Blaze, A Son's Trial by Fire: A True Story


Nidhi Poddar - 2021
    The journey to salvage the lost friend can still offer myriad opportunities of redemption and self-discovery. It is up to us how we decide to tread this formidable path leading to self-actualization. Time has made us realize that it is not fair to stereotype a person suffering from cancer from the point of view of cure or recovery. Many a time, such stereotyping comes from our own society, and sometimes, ironically, from the medical fraternity, for its inability to go beyond a point, after which you feel you are condemned and vegetative. All these negativities passively entrap the patients and their parents in the viciousness of the disease where they die many times before the actual death. This is the worst form of cancer which has plagued our mindset. In the case of Divyansh Atman, the authors’ son, it was not so. Divyansh was the embodiment of courage and self-determination in the face of adversities. His life journey shows us how the path of opportunities can still be paved in the middle of adversities. He lived a big and a meaningful life that made a huge impact on the lives of people around him. Cancer can bring in self-evolution, both for the sufferer and his caregivers.

Unsinkable: My Story


Jane McDonald - 2019
    The nation first fell in love with Jane twenty years ago, as the break-out star of BBC reality TV show The Cruise. She was catapulted to dizzying overnight success, but since then, she has navigated some stormy waters. Her dreams hit the rocks as TV and music execs, 'the London lot', swooped in and tried to morph her into a generic international diva. Her fans didn't recognise her, and melted away. Her marriage to Henrik, which began with a fairytale Carribean wedding watched by a television audience of 13.5m, collapsed. Jane lost her confidence, and hid from the world.But Jane's unsinkable and now she's back on the crest of a wave. In her uplifting autobiography she shares her incredible story with heart and humour. It hasn't always been plain sailing, but now she's enjoying more success than she's ever had before, and her fans love her all the more for it.

Bones in the Basement: Surviving the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion - Edwin Gonzalez & Lillian Otero's Story


Joni Mayhan - 2014
    Pierce Victorian Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts, in 2009, they scoffed at the ghostly legends surrounding the house. They didn't believe in ghosts. The house soon proved them wrong. By the fall of 2011, they were forced from their house, narrowly escaping with their lives. Includes interviews from paranormal experts: Carl Johnson, Andrew Lake, Michael Robishaw, Lucky Belcamino, Marc Arvilla, and more. Forward written by Thomas D'Agastino. Contains photos, as well as audio and video links of evidence captured at the Haunted Victorian Mansion.

For the Record: 28:50 - A journey toward self-discovery and the Cannonball Run Record


Ed Bolian - 2017
    Ed Bolian’s memoir recounts his path from a conversation in high school with Cannonball Run founder, Brock Yates to setting the fastest time ever for driving from New York to Los Angeles. The journey explores goal setting, criminal psychology, and spirituality in the pursuit of finding your true purpose and using what makes you unique to achieve something extraordinary.

If Only He'd Told Me: A foster Family Pushed To the Limits


Mia Marconi - 2014
    Foster carer Mia Marconi was thrilled when he first arrived – a boy the same age as her son.It can be so bewildering for foster children when they arrive. The older ones are usually withdrawn and sullen. The younger ones will be screaming, spitting at you, making themselves sick and throwing themselves on the floor.For Mia, it’s normally her boisterous, happy children who provide the comfort at the beginning, because why should they trust another adult. Children always feel safe and secure when there are other children about. Mia believes it’s through making relationships with other children that they begin to trust adults again. But little did she know that six-year-old Brody was actually taking his anger and frustration out on her son. She quickly begins to realise the heavy price her family has had to pay. (Amazon.com)

American Legends: The Life of James Cagney


Charles River Editors - 2013
    *Includes Cagney's own quotes about his life and career. *Includes a bibliography for further reading. *Includes a table of contents. "You don't psych yourself up for these things, you do them...I'm acting for the audience, not for myself, and I do it as directly as I can." – James Cagney A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history’s most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors’ American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America’s most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, one of the Top 10 was James Cagney, an actor whose acting and dancing talents spawned a stage and film career that spanned over 5 decades and once compelled Orson Welles to call him "maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera." Indeed, his portrayal of “The Man Who Owns Broadway”, George M. Cohan, earned him an Academy Award in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy, and as famed director Milos Forman once put it, "I think he's some kind of genius. His instinct, it's just unbelievable. I could just stay at home. One of the qualities of a brilliant actor is that things look better on the screen than the set. Jimmy has that quality." Ultimately, it was portraying tough guys and gangsters in the 1930s that turned Cagney into a massive Hollywood star, and they were the kind of roles he was literally born to play after growing up rough in Manhattan at the turn of the 20th century. In movies like The Public Enemy (which included the infamous “grapefruit scene”) and White Heat, Cagney convincingly played criminals that brought Warner to the forefront of Hollywood and the gangster genre. Cagney also helped pave the way for younger actors in the genre, like Humphrey Bogart, and he was so good that he found himself in danger of being typecast. While Cagney is no longer remembered as fondly or as well as Bogart, he was also crucial in helping establish the system in which actors worked as independent workers free from the constraints of studios. Refusing to be pushed around, Cagney was constantly involved in contract squabbles with Warner, and he often came out on top, bucking the conventional system that saw studios treat their stars as indentured servants who had to make several films a year. American Legends: The Life of James Cagney examines the life and career of one of Hollywood’s most iconic actors. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Cagney like never before, in no time at all.

