I am A Soldier Against All Odds, and what follows is a genuine and frank account—the good, the very bad, and the very ugly—of my 31 years in uniform. Diagnosed at age seven with an acute learning disability and failing first grade that year, I was sent back to repeat it. At age nine, I was diagnosed with osteomyelitis, a crippling bone disease dissolving the bone of my knee that added to my academic challenges and a significant physical disadvantage.

Filled with sharply drawn, emotionally powerful senses, Walk Through Fire traces the hardships Sheila faced in her marriage and her professional life. Despite her skills as a violinist and music teacher, as well as her obvious entrepreneurial talent, she had to fight to overcome self-doubt and fears of failure. Sheila vividly details her struggles, including battling institutional racism, losing a child, suffering emotional abuse in her thirty-three-year marriage, and plunging into a deep depression with her divorce. And yet, out of that pain came renewed purpose and meaning.

Once described by The Washington Post as "the most interesting mayor you've never heard of", Pete Buttigieg, the 36-year-old Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has improbably emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. First elected in 2011, Buttigieg left a successful business career to move back to his hometown, previously tagged by Newsweek as a "dying city", and transformed it into a shining model of urban reinvention.

For a dozen years as one of the world’s most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman of color and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company - and one of the foremost strategic thinkers of our time - she transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence, and a deep sense of purpose. Now, in a rich memoir brimming with grace, grit, and good humor, My Life in Full offers a firsthand view of Nooyi’s legendary career and the sacrifices it so often demanded.

This book is a four-generation family journey from repression and poverty in China to freedom and prosperity in the United States. Their lives overlap with many significant historical events taking....

While most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad E. Foster was watching the world he grew up with fade to black. But that didn’t stop him from becoming the first blind person to graduate from the Harvard Business School leadership program and climbing the corporate ladder as a successful finance/sales executive. With determination, ambition, and drive, Chad created what Oracle said would be impossible. He gave millions of people the ability to earn a living by becoming the first to create customer relationship software for the visually impaired.

A remarkable life story rooted in two different worlds, Unfinished offers insights into Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s childhood in India; her formative teenage years in the United States; and her return to India, where against all odds as a newcomer to the pageant world, she won the national and international beauty competitions that launched her global acting career. Whether reflecting on her nomadic early years or the challenges she has faced as she has doggedly pursued her calling, Priyanka shares her challenges and triumphs with warmth and honesty.

Wouldn't it be nice to have an entertaining and illuminating guide to living life out loud? Accidentally on Purpose: Tripping Through Life with Regina is a rollicking, true-life travel guide into how outrageous twists and serendipitous turns can become blessings and give life purpose, dimension, and joy. From ridiculous depths to surprising heights and everywhere in between, Regina Meredith takes the listener on a carpet ride of the improbable, where dreams abound and realities intrude to weave a life story that is compelling, informative, and inspirational.

As a young college student in Atlanta, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. had a summer job driving a white banker around town. During the man’s post-luncheon siestas, Jordan passed the time reading books, a fact that astounded his boss. “Vernon can read!” the man exclaimed to his relatives. Nearly 50 years later, Vernon Jordan, now a senior executive at Lazard Freres, long-time civil rights leader, adviser and close friend to presidents and business leaders and one of the most charismatic figures in America, has written an unforgettable book about his life and times.

Jonathan Starr is not your traditional do-gooder, and in 2009, when he decided to found Abaarso, a secondary school in Somaliland, the choice seemed crazy to even his closest friends. Why, they wondered, would he turn down a life of relative luxury to relocate to an armed compound in a breakaway region of the world's number one failed state? To achieve his mission, Starr would have to overcome profound cultural differences, broken promises, and threats to his safety and that of his staff.

The Sea of the Unknown lays before us, cold and callous. Behind us stand the comforts of home, the assurance of a path well-trodden. But some of us feel called to something else - something unseen, undefinable. Those hopes and nebulous dreams rest out over the horizon, beyond the chop and spray of the slate-gray sea that crashes at our feet. We know not how to reach those dreams; we know only that we must try.

Throughout the past year, teacher Chasten Glezman Buttigieg has emerged on the national stage, having left his classroom in South Bend, Indiana, to travel cross-country in support of his husband, former mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Pete's groundbreaking presidential campaign. Through Chasten's joyful, witty social media posts, the public gained a behind-the-scenes look at his life with Pete on the trail - moments that might have ranged from the mundane to the surprising, but that were always heartfelt.

The daughter of hardworking farmers in the heartland, Joni Ernst has never been afraid to roll up her sleeves and get the job done. Raised in rural Iowa, Joni grew up cleaning stalls, hauling grain, and castrating hogs. Farm life forged her work ethic. She developed grit and tenacity, attributes that would later be put to the test when she faced abuse, sexism, and harassment. First, as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army and later as an underdog candidate in the US Senate, Joni has proven to be a natural leader who proudly serves her fellow Americans.

A story of fighting to belong in a world that wasn't built for all of us and of one woman's activism - from the streets of Brooklyn and San Francisco to inside the halls of Washington - Being Heumann recounts Judy Heumann's lifelong battle to achieve respect, acceptance, and inclusion in society. From fighting to attend grade school after being described as a "fire hazard" to later winning a lawsuit against the New York City school system for denying her a teacher's license because of her paralysis, Judy's actions set a precedent that improved rights for disabled people.

Weijian Shan's Out of the Gobi is a powerful memoir and commentary that will be one of the most important books on China of our time, one with the potential to re-shape how Americans view China, and how the Chinese view life in America. Shan, a former hard laborer who is now one of Asia's best-known financiers, is thoughtful, observant, eloquent, and brutally honest, making him well-positioned to tell the story of a life that is a microcosm of modern China, and of how, improbably, that life became intertwined with America.