J. Reynolds tobacco family, one of America's richest and most intensely private clans. R.J. was the original founder of the company that became part of RJR Nabisco, which in 1988 was involved in the largest business takeover in history. Spanning three generations, the Reynolds's story moves from the triumphs of founder and corporate genius R. J. to the dissipation, scandal, and tragedy that plagued his children and grandchildren. There is a redemptive close, with grandson Patrick Reynolds founding Smokefree America and becoming a leading anti-smoking advocate. The Gilded Leaf presents, for the first time, a complete account of the family who captured, spent and redeemed the American dream.

    As the squad car drove him away, he confessed he had strangled 15 young men. But it wasn’t just the crimes that stunned the police, but the way Nilsen spoke. He said he loved the young men he killed. When newspapers carried stories of how the 37-year-old lured men back to his flat and why, the nation was shocked by his sheer evil. Yet some psychiatrists considered him a man of rare, complex, and extreme psychological problems. In addition, none of them had met a killer who seemed so keen to understand his own psyche. Whilst on remand in Brixton Prison, Nilsen filled 55 exercise books with thoughts. During his subsequent 30 years in prison he has continued to write—most notably on the first draft of a multi-volume autobiography—which the Home Office has banned. Using exclusive access to Nilsen's writing and extensive independent research, Russ Coffey explains what Nilsen says and how much of it we can believe. This is a shocking glimpse into the mind of a killer.

    This is the compelling story of how one of Japan's biggest motorcycle manufacturers stole a Nazi rocket scientist's engine secrets from behind the Iron Curtain to conquer the world.

    Based on the stories of ordinary American women, beautifully written, and irresistibly engaging, it shows the immensely important role sexuality plays in shaping our spiritual journey. Aphrodite’s Daughters OverviewReflecting upon love and lust, sex and marriage, wounding and healing, women on the spiritual path share their most intimate erotic secrets with honesty, courage, and passion in a series of true stories. Aphrodite’s Daughters sends a strong, persuasive message: It is time to honor sex as a sacred, soul-making force. Aphrodite’s Daughters OverviewWomen from all walks of life have found that this book transforms the way they feel about their sexual journeys. It is a must-read for every man and woman on the spiritual path.“A brave, beautiful, erotic, and wise book in a society where sexuality, like so much of our humanity, is cut off from the sacred. Jalaja Bonheim’s honesty marries body to ecstasy, heart to spirit.”—Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart“Aphrodite’s Daughters is a scorcher of a book, one that I’m tempted to start reading all over again after I’ve just finished it.”—Gnosis MagazineA Simon & Schuster eBook

    His plan began when he adopted Maude’s mother and indoctrinated her with his esoteric ideals. Her mission was to give him a daughter as blonde as she was, and then to take charge of the child’s education. That child was Maude, on whom her father conducted his outrageous experiment—to raise the perfect ‘super-human’ being.The three lived in an isolated mansion in northern France, where her father made her undergo endless horrifying endurance tests. Maude had to hold an electric fence without flinching. Her parents locked her in a cellar overnight and ordered her to sit still on a stool in the dark, contemplating death, while rats scurried around her feet.How did this girl, with her loveless and lonely childhood, emerge so unscathed, so full of the empathy that was absent in her childhood? How did she manage to escape?Maude was sustained by her love of nature and animals and her passion for literature. In writing this memoir, Maude Julien shows that it is possible to overcome severe trauma. She recounts her chilling and deeply moving story in a compelling and compassionate voice.

