I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban


Malala Yousafzai - 2012
    When I almost died it was just after midday.When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education.On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she has become a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.

Love Interrupted: Navigating Grief One Day at a Time


Simon Thomas - 2019
    Gemma died from acute myeloid leukaemia, just three days after being diagnosed.In Love, Interrupted, Simon is brutally honest about his journey through grief, and opens up about how close he came to ending his own life. Simon didn’t know how to carry on without Gemma; he just knew that, for the sake of his eight-year old son, he had to find a way …Love, Interrupted is a moving story of love, loss, faith, and family.

The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard


Beth May - 2021
    The topics may vary widely, from love to mental illness to the most recent "Florida Man" headline, but it's all in the same handwriting. Welcome to The Immortal Soul Salvage Yard.

Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley


Sybil Rosen - 2008
    Rosen offers a firsthand witnessing of Foley’s transformation from a reticent hippie musician to the enigmatic singer/songwriter who would live and die outside society's rules. While Foley's own performances are only recently being released, his songs have been covered by Merle Haggard, Lyle Lovett, and John Prine. When he first encountered “If I Could Only Fly,” Merle Haggard called it “the best country song I've heard in fifteen years.”In a work that is part-memoir, part-biography, Rosen struggles to finally come to terms with Foley's myth and her role in its creation. Her tracing of his impact on her life navigates a lovers' roadmap along the permeable boundary between life and death. A must-read for all Blaze Foley and Texas music fans, as well as romantics of all ages, Living in the Woods in a Tree is an honest and compassionate portrait of the troubled artist and his reluctant muse.

When Lions Roared: The Lions, the All Blacks and the Legendary Tour of 1971


Tom English - 2017
    No Lions team had ever defeated the All Blacks in a Test series. Since 1904, six Lions sides had travelled to New Zealand and all had returned home with their tails between their legs. But in 1971 a tour party led by John Dawes set out to carve their names into the annals of the sport with their assault on the great bastion of world rugby. Lying in wait were team after team of hardened rugby warriors and an All Blacks side filled with legends of the game. But as the Lions began to sweep their way across the length and breadth of the country, displaying ferocity and magic in equal measure, it became clear that a Test series of epic proportions was set to unfold. When Lions Roared delves into the very heart of that famous summer as Lions, All Blacks and provincial players recount their memories to bring to life one of the most celebrated tours in rugby history - one that changed the game forever and continues to resonate powerfully to this day.

One Of Us: Life Of Margaret Thatcher


Hugo Young - 1989
    It traces her life from being an apprentice under Harold Macmillan and her participation in the government of Edward Heath, to her unquestioning destruction of the Conservatism of the 1950s and 1960s and her emergence as a senior stateswoman of the western world.

The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness


Rebecca Solnit - 2014
    As the title suggests, the territory of Solnit’s concerns is vast, and in her signature alchemical style she combines commentary on history, justice, war and peace, and explorations of place, art, and community, all while writing with the lyricism of a poet to achieve incandescence and wisdom. Gathered here are celebrated iconic essays along with little-known pieces that create a powerful survey of the world we live in. In its encyclopedic reach and its generous compassion, Solnit’s collection charts a way through the thickets of our complex social and political worlds. Like the women who've pioneered before her—Sontag, Didion, and Dillard—her essays are a beacon.

Phantom Warrior: The Heroic True Story of Private John McKinney's One-Man Stand Against the Japanese in World War II


Forrest Bryant Johnson - 2007
    On May 11, 1945, McKinney returned fire on the Japanese attacking his unit, using every available weapon-even his fists-standing alone against wave after wave of dedicated Japanese soldiers. At the end, John McKinney was alive-with over forty Japanese bodies before him. This is the story of an extraordinary man whose courage and fortitude in battle saved many American lives, and whose legacy has been sadly forgotten by all but a few. Here, the proud legacy of John McKinney lives on.

Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am


Julia Cooke - 2021
    Julia Cooke’s intimate storytelling weaves together the real-life stories of a memorable cast of characters, from Lynne Totten, a science major who decided life in a lab was not for her, to Hazel Bowie, one of the relatively few black stewardesses of the era, as they embraced the liberation of their new jet-set life. Cooke brings to life the story of Pan Am stewardesses’ role in the Vietnam War, as the airline added runs from Saigon to Hong Kong for planeloads of weary young soldiers straight from the battlefields, who were off for five days of R&R, and then flown back to war. Finally, with Operation Babylift—the dramatic evacuation of 2,000 children during the fall of Saigon—the book’s special cast of stewardesses unites to play an extraordinary role on the world stage.

Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas


Caitlin Thomas - 1986
    16 pages of black-and-white photographs.

From The Murks Of The Sultry Abyss


Brandon Boyd - 2007
    The second book from Brandon Boyd which follows up the successful White Fluffy Clouds, From the Murks of the Sultry Abyss comes in a special outer box, a limited edition #d sheet of stickers of artwork from Boyd, and the book itself comes sealed.

Kennedy Weddings: A Family Album


Jay Mulvaney - 1999
    For three generations the Kennedy family has been in the public eye, and for three generations their marriages have been the equivalent of "Royal Matches." This book covers the senior generation wedding of Joe and Rose, the second generation weddings--most notably of Jack and Jackie, Bobby and Ethel--and all of the third generation weddings: John Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, Caroline and Ed Schlossberg, Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kerry and Andrew Cuomo, Kathleen and Peter Townsend, Courtney and Paul Hill, Michael and Victoria Gifford.The accompanying images, acquired from members of the Kennedy family, private collections of friends, and the JFK Library and National Archives, are as rare as they are unusual--many have never been published, or were published only at the time of the wedding. Kennedy Weddings is the result of years of extensive research and has benefited from the unprecedented cooperation of many members of the Kennedy family, most especially of Senator Edward Kennedy's office.

Enchantress of Numbers


Jennifer Chiaverini - 2017
    Estranged from Ada’s father, who was infamously “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” Ada’s mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada’s mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science. Any troubling spark of imagination—or worse yet, passion or poetry—is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes.When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realize that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage—brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly—will shape her destiny. Intrigued by the prototype of his first calculating machine, the Difference Engine, and enthralled by the plans for his even more advanced Analytical Engine, Ada resolves to help Babbage realize his extraordinary vision, unique in her understanding of how his invention could transform the world. All the while, she passionately studies mathematics—ignoring skeptics who consider it an unusual, even unhealthy pursuit for a woman—falls in love, discovers the shocking secrets behind her parents’ estrangement, and comes to terms with the unquenchable fire of her imagination.

The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience


Hillary Rodham Clinton - 2019
    "Go ahead, ask your question," her father urged, nudging her forward. She smiled shyly and said, "You're my hero. Who's yours?" Many people - especially girls - have asked us that same question over the years. It's one of our favourite topics.HILLARY: Growing up, I knew hardly any women who worked outside the home. So I looked to my mother, my teachers, and the pages of Life magazine for inspiration. After learning that Amelia Earhart kept a scrapbook with newspaper articles about successful women in male-dominated jobs, I started a scrapbook of my own. Long after I stopped clipping articles, I continued to seek out stories of women who seemed to be redefining what was possible.CHELSEA: This book is the continuation of a conversation the two of us have been having since I was little. For me, too, my mom was a hero; so were my grandmothers. My early teachers were also women. But I grew up in a world very different from theirs. My pediatrician was a woman, and so was the first mayor of Little Rock who I remember from my childhood. Most of my close friends' moms worked outside the home as nurses, doctors, teachers, professors, and in business. And women were going into space and breaking records here on Earth.Ensuring the rights and opportunities of women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. While there's a lot of work to do, we know that throughout history and around the globe women have overcome the toughest resistance imaginable to win victories that have made progress possible for all of us. That is the achievement of each of the women in this book.So how did they do it? The answers are as unique as the women themselves. Civil rights activist Dorothy Height, LGBTQ trailblazer Edie Windsor, and swimmer Diana Nyad kept pushing forward, no matter what. Writers like Rachel Carson and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named something no one had dared talk about before. Historian Mary Beard used wit to open doors that were once closed, and Wangari Maathai, who sparked a movement to plant trees, understood the power of role modeling. Harriet Tubman and Malala Yousafzai looked fear in the face and persevered. Nearly every single one of these women was fiercely optimistic - they had faith that their actions could make a difference. And they were right.To us, they are all gutsy women - leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done. So in the moments when the long haul seems awfully long, we hope you will draw strength from these stories. We do. Because if history shows one thing, it's that the world needs gutsy women.

'Work Hard, Study...and Keep Out of Politics!': Adventures and Lessons from an Unexpected Public Life


James A. Baker III - 2006
     The real inside story of why Gerald Ford did not ask Ronald Reagan to be his running mate in 1976-and why Reagan did not pick Ford in 1980; the battle over Florida 2000; the aborted White House job switch that inadvertently opened the door to the Iran-Contra scandal; the Bush campaign's wish that Dan Quayle would offer to resign from the ticket in 1992; the White House turmoil in the dark days following the Reagan assassination attempt; and a great deal more . . . White House Chief of Staff (twice), Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and campaign chairman for three different candidates in five successive presidential campaigns-few people have lived and breathed politics as deeply as James Baker. Now, with candor and Texas-style storytelling, and not a few surprises, he takes us into his thirty-five years behind the scenes. None of it was planned. His grandfather, the "Captain," drilled this advice into him: "Work hard, study . . . and keep out of politics!" Then a personal tragedy changed the life of a forty-year-old Texas Democratic lawyer and he never looked back. From campaign horsetrading, which sometimes got rough ("Politics ain't beanbag," says Baker), to the inner councils of the Reagan and Bush administrations to the controversies of today, Baker offers frank talk and spellbinding narratives, along with personal appraisals of six presidents and a constellation of others. It was a long, unexpected journey from Houston, Texas, to Washington, D.C.-and you'll want to travel it with him.