Book picks similar to
Flying Without Wings: Personal Reflections on Loss, Disability, and Healing by Arnold Beisser
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Silver Dolphins: The Emblem of the Enlisted Submariner
Richard Hansher - 2015
The author doesn't pull any punches describing the good, the bad, the funny and the just plain ridiculous of the Submarine Service. Besides a wealth of information about what it's like to serve on a submarine, you'll meet real life characters like Tongue, Snake and Button Butt John. Did submarines make them rude, crude, and crazy. Or does the Submarine Service act as a magnet for every nut in the Navy? One thing is sure, after two months underwater, and with their back pay in their back pocket, Sub Sailors are as wild as cowboys after a cattle drive. Bar the doors and hide your daughters. Every reader owes it to themselves to use Amazons "Look In" feature to take a peek inside this unique and entertaining book.
So L.A.: A Hollywood Memoir
Staci Layne Wilson - 2017
But what is so moving about Staci Layne Wilson’s unconventional coming-of-age story is that in spite of her rocky childhood, she describes her parents with deep affection, generosity, and pride. Hers is a story of triumph over a legacy of alcoholism, suicide, and Hollywood burnout, but more than that, it’s a tender, gripping tale of unconditional love (with a healthy dose of humor). Despite the downsides, her upbringing gave her the powerful determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. Vintage Los Angeles Staci Layne Wilson tells tales of bygone eras – she grew up with showbiz parents in L.A. in the sixties and seventies, had ponies in the backyard and a psychotic monkey in the house, mingled with the stars on the Sunset Strip rock scene in the eighties, partied at the Playboy Mansion, nearly died (twice!). She ultimately found love, purpose, and success as an author, film director, screenwriter, pop culture pundit and notable red carpet reporter has interviewed the biggest celebs in the world. First-hand stories about: The Doors Led Zeppelin Guns N’ Roses Metallica Keanu Reeves Heath Ledger Liam Neeson Jennifer Lawrence Denzel Washington Ben Stiller Mia Farrow …to name just a few! Dozens of full-color photos PRAISE “A touching, laugh-out-loud memoir.” – Daily Sweets “Refreshingly honest look at Los Angeles, past and present.” – Curb Appeal “Charming, self-deprecating.” – Los Angeles Readers & Writers “As a music fanatic, I was in heaven over all the inside stories about The Ventures (through their 50+ year career!), Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and the glam-rock scene on the Sunset Strip. There’s also a whole master class on the heavy metal hangouts of Hollywood: The Rainbow, The Roxy, The Troubadour… Staci’s seen it all!” – Gene Katz, director of The Hair Band Tease If you want to read a time capsule of a specific period in Southern California pop cultural history, look no further. If you want to read a book that’s as delightful as it is insightful, one that stays with you long after you close its covers, this is that book. If you want to be simultaneously educated and entertained, you won’t find a better reference than this one. Staci Layne Wilson not only has a penchant for detail, she has a memory like a bear trap. Nothing escapes her notice, and she has been kind enough to let us see the world through her keen, sentimental (but never maudlin) eyes. The book should come with one caveat emptor, however: if you read it at night, you can forget about sleeping. Not all the coffee in the world can knock down the reading hangover you’re going to have the next day after flipping page after page the night before. – Stacey Keith, author of Stripped Down: A Naked Memoir A book that rivals the best of Huell Howser's TV shows digging up the cherished as well as perished landmarks of the City of Angels.
Last Man Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor
Jack Straw - 2012
As one of five children of divorced parents, he was bright enough to get a scholarship to a direct-grant school, but spent his holidays as a plumbers' mate for his uncles to bring in some much-needed extra income. Yet he spent 13 years and 11 days in government, including long and influential spells as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. This is the story of how he got there.His memoirs offer a unique insight into the complex, sometimes self-serving but always fascinating world of British politics and reveals the toll that high office takes but also, more importantly, the enormous satisfaction and extraordinary privilege of serving both your constituents and your country.Straw’s has been a very public life, but he reveals the private face, too, and offers readers a vivid and authoritative insight into the Blair/Brown era and, indeed, the last forty years of British politics.
Tea From A Jam Jar
Alfie Watson - 2012
He is just good old “Mr average” but you'll find that he does have an extremely interesting story to tell.This is about Alfie Watson and his coming of age story of life on a feral sink estate in the heart of 1950's England. It's a story that began as a diary to pass to his grandchildren and became a beautifully written account of his tormented life. The reader will be taken back in time to a period of post war deprivation that would scar Alfie for life. A disciplinarian father and a depraved mother meant that chastisement was always a tactile experience. Abuse in this family, took on many guises, often with heart rending conclusions." via Itunes
The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes
Randi Davenport - 2010
And at fifteen, her son Chase entered an unremitting psychosis—pursued by terrifying images, unable to recognize his own mother, unwilling to eat or even talk—becoming ever more tortured and unreachable.Beautifully written and profoundly moving, this is the heartbreaking yet triumphant story of how Randi Davenport navigated the byzantine and broken health care system and managed not just to save her son from the brink of suicide but to bring him back to her again, and make her family whole.In The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes, she gives voice to the experiences of countless families whose struggles with mental illness are likewise invisible to the larger world.
Wide-Eyed and Legless
Jeff Connor - 1988
In this new edition of 'Wide-Eyed and Legless', Connor describes in detail what it takes to compete, survive and win during those 26 days of gruelling effort in the name of sport.