    Over the years, she's had twelve number-one hits and nine number-one albums. Over one hundred appearances on the Billboard charts. Nineteen Grammy nominations and eight Grammy wins. Her achievements in the music industry are legendary, and like her twenty albums, they're well-known to the public.But the private side of Chaka, the story of what fame and fortune have cost her-- and taught her-- hasn't been told before. In Chaka! Through the Fire, Chaka Khan gives us the whole story of the woman behind the diva and reveals her high and low points. A happy early childhood in a loving, creative home was shattered by escalating fights between her parents. When they finally split, Chaka's father disappeared without even a goodbye, leaving Chaka bewildered, bereft, and blaming her mother. She reconnected with her dad in her teens, finding that he was as liberal and permissive a parent as her mother was strict. Chaka started experimenting with drugs and joined the Black Panthers. Soon after, she fronted for a band called Rufus.They hit it big with "Tell Me Something Good," and Chaka's stardom was launched. But life on the road was grueling, and as the years went by, the pressures grew. Chaka turned to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of failed relationships, the guilt of leaving her kids to be raised by Grandma, the resentment she felt about the exhausting demands of her career. It wasn't until things got very bad that she started to see the patterns. All the things she had suffered through in her childhood and swore never to do to her kids-- well, she was doing them.That's when she began the work of turning it all around. These days, she's still a musical powerhouse, but she's making sure there's time for family, too. She's drug-free. She's started her own record label and has also started a foundation to help women and children in need. Remarkably, Chaka has remained a true wild child despite all the changes: a fiercely independent woman who never compromised her spirit.

    And of how Nicola battled with her own alcoholism but, determined to throw off her mother's legacy, came through a survivor.

    He ran away from his alcoholic father at the age of fourteen. An old man in Texas takes an interest in him, helping the runaway get a new identity. The boy becomes John Harding.Harding joins the Marine Corps with his new identity, looking for a chance to get an education and start over. While in special ops overseas, he’s recruited by a CIA agent who sees something in Harding besides his knack for languages and combat skill. Denny Strobert knows he’s found a killer.HARDCASE begins in a back alley warehouse in East Oakland, CA, where Harding fights for money, and to keep his skills honed, coupled with the fact he likes it. Harding does odd jobs with the only guy he trusts implicitly, his handler and manager, Tommy Sands. They bodyguard, escort tourists around the Bay Area, and do bail bond, skip trace work for a lawyer named Tess Connagher.Tess Connagher, both fascinated and repulsed by Harding, cannot stay away from him. She rapidly finds out Harding is not some East Oakland leg-breaker, and being around him can be very dangerous, whether you’re his friend or his enemy. She makes a couple of serious errors in judgment - Tess thinks she can control Harding, and she uses him to help Lora, her older sister.

    Kennedy. Through Lincoln, crucial evidence ended up in Christopher's hands—evidence that was going to be used to facilitate a new future for America. But the U.S. government's position was clear: that evidence had to be confiscated and classified, and the truth hidden away from the public. Christopher was sent to federal prison for years under a sealed warrant and indictment. The Inheritance, Christopher's personal narrative, shares insider information from his encounters with the Russian Government, President Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, the Clinton White House, the U.S. Justice Department, the Secret Service, and the Kennedy family themselves. It reveals the true intentions of Evelyn Lincoln and her secret promise to Robert Kennedy—and Christopher's secret promise to John F. Kennedy Jr. The Inheritance explodes with history-changing information and answers the questions Americans are still asking, while pulling them through a gauntlet of some of the worst prisons this country has to offer. This book thrillingly exposes the reality of American power, and sheds light on the dark corners of current corruption within the executive branch and the justice and prison systems.

    In the tradition of “true crime” books, The Gamblers follows the fortunes of five men at the center of the ultra-fashionable Clermont Set including the infamous Lord Lucan who disappeared following the murder of his children’s nanny.

    Within two years he's a multimillionaire. The press calls him "King of the Bootleggers," writing breathless stories about the Gatsby-esque events he and his glamorous second wife, Imogene, host at their Cincinnati mansion, with party favors ranging from diamond jewelry for the men to brand new Pontiacs for the women. By the summer of 1921, Remus owns 35 percent of all the liquor in the United States.Pioneering prosecutor Mabel Walker Willebrandt is determined to bring him down. Willebrandt's bosses at the U.S. Attorney's office hired her right out of law school, assuming she'd pose no real threat to the cozy relationship they maintain with Remus. Eager to prove them wrong, she dispatches her best investigator, Franklin Dodge, to look into his empire. It's a decision with deadly consequences: With Remus behind bars, Dodge and Imogene begin an affair and plot to ruin him, sparking a bitter feud that soon reaches the highest levels of government--and that can only end in murder.

