Great Authors

The extraordinary life of the woman behind the beloved children's classics Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny comes alive in this fascinating biography of Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret's books have sold millions of copies all over the world, but few people know that she was at the center of a children's book publishing revolution.

Some people seem to be born leaders, while others have leadership thrust upon them. History shows us that many people who come from fairly humble origins have been suddenly transformed into legends in their own time and beyond. The one thing they all have in common is that they are effective communicators, and one might even say "spin doctors". Good communication skills are crucial for a leader if they are to remain a leader. In this guide, we will be looking at business leaders and how good communication skills are an important part of effective leadership.

James Baldwin gives an electrifying reading about a young gay American in Paris recalling a dramatic and transforming incident from his boyhood, as he struggles to accept his sexual identity.

Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) was born at Yasnaya Polyana, his ancestral estate located about 120 miles from Moscow. While he would live and travel in other places over the years, he always considered this family residence in the Russian heartland as his home. His lifelong quest for truth and meaning began while he was a university student. In Simply Tolstoy, Professor Donna Tussing Orwin traces the author’s profound journey of discovery and explains how he mined his tumultuous inner life to create his great works.

Ten-year-old Pearl Spence is a daydreamer, playing make-believe to escape life in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl in 1935. The Spences have their share of misfortune, but as the sheriff's family, they've got more than most in this dry, desolate place. They're who the town turns to when there's a crisis or a need. Pearl is proud of her loving, strong family, though she often wearies of tracking down her mentally impaired older sister or wrestling with her grandmother's unshakable belief in a God. Then a mysterious man bent on revenge tramps into her town of Red River.

For acclaimed writer and environmental activist Rick Bass, it can be wearying to dwell relentlessly upon the broken, the fragmented, the dead and dying and doomed to extinction. Activism is a necessary part of the environmental movement, but so is the time-honored celebration of the beauty that inspires us.

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of 20 reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three decades tells the story of what happened next.

In The Violet Hour, Katie Roiphe takes an unexpected and liberating approach to the most unavoidable of subjects. She investigates the last days of six great thinkers, writers, and artists as they come to terms with the reality of approaching death, or what T. S. Eliot called "the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea".

Are you struggling to create a sales pitch that really resonates with your audience? Look no further than "Top Ten Things to Consider for a Great Sales Pitch"! This ultimate guide will take you through the ten most important steps to creating a sales pitch that will grab your target audience's attention and convince them to buy your book.

And a Bottle of Rum tells the raucously entertaining story of America as seen through the bottom of a drinking glass. With a chapter for each of 10 cocktails, Wayne Curtis reveals that the homely spirit once distilled from the industrial waste of the exploding sugar trade has managed to infiltrate every stratum of New World society. Curtis takes us from the taverns of the American colonies, to the plundering pirate ships off the coast of Central America, to the watering holes of pre-Castro Cuba, and to the kitsch-laden tiki bars of 1950s America.

While 1858 in London may have been noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. And yet, historian Rosemary Ashton reveals in this compelling microhistory, 1858 was marked by significant, if unrecognized, turning points. For ordinary people, and also for the rich, famous, and powerful, the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence.

Fоr mоrе thаn three dесаdеѕ in the lаtе 18th century, one woman ruled with an irоn fiѕt over аll оf Ruѕѕiа. That woman wаѕ Cаthеrinе the Great, and the роwеr ѕhе hеld аѕ a woman lеd thе рrеѕѕ, as wеll аѕ wоrld lеаdеrѕ, tо crucify hеr fоr it.

When he graduated from Columbia in 1958, John Giorno was handsome, charismatic, ambitious, and eager to soak up as much of Manhattan's art and culture as possible. Poetry didn't pay the bills, so he worked on Wall Street, spending his nights at the happenings, underground movie premiers, art shows, and poetry readings that brought the city to life. An intense romantic relationship with Andy Warhol - not yet the global superstar he would soon become - exposed Giorno to even more of the downtown scene, but after starring in Warhol's first movie, Sleep, they drifted apart.

Dickens the Enchanter takes us deep into an imagination whose power and originality struck some contemporaries as godlike while others thought it demonic. If you already love Dickens, it will renew your understanding of him; if you have yet to experience him, it will lure you into his astonishing, alarming, enchanted world.

Es una novela de 1925 escrita por el autor estadounidense F. Scott Fitzgerald que sigue a un grupo de personajes que viven en la ciudad ficticia de West Egg en la próspera Long Island, en el verano de 1922. La historia hace referencia principalmente al joven y misterioso millonario Jay Gatsby, su pasión quijotesca y la obsesión por la hermosa ex debutante Daisy Buchanan.

Most Americans hold basic misconceptions about the Confederacy, the Civil War, and the actions of subsequent neo-Confederates. For example, two thirds of Americans - including most history teachers - think the Confederate States seceded for "states' rights". The 150th anniversary of secession and Civil War provides a moment for all Americans to hear these documents, properly set in context by award-winning sociologist and historian James W. Loewen and coeditor Edward H. Sebesta to put in perspective the mythology of the Old South.

In May 1940, Nazi Germany was master of continental Europe. The only European power still standing was Great Britain - and the all-conquering German armed forces stood poised to cross the Channel. Following the destruction of the RAF fighter forces, the sweeping of the Channel of mines, and the wearing down of the Royal Naval defenders, two German army groups were set to storm the beaches of southern England.

Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, has been gaining ground in popular self-help literature. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain is a comprehensive course study of the therapy. Over the span of 24 lectures, the author covers a range of topics, including the history of CBT, how CBT compares to other forms of therapy, and how CBT can be used for growth and improvement in different areas of life. The central question of the book asks what can we change and what can we not change.

Author MK Mueller's journey to her ideal weight was 40 years in the making with a trail of unsuccessful diets in her wake. Once she learned the truth about how simple it was to end sugar cravings, she created her own methodology based on an 8-step process Mike Dooley calls "inspired". With her encouragement and gentle guidance, you will let go of the burden of living life as a weight number and reclaim your energy, self-esteem, and personal power.

Ever since Jane Austen’s first published novel Sense and Sensibility appeared anonymously in November 1811, the “lady” and her writing have proved to be enduringly popular. Although considered by some to be the province of academia, her characters and plots are often echoed in modern drama, with her favored themes of love, marriage, and money as relevant today as in the 19th century.