Best of
Autobiography

2000

Facing the Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe


Simone Arnold Liebster - 2000
    Then the Nazis march in, demanding complete conformity. Friends become enemies, teachers spout Nazi propaganda, and school officials recruit for the Hitler Youth. Simone's family refuses to hail Hitler as Germany's savior. They are Jehovah's Witnesses, and they reject Nazi racism and violence. The Nazi Lion makes them pay the price.

From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000


Lee Kuan Yew - 2000
    How is it, then, that today the former British colonial trading post is a thriving Asian metropolis with not only the world's number one airline, best airport, and busiest port of trade, but also the world's fourth–highest per capita real income?The story of that transformation is told here by Singapore's charismatic, controversial founding father, Lee Kuan Yew. Rising from a legacy of divisive colonialism, the devastation of the Second World War, and general poverty and disorder following the withdrawal of foreign forces, Singapore now is hailed as a city of the future. This miraculous history is dramatically recounted by the man who not only lived through it all but who fearlessly forged ahead and brought about most of these changes.Delving deep into his own meticulous notes, as well as previously unpublished government papers and official records, Lee details the extraordinary efforts it took for an island city–state in Southeast Asia to survive at that time.Lee explains how he and his cabinet colleagues finished off the communist threat to the fledgling state's security and began the arduous process of nation building: forging basic infrastructural roads through a land that still consisted primarily of swamps, creating an army from a hitherto racially and ideologically divided population, stamping out the last vestiges of colonial–era corruption, providing mass public housing, and establishing a national airline and airport.In this illuminating account, Lee writes frankly about his trenchant approach to political opponents and his often unorthodox views on human rights, democracy, and inherited intelligence, aiming always "to be correct, not politically correct." Nothing in Singapore escaped his watchful eye: whether choosing shrubs for the greening of the country, restoring the romance of the historic Raffles Hotel, or openly, unabashedly persuading young men to marry women as well educated as themselves. Today's safe, tidy Singapore bears Lee's unmistakable stamp, for which he is unapologetic: "If this is a nanny state, I am proud to have fostered one."Though Lee's domestic canvas in Singapore was small, his vigor and talent assured him a larger place in world affairs. With inimitable style, he brings history to life with cogent analyses of some of the greatest strategic issues of recent times and reveals how, over the years, he navigated the shifting tides of relations among America, China, and Taiwan, acting as confidant, sounding board, and messenger for them. He also includes candid, sometimes acerbic pen portraits of his political peers, including the indomitable Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the poetry–spouting Jiang Zemin, and ideologues George Bush and Deng Xiaoping.Lee also lifts the veil on his family life and writes tenderly of his wife and stalwart partner, Kwa Geok Choo, and of their pride in their three children –– particularly the eldest son, Hsien Loong, who is now Singapore's deputy prime minister.For more than three decades, Lee Kuan Yew has been praised and vilified in equal measure, and he has established himself as a force impossible to ignore in Asian and international politics. From Third World to First offers readers a compelling glimpse into this visionary's heart, soul, and mind.

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers


Loung Ung - 2000
    Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.Harrowing yet hopeful, Loung's powerful story is an unforgettable account of a family shaken and shattered, yet miraculously sustained by courage and love in the face of unspeakable brutality.

German Boy: A Child in War


Wolfgang W.E. Samuel - 2000
    Among them was a little boy named Wolfgang Samuel, who left his home with his mother and sister and ended up in war-torn Strasbourg before being forced farther west into a disease-ridden refugee camp. German Boy is the vivid, true story of their fight for survival as the tables of power turned and, for reasons Wolfgang was too young to understand, his broken family suffered arbitrary arrest, rape, hunger, and constant fear. Because his father was off fighting the war as a Luftwaffe officer, young Wolfgang was forced to become the head of his household, scavenging for provisions and scraps with which to feed his family. Despite his best efforts, his mother still found herself forced to do the unthinkable to survive, and her sacrifices became Wolfgang's worst nightmares. Somehow, with the resilience only children can muster, he maintained his youth and innocence in little ways–making friends with other young refugees, playing games with shrapnel, delighting in the planes flown by the Americans and the candies the GIs brought. In the end, the Samuels begin life anew in America, and Wolfgang eventually goes on to a thirty-year career in the U.S. Air Force.Bringing fresh insight to the dark history of Nazi Germany and the horror left in its wake, German Boy records the valuable recollections of an innocent's incredible journey."I think German Boy has all the qualities of greatness. I love the book." -- from the Foreword by Stephen Ambrose

Defying Hitler


Sebastian Haffner - 2000
    Covering 1907 to 1933, his eyewitness account provides a portrait of a country in constant flux: from the rise of the First Corps, the right-wing voluntary military force set up in 1918 to suppress Communism and precursor to the Nazi storm troopers, to the Hitler Youth movement; from the apocalyptic year of 1923 when inflation crippled the country to Hitler's rise to power. This fascinating personal history elucidates how the average German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices.

My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King


Reymundo Sánchez - 2000
    The Latin Kings, one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America, became his refuge and his world, but its violence cost him friends, freedom, self-respect, and nearly his life. This is a raw and powerful odyssey through the ranks of the new mafia, where the only people more dangerous than rival gangs are members of your own gang, who in one breath will say they’ll die for you and in the next will order your assassination.

A Personal Odyssey


Thomas Sowell - 2000
    It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.

Life is So Good


George Dawson - 2000
    Richard Glaubman captures Dawson's irresistible voice and view of the world, offering insights into humanity, history, hardships, and happiness. From segregation and civil rights, to the wars, presidents, and defining moments in history, George Dawson's description and assessment of the last century inspires readers with the message that-through it all-has sustained him: "Life is so good. I do believe it's getting better."

Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic


Osho - 2000
    Who was this man, known as the Sex Guru, the "self-appointed bhagwan" (Rajneesh), the Rolls-Royce Guru, the Rich Man's Guru, and simply the Master?Drawn from nearly five thousand hours of Osho's recorded talks, this is the story of his youth and education, his life as a professor of philosophy and years of travel teaching the importance of meditation, and the true legacy he sought to leave behind: a religionless religion centered on individual awareness and responsibility and the teaching of "Zorba the Buddha," a celebration of the whole human being.

Eye of the Storm: 25 Years in Action with the SAS


Peter Ratcliffe - 2000
    It is laced with first-hand descriptions of ferocious and bloody fighting, sudden death and incredible heroism, and peopled with a cast of extraordinary individuals, hard-fighting soldiers of every rank and background.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly


Anthony Bourdain - 2000
    Kitchen Confidential reveals what Bourdain calls "twenty-five years of sex, drugs, bad behavior and haute cuisine."

