Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Biographies & Memoirs

More books have been written about the American Civil War then any event in U.S. history, and this book deserves a place with those most studied. John Esten Cooke, a Captain in Stewart's Cavalry, and a man who knew Lee personally, gives an insider's view of Lee, his demeanor, and thoughts - before, during, and after this great conflict.

A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is the harrowing first-person account of one mother's struggle to survive after she and her children are attacked in their home and captured by Native Americans during the winter of 1675.

Isaac Asimov, known primarily for his science fiction stories, was also a scientist. In cooperation with the Senior Scholastic magazine, he composed this wonderful and fascinating work of historical nonfiction. Twenty-six far-reaching discoveries and the twenty-nine scientists who made them—from Archimedes, who boasted he could move the world, