Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Women

Prieta is a term of endearment. When I tell people who don’t speak Spanish what prieta means—dark or the dark one—their eyes pop open and a small gasp escapes. I see the offense they feel for me sprinkled on their faces like the freckles I will never have. How do I tell them that when I heard Ita say Prieta, I felt the caress of her strong hands on the top of my head as she braided my hair?

Edith Hamilton didn’t publish her first book until she was 62. But over the next three decades this former headmistress would become the twentieth century’s most famous interpreter of the classical world. Today, Hamilton’s Mythology (1942) remains the standard version of ancient tales. During the Cold War, her influence even extended to politics, as she argued that postwar America could learn from the fate of Athens after its victory in the Persian Wars. Victoria Houseman tells the fascinating life story of a remarkable classicist whose ideas were shaped by—and aspired to shape—her times.

August 1943. As World War II consumes much of the globe, Americans at home have no idea the extent of the horror their servicemen face. What they also don’t know is that Eleanor Roosevelt has boarded a military transport plane, heading to the Pacific theater on a mission to discover and report first hand accounts of the war. Anticipating familiar backlash from those who would prefer a prim and proper First Lady, as well as to help ensure her safety, Eleanor and the rest of the White House keep the journey a closely guarded secret.

Major Megan McClung is the first female United States Naval Academy graduate to be killed in action since the school’s 1845 founding and the highest-ranking female U.S. Marine Corps officer to die during the Iraq war. Be Bold is Megan’s inspirational story of defying steep odds, making the ultimate sacrifice and paving the way for a new era of women at war.

Growing up on welfare, food stamps, and Greyhound buses, Holly Thompson Rehder quit school at fifteen to help take care of her mother and younger sister after a devastating car accident. Getting married and pregnant soon thereafter, Holly decided that the life she had been born into was not what she intended to give her child. Two decades later she was a successful businesswoman. And today, she is a rising political star who serves as an inspiration to young women across the state of Missouri—and indeed, the entire nation—all while never forgetting where she came from. 

In life, everyone starts from somewhere. Some may start at the starting line while others begin in the parking lot. Her journey began on the south side of the tracks and took her up on Rodeo Drive in the winter and 5th Ave in the spring. Attending a different school every forces you to be independent. It turns all the attention—good or bad—on you. You learn to read the room, feeling for temperatures both cold and hot. You accept there will be fights, bullying, and a small chance of seeing them again. It’s both liberating while simultaneously scary. So you adapt.

Carla Funk is a teenager with her hands on the church piano keys and her feet edging toward the flames. Coming of age in a remote valley town - a place rich in Mennonites, loggers, and dutiful wives who submit to their husbands - she knows her destiny is to marry, have babies, and join the church ladies’ sewing circle. At once an affectionate coming-of-age tale and a contemplation on meaning, morality, and destiny, Mennonite Valley Girl is about the places we all long to escape - even if they are the same places that define us.

Sifting gingerly through memories of her late mother, brilliant newcomer Sarah McColl has penned an indelible tribute to the joy and pain of loving well. Even as her own marriage splinters, McColl drops everything when her mother is diagnosed with cancer, returning to the family farmhouse and laboring over elaborate meals in the hopes of nourishing her back to health. In a series of vibrant vignettes - lipstick applied, novels read, imperfect cakes baked - McColl reveals a woman of endless charm and infinite love for her unruly brood of children.  

When Mel Miskimen's mother dies, her tough, retired-cop father withdraws into his sadness, and his broken grief is more than Mel can handle on her own. Enter Seamus: a rowdy, hapless Labrador devoted to chaos. In a spark of inspiration, Mel ropes her father into training the wayward hound for a local contest. As the seasons change, Mel finds herself connecting with her last surviving parent more than she'd ever dreamed.

Actress and voiceover artist Samantha Matthews offers - in the form of an extended monologue, prompted and arranged by New York Times best-selling author (and Matthews' cousin once removed) David Shields - a vivid investigation of her startling sexual history.

Teresa Rhyne vowed to get things right this time around: new boyfriend, new house, new dog, maybe even new job. But shortly after she adopted Seamus, a totally incorrigible beagle, vets told Teresa that he had a malignant tumor and less than a year to live. The diagnosis devastated her, but she decided to fight it, learning everything she could about the best treatment for Seamus. Teresa couldn't possibly have known then that she was preparing herself for life's next hurdle - a cancer diagnosis of her own.

In this collection of essays woven with poems and folklore, author Judith Ortiz Cofer tells the story of how she became a poet and writer. She explores her love of words, her discovery of the magic of language, and her struggle to carve out time to practice her art. Cofer recalls the family cuentos, or stories, that inspire her and shows how they speak to all artists, women, and people. Her story and encouragement to pursue our passions are invaluable resources for everyone.

El amante turco es la tercera entrega de las memorias de la escritora puertorriqueña Esmeralda Santiago. En ella cuenta sus años al lado de Ulvi Dogan, hombre turco 17 años mayor. Él fue su puerta de escape del hogar familiar pero la convivencia con él terminó siendo aun más difícil que con su propia madre. La narración comienza en Brooklyn, atraviesa Miami y concluye en Massachusetts, donde Santiago se graduó magna cum laude de Harvard. 

Su vida fue un ejemplo a seguir para todos, tanto en lo personal como en lo profesional. El periodista puertorriqueño, radicado en Nueva York, Juan Moreno Velázquez, presenta un acercamiento real y certero a la Celia que todos conocieron, revelando a su vez, importatntes facetas de su vida que nunca salieron a la luz pública. Este es un título que analiza con certeza periodística la carrera de la Guarachera de Cuba.

Carla Funk grew up in a place of logging trucks and God, pellet guns and parables. Every Sunday, she sat with her mother and brother in the same pew at the Mennonite church while her dad stayed home with his cigarettes and a fridge full of whiskey. In these tender, humorous stories, Funk stitches together the wondrous and the mundane: making snow angels and carrying sacks of potatoes, tossing pig bladders like footballs, and vying for the Christmas pageant spotlight.

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.  

Deemed “the most important campaign effort ever undertaken by the wife of an American president,” the Lady Bird Special was a whistle-stop tour of the South undertaken by Lady Bird Johnson, in a bid for her husband’s reelection in 1964. Never before had a president’s spouse taken to the campaign trail so ambitiously.

With eloquence, vulnerability, and resolve, Nicholas mines her six-decade journey through TV and film stardom, the complexities of her three marriages, and her reconstituting her creative life to become a celebrated novelist, reflecting on the personal, professional, and societal pressures that buffeted her throughout.

In this incredible-but-true crime memoir from “The First Lady of BMF” (Black Mafia Family), Tonesa Welch reveals the dramatic story of her unlikely rise from middle-class teenaged mom to Mafia Queen of Detroit, from Beverly Hills mansions to federal prison—and from a life of danger and...

After seven years of marriage, multiple miscarriages, and three beautiful children, Loreal’s life changed in an instant when she found out that her husband, her first and only love, had a secret. At first, they embraced an untraditional solution, separating romantically but choosing to live in the same house to continue raising their children together. But ultimately, at thirty-two, Loreal would need to start over in life, find herself, and pave her own way forward.