. . Charles Ramsey gives a roller coaster account of his life before, during, and after the dramatic rescue of three kidnapped women in Cleveland . . .Global news media declared him a hero. Well-wishers mobbed him. The Internet made him a viral sensation. It couldn't have happened to a less likely guy. Now, read how it all went down.Ramsey was in the wrong place at the right time when he answered a young woman's cry for help, kicked in his neighbor's locked front door, and got her the hell out of there--leading to the astonishing rescue of three young women--Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight--who had been missing for a decade.Reporters and TV cameras flocked to a neighborhood--and a man--they otherwise would have ignored. Ramsey was ready, with plenty to say."Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms . . . Dead giveaway." It was a quote that launched a thousand Internet memes . . .In this book Ramsey walks us step-by-step through the day of the rescue and talks about living right next door to Ariel Castro--outwardly charming, secretly a monster.He tells about life before the rescue--growing up a privileged black kid in a white suburb, seeking out trouble over and over, getting kicked out of school, selling drugs, going to prison, and ultimately finding work as a dishwasher and landing by chance on gritty Seymour Avenue.And he shares what it's like to become an instant celebrity, when suddenly everybody wants a piece of you. (For example, he learned the hard way that when a big TV network flies you to New York City for an interview, that doesn't mean they also bought you a ticket back home to Cleveland!)This is a wild, eye-opening tale told with a sharp sense of humor.

    The only daughter of a single, world-traveling mother and an absent artist father, Alexandra shares her unique quest to answer universal questions: Am I lovable? Am I loved? Am I loving? In short, moving episodes, Alexandra transports readers into a life that included a childhood in Europe, a spiritual conversion marked more by questions than answers, a courtship in the midst of a call to be with troubled teens, marriage and motherhood--and always, always, the question of identity. Through her personal journey, women will discover their own path to understanding the shape of their lives and a deeper sense of God's intimate presence within it.

    Knowing she would become a hunted woman, Edith tore the yellow star from her clothing and went underground, scavenging for food and searching each night for a safe place to sleep. Her boyfriend, Pepi, proved too terrified to help her, but a Christian friend was not: With the woman's identity papers in hand, Edith fled to Munich. There she met Werner Vetter, a Nazi party member who fell in love with her. And despite her protests and even her eventual confession that she was Jewish, he married her and kept her identity secret.In vivid, wrenching detail, Edith recalls a life of constant, almost paralyzing fear. She tells of German officials who casually questioned the lineage of her parents; of how, when giving birth to her daughter, she refused all painkillers, afraid that in an altered state of mind she might reveal her past; and of how, after her husband was captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia, Edith was bombed out of her house and had to hide in a closet with her daughter while drunken Russians soldiers raped women on the street.Yet despite the risk it posed to her life, Edith Hahn created a remarkable collective record of survival: She saved every set of real and falsified papers, letters she received from her lost love, Pepi, and photographs she managed to take inside labor camps. On exhibit at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., these hundreds of documents form the fabric of an epic story - complex, troubling, and ultimately triumphant.

    The SS soon discovered that by putting prisoners in charge of the day-to-day accommodation blocks, they could deflect attention away from themselves. Magda was one such prisoner selected for leadership and put in charge of hundreds of women in the notorious Experimental Block 10. She found herself constantly walking a dangerously fine line: saving lives while avoiding suspicion by the SS and risking execution. Through her inner strength and shrewd survival instincts, she was able to rise above the horror and cruelty of the camps and build pivotal relationships with the women under her watch, and even some of Auschwitz’s most notorious Nazi senior officers. Based on Magda’s personal account and completed by her daughter’s extensive research, this is “an unputdownable account of resilience and the power of compassion” (Booklist) in the face of indescribable evil.

    As baseball's Hit King, he shattered records that were thought to be unbreakable. And during the 1970s, he was the leader of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds team that dominated the game. But he's also the greatest player who may never enter the Hall of Fame because of his lifetime ban from the sport. Perhaps no other ballplayer's story is so representative of the triumphs and tragedies of our national pastime.In Play Hungry, Rose tells us the story of how, through hard work and sheer will, he became one of the unlikeliest stars of the game. Guided by the dad he idolized, a local sports hero, Pete learned to play hard and always focus on winning. But even with his dad's guidance, Pete was cut from his team as a teenager--he wasn't a natural. Rose was determined, though, and never would be satisfied with anything less than success. His relentless hustle and headfirst style would help him overcome his limitations, leading him to one of the most exciting and brash careers in the history of the sport.Play Hungry is Pete Rose's love letter to the game, and an unvarnished story of life on the diamond. One of the icons of a golden age in baseball, he describes just what it was like to hit (or try to hit) a Bob Gibson fastball or a Gaylord Perry spitball, what happened in that infamous collision at home plate during the 1970 All-Star Game, and what it felt like to topple Ty Cobb's hit record. And he speaks to how he let down his fans, his teammates, and the memory of his dad when he gambled on baseball, breaking the rules of a sport that he loved more than anything else. Told with candor and wry humor--including tales he's never told before--Rose's memoir is his final word on the glories and controversies of his life, and, ultimately, a master class in how to succeed when the odds are stacked against you.

    His memoir begins with surprising and often moving stories of his early life—his time at the Spanish & Portuguese Jewish Orphanage in Maida Vale, fighting fascists in London's East End, and fighting in the army of the fledgling state of Israel in the late 1940s. He then discusses his extraordinary career, during which he cut the hair of everyone who was anyone—including Mary Quant, Grace Coddington, Twiggy, Rita Hayworth, and Mia Farrow; launched salons all over the world; founded the hairdressing school that still bears his name; and became a global brand. He also shares the passions that drive him—architecture and beautiful women, Israel and anti-Semitism, family ties and season tickets at Chelsea. The compelling memoir of a genuine fashion icon who reinvented the art of hairdressing.

    Cute dogs, willful dogs, lovable to be sure, but I was a Human. I was in charge.;;;;;;;; Then along came Clara, and all bets were off.";;;;;;;; Once a pug owner, always a pug owner--or so thought Margo Kaufman, having shared her home with the lovable snub-faced imps since her college days. But it was not until the 1992 arrival of Clara--petite, imperious, whip-smart, and seductive--that Margo found what it meant to be a pug parent: that a pug could rule her life, and perhaps the world as well.;;;;;;;; "Clara, the Early Years" is the hilarious story of how a glossy-black, 12-pound package of canine energy took over Margo's heart and home while charming the pants off the rest of the world. From commandeering the dressing rooms at Saks (where a personal shopper offers Clara Evian in a cut-crystal bowl), to accompanying Margo on her first book tour, to an appearance on "PrimeTime Live" (where Margo plays a supporting role), the indomitable Clara establishes herself as a world-class personality, a star of the first order. But there is one event Clara cannot upstage, as Margo and her husband, Duke, travel to Russia to adopt an infant boy, and all of them learn new meanings for parent, family, and home. ;;;;;;;; Full of the kind of uproarious observations and brilliant insights that have won Margo Kaufman's books and commentary legions of loyal followers, "Clara, the Early Years" is a laugh-filled portrait of a singularly memorable pet.

    Abram and Julia Bobrow escaped from the Nazi death squads and fled to the vast forests of Byelorussia where they learned to survive with little food, shelter or warm clothing. Finally adapting to the severe conditions, they began to do little things like cutting telephone wires or tearing up railroad tracks. Still, they were never more than one step ahead of the SS and their auxiliaries—units bent on destroying the partisan movement and ridding Europe of its Jewish population. Most partisan groups were made up of Soviet soldiers and they wouldn't accept anyone who didn't have their own weapons. Julia was lucky and was accepted to a Russian group as a nurse; Abram’s group consisted of himself, his brother Label and his father. They had a sawed-off rifle and one pistol with six bullets. Abram and Label used their first two bullets to kill two peasants that had turned in their aunt and her children for blood money. The story is told in Abram's own words.

    In the first ever memoir by a top-level operative to be authorized by the CIA, Antonio J. Mendez reveals the cunning tricks and insights that helped save hundreds from deadly situations.Adept at creating new identities for anyone, anywhere, Mendez was involved in operations all over the world, from “Wild West” adventures in East Asia to Cold War intrigue in Moscow. In 1980, he orchestrated the escape of six Americans from a hostage situation in revolutionary Tehran, Iran. This extraordinary operation inspired the movie Argo, directed by and starring Ben Affleck.The Master of Disguise gives us a privileged look at what really happens at the highest levels of international espionage: in the field, undercover, and behind closed doors.

    Strong willed as she is, she is not easily deterred. When Jerry is sent on a deep cover mission to a Muslim country under the guise of a European businessman, she insists on joining him with the full knowledge that her life as well as that of her family would be in danger. Would you risk it all for exciting experiences that accompany life undercover? After “living on the edge,” Sally is unable to live her quiet life as a wife, mother, and computer administrator at an insurance company. She yearns for thrills. So when Sally discovers a plot to defraud the Swiss billionaire who had funded her studies as a young woman, she jumps at the opportunity and calls forth all she had learned during her time undercover to face a ruthless and determined enemy bent on destroying anyone in his path. The threats Sally faces grow as she delves deeper into a complex web of seduction, love, intrigue, passion, and espionage. Reality becomes an intricate riddle that will test the bonds of her marriage and will demand all her courage and audacity to resolve. Scroll up to grab your copy of Married to the Mossad now!

    Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody-- or taken away.A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent from Poland years before for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long. And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn--Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims? Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, MY ENEMY'S CRADLE keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find.

    The line made Rapp Black pause. Her first child, a boy named Ronan, had died from Tay-Sachs disease before he turned three years old, an experience she wrote about in her second book, The Still Point of the Turning World. Since that time, her life had changed utterly: She left the marriage that fractured under the terrible weight of her son's illness, got remarried to a man who she fell in love with while her son was dying, had a flourishing career, and gave birth to a healthy baby girl. But she rejected the idea that she was leaving her old life behind--that she had, in the manner of the mythical phoenix, risen from the ashes and been reborn into a new story, when she still carried so much of her old story with her. More to the point, she wanted to carry it with her. Everyone she met told her she was resilient, strong, courageous in ways they didn't think they could be. But what did those words mean, really?This book is an attempt to unpack the various notions of resilience that we carry as a culture. Drawing on contemporary psychology, neurology, etymology, literature, art, and self-help, Emily Rapp Black shows how we need a more complex understanding of this concept when applied to stories of loss and healing and overcoming the odds, knowing that we may be asked to rebuild and reimagine our lives at any moment, and often when we least expect it. Interwoven with lyrical, unforgettable personal vignettes from her life as a mother, wife, daughter, friend, and teacher, Rapp Black creates a stunning tapestry that is full of wisdom and insight.

    But playing tennis, avoiding coffee mornings and being a perfect wife and mother in the Middle East is not enough. Charlotte convinces a local veterinary clinic to employ her and throws herself into assisting the vets, overcoming her fear of birds and rehoming hundreds of stray cats and dogs. Cyclones, earthquakes, transvestites, unwanted paramours, cultural differences, tears and laughter follow as seven years flash by. Will Charlotte stay, or gather up the motley crew of pets she has collected and head for home? Charlotte was born, raised and lived in West Sussex, UK, with her children, animals, Aga and husband until 2006. She dreamed of spending time with Colin Firth, or Gordon Ramsey, and couldn't wait for Christmas to come around for Love Actually to be on the TV. But then she was dragged off to live in Oman, in the heart of the Middle East, where coffee mornings and sets of tennis soon gave way to a life of animal rescue and re-homing. Her first book, Paw Prints in Oman, is full of wonderful stories and unique insights into her life in this mystical land.

     She was the only one to leave alive again. At five o’clock on February 23, 1942, Nazi police, armed with rifles surrounded the hospital where Sternberg worked. Time had run out for the Jewish inhabitants of Breslau. There had been ten thousand Jewish inhabitants in the city prior to the rise of Nazis. By the end of the war only thirty-eight had escaped the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration camps. Sternberg’s book relates episode after episode of events where she should have been killed, but for whatever reason, she was spared. Much has been written of the horrific events that occurred in Nazi Germany, yet it is rare that you are able to hear of these stories written by survivors themselves. Sternberg’s book is therefore an invaluable source that uncovers the dark days that she spent in hell. In the Hell of Auschwitz is a fascinating book that provides insights into the worst horrors of the Second World War. Although at points it is a difficult read, it should be read by everyone so that such horrors will never be allowed to occur again. After the war Judith Sternberg Newman married Senek Newman, a fellow concentration camp survivor, and emigrated to the United States 1947. She began writing her account immediately after arriving in the United States. She worked as a nurse in Providence, Rhode Island, until her retirement. In the Hell of Auschwitz was first published in 1963. Newman passed away in 2008.

    She was German. She was Jewish. She was a survivor.  This is her story.As a young girl, Marione was aware that people of the Jewish faith were regarded as outsiders, the supposed root of Germany’s many problems. She grew up in an apartment building where neighbors were more than happy to report Jews to the Gestapo. Marione’s mother attempted suicide after receiving a deportation notice—Marione revived her, but then the bombs started to fall, as the Allies leveled the city in eight straight days of bombings. Somehow Marione and her mother and sister survived the devastating firestorms—more than 40,000 perished, and almost the same numbered were wounded.Marione and her family miraculously escaped and sought shelter with a contact in the countryside who grudgingly agreed to house them in a shed for more than a year. With the war drawing to a close, they went west, back to Hamburg.  There they encountered Allied troops, who reinstalled the local government (made up of ex-Nazis) in order to keep order in the country. Life took on the air of what it used to be. Jews were still second-class citizens.Marione eventually took shelter at a children’s home in a mansion once owned by wealthy Jewish bankers. There she met Uri, a troubled orphan and another one of the “Children of Blankenese.” Uri’s story, a bleak tale of life in the concentration camps, explores a different side of the Nazi terror in Germany.In this stirring account of World War II through the eyes of a child, the author’s eloquent narrative elicits compassion from readers.