The Book of a Mormon: The Real Life and Strange Times of an LDS Missionary


Scott D. Miller - 2015
    The next, I was marching in lockstep through the dark, snow-strewn streets of Sweden. Clad in an ill-fitting cheap blue suit—a Book of Mormon in my pocket—I was tasked with nothing less than saving the country of "godless fornicators from certain moral destruction." You've seen us. We are impossible to miss. We are iconic, and now even celebrated in a nine times over, Tony Awarding winning Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon. Most are boys, some girls. We always travel in pairs. Impeccably groomed, always smiling and polite, you can’t mistake us for anyone else. And, if you haven't met us already, we will soon be coming to knock on a door near you. I know. I was one of them. This is my story. Although raised in the LDS faith, nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced. My world was turned upside down. Nothing was as I expected: the country, the work, my fellow missionaries, and most of all, the Church. Had I not gone through the experience myself, I honestly would not believe a word of what follows. And yet, it’s true. Every last bit.

Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg


Irin Carmon - 2015
    But along the way, the feminist pioneer's searing dissents and steely strength have inspired millions. Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, created by the young lawyer who began the Internet sensation and an award-winning journalist, takes you behind the myth for an intimate, irreverent look at the justice's life and work. As America struggles with the unfinished business of gender equality and civil rights, Ginsburg stays fierce. And if you don't know, now you know.

So Here’s the Thing…: Notes on Growing Up, Getting Older, and Trusting Your Gut


Alyssa Mastromonaco - 2019
    Alyssa Mastromonaco is back with a bold, no-nonsense, and no-holds-barred twenty-first-century girl's guide to life, tackling the highs and lows of bodies, politics, relationships, moms, education, life on the internet, and pop culture. Whether discussing Barbra Streisand or The Bachelor, working in the West Wing or working on finding a wing woman, Alyssa leaves no stone unturned...and no awkward situation unexamined.Like her bestseller Who Thought This Was a Good Idea?, SO HERE'S THE THING... brings a sharp eye and outsize sense of humor to the myriad issues facing women the world over, both in and out of the workplace. Along with Alyssa's personal experiences and hard-won life lessons, interviews with women like Monica Lewinsky, Susan Rice, and Chelsea Handler round out this modern woman's guide to, well, just about everything you can think of.

Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts


Ian Morgan Cron - 2011
    The boy was beckoning me to join him on a voyage through the harrowing straits of memory. He was gambling that if we survived the passage, we might discover an ocean where the past would become the wind at our back rather than a driving gale to the nose of our boat. This book is the record of that voyage."When he was sixteen years old, Ian Morgan Cron was told about his father's clandestine work with the CIA. This astonishing revelation, coupled with his father's dark struggles with chronic alcoholism and depression, upended the world of a boy struggling to become a man. Decades later, as he faces his own personal demons, Ian realizes the only way to find peace is to voyage back through a painful childhood marked by extremes--privilege and poverty, violence and tenderness, truth and deceit--that he's spent years trying to escape.In this surprisingly funny and forgiving memoir, Ian reminds us that no matter how different the pieces may be, in the end we are all cut from the same cloth, stitched by faith into an exquisite quilt of grace.

Settle for More


Megyn Kelly - 2016
    She goes behind-the-scenes of her career, sharing the stories and struggles that landed her in the anchor chair and taught her to ask the tough questions. Speaking candidly about her decision to "settle for more"—a motto she credits as having dramatically transformed her life at home and at work—Megyn discusses how she abandoned a thriving legal career to follow her journalism dreams.Admired for her hard work, humor, and authenticity, Megyn sheds light on the news business, her time at Fox News, the challenges of being a professional woman and working mother, and her most talked about television moments. She also speaks openly about Donald Trump’s feud with her, revealing never-before-heard details about the first Republican debate, its difficult aftermath, and how she persevered through it all.Deeply personal and surprising, Settle for More offers unparalleled insight into this charismatic and intriguing journalist, and inspires us all to embrace the principles—determination, honesty, and fortitude in the face of fear—that have won her fans across the political divide.

Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs


Douglas Smith - 2016
    In this acclaimed biography, Douglas Smith separates fact from fiction to reveal the real Rasputin in all his comlexity – man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. The result is not only a definitive biography of an extraordinary man, it is also a riveting portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.

Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea


Jang Jin-sung - 2014
    Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il's face will soon appear.As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life.Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung's escape to South Korea, Dear Leader is a rare and unprecedented insight into the world's most secretive and repressive regime.

Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits


Bill Porter - 1993
    Lessons of spiritual wisdom emerge from his interviews with more than twenty male and female hermits.

