President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions of his presidency and personal life.

Decision Points is the extraordinary memoir of America’s 43rd president. Shattering the conventions of political autobiography, George W. Bush offers a strikingly candid journey through the defining decisions of his life.

In gripping, never-before-heard detail, President Bush brings readers inside the Texas Governor’s Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq; and behind the Oval Office desk for his historic and controversial decisions on the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues that have shaped the first decade of the 21st century.

President Bush writes honestly and directly about his flaws and mistakes, as well as his accomplishments reforming education, treating HIV/AIDS in Africa, and safeguarding the country amid chilling warnings of additional terrorist attacks. He also offers intimate new details on his decision to quit drinking, discovery of faith, and relationship with his family.

A groundbreaking new brand of memoir, Decision Points will captivate supporters, surprise critics, and change perspectives on one of the most consequential eras in American history – and the man at the center of events.

President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions of his presidency and personal life.

Decision Points is the extraordinary memoir of America’s 43rd president. Shattering the conventions of political autobiography, George W. Bush offers a strikingly candid journey through the defining decisions of his life.
In gripping, never-before-heard detail, President Bush brings listeners inside the Texas Governor’s Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq; and behind the Oval Office desk for his historic and controversial decisions on the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues that have shaped the first decade of the 21st century.

President Bush writes honestly and directly about his flaws and mistakes, as well as his accomplishments reforming education, treating HIV/AIDS in Africa, and safeguarding the country amid chilling warnings of additional terrorist attacks. He also offers intimate new details on his decision to quit drinking, discovery of faith, and relationship with his family.

A groundbreaking new brand of memoir, Decision Points will captivate supporters, surprise critics, and change perspectives on one of the most consequential eras in American history – and the man at the center of events.

Biographies & Memoirs | Leaders & Notable People | Politicians
Biographies & Memoirs | Memoirs
Women Politicians; Women Governors; United States Governors; Sarah Palin

9th Governor of Alaska and Republican Party nominee for vice President in the 2008 Presidential election, Sarah Palin was the first Alaskan on the national ticket of a major party and first Republican woman nominated for the vice presidency. This best-selling memoir, Going rogue: An American Life, has sold more than two million copies. In it, Palin shares with readers the importance of faith and family; tells of the unique joys and trials of life as a high-profile working mother.

From her humble beginnings to her time in the spotlight as the first female Republican Vice President candidate, Sarah Palin has led an extraordinary life. In this eagerly anticipated memoir, Palin paints an intimate portrait of growing up in the wilds of Alaska; meeting her lifelong love; and speaks frankly about her decision to enter politics--recounting her political experiences, her time as Mayor of Wasilla and as the first female governor of Alaska, as well as her rapid rise on the national stage during the 2008 presidential race. Palin provides a rare, mom's eye view of high stakes national politics. Additionally, Palin shares insights into the personal challenges she's faced including balancing her time as a working mother, recognizing the war's impact with her eldest son serving his country in a year-long deployment in Iraq, having a child with a disability, and supporting her teenage daughter with an unplanned pregnancy.

Palin is a Main Street American woman: a working mom, the wife of a blue collar union man, and mother of five children. Palin's hometown story touched a populist nerve, rallying hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans to the GOP ticket. But as the campaign unfolded, Palin became a lightning rod for both praise and criticism. Supporters called her "refreshing," "honest," a kitchen-table public servant they felt would fight for their interests. Opponents derided her as a wide-eyed Pollyanna unprepared for national leadership. But few know the real Sarah Palin.

In WAR, Sebastian Junger (The Perfect Storm) turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat--the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Sebastian Junger is the internationally acclaimed author of  The Perfect Storm, which spent over three years on the New York Times bestsellers list and was the basis for a major motion picture starring George Clooney. He's also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Fire and A Death in Belmont.  Junger is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism. He lives in New York City.

Junger's time in the Korengal is also the subject of the documentary feature film Restrepo, which Junger directed with award-winning photographer Tim Hetherington.  Restrepo, which won the 2010 Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance, will be released theatrically as a National Geographic Entertainment presentation of an Outpost Films Production in July, and will have its worldwide television premiere on the National Geographic Channel this fall. 

