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Fight for the Forgotten: How a Mixed Martial Artist Stopped Fighting for Himself and Started Fighting for Others
By Justin Wren, Loretta Hunt. 2015
From notable mixed martial artist and UFC fighter Justin Wren comes a personal account of faith, redemption, empowerment, and overwhelming…
love as one man sets out on an international mission to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.Justin knows what it feels like to be wronged. Bullied as a child, he dreamed of becoming a UFC fighter and used his anger as fuel to propel his dream into reality. But the pain from his childhood didn’t dissipate. Instead, Justin fell into a spiral of depression and addiction, leading him on a path toward destruction. Kicked out of his training community and with no other place to go, Justin agreed to attend a men’s retreat, and it was there he found God.As Justin began piecing his life back together, he joined several international mission trips that opened his eyes and his heart to a world filled with suffering deep in the jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo. There he met the Mbuti Pygmy tribe, a group of people persecuted by neighboring tribes and forced into slavery. His encounter with the Pygmy tribe left him wondering who was there to help them and in that moment Justin stepped out of the ring and into a fight for the forgotten.From cage fighter to freedom fighter, Justin’s story is a deeply personal memoir with a bigger message about a quest, justice, and the amazing things that can happen when we relinquish our lives to God.Once a Cop: The Street, the Law, Two Worlds, One Man
By Corey Pegues. 2016
New York City Book Awards Hornblower Award Winner African American Literary Award Winner for Best Biography/Memoir As a youth, Corey…
Pegues was a criminal. As an adult, he became a high-ranking police officer.In this fascinating look at life on both sides of the law, Corey Pegues opens up about why he joined the New York Police Department after years as a drug dealer. Pegues speaks honestly about the poor choices he made while coming of age in New York City during the height of the crack epidemic. He&’s equally candid about why he turned his life around, and takes you inside the NYPD, where he becomes a decorated officer despite bureaucratic pitfalls and discriminatory practices. Written with the voice and panache of someone who knows the streets, Once a Cop is a credible and informative look at the forces that lead some into a life of crime and what it means to make good on a second chance.Captive: 2,147 Days of Terror in the Colombian Jungle
By Clara Rojas. 2010
On a fateful day in February 2002, campaign manager Clara Rojas accompanied longtime friend and presidential hopeful Ingrid Betancourt into…
an area controlled by the powerful leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Armed with machine guns and grenades, the FARC took them hostage and kept them in the jungle for the next six years. After more than two years of captivity deep in the Colombian jungle, surrounded by jaguars, snakes, and tarantulas, miles from any town or hospital, Clara Rojas prepared to give birth in a muddy tent surrounded by heavily armed guerrillas. Her captors promised that a doctor would be brought to the camp to help her. But when Rojas went into labor and began to suffer complications, the only person on hand was a guerrilla wielding a kitchen knife. The guerrillas drugged Rojas with anesthetic while one of them slit open her abdomen. Her son, Emmanuel, was born by amateur cesarean section in April 2004. His survival was miraculous, but her joy was soon cut short when the FARC took him from her when he was only eight months old. For the next three years, Clara was given no information about him, but her desire to one day see him again kept her alive. In early 2008, Clara was finally liberated and reunited with her son—to whom this book is dedicated.Heart Earth: A Memoir
By Ivan Doig. 1993
Ivan Doig’s companion memoir to his bestselling This House of Sky—inspired by the letters his mother wrote during World War…
II—is “a lyrical evocation of the Doigs’ gallantly hardscrabble existence and love for the unforgiving Montana mountains” (San Francisco Chronicle).Raised by his father and maternal grandmother, Ivan Doig grew up with only a vague memory of his mother, who died on his sixth birthday. Then he discovered a cache of her letters, and through them, a spunky, passionate, can-do woman emerged. His mother was as at home in the saddle as behind a sewing machine, and as in love with language as her son.In this prize-winning prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig brings to life his childhood before his mother’s death, and the family’s journey from the Montana mountains to the Arizona desert and back again. “Profoundly original and lustrous,” (Kirkus Reviews) Doig eloquently captures the texture of the American West during and after World War II, the fortune of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit. Doig is “a colloquial stylist without equal…and Heart Earth is a book that repeatedly proves the power of language” (Los Angeles Times).Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