Learning from Lincoln: Leadership Practices for School Success


Harvey B. Alvy - 2010
    The authors identify 10 qualities, attributes, and skills that help to explain Lincoln's effectiveness, despite seemingly insurmountable odds:1. Implementing and sustaining a mission and vision with focused and profound clarity2. Communicating ideas effectively with precise and straightforward language3. Building a diverse and competent team to successfully address the mission4. Engendering trust, loyalty, and respect through humility, humor, and personal example5. Leading and serving with emotional intelligence and empathy6. Exercising situational competence and responding appropriately to implement effective change7. Rising beyond personal and professional trials through tenacity, persistence, resilience, and courage8. Exercising purposeful visibility9. Demonstrating personal growth and enhanced competence as a lifetime learner, willing to reflect on and expand ideas10. Believing that hope can become a realityChapters devoted to each element explore the historical record of Lincoln's life and actions, then discuss the implications for modern educators. End-of-chapter exercises provide a structure for reflection, analysis of current behaviors, and guidance for future work, so that readers can create their own path to success--inspired by the example of one of the greatest leaders of all time.

17


Bill Drummond - 2008
    He references his own contributions to the canon of popular music, and he provides fascinating insider portraits of the industry and its protagonists. But above all, he questions our ideas of music and our attitude to sound, introducing us throughout this provocative and superbly written book to his current work, The17.

Educated / Education of an Idealist


Tara Westover
    She hadn't been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she'd never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn't believe in hospitals. The Education of an Idealist: The Education of an Idealist combines powerful storytelling, vividly drawn characters and deep political insight. It traces Power's journey from childhood growing up in a pub in Ireland to war correspondent to presidential Cabinet official. In 2005, her critiques of US foreign policy caught the eye of newly elected Senator Barack Obama, who invited her to work with him on Capitol Hill and then on his presidential campaign.

Too Pretty to be Good


Lindsay Byron - 2021
    

Yasmin How You Know?


Orked binti Ahmad - 2012
    Contributed by those close to her, you may notice some are written in present tense - because to them, she's still very much alive - just not in a physical sense. the anecdotes here range from her days as a student, her many different phases in life, right up to the day of her passing. You'll find poems which Yasmin wrote, and photographs which she took (many may not know Yasmin was an accomplished poet and photographer). Also included are the last two TV commercial scripts written by her.

The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels - A Love Story


Ree Drummond - 2011
    Ree's love story with Marlboro Man will sweep you off your feet.

Siege


Deborah Snow - 2018
    A terrorist attack on Australian soil. For seventeen hours Islamic State-inspired gunman Man Haron Monis held his captives in a terrifying drama that paralysed Sydney and kept a nation glued to its television screens. Two hostages were killed and three seriously wounded. The others would have their lives changed for ever.Despite the police leadership declaring it was well prepared for a terrorist attack, many shortcomings on the night revealed a response that fell seriously short of that promise. Deborah Snow lays bare what happened behind the scenes in the cafe as the hostages tried to keep themselves alive while waiting for a police response that didn't come. She also takes us into the police command posts as communications, equipment and decision-making structures broke down. Hurtling towards its inevitable and tragic conclusion, Siege draws us into a vortex of police missteps, extraordinary bravery and profound grief to reveal what happened during that awful day. Shocking, compelling and revealing Siege will take its place as the classic account of these events.

Coma Therapy


Eric Victorino - 2007
    Important, so inspiring... Please read this book" -Sonny Moore, Recording Artist "There are very few ways to get inside the mind of a lyricist. One way is through reading their diaries, the other through sleeping with them. Eric's book is the more entertaining of the options. It's a raw look inside the heart and mind of a rock 'n' roll spiritualist whose struggles with love (Chaplin) and versus the world (Keaton) are laid out bare like an exhibitionist on a double-dare." -Mike Shea, Founder, AP Magazine "Coma Therapy" is the sound of a powerful new voice in contemporary American literature. Victorino's brand of punchy prose often draws comparisons to the likes of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. This debut collection of poems and short stories draws a dangerously thin line between the heartwarming and the horrifying... Eric Victorino then mischievously walks that line all the way to the last page. Defiant, triumphant, hopeful and wise.

White Picket Monsters: A Story of Strength and Survival


Bev Moore Davis - 2021