind can be." —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a powerful memoir of a mother-daughter relationship fractured by war and resettlement. At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her family fled Saigon for America. Only Beth's mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. Owner of a Lonely Heart is "a portrait of things left unsaid" ( The New York Times ), a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth's relationship with her mother. Framed by a handful of visits over the course of many years—sometimes brief, sometimes interrupted, some alone with her mother and others with the company of her sister—Beth tells an "unforgettable" ( People ) coming-of-age story that spans her childhood in the Midwest, her first meeting with her mother, and her own experience of parenthoodThis audiobook features music and special effects. An educational audiobook that helps grieving children understand what happens when we die,…
and celebrates the traditions people around the world use to honor the dead. Death is an important part of life, and yet it is one of the hardest things to talk about—for adults as well as children. Historian and museum curator Sarah Chavez is determined to create a audiobook that sparks wonder and curiosity about dying, instead of fear and shame. In this informative listen, children will marvel at the flowers different cultures use to represent death. They will find out about eco-friendly burials, learn how to wrap a mummy, and go beneath the streets of Paris to witness skull-lined catacombs! Listeners will also ride a buffalo alongside Yama, the Hindu god of death, come face-to-face with the terracotta army a Chinese emperor built to escort him to the afterlife, and party in the streets to celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico. Through these examples Sarah Chavez showcases the amazing ways humans have always revered those who have died. Full of practical tips, this book won't stop the pain of losing a loved one or a pet, but it may give young listeners ideas for different ways they can celebrate those who have passed away, and help begin the healing process. A Macmillan Audio production from Neon SquidBy Denise Chong. 2024
From the bestselling author of The Concubine&’s Children and The Girl in the Picture, a gripping story of a domestic assault…
that shocked the world, of the exercise of power and political influence, and of the Bangladeshi woman whose irrepressible spirit found light in sudden darkness.From the outside, Rumana seemed an unlikely victim of domestic abuse: married to a man of her own choosing and progressing in her career as a professor of international relations at Dhaka University. But in 2011, on return from graduate studies at the University of British Columbia, her husband attacked and blinded her in front of their young daughter. As Rumana's horrifying story garnered international headlines, and connections brought her to Vancouver in an attempt—ultimately futile—to restore her sight, her plight underscored the fact that there are no typical victims of intimate-partner violence. Denise Chong goes behind the headlines to reveal the devolution of a love story into a tale of tyranny behind closed doors, and the pursuit of justice that proved all the more elusive during the rise of social media. Out of Darkness tells a globe-spanning narrative of loyalty, perseverance and a woman&’s determination to face the future and rebuild a life with meaning.By James B. Conroy. 2023
Written with &“a cinematic sense of urgency and realism&” (Evan Osnos, National Book Award–winning author), this is the first full…
account of the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, the secret ten-day parlay in Morocco where FDR, Churchill, and their divided high command hammered out a winning strategy at the tipping point of World War II.The Devils Will Get No Rest is a &“vivid and engaging&” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) character-driven account of the Casablanca Conference of January 1943, an Anglo-American clash over military strategy that produced a winning plan when World War II could have gone either way. Churchill called it the most important Allied conclave of the war. Until now, it has never been explored in a full-length book. In a secret, no-holds-barred, ten-day debate in a Moroccan warzone, protected by British marines and elite American troops, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, George C. Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton Jr., Sir Alan Brooke, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Sir Harold Alexander, and their military peers questioned each other&’s competence, doubted each other&’s visions, and argued their way through choices that could win or lose the war. You will be treated to a master class in strategy by the legendary statesmen, generals, and admirals who overcame their differences, transformed their alliance from a necessity to a bond, forged a war-winning plan, and glimpsed the postwar world.By Ian Fritz. 2023
An &“essential&” (Kevin Maurer, #1 New York Times bestselling author) memoir of a young Air Force linguist coming-of-age in a…
war that is lost.When Ian Fritz joined the Air Force at eighteen, he did so out of necessity. He hadn&’t been accepted into colleges thanks to an indifferent high school career. He&’d too often slept through his classes as he worked long hours at a Chinese restaurant to help pay the bills for his trailer-dwelling family in Lake City, Florida. But the Air Force recognizes his potential and sends him to the elite Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Dari and Pashto, the main languages of Afghanistan. By 2011, Fritz was an airborne cryptologic linguist and one of only a tiny number of people in the world trained to do this job on low-flying gunships. He monitors communications on the ground and determines in real time which Afghans are Taliban and which are innocent civilians. This eavesdropping is critical to supporting Special Forces units on the ground, but there is no training to counter the emotional complexity that develops as you listen to people&’s most intimate conversations over the course of two tours, Fritz listens to the Taliban for hundreds of hours, all over the country night and day, in moments of peace and in the middle of battle. What he hears teaches him about the people of Afghanistan—Taliban and otherwise—the war, and himself. Fritz&’s fluency is his greatest asset to the military, yet it becomes the greatest liability to his own commitment to the cause. Both proud of his service and in despair that he is instrumental in destroying the voices that he hears, What the Taliban Told Me is a &“fraught, moving&” (Kirkus Reviews) coming-of-age memoir and a reckoning with our twenty years of war in Afghanistan.By Michaela Washburn, Joelle Peters, Carrie Costello. 2024
Michaela and Carrie worked together previously on the TYA play Water Under the BridgeAll three authors share the desire to…
challenge audiences to think about big issues in meaningful ways for young people, wanting to offer something for the next seven generations, as youth are our futureBy Ayesha Siddiqa. 2017
Pakistan occupies a paradoxical, even contradictory place in American foreign policy. Nominally a strategic ally in the war on terror,…
it is the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world. At the same time, it is run by its military and intelligence service—whose goals certainly do not always overlap with US priorities. This book offers a close look at what the rise of the military has meant for Pakistani society. Ayesha Siddiqa shows how entrenched the military has become, not just in day-to-day governance, but in the Pakistani corporate sector as well. What are the consequences of this unprecedented merging of the military and corporate sectors? What does it mean for Pakistan’s economic development—let alone for hopes of an eventual return to democracy and de-militarization? This new edition brings Siddiqa’s account fully up to date with a new preface and conclusion that emphasize the changing role of the media.By Malcolm Atkin. 2004
The Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651 was the final decisive engagement of the English Civil Wars. In this…
fascinating guide, Malcolm Atkin sets out in a graphic and easily understood way the movements of the opposing armies of Cromwell and Charles II as they approached Worcester and gives a detailed and gripping account of the deadly combat that followed. He also describes of the fate of 10,000 Scottish prisoners and retraces the route of Charles II as he made his dramatic escape.The scenes are familiar ones; the young Brylcream Boys sat at dispersal waiting for the haunting call of Scramble, lounging…
in their shirt sleeves and fur-lined boots, their leather flying helmets lying limp by their side. But what did the RAF fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain really wear, and what vital items would their kitbags have held?The casual air of the dashing pilots of Fighter Command in the Spitfire Summer of 1940 conceals a necessarily professional approach to their task of holding Hitlers Luftwaffe at bay. Therefore, each item of clothing and equipment they wore and carried had a role and a function, be it for warmth and comfort, communication, or for fighting and survival.All the objects that an RAF fighter pilot was issued with during the Battle of Britain are explored in this book in high-definition color photographs, showing everything from the differing uniforms, to headgear, personal weapons, gloves, goggles, parachute packs and the essential Mae West life jacket. Each item is fully described and its purpose and use explained.Relive Britains finest hour as never before through the actually clothing and accouterments of The Few.By Valeriy Zamulin. 2018
&“Comprehensive scholarship and convincing reasoning, enhanced by an excellent translation, place this work on a level with the best of…
David Glantz&” (Dennis Showalter, award-winning author of Patton and Rommel). This groundbreaking book examines the battle of Kursk between the Red Army and Wehrmacht, with a particular emphasis on its beginning on July 12, as the author works to clarify the relative size of the contending forces, the actual area of this battle, and the costs suffered by both sides. Valeriy Zamulin&’s study of the crucible of combat during the titanic clash at Kursk—the fighting at Prokhorovka—is now available in English. A former staff member of the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum, Zamulin has dedicated years of his life to the study of the battle of Kursk, and especially the fighting on its southern flank involving the famous attack of the II SS Panzer Corps into the teeth of deeply echeloned Red Army defenses. A product of five years of intense research into the once-secret Central Archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense, this book lays out in enormous detail the plans and tactics of both sides, culminating in the famous and controversial clash at Prokhorovka on July 12, 1943. Zamulin skillfully weaves reminiscences of Red Army and Wehrmacht soldiers and officers into the narrative of the fighting, using in part files belonging to the Prokhorovka Battlefield State Museum. Zamulin has the advantage of living in Prokhorovka, so he has walked the ground of the battlefield many times and has an intimate knowledge of the terrain. Examining the battle primarily from the Soviet side, Zamulin reveals the real costs and real achievements of the Red Army at Kursk, and especially Prokhorovka. He examines mistaken deployments and faulty decisions that hampered the Voronezh Front&’s efforts to contain the Fourth Panzer Army&’s assault, and the valiant, self-sacrificial fighting of the Red Army&’s soldiers and junior officers as they sought to slow the German advance and crush the II SS Panzer Corps with a heavy counterattack at Prokhorovka. Illustrated with numerous maps and photographs (including present-day views of the battlefield), and supplemented with extensive tables of data, Zamulin&’s book is an outstanding contribution to the growing literature on the battle of Kursk, and further demolishes many of the myths and legends that grew up around it.By Pardis Mahdavi. 2023
The untold story of generations of Middle Eastern freedom fighters—horsewomen who safeguarded an ancient breed of Caspian horse—and their efforts…
to defend their homelands from the Taliban and others seeking to destroy them."A breathtaking book that revisits nearly one hundred years of Iranian history, highlighting the power and beauty of women who refuse to be subdued.&” ―Alison Hawthorne Deming, author of A Woven WorldBook of Queens reaches back centuries to the Persian Empire and a woman disguised as a man, facing an invading army, protected only by light armor and the stallion she sat astride. Mahdavi draws a thread from past to present: from her fearless Iranian grandmother, who guided survivors of domestic violence to independent mountain colonies in Afghanistan where the women, led by a general named Mina, became their country&’s first line of defense from marauding warlords. To the female warriors who helped train and breed the horses used by US Green Berets when they touched down in October 2001, with a mission but insufficient intelligence on the ground—women whose contributions were then forgotten. Pardis Mahdavi chases the legacy of Caspian horses and the women whose lives are saved by them, drawing on decades of research, newly-discovered diaries, and exclusive military sources. Among those intersecting stories is that of American Louise Firouz, who helped bring the breed back from the brink of extinction, connecting Virginia traders to British royals to the son of the Shah. Firouz&’s life is forever changed when she meets Mahdavi&’s own family, who run an unusual smuggling operation in addition to raising horses in a wild bid for freedom.Book of Queens is an epic tale of hidden women whose communal knowledge was instrumental in saving an animal as ancient as civilization, and who were the genesis of their own liberation.By Stephen Turnbull. 2017
This history of the ninja uncovers the truth behind the image—from the exploits of medieval ninjas to their modern incarnation…