Angry Blonde


Eminem - 2000
    His face has graced the covers of Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Spin, among other magazines; he has a Pay–Per–View special slated for Christmas 2000; and he will be performing at the MTV Video Music Awards this September.Eminem‘s personal life is also garnering him a lot of media attention: he‘s currently being sued for defamation of character by his mother and faces two separate assault charges.Along with his controversial lyrics and Eminem's own commentary on them, Angry Blonde will feature never–before–published photos.

The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist


Neil deGrasse Tyson - 2000
    A unique chronicle of a young man who at one time was both nerd and jock, Tyson’s memoir could well inspire other similarly curious youngsters to pursue their dreams.Like many athletic kids he played baseball, won medals in track and swimming, and was captain of his high school wrestling team. But at the same time he was setting up a telescope on winter nights, taking an advanced astronomy course at the Hayden Planetarium, and spending a summer vacation at an astronomy camp in the Mojave Desert.Eventually, his scientific curiosity prevailed, and he went on to graduate in physics from Harvard and to earn a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia. There followed postdoctoral research at Princeton. In 1996, he became the director of the Hayden Planetarium, where some twenty-five years earlier he had been awed by the spectacular vista in the sky theater.Tyson pays tribute to the key teachers and mentors who recognized his precocious interests and abilities, and helped him succeed. He intersperses personal reminiscences with thoughts on scientific literacy, careful science vs. media hype, the possibility that a meteor could someday hit the Earth, dealing with society’s racial stereotypes, what science can and cannot say about the existence of God, and many other interesting insights about science, society, and the nature of the universe.Now available in paperback with a new preface and other additions, this engaging memoir will enlighten and inspire an appreciation of astronomy and the wonders of our universe.

To the Edge of the Sky: A Story of Love, Betrayal, Suffering, and the Strength of Human Courage


Anhua Gao - 2000
    Anhua Gao (her name means Tranquil Flower) was born in 1949, the year that Mao Tse Tung declared the foundation of the People's Republic of China. "To The Edge of the Sky" is, like Jung Chang's "Wild Swans," an inspiring and heartrending story of life under communist rule and, at the same time, a compelling and detailed history of China's political upheaval through the twentieth century. Gao's early childhood is idyllic-both of her parents are highly respected workers in the Communist army and the family lives in comfort, with many privileges. By the time Anhua is eleven, however, both are dead-and their reputation proves a fragile shield from the horrors of communist China. With an assured and deliberate voice, and from the perspective of her new and hard-won safety of a new life in Britain (her mother once pointed out the island country to her on a Chinese world map, located on the far left "on the edge of the sky"), Gao interweaves a picture of calamitous Maoist policies with her own story of shocking family betrayal, cruel imprisonment, and bureaucratic absurdity. "To the Edge of the Sky" is a powerful and evocative autobiography-the story of a woman who, against unbelievable odds, survived to find a happiness she had not dared hope for.

He Touched Me: An Autobiography


Benny Hinn - 2000
    And you will read of the deep conflicts in the Hinn household when, after the family immigrated to Canada, Benny had a dramatic, life-changing spiritual experience.The journey from a small church in Oshawa, Ontario, to the largest stadiums and arenas in the world is filled with love, laughter, and tears. It is also a story of miracles.He Touched Me, the autobiography of Benny Hinn, will inspire you. It reveals what can heppen when one person becomes totally yielded to the holy Spirit.

The Ring of Bright Water Trilogy


Gavin Maxwell - 2000
    A haven for wildlife - he named his home Camusfearna and settled there with the otters Mij, Edal and Teko.Ring of Bright Water chronicles Gavin Maxwell's first ten years with the otters and touched the hearts of readers the world over, brilliantly evoking life with these playful animals in this natural paradise. Two further volumes followed bringing the story full circle telling of the difficult last years and the final abandonment of the settlement.For the first time the entire trilogy is available in a single narrative in this beautifully presented book.

45


Bill Drummond - 2000
    Whether he's recording 'Justified and Ancient' with Tammy Wynette; contemplating the dull lunacy of the Turner prize; resisting the urge to paint landscapes; or glorying in the crapness of rock comebacks; he is consistently amusing and thought-provoking, and draws us into his world with the seductive enthusiasm of a born storyteller. An artist with a singular approach to his work, Bill Drummond paused to take stock of his life and a career that spans over twenty-five eventful years. Famously enjoying international success with The KLF and inviting national controversy for burning a million quid with The K Foundation, these days Drummond spends much of his time writing profusely. He avoids and confronts issues, infuriates and inspires those around him, muses and confuses, creates and destroys. He has maintained a penchant for reckless schemes - all this while drinking endless pots of tea.

Smiling in Slow Motion


Derek Jarman - 2000
    These previously unpublished journals stretch from May 1991 until two weeks before the author’s death in February 1994.

Double Luck: Memoirs of a Chinese Orphan


Chi Fa Lu - 2000
    The timing of the tragedy could not have been worse-- it was a time of political turmoil and severe hardship in China. Few people willingly took in orphans, and Chi Fa's extended family was no exception. The young boy was shuffled from one house to another as his relatives turned him away, one by one. Even his loving sister was forbidden by her husband to take him under her roof.Chi fa was always hungry, often cold, and frequently beaten. But through all his struggles, he held onto his sister's hopeful words: You are lucky, Chi Fa. Good fortune will find you.This stirring memoir of a painful childhood tells a story of resilience and courage, and attests to the power of even small acts of kindness.

Soldier: A Poet's Childhood


June Jordan - 2000
    "SHORTA not uncommon story is here captured with astonishing beauty" the childhood of a gifted daughter whose immigrant parents must struggle in order to provide her with the educational and social opportunities not available to them or, for that matter, to most blacks of her generation. In vivid prose that re-creates the heady impressions of youth, June Jordan takes us to the Harlem and Brooklyn neighborhoods where she lived and out into the larger landscape of her burgeoning imagination. Exploring the nature of memory, writing, and familial as well as social responsibility, Jordan re-creates the world in which her identity as a social and artistic revolutionary was forged.

Learning to Breathe Again: Choosing Life and Finding Hope After a Shattering Loss


Tammy Trent - 2000
    Her husband, Trent, was Tammy's best friend and business manager. While vacationing in Jamaica in 2001, a routine free diving excursion in the Blue Lagoon turned drastically tragic when Trent never resurfaced. Unfortunately, the following day's events of 9/11 would create an incredible obstacle to Tammy's and her family's efforts to connect and handle these horrendous events.Tearful prayers pleading with God to make Himself real have been answered, and God is slowly restoring Tammy's joy and hope, as she begins to sing and dance again for Him.

No Hurry to Get Home: The Memoir of the New Yorker Writer Whose Unconventional Life and Adventures Spanned the Century


Emily Hahn - 2000
    Born in St. Louis in 1905, she crashed the all-male precincts of the University of Wisconsin geology department as an undergraduate, traveled alone to the Belgian Congo at age 25, was the concubine of a Chinese poet in Shanghai, bore the child of the head of the British Secret Service before World War II, and finally returned to New York to live and write in Greenwich Village. In this memoir, first published as essays in The New Yorker, Hahn writes vividly and amusingly about the people and places she came to know and love—with an eye for the curious and a heart for the exotic.

Slave Narratives


William L. AndrewsSojourner Truth - 2000
    The works collected in this volume present unflinching portrayals of the cruelty and degradation of slavery while testifying to the African-American struggle for freedom and dignity. They demonstrate the power of the written word to affirm a person's—and a people's—humanity in a society poisoned by racism. Slave Narratives shows how a diverse group of writers challenged the conscience of a nation and, through their expression of anger, pain, sorrow, and courage, laid the foundations of the African-American literary tradition.This volume collects ten works published between 1772 and 1864:Two narratives by James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1772) and Olaudah Equiano (1789) recount how they were taken from Africa as children and brought across the Atlantic to British North America.The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831) provides unique insight into the man who led the deadliest slave uprising in American history.The widely read narratives by the fugitive slaves Frederick Douglass (1845), William Wells Brown (1847), and Henry Bibb (1849) strengthened the abolitionist cause by exposing the hypocrisies inherent in a slaveholding society ostensibly dedicated to liberty and Christian morality.The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850) describes slavery in the North while expressing the eloquent fervor of a dedicated woman.Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860) tells the story of William and Ellen Craft's subversive and ingenious escape from Georgia to Philadelphia.Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) is Harriet Jacobs's complex and moving story of her prolonged resistance to sexual and racial oppression.The narrative of the "trickster" Jacob Green (1864) presents a disturbing story full of wild humor and intense crueltyTogether, these works fuse memory, advocacy, and defiance into a searing collective portrait of American life before emancipation.Slave Narratives contains a chronology of events in the history of slavery, as well as biographical and explanatory notes and an essay on the texts.The editors of this volume are William L. Andrews, E. Maynard Adams Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of Humanities at Harvard University.

Callus on My Soul


Dick Gregory - 2000
    Now, more than 30 years after his bestselling book "Nigger, " Gregory has put his provocative life story down on paper, recounting his unique experience and discussing a host of other luminaries--from Rosa Parks to Hugh Hefner. 25 photos.

Seeing Things: An Autobiography


Oliver Postgate - 2000
    Full description

The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd


Mary Rose O'Reilley - 2000
    For Mary Rose O’Reilley a year tending sheep seemed a way to seek a spirituality based not on “climbing out of the body” but rather on existing fully in the world, at least if she could overlook some of its earthier aspects. The Barn at the End of the World follows O’Reilley in her sometimes funny, sometimes moving quest. Though small in stature, she learns to “flip” very large sheep and help them lamb. She also visits a Buddhist monastery in France, where she studies the practice of Mahayana Buddhism, dividing her spare time between meditation and dreaming of French pastries.

Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found


Jennifer Lauck - 2000
    Wrenching and unforgettable, Blackbird will carry your heart away.To young Jenny, the house on Mary Street was home -- the place where she was loved, a blue-sky world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles. Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with powder and a kiss on the cheek. But when everything that Jenny had come to rely on begins to crumble, an odyssey of loss, loneliness, and a child's will to survive takes flight....

All of Me: My Extraordinary Life


Barbara Windsor - 2000
    Doesn't include original photographic and illustrated material. Born in the East End of London just before the war, Barbara Windsor made her first stage appearance at the age of 13. From her early roles as the original Carry On dolly bird to her hit as Peggy Mitchell in the award-winning BBC drama EastEnders, her spectacular success in theatre, film and TV has made her a British icon - the Cockney kid with a dazzling smile and talent to match. Here, for the first time, she talks in depth about the people and events that have shaped her career: her lonely childhood, her doomed marriage to Ronnie Knight, her legendary affairs, how she has never let her fans down whatever her personal anguish. This is the heart-warming story of a courageous woman and consummate performer who has always made sure the show goes on.

An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust


Henry A. Oertelt - 2000
    A Holocaust survivor chronicles the chain of events that kept him alive, providing first-hand accounts of Hitler's rise to power, Kristallnacht, and confinement in various concentration camps.

Jungle Man: The Autobiography Of Major P. J. Pretorius C.M.G. D.S.O. and Bar


P.J. Pretorius - 2000
    Pretorius also gives the first full account of the search for the German cruiser Königsberg which had sunk the Pegasus at Zanzibar and then gone into hiding in the Rufiji delta.“I have never seen a more thrilling story of a hunter’s life. It is full of almost unbelievable incidents, of reckless daring, and of hair-breadth escapes. If one knew the writer the interest increases, for he was a quiet, gentle, unassuming person in appearance. What fire lay hidden under those quiet features and that gentle manner! His very person seemed to be a camouflage.”—Foreword by J. C. Smuts

The Past is Myself & The Road Ahead Omnibus: When I Was a German, 1934-1945


Christabel Bielenberg - 2000
    She lived through the war in Germany, as a German citizen under the horrors of Nazi rule and Allied bombings. The Past is Myself is her story of that experience - and an unforgettable portrait of an evil time.The Road AheadFollowing the extraordinary success of her wartime memoir, The Past is Myself, Christabel Bielenberg received thousands of letters from readers begging her to describe what happened next. In The Road Ahead she continues her story with the outbreak of peace - a time of struggle for reconciliation with, and the rebuilding of, a defeated nation. She also tells of life in her newly adopted country, Ireland, her involvement with the Peace Women of Northern Ireland, and with characteristic modesty and gratitude, looks back on a rich, full life.

Telling Tales


Alan Bennett - 2000
    When war breaks out in 1939, the Bennett family is on a tram heading down Tong Road as Neville Chamberlain addresses the nation. 'So, not quite partaking in the national mood and, as ever, unbrushed by the wings of history.'The precocious Alan yearns to see the places and lead the life he reads about in books, but not even the war provides the excitement he longs for. This is an ordinary childhood - hiking in the Dales on Sundays, trips into town with Mam - recalled with wry observation and ironic understatement, which is by turns moving and hilarious.These beautifully rendered snapshots, which include poignant portraits of his parents, confirm Bennett at the forefront of contemporary writing. Presented here as a new edition, Telling Tales will delight Bennett fans and enchant a new generation of readers.