By Zhao Ziyang. 2010
Premier Zhao Ziyang reveals the secret workings of China's government behind the Tiananmen massacre—and why he was deposed for trying…
to stop it.Prisoner of the State is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to China and who was dethroned at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 for trying to stop the massacre. Zhao spent the last years of his life under house arrest. An occasional detail about his life would slip out, but scholars and citizens lamented that Zhao never had his final say. But Zhao did produce a memoir, secretly recording on audio tapes the real story of what happened during modern China&’s most critical moments. He provides intimate details about the Tiananmen crackdown, describes the ploys and double crosses used by China&’s leaders, and exhorts China to adopt democracy in order to achieve long-term stability. His riveting, behind-the-scenes recollections form the basis of Prisoner of the State. The China that Zhao portrays is not some long-lost dynasty. It is today&’s China, where its leaders accept economic freedom but resist political change. Zhao might have steered China&’s political system toward openness and tolerance had he survived. Although Zhao now speaks from the grave, his voice still has the moral power to make China sit up and listen.Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit
By Mark Hasara. 2017
From a veteran air-refueling expert who flew missions for over two decades during the Cold War, Gulf War, and Iraq…
War comes a thrilling eyewitness account of modern warfare, with inspirational stories and crucial lessons for people on the battlefield, in boardrooms, and in their everyday lives.Get a glimpse of life in the pilot&’s seat and experience modern air warfare directly from a true American hero. Lt. Col Mark Hasara—who has twenty-four years&’ experience in flying missions around the world—provides keen and eye-opening insights on success and failure, and emphasizes the importance of always being willing to learn.He provides twelve essential lessons based on his wartime experience and his own personal photographs from his missions during the Cold War, Gulf War, and Iraq War. With a foreword by #1 New York Times bestselling author and radio host Rush Limbaugh, this is a military memoir not to be missed.Dan Gets a Minivan: Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad
By Dan Zevin. 2012
A coming-of-middle-age tale told with warmth and wit, Dan Gets a Minivan provides the one thing every parent really needs:…
comic relief. Whether you’re a dude, a dad, or someone who’s married to either, fasten your seat belt and prepare to crack up. The least hip citizen of Brooklyn, Dan Zevin has a working wife, two small children, a mother who visits each week to “help,” and an obese Labrador mutt who prefers to be driven rather than walked. How he got to this point is a bit of a blur. There was a wedding, and then there was a puppy. A home was purchased in New England. A wife was promoted and transferred to New York. A town house. A new baby boy. A new baby girl. A stay-at-home dad was born. A prescription for Xanax was filled. Gray hairs appeared; gray hairs fell out. Six years passed in six seconds. And then came the minivan. Dan Zevin, master of “Seinfeld-ian nothingness” (Time), is trying his best to make the transition from couplehood to familyhood. Acclimating to the adult-oriented lifestyle has never been his strong suit, and this slice-of-midlife story chronicles the whole hilarious journey—from instituting date night to joining Costco; from touring Disneyland to recovering from knee surgery; from losing ambition to gaining perspective. Where it’s all heading is anyone’s guess, but, for Dan, suburbia’s calling—and his minivan has GPS.Muffins & Mayhem: Recipes for a Happy (if Disorderly) Life
By Suzanne Beecher. 2010
"While it’s well known that food and stories make for a great combination, Muffins & Mayhem takes their relationship to…
a whole new level. Brimming over with the stuff of life, this is a book to curl up with and devour." —JOEL BEN IZZY, storyteller and author of The Beggar King and The Secret of HappinessSuzanne Beecher’s happy, loving voice has brought more than 350,000 people to her online book club at DearReader.com, where her daily column offers her candid, thought-provoking reflections on life, inspiring countless readers to look at their "ordinary" lives in a new way. By turns funny and poignant, Suzanne is the reassuring friend across the kitchen table with a refreshing, jaunty attitude about life, even in the face of whatever difficulties it may bring. Suzanne has had her own share of troubles to overcome. Left home alone at an early age, she struggled with difficult and distant parents, dealt with heartbreak, became a hard-working single mom, and overcame two substance addictions and a physical impairment. But along the way, she found comfort in baking and sharing food with her friends and family. She learned to take the good with the bad, and her life is now inspiring proof that faith and persistence are the keys to success. This beautifully written celebration of food, friends, and family will nourish Suzanne’s numerous fans and those who have yet to discover her simple, homespun magic.The Undertaker's Daughter: A Memoir