Biographies & Memoirs | Specific Groups | Women
Biographies & Memoirs | Leaders & Notable People | Political
Biographies & Memoirs | Memoirs
Religion & Spirituality | Islam

In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.

One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following an Islamist's murder of her colleague, Theo van Gogh, with whom she made the movie Submission.  Infidel  is the eagerly awaited story of the coming of age of this elegant, distinguished -- and sometimes reviled -- political superstar and champion of free speech. With a gimlet eye and measured, often ironic, voice, Hirsi Ali recounts the evolution of her beliefs, her ironclad will, and her extraordinary resolve to fight injustice done in the name of religion. Even though she is under constant threat -- demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from her family and clan -- she refuses to be silenced. Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali's story tells how a bright little girl evolved out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. Raised in a strict Muslim family and extended clan, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries largely ruled by despots. In 1992, Hirsi Ali, then in her early twenties, escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands. She earned a college degree in political science and worked for the Dutch Labor party. She denounced Islam after the September 11 terrorist attacks and now serves as a Dutch parliamentarian, fighting for the rights of Muslim women in Europe, the enlightenment of Islam, and security in the West.

 

In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created "a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat--the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.

Frederick Law Olmsted is arguably the most important historical figure that the average American knows the least about. Best remembered for his landscape architecture, from New York's Central Park to Boston's Emerald Necklace to Stanford University's campus, Olmsted was also an influential journalist, early voice for the environment, and abolitionist credited with helping dissuade England from joining the South in the Civil War. This momentous career was shadowed by a tragic personal life, also fully portrayed here.

Most of all, he was a social reformer. He didn't simply create places that were beautiful in the abstract. An awesome and timeless intent stands behind Olmsted's designs, allowing his work to survive to the present day. With our urgent need to revitalize cities and a widespread yearning for green space, his work is more relevant now than it was during his lifetime. Justin Martin restores Olmsted to his rightful place in the pantheon of great Americans.

“YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE” is a common refrain in the emails Walter Lewin receives daily from fans who have been enthralled by his world-famous video lectures about the wonders of physics. “I walk with a new spring in my step and I look at life through physics-colored eyes,” wrote one such fan. When Lewin’s lectures were made available online, he became an instant YouTube celebrity, and The New York Times declared, “Walter Lewin delivers his lectures with the panache of Julia Child bringing French cooking to amateurs and the zany theatricality of YouTube’s greatest hits.”

For more than thirty years as a beloved professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lewin honed his singular craft of making physics not only accessible but truly fun, whether putting his head in the path of a wrecking ball, supercharging himself with three hundred thousand volts of electricity, or demonstrating why the sky is blue and why clouds are white. Now, as Carl Sagan did for astronomy and Brian Green did for cosmology, Lewin takes readers on a marvelous journey in For the Love of Physics, opening our eyes as never before to the amazing beauty and power with which physics can reveal the hidden workings of the world all around us. “I introduce people to their own world,” writes Lewin, “the world they live in and are familiar with but don’t approach like a physicist—yet.”

Could it be true that we are shorter standing up than lying down? Why can we snorkel no deeper than about one foot below the surface? Why are the colors of a rainbow always in the same order, and would it be possible to put our hand out and touch one? Whether introducing why the air smells so fresh after a lightning storm, why we briefly lose (and gain) weight when we ride in an elevator, or what the big bang would have sounded like had anyone existed to hear it, Lewin never ceases to surprise and delight with the extraordinary ability of physics to answer even the most elusive questions.

Recounting his own exciting discoveries as a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy—arriving at MIT right at the start of an astonishing revolution in astronomy—he also brings to life the power of physics to reach into the vastness of space and unveil exotic uncharted territories, from the marvels of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud to the unseeable depths of black holes.

“For me,” Lewin writes, “physics is a way of seeing—the spectacular and the mundane, the immense and the minute—as a beautiful, thrillingly interwoven whole.” His wonderfully inventive and vivid ways of introducing us to the revelations of physics impart to us a new appreciation of the remarkable beauty and intricate harmonies of the forces that govern our lives.

