Stories so compelling you'll stay in your car to hear them through--even if you're sitting in your own driveway. "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! "host Peter Sagal captures your attention with colorful tales for and about moms. Heard in "All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, News & Notes," and other NPR programs, these stories and more are for moms, moms-to-be, and anyone who has ever known or had a mother.

    Born with achondroplasia, a condition that causes disproportionate dwarfism, Dylan Postl had endured multiple surgeries by the age of 12. And yet, he held on to the dream that he would one day become a professional wrestler. Ignoring the naysayers and against doctors' recommendations, Dylan began training in his teens, and he soon began appearing on local independent shows. Before he turned 20, he was signed by the world leader in sports-entertainment, WWE, to play the role of Irish grappler Finlay's feisty sidekick, Hornswoggle, and remained a firm fixture in the company for a full decade.While most of Dylan's adult life has been spent in the wild world of the wrestling industry, Life Is Short is more than a story of a little person's journey through a world of giants; it's a memoir of elation and anguish, triumph and disappointment, and of how an endlessly positive outlook combined with the unwavering support of family and friends helped him become a success in his industry and a loving, responsible father. It's a story about a man who still loves wrestling -- but loves his family above all else.

    But before her training the nearest she got to anything swinging was the udder of the cow on their farm in the north-east of Scotland. It was time to leave for the bright lights and some modern life. It Won't Hurt a Bit is the story of Jane's journey from the farm she loved and the schoolwork she hated through to her nurse training and the many adventures along the way. It's a warm, funny and affectionate memoir from a simpler time as Jane and her new friends tackle the ups and downs of a gruelling three-year training, some scary matrons and a variety of challenging patients and their relatives. All to the backdrop of the fabulous Swinging Sixties.

    Gilles Villeneuve became a legend in his own time, a driver whose skill and daring personified the ideals of Grand Prix racing, the pinnacle of motor sport.With his flamboyantly aggressive, press-on-regardless style in his scarlet Ferrari, he captured the imagination of a vast international audience as no other driver has in recent times.

    A book that offers highly actionable ideas on how every Indian - from a child to a senior citizen can participate in nation building. Gender, age, education, socio economic status does not matter. You don't even have to be within the geographic borders of India. You can be anywhere on the planet and contribute towards making a positive difference in India.From food to environment to water to Swachh Bharat and many more aspects where we can make a positive difference to the country as we go about our daily lives.Stories of unsung heroes from across India will leave you enormously inspired. Citizens have shared their action ideas. The youngest contributor is 7.5 years. The oldest is 104 years.The author invites you to read, reflect and write your ideas and bring them to life with your actions. Inspire India with your actions. Get inspired by the actions of fellow citizens. Join the journey to be an #IndiaPositiveCitizen

    By now, you already know that with great love comes great joy . . . and great pain. It can be crazy-making! But it doesn't have to be.In Starry-Eyed, MOPS CEO Mandy Arioto reveals how the brightest and darkest moments of motherhood alike can become a sacred--and sanity-saving--opportunity to encounter God. There is a way to flourish in the midst of it all, and it starts with embracing the light and darkness in life with expectation and awe.Heartening, enchanting, and always unflinchingly honest, Starry-Eyed will show you how to find the unexpected grace in your life as a woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend. Consider this your heart-to-heart sit-down with a woman who’s been there, and can help you find fresh eyes to see how beauty and pain can mingle with purpose.

    Outsider - spanning through his relationship with his mother, his unorthodox education, and early years as an art dealer - is often scandalous and consistently fascinating.

    