Celine Dion: My Story, My Dream


Céline Dion - 2000
    Here is a book for anyone who has ever wondered about the real person behind the magnificent voice. Touching and funny, fascinating and uplifting, it is an exquisitely detailed portrait of a remarkable woman who has never backed away from any challenge...even the most daunting challenges of the heart.

My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance at Life


Howard Storm - 2000
    Not so in Howard Storm’s case.Storm, an avowed atheist, was awaiting emergency surgery when he realized that he was at death’s door. Storm found himself out of his own body, looking down on the hospital room scene below. Next, rather than going “toward the light,” he found himself being torturously dragged to excruciating realms of darkness and death, where he was physically assaulted by monstrous beings of evil. His description of his pure terror and torture is unnerving in its utter originality and convincing detail.Finally, drawn away from death and transported to the realm of heaven, Storm met angelic beings as well as the God of Creation. In this fascinating account, Storm tells of his “life review,” his conversation with God, even answers to age-old questions such as why the Holocaust was allowed to take place. Storm was sent back to his body with a new knowledge of the purpose of life here on earth. This book is his message of hope."This is a book you devour from cover to cover, and pass on to others. This is a book you will quote in your daily conversation. Storm was meant to write it and we were meant to read it."-From the foreward by Anne RiceAs I lay on the ground, my tormentors swarming around me, a voice emerged from my chest. It sounded like my voice, but it wasn’t a thought of mine. I didn’t say it. The voice that sounded like my voice, but wasn’t, said, “Pray to God.” I remember thinking, “Why? What a stupid idea. That doesn’t work. What a cop-out . . .” That voice said it again, “Pray to God!” It was more definite this time. I wasn’t sure what to do. Praying, for me as a child, had been something I had watched adults doing. It was something fancy and had to be done just so. I tried to remember prayers from my childhood experiences in Sunday school. Prayer was something you memorized. What could I remember from so long ago? Tentatively, I murmured a line, which was a jumble from the Twenty-third Psalm, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the Lord’s Prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and “God Bless America,” and whatever other churchly sounding phrases came to mind.“Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. For purple mountain majesty, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Deliver us from evil. One nation under God. God Bless America.”To my amazement, the cruel, merciless beings tearing the life out of me were incited to rage by my ragged prayer. It was as if I were throwing boiling oil on them. They screamed at me, “There is no God! Who do you think you’re talking to? Nobody can hear you! Now we are really going to hurt you.” They spoke in the most obscene language, worse than any blasphemy said on earth. But at the same time, they were backing away.—From My Descent into Death

Martian in the Playground: Understanding the Schoolchild with Asperger′s Syndrome


Clare Sainsbury - 2000
    This exceptional book illuminates what it means to be a person who has Asperger′s Syndrome by providing a window into a unique and particular world.

Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey


Daniel Keyes - 2000
    Now, in Algernon, Charlie, and I, Keyes reveals his methods of creating fiction as well as the heartbreaks and joys of being published. With admirable insight he shares with readers, writers, teachers, and students the creative life behind his classic novel, included here in its original short-story form. All those who love stories, storytelling, and the remarkable characters of Charlie and Algernon will delight in accompanying their creator on this inspirational voyage of discovery.

Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon


John Little - 2000
    The images and texts in Bruce Lee: The Celebrated Life of the Golden Dragon recall the notable achievements and thoughts left by this leading icon of the martial arts world.From his childhood to his international stardom, the book reveals a quiet family man behind the charismatic public persona. It shows the real Bruce Lee—who was so much more than an international film and martial arts celebrity. This brilliant photo essay is compiled and edited by Bruce Lee expert John Little. With a preface by Shannon Lee and a foreword by Linda Lee Cadwell, the text is drawn directly from Bruce Lee's own diaries and journals, as well as from interviews and the award-winning documentary Bruce Lee: In His Own Words.For fans of Chuck Norris, martial arts, Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do, and the Green Hornet, this book reveals the full range of Lee's talents and achievements through stunning and rare photography spanning the period from his early stage career in Hong Kong to his worldwide success as an actor and martial arts phenomenon. Selected with the assistance of Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, John Little presents a photographic catalog, accompanied by descriptive commentary, of all facets of this fascinating man, from the start of his career to his untimely and tragic death in 1973.

Africa in My Blood: An Autobiography in Letters


Jane Goodall - 2000
    We see her at eleven founding the Alligator Society ("You have to be able to recognize 10 birds, 10 dogs, 10 trees and 5 butterflies OR moths"); at seventeen developing a crush on the local minister ("He has a beautiful long nose and he loves dogs"); at twenty punting at Oxford -- and falling out of the boat ("And I stood in the water -- up to my chest -- and roared and roared with laughter"); at twenty-two working at a film company and saving for a trip to Africa.At twenty-three, she took that trip, to "the Africa I have always longed for, always felt stirring in my blood." In Kenya's White Highlands, she rode horses, danced, and developed her observational skills on both animals and men ("He is very handsome & Clo & I sat in the car admiring his bottom & feeling sorry for him because he was getting filthy & oily"). The men returned her interest ("What the devil am I to do with all these middle aged married men. They hang in multitudinous garlands from every limb and neck I've got").The turning point of her life came when a friend told her, "If you are interested in animals, you must meet Louis Leakey." And when she did meet the legendary anthropologist, he saw in this young secretarial school graduate the ideal candidate to undertake a revolutionary study of chimpanzees. He sent her to the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve on Lake Tanganyika, where she immersed herself in the lives of wild animals as no one had ever done before. Goodall has told this story in other books, but never so immediately and emotionally. She describes a chimp rain dance ("Every so often their wild calls rang out above the thunder. Primitive hairy men, huge and black on the skyline, flinging themselves across the ground in their primaeval display of strength and power . . . Can you begin to imagine how I felt? The only human ever to have witnessed such a display in all its primitive, fantastic wonder?"); a female chimp mating with five males early in the morning ("Hello -- No 5 is queuing, down on the bottom branch. 'Thanks Big Boy, but don't hang around.' No 5 leaps out of the way as No 4 charges down . . . Soon over & off he goes. Now perhaps a girl can have a bite of breakfast"); a colobus monkey clasping its dead baby ("She kept trying to groom its poor little coat. Oh, it was heart rending. I'm only so glad I've never seen a chimp with a dead baby. I just couldn't bear it").AFRICA IN MY BLOOD is a dramatic, moving, funny, and important book that tells the story of how an English girl who loved animals became one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century.

