Recovering From Reality


Alexis Haines - 2019
    In reality, she was battling depression, drug addiction and trauma. Her firsthand experience with sexual assault and substance abuse, combined with the explosive effects of social media storytelling, ignited a desire in her to eradicate shame around our greatest struggles. In Recovering from Reality, Alexis shares how she learned to turn embarrassment into empowerment, using her public meltdown as an opportunity to pull back the covers on the misogyny and abuse that fuels so much of popular culture. With profound insight, Alexis shows how women can stand up and heal from the institutionalized and systemic trauma that keeps them from recognizing how powerful they truly are. From panhandling drugs on the streets to partying with some of the biggest rock stars in the world (often on the same day), Alexis’ life was more than just pretty wild; it was nearly fatal. After facing up to six years in the correctional system due to her burglary conviction, Alexis got sober at the age of 19 and began to build the extraordinary life she lives today. Recovering From Reality documents her journey, tells the true story behind the “Bling Ring” and explains why her involvement became a defining moment in her life. In this gripping memoir, Alexis shares what it’s like to go from hot mess to hot mom, showing how we all have the power to change the world, and to find our true passion and meaning through some of our most shameful experiences. Inspired by her public journey from reality TV meme to sobriety, motherhood and wellness, Alexis is living proof that you can heal yourself - if you’re willing to recover from reality.

Among the Porcupines


Carol Matthau - 1992
    The former society woman describes her childhood in foster homes; her transformation into a debutante; her marriages to William Saroyan and Walter Matthau; and her friendship with Capote, Gloria Vanderbilt, Oona O'Neill Chaplin, Rex Harrison, and others.

No One Succeeds Alone: Lessons from My Mom, My Mentors, and My Search for Belonging in Business and in Life


Robert Reffkin - 2021
    But Robert Reffkin, raised by an Israeli immigrant single mother after his father abandoned him and his maternal grandparents disowned them, has always defied the odds.As CEO of Compass, America’s largest independent real estate brokerage, Reffkin distills the wisdom he’s gathered from his mother and his 100+ mentors throughout his journey. Each chapter offers a part of his life story and an actionable lesson, such as: “Love your customers more than your ideas.” “Dream out your future on paper—then tear the paper up.” And “Adapt like water and you’ll be unstoppable.”The advice in No One Succeeds Alone will inspire you to dream bigger than you ever have before, realize your full potential, and give back by helping make someone else’s dreams come true, too.

Walking in Circles: Finding Happiness in Lost Japan (Round Earth Book 1)


Todd Wassel - 2020
    A 750-mile walk through Japan. A life that will never be the same.Todd Wassel fled a normal life just after graduation. Over half a decade later he’s lost in Japan, unable go home but unwilling to give up. Convinced there was more to life, he risks everything to return to the one place he found answers years before: the ancient Shikoku Henro pilgrimage. Walking the 750-mile henro path, sleeping outside each night, Todd is armed with only a Japanese map. Between the 88 Buddhist temples he finds help from a wandering ascetic hiding from the Freemasons; naked Yakuza trying to shake him down; a scam artist pilgrim; and a vengeful monk. Can he find what he’s looking for before the path, or his new friends, break him? Walking in Circles is an addictive, fun, inspirational travel memoir set in a Japan few outsiders ever get to see. Award-winning writer Todd Wassel draws on over twenty years in Japan to retell his epic journey through the contradictions of contemporary Japan while overcoming the forces that keep us from living a truly happy life. Buy the book today to join Todd Wassel on his unforgettable Japanese adventure!

Confessions of a Union Buster


Martin Jay Levitt - 1993
    This book is the story of a man who has decided to come in out of the cold, to clear his conscience, and to share the hard lessons he has learned. Line drawings.

Last Man Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor


Jack Straw - 2012
    As one of five children of divorced parents, he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school, but spent his holidays as a plumbers' mate for his uncles to bring in some much-needed extra income. Yet he spent 13 years and 11 days in government, including long and influential spells as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. This is the story of how he got there.His memoirs offer a unique insight into the complex, sometimes self-serving but always fascinating world of British politics and reveals the toll that high office takes but also, more importantly, the enormous satisfaction and extraordinary privilege of serving both your constituents and your country.Straw’s has been a very public life, but he reveals the private face, too, and offers readers a vivid and authoritative insight into the Blair/Brown era and, indeed, the last forty years of British politics.

The Long and Winding Road


Alan Johnson - 2016
    This third volume tells of Alan’s early political skirmishes as a trades union leader, where his negotiating skills and charismatic style soon came to the notice of Tony Blair and other senior members of the Labour Party.As a result, Alan was chosen to stand in the constituency of Hull West and Hessle, and entered Parliament as an MP after the landslide election victory for Labour in May 1997. But this is no self-aggrandizing memoir of Westminster politicking and skulduggery. Supporting the struggle of his constituents, the Hull trawlermen and their families, for justice comes more naturally to Alan than do the byzantine complexities of Parliamentary procedure. But of course he does succeed there, and rises through various ministerial positions to the office of Home Secretary in 2009.In The Long and Winding Road, Alan’s characteristic honesty and authenticity shine through every word. His book takes you into a world which is at once familiar and strange: this is politics as you’ve never seen it before…

My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood


Christine Rosen - 2005
    When Christine Rosen started kindergarten, her ABCs included the Apocalypse, the Bible and Christ. At Keswick Christian School, the Bible was our textbook, God was their guide, and after entering the school gates, nothing was quite the same again. Christian learned creation science, dreamed of becoming a missionary to exotic countries, worried about the souls of Jews and Mormons, and experienced unusual methods of sex education. With the threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of atheistic Russians looming, she also frequently prayed for rapture. At home, Florida life seemed happily to confirm several literal truths: the story of Moses, with its plagues that afflicted the Egyptians - from lice, to rivers of stinking dead fish, to hordes of frogs - might have been describing Christine's back yard. My Fundamentalist Education is a brilliant, affectionate, child's-eye journey to Rosen's home, school and small town. during a girlhood lived as the Lord intended, among the tropical flora and fauna of Florida, its televangelists, irascible elderly, and itinerant preachers, Christine Rosen and her sister Cathy, uncover the not always godly but surely divine secrets of a Hallelujah-ya sisterhood.