    There were 20,000 Japanese troops on Saipan, but the US obliterated the opposition after a horrific all-arms campaign. The sudden silence only indicated it was now Tinian’s turn.By the time the US 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions switched their sights to Tinian, the island had already been bombarded for a month; meantime both sides had learned their lessons from the previous island-hopping invasions. The Americans had learned the arts of recon, deception, plus preliminary firepower so as not to suffer the huge casualties they’d suffered at Saipan, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa; the Japanese, for their part, had learned not to contest US strength on beaches but to draw it further inland where terrain and bomb-proof fortifications could assist.When the battle for Tinian finally took place the US acted with great skill. Historian Samuel Elliot Morrison called it “the most perfectly executed amphibious operation of the entire war.” Nevertheless, the Japanese resisted with their usual stubbornness, and the already decimated US Marines suffered hundreds of more casualties.During the battle Japanese shore batteries were able to riddle the battleship Colorado, killing scores, plus make multiple hits on a destroyer, killing its captain. On the island itself the US used napalm for the first time, paving the way for Marines painstakingly rooting out strongpoints. One last Banzai attack signaled the end to enemy resistance, as Marines fought toe-to-toe with their antagonists in the dark.In the end some 8,000 Japanese were killed, with only 300 surrenders, plus some others who hid out for years after the war. But those Japanese who resisted perhaps performed a greater service than they knew. After Tinian was secured the US proceeded to build the biggest airport in the world on that island—home to hundreds of B-29 Superfortresses. Among these, just over a year later, were the Enola Gay and Boxcar, which with their atomic bombs would quickly bring the Japanese homeland itself to its knees.

    Michener returns to the most dazzling place on Earth: the islands that inspired Tales of the South Pacific. Co-written with A. Grove Day, Rascals in Paradise offers portraits of ten scandalous men and women, some infamous and some overlooked, including Sam Comstock, a mutinous sailor whose delusions of grandeur became a nightmare; Will Mariner, a golden-haired youth who used his charm to win over his captors; and William Bligh, the notorious HMS Bounty captain who may not have been the monster history remembers him as. From lifelong buccaneers to lapsed noblemen, in Michener and Day’s capable hands these rogues become the stuff of legend.  Praise for Rascals in Paradise   “The best book about those far-scattered islands that has appeared in a long time . . . a portfolio of rare and ruthless personalities that is calculated to make the curliest hair stand straight on end.”—The New York Times   “[Combines] research and scholarship (A. Grove Day was a professor at the University of Hawaii) with a gift for spinning a yarn and depicting character (Michener, journalist and novelist, needs no introduction).”—Kirkus Reviews

    He was barely fifteen years old when he first wrote his name into the record books with a stupendous 664-run partnership with his childhood friend Vinod Kambli. Two year later, he struck his first century in first-class cricket. At eighteen, he became the second youngest man to make a hundred in international cricket, and after that there was no looking back. Records tumbled by the wayside as he captivated audiences first in his home city of Mumbai, then in the rest of India and all over the cricket-playing world. Today, Sachin is widely accepted as the world's finest batsman, with impeccable technique, an incredible array of strokes, and maturity far beyond his years. His teammates and friends swear by him, his fans worship him and there are few, if any, critics of his game or his temperament. In this biography of the hero of Indian cricket, sports writer Gulu Ezekiel mines interviews, press reports and conversations over the last decade to create an accurate and sympathetic account of the man and his first passion: cricket. He tracks Sachin from his childhood when he first caught the bug of cricket, through his early performances in the Ranji Trophy and other domestic tournaments, and follows him on his meteoric rise to international stardom. With unfailing attention to detail, he reconstructs the crucial matches and events that marked Sachin's career and unravels for us the magic of the charismatic cricketer whom Wisden once dubbed 'bigger than Jesus'. Sachin: The Story of the World's Greatest Batsman, the first, serious exhaustive biography of the Tendulkar career so far, brings back, like a warm autumn breeze does, the memory of the wunderkind's early exhilarating summers in international cricket...The book is akin to a documentary in prose...the book's big virtue is that it is laboriously researched and cross-referenced. For any quizzer on Mastermind India opting for "The Life and Times of Sachin Tendulkar" as their specialist subject there's good news. You just got yourself the ready reckoner that covers 1973-2002.

    Golden curled and boyishly handsome, his rise and fall as captain and player is unparalleled in our cricketing history. He played at least three innings that count as all-time classics, but it's his tearful resignation from the captaincy that is remembered. Insecure but arrogant, abrasive but charming; in Hughes' character were the seeds of his own destruction. Yet was Hughes' fall partly due to those around him, men who are themselves legends in Australia's cricketing history? Lillee, Marsh, and the Chappells, all had their agendas, all were unhappy with his selection and performance as captain—evidenced by Dennis Lillee's tendency to aim bouncers relentlessly at Hughes' head during net practice. As he traces the high points and the low, Chris Ryan sheds new and fascinating light on the cricket—and the cricketers—of the times.