Biographies & Memoirs | Leaders & Notable People
Biographies & memoirs | Memoirs

In this brave, beautiful, and deeply personal memoir, Laura Bush, one of our most beloved and private first ladies, tells her own extraordinary story.

Born in Midland, Texas, Laura Welch grew up much loved with a strong supportive family. She was the only child in a family that lost three babies to miscarriage or infant death. When she was a young teen, while driving a friend to a movie, she missed a stop sign. In the collision one of her good friends died. This changed Laura's life. No one spoke about the death, ever. In Spoken from the Heart, Laura recommends that we face our demons and stand up to them. She wishes she had visited the family, but no one thought it a good idea. This life-altering event was faced alone.

In  Spoken from the Heart, she vividly evokes Midland's brash, rugged culture, her close relationship with her father, and the bonds of early friendships that sustain her to this day. When Laura Welch first left West Texas in 1964, she never imagined that her journey would lead her to the world stage and the White House. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1968, she became an elementary school teacher, working in inner-city schools, and was trained to be a librarian. At age thirty, she met George W. Bush. They fell in love very quickly and just three months later, "the old maid of Midland married Midland's most eligible bachelor."  In a few years, twins came along, and Laura's life was complete. All this time her life was private, but then George entered the political world and it changed. She was able to maintain some of her privacy but much of her life was out there for all to see.

With rare intimacy and candor, Laura Bush writes about her early married life as she was thrust into one of America's most prominent political families. She discusses her travels as the President's First Lady, her life as a wife and all that entails. She discusses George Bush's propensity for alcohol, and his decision to stop drinking after a 40th birthday party get away.

What  Wall Street Journal said about this memoir:  “Mrs. Bush’s delicate rendering . . . sets this book far apart from the typical score-settling reminiscences of politicians or their spouses. . . .Spoken from the Heart  reveals Laura Bush to be a beautiful writer, a keen observer and a tender soul who drew on her roots to live a life in the public eye with compassion and grace.”

One person said, "Laura said one of her happiest days was the day they moved back to their ranch as private citizens. She talks about her life now, and taking her mother shopping. Laura is a woman who has seen the world and prefers home. Laura opens up about her private life and it is truly "spoken from the heart." She has remained true to herself and her family. She has two beautiful, bright daughters, loves her husband and their ranch near Crawford. The ranch is where they hope to live out their days."

D. Black wrote, "I've long respected and admired Laura Bush, but after reading Spoken From The Heart, my respect and admiration for her greatly increased. Reading about the scheduled events and obligations; the meetings, dinners, and trips as First Lady, I realized how little personal time she had left for family and friends and introspection. During her years as First Lady, she worked tirelessly to bring awareness to the many basic unmet human needs in health in Africa and Haiti and elsewhere, literacy and women's rights in Afghanistan, and the many freedoms that are so lacking in many countries around the world. Through her efforts avenues were opened to begin to bring solutions to some of these serious problems. She helped illuminate and honor the resiliency of the human spirit of people everywhere. This book was an eye opener for me into the lives of President Bush and Mrs. Bush, all the people who served with them, and the utter complexity of solving world problems. She met many people; the rich and the poor, the powerful and famous and the unknown, the well and the sick, the kind and the rude, and treated them all with the civility and grace that are her hallmarks. She is truly a remarkable person."

This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.

Coach Bobby Bowden is an icon of college football who ran his legendary, top-ranking program with a trademark southern charm. With his recent retirement, Bowden is ready to give fans and readers the behind-the-scenes story of his 55-year career and the path that helped him become one of college football's most successful coaches and patriarch of the sport's most famous coaching family. 

In this book, Bowden will reveal never-before-published details of the moments and events that have defined his life, including: 

* The tragic death of his grandson and son-in-law in a 2004 automobile accident.

* The details of his retirement as FSU's coach at the end of the 2009 season.

Look at me. Do you see me? Do you see me in my olive-green uniform, beret, and shiny black boots? Do you see the assault rifle slung across my chest? Finally! I am the badass Israeli soldier at the side of the road, in sunglasses, forearms like bricks. And honestly -- have you ever seen anything quite like me?