Wrong Place Wrong Time


David P. Perlmutter - 2012
    Little do I know that I’m about to be thrust into the most terrifying time of my life. Wrong Place Wrong Time is a gripping true-life story of an unimaginable nightmare and how my ticket to a new life turns out to be a one way ticket to hell.

A Day in the Life of a 911 Dispatcher


Jonathan Parsons - 2013
    Throughout the shift, the dispatcher is faced with stabbings, robberies, medical calls, fights, and a variety of other calls. There is no telling what the next call will bring. Some of the calls faced by the dispatcher are heinous, some are tragic, and some are a complete waste of time.You will get to see what life is really like for a 911 dispatcher. While some of the details have been modified to protect the identity of those involved, this books was inspired by true and actual calls handled by a 911 dispatcher.Warning: This book contains some adult language and topics.

Hamlet Globe to Globe


Dominic Dromgoole - 2017
    193,000 miles. 190 countries. One play. For the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth the Globe Theatre undertook an unparalleled journey, to take Hamlet to every country on the planet, to share this beloved play with the entire world. The tour was the brainchild of Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of the Globe, and in Hamlet Globe to Globe, Dromgoole takes readers along with him.From performing in sweltering deserts, ice-cold cathedrals, and heaving marketplaces, and despite food poisoning in Mexico, the threat of ambush in Somaliland, an Ebola epidemic in West Africa and political upheaval in Ukraine, the Globe’s players pushed on. Dromgoole shows us the world through the prism of Shakespeare—what the Danish prince means to the people of Sudan, the effect of Ophelia on the citizens of Costa Rica, and how a sixteenth-century play can touch the lives of Syrian refugees. And thanks to this incredible undertaking, Dromgoole uses the world to glean new insight into this masterpiece, exploring the play’s history, its meaning, and its pleasures. Hamlet Globe to Globe is a highly enjoyable book about an unprecedented theatrical adventure.

Long Way Back


Charley Boorman - 2017
    His world crashed down after he smashed his right ankle and causing severe damage to his left fibia and tibia. It was unclear if he would ever walk properly again, let alone ride a motorbike. Charley recounts the ambulance ride, the numerous operations in a Portugese hospital, the medivac flight back to London, and his journey of recovery. As his inability to walk for several months provokes introspection, Boorman recounts his childhood, where his passion for motorbikes began, and the formative influences in his life—from his father, a famed director, to his longtime friend Ewan McGregor, and Sean Connery’s son Jason, who introduced him to bikes. These touchstones give him strength on the long way back to health.

Eichmann in My Hands: A First-Person Account by the Israeli Agent Who Captured Hitler's Chief Executioner


Peter Z. Malkin - 1990
      1n 1960 Argentina, a covert team of Israeli agents hunted down the most elusive war criminal alive: Adolf Eichmann, chief architect of the Holocaust. The young spy who tackled Eichmann on a Buenos Aires street—and fought every compulsion to strangle the Obersturmführer then and there—was Peter Z. Malkin. For decades Malkin’s identity as Eichmann’s captor was kept secret. Here he reveals the entire breathtaking story—from the genesis of the top-secret surveillance operation to the dramatic public capture and smuggling of Eichmann to Israel to stand trial.   The result is a portrait of two men. One, a freedom fighter, intellectually curious and driven to do right. The other, the dutiful Good German who, through his chillingly intimate conversations with Malkin, reveals himself as the embodiment of what Hannah Arendt called “the banality of evil.” Singular, riveting, troubling, and gratifying, Eichmann in My Hands “remind[s] of what is at stake: not only justice but our own humanity” (New York Newsday).   Now Malkin’s story comes to life on the screen with Oscar Isaac playing the heroic Mossad agent and Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley playing Eichmann in Operation Finale.

Where's Me Plaid?: A Scottish Roots Odyssey


Scott Crawford - 2013
    Armed with a newfound swagger, the author transforms a much anticipated, romantic holiday with his wife into a decidedly unromantic, though highly romanticized roots tour with comic results. Crammed into their tiny rental car (a Fiat Crumb or some such model), the couple scour the countryside, from castles to trailer parks, looking for something more to commemorate Crawford history than a family crest refrigerator magnet - and ultimately discover something altogether richer: a thriving country with the most beautiful and haunting scenery imaginable, a romantic history full of blood, intrigue and heroism, and some of the friendliest and most fiercely loyal people in the world. Award-winning travel writer Scott Crawford resides in the British Virgin Islands. A professional educator, he has a keen interest in travel and history, which infuse his writings. Where's Me Plaid is his first book.

An Impossible Life: The Inspiring True Story of a Woman's Struggle from Within


Rachael Siddoway - 2019
    Wife of a CEO, mother of three, living in a beautiful suburb, Sonja’s life appears ideal. How did she get here?In a gripping and breathtaking narrative that makes the reader feel as though they are listening in on a private conversation, Sonja tells the compelling real account of her struggle with marriage, motherhood, and mental illness.An Impossible Life is an unforgettable true story of perseverance when all hope seems lost. Intriguing and heartfelt, Sonja’s personal account of her mental health journey shines a beacon of hope to all who feel overwhelmed by the specter of mental illness.