    So what comes next? Growth will resume. But economic uncertainty will worsen, making what comes next not just a boom but a nerve-shattering SONIC BOOM. Gregg Easterbrook - who "writes nothing that is not brilliant" ("Chicago Tribune") - is a fount of unconventional wisdom, and over time, he is almost always proven right. Throughout 2008 and 2009, as the global economy was contracting and the experts were panicking, Easterbrook worked on a book saying prosperity is about to make its next big leap. Will he be right again? SONIC BOOM: Globalization at Mach Speed presents three basic insights. First, if you don't like globalization, brace yourself, because globalization has barely started. Easterbrook contends the world is about to become "far "more globally linked. Second, the next wave of global change will be primarily positive: economic prosperity, knowledge and freedom will increase more in the next 50 years than in all of human history to this point. But before you celebrate, Easterbrook further warns that the next phase of global change is going to drive us crazy. Most things will be good for most people - but nothing will seem certain for anyone. Each SONIC BOOM chapter is based on examples of cities around the world - in the United States, Europe, Russia, China, South America - that represent a significant Sonic Boom trend. With a terrific sense of humor, pitch-perfect reporting and clear, elegant prose, Easterbrook explains why economic recovery is on the horizon but why the next phase of global change will also give everyone one hell of a headache. "Forbes" calls Easterbrook "the best writer on complex topics in the United States" and SONIC BOOM will show you why.

    Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVOOne woman's astonishing journey from unimaginable trauma to becoming a power for good.In 1999, Sierra Leone was in the midst of a brutal civil war where mindless violence, vicious amputation and the rape of young enslaved women were the everyday weapons of bloody conflict.It was also where rebel soldiers snatched the young Aminata Conteh-Biger from her father's arms, then held her captive for months.After she was released, the UNHCR recognised that her captors still posed a serious threat to her safety. So, still in her teens, she was put on a plane and flown to Australia to start afresh as a refugee in a land she knew nothing about.It is here that she has proudly built a life, while never allowing her trauma to define her. Yet it was a near-death experience she suffered during the birth of her child that turned her attention to the women of Sierra Leone - where they are 200 times more likely to die while having a baby than in Australia.So she set up the Aminata Maternal Foundation, then returned to the land of her birth to help. This is her story.PRAISE FOR RISING HEART'Aminata knocked me out at our first meeting in Sydney some years ago...courage shining through as she spoke of some of her experiences in Sierra Leone. Her story, Rising Heart, will never leave you; searing, powerful, disturbing, hopeful.' The Hon. Dame Quentin Bryce AD CVO'The spirit of Aminata's story will stay with you long after you finish reading. Rising Heart has refuelled my sense of perspective and purpose. Aminata's courage in sharing this intensely personal story is rewarded with the power of inspiring hope. Thank you, Aminata, for sharing.' Yael Stone, actor and activist'A powerful read that will make you cry at the injustice and brutality of our world - especially the treatment of women and girls - but then shed tears of admiration and hope. Aminata reminds us of the power of an individual to make a difference. She is an inspirational woman who has brought about extraordinary change, and is a shining example of why we must all be good global citizens. What a beautiful Australian story.' Natasha Stott Despoja AO'A gripping story of courage, survival and redemption.' Wendy McCarthy AO'An incredible story of hope and transformation, one that we can all learn from.' Emma Isaacs, Founder and Global CEO, Business Chicks'Women's reproductive health is one of the most important factors in determining their quality of life and that of their children. Aminata's extraordinary efforts in her country of origin will make a life-changing difference to the mothers and children of Sierra Leone.' Professor Kerryn Phelps AM'I have met many refugees the world over, and the courage of Aminata's personal account as a survivor of unimaginable cruelty is both disturbing and inspiring. Her unwavering belief in human kindness in the face of so much adversity is what makes her a role model for so many women and girls.' Louise Aubin, UNHCR Representative'Aminata not only gives an important voice to her own intensely personal story but also to the many forgotten women and girls caught up in war and conflict today. She is a compelling advocate for the rights of these women and also for the work of the UN Refugee Agency who supports them.' Naomi Steer, National Director Australia for UNHCR

    Author Mark Wilkerson interviewed Townshend himself and several of Townshend's friends and associates for this biography.