Professional Women

On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the Earth, the ranch most of all.

In Cooking as Fast as I Can, Cat Cora reveals, for the first time, coming-of-age experiences from early childhood sexual abuse to the realities of life as a lesbian in the Deep South. She shares how she found her passion in the kitchen and went on to attend the prestigious Culinary Institute of America and apprentice under Michelin-star chefs in France. After her big break as a cohost on the Food Network's Melting Pot, Cat broke barriers by becoming the first-ever female Iron Chef.

Miriam's doctor didn't believe she had breast cancer. She did. Sophie navigates being the only Black scientist in her lab while studying the very disease, HIV, that she hides from her coworkers. For Victoria, coming out as a transgender woman was less difficult than coming out as bipolar. Michele Lent Hirsch knew she couldn't be the only woman who's faced serious health issues at a young age, as well as the resulting effects on her career, her relationships, and her sense of self. What she found was a surprisingly large population with important stories to tell.

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) is the most famous female Classicist in history, the author of books that revolutionized our understanding of Greek culture and religion. A star in the British academic world, she became the quintessential Cambridge woman—as Virginia Woolf suggested when, in A Room of One's Own, she claims to have glimpsed Harrison's ghost in the college gardens. This lively and innovative portrayal of a fascinating woman raises the question of who wins (and how) in the competition for academic fame. Mary Beard captures Harrison's ability to create her own image.

In 2003, Cindy Monroe founded Thirty-One Gifts in the basement of her home in Chattanooga, TN, with one goal: to help women by giving them the opportunity to run their own successful businesses. Today, she continues to lead Thirty-One Gifts and build relationships with her consultants all over the country.

Before becoming America's first-ever female network chief meteorologist or appearing on Dancing with the Stars, ABC News's Ginger Zee checked herself into a mental health hospital.

Natural Disaster: I Cover Them. I Am One. is Ginger's heartbreaking, hilarious, and harshly honest life story - from Dickhead's (you won't soon forget that name) deck on Lake Michigan to her storm-chasing dream at ABC News.

Fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner, Gloria Allred is all of these things and more. Voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time as "one of the nation's most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes", Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class.

Published on the 50th anniversary of her seminal book Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the modern environmental movement. Carson loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries, including the international best seller The Sea around Us. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world.

Healed is the powerful, moving and deeply personal story of actor Manisha Koirala's battle against ovarian cancer. From her treatment in the US and the wonderful care provided by the oncologists there to how she rebuilt her life once she returned home, the book takes us on an emotional roller-coaster ride through her many fears and struggles and shows how she eventually came out triumphant. Today, as she completes six years of being cancer-free, she shares her story - one marked by apprehensions, disappointments and uncertainties - and the lessons she learnt along the way.

Menopause hit Darcey Steinke hard. First came hot flashes. Then insomnia. Then depression. As she struggled to understand what was happening to her, she slammed up against a culture of silence and sexism. Some books promoted hormone replacement therapy. Others encouraged accepting the coming crone. Beyond that, there was little that offered a path to understanding menopause in a complex, spiritual, and intellectually engaged way.

Heiress to the nearly 40-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the 14th wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At 94, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. Why? It’s a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city - and involving the most glamorous industry - in the world.

This powerful collection of stories reveals how the world's leading women in business have overcome some of life's biggest challenges to reach the top of their professions. This is an audiobook written for every current and aspiring leader, revealing the things that leaders rarely talk about; the behind-the-scenes struggles. The women in these stories are powerful, internationally diverse and have impressive leadership accomplishments.

CEO of Hint, Inc., and author Kara Goldin turned her unsweetened flavored water into one of the most successful beverage businesses of our time. As she started to achieve her goals, Kara found herself being called “fearless”, “confident” and even “unstoppable”, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Undaunted, she shares real stories about her own fears and doubts, the challenges she encountered and what she did to overcome them to eventually build a great business and a life she loves.

The first book, The Confidence Factor for Women in Business, became an international best seller. Conversations with Women CEOs & Leaders includes personal and professional stories from leaders. Listeners will understand the obstacles that all women face in their journey, including Carol's journey breaking through the boundaries of women in real estate investing.

This is not a manufactured dialogue from a thriller but the words of attorney Sharon Muse. They came after she survived an attempted kidnapping, rape, and murder at the hands of Hank Morrison, a former client. On April 7, 2006, Muse miraculously escaped from the sociopathic Morrison, only to find that the threat to her life was just beginning. Ineptitude in the justice system threatened to release Morrison and allow him the opportunity to finish the job, which he adamantly pledged to do. Muse would have to fight at every step to ensure her safety.

Susan Shumsky is a successful author in the new age/spirituality field, writing books on meditation, intuition, prayer, auras, chakras, and the like. But in the 1970s, she was one of only a handful of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s personal attendants and administrators, in India, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Following the teachings of Maharishi displaced Susan’s devotion to the hippie lifestyle, as she learned about meditation and grew spiritually self-aware. Maharishi founded the spiritual movement TM (Transcendental Meditation).

For more than 30 years, Patience Gray, author of the celebrated cookbook Honey from a Weed, lived in a remote area of Puglia in southernmost Italy. She lived without electricity, modern plumbing, or a telephone, grew much of her own food, and gathered and ate wild plants alongside her neighbors in this economically impoverished region. She was fond of saying that she wrote only for herself and her friends, yet her growing reputation brought a steady stream of international visitors to her door.

When she arrives at the hotel for her business trip, Alice is dismayed that she left her vibrator at home, and eventually she decides she’ll just head out and buy one. Unfortunately, she ends up lost in the hotel hallways. On the other hand…maybe it’s not so unfortunate. She ends up walking in on a hotel employee and catches him watching porn. Before she knows it, this horny professional is in the middle of crazy sex with a stranger and this stranger wants her ass!

Rosalind Franklin was what can only be called an overlooked genius. Although she was not fully credited for the feat at the time, her work led to major breakthroughs in our understanding of DNA. In fact, she took the first X-ray photo of DNA in all of its double helix glory. By the time her former colleagues were being showered with accolades for results they made at least partially based on her findings, Franklin would not be around to see it. Sadly, it’s believed that her use of X-ray equipment gave her terminal cancer, cutting her life short at age 37.

Women physicians in 19th-century America faced a unique challenge in gaining acceptance to the medical field as it began its transformation into a professional institution. The profession had begun to increasingly insist on masculine traits as signs of competency. Not only were these traits inaccessible to women according to 19th-century gender ideology, but showing competence as a medical professional was not enough.