Self Memoir

In Akilah Hughes' world, family - and life - are often complicated, but always funny. Through intimate and hilarious essays, Akilah takes listeners along on her journey from the small Kentucky town where she was born - and eventually became a spelling bee champ and 15-year-old high school graduate - to New York City, where she took careful steps to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer and performer.

From 1914 to 1916, Ernest Shackleton and his men survived the wreck of their ship Endurance, crushed in the Antarctic ice, stranded 1,200 miles from civilization with no means of communication and no hope for rescue. When the ice began to break up, Shackleton set out to save them all on his heroic 800-mile-trip across the frigid South Atlantic, in little more than a rowboat.

As a passionate advocate for mental health, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau believes that in order to know and accept ourselves fully, we need to understand why we think and feel the way we do, and recognize the experiences, attitudes, and patterns that may be holding us back. And yet, all of us are capable of growth and positive change, if we're willing to stay open and curious throughout our lives.

For Chavez, an elementary school librarian and mother of two boys, the signs of mounting anxiety and depression had been present for a while, though she had done her very best to ignore them. Then, one night, while her husband was away on business, Julie found herself locked in a debilitating panic attack that threw her life into a tailspin. The terrifying aftershocks left her grappling with questions about the origin of her anxiety and where it would lead next. What follows is a funny, unflinchingly open account, offering an intimate portrait of how one woman found her way back from the edge.

In the summer of 2002, Shannon Leone Fowler, a 28-year-old marine biologist, was backpacking with her fiancé and love of her life, Sean. Sean was a tall, blue-eyed, warmhearted Australian, and he and Shannon planned to return to Australia after their excursion to Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand. Their plans, however, were devastatingly derailed when a box jellyfish wrapped around Sean's leg, stinging and killing him in a matter of minutes as Shannon helplessly watched.

I wrote this book because when I turned 41 I made a decision to be brave. To live brave - bolder and freer. You see, I thought our lives were supposed to change when we turned 40...but mine didn't. Yet every piece of it changed when I turned 41, when I set out to prove that it wasn't too late for me, that careless words wouldn't stunt me and rejection would not stop me. And maybe, just maybe, it will take you reading about the journey I took to finding my sense of self-worth in order for you to rightfully believe in yours.

Most people don't need to be experts in their field. Yes, the successful know more than the average person about a particular topic, and they often possess a better-than-average ability with a particular skill set; but not everyone who is successful is an expert, he makes clear. And yet we continue to deeply value the expertise ideal. In Master of None, Hudson turns expertise on its head and shows that by embracing variety and becoming more versatile, anyone can succeed and become more open to different opportunities in life.

At first, America knew the only child of Sonny and Cher as Chastity, the cherubic little girl who appeared on her parents' TV show. In later years, she became famous for coming out on a national stage, working with two major organizations toward LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) rights and publishing two books. And just within the past 18 months, Chaz Bono has entered the public consciousness as the most high-profile transgender person ever.

THE MAN IN THE TENT is Tony Beardsall’s lively, informative account of his life since moving under canvas at the age of fifty-one. This volume contains parts one to four at a reduced price. Please click on the author’s name to see the description for each part.

"With humor and lyrical grace," Kathleen Norris meditates on a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh, and forgiving, steeped in history and myth (San Francisco Chronicle). A combination of reporting and reflection, Dakota reminds us that wherever we go, we chart our own spiritual geography.

Short Memoir From the Unique Perspective of a Woman in India Whose Lifelong Lessons Will Make an Impact and Stay With You Forever BITTERSWEET – the one-word definition of life. You need to survive the bitterness to experience the sweetness of life. While the affairs of this life aren’t designed to be a fairytale, this life has its own roller coaster ride to move your world upside down and then get you through it feeling firmer and fiercer! Being a woman is never easy but make sure to squeeze in some time for yourself while balancing relationships, friendships, family, and work. Here’s...

F-16 fighter pilot, American hero, Folds of Honor founder, and family man Dan Rooney delivers a code for living - an inspirational call to action to help ordinary people ascend to their highest level in life. In this world of identity politics, PC police, misplaced morals, and external noise, Rooney’s book will show how all of us are connected by God in more ways than we realize, and that the path to fulfillment begins with changing ourselves in order to better one another.

The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, in search of spiritual clarity.

On January 21, 2008, a routine medical procedure left Mallory paralyzed from her waist down. Less than two years later, Mallory had broken eight world records, and by the 2012 Paralympic Games, she held fifteen world records and thirty-four American records. Two years after that, a devastating fall severely damaged her left arm. But despite all of the hardships that Mallory faced, she was sure about one thing: she refused to give up.

When Dr. Courtney Burnett began to experience strange neurological symptoms while studying abroad in Thailand, the last thing she expected was to self-diagnose a malignant brain tumor. Difficult Gifts is an honest, friendly, and unique memoir written by a thirty-something woman who doesn’t like memoirs, especially ones about cancer. But when life gave her an unexpected difficulty, she found the gifts of it worth sharing. This story is a fresh, upbeat, and vulnerable portrayal of a physician becoming a patient. Courtney takes us on a journey to Thailand and into the mind of a person facing...

As a boy, I felt "the maverick" running wild in my veins. My heroes were the gunfighters of the 1960’s spaghetti westerns and I reveled in their daredevil manhood. Like them, no one could tell me what to do and I pushed the envelope in every way. As I grew into a man I always felt like a leader, but didn't necessarily see anyone I thought was worth following. I needed someone to follow that encouraged my willingness to be marked as different and set apart from the crowd. To really man up, I needed to be led where I was weakest: in righteousness, truthfulness, boldness, faithfulness, ...

In life, moments arise when you have to decide your next move. When choosing whether to accept a new job, purchase a house, attend a school, or start a relationship, how do you settle on which direction to take? Trey Gowdy has found that most consequential decisions boil down to three simple options: start, stay, or leave.

Frank Lorenzo is the epitome of the American dream. A first-generation American and entrepreneur, Lorenzo started an airline advisory business in his mid-twenties and ultimately rose to control the largest fleet of airplanes in the free world. Flying for Peanuts explains how the son of Spanish immigrants put himself through Columbia College by driving a Coca-Cola truck and then grew the fledgling advisory into ownership of Texas International Airlines. From there, Lorenzo became CEO of Continental Airlines, a large loss-making west coast airline at the time.

When Allyson found herself pregnant and living in her car, feeling lost, fearful, and abandoned, she relied on reading Napoleon Hill and tapping into spiritual guidance. Allyson wasn’t sure she would survive, or that the child growing inside of her would make it, but she knew that she had the power to turn things around if she could just get her mind focused on what she wanted. Being aware that she would have to believe what she was thinking, and even though this was an uphill battle in her unbearable circumstances, she took a chance and changed everything. Years later, Allyson is ready ...

THE HERMIT AND THE HITCHHIKER: A SPANISH ENCOUNTER is the tale of two men whose fortuitous meeting in the hills of South-East Spain leads to an unlikely friendship which changes their lives forever. After overcoming the initial reticence caused by their disparate ages and backgrounds, their improbable alliance leads both men to learn from each other and reassess their respective goals, not least when Roy’s old flame, Alicia, returns to the area with her daughter Sara. Touching, humorous and informative, the story of Roy and Ryan’s relationship with each other and their female friends is...