By Kate Mayfield. 2015
“The Undertaker’s Daughter is a wonderfully quirky, gem of a book beautifully written by Kate Mayfield.…Her compelling, complicated family and…
cast of characters stay with you long after you close the book” (Monica Holloway, author of Cowboy & Wills and Driving With Dead People).How does one live in a house of the dead? Kate Mayfield explores what it meant to be the daughter of a small-town undertaker in this fascinating memoir evocative of Six Feet Under and The Help, with a hint of Mary Roach’s Stiff.After Kate Mayfield was born, she was taken directly to a funeral home. Her father was an undertaker, and for thirteen years the family resided in a place nearly synonymous with death, where the living and the dead entered their house like a vapor. In a memoir that reads like a Harper Lee novel, Mayfield draws the reader into a world of haunting Southern mystique.In the turbulent 1960s, Kate’s father set up shop in sleepy Jubilee, Kentucky, a segregated, god-fearing community where no one kept secrets—except the ones they were buried with. By opening a funeral home, Frank Mayfield also opened the door to family feuds, fetishes, murder, suicide, and all manner of accidents. Kate saw it all—she also witnessed the quiet ruin of her father, who hid alcoholism and infidelity behind a cool and charismatic façade. As Kate grows from trusting child to rebellious teen, the enforced sobriety of the funeral home begins to chafe, and she longs for the day she can escape the confines of Jubilee and her place as the undertaker’s daughter.“Mayfield fashions a poignant send-off to Jubilee in this thoughtfully rendered work” (Publishers Weekly).Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education
By Stephen Joel Trachtenberg. 2008
An eye-opening and at times controversial insider's look at the current state of higher education in America, from one of…
the nation's most distinguished and down-to-earth university presidents. At a time when daily news headlines scream of competitive college enrollments, skyrocketing tuition, campus violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and other campus scandals, the former president of The George Washington University tells it like it really is. Educated at Columbia, Yale, and Harvard universities, with a membership in Phi Beta Kappa, more than fifteen honorary doctorates, four books, and numerous published articles, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is one of the leading voices in American higher education. Here he brings his thirty years of experience, wisdom, and wit to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in the difficult and rewarding challenge of running a university. Using wonderful anecdotes from his own life, Trachtenberg explains with compassion and his trademark humor the insight he has gained from the halls of learning. For parents who will write big checks to send their sons and daughters to college, for businesspeople of all kinds looking for leadership lessons, and for anyone invested in America's system of higher education, this book is a major work about the importance of sustaining our nation's natural brain trust.The Problem with Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars
By Meghan Daum. 2019
&“[A]ffectingly personal, achingly earnest, and something close to necessary.&” —Vogue&“Personal, convincing, unflinching.&” —TabletFrom an author who&’s been called &“one of…
the most emotionally exacting, mercilessly candid, deeply funny, and intellectually rigorous writers of our time&” (Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author) comes a seminal book that reaches surprising truths about feminism, the Trump era, and the Resistance movement. You won&’t be able to stop thinking and talking about it.In this gripping work, Meghan Daum examines our country&’s most intractable problems with clear-eyed honesty instead of exaggerated outrage. With passion, humor, and personal reflection, she tries to make sense of the current landscape—from Donald Trump&’s presidency to the #MeToo movement and beyond. In the process, she wades into the waters of identity politics and intersectionality, thinks deeply about campus politics and notions of personal resilience, and tests a theory about the divide between Gen Xers and millennials.This signature work may well be the first book to capture the essence of this era in all its nuances and contradictions. No matter where you stand on its issues, this book will strike a chord.Hyena
By Jude Angelini. 2013
