Title search results
Showing 1 - 20 of 39791 items
Inside this book, you'll find stories of 50 extraordinary people such as:Evel Knievel, who jumped his motorcycle over 14 Greyhound…
busesThe Iceman, the most well-preserved human, found in the ice after 5,300 yearsSam Patch, who jumped Niagara Falls for $75Helen Thayer, who walked to the North Pole aloneRoy Sullivan, who was struck by lightning 7 timesThese intriguing facts and hundreds more await curious readers, amateur historians, and anyone who aspires to the altogether extraordinary!Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova
By Laurel Snyder. 2015
The world is big.Anna is small.The snow is everywhere and all around.But one night . . .One night, her mother…
takes her to the ballet, and everything is changed. Anna finds a beauty inside herself that she cannot contain.So begins the journey of a girl who will one day grow up to be the most famous prima ballerina of all time, inspiring legions of dancers after her: the brave, the generous, the transcendently gifted Anna Pavlova. Beautiful, inspirational, and triumphant, Anna Pavlova's life is masterfully captured in this exquisite picture book.Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World
By Gretchen Rubin. 2023
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more…
energy, creativity, luck, and love: by tuning in to the five senses. &“Life in Five Senses invites us into the seismic shift toward a life grounded in sensation, vitality, and innate intelligence.&”—GLENNON DOYLE, author of Untamed &“An inspiring and practical guide to living in the moment.&”—SUSAN CAIN, author of Bittersweet and QuietFor more than a decade, Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then, one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she&’d been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. She&’d spent so much time stuck in her head that she&’d allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away, unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world invigorated by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.In this journey of self-experimentation, Rubin explores the mysteries and joys of the five senses as a path to a happier, more mindful life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, philosophy, literature, and her own efforts to practice what she learns, she investigates the profound power of tuning in to the physical world.From the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist, to more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attending a flavor university, Rubin shows us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us immediate, sustainable ways to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us—as well as ways to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent.Life in Five Senses is an absorbing, layered story of discovery filled with profound insights and practical suggestions about how to heighten our senses and use our powers of perception to live fuller, richer lives—and, ultimately, how to move through the world with more vitality and love.Always Faithful: A Story of the War in Afghanistan, the Fall of Kabul, and the Unshakable Bond Between a Marine and an Interpreter
By Thomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki. 2022
Band of Brothers meets Argo in this dramatic and heartfelt dual memoir of the war in Afghanistan told by two men from opposite…
worlds. Always Faithful entwines the stories of Marine Major Tom Schueman, and his friend and Afghan interpreter, Zainullah “Zak” Zaki, as they describe their parallel lives, converging paths, and unbreakable bond in the face of overwhelming danger, culminating in Zak and his family’s harrowing escape from Kabul. In August of 2021, just days shy of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, America ended its longest war. The speed of the Afghanistan’s fall was so stunning that thousands of Afghan citizens who had helped American forces over the course of two decades—and had been promised visas in return—were suddenly stranded, in extreme, imminent danger. As the world watched the shocking scenes of desperation at the Kabul airport in the final two weeks of August, Maj. Tom Schueman fought—both behind the scenes and through a social media campaign—to get his friend and former Afghan interpreter, Zak, out of Afghanistan before he and his family were discovered by the Taliban. When Zak and his family finally took off from the airport mere days before the US left the country, the years-long effort to get Zak to America culminated in two simple words on Instagram: “Wheels up.”Now in Always Faithful, Tom and Zak tell the full story of the divergent paths that led them to Afghanistan, the dangerous road they walked together in service to America, and how their commitment to each other ended up saving them both. Brilliantly told in Tom’s and Zak’s alternating first person voices, Always Faithful tracks the parallel lives of these two men who each spent their childhoods in fear, peril, and poverty, and turned to war in attempt to build a meaningful future. On an inevitable course towards each other, their lives dovetail in Afghanistan’s deadly Helmand Valley, where they formed a brotherhood that transcends even the most overwhelming of odds, eventually culminating in Zak’s harrowing, eleventh-hour rescue.The end result is an intensely personal and uniquely ground-level account of Tom and Zak’s experience, Always Faithful gives readers a 360-degree view of the war. At once provocative and heart pounding, their stories together form a microcosm of the complicated and lasting effects of America’s longest war. Through their eyes and their experiences, they challenge readers to explore the legacy of the war for American and Afghan citizens alike, as we all collectively seek to understand whether twenty years of war was worth the price.The Most Fun We Ever Had: Now a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick
By Claire Lombardo. 2019
APRIL 2024 REESE WITHERSPOON BOOK CLUB PICKLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'A literary…
love child of Jonathan Franzen and Anne Tyler . . . outstanding and highly enjoyable' Observer'The Most Fun We Ever Had is as good as books come' Telegraph'I loved this book' Bryony Gordon'The perfect, engrossing holiday read' RED'A gripping and poignant ode to a messy, loving family in all its glory' Madeline Miller'A moving, immersive, often very funny study of family and sisterhood' Sunday Times'Like Meg Wolitzer. A forensic dissection of family past and present, I loved it. If you like reading about relationships, this one is for you.' Pandora SykesMEET THE SORENSON FAMILY.MARILYN has somehow fallen into motherhood and spent four decades married toDAVID, who's pretty certain he loves her more than anyone has ever loved another person.WENDY, their eldest, a cause for concern, soothes herself with drink after being widowed young,while VIOLET, lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mother, is disturbed by the reappearance of a son placed for adoption fifteen years earlier.LIZA, a professor, is pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she lovesand GRACE, their dawdling youngest daughter, lives a lie that no one in her family suspects.Black Snow: Curtis Lemay, The Firebombing Of Tokyo, And The Road To The Atomic Bomb
By James M. Scott. 2022
"Riveting.…This book is required reading for anyone with even a passing interest in World War II and the Pacific Theater."…
—Bob Carden, Boston Globe Seven minutes past midnight on March 10, 1945, nearly 300 American B-29s thundered into the skies over Tokyo. Their payloads of incendiaries ignited a firestorm that reached up to 2,800 degrees, liquefying asphalt and vaporizing thousands; sixteen square miles of the city were flattened and more than 100,000 men, women, and children were killed. Black Snow is the story of this devastating operation, orchestrated by Major General Curtis LeMay, who famously remarked: “If we lose the war, we’ll be tried as war criminals.” James M. Scott reconstructs in granular detail that horrific night, and describes the development of the B-29, the capture of the Marianas for use as airfields, and the change in strategy from high-altitude daylight “precision” bombing to low-altitude nighttime incendiary bombing. Most importantly, the raid represented a significant moral shift for America, marking the first time commanders deliberately targeted civilians which helped pave the way for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki five months later. Drawing on first-person interviews with American pilots and bombardiers and Japanese survivors, air force archives, and oral histories never before published in English, Scott delivers a harrowing and gripping account, and his most important and compelling work to date.When I Was Puerto Rican: A Memoir (A Merloyd Lawrence Book)
By Esmeralda Santiago. 1993
One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" (Oprah's Book Club): a young woman's journey from the mango groves and…
barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. But when her mother, Mami, a force of nature, takes off to New York with her seven, soon to be eleven children, Esmeralda, the oldest, must learn new rules, a new language, and eventually a new identity. In the first of her three acclaimed memoirs, Esmeralda brilliantly recreates her tremendous journey from the idyllic landscape and tumultuous family life of her earliest years, to translating for her mother at the welfare office, and to high honors at Harvard.I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir (P. S. Ser.)
By Josh Kilmer-Purcell. 2006
“A glittering, bittersweet vision of an outsider who turned himself into the life and soul of the party. Kilmer-Purcell’s cast…
is part freak-show, part soap-opera, but his prose is graced with such insight and wit that the laughter is revelatory, and the tears—and there are tears to be shed along this extraordinary journey—are shed for people in whom everybody will find something of themselves. In a word, wonderful.” — Clive Barker“Absolutely hilarious and heartbreaking and heartfelt.” —Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the CityThe New York Times bestselling, darkly funny memoir of a young New Yorker's daring dual life—advertising art director by day, glitter-dripping drag queen and nightclub beauty-pageant hopeful by night—was a smash literary debut for Josh Kilmer-Purcell, now known for his popular Planet Green television series The Fabulous Beekman Boys. His story begins here—before the homemade goat milk soaps and hand-gathered honeys, before his memoir of the city mouse’s move to the country, The Bucolic Plague—in I Am Not Myself These Days, with “plenty of dishy anecdotes and moments of tragi-camp delight” (Washington Post).It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me
By Ariel Leve. 2009
“Ariel Leve is the love child of David Sedaris and Fran Leibowitz. An original and funny voice…. Insightful and sharp.”…
— Joan Rivers “Ariel Leve is brilliant and funny and the only other person I know without an oven. Buy this book and keep it close.” — Bill Nighy “Funny, smart, delightfully cranky”(AJ Jacobs) Ariel Leve’s Sunday Times Magazine (London) column “Cassandra” moves to book form. It Could Be Worse, You Could Be Me offers a humorously bleak perspective on life’s potential to turn out badly… and Ariel’s innate ability to put the black cloud into the silver lining. This is a book for schadenfreude aficionados; for readers who identify with Cassandra’s slogan, “worrying is my yoga”; and for fans of Seinfeld, Ugly Betty, Sex & the City, Curb Your Enthusiasm, David Sedaris, Woody Allen, and New Yorker cartoons.By Myself and Then Some
By Lauren Bacall. 1978
The epitome of grace, independence, and wit, Lauren Bacall continues to project an audacious spirit and pursue on-screen excellence. The…
product of an extraordinary mother and a loving extended family, she produced, with Humphrey Bogart, some of the most electric and memorable scenes in movie history. After tragically losing Bogart, she returned to New York and a brilliant career in the theatre. A two-time Tony winner, she married and later divorced her second love, Jason Robards, and never lost sight of the strength that made her a star.Now, thirty years after the publication of her original National Book Award–winning memoir, Bacall has added new material to her inspiring history. In her own frank and beautiful words, one of our most enduring actresses reveals the remarkable true story of a lifetime so rich with incident and achievement that Hollywood itself would be unable to adequately reproduce it.Life Is Not an Accident: A Memoir of Reinvention
By Jay Williams. 2016
New York Times BestsellerThis big-hearted memoir by the most promising professional basketball player of his generation details his rise to…
NBA stardom, the terrible accident that ended his career and plunged him into a life-altering depression, and how he ultimately found his way out of the darkness.Ten years ago, Jay Williams was at the beginning of a brilliant professional basketball career. The Chicago Bulls’ top draft pick—and the second pick of the entire draft—he had the great Michael Jordan’s locker. Then he ran his high-performance motorcycle head-on into a light pole, severely damaging himself and ending his career.In this intense, hard-hitting, and deeply profound memoir, Williams talks about the accident that transformed him. Sometimes, the memories are so fresh, he feels like he’ll never escape the past. Most days, he finds a quiet peace as a commentator on ESPN and as an entrepreneur who can only look back in astonishment at his younger self—a kid who had it all, thought he was invincible, and lost everything . . . only to gain new wisdom.Williams also shares behind the scenes details of life as an All-American. He tells it straight about the scandalous recruiting process and his decision to return to Duke and Coach K—a man who taught him about accountability—to finish his education. He also speaks out about corruption—among coaches, administrators, players, and alumni—and about his time in the NBA, introducing us to a dark underworld culture in the pros: the gambling, drugs, and sex in every city, with players on every team.Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen
By Peter Jones. 2022
Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians…
in 1972. The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo's songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were—and continue to be—an endless source of fascination. What kind of person was capable of writing such songs? Fagen has always kept his true self hidden behind walls of irony, confounding most journalistic enquiries with a mixture of obscurity and sarcasm. Nightfly cracks open the door to reveal the life behind the lyrics and traces Fagen's story from early family life in suburban New Jersey, to his first encounter with Walter Becker at Bard College, their long struggle for recognition as songwriters, and the formation of Steely Dan. The band's break-up in 1981, re-formation in 1993, and Fagen's parallel solo career are covered in detail.Author Peter Jones seeks to explain the public's continuing fascination with Fagen's music, both in collaboration with Becker and as a solo artist.We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria
By Wendy Pearlman. 2017
LONG-LISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDALReminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime…
testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight.Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government’s ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times. Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder
By Salman Rushdie. 2024
From internationally renowned writer and Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on…
his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.Speaking out for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, about the traumatic events of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie answers violence with art, and reminds us of the power of words to make sense of the unthinkable. Knife is a gripping, intimate, and ultimately life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night
By Jason Zinoman. 2017
New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman delivers the definitive story of the life and artistic legacy of David Letterman,…
the greatest television talk show host of all time and the signature comedic voice of a generation.In a career spanning more than thirty years, David Letterman redefined the modern talk show with an ironic comic style that transcended traditional television. While he remains one of the most famous stars in America, he is a remote, even reclusive, figure whose career is widely misunderstood. In Letterman, Jason Zinoman, the first comedy critic in the history of the New York Times, mixes groundbreaking reporting with unprecedented access and probing critical analysis to explain the unique entertainer’s titanic legacy. Moving from his early days in Indiana to his retirement, Zinoman goes behind the scenes of Letterman’s television career to illuminate the origins of his revolutionary comedy, its overlooked influences, and how his work intersects with and reveals his famously eccentric personality. Zinoman argues that Letterman had three great artistic periods, each distinct and part of his evolution. As he examines key broadcasting moments—"Stupid Pet Tricks" and other captivating segments that defined Late Night with David Letterman—he illuminates Letterman’s relationship to his writers, and in particular, the show’s co-creator, Merrill Markoe, with whom Letterman shared a long professional and personal connection.To understand popular culture today, it’s necessary to understand David Letterman. With this revealing biography, Zinoman offers a perceptive analysis of the man and the artist whose ironic voice and caustic meta-humor was critical to an entire generation of comedians and viewers—and whose singular style ushered in new tropes that have become clichés in comedy today.Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
By William J. Mann. 2014
New York Times Bestseller • Edgar Award winner for Best Fact CrimeThe Day of the Locust meets The Devil in…
the White City and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this juicy, untold Hollywood story: an addictive true tale of ambition, scandal, intrigue, murder, and the creation of the modern film industry.By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America’s new favorite pastime, and one of the nation’s largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence. Yet Hollywood’s glittering ascendency was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies—including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.In a fiendishly involving narrative, bestselling Hollywood chronicler William J. Mann draws on a rich host of sources, including recently released FBI files, to unpack the story of the enigmatic Taylor and the diverse cast that surrounded him—including three beautiful, ambitious actresses; a grasping stage mother; a devoted valet; and a gang of two-bit thugs, any of whom might have fired the fatal bullet. And overseeing this entire landscape of intrigue was Adolph Zukor, the brilliant and ruthless founder of Paramount, locked in a struggle for control of the industry and desperate to conceal the truth about the crime. Along the way, Mann brings to life Los Angeles in the Roaring Twenties: a sparkling yet schizophrenic town filled with party girls, drug dealers, religious zealots, newly-minted legends and starlets already past their prime—a dangerous place where the powerful could still run afoul of the desperate.A true story recreated with the suspense of a novel, Tinseltown is the work of a storyteller at the peak of his powers—and the solution to a crime that has stumped detectives and historians for nearly a century.Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World
By H. R. McMaster. 2020
New York Times BestsellerNow with new text from McMaster addressing the January 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol and recommending how…