The Hours After: Letters of Love and Longing in War's Aftermath


Gerda Weissmann Klein - 2000
    Over fifty years ago, Gerda Weissmann was barely alive at the end of a 350-mile death march that took her from a slave labor camp in Germany to the Czech border. On May 7, 1945, the American military stormed the area, and the first soldier to approach Gerda was Kurt Klein. She guided him to her fellow prisoners who lay sick and dying on the ground, and quoted Goethe: "Noble be man, merciful and good." Perhaps it was her irony, her composure, her evident compassion in the face of tragedy, that struck Kurt Klein. A great love had begun. Forced to separate just weeks after liberation and hours after their engagement, Gerda and Kurt began a correspondence that lasted until their reunion and wedding in Paris a year later. Their poignant letters reflect upon the horrors of war and genocide, but above all, upon the rapture and salvation of true love.

My Life in the Paradise Garage: Keep On Dancin'


Mel Cheren - 2000
    What started out as a whisper of an idea between lovers - Garage owner Michael Brody and financial backer Mel Cheren - eventually culminated into a dance palace that existed for more than a decade and is still spoken about with reverence.Keep on Dancin' gives hundreds of private recollections from the people who were there: Tom Moulton, Francois Kevorkian, Grace Jones, Thelma Houston, Frankie Knuckles, Junior Vasquez and others help recreate the moment when love was the message.Scheduled for release in the spring, Keep on Dancin' promises to usher in a wave of Garage nostalgia. An authorized CD of Larry Levan's Garage classics is also scheduled for release this spring. Ultimately, the author, who has devoted himself to AIDS related philanthropic work, plans to reopen the Garage in its original space in Manhattan, with the profits going to AIDS related charities.

To Free a Dolphin


Richard O'Barry - 2000
    Now, in To Free a Dolphin, he passionately recounts the dramatic story of his heart-breaking campaign to release captive dolphins back into the wild. With wit and insight he chronicles the extreme opposition he has faced from bureaucrats, major players in the captive-dolphin industry, rival wildlife groups, and well-meaning sentimentalists. He introduces readers to famous show animals he has helped, including Bogie and Bacall of Key Largo. And, most fascinating, he describes his struggles to deprogram and rehabilitate dolphins emotionally scarred from years of captivity--struggles that become battles for the animals' souls.O'Barry is nothing if not controversial--passionate about his mission, adamant in his beliefs. And it is some measure of the incredible strength of the opposition to animal rights that it requires all the cunning, all the persistence, and all the strength of character O'Barry possesses to undo even a part of what the billion-dollar captive-animal establishment has created. In the movie, it may be child's play to free a killer whale like Willy. In real life, doing what is right is not so easily accomplished. Whatever one's beliefs about animal rights, one has to admire O'Barry as an authentic American original with a distinctly American dream.

Evil Spirits: The Life of Oliver Reed


Cliff Goodwin - 2000
    Having risen through Hammer Horror films to international stardom as Bill Sykes in Oliver!, Reed became, in his own works, 'the biggest star this country has got'. With his legendary off-screen exploits and blunt opinions - especially of his co-stars - he was also one of the most infamous.Bestselling author Cliff Goodwin uses material from first-hand interviews with Reed's family, friends and colleagues and never before seen photographs to explore Reed's eventful career. But he also reveals another side to this unique and complex man.

Kylie: La La La


Kylie Minogue - 2000
    Her latest album, “Fever,” shot to the top of the charts, selling six million copies worldwide. In this lavish tribute, we are offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the creative drive and talent that have made her one of the world’s top recording artists. Featuring over 250 photos, many never before seen, Kylie: La La La is a dazzling and intimate record of her career.

Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin


Judith Tannenbaum - 2000
    Recounting how she and her students shared profound and complicated lessons about humanity and life both inside and outside San Quentin's walls, Tannenbaum tells provocative stories of obsession, racism, betrayal, despair, courage, and beauty. Contrary to the growing public perception of prisoners as demons, the men in this poetry class-Angel, Coties, Elmo, Glenn, Richard, Spoon-emerge not as beasts or heroes but as human beings with expressive voices, thoughts, and feelings strikingly similar to the free.Tannenbaum provides revealing views of conditions in the cellblocks and shows how the realities of prison life often paralleled her own life experiences. She also relates such events as visits to her group by prominent poets (including Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz); a prison production of Waiting for Godot sponsored by Samuel Beckett himself; and the presentation of her students' work to a class of sixth and eighth graders, who connected to the prisoners' words by writing their own poems to the inmates.

One Day My Soul Just Opened Up


Iyanla Vanzant - 2000
    There is something bigger than you know going on here". These are the precious words that launched author Iyanla Vanzant's journey to a new life. In this remarkable calendar, based on the bestselling book of the same title, Vanzant offers a refreshing, enlightened weekly program for personal growth.

One Train Later: A Memoir


Andy Summers - 2000
    . . A rollicking you-are-there history of the 60s-80s rock era.---Entertainment WeeklyIn this extraordinary memoir, world-renowned guitarist Andy Summers provides the revealing and passionate account of a life dedicated to music. From his first guitar at age thirteen and his early days on the English music scene to the ascendancy of his band, the Police, Summers recounts his relationships and encounters with the Big Roll Band, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, the Animals, John Belushi, and others, all the while proving himself a master of telling detail and dramatic anecdote. Andy's account of his role as guitarist for the Police---a gig that was only confirmed by a chance encounter with drummer Stewart Copeland on a London train---has been long-awaited by music fans worldwide. The heights of fame that the Police achieved have rarely been duplicated, and the band's triumphs were rivaled only by the personal chaos that such success brought about, an insight never lost on Summers in the telling. Complete with never-before-published photos from Summers's personal collection, One Train Later is a constantly surprising and poignant memoir, and the work of a world-class musician and a first-class writer.

The Power of Faith


Smith Wigglesworth - 2000
    He trusted wholeheartedly in the words of Jesus, “Only believe” (Mark 5:36). God used his simple faith to restore sight to the blind, health to the sick, and even life to the dead. This same kind of miracle-working faith can be yours.Lacking vision and purpose? Discover your God-given destiny.Crippled by insecurity? Experience emotional wholeness.Feeling powerless? God wants to use you in amazing ways.The sustaining effect of the smallest drop of faith will create continues ripples of power. As you believe God, your faith will explode. Your miracle is waiting for you.

One Voice


Christy Moore - 2000
    An autobiography - combining song lyrics and memories - of Ireland's greatest musical icon and national hero.

Ben Israel; The Odyssey of a Modern Jew,


Arthur Katz - 2000
    Through the diversity of Marxist, pragmatist, and existential ideologies and philosophies, as well as merchant marine and military experiences, Art was brought to a final moral crisis as a teacher, able to raise, but not answer the groaning perplexities of the modern age and his own heart. During a leave of absence, on a hitch-hiking odyssey through North Africa, Western Europe and the Middle East, the cynical and unbelieving atheist - vehement anti-religionist and anti-Christian - was radically apprehended by a God whom he was not seeking. The actual journal, Ben Israel - Odyssey of a modern Jew, recounts the breaking into consciousness and ultimate apprehension of an unsuspecting and resistant 'son of Israel.'

The Learning Game: A Teacher's Inspirational Story


Jonathan Smith - 2000
    We all remember our own schooldays and, as parents, we watch anxiously as our children go through it. As we look at the world of teaching from the outside we wonder not only what is going on but what we can do to help. Jonathan Smith, a born teacher and writer, takes us on his personal journey from his first days as a pupil through to the challenges of his professional and private life on the other side of the desk. He makes us feels what it is like to be a teacher facing the joys and the battles of a class. How do you influence a child? He describes how you catch and stretch their minds. What difference can a teacher make, or how much damage can he do? Should clever pupils teach themselves? What works in the classroom world and what does not? And while influencing the young, how do you develop yourself, how do you teach yourself to keep another life and find that elusive balance? This is a compelling and combative story, warmly anecdotal in approach, yet as sharp in its views of the current debates as it is sensitive in its psychological understanding. From the first page to the last, and without a hint of jargon, this inspiring book rings true.

Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele


Bengt Jangfeldt - 2000
    By the 1890s, he was world-famous for his healing powers, believed by some to be supernatural. He moved in the most colourful and exalted circles of fin-de-siècle Europe, counting amongst his friends Henry James, Howard Carter, Rainer Maria Rilke, Lady Ottoline Morrell and Count Zeppelin. Though physician to the Swedish court, where he became the lover of the Crown Princess Victoria, Munthe was more at home with nature than with people. He travelled through remotest Lapland, as well as across Europe, and his great love was animals, which he went to great lengths to protect. In 1929 he published The Story of San Michele, an account of his life, shot through with his love for Italy and Capri, where he built a bird sanctuary and the house of his dreams, the Villa San Michele. The book became an international best seller, translated into 40 languages, and has become one of the classics of the last century. Bengt Jangfeldt is the first person to have gone through Munthe’s diaries, letters and notebooks to produce this definitive account of one of 20th Century Europe’s most vibrant figures.Written with the verve and exuberance of its subject, Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele evokes a lost time, a life of passions, and a man who believed in every sense in the power of dreams.

Owning Up: The Trilogy: Scouse Mouse; Rum, Bum and Concertina; Owning Up (Penguin Classic Biography)


George Melly - 2000
    Scouse Mouse is a funny and frequently touching story of the author's 1930s childhood in a middle-class Liverpudlian household. Rum, Bum & Concertina, the naval equivalent of wine, women and song, describes Melly's National Service as one of the most unlikely naval ratings ever. He becomes an anarchist and connoisseur of Surrealist Art while self-educating himself on some of the wilder shores of love. Once demobbed, Melly comes to London to work in an art gallery, and in Owning Up he describes how he slipped into the world of the jazz revival, revelling in an endless round of pubs, clubs, seedy guest-houses and transport caffs while surrounded by a mad array of musicians, tarts, drunks and arch-eccentrics.

The Other Side of the Rainbow: The Autobiography of the Voice of Clannad


Maire Brennan - 2000
    Along with sister Enya, and the other members of Clannad, Máire has always fiercely guarded her privacy. Yet in recent years - largely due to a new self confidence and discovery of Christian faith - Máire has begun to share a testimony that has inspired thousands of fans on both sides of the Atlantic. We follow her life - from idyllic innocent childhood in county Donegal, through the highs and lows of "success" in the public eye, the personal torment of successive relationship breakdown, and the consequences of promiscuity and drug and alcohol indulgence. Ultimately this is a story of a woman whose dream became a nightmare, and yet throughout the trauma a still small voice continued to whisper her name. In seeking out that voice she finally found her love and security she had craved all her life.

A Half Acre of Hell: A Combat Nurse in WW II


Avis D. Schorer - 2000
    Schorer

Strannik: The Call to the Pilgrimage of the Heart (Madonna House Classics)


Catherine de Hueck Doherty - 2000
    Pilgrimage is more than something you ‘do.’ ‘Being a pilgrim’ consumes all of you. The pilgrim is to “be the Gospel and to preach it with his words and with his being.” In Strannik, Servant of God and Madonna House founder Catherine Doherty shows that pilgrimage is not just something for a few spiritual ascetics with wanderlust. Even less does it resemble the modern tourist-style ‘pilgrimages’ that try to cover as many holy places as possible in the briefest time possible. Rather, the true strannik begins by looking within the self, where God already is. While the author does tell us about external pilgrimages such as she herself experienced as a child in Russia, the pilgrimages she is writing about are principally interior. Pilgrimage comes out of a quest for God. Catherine speaks of the “nostalgia for paradise” which all human beings have experienced since Adam and Eve. Without Christ we cannot complete our journey. “Christ was the pilgrim who pilgrimed from the bosom of the Father to the hearts of men and women.” Written for all Christians, those who have found and those who seek. This is the pilgrimage of each person’s life. Author Profile: Catherine Doherty Catherine Doherty used her heritage as a Russian Christian as a matrix for responding to the needs of Christian life and work in the modern world. Her own personal pilgrimage led her to be “poor with the poor Christ” in the slums of Toronto and in Harlem; and later to the establishing of the world-wide Madonna House Apostolate (in 1947). A dedicated wife and mother, Catherine was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, a best-selling author of dozens of books, a renowned national speaker, and a pio

From Hollywood To Heaven


Robin Harfouche - 2000
    From the dark hole of despair, Robin called to her spirit guide for help, but was met with a bone chilling silence. Suicide, beckoning her as a bitter friend and whispering words of relief, reached out for her hand...when suddenly the phone rang..."

Nothing


Paul Morley - 2000
    He also considers how the deaths of Ian Curtis, Elvis Presley and Marc Bolan might have had an impact on the story.

