Professional Women

It's Saturday, and everything is different. No, I didn't go to the market this morning, and I didn't have my usual coffee on Westerstraat. And no, I wasn't getting ready for a new semester at college. Next Monday, January 31, I have to admit myself at the hospital for my first chemotherapy session. For the next two months, I'm expected each week for a fresh shot of vincristine, etoposide, ifosfamide, and loads more exciting abracadabra.

A Southern Woman's Story (1879) is a chronicle of Phoebe Pember's experiences as matron of the Confederate Chimborazo Hospital from November 1862 until the fall of Richmond in April 1865. It is considered an important source on Confederate history, and is also a valuable work for scholars of women's history and the medical and social history of the Civil War.

With the growth of civilization came more scientific methods, generally discovered by significant individuals. This informative and entertaining audiobook presents the major figures in the history of medicine, from Hippocrates in Ancient Greece to the Roman doctor Galen and the medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen. It also explores the Arabs Ibn Sina and Al-Razi and the start of major anatomical investigations during the Renaissance by Andreas Vesalius.

The Dolphin and the Shark is born out of Namita Thapar’s experiences of being a judge on Shark Tank India and running the India business of the pharma company Emcure as well as her own entrepreneurship academy. The book emphasizes how leaders of today need to strike a balance between being a shark (aggressive leader) and a dolphin (empathetic leader).

As a teenage orphan in England in 1791, Mary Reibey was sentenced to death for stealing a horse. When police cornered her, she was dressed as a boy, and she maintained that disguise until she was unmasked at her trial. Due to her 'tender age', Reibey was spared the hangman's noose and sentenced to seven years' transportation to the colony of New South Wales. With the odds stacked against her, Reibey went on to become Australia's first female business tycoon and the richest woman in the colony, founding the Bank of New South Wales, now one of the nation's biggest financial institutions.

"No women need apply." These four discouraging words of admonition often greeted female physicians looking for jobs in the frontier-era West. Despite the dire need for medical help, it seemed most trappers, miners, and emigrants would rather suffer and die than be treated by a female doctor. Nevertheless dozens of highly trained women headed West, where they endured hardship and prejudice as they set broken limbs, performed operations, delivered generations of babies - and solidified a place for women in the medical field.

Seduced by the Light is the first and only biography of Mina Miller Edison, the wife of Thomas Edison, the woman who created and shaped the myth of one of the most seminal figures in America’s history. The Thomas Edison we think we know was essentially created by Mina Miller Edison. Exhaustively researched by author Alexandra Rimer, this account draws on unprecedented access to Edison family diaries, memoirs, and letters to look below the surface of the Edison family during the Gilded Age from the little-known perspective of this female protagonist.

Taylor Made tells the fascinating story of Liz Taylor, the unflappable, unstoppable entrepreneur and organizer of some of the biggest and best parties in the world. Respected, renowned, and with a famed attention to detail, this formidable organizer of luxury events counts many of her celebrity clients as trusted friends.

Die Schweizerin Ann Amann schreibt in ihrem Buch über die zwei intensivsten Jahre ihres Lebens. Es ist die Lebensgeschichte einer starken Frau, die, selbst aus kleinbürgerlichen Verhältnissen stammend, nach ihrer Heirat an die "Goldküste" von Zürich zieht, zwei Kinder bekommt und immer alles erfüllt, was von ihr erwartet wird. Nach der Scheidung von ihrem ersten Mann baut sie sich ein Business im Bereich Tourismus auf und lernt mit Ende vierzig ihre große Liebe Martin kennen. Bei der Hochzeit versprechen sie sich, für immer füreinander zu sorgen. Ann Amann hält ihr Wort.

Julie MacNeil is 6'4," and although she is neither a WNBA athlete nor a famous model, she has a remarkable story to tell. As an adopted child, she always wondered about the parents who gave her up. After overcoming a challenging childhood and surviving two tumultuous marriages, a chance DNA test revealed an incredibly rare and life-threatening liver-lung disease called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. Julie then embarked on a difficult journey to find her birth family. Her goal was to warn them about the disease, which is highly genetic and often undiagnosed.