citizens across the free world can work together to restore confidence in democratic institutions and processesFrom Lt. General H.R. McMaster, U.S. Army, ret., the former National Security Advisor and author of the bestselling classic Dereliction of Duty, comes a bold and provocative re-examination of the most critical foreign policy and national security challenges that face the United States, and an urgent call to compete to preserve America’s standing and security.Across multiple administrations since the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy has been misconceived, inconsistent, and poorly implemented. As a result, America and the free world have fallen behind rivals in power and influence. Meanwhile threats to security, freedom, and prosperity, such as nuclear proliferation and jihadist terrorism have grown. In BATTLEGROUNDS, H.R. McMaster describes efforts to reassess and fundamentally shift policies while he was National Security Advisor. And he provides a clear pathway forward to improve strategic competence and prevail in complex competitions against our adversaries.Battlegrounds is a groundbreaking reassessment of America’s place in the world, drawing from McMaster’s long engagement with these issues, including 34 years of service in the U.S. Army with multiple tours of duty in battlegrounds overseas and his 13 months as National Security Advisor in the Trump White House. It is also a powerful call for Americans and citizens of the free world to transcend the vitriol of partisan political discourse, better educate themselves about the most significant challenges to national and international security and work together to secure peace and prosperity for future generations.Delta Lady: A Memoir
By Rita Coolidge, Michael Walker. 2016
The two-time Grammy Award-winning singer and songwriter bares her heart and soul in this intimate memoir, a story of music,…
stardom, love, family, heritage, and resilience.She inspired songs—Leon Russell wrote “A Song for You” and “Delta Lady” for her, Stephen Stills wrote “Cherokee.” She co-wrote songs—“Superstar” and the piano coda to “Layla,” uncredited. She sang backup for Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, and Stills, before finding fame as a solo artist with such hits as “We're All Alone” and “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher.” Following her story from Lafayette, Tennessee to becoming one of the most sought after rock vocalists in LA in the 1970s, Delta Lady chronicles Rita Coolidge’s fascinating journey throughout the ’60s-’70s pop/rock universe.A muse to some of the twentieth century’s most influential rock musicians, she broke hearts, and broke up bands. Her relationship with drummer Jim Gordon took a violent turn during the legendary 1970 Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour; David Crosby maintained that her triangle with Stills and Graham Nash was the last straw for the group. Her volatile six-year marriage to Kris Kristofferson yielded two Grammys, a daughter, and one of the Baby Boom generation’s epic love stories. Throughout it all, her strength, resilience, and inner and outer beauty—along with her strong sense of heritage and devotion to her family—helped her to not only survive, but thrive. Co-written with best-selling author Michael Walker, Delta Lady is a rich, deeply personal memoir that offers a front row seat to an iconic era, and illuminates the life of an artist whose career has helped shape modern American culture.Modern Warriors: Real Stories from Real Heroes
By Pete Hegseth. 2020
A New York Times bestseller.From FOX & Friends Weekend cohost Pete Hegseth comes a collection of inspiring stories from fifteen of America’s…
greatest heroes—highly decorated Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, marines, Purple Heart recipients, combat pilots, a Medal of Honor recipient, and more—based on FOX Nation’s hit show of the same name.After three Army deployments—earning two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman’s Badge—Pete Hegseth knows what it takes to be a modern warrior. In Modern Warriors he presents candid, unfiltered conversations with fellow modern warriors and digs for real answers to key questions like: What inspired them to serve? What is their legacy? What does sacrifice really mean to them? How do they handle loss? And what can civilians learn from this latest generation of veterans?From the skies over Afghanistan to the seas of the Mediterranean to the treacherous streets of Iraq, these brave men and women take you inside the firefight, sharing the harrowing realities of war. Hegseth uses their experiences to facilitate conversations about the raw truths of combat, including the difficulties of transitioning back home, while also celebrating these soldiers’ contributions to preserving our nation’s most precious gift—freedom.In addition to the oral history, Modern Warriors presents dozens of personal, rarely shared photos from the battlefield and the home front. Together these stories and images provide an unvarnished representation of battlefield leadership, military morale, and the strain of war. This book is the perfect keepsake and gift for anyone who wants to know what it means, and what it truly takes, to be a patriot.On Bowie
By Rob Sheffield. 2016
From the New York Times bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape, a thoughtful and loving meditation on the…
life of the late David Bowie that explores his creative legacy and the enduring and mutual connection he enjoyed with his fans.Innovative. Pioneering. Brave. Until his death in January 2016, David Bowie created art that not only pushed boundaries, but helped fans understand themselves and view the world from fantastic new perspectives.When the shocking news of his death on January 10, 2016 broke, the outpouring of grief and adulation was immediate and ongoing. Fans around the world and across generations paid homage to this brilliant, innovate, ever evolving artist who both shaped and embodied our times.In this concise and penetrating book, featuring color photographs, highly regarded Rolling Stone critic, bestselling author, and lifelong Bowie fan Rob Sheffield shares his own feelings about the passing of this icon and explains why Bowie’s death has elicited such an unprecedented emotional outpouring from so many lives.