Poker Wisdom of a Champion
Doyle Brunson - 2003
Learn what it takes to be a great poker player by climbing inside the mind of poker's most famous champion. Fascinating anecdotes and adventures from Doyle's early career playing poker in roadhouses are interspersed with lessons from the champion who has made more money at poker than anyone else in history. Learn what makes a great player tick, how he approaches the game, and receive candid, powerful advice from the legend himself. 208 pages
Beyond His Control (Memoir of a Disobedient Daughter)
Linda Hale Bucklin - 2007
Was it suicide or homicide?Standing up to her father, heir to the Broadway/Hale Department Store fortune, Linda is disinherited, then ostracized from the family she loves. When her father marries his mistress, Denise Minnelli, stepmother to Liza Minnelli, the family unravels.Once a child of privilege, Linda recounts, in vivid detail, her extraordinary life—summers on the family's 10,000 acre ranch in Northern California, hunting trips to Africa and Alaska, high society vignettes of a fourth-generation San Francisco family, and her father's final decision: to leave the entire family fortune to Minnelli.But amid the ashes, Linda finds a new strength: the strength to forgive the one who started it all.REVIEWS:"...a jolting memoir." ~The New York Post"...a book you won't be able to put down." ~David Patrick Columbia, New York Social DiaryMEET LINDA HALE BUCKLIN:Linda feels blessed to be surrounded by her three grown sons, two daughters-in-law and two grandchildren. A fourth-generation San Franciscan, she now lives with her husband in Mill Valley, CA.
Givers Gain: The Bni Story
Ivan R. Misner - 2004
Dr. Misner traces the history, growing pains, and innovations that have resulted in the best system for growing your business through referrals. Existing members should read to understand the organization and prospects should read so they will be compelled to seek out the group in their area. The other books in the series should be read subsequently so as to gain the greatest benefit. My involvement in BNI has been the single-largest contributor to the growth of my business. Read this first and then the others that follow so that you can claim your benefit, too!
The Soul's Remembrance: Earth is Not Our Home
Roy Mills - 1999
A moving and inspiring personal account of one man's extraordinary memories of the pre-birth existence--the life in Heaven before physical birth.
Some True Adventures in the Life of Hugh Glass, a Hunter and Trapper on the Missouri River (1857)
Philip St. George Cooke - 2015
1780–1833) was an American fur trapper and frontiersman noted for his exploits in the American West during the first third of the 19th century. Glass was born in Pennsylvania, to Irish parents. He was an explorer of the watershed of the Upper Missouri River in present day North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Glass was famed, most of all, as a frontier folk hero for his legendary cross-country trek after being mauled by a grizzly bear. Glass' most famous adventure began in 1822, when he responded to an advertisement in the Missouri Gazette and Public Adviser, placed by General William Ashley, which called for a corps of 100 men to "ascend the river Missouri" as part of a fur trading venture. These men would later be known as Ashley's Hundred. Besides Glass, others who joined the enterprise included notables such as James Beckwourth, Thomas Fitzpatrick, David Jackson, John Fitzgerald, William Sublette, Jim Bridger, and Jedediah Smith. Early in the trek, Glass established himself as a hard-working fur trapper. He was apparently wounded on this trip in a battle with Arikara, and later traveled with a party of 13 men to relieve traders at Fort Henry, at the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The expedition, led by Andrew Henry, planned to proceed from the Missouri, up the valley of the Grand River in present-day South Dakota, then across to the valley of the Yellowstone. The sketch in this book is related by the explorer and Army officer Philip St. George Cooke. This book originally published by Lindsay & Blakiston in 1857 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting.
Without Hope: A Childhood Ruined by the Man she should Trust the Most
Barbara Naughton - 2010
Also for kicks, he took his children out on to the lake and held them under until they were gasping for their lives.
He sexually assaulted Barbara from a young age, often when the rest of the family were in the house. He repeatedly threatened to kill her, and made two very serious attempts. During the final attempt, as he was raping and choking her, Barbara made a vow - if she survived, she would come forward and get justice against her father ...
Without Hope is a powerful and inspiring true story of a girl who finally found the inner strength to escape her brutal childhood.
Mommy Deadliest
Michael Benson - 2010
A man's corpse on the bathroom floor--next to a half-empty glass of anti-freeze. But fingerprints on the glass belonged to the deceased's wife, Stacey Castor. And a turkey baster in the garbage had police wondering if she force-fed the toxic fluid down her husband's throat. Pills For A Daughter In desperation, Stacey concocted a devious plan. She mixed a deadly cocktail of vodka and pills, then served it to her twenty-year-old daughter Ashley. The authorities would find Ashley with a suicide note, confessing to the anti-freeze murder. But Stacey's plan backfired--because Ashley refused to die. . . A Killer For A Mother Charged with murdering her second husband--and attempting to kill her oldest daughter--Stacey Castor sparked a media frenzy. But when police dug up her first husband's grave--and found anti-freeze in his body, too--this New York housewife earned a nickname that would follow her all the way to prison. They called her "The Black Widow." And with good reason. Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos
Edward Gein: America's Most Bizarre Murderer
Robert H. Gollmar - 1981
What follows is probably the most unusual case in modern times. It is the story of Edward Gein, America's most bizarre murderer, grave robber, maker of exotic household items, wearing apparel and possessor of undoubtedly the finest private collection of female heads, vagina, vulvas and unquestionably the most notorious character ever to stand before me in court..."
El Macca
Steve McManaman - 2004
Soon the ex-Liverpool star was playing alongside Ronaldo, Figo, Zidane and Beckham. It was an astonishing turnaround for a club that had been struggling to live up to its enormous reputation, and Steve was there to witness the most intense and interesting period of its development -- winning the league and two European Cups along the way. Written with the DAILY TELEGRAPH's Sarah Edworthy, who contributes her own insights through original interviews with the key players at Madrid, EL MACCA is not just a highly entertaining memoir of four years at the biggest club in Europe. Thoughtful and candid, it is also a fascinating insight into the process of playing -- and succeeding -- overseas.