"Story is our medium. It's how we connect emotionally with our viewers. And it's how we make sense of our world...When we talk about a 'big story,' we're really talking about what resonates with people, what matters to them...And I think when it comes to our national narrative, what we need to realize is that we're all contributing to the story, that we can affect where this country is going." From top CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O'Brien comes a highly personal look at her biggest reporting moments from Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the devastating Haiti earthquake to the historic elections and high profile interviews with everyday Americans. Drawing on her own unique background and consciousness as well as her experiences as a journalist at the front lines of the most provocative issues in today's society-and particularly from her work as host of the acclaimed series Black in America and Latino in America-O'Brien offers her candid, clear-eyed take on where we are as a country and where we're going. What emerges is both an inspiring message of hope and a glimpse into the heart and soul of one of America's most straight-talking reporters. Watch a Video

    He pioneered modern physics, created the Theory of Relativity, and became a world-renowned celebrity. Enjoy the surprising and entertaining true story of Albert Einstein and rediscover one of history's most prolific figures... Buy Now & Start Reading the Incredible Story of Albert Einstein Overview Chapter 1: A Rebel Gets an Education Discover the events that transformed an average boy into a man who would become synonymous with genius. Did you know Einstein failing math as a child is actually a myth? Chapter 2: 1905: The Miracle Year Learn how Einstein revolutionized the world of physics and our understanding of the universe. Did you know Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity while working part-time as a patent clerk? Chapter 3: Professor Einstein Join Einstein as he shares his fascinating ideas with an audience and strives to earn the recognition he deserves. Did you know the Theory of Relativity did not achieve widespread acclaim until years after it was published? Chapter 4: The International Celebrity See Einstein as a pop-culture icon who captured the hearts and minds of people all around the world. Did you know Einstein often pretended to be someone else when asked for an autograph? Chapter 5: The Search for the Grail Accompany Einstein on his journey for a theory that would unite the world of physics and explain the inner-workings of the universe. Did you know Einstein worked on the Unified Field Theory until the day he died? Chapter 6: The Scientific Search for God Find out how Einstein reconciled his scientific knowledge with his religious beliefs. Did you know Einstein believed in God? Chapter 7: The Pacifists Fight Review Einstein's unique perspective as a humanitarian who lived in a time of war. Did you know Einstein encouraged the United States to develop the atomic bomb? Introduction “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein His image is iconic. His face appears on posters and tee shirts, coffee mugs and calendars, album covers, web pages, and bobble heads. His appearance — the frazzled hair, rumpled trousers and old sweater, coupled with a heavy German accent — is the quintessential image of mad scientists and absent-minded professors. He was, wrote a journalist for Time magazine, a “cartoonists dream.” So famous was his appearance that, during his lifetime, total strangers would approach him on the street and ask him to explain his famous theory of relativity. “Oh no,” he would declaim in his heavily accented English, “Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein,” no doubt leaving his questioner more mystified than before... Buy Now Read Now: Your book will be delivered to your Kindle device or free Kindle software automatically. Money Back Guarantee: If you start reading the book and are not 100% satisfied with your purchase, simply return it to Amazon within 7 days of purchase for a full refund.

    Friendship. Aaron, Candice, sex and Connor Jones. Chewing Gum Dreams is a one-woman play that recalls those last days of innocence before adulthood.Written and performed by Michaela Coel who spent her childhood in Hackney, London, Chewing Gum Dreams won the 2012 Alfred Fagon Award."Coel is by turns casually cruel, hilariously funny, naïve, wise and vulnerable. Her play tackles some difficult themes, including sexual assault, violence, and underachievement across generations…a serious new talent." Londonist"An engrossing, engaging and compelling one-woman show... nothing short of virtuosic." What's On Stage"A promising, resilient artist." Ché Walker

     Stretching between these figures is a cast of artists, writers, and scientists--mostly women, mostly queer--whose public contribution has risen out of their unclassifiable and often heartbreaking private relationships to change the way we understand, experience, and appreciate the universe. Among them are the astronomer Maria Mitchell, who paved the way for women in science; the sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who did the same in art; the journalist and literary critic Margaret Fuller, who sparked the feminist movement; and the poet Emily Dickinson.Emanating from these lives are larger questions about the measure of a good life and what it means to leave a lasting mark of betterment on an imperfect world: Are achievement and acclaim enough for happiness? Is genius? Is love? Weaving through the narrative is a set of peripheral figures--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Herman Melville, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Walt Whitman--and a tapestry of themes spanning music, feminism, the history of science, the rise and decline of religion, and how the intersection of astronomy, poetry, and Transcendentalist philosophy fomented the environmental movement.

    Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, 'You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!'From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life–of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafés and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers.At the Existentialist Café tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas. From the ‘king and queen of existentialism'–Sartre and de Beauvoir–to their wider circle of friends and adversaries including Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Iris Murdoch, this book is an enjoyable and original journey through a captivating intellectual movement. Weaving biography and thought, Sarah Bakewell takes us to the heart of a philosophy about life that also changed lives, and that tackled the biggest questions of all: what we are and how we are to live.