Einmal "Alles wird gut" zum Mitnehmen, bitte! Eine wahre Geschichte, die beweist, dass eine lebensgefährliche Krankheit kein Grund ist den Kopf in den Sand zu stecken. Wir reagiert man, wenn man mit 24 Jahren im Fitnessstudio einen Herzstillstand erleidet und aus der mühsam aufgebauten Carpe Diem Welt gerissen wird? Richtig. Sich nach dem Aufstehen erst mal fragen wie viele Menschen einen bewusstlos und oben ohne gesehen haben, und dann - aufstehen, dem Schicksal den Mittelfinger zeigen und verdammt nochmal weitergehen!

"I dissent - Ich widerspreche." - diese Worte haben sie berühmt gemacht. Ruth Bader Ginsburg hat die Welt verändert. Die zierliche Richterin am Obersten Gerichtshof der USA war moralischer Kompass und feministische Ikone der Millennials - geschätzt, mitunter auch gefürchtet für ihren messerscharfen Verstand, ihren Witz und ihren Kampfgeist. Zeit ihres Lebens hat sie unbeirrt für Gerechtigkeit gekämpft.

Trois femmes exceptionnelles, Jeanne Guyon, Simone Weil et Etty Hillesum, trois vies marquées par l'expérience mystique. Chacune emprunte le long chemin du délaissement de soi, du dénuement, du renoncement à toute forme de satisfaction, pour parvenir à une parfaite "indifférence", une disposition à ne pas faire de différence, apprendre à tout accueillir avec la même générosité désintéressée, au-delà du bien et du mal.

“Proceed as the way opens” is how William Least Heat-Moon put it in his book, River Horse. The line becomes a sort of mantra for Pulitzer Prize-winner Elizabeth McGowan, a melanoma survivor. Having been given a five-year clean bill of health, McGowan decides to bicycle all 4,000 or so miles from America’s West to East Coast. She wants to help other melanoma victims and sets out to use her many miles to raise funds for cancer research. She also wants to better understand her late father, who died of melanoma at the age of 44, when Elizabeth was just 15.

Casey Mackinlay’s recollection on beating life’s unforeseen challenges and her journey to success, Girls Don’t Lay Bricks is an inspiring yet humble and practical distillation of all the successful tactics, concepts, and reflections that took one hungry teenage mother from a young bricklayer to CEO. If you aspire to more than where you are at, to pave your own path to success, or simply need a dose of inspiration for business, then this is a must-listen.

This audiobook is a short timeline of Ada Lovelace, a mathematician and writer, born to the English poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Byron.

Grada was only 17 years old when she met her soulmate, Peter. By 19 she was married and had migrated from Holland to live in Peter’s homeland, Tasmania, Australia. Grada lived her dream - homesteading at the "back of beyond" with the love of her life, six children, and a menagerie of farm animals. In 2000 she and Peter opened a wellness clinic in their back yard. At the pinnacle of her life, Grada was hit by a truck - literally. During the near-death experience that followed, Grada had to make the decision to return to her body.

Today, nursing is one of the most ubiquitous professions in the world, and images of war immediately call to mind nursing the wounded, but it was not long ago that such ideas were relatively primitive. Indeed, schoolchildren are still taught about the revolutionary exploits of Florence Nightingale, the war nurse who is often credited as the founder of modern nursing. Florence Nightingale first came to prominence during the Crimean War in the middle of the 19th century when she helped organize efforts to treat wounded soldiers.

Two months to live. That's what the doctor says. Sally responds with grace and optimism. Marisa responds by closing herself off. If her mother is going to die before she graduates from high school, why even try. Cancer has already ruined everything. Honest and heartfelt, The Goodbye Diaries offers a touching glimpse into both sides of a terminal diagnosis - the one who will leave and the one who will be left behind.

Let’s face it: Every entrepreneur isn’t the next Mark Zuckerberg, and every new business isn’t Uber. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be. Venture Forward is a collection of real-world stories from innovative founders of successful businesses gathered in one place. It shows new entrepreneurs that they’re not alone in their endeavors, and they’re not destined to fail (at least, not forever).