One Step Beyond


Chris Moon - 2000
    He lost his lower right leg and right arm and survived only through sheer determination. Less than a year after leaving hospital, he ran the London Marathon, raising money for charities assisting the disabled, defying all expectations for his own future. He has since completed more than fifteen other marathons, including the punishing Marathon des Sables, which is a 137 mile race across the Sahara. "One Step Beyond" is Chris Moon's story so far. He has led a life of remarkable experiences, from being one of the few people to survive kidnap by the Khmer Rouge, to running the final stage of the Olympic torch relay to Nagano for the opening of the 18th Winter Olympics in 1998. Chris Moon writes with wit and charm, passion and belief, and his tale is truly one of adventure, romance and inspiration. 'An inspiring book written by a very brave and modest man' - "Richard Branson" 'A wonderful read replete with humour and honesty' - "Steve Cram" 'This powerful book will give you an insight into Chris Moon and, like me, you will feel humbled in his presence' - "Tracey Edwards"

One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient


David Biro - 2000
    But what if the person receiving the diagnosis--young, physically fit, poised for a bright future--is himself a doctor?At thirty-one David biro has just completed his residency and joined his father's successful dermatology practice. Struck with a rare blood disease that eventually necessitates a bone marrow transplant, Biro relates with honesty and courage the story of his most transforming journey. He is forthright about the advantages that his status as a physician may have afforded him; and yet no such advantage can protect him from the anxiety and doubt brought on by his debilitating therapies. The pressures that Biro's wild "one hundred days" brings to bear on his heretofore well-established identity as a caregiver are enormous--as is the power of this riveting story of survival.

Johnny Ginger's Last Ride


Tom Fremantle - 2000
    The action-packed narrative includes Syria, Iran,Afghanistan, Tibet, China and Cambodia.

Harpo Speaks...About New York


Harpo Marx - 2000
    For a kid on the streets in 1902, every day demanded wit and improvisation. Beyond the door of the tenement at 179 East 93rd Street lay rival gangs, lucky breaks, failed hustles. While his mother, Minnie, was occupied elsewhere—planning her unruly brood’s ultimate destiny—Harpo roamed the streets doing what any self-respecting second-grade dropout would: grabbing the family’s one left-foot skate and heading to Central Park, preparing for the bonfires of a Tammany election night, and hopping on the El to watch “the Gods in Valhalla—which is to say, the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds.” With an unforgettable cast of characters, and set against turn-of-the-century Manhattan, Harpo Speaks . . . About New York overflows with the optimism and sweetness of the kid who, on the off-chance that “Sandy Claus” just might remember him, never forgot to hang his stocking in the airshaft on Christmas Eve.

The Circle of Hanh: A Memoir


Bruce Weigl - 2000
    Upon his release from duty he turned to alcohol, drugs, and women, living for years in a confused purgatory until he discovered salvation in poetry and in the love of his wife and their son. Yet it was only through a harrowing journey back to Vietnam, to adopt his eight-year-old daughter, that Weigl was finally able to heal himself. Moving from childhood to the war to a final act of compassion and hope, The Circle of Hanh is a powerful re-creation of a deeply haunted life and, ultimately, a stunning work of redemption.

Saturday's Child: A Memoir


Robin Morgan - 2000
    But these adult accomplishments eclipsed an earlier fame. "Saturday's child has to work for a living," and Morgan has--since the age of two. She was a tot model, had her own radio show at age four, and was a child star on television, including on the popular series "Mama." Unlike most child actors, she emerged to reinvent a life filled with literary achievement and constructive politics.Here Morgan tells the whole story--the years as a child so famous she was named "The Ideal American Girl," her fight to become a serious writer, marriage to a fiery bisexual poet, motherhood, lovers (male and female), and decades working on civil rights, the radical underground, and global feminism. This is the intensely personal, behind-the-scenes story of her life.

Bloodroot: Tracing the Untelling of Motherloss


Betsy Warland - 2000
    As Betsy spends the last two weeks with her mother, she revisits their difficult relationship and unravels some of the hurt and anger.

Live Long & Die Laughing


Mark Lowry - 2000
    Using material from his email newsletter, along with responses from its nearly 40,000 subscribers ("reMarkable,"www.marklowry.com), Lowry underscored the idea that God tirelessly loves and looks after his believers, no matter how quirky we are!

The Game and the Glory: An Autobiography


Michelle Akers - 2000
    Her award-filled career, including the physical, personal, and spiritual struggles she has overcome, is the subject of this book.

In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy


Ken Wiwa - 2000
    Ken Saro-Wiwa, a renowned poet and environmentalist, was campaigning to protect his Ogoni people against the encroachments of Shell Oil and a brutal dictatorship. He was imprisoned, tortured, brought to trial on trumped-up charges, and executed. At the heart of the public campaign to save Ken Saro-Wiwa was another Ken Wiwa—the author's son—who travelled the world lobbying world leaders and mobilizing public opinion, so that his father was recognized as a hero and a symbol of the struggle for environmental justice. The Saro-Wiwa name became global currency for righteousness. Ken Wiwa has embarked on a book that tells the story—from a human, anecdotal perspective—of what it means to grow up as a child in the shadow of such extraordinary men and women. In the end, it's about Ken's attempts to make peace with himself and his father—following his journey as he reaches toward a final rendezvous with the father who was snatched by the hangman.

Angel on My Shoulder: An Autobiography


Natalie Cole - 2000
    But that success came with a price, where she was dragged down by depression and drugs. This is her story.

Adam By Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.


Adam Clayton Powell Jr. - 2000
    He was admired; he was vilified. Few who heard this Congressman's fiery oratory or read his impassioned writings will forget him. Now a whole new generation will be introduced to this flamboyant, controversial, and wildly popular man.With colorful details, Powell recounts his childhood in early 20th -- century Harlem, his education at an all-white college, his years preaching gospel and his rise in American politics. He takes readers inside the halls of Congress, where he served as Chairman of the powerful House Education and Labor Committee and was instrumental in the passage of Civil Rights legislation. And with his superb skill as a raconteur, he tells vivid stories of the influential people he'd met along the way, from celebrities to presidents to kings.With a Foreword by his son, Adam Clayton Powell III -- one that offers a richly perceptive explanation of what made his father the man he was -- "Adam by Adam" reveals the heart and soul of a true original who remains among the most influential black politicians in our nation's history.

Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor: Icek Kuperberg


Icek Kuperberg - 2000
    Interned in various work and death camps, Icek had to use his guile and wits to simply stay alive. That he persevered despite tremendous horrors and obstacles, testifies to his strong will to survive.

Ocean to Cross: Daring the Atlantic, Claiming a New Life


Liz Fordred - 2000
    Together with her husband (also an accident survivor) they decided to build a boat and sail around the world, even though they had never sailed before. This is the tale of their triumph.