A collection of autobiographical stories, told with brutal honesty and dark humor, from one of the top hip-hop radio hosts…
on SiriusXM.Taking you on a journey of heartbreak, depravity, and hilarity, Hyena deftly moves between Jude Angelini&’s adult life to his childhood growing up in a factory town outside of Detroit. Exploring drugs, sex, and the human condition, these stories also captures the hardscrabble culture, language, and landscape of post-industrial Detroit, from which came some of pop culture&’s most compelling artists.A Nightmare's Prayer: A Marine Harrier Pilot's War in Afghanistan
By Michael Franzak. 2010
Winner of the 2012 Colby Award and the first Afghanistan memoir ever to be written by a Marine Harrier pilot,…
A Nightmare’s Prayer portrays the realities of war in the twenty-first century, taking a unique and powerful perspective on combat in Afghanistan as told by a former enlisted man turned officer. Lt. Col. Michael “Zak” Franzak was an AV-8B Marine Corps Harrier pilot who served as executive officer of VMA-513, “The Flying Nightmares,” while deployed in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003. The squadron was the first to base Harriers in Bagram in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. But what should have been a standard six-month deployment soon turned to a yearlong ordeal as the Iraq conflict intensified. And in what appeared to be a forgotten war half a world away from home, Franzak and his colleagues struggled to stay motivated and do their job providing air cover to soldiers patrolling the inhospitable terrain. I wasn’t in a foxhole. I was above it. I was safe and comfortable in my sheltered cocoon 20,000 feet over the Hindu Kush. But I prayed. I prayed when I heard the muted cries of men who at last understood their fate.Franzak’s personal narrative captures the day-by-day details of his deployment, from family good-byes on departure day to the squadron’s return home. He explains the role the Harrier played over the Afghanistan battlefields and chronicles the life of an attack pilot—from the challenges of nighttime, weather, and the austere mountain environment to the frustrations of working under higher command whose micromanagement often exacerbated difficulties. In vivid and poignant passages, he delivers the full impact of enemy ambushes, the violence of combat, and the heartbreaking aftermath.And as the Iraq War unfolded, Franzak became embroiled in another battle: one within himself. Plagued with doubts and wrestling with his ego and his belief in God, he discovered in himself a man he loathed. But the hardest test of his lifetime and career was still to come—one that would change him forever.A stunning true account of service and sacrifice that takes the reader from the harrowing dangers of the cockpit to the secret, interior spiritual struggle facing a man trained for combat, A Nightmare’s Prayer brings to life a Marine’s public and personal trials set against “the fine talcum brown soot of Afghanistan that permeated everything—even one’s soul.”Nine Months at Ground Zero: The Story of the Brotherhood of Workers Who Took on a Job Like No Other
By Glenn Stout, Charles Vitchers, Robert Gray. 2006
A powerful account of the lesser-known heroes of 9/11—the construction workers who toiled outside the spotlight cleaning up the stunning…
destruction at Ground Zero, and recovering the bodies of the victims who perished there. With color photographs by Joel Meyerowitz.Hours after two airplanes hit the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, Charlie Vitchers, a construction superintendent, and Bobby Gray, a crane operator, headed downtown. They knew their skills would be crucial amid the chaos and destruction after the towers fell. What they could not imagine—and what they would soon discover—was the enormity of the task at Ground Zero. Four hundred million pounds of steel; 600,000 square feet of broken glass; and 2,700 vertical feet of building had been reduced to a pile of burning debris covering sixteen acres. Charlie, Bobby, and hundreds of other construction workers, many of whom had helped to build the Twin Towers, were the only ones qualified to safely handle the devastation. Everyone working the site faced the looming danger of the collapse of the slurry wall protecting lower Manhattan from the waters of the Hudson River, the complexity of shifting tons of steel without losing additional lives, and the day-to-day challenge and emotional strain of recovering victims. Charlie Vitchers became the go-to guy for the hundreds of people and numerous agencies laboring to clean up Ground Zero. What he and Bobby Gray make dramatically evident is how the job of dismantling the remaining ruins and restoring order to the site was far more complex and dangerous than constructing the tallest buildings in the world. With stunning full-color photographs donated by Joel Meyerowitz—a celebrated and award-winning artist and the only non-newsroom photographer allowed access to the site—and first-person oral accounts of the tragedy from the morning of the attack to the Last Column ceremony, Nine Months at Ground Zero is a harrowing but ultimately redemptive story of forthright and heroic service.Pitching My Tent: On Marriage, Motherhood, Friendship, and Other Leaps of Faith
