Relationship History

In this classic tale of adventure, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1815, was captured by a band of nomadic Arabs and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert.

Mattie Gokey has a word for everything. She collects words, stores them up as a way of fending off the hard truths of her life, the truths that she can't write down in stories.

In the summer of 1899, U.S. forces in Cuba discover the island is rampant with Yellow Fever. So the U.S. government sends a group of four elite Army doctors headed by Dr. Walter Reed to determine what is causing the outbreak.

Written before Alexander the Great was born, this Chinese treatise on war has become one of the most influential works on the subject. Read widely in the east since its appearance 2,500 years ago, The Art of War first came to the west with a French Jesuit in 1782. It has been studied by generals from Napoleon to Rommel, and it is still required reading in most military academies of the world.

Mitza Maric has always been a little different from other girls. Most 20-year-olds are wives by now, not studying physics at an elite Zurich university with only male students trying to outdo her clever calculations. But Mitza is smart enough to know that, for her, math is an easier path than marriage. And then fellow student Albert Einstein takes an interest in her, and the world turns sideways. Theirs becomes a partnership of the mind and of the heart, but there might not be room for more than one genius in a marriage.

Maternal instinct - the all-consuming, utterly selfless love that mothers lavish on their children - has long been assumed to be an innate, indeed defining element of a woman's nature. But is it? In this provocative, groundbreaking audiobook, renowned anthropologist (and mother) Sarah Blaffer Hrdy shares a radical new vision of motherhood and its crucial role in human evolution. Hrdy strips away stereotypes and gender-biased myths to demonstrate that traditional views of maternal behavior are essentially wishful thinking codified as objective observation.

Set in the 14th century, the classic story of one boy's personal heroism when he loses the use of his legs.

Germany, 1945. The soldiers who liberated the Gross-Rosen concentration camp said the war was over, but nothing feels over to 18-year-old Zofia Lederman. Her body has barely begun to heal; her mind feels broken. And her life is completely shattered: Three years ago, she and her younger brother, Abek, were the only members of their family to be sent to the right, away from the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Everyone else—her parents, her grandmother, radiant Aunt Maja—they went left.

In this follow-up to his best-selling The 80/20 Principle, the power law that helped hundreds of thousands achieve more by doing less, Richard Koch puts science to work, applying 92 other natural laws to promote the "science of success" within the ever-changing world of business. What does Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection prove about developing a niche product line? How can Isaac Newton's laws of motion and gravity help in a crowded marketplace?

In The Power of Strangers, Joe Keohane sets out on a journey to discover what happens when we bridge the distance between us and people we don’t know. He learns that while we’re wired to sometimes fear, distrust, and even hate strangers, people and societies that have learned to connect with strangers benefit immensely.

De Brevitate Vitae (frequently referred to as On the Shortness of Life in English) is a moral essay written by Seneca the Younger, a Roman Stoic philosopher, to his father-in-law Paulinus. The philosopher brings up many Stoic principles on the nature of time, namely that men waste much of it in meaningless pursuits. According to the essay, nature gives man enough time to do what is really important and the individual must allot it properly.

Ever heard of bathtub racing? Or a place where people live on floating islands made entirely of reeds? How about seeing the sun set twice in one day. It's possible, but where? Or that crows can actually bear grudges? All these fascinating fun facts and more are here to tickle your mind and keep you as well as the folks around you entertained: Packed nicely in this neat book Globe-Trotting Interesting Facts For Curious Minds, prepare to be amazed and have your trivia skills sharpened as you satisfy your thirst for knowledge.

This detailed and persuasive study by the author of The Patton Papers was described by Patton's daughter Ruth as "an extraordinary book". It is widely considered the best biography ever written of the General, an American hero as compelling as he was complex.

Arnold Bennett’s classic book, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, has been changing the way people use and consider their time since it was first published in 1910. In the intervening century surprisingly little has changed - we still struggle to make use of our time and are often plagued by the persistent worry that we are not making the most of our lives. Bennett encourages listeners to stop merely following the rote patterns of their lives and leverage their free hours by viewing time as a commodity like money - each of us is allotted exactly 24 hours every day to spend as we see fit.

If you’ve ever been interested in the powerful science of hypnotism or becoming a hypnotist, you’ve come to the right place. By the end of this book you will be able to hypnotize anyone - literally! The history of hypnosis is discussed, bringing you all the way to how you can hypnotize someone anywhere, anyplace, at anytime. You will learn the definition of hypnotism, as well as how it was used historically, and how it is used today. The dark side of hypnosis will also be investigated, to some degree.

Do you want to ask smart questions like Socrates or be an out-of-the-box thinker like John Stuart Mill, and rational like Descartes? These people have at least one thing in common: They were great critical thinkers of their time, and their shared wisdom lived through the centuries. Lessons from Critical Thinkers provides intellectual power to engage with and participate in effective critical thoughts, arguments, debates, reading, and reflection drawn from methods in the history of philosophical cognitive development.

The hallmarks of America’s War on Terror have been repeated long deployments and a high percentage of troops returning with psychological problems. Family members of combat veterans are at a higher risk of potentially lethal domestic violence than almost any other demographic; it’s estimated that one in four children of active-duty service members has symptoms of depression; and nearly one million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan require increased care due to physical or psychological trauma.

In the hands of Sophocles, the master dramatist, the anguished tale of a man fated to kill his father and marry his mother retains its power to shock and move beyond any Freudian reference.

It’s 1989 in New York City. Reza is an Iranian boy who has just moved to the city with his mother to live with his stepfather and stepbrother. He’s terrified that someone will guess the truth he can barely acknowledge about himself. Reza knows he’s gay, but all he knows of gay life are the media’s images of men dying of AIDS. Judy is an aspiring fashion designer who worships her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who devotes his time to activism as a member of ACT UP. Art is Judy’s best friend, their school’s only out and proud teen.

Spanning eras and cultures from ancient Rome to medieval England to 1950s Hollywood, Jennifer Wright's It Ended Badly guides you through the worst of the worst in historically bad breakups. In the throes of heartbreak, Emperor Nero had just about everyone he ever loved - from his old tutor to most of his friends - put to death. Oscar Wilde's lover, whom he went to jail for, abandoned him when faced with being cut off financially from his wealthy family.