Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Biographies & Memoirs

Charged with the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die in Maryland's gas chamber. Maintaining his innocence, he read everything on criminal law available in the prison library and persuaded a new lawyer to petition for the then-innovative DNA testing. After nine years in one of the harshest prisons in America, Kirk Bloodsworth became the first death row inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.

This unflinching account of one remarkable physician’s experiences during the conflict between Russia and its breakaway republic, Chechnya, is an instant classic of war literature. Weaving the history of the Chechnya conflict and the heritage of his own family into the visceral narrative, Dr. Baiev tells a tale that is shocking, heroic, and impossible to forget.

The internationally bestselling author of the Guido Brunetti mysteries tells her own adventurous life story as she enters her eighties In a series of vignettes full of affection, irony, and good humor, Donna Leon narrates a remarkable life she feels has rather more happened to her than been planned.

The voices of those who witnessed the Battle of Gettysburg and its aftermath with their own eyes—who saw the bloodshed, heard its din, trembled in its crash, struggled with its aftermath—are collected for the first time by Allen C. Guelzo, America’s foremost Civil War scholar, in this moving oral history. This treasure trove of original documents creates an eyewitness account of the monumental collision at Gettysburg, in the words of the commanders, soldiers, politicians, and civilians from both the North and the South who experienced firsthand the changing course of the Civil War.

Beeville, Texas, was the most American of small towns - the place that GIs had fantasized about while fighting through the ruins of Europe, a place of good schools, clean streets, and churches. Old West justice ruled, as evidenced by a 1947 shootout when outlaws surprised popular sheriff Vail Ennis at a gas station and shot him five times, point-blank, in the belly. Ennis managed to draw his gun and put three bullets in each assailant. Supportive telegrams from all across America poured into Beeville's tiny post office. Then a second violent incident threw Ennis into the crosshairs of public opinion once again.

En este libro personal y altamente controversial, el Padre Alberto Cutié habla de la devastadora lucha entre las omesas que había hecho como sacerdote y el amor por una mujer. Cutié, que ya había comenzado a sentir diferencias ideológicas con la Iglesia, de repente tuvo que cambiar su vida por completo el día que fue fotografiado en una playa besándose con la mujer que más adelante se convertiría en su esposa.

The second volume in his autobiographical quartet based on the seasons, Winter is an achingly beautiful collection of daily meditations and letters addressed directly to Knaugsaard's unborn daughter.

Kent Wong’s Swimming to Freedom is a memoir of a childhood amid revolutionary times, where boyish adventures and school days mixed with dire poverty and political persecution, and a moving story of an inextinguishable yearning to be free. Mao’s Hundred Flower Campaign ensnared Kent’s father. A decade later the Cultural Revolution closed schools, plunged the country into chaos, and scattered Kent and his sisters to disparate villages where they struggled to eke out a bare existence.

Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki is the genius behind such animated classics as Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds. His bountiful imagination and compassion have earned him accolades the world over. Until the early 1990s, Miyazaki’s work was largely unfamiliar to American audiences. But that would soon change, and now fans of all ages eagerly await new material from the master.

Best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow is a Will Rogers Humanitarian Award winner and was the replacement advice columnist for Ann Landers in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here he turns his eye to a group of 11 friends who grew up in Ames, Iowa, during the 1960s, a period of unprecedented opportunity for women. What emerges is an inspiring look at the power of friendship to overcome challenges.

Anh Vu Sawyer is an acclaimed Christian author. The poignant memoir of her escape from war-torn Vietnam, Song of Saigon has touched the hearts of countless readers the world over.

This is the extraordinary, behind-the-scenes tale of how Woodstock went from a pipe dream to the most iconic rock concert of all time. Elliot Tiber, then known as Eliyahu Teichberg, was a budding painter in the 1960s. He also happened to be head of his local chamber of commerce - and owner of the yearly permit to hold summer music concerts. The rest, as they say, is history.

This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture - its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists - but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.

The figure who embodied the militant and controversial spirit of the Black Panther Party more than anyone was Eldridge Cleaver. Charismatic, brilliant, and courageous, Cleaver built a base of power and influence that struck fear deep in the heart of White America. Revolution or Death provides the first life story of one of the most notorious Black revolutionaries in history.

In this new memoir, the woman nicknamed 'The Black Widow' opens up about her legendary career and the rich, unpredictable life she's woven around it. Lee details her upbringing in a Korean-American household in the Bronx, her single-minded drive to reach the pinnacle of her sport, and her unlikely entry into the realm of mainstream celebrity in an era where female athletes rarely got their share of the limelight.

Like all great dreamers and planners, Marcus Garvey dreamed and planned ahead of his time and his peoples' ability to understand the significance of his life's work. A set of circumstances, mostly created by the world colonial powers, crushed this dreamer, but not his dreams. Due to persistence and years of sacrifice of Mrs. Amy Jacques Garvey, widow of Marcus Garvey, a large body of work by and about this great nationalist leader has been preserved and can be made available to a new generation of Black people who have the power to turn his dreams into realities.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry follows up Books and Literary Life with this final installment in his memoir trilogy. Tinged with his wry humor and Texas swagger, Hollywood is McMurtry’s anecdote-filled take on Tinseltown from the year his Horseman, Pass By was adapted into Hud (1963) to the year he wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain (2005).

A layered saga, Vegas Concierge spans more than a decade and includes world-famous stars, violent “gorilla” pimps, crooked and honest cops, struggling journalists, ambitious FBI agents, influential casino executives, and high-profile political figures. It tells the inside story of this failed investigation and its countless twists, moving from the luxury hotel rooms of the Las Vegas Strip to the inner offices of the Las Vegas police, to the newsrooms of some of Nevada’s biggest news organizations.

In this dazzling Hollywood memoir, Jeff Margolis takes us on the ultimate behind-the-scenes tour of television’s most memorable variety series and specials spanning the past fifty years—from the most iconic variety shows of the 1970s to the Oscars. Today, as one of the most prolific directors/producers of event television, Margolis is not only a technical ringmaster but also a confidante and sage to the stars who headline the shows. Students of television will savor the “how-to” of event television while fans will love the intimate stories of beloved stars.

In this partially autobiographical work, best-selling author Lewis Thomas offers insights on subjects as wide-ranging as gender differences, how it feels to be a patient, human vs. computer intelligence, the future of cancer research, and the longevity of the planet—interspersing all with charming anecdotes about his family, his colleagues and himself.