as pop culture icons. The ninja is a legendary figure in Japanese military culture, a fighter widely regarded as the world&’s greatest expert in secret warfare. The word alone conjures the image of a masked assassin dressed in black, capable of extraordinary feats of daring; a mercenary who disposes of enemies by sending sharp iron stars spinning towards them. This is, of course, a popular myth, based on exaggerations and Hollywood movies. But the truth, as Stephen Turnbull explains in Ninja, is even more fascinating. A leading expert on samurai culture, Turnbull presents an authoritative study of ninja history based on original Japanese sources, many of which have never been translated before. These include accounts of castle attacks, assassinations and espionage, as well as the last great ninja manual, which reveals the spiritual and religious ideals that were believed to lie behind the ninja&’s arts. Turnbull&’s critical examination of the ninja phenomenon ranges from undercover operations during the age of Japan&’s civil wars to the modern emergence of the superman ninja as a comic book character. The book concludes with a detailed investigation of the ninja in popular culture.By Air Commodore John Mitchell, Sean Feast. 2010
An RAF pilot who flew around the world with Winston Churchill during World War II tells his story. An…
RAF Volunteer Reserve officer, John Mitchell was mobilized on the outbreak of war—and just missed going to join a Battle Squadron in France where he would have undoubtedly been killed. Instead, he was posted to No. 58 Squadron flying Whitleys, surviving a tour of operations in 1940–41 that included ditching in the North Sea. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, he was sent to the US, becoming involved in the development of the first navigation training simulators with the famous Link Trainer factory. There, he was awarded the US Legion of Merit, signed by Harry S. Truman. Then, returning to the UK in 1942, he was personally selected to join the crew of Winston Churchill&’s private aircraft, one of the early prototype Avro Yorks called Ascalon. For two years he navigated Churchill to conferences around the world—from North Africa to Italy, the Middle East to Moscow, including the famous Teheran and Yalta conferences. He also flew &“General Lyon&” (aka His Majesty George VI) on several occasions. After the war, he enjoyed an eventful career as an air attaché, including an intelligence posting to Moscow, and was senior navigation officer for the long range exercises over the Pole in the converted Lincoln, Aries III. His is an exceptional story, told with wit and verve to military aviation historian Sean Feast, who adds authoritative and informed insights.By Georgina Scull. 2022
'A beautiful and moving reminder to appreciate life' Roxie Nafousi, author of Manifest'This book may on first glance appear to…
be about death and regrets, but is in reality about life and choices. It is warmly life-affirming ... A magnificent read that will inspire. I loved it' Sue Black 'So beautiful ... Perfectly written and judged ... A wonderful book that made me grasp life a little more firmly' Dr Chris van Tulleken A powerful, moving and hopeful book exploring what people regret most when they are dying and how this can help us lead a better life. If you were told you were going to die tomorrow, what would you regret?Ten years ago, without time to think or prepare, Georgina Scull ruptured internally. The doctors told her she could have died and, as Georgina recovered, she began to consider the life she had led and what she would have left behind.Paralysed by a fear of wasting what seemed like precious time but also fully ready to learn how to spend her second chance, Georgina set out to meet others who had faced their own mortality or had the end in sight.By Tim Keenan. 2024
This collection celebrates the opening of the Shakespeare North Playhouse (SNP). After discussion of its genesis and development by four…
people pivotal to its progress at different stages of the project, this book explores different aspects of the SNP’s purpose and functions across three broad categories: buildings and spaces, practices and performance, and community arts and education. Various chapters offer answers to fundamental questions about replica theatres, including: Why do we build them? What do they do? How do we use them? In the course of these discussions, the purposes, potential, and programming of the SNP are discussed in relation to other Globe-type replicas in the UK and beyond. Contributors to this collection analyse key academic and practice-based concerns within their fields of expertise connected to the use (and misuse) of replica theatres to suggest the ways in which they can be used to drive research and practice in contemporary Shakespearean performance, connect with young people, and serve local communities.This book will appeal to academics, students, and practitioners interested in historical and contemporary approaches to Shakespeare in the fields covered. It should also appeal to general readers with an interest in the topics, particularly in Merseyside and the North-West region.