Buddha's Warriors


Mikel Dunham - 2004
    Tibet in the last sixty years has been so much mystified and politicized that the world at large is confused about what really happened to the "Rooftop of the World" when Mao Tse-tung invaded its borders in 1950. There are dramatically conflicting accounts from Beijing and Dharamsala (home of the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile). Adding to the confusion is the romanticized spin that Western writers and filmmakers have adopted in an effort to appease the popular myth of Shangri-La.Buddha's Warriors is no fairy tale. Set in a narrative framework but relying heavily on the oral transcripts of the Tibetan men who actually fought the Chinese, Buddha's Warriors tells, for the first time, the inside story of these historic developments, while drawing a vivid picture of Tibetan life before, during, and after Mao's takeover. The firsthand accounts, gathered by the author over a period of seven years, bring faces and deeply personal emotions to the forefront of this ongoing tragedy. It is a saga of brave soldiers and cowardly traitors. It's about hope against desolation, courage against repression, atheism against Buddhism. Above all, it's about what happens to an ancient civilization when it is thrust overnight into the modern horrors of twentieth-century warfare.

1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir


Weiwei Ai - 2021
    His is one of the great voices of our time."--Andrew SolomonHailed as "an eloquent and seemingly unsilenceable voice of freedom" by The New York Times, Ai Weiwei has written a sweeping memoir that presents a remarkable history of China over the last hundred years while also illuminating his artistic process.Once an intimate of Mao Zedong and the nation's most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei's father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as "Little Siberia," where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol. With candor and wit, he details his return to China and his rise from artistic unknown to art world superstar and international human rights activist--and how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime.Ai Weiwei's sculptures and installations have been viewed by millions around the globe, and his architectural achievements include helping to design the iconic Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing. His political activism has long made him a target of the Chinese authorities, which culminated in months of secret detention without charge in 2011. Here, for the first time, Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his exceptional creativity and passionate political beliefs through his life story and that of his father, whose creativity was stifled.At once ambitious and intimate, Ai Weiwei's 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows offers a deep understanding of the myriad forces that have shaped modern China, and serves as a timely reminder of the urgent need to protect freedom of expression.

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom


Slavomir Rawicz - 1956
    The harrowing true tale of seven escaped Soviet prisoners who desperately marched out of Siberia through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India.

Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir


Amanda Knox - 2013
    But that November 1, her life was shattered when her roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, was murdered in their apartment. Five days later, Amanda was taken into custody and charged by the Italian police; her arrest and the subsequent investigation ignited an international media firestorm. Overnight, this ordinary young American student became the subject of intense scrutiny, forced to endure a barrage of innuendo and speculation. Two years later, after an extremely controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011 an appeals court overturned her conviction and vacated the charges. Free at last, she immediately returned home to the U.S., where she has remained silent, until now.

Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith


Joe Perry - 2014
    He delves deep into his volatile, profound, and enduring relationship with singer Steve Tyler and reveals the real people behind the larger-than-life rock-gods on stage. The nearly five-decade saga of Aerosmith is epic, at once a study in brotherhood and solitude that plays out on the killing fields of rock and roll.With record-making hits and colossal album sales, Aerosmith has earned their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But theirs is ultimately a story of endurance, and it starts almost half a century ago with young Perry, the rebel whose loving parents wanted him to assimilate, but who quits school because he doesn’t want to cut his hair. He meets Tyler in a restaurant in New Hampshire, sways him from pop music to rock-and-roll, and it doesn’t take long for the “Toxic Twins” to skyrocket into a world of fame and utter excess. From the mega-successful song and music video with Run DMC, “Walk This Way,” to the realization that he can’t pay his room service bill, Perry takes a personal look into the human stories behind Aerosmith, the people who enabled them, the ones who controlled them, and the ones who changed them. In his own words, Rocks is the whole story: “the loner’s story, the band’s story, the recovery story, the cult story, the love story, the success story, the failure story, the rebirth story, the re-destruction story, the post-destructive rebirth story.”Foreward by Johnny Depp.

Let's Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage


Lisa Beamer - 2002
    A message of character, courage, and undeniable faith in the face of horrifying tragedy, it encourages anyone who reads it to live real life right now . . . and to have confidence and hope for the future.

Faith Among Shadows


Malcolm Leal - 2009
    While on special assignment with the Cuban Special Forces, Malcolm receives a blow from a sniper rifle that almost ends his life. It is in this moment of darkness that Malcolm calls upon this God in faith, thus beginning his miraculous journey in search of truth, and his eventual discovery of and conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ.