Personal Memoirs

"[I]f I have only one audiobook to buy, shouldn't I go for the helpful one?" Let's compare: Those "know-it-all" books tell you how to have a happy, healthy pregnancy. My book mentions a squirrel. Those books tell you how to care for a newborn child. My book describes how tired I am.Those books give you essential information you can use in a life-threatening emergency. My book has some very amusing anecdotes about poop. So really, it's up to you.

After a nearly fatal bout of appendicitis, Hal Borland decided to leave the city behind and move with his wife to a farmhouse in rural Connecticut. Their new home on one hundred acres inspired Borland to return to nature. In this masterpiece of American nature writing, he describes such wonders as the peace of a sky full of stars, the breathless beauty of blossoming plants, the way rain swishes as it hits a river, and the invigorating renewal brought by the changing seasons. The delights of nature as Borland observes them seem boundless, and his sense of awe is contagious.

Ward of the State: A Memoir of Foster Care tells what happened to a little Black boy from the inner city of Detroit. This is the story of Karlos Dillard, who was severely neglected by his mother, who often left him and his siblings at home alone for weeks to fend for themselves. Enduring severe neglect and abuse, the boy was removed by the State of Michigan and put into foster care. Karlos was removed from his mother's care just to end up in foster homes that treated him worse. Karlos was told he was not loved, he was not wanted, and he was nothing but a ward of the state.

The Accidental Millionaire is the memoir of Gary Fong, would-be slacker who revolutionized wedding photography, inventor of popular photography aids, entrepreneur, contrarian, bon vivant and a man who really, really didn't want to become a doctor. A first-generation Chinese-American, Gary was raised in one of Los Angeles' least-desirable neighborhoods and was forced to deal in his own quirky and often very funny way with the burdens of poverty, crime and his parents' relentless aspirations.

Unlimited” is an empowering story of an ordinary life suffocated by unrealised potential that unfolds as an extraordinary journey of personal transformation. The author's life story is marked by a pivotal decision at the age of 15, when he turned away from his boyhood dream of becoming a professional football player in England. Instead, he succumbed to cigarettes and alcohol, and often chose the easier road. For two decades, he carried the weight of "I could have", until, at 34, he embarked on a radical shift.

Behind every entrepreneur's success story, there's a never-ending list of gut-wrenching failures, missed opportunities, and jaw-dropping setbacks. Real estate mogul and serial entrepreneur Manny Khoshbin is one of those entrepreneurs with a story of perseverance that will make you believe in the American Dream all over again. Driven: The Never-Give-Up Roadmap to Massive Success goes beyond Manny's personal ride through the entrepreneurial journey to deliver the habits, mindset, and insights aspiring entrepreneurs need to turn dreams into reality.

Here are some of the best of Churchill’s letters, many of a more personal and intimate nature, presented in chronological order, with a preface to each letter explaining the context. The recipients include a vast range of people, including his schoolmaster, his American grandmother and former President Eisenhower. They are taken from within the Churchill Archive in Cambridge, where there is a mass of Churchill’s correspondence. Several of the letters included have never appeared in book form before.

Marriage can be perilous for any couple, but for those facing infidelity and other dark secrets, it can be soul-crushing. Yet no matter how broken a relationship may seem, hope and healing remain within reach. Tim and Kathy Bush are proof. Theirs was a union built not on solid ground but on the shifting sands of childhood trauma, promiscuity, addiction, and a hunger that neither of them could satisfy. Through many tumultuous years, they stumbled to the brink of both relational and personal destruction again and again, nearly giving up on each other—and on life itself.

Matt and Liz Logelin were high school sweethearts. The pair settled together in Los Angeles and they had it all: the perfect marriage, a beautiful new home, and a baby girl on the way. But just 27 hours after they welcomed Madeline into the world, Liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and instantly died, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited.

Take undersized five-year-old farm girl Elinor, give her the polio that not only cripples her but also nearly kills her, then give her an impossible dream. In her childhood and again as a college student she rebels against the plan. Finally, she embraces the dream, and it leads Elinor to one of the most primitive, rugged places on earth and to a life that brawny international explorers would envy.

Silicon Valley visionary John Chambers shares the lessons that transformed a dyslexic kid from West Virginia into one of the world's best business leaders and turned a simple router company into a global tech titan.

A beautiful, startling, and candid memoir about growing up without boundaries, in which Ariel Leve recalls with candor and sensitivity the turbulent time she endured as the only child of an unstable poet for a mother and a beloved but largely absent father, and explores the consequences of a psychologically harrowing childhood as she seeks refuge from the past and recovers what was lost.

In the 1990s, Steve Farrell cofounded and led two high-growth technology companies based in Silicon Valley that were featured in the INC500 and spanned the United States and Europe. A New Universal Dream is the inspiring story of Steve's journey from the pursuit of wealth and traditional ideas of success toward a more fulfilling life of caring and service to others and to humanity. It's also the story of the potential each of us has for profound change.

The world saw Carlos Pena and Alexa Vega enjoying the success of their acting careers--Carlos on Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush and Alexa in the Spy Kids movies. But what they didn't see was the question both Carlos and Alexa were asking in the midst of all that fame and fortune: What's the point of it all anyway?

Elizabeth Berg’s father was an Army veteran who was a tough man in every way but one: He showed a great deal of love and tenderness to his wife. Berg describes her parents’ marriage as a romance that lasted for nearly 70 years; she grew up watching her father kiss her mother upon leaving home, and kiss her again the instant he came back. His idea of when he should spend time away from her was never. But then her father developed Alzheimer’s disease, and her parents were forced to leave the home they loved and move into a facility that could offer them help.

Mothering under normal circumstances takes all you have to give. But what happens when your child is disabled, and sacrificing all you've got and more is the only hope for a decent future? Full of rage and resilience, duty and love, Ashley Bristowe delivers a mother's voice like no other we've heard.

An inventor, adventurer, entrepreneur, collector, and entertainer, and son of legendary scientist-astronaut Owen Garriott, Richard Garriott de Cayeux has been behind some of the most exciting undertakings of our time. A legendary pioneer of the online gaming industry - and a member of every gaming Hall of Fame - Garriott invented the multi-player online game, and coined the term "Avatar" to describe an individual's online character. In this fascinating memoir, Garriott invites listeners on the great adventure that is his life.

Danielle Bernstein spent her youth shopping at discount department stores, getting boozy in suburban backyards, and proposing marriage to every boy she dated. By age 19, she was a college dropout living in a West Village shoebox with three roommates and only six months to prove that her blog, @WeWoreWhat, could become a full blown career...or else board the train back to her mom's house. This Is Not a Fashion Story is the down and dirty tale of how a Long Island-born teenager became one of the most recognizable names in fashion.

Dr. Jeffrey Gurian shares in his book Healing Your Heart, By Changing Your Mind - A Spiritual and Humorous Approach to Achieving Happiness how he has learned through his own personal experience and years of study to overcome all the above and more. Burdened with a severe stutter until he was in his 20's and beyond, seemingly unable to be helped by therapy, and combined with the confusion of A.D.D. and a bit of O.C.D. thrown in, he was faced with having to deal with that for the rest of his life.

As cofounder of KISS, America's number one gold-record award-winning group of all time, Simmons knows the thrill and seduction of power firsthand. But gold records alone don't equal power. The decisions you make once you attain a certain level of success are what separate the pretenders from the pantheon. Inspired by Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, Simmons offers his unique take on the dynamics of power in every realm of life, from the bedroom to the boardroom, to the world of rock, celebrity, and social media, to politics.