By Anita Diamant. 2003
From the bestselling author of The Red Tent and Good Harbor, a collection of intimate, autobiographical reflections on the milestones,…
revelations, and balancing acts of life as a wife, mother, friend, and member of a religious community.Before The Red Tent won her international literary acclaim, Anita Diamant was a columnist in Boston. Over the course of twenty years, she wrote essays that reflected the shape and evolution of her life, as well as the trends of her generation. In the end, her musings about love and marriage, birth and death, nature versus nurture, politics and religion—and everything from female friendships to quitting smoking—have created a public diary of the progress of her life that resonated deeply with her readers. Now, Pitching My Tent collects the finest columns of a writer who is a reporter by training and a storyteller by heart, all revised and enriched with new material. Personal, inspiring, and often funny, Pitching My Tent displays the warmth, humor, and wisdom that Diamant's legions of fans have come to cherish.Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip
By Richard Ratay. 2018
&“A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane&” (Kirkus Reviews), Don&’t Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the…
golden age of family road trips—before portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps.The birth of America&’s first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streaming—sans seatbelts!—to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didn&’t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay experienced all of them—from being crowded into the backseat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didn&’t believe in bathroom breaks.Now, decades later, Ratay offers &“an amiable guide…fun and informative&” (New York Newsday) that &“goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer&’s day&” (TheWall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot &“land yachts,&” oasis-like Holiday Inn &“Holidomes,&” &“Smokey&”-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnson&’s ice cream, and the thrill of finding a &“good buddy&” on the CB radio.An &“informative, often hilarious family narrative [that] perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips&” (Publishers Weekly), Don&’t Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the country&’s, and why those magical journeys that once brought families together—for better and worse—have largely disappeared.Missing: A Memoir
By Lindsay Harrison. 2011
A beautifully written, intensely poignant memoir that looks at grief, family dynamics, and what happens when your world comes crashing…
down.A twenty-five-year-old recent graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program, Lindsay Harrison began writing Missing as a way to cope with a terrible loss. During her sophomore year at Brown University, Lindsay received a phone call from her brother that her mother was missing. Forty days later they discover the unthinkable: their mother’s body had been found in the ocean. Missing is at first a page-turning account of those first forty days, as it chronicles dealings with detectives, false sightings, wild hope, and deep despair. The balance of the story is a candid, emotional exploration of a daughter’s search for solace after tragedy as she tries to understand who her mother truly was, makes peace with her grief, and becomes closer to her father and brothers as her mother’s death forces her to learn more about her mother than she ever knew before.Never Make the Same Mistake Twice: Lessons on Love and Life Learned the Hard Way
By Nene Leakes, Denene Millner. 2009
Outrageous, captivating, and unafraid to tell it like it is, Nene Leakes shares her wild journey from a scandalous past…
to the pinnacle of reality television stardom. Lauded by her fans for her refreshing honesty, infectiously genuine style, and clever sense of humor, Nene is an empowered, self-made woman who has not forgotten where she came from and knows exactly where she wants to go. In this straight-talking and provocative memoir Nene charts her journey from family black sheep to single mother to making good and realizing her dreams. With her charm and bold, self-possessed voice, Nene tackles her painful childhood; the abuse she suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend; her struggle to support her firstborn son; and her path to true love, self-acceptance, and pride. In Never Make the Same Mistake Twice, Nene dishes on her cast mates; takes on the rumors about her past; and shares hard-earned and inspiring life lessons in her fierce, no-nonsense, and irreverent style.Stand by Your Truth: And Then Run For Your Life!