A Brush with Disney : An Artist's Journey, Told through the words and works of Herbert Dickens Ryman


Herbert Dickens Ryman - 2000
    A Brush with Disney is the story in 252 pages of color illustrations of artist Herbert Ryman's personal journeys around the world and through the "world of Walt". Told through the marvelous illustrations of the artist and his own personal notes and thoughts on a 50-year journey, this rare compilation (many never-before-seen works) is edited by Bruce Gordon and David Mumford, with research by Irene Naoum.

Eye of the Storm: Twenty-Five Years In Action With The SAS


Peter Ratcliffe - 2000
    Blooded in Oman in the 1970s, he also saw action in Northern Ireland, in the Falklands War, and in the Gulf campaign. From his early days in the Paras to his time as Regimental Sergeant-Major in the Gulf, he has lived and fought by the motto 'Who Dares Wins'.Eye of the Storm is Ratcliffe's insider's account of that exceptional career. Fastpaced, earthy, dramatic, funny, occasionally disturbing, it is laced with firsthand descriptions of ferocious and bloody fighting, sudden death and incredible heroism, and peopled with a cast of extraordinary individuals. Beyond that, however, it corrects many of the distortions and exaggerations of other books, and explodes several long-standing myths about the Regiment.Here - at last - is the authentic voice of the SAS.

Lip Reading


Maureen Lipman - 2000
    Fortunately for her fans she's been clutching her pen and notebook along the way, and these 'collected writhings' are the result.

Phoenix: Frances Partridge Diaries 1939-1972


Frances Partridge - 2000
    After studying Moral Sciences and English at Cambridge, she worked in Heywood Hill's Curzon Street bookshop and became part of the Bloomsbury Group, meeting Woolf, the Bells, Roger Fry and Keynes. She met and fell in love with Ralph Partridge who was at the time married to Dora Carrington. After the death of Lytton Strachey, with whom she was in love, Carrington committed suicide. Ralph and Frances married in 1933. During the war they were both committed pacifists and opened their house, Ham Spray, to numerous waifs and strays of war. After it was over they enjoyed the happiest time of their life together, entertaining friends such as E M Forster, Robert Kee and Duncan Grant. This life of great warmth and friendship ended abruptly when Ralph died in 1960. Three years later another tragedy struck when their only son, Burgo, died at the age of 28 from a brain haemorrhage. 'I have utterly lost heart: I want no more of this cruel life, ' Frances w

In the Face of Presumptions: Essays, Speeches, & Incidental Writings


Barry Moser - 2000
    He is best known as an artist who works with books, and more specifically with the texts he loves. He has illustrated legions of children's books, adult books and poetry collections. And as works of art they have been embraced by children, adults and librarians for over three decades. But he started life as a modest lad, learning letterpress and how type should look on the page, engraving the end-grain of boxwood (when it could still be obtained) and perfecting the art of watercolor to the point where he could illuminate anything from the words of Br'er Rabbit to the poetry of Donald Hall and Richard Wilbur. His most recent project, illustrating the entire Bible, has occupied him for years and this magnum opus has just been published, to national attention.But it is his writing that occupies pride of place in this book, and as a writer Moser is as passionate and as engaged (and engaging) as he is as an artist. Here is a rich selection of his prose, his essays, his speeches, and even his letters and notes all concerning his work as a working artist. Reading it, one comes away with a firm impression of a mind at work, a generous and genial mind, but one that is never afraid to separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff. If you want to know how an artist thinks, how someone who has not only read books but thought deeply about how their texts operates, how someone who is as committed to the book as object as anyone working in the field goes about integrating text and image, then this book is a book you should read and reread. It possesses depth, intelligence, and passion. The words are from the heart, but the conclusions come from experience. William Blake, the proto-genius, observed that "Execution is the chariot of genius." In Moser's work, as in his words, we see that chariot flying at warp speed.

1984: Selected Letters


Samuel R. Delany - 2000
    Through 57 letters and documents from the 1984, Delany offers portraits of millionaire parties, avant-garde artistis, porno-house denizens, modern-day gurus, tax auditors, and the early years of Aids in New York City.

The Victor within: an extraordinary story of optimism, tenacity and sheer determination


Victor Vermeulen - 2000
    Inspirational story of a man that was severely injured and how he overcame it all.

The Rainbow Palace


Tenzin Choedrak - 2000
    But unfortunately, this personal achievement only marked the beginning of his greater struggle. The Chinese occupied Tibet in 1950 and the country descended into violence and chaos. Choedrak, among thousands of others, was imprisoned under the most cruel and repressive conditions imaginable. The events he was forced to be witness to and endure were so appalling that it is hard to believe he managed to retain his humanity let alone his religion. Yet Choedrak managed not only to find incredible reserves of bravery and strength but compassion for his torturers whom he ended up tending as patients. This book is not only a humbling and inspiring personal testimony but a historical account of the Chinese oppression of Tibet: a horrific and systematic breach of human and civil rights that the international community has left shamefully unchallenged. Choedrak's life, and those of other Tibetans who have suffered under occupation is both a terrible measure of the cruelty of which human beings are capable and the incredible resilience of the human spirit and its will to love.--Rebecca Johnson

False Papers: Deception and Survival in the Holocaust


Robert Melson - 2000
    Armed with false papers identifying them as aristocratic Gentiles, this Jewish family took shelter in the very shadow of the Nazi machine.

The Naked Rower: How Two Kiwis Took on the Atlantic--and Won!


Rob Hamill - 2000
    The man was New Zealander Rob Hamill and the dream was to win the world's first trans -Atlantic rowing race. It was, they told him, the impossible dream. He had no money, no rowing partner, not knowledge of the boat building and - while he was a world-class sculler - he had never rowed at sea. Worse still, when he finally did try blue-water rowing, he became chronically seasick. The Naked Rower is a swashbuckling story of high adventure, friendship placed under unbearable strain, terrible tragedy, and the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

Home Is Where the Heart Is


Geraldine Cox - 2000
    Story of an Australian woman who found her true purpose in caring for Cambodian orphans; as one of the few foreigners ever to be granted Cambodian citizenship she paints a vivid picture of the country and her life.

The Tartan Legend: The Autobiography


Ken Buchanan - 2000
    

Mister Are You a Priest?: Jottings by Bishop Edward Daly


Edward Daly - 2000
    Before then he had a curate in the Bogside during some of the most turbulent and dramatic years of the Northern Troubles. This is the fascinating account of those years before he became bishop.

From Paper Airplanes to Outer Space


Seymour Simon - 2000
    The children's book author describes his life, his daily activities, and his creative process, showing how all are intertwined.