Showing results for "A Remarkable Woman" in Women

Wartime espionage has fascinated generations. This nonfiction book tells the true stories of extraordinary women who put their lives on the line in the fight against tyranny and fascism.

On December 7th, 1955, Kitty McInerney lay dying in a New York hospital bed. The 47-year-old Irish immigrant, suffering from severe toxemia, was preparing for an emergency c-section to give birth to her 17th child. As a Catholic priest performed her last rites, Kitty succumbed to a rare moment of quiet reflection.

Few that know Mary Grothe today would guess that her childhood was traumatic. That she was raised by an alcoholic mother and abusive father in a filthy house, where tar dripped down the walls from the profusion of cigarette smoke. That at fourteen she watched her childhood auctioned off beneath a big top before fleeing town as a result of her parents’ criminal mistakes. Or that dance, her original love and ticket to freedom, would be taken from her in an instant

May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it's entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.

Paying homage to some of the greatest women the world has ever seen, Extraordinary Women in History is a testament to the power of dedication, courage, tenacity, and never giving up. Their stories will encourage you to take action and prove that barriers only exist to be broken.

In 1945, Ditha Bruncel was living with her parents in the small town of Lossen, in Upper Silesia. Close Jewish friends had vanished, swastikas hung from every building, and neighbors were disappearing in the middle of the night. At the same time, more than fifteen hundred British and Commonwealth airmen were being marched out of Stalag Luft VII. Twenty-three of these prisoners managed to escape from the marching column—and by chance hobbled into Lossen. One among them, Warrant Officer Gordon Slowey, was the man Ditha was destined to meet and fall in love with.

From South America to Europe, from China to Africa to the Wild West, in prisons and in throne rooms, many great Christian women have left a stunning legacy for their successors. These short and moving biographies for young people introduce 50 often unfamiliar champions of the faith: women like Ida Kahn, who opened the first hospital in a Chinese city of 300,000 people; Lady Anne Hamilton, who rode with the Covenanter cavalry at the decisive Battle of Berwick; and Anngrace Taban, who was forced to type secret battle plans for the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

In a sweeping narrative encompassing political intrigue, illicit love affairs and even a murder mystery, Nancy Goldstone tells the riveting story of a queen who lost her throne, and of her four defiant daughters. Elizabeth Stuart's (1596-1662) marriage to a German count far below her rank was arranged with the understanding that her father, James I of England, would help his new son-in-law achieve the crown of Bohemia. The terrible betrayal of this promise would ruin 'the Winter Queen', as Elizabeth would forever be known, imperil the lives of those she loved and launch a war that would last thirty years.

On 6 February 1918, after campaigning for over 50 years, British women were finally granted the vote. In November 1919, the first woman MP, Lady Nancy Astor, was elected to the House of Commons. History was made. A hundred years on, it is time to reflect on the daring and painful struggle women undertook to break into a political system that excluded them.

People always asked her if she was ever afraid, living out in the desert alone with all those rough and scruffy men. But Minnie Berrington was not the faint-hearted type, and never had been. Being tough came naturally to her, growing up with three brothers and a family that went from riches to ruins. Only a slip of a girl, Minnie could match any man in stamina, perseverance and strength. She arrived in Coober Pedy when camels still brought in essential supplies, and water was so scarce that no-one washed. Together with the other miners, she braved the heat, the flies and the dust.

This is the truly remarkable life story of the notorious Ethel Livesey, a serial fraudster and confidence trickster who became a media sensation after she ran out on her society wedding in 1945 and later was arrested for obtaining goods by false pretences. With a prologue by Ethel Livesey's granddaughter, this extraordinary tale of Australia's greatest fraudster is told for the first time in rich and fascinating detail.

From Pasadena to Cambridge to New York, Washington, D.C., India, Ceylon, Paris, Marseilles, Santa Barbara, and Maine, Bob Spitz re-creates an extraordinary life. He takes us beyond the image of Julia as the tall, eccentric woman with a funny voice who taught America how to cook, to establish her as a genuine rebel and beloved icon, a woman who redefined herself in middle age, helped to change the role of women in America, set the standard for how to create a public personality in the modern media world.

The trailblazing story of Janet Yellen, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of economics, and her lifelong advocacy for an economics of empathy that delivers the fruits of a prosperous society to people at the bottom half of the economic ladder.

Of the 73 million women in the US workforce, 11.5 million are foreign-born. The truth is - even in the midst of headlines and political debates about immigration reform and in the wake of MeToo and other female-centric movements - millions of immigrants, especially women, aren’t living their fullest potential.

In the last years of her life, Teresa Lim's mother, Violet Chang, had copies of a cherished family photograph made for those in the portrait who were still alive. The photo is mounted on cream card with the name of the studio stamped at the bottom in Chinese characters. The place and date on the back: Hong Kong, 1935. Teresa would often look at this photograph, enticed by the fierceness and beauty of her great-aunt Fanny looking back at her. But Fanny never seemed to feature in the told and retold family stories. Why? she wondered. 

Emily Dickinson may be the most widely read and beloved of all American poets, but the story behind her work's initial, posthumous publication in 1890 and the mother-and-daughter team most responsible for her enduring legacy are barely known. After Emily recounts the extraordinary lives of Mabel Loomis Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, and the powerful literary legacy they shared.

Before Mary Kay, Martha Stewart, and Joy Mangano, there was Brownie Wise, the charismatic Tupperware executive who converted postwar optimism into a record-breaking sales engine powered by American housewives. In Life of the Party, Bob Kealing offers the definitive portrait of Wise, a plucky businesswoman who divorced her alcoholic husband, started her own successful business, and eventually caught the eye of Tupperware inventor Earl Tupper, whose plastic containers were collecting dust on store shelves.

For the first time, Euna Lee - the young wife, mother, and film editor detained in North Korea - tells a harrowing, but ultimately inspiring, story of survival and faith in one of the most isolated parts of the world. On March 17, 2009, Lee and her Current TV colleague Laura Ling were working on a documentary about the desperate lives of North Koreans fleeing their homeland for a chance at freedom when they were violently apprehended by North Korean soldiers.

Since 1851, The New York Times has published thousands of obituaries—for heads of state, celebrities, scientists, and athletes. There’s even one for the person who invented the sock puppet. But, until recently, only a fraction of the Times’s obits chronicled the lives of women or people of color. The vast majority tell of the lives of men—mostly white men. Now, in the first book connected to the trailblazing series, Overlooked shares 66 extraordinary stories of women, BIPOC and LGBTQIA figures, and people with disabilities who have broken rules and overcome obstacles.

“I am opposed to heart disease and cancer the way one is opposed to sin.” With that as her battle cry, health activist and philanthropist Mary Woodard Lasker had a singular goal: saving lives by increasing medical research. Together with her husband, advertising genius Albert, they created the Lasker Foundation, bestowing the Lasker Awards. But the real increase in medical research funding occurred when Mary discovered a revolutionary source: the federal government. “I’m just a catalytic agent,” she would insist, while she tirelessly lobbied Congress and presidents alike.