Book picks similar to
Burn Zones: Playing Life's Bad Hands by Jorge P. Newbery
non-fiction
memoir
biography
personal-finance
Heads in Beds: Hospitality and Tourism Marketing
Ivo Raza - 2004
Heads in Beds gives insight into achieving best results by demystifing many misconceptions about marketing. Focusing on the practical side of managing hospitality and tourism marketing, this text includes several topics not covered anywhere else--marketing to travel agents, COOP marketing with wholesalers, and loyalty marketing. It provides readers with solid advice and strong direction. Heads In Beds is a book written for practitioners by a practitioner. So whether you are just starting a new job, a general manager, sales and marketing director, or a seasoned veteran looking for methods to increase your yield, the material in this book will help you manage the marketing function and generate better results. Other relevant job titles include: VPs and Directors of promotions, sales, destinations, and tourism, as well as hotel operators or innkeepers.
Six Little Miracles: The Heartwarming True Story of Raising the World's First Sextuplet Girls
Janet Walton - 2015
Then they told it was not just one baby, but six!On 18 November 1983, Janet Walton gave birth to the world’s first all-female sextuplets: Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jennie.Janet takes us through the reality of parenting six children of the same age – the extreme sleep deprivation, the bottle-feeding, and later the chaotic routine of getting six girls to school on time. As they grew up, Janet learned to keep a sense of humour through the teenage tantrums and boy trouble, and she watched her little girls blossom into individual, confident young women. She has loved every minute.
Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action
David Fajgenbaum - 2019
But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for a second chance, the equivalent of a dramatic play to second the game into overtime.Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived--only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself.More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, Fajgenbaum has seen his hard work pay off: A treatment he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when the forces of determination, love, family, faith, and serendipity collide.
The Doper Next Door: My Strange and Scandalous Year on Performance-Enhancing Drugs
Andrew Tilin - 2011
Soon wielding syringes, this forty-something husband and father of two children becomes the doper next door.During his yearlong odyssey, Tilin is transformed. He becomes stronger, hornier, and aggressive. He wades into a subculture of doping physicians, real estate agents, and aging women who believe that Tilin’s type of legal “hormone replacement therapy” is the key to staying young—and he often agrees. He also lives with the price paid for renewed vitality, worrying about his health, marriage, and cheating ways as an amateur bike racer. And all along the way, he tells us what doping is really like—empowering and scary.
Life Is Yours to Win: Lessons Forged from the Purpose, Passion, and Magic of Baseball
Augie Garrido - 2011
He is also the winner of more National Coach of the Year awards than any other college coach. Garrido’s former teams at Cal State Fullerton and, more recently, at the University of Texas together have compiled a total of five College World Series championships under his leadership. But despite his unmatched record as a winner, Coach Garrido is not a win-at-all-costs coach. He teaches his players to focus on developing character, being good teammates, mastering all facets of the game, and playing with joy in the moment rather than focusing on the scoreboard. Augie teaches that the challenges faced in the batter’s box or on the pitcher’s mound are universal—and that the lessons learned on the diamond are applicable off the field, too. Life Is Yours to Win follows the coach’s journey of self-discovery and his evolution from being driven by fear to being motivated by passion. His unique and compelling book offers this revered leader’s philosophy on life and his thoughtful approach to helping young men understand both who they are and how they can be successful in their work, their relationships, and their communities. Every individual will find advice worth following including: •BE A PLAYER, NOT A PROSPECT—If you want to be considered a star in your field, whatever that may be, you need to be fully engaged. Augie once had his Labrador retriever demonstrate the joy of play to a team that needed a reminder of why they loved baseball as children. •STEP UP, SUPERMAN—Augie stages a costumed Superhero Scrimmage each Halloween to remind his players that their inner superhero is just waiting for the perfect moment when preparation meets opportunity, potential is fulfilled, and destiny is realized. •THE FEARLESS FIELD—To be successful in the often cruel game of baseball, players must master fear and other emotions so they are energized rather than paralyzed. Augie once rented a hearse and placed a casket on the pitcher’s mound to help a slumping Cal State Fullerton team bury their fears and put losses behind them. •BUDDHA AT BAT—Bunting and other “small ball” skills are not as glorified as home runs and big plays, but Coach Garrido’s teams are known for putting players in scoring position and winning games by following a Zen-like philosophy of claiming small victories during each at bat, in each inning that add up to winning records. Augie’s coaching methods are unconventional, but his creativity and wry humor provide masterful life lessons. His insights will help you both on and off the field by providing fresh approaches to conquering fears, living with joy and passion in each moment, establishing personal principles, and appreciating the value of both losing and winning. This is a book by a beloved college coach but it is packed with Major League insights and anecdotes featuring many of baseball’s greatest players and most inspiring spirits. Life Is Yours to Win will appeal to anyone who appreciates the wisdom of a proven winner in sports and in life.
Check-raising the Devil
Mike Matusow - 2009
2. Fascinating Memoir: This book has it all: high stakes gambling, drugs, jail, psychotic episodes and debilitating depression and mental illness, plus the depths of despair and heights of victory. 3. Very High Profile: Mike Matusow is one of the most recognizable and followed players in poker today. Yahoo's online search engine identifies over 1.1 million websites that provide content about Mike Matusow. His weekly online video show "The Mouthpiece" at CardPlayer.com, averages over 2,000 viewers per day. 4. Super Popular Subject: Poker is the third most watched sport on cable television, behind auto racing and football. 5. Secondary Market Possibilities: The National Institute of Mental Health estimates there are 5.7 million people in the U.S. that have bipolar disorder and the CDC estimates 1.6 million elementary school children have been diagnosed ADHD.Get Ready for a Wild Ride… Hang on tight as Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, poker player extraordinaire, takes you with him on a breathtaking, true-life roller coaster ride from his humble beginnings in a trailer park to a rock and roll lifestyle full of hot women, sex, wild drug-filled parties and million-dollar wins and losses. Yet behind the glamour and glory of his high-stakes poker career lurked the flip side: a person torn between two debilitating mental illnesses?—?bipolar disorder and ADHD. To dig himself out of depression and suicidal despair, Matusow turned to dangerous street drugs to self-medicate a problem he didn’t understand, and spiraled deeper into the darker world of addiction, police narcotic stings, and jail time. In this revealing and tumultuous autobiography, the combustible Matusow holds nothing back. You’ll get a mouthful of the man behind the infamous Matusow Meltdowns seen on national TV. Riveting, exhilarating, sexy, sometimes shocking and always fascinating, this voyeur’s look into the world of high-stakes poker, mental illness, and ultimately, Matusow’s inspiring redemption, will keep you glued to your seat until the very last page!
Back on Top: Confessions of a High-Class Escort
Samantha X. - 2017
and much, much more!BACK ON TOP is fast-paced and occasionally outrageous, told with the flair readers loved in HOOKED. Samantha X does not hold back when it comes men, love, sex - and getting herself back on top.
Heart of Glass
Wendy Lawless - 2016
Running from the shipwreck of her glamorous and unstable childhood with a volatile mother, Wendy Lawless landed in the center of it all. With an open heart and a thrift store wardrobe, Wendy navigated this demi-monde of jaded punk rockers, desperate actors, pulsing parties, and unexpected run-ins with her own past as she made every mistake of youth, looked for love in all the wrong places, and eventually learned how to grow up on her own.With the same “biting humor” (People) that made her “powerful” (USA TODAY) and “illuminating and inspiring” (Reader’s Digest) New York Times bestseller Chanel Bonfire so captivating, Wendy turns her brutally honest and often hilarious spotlight on herself, recounting her tumultuous and giddy twenties trying to make it in the creative underbelly of New York City, all the while searching for love, a paying job, and occasionally, a free meal.
The Wolf of Wall Street
Jordan Belfort - 2007
By night he spent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and international globe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home, and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called . . .THE WOLF OF WALL STREETIn the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astounding and hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story of greed, power, and excess that no one could invent.Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits—for the house. But an insatiable appetite for debauchery, questionable tactics, and a fateful partnership with a breakout shoe designer named Steve Madden would land Belfort on both sides of the law and into a harrowing darkness all his own.From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . .
Fallen Angel: The Making and Unmaking of Rajat Gupta
Sandipan Deb - 2013
Why did this happen? Based on extensive research, including transcripts of FBI-wiretap conversations, Fallen Angel is an insightful account of a remarkable man and the extraordinary events surrounding him: this is the real story of Rajat Gupta, an orphaned immigrant from India who managed to reach dizzying heights in the US corporate sector. Although the verdict is out, the mystery remains: several jury members were in tears after delivering the verdict, and nearly everyone who has known Gupta believes he is innocent so what really happened? With its almost thriller-like cast of real-life characters, Fallen Angel is a page-turner that explores the complex layers of this human drama.
Michelle's Story: One Woman's Escape from a Lifetime of Abuse
Shelley Chase - 2012
Her first husband, and then her second husband end up abusing her also. Later on, both her surviving children were abused, one by her ex husband, another by a trusted boyfriend. Michelle finally manages to free herself from this cycle of abuse. This is her true story of her escape. It is Michelle's hope that her story will encourage others who are trapped in abuse to seek freedom.
Timepass: The Memoirs of Protima Bedi
Protima Bedi - 1999
There was immediate uproar. The incident was, in many ways, the culmination of a life of youthful rebellion and brash sexuality that Protima, the scandalous model and wife of the rising star of Bollywood, Kabir Bedi, had lived ever since she ran away from home to live ‘in sin’. Barely four years later, the glamorous flower child had reinvented herself as an accomplished classical dancer, a devotee of Goddess Kali, and chosen the sari over slit skirts and halter-necks Shortly before her death, she had shaved her head and decided on a monk’s life. She died in August 1998, in a landslide in the Himalayas while on a pilgrimage to Kailash Mansarovar, leaving behind her most lasting achievement—a flourishing dance village, Nrityagram, where students continue to learn the classical dance styles of India Few lives have been more eventful and controversial than Protima Bedi’s, and Timepass, derived from her unfinished autobiography, journals and her letters to family, friends and lovers, is a startlingly frank and passionate memoir. Protima recounts with unflinching honesty the events that shaped her life: her humiliation as a child at being branded the ugly duckling, repeated rape by a cousin when she was barely ten, the failure of her ‘open’ marriage with Kabir Bedi, her many sexual encounters, and the romantic relationships she had with prominent politicians and artistes. She writes, too, of her involvement with dance, her relationship with her guru and fellow dancers, the difficult mission of establishing Nrityagram, and the suicide of her son—a tragedy from which she never fully recovered. In a moving afterword to the book, her daughter, Pooja Bedi, describes her last days and the circumstances of her death. Illustrated with over fifty photographs, Timepass is the story of a remarkable woman who had the spirit, the courage and the intelligence to live life entirely on her own terms.
Lucky
Professor Green - 2015
Born into a tough Hackney estate and raised by his grandmother, the rapper was always learning the hard way - whether at school, on the streets of east London or during impromptu freestyling shows at friends' house parties. Indeed life and music have always been intertwined for the young rapper, but it wasn't until he was 18 that the two were brought into focus by the suicide of his father - and his emotions, ever since, have been reflected in the raw and often passionate line of his inspirational lyrics.In this wonderful autobiography, Professor Green - a.k.a. Stephen Manderson - reflects on his life so far and how his tough upbringing shaped the person and musician he is today. Passionate, raw and totally open, Lucky is the story of a boy's journey, from life close to the streets, to a time briefly behind bars, followed by a life making it as a musician and becoming the man you want to become. Lucky is accompanied by a unique digital app, which takes you closer to Professor Green and his story: with exclusive digital content for readers to enjoy, this is a rare insight into one of the most exciting and controversial musicians working in music today.
Monica: From Fear To Victory
Monica Seles - 1996
Along with the story of her triumphant comeback, after being stabbed by a deranged Steffi Graf fan, Seles provides readers with an insider's glimpse of big-time international tennis. of photos.