Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Biographies & Memoirs

In April of 2000, Gary Erickson turned down a $120 million offer to buy his thriving company. Today, instead of taking it easy for the rest of his life and enjoying a luxurious retirement, he's working harder than ever. Why would any sane person pass up the financial opportunity of a lifetime?

In this uplifting and eye-opening memoir, Kaia uses her business savvy to create a month-long Joy Plan to get back on her feet fast. Using scientific research on hormones, neurotransmitters, and mindfulness, along with the daily dedication to creating a more joyful existence, Kaia teaches listeners how to go beyond temporary happiness and succeed in creating joy that lasts.

In 2007, a few years after purchasing Bedlam Farm in upstate New York, Jon Katz met Maria Wulf, a quiet, sensitive artist hoping to rekindle her creative spark. Jon, like her, was introspective yet restless, a writer struggling to find his purpose. He felt a connection with her immediately, but a formidable obstacle stood in the way: Maria' s dog, Frieda. A rottweiler-shepherd mix who had been abandoned by her previous owner in the Adirondacks, where she lived in the wild for several years, Frieda was ferociously protective and barely tamed.

From the acclaimed Modern Library Chronicles comes an exploration of a promising theory that when put to practice wreaked havoc on the world. An expert on communism, Richard Pipes follows the history of the Soviet Union from the 1917 revolution to the Cold War, and finally, to its deterioration and collapse.

Raised in Miami and the daughter of Cuban refugees, Crucet examines the political and personal contours of American identity and the physical places where those contours find themselves smashed: be it a rodeo town in Nebraska, a university campus in upstate New York, or Disney World in Florida. Crucet illuminates how she came to see her exclusion from aspects of the theoretical American Dream, despite her family's attempts to fit in with white American culture - beginning with their ill-fated plan to name her after the winner of the Miss America pageant.

Melissa Stockwell has been a restless force of nature from the time she was a little girl speeding around her neighborhood on her bike, to her tumbles and spills as a high-level gymnast and Olympic hopeful, to joining the ROTC in college as an outlet for her patriotism and love of America.

What does it take to escape the plotlines mapped onto us? Searching for clues in the work of her literary foremothers, Lipson untangles what it means to be a girl, a woman, a lover, a partner, a daughter, and a mother in a world all too ready to reduce us to stock characters.

From 2000 to 2010, River Selby was a wildland firefighter whose given name was Anastasia. This is a memoir of that time in their life—of Ana, the struggles she encountered, and the contours of what it meant to be female-bodied in a male-dominated profession. Hotshot is a work of intimacy and authority, nimbly merging a personal journey of reinvention and self-acceptance with expert insight into the textured history of ecological systems and Indigenous land tending.

For anyone struggling with the loss of a spouse—anyone whose world has been turned upside down in a way they’ve never encountered before—here is something that could help. Waving Goodbye is a candid, honest, and approachable guide to dealing with the death of a spouse written by a very ordinary guy who has lived through the ordeal.

Powerful, haunting, and unforgettable, this remarkable gathering of original documents, including never-before-published letters and papers, creates a day-by-day eyewitness account of the monumental collision at Gettysburg, in the words of the commanders, soldiers, politicians, and civilians from both the North and the South who experienced firsthand the changing course of the Civil War. New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian and author Allen C. Guelzo delivers an invaluable and sobering firsthand perspective of the Civil War’s turning point.

Sam Bankman-Fried—better known as SBF—was at the top of the world and lauded as a leading figure in cryptocurrency, an industry whose popularity has exploded over the past few years. He was being compared to the legendary financier J.P. Morgan and sometimes even rumored to have the potential to become the world’s first trillionaire. He built a crypto empire with trading firm Alameda Research and crypto exchange FTX, which became one of the world’s largest. He attracted leading investors and walked the corridors of power in Congress. Then, seemingly within days, everything collapsed.

In the early 1960s, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration became one of the most celebrated women in America when she prevented a deadly sedative from entering the U.S. market. A Canadian-born pharmacologist and physician, Kelsey saved countless Americans from the devastating side effects of thalidomide, routinely given to pregnant women to prevent morning sickness. As the FDA medical officer charged with reviewing Merrell Pharmaceutical’s application for approval, Kelsey was unconvinced that there was sufficient evidence of the drug’s efficacy and safety.

Visionary writings from the protean Bradbury, America's preeminent master of the fantastic who has enchanted millions of readers worldwide. Part memoir, part commentary, these writings are an exploration and celebration of ideas. Bradbury reflects on art, literature, history, architecture, science fiction, and the people who have influenced him.

The JT LeRoy scandal is a story of our times. In January 2006, the New York Times unmasked Savannah Knoop as the face of the mysterious author JT LeRoy. A media frenzy ensued as JT's fans, mentors, and readers came to terms with the fact that the gay male-ex-truck stop prostitute turned literary wunderkind was really a girl from San Francisco whose sister-in-law wrote the books.

On August 18, 1945, US Army Sergeant Anthony J. Marchione bled to death in the clear, bright sky above Tokyo. Marchione, a gunner in the US Air Force, died, like so many before him in World War II, quietly, cradled in the arms of a buddy. Though tragic, Marchione's death would have been no more notable than any other had he not had the dubious distinction of being the last American killed in World War II combat.

Este libro relata la vida de una familia y unos acontecimientos que cambiaron para siempre la historia de América Latina. Como nadie más podía hacerlo, Juanita nos adentra en el mundo familiar de los Castro, desde su infancia y juventud hasta las nuevas generaciones, pasando por la gesta contra Batista, la Revolución y el posterior desencanto de muchos.

Teeda Butt Mam was 15 years old when the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, in 1975, forcing Teeda and her family to join 3,000,000 other people fleeing the city. In minutes, their safe and well-ordered lives were destroyed. Teeda’s story tells of her extraordinary odyssey out of Cambodia to a strange new land.

Popular biographer Carolly Erickson creates intimate and richly detailed portraits of her historical subjects. In this book she offers a provocative new perspective on Josephine and her fabled marriage to Napoleon.

George Washington may be the most famous American who ever lived and certainly is one of the most admired. But although he has been heavily mythologized, it is no myth that the man who led America's fight for independence and whose two terms in office largely defined the presidency was the most highly respected individual among a generation of formidable personalities. In First and Always, celebrated historian Peter Henriques illuminates Washington's life, more fully explicating his character and his achievements.

After camouflaging her identity to conform to the expected role of the supportive military spouse, Heather Sweeney emerged from the shadows of her husband’s Navy career to rediscover herself as a single mother approaching middle age.