Biography & Autobiography

I Tried To Change So You Don’t Have To

6,500.00

Now cohost of Fox’s The Real and SiriusXM’s Café Mocha, Loni Love hasn’t taken the typical path to becoming America’s favorite straight-talking girlfriend and comedian. She was not the child of Hollywood legends and she never wore a size 00. Rather, she grew up in housing projects in Detroit, more worried about affording her next meal than going on a diet. When she moved to Hollywood after graduating college with an engineering degree, seeking to break out in the entertainment world, there was nothing that would convince her to eat the kale salads and quinoa bowls that her colleagues introduced her to, which looked to Love like “weeds my grandma used to pay me a dollar to pull from her yard.”

Still, despite the differences that set her apart in the status-driven world of entertainment where being thin, young, blond, and bubbly is sometimes considered a talent, Love spent years trying to fit in—trying to style her hair just so, dieting, dating the men she thought she was supposed to be with. In this book, she tells the uproariously funny story of how she overcame the trap of self-improvement and instead learned to embrace who she was. As Love writes, “There’s a saying a lot of people live by: ‘Fake it till you make it.’ For me, it’s always been ‘fake it, and then have the whole thing blow up in your face.'” I Tried to Change So You Don’t Have To explores all of the embarrassing mistakes, terrifying challenges, and unexpected breakthroughs that taught her how, by committing ourselves to our own path, we can take control of our destiny.

I: A Memoir

5,000.00

Isaac Mizrahi is sui generis: designer, cabaret performer, talk-show host, a TV celebrity. Yet ever since he shot to fame in the late 1980s, the private Isaac Mizrahi has remained under wraps. Until now.

In I.M., Isaac Mizrahi offers a poignant, candid, and touching look back on his life so far. Growing up gay in a sheltered Syrian Jewish Orthodox family, Isaac had unique talents that ultimately drew him into fashion and later into celebrity circles that read like a who’s who of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries: Richard Avedon, Audrey Hepburn, Anna Wintour, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Meryl Streep, and Oprah Winfrey, to name only a few.

In his elegant memoir, Isaac delves into his lifelong battles with weight, insomnia, and depression. He tells what it was like to be an out gay man in a homophobic age and to witness the ravaging effects of the AIDS epidemic. Brimming with intimate details and inimitable wit, Isaac’s narrative reveals not just the glamour of his years, but the grit beneath the glitz. Rich with memorable stories from in and out of the spotlight, I.M. illuminates deep emotional truths.

In Love

8,000.00

Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer’s disease.

Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace.

In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing—its ending. Written in Bloom’s captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.

In The Corridors

15,000.00

In the Corridors is a book about one of the most remarkable, yet largely unknown influencers in Nigeria’s often complicated political and business circles. Chief Obafemi Olopade, an outstanding businessman and long-time close friend to Nigeria’s former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has for many decades had the rare privilege of seeing critical events unfold behind the scenes within the corridors of powerin Nigeria. In this autobiography, he shares some of his observations and experiences within those corridors, offering the reader insights into occurrences in Nigerian politics that are usually shrouded in mystery.

Indira Ghandi: A Life In Nature

9,000.00

Indira Gandhi, prime minister of India for sixteen years, was as charismatic as she was controversial—both admired and criticized for her political judgments and actions. Yet what has never been fully revealed is her lifelong commitment and love for nature and how that defined her very being.

Weaving personal, political, and environmental history, politician and scholar Jairam Ramesh presents a compelling portrait of an extraordinary public figure. He chronicles how and why she made a personal passion a public calling; how her views on the environment remained steadfast even as her political and economic stances evolved; how her friendships with conservationists led to far-reaching decisions to preserve India’s biodiversity; how she urged, cajoled and persuaded her colleagues in making significant decisions regarding forests and wildlife; and how her own finely developed instincts and initiatives resulted in landmark policies, programs, and laws that have endured to this day.

Drawing extensively from unpublished letters, notes, messages and memos, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature is both a lively, engaging narrative about the little-known parts of Indira Gandhi’s life, and also sheds important light on climate change and sustaining the environment—today’s most pressing global issues.

Inside Out

8,000.00

For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight—or the headlines.

Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years—all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception. As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress—and, always, if she was simply good enough.

As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience. In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life—laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness. Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender—a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.

Invested

7,000.00

The founder of The Charles Schwab Corporation recounts his ups and downs as he made stock investing, once the expensive and clubby reserve of the few, accessible to ordinary Americans.

In this deeply personal memoir, Schwab describes his passion to have Main Street participate in the growing economy as investors and owners, not only earners. Schwab opens up about his dyslexia and how he worked around and ultimately embraced it, and about the challenges he faced while starting his fledgling company in the 1970s. A year into his grand experiment in discounted stock trading, living in a small apartment in Sausalito with his wife, Helen, and new baby, he carried a six-figure debt and a pocketful of personal loans. As it turned out, customers flocked to Schwab, leaving his small team scrambling with scarce resources and no road map to manage the company’s growth.

He recounts the company’s game-changing sale to Bank of America—and how, in the end, the merger almost doomed his organization. We learn about the clever and timely leveraged buyout he crafted to regain independence; the crushing stock market collapse of 1987, just weeks after the company had gone public; the dot-com meltdown of 2000 and its reverberating aftermath of economic stagnation, layoffs, and the company’s eventual reinvention; and how the company’s focus on managing risk protected it and its clients during the financial crisis in 2008, propelling its growth.

A remarkable story of a company succeeding by challenging norms and conventions through decades of change, Invested also offers unique insights and lifelong principles for readers—the values that Schwab has lived and worked by that have made him one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. Today, his eponymous company is one of the leading financial services firms in the world.

It Worked For Me

8,000.00

It Worked for Me is filled with vivid experiences and lessons learned that have shaped the legendary public service career of the four-star general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. At its heart are Powell’s “Thirteen Rules” – notes he gathered over the years and that formed the basis of his leadership presentations given throughout the world. Powell’s short but sweet rules – among them, “Get mad, then get over it” and “Share credit” are illustrated by revealing personal stories that introduce and expand upon his principles for effective leadership: conviction, hard work, and, above all, respect for others.

In work and in life, Powell writes, “it’s about how we touch and are touched by the people we meet. It’s all about the people.” A natural storyteller, Powell offers warm and engaging parables with wise advice on succeeding in the workplace and beyond. “Trust your people,” he counsels as he delegates presidential briefing responsibilities to two junior State Department desk officers. “Do your best – someone is watching,” he advises those just starting out, recalling his own teenage summer job mopping floors in a soda-bottling factory. Powell combines the insights he gained serving in the top ranks of the military and in four presidential administrations with the lessons he learned from his immigrant-family upbringing in the Bronx, his training in the ROTC, and his growth as an Army officer. The result is a powerful portrait of a leader who was reflective, self-effacing, and grateful for the contributions of everyone he worked with. Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me is bound to inspire, move, and surprise readers. Thoughtful and revealing, it is a brilliant and original blueprint for leadership.

Julie & Julia

9,500.00

Nearing 30 and trapped in a dead-end secretarial job, Julie Powell reclaims her life by cooking every single recipe in Julia Child’s legendary Mastering the Art of French Cooking in the span of one year. It’s a hysterical, inconceivable redemptive journey — life rediscovered through aspics, calves’ brains and cré me brûlée.

Just As I Am

7,000.00

“Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and a mother, a sister and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by his hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” –Cicely Tyson

Just Don’t Fall

4,500.00

This winning memoir of triumph over tragedy tells a story that has deeply affected thousands of readers. When he was just nine years old, Josh Sundquist was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a virulent cancer strain that eventually claimed his left leg. Told in a wide-eyed, often heartbreaking voice, Just Don’t Fall is the astounding story of the boy Josh was and of the young man he became—an utterly heroic struggle through numerous hospitalizations and worse to become an award-winning skier in the Paralympics and renowned motivational speaker. What emerges is one of the most fresh and sincere works of inspiration to come along in years.