    But, as she comes to learn, liberation and happiness are not necessarily the same thing. A literary sensation when first published in 1973, Fear of Flying established Erica Jong as one of her generation’s foremost voices on sex and feminism. Nearly four decades later, the novel has lost none of its insight, verve, or jaw-dropping wit.

    Marina Warner uses her superb historical and literary skills to move beyond conventional biography and to capture the essence of Joan of Arc, both as she lived in her own time and as she has "grown" in the human imagination over the five centuries since her death. She has examined the court documents from Joan of Arc's 1431 Inquisition trial for heresy and woven the facts together with an analysis of the histories, biographies, plays, and paintings and sculptures that have appeared over time to honor this heroine and symbol of France's nationhood. Warner shows how the few facts that are known about the woman Joan have been shaped to suit the aims of those who have chosen her as their hero. The book places Joan in the context of the mythology of the female hero and takes note of her historical antecedents, both pagan and Christian and the role she has played up to the present as the embodiment of an ideal, whether as Amazon, saint, child of nature, or personification of virtue.

    Once her assailant was caught and sentenced, Joanna never spoke of the trauma again, until 21 years later when her daughter was about to go to college. She resolved then to tell her children about her own rape so they could learn and protect themselves, and she began to realize that the man who assaulted her was one of the formative people in her life.Setting out to uncover the story of her attacker, Connors embarked on a journey to find out who he was, where he came from, who his friends were and what his life was like. What she discovered stretches beyond one violent man’s story and back into her own, interweaving a narrative about strength and survival with one about rape culture and violence in America.

    "Poignant, sexy. . . lyrical, passionate. . . cool and delicate. . . hot as a chili pepper."--Boston Globe.

    

    An electrician by trade, Frank’s experience of sailing amounted to not very much – an unpleasant spell on a Scottish fishing trawler as a young man and a brief holiday on someone else’s yacht off the coast of Mozambique a couple of years before. Never one to be daunted by a challenge or to be resisted in any way, he took his nine year old twins, Robert and Nicky, out of school, persuaded his wife Maureen that they would all learn how to sail and cope with life on the open seas as they went, and prepared to follow his dream of circumnavigating the world. Facing real danger from the elements and at first having to live more by their wits than their skills, the Stilwell family set off boldly, determined to become part of a community of sailors and adventurers who spend more time on the ocean than they do on dry land. Thinking Up a Hurricane is the unique coming of age memoir of Martinique Stilwell’s recounting of her true life gypsy childhood. It is poignant and funny and heartbreaking all at the same time. With the wisdom and innocence of a child’s point of view, it is a powerful yet tender story of physical and emotional adversity, of family dysfunction and the ties that bind, and of the shackles and exhilarating freedom of growing up different.

    In the capital hospital, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood. Elsewhere in the hospital lies a dying man who was young during the country’s turbulent postcolonial years and has stories to tell that are far from heroic. As past and present intersect in the buzzing city, these men are drawn unwittingly closer by a British psychologist with good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the center of their stories. A work of breathtaking writing and rare wisdom, The Memory of Love seamlessly weaves together two generations of African life to create a story of loss, absolution, and the indelible effects of the past—and, in the end, the very nature of love.

    And there, you are subjected to the cruellest cut, ordered by your own mother. Forced down on a bed, her legs held apart, Hibo Warderewas made to undergo female genital cutting, a process so brutal, she nearly died. As a teenager she moved to London in the shadow of the Somalian Civil War where she quickly learnt the procedure she had undergone in her home country was not 'normal' in the west. She embarked on a journey to understand FGM and its roots, whilst raising her own family and dealing with the devastating consequences of the cutting in her own life. Today Hibo finds herself working in London as an FGM campaigner, helping young girls whose families plan to take them abroad for the procedure. She has vowed to devote herself to the campaign against FGM. Eloquent and searingly honest, this is Hibo's memoir which promises not only to tell her remarkable story but also to shed light on a medieval practice that's being carried out in the 21stcentury, right on our doorstep. FGM in the UK has gone undocumented for too long and now that's going to change. Devastating, empowering and informative, this book brings to life a clash of cultures at the heart of contemporary society and shows how female genital mutilation is a very British problem.

    I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”In 1994, Nelson Mandela became the first president of democratic South Africa. Five years later, he stood down. In that time, he and his government wrought the most extraordinary transformation, turning a nation riven by centuries of colonialism and apartheid into a fully functioning democracy in which all South Africa’s citizens, black and white, were equal before the law. Dare Not Linger is the story of Mandela’s presidency, drawing heavily on the memoir he began to write as he prepared to finish his term as president, but was unable to finish. Now the acclaimed South African author Mandla Langa has completed the task using Mandela’s unfinished draft, detailed notes that Mandela made as events were unfolding, and a wealth of previously unseen archival material. The result is a vivid and inspirational account of Mandela’s presidency: years during which he overcame the challenges of transition and made a reality of his cherished vision for a liberated South Africa.

    Find out how designer Paloma Picasso, cosmetics producer Anita Roddick, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and Hanae Mori achieved their success.