By Rickey Smiley. 2017
Part memoir, part testimonial, and part life guide, Stand by Your Truth mixes Rickey Smiley&’s down-home humor with the values…
he learned from being raised by three generations of elders, steeped in the Baptist church, and mentored by some of the most celebrated comics in the entertainment industry today.&“I&’m very passionate about everything that I do and I don&’t play any games. I just keep it honest. I don&’t put on airs. That&’s the only way you can be. If you tell one lie, you&’ve got to tell another lie. I&’m cool with who I am. What you see is what you get.&” Stand-up comic. Single dad. Radio personality. TV star. Prankster. Producer. Community activist. Man of faith.Visit a church, comedy club, college campus, or barber shop, and you&’ll find few people who aren&’t familiar with, or fans of, Rickey Smiley. At least four million listeners in more than seventy markets tune in every weekday morning to hear him banter with his radio show crew, hilariously prank call an unsuspecting listener, and perform skits featuring his one-man cast of characters, including &“Lil Darryl,&” &“Beauford,&” and &“Joe Willie.&”But in between the rapid-fire jokes and celebrity dish are flashes of how Rickey views the world, from the challenges of raising children, to the importance of education, to the need to always stand by your own truth. After more than two decades in the spotlight, Rickey is finally ready to delve more deeply into the opinions he voices on the air, riffing on those issues that his listeners, viewers, and fans find most important. This collection of personal and powerful essays will speak to readers from all walks of life, and is sure to inspire you to Stand by Your Truth.A &“powerful and insightful&” (Cyntoia Brown-Long, author of Free Cyntoia) memoir in the vein of Just Mercy and The Sum…
of Us that upends our understanding about the future of policing in the United States and explores how we can begin healing from systemic injustice.In 2012, nineteen-year-old Leon Ford was shot five times by a Pittsburgh police officer during a racially charged traffic stop stemming from a case of mistaken identity. When he woke up in the hospital, he was faced with two life-changing realities: he was a new father, and he was paralyzed from the waist down. Leon found the only way to move forward was to let go of his bitterness and learn to practice forgiveness. Now, in this memoir and manifesto, Leon illustrates how this harrowing experience has inspired a deep reckoning with the issues his community is facing, not only with police brutality, but also an epidemic of street violence, toxic masculinity and its impact on Black fatherhood, and the lack of disability rights and mental health access in disenfranchised communities. In the wake of countless similar shootings across the country, Leon details how he turned towards social activism, dedicating himself to bridging the gap between the police and the communities they are supposed to serve. With a voice filled with &“healing, triumph, and resilience&” (Shaka Senghor, bestselling author of Writing My Wrongs), Ford offers fresh, counterintuitive ways we can effect social change. Leon shows us how, together, we can move away from retribution and towards transformative justice in order to end police brutality and heal as a country. As he once said, &“Lead with love. Start compassionate conversations even with individuals and systems that have caused you pain. I know from experience that you can make your pain purposeful.&”