Just Mercy

8,000.00

When Bryan Stevenson graduated from Harvard Law School in 1988, he headed south to Alabama, a state on the verge of a crisis: the state was speeding up executions, but many of the condemned lacked anyone to represent them. On a shoestring budget he started the Equal Justice Initiative, a law practice dedicated to defending some of America’s most rejected and marginalized people. Among the first cases he took on was that of Walter McMillian, a black man from Harper Lee’s hometown of Monroeville who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case would change Bryan’s life and transform his understanding of justice and mercy forever. Just Mercy is the story of the education of a young lawyer fighting on the frontlines of a country in thrall to extreme punishments and careless justice. It follows the suspenseful battle to free Walter before the state executed him, while also telling other dramatic and profoundly moving stories of men, women, and children, innocent and guilty, who found themselves at the mercy of a system often incapable of showing it.

This is a exquisitely rendered account of a heroic advocate’s fights on behalf of the most powerless people in our society and a powerful indictment of our broken justice system.

Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist

7,000.00

No American statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as “Super K”—the “indispensable man” whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama—he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every “telcon” for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance. Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial two-volume biography, drawing not only on Kissinger’s hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.

The first half of Kissinger’s life is usually skimmed over as a quintessential tale of American ascent: the Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Germany who made it to the White House. But in this first of two volumes, Ferguson shows that what Kissinger achieved before his appointment as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser was astonishing in its own right. Toiling as a teenager in a New York factory, he studied indefatigably at night. He was drafted into the U.S. infantry and saw action at the Battle of the Bulge—as well as the liberation of a concentration camp—but ended his army career interrogating Nazis. It was at Harvard that Kissinger found his vocation. Having immersed himself in the philosophy of Kant and the diplomacy of Metternich, he shot to celebrity by arguing for “limited nuclear war.” Nelson Rockefeller hired him. Kennedy called him to Camelot. Yet Kissinger’s rise was anything but irresistible. Dogged by press gaffes and disappointed by “Rocky,” Kissinger seemed stuck—until a trip to Vietnam changed everything.

The Idealist is the story of one of the most important strategic thinkers America has ever produced. It is also a political Bildungsroman, explaining how “Dr. Strangelove” ended up as consigliere to a politician he had always abhorred. Like Ferguson’s classic two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era. The essential account of an extraordinary life, it recasts the Cold War world.

Lawrence In Arabia

10,000.00

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.

At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.

Let Love Have the Last Word

5,500.00

Common—the Grammy Award, Academy Award, and Golden Globe–winning musician, actor, and activist—follows up his New York Times bestselling memoir One Day It’ll All Make Sense with this inspiring exploration of how love and mindfulness can build communities and allow you to take better control of your life through actions and words.

Common believes that the phrase “let love have the last word” is not just a declaration; it is a statement of purpose, a daily promise. Love is the most powerful force on the planet and ultimately, the way you love determines who you are and how you experience life.

Touching on God, self-love, partners, children, family, and community, Common explores the core tenets of love to help others understand what it means to receive and, most important, to give love. He moves from the personal—writing about his daughter, to whom he wants to be a better father—to the universal, where he observes that our society has become fractured under issues of race and politics. He knows there’s no quick remedy for all of the hurt in the world, but love—for yourself and for others—is where the healing begins.

Courageous, insightful, brave, and characteristically authentic, Let Love Have the Last Word shares Common’s own unique and personal stories of the people and experiences that have led to a greater understanding of love and all it has to offer. It is a powerful call to action for a new generation of open hearts and minds, one that is sure to resonate for years to come

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