Joel Chasnoff is twenty-four years old, an American, and the graduate of an Ivy League university. But when his career as a stand-up comic fails to get off the ground, Chasnoff decides it's time for a serious change of pace. Leaving behind his amenity-laden Brooklyn apartment for a plane ticket to Israel, Joel trades in the comforts of being a stereotypical American Jewish male for an Uzi, dog tags (with his name misspelled), and serious mental and physical abuse at the hands of the Israeli Army.

The 188th Crybaby Brigade is a hilarious and poignant account of Chasnoff's year in the Israel Defense Forces -- a year that he volunteered for, and that he'll never get back. As a member of the 188th Armored Brigade, a unit trained on the Merkava tanks that make up the backbone of Israeli ground forces, Chasnoff finds himself caught in a twilight zone-like world of mandatory snack breaks, battalion sing-alongs, and eighteen-year-old Israeli mama's boys who feign injuries to get out of guard duty and claim diarrhea to avoid kitchen work. More time is spent arguing over how to roll a sleeve cuff than studying the mechanics of the Merkava tanks. The platoon sergeants are barely older than the soldiers and are younger than Chasnoff himself. By the time he's sent to Lebanon for a tour of duty against Hezbollah, Chasnoff knows everything about why snot dries out in the desert, yet has never been trained in firing the MAG. And all this while his relationship with his tough-as-nails Israeli girlfriend (herself a former drill sergeant) crumbles before his very eyes.

The lone American in a platoon of eighteen-year-old Israelis, Chasnoff takes readers into the barracks; over, under, and th...

James Grant’s enthralling biography of Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House during one of the most turbulent times in American history—the Gilded Age, the decades before the ascension of reformer President Theodore Roosevelt—brings to life one of the brightest, wittiest, and most consequential political stars in our history.

The last decades of the nineteenth century were a volatile era of rampantly corrupt politics. It was a time of both stupendous growth and financial panic, of land bubbles and passionate and sometimes violent populist protests. Votes were openly bought and sold in a Congress paralyzed by the abuse of the House filibuster by members who refused to respond to roll call even when present, depriving the body of a quorum. Reed put an end to this stalemate, empowered the Republicans, and changed the House of Representatives for all time.

The Speaker’s beliefs in majority rule were put to the test in 1898, when the sinking of the U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor set up a popular clamor for war against Spain. Reed resigned from Congress in protest. After he resigned his seat, Reed practiced law in New York. He was successful. He also found a soul mate in the legendary Mark Twain. They admired one another’s mordant wit. Grant’s lively and erudite narrative of this tumultuous era—the raucous late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—is a gripping portrait of a United States poised to burst its bounds and of the men who were defining it. 

A larger-than-life character, Reed checks every box of the ideal biographical subject:

• He's an important and significant figure.
• He changed forever the way the House of Representatives does its business.
• He was funny and irreverent.
• He was, in short, great company.  “What I most admire about you, Theodore,” Reed once remarked to his earnest young protégé, Teddy Roosevelt, “is your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.”

From the beginning, Myrna Loy's screen image conjured mystery, a sense of something withheld. "Who is she?" was a question posed in the first fan magazine article published about her in 1925. This first ever biography of the wry and sophisticated actress best known for her role as Nora Charles, wife to dapper detective William Powell in The Thin Man, offers an unprecedented picture of her life and an extraordinary movie career that spanned six decades. Opening with Loy's rough-and-tumble upbringing in Montana, the book takes us to Los Angeles in the 1920s, where Loy's striking looks caught the eye of Valentino, through the silent and early sound era to her films of the thirties, when Loy became a top box office draw, and to her robust post-World War II career. Throughout, Emily W. Leider illuminates the actress's friendships with luminaries such as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Joan Crawford and her collaborations with the likes of John Barrymore, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, and William Wyler, among many others. This highly engaging biography offers a fascinating slice of studio era history and gives us the first full picture of a very private woman who has often been overlooked despite her tremendous star power.