    Evangelical Christians living in booming Austin, Texas, in the mid-1990s, they were respected leaders in their church and community. As Roger diligently worked his way up the high-tech corporate ladder, Penny kept a pristine home and coached similarly devout young women on how to be perfect wives. But on a windy March evening, this godly woman met the devil head-on. And when the police discovered her lifeless body—repeatedly bludgeoned with a lead pipe, then mutilated with a knife from her own spotless kitchen—they were shocked by the rage and savagery behind her slaying.The Good Wife is a startling true story of greed, hatred, betrayal, and an unimaginable murder—a tale of the dark decay that can be hidden behind a facade of saintliness when a marriage seemingly made in heaven descends into hell.

    This is a heartbreakingly honest yet hopeful memoir reminiscent of Manic, Electroboy, and An Unquiet Mind.During the 1990s, three-time Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton was the darling of American track and field. An outstanding runner, a major sports apparel spokesperson, and a happily married wife, she was the model for an active, healthy, and wholesome life. But her perfect facade masked a dark truth: manic depression and bipolar disorder that drove her obsession to perform and win. For years after leaving the track, Suzy wrestled with her condition, as well as the loss of a close friend, conflicted feelings about motherhood and her marriage, and lingering shame about her athletic career. After a misdiagnosis and a recommendation for medication that only exacerbated her mania and made her hypersexual, Suzy embarked on a new path, and assumed a new identity. Fueled by a newfound confidence, a feeling of strength and independence and a desire she couldn’t tamp down, she became a high-priced escort in Las Vegas, working as “Kelly.”But Suzy could not keep her double life a secret forever. When it was eventually exposed, it sent her into a reckless suicidal period where the only option seemed out. Finally, with the help of her devoted husband, Suzy finally got the proper medical help she needed. In this startling frank memoir, she recounts the journey to outrun her demons, revealing how a woman used to physically controlling her body learned to come to terms with her unstable mind. It is the story of a how a supreme competitor scored her most important victory of all—reclaiming her life from the ravages of an untreated mental illness. Today, thanks to diagnosis, therapy, Kelly has stepped into the shadows, but Suzy is building a better life, one day at a time. Sharing her story, Suzy is determined to raise awareness, provide understanding, and offer inspiration to others coping with their own challenges.

    the case involved a subculture which is stranger than fiction - a place where your mother could also be your aunt, where revenge was sought in a pig?head thrown through a window, and where the main suspect?obsession with aliens was not considered unusual. Greg Domaszewicz, the boyfriend of Jaidyn?mother Bilynda was tried for Jaidyn?murder. Contains detailed interviews with Jaidyn?parents, Domaszewicz?former lover and his friends (who all turned police informers virtually from day one). the author was granted unprecedented access to police diaries and files.

    And They All Sang is nothing less than “a tribute to music’s universality and power” (Philadelphia Inquirer), featuring more than forty of Terkel’s unforgettable conversations with some of the greatest musicians of the past century—including Louis Armstrong, Leonard Bernstein, Big Bill Broonzy, Bob Dylan, Dizzy Gillespie, Mahalia Jackson, Janis Joplin, Rosa Raisa, Pete Seeger, and many others.As the esteemed music critic Anthony DeCurtis wrote in the Chicago Tribune, “the terms ‘interview’ or ‘oral history’ don’t begin to do justice to what Terkel achieves in these conversations, which are at once wildly ambitious and as casual as can be.” Whether discussing Enrico Caruso’s nervousness on stage with opera diva Edith Mason or the Beatles’ 1966 encounter in London with revered Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar, “Terkel’s singular gift for bringing his subjects to life in their own words should strike a chord with any music fan old enough to have replaced a worn-out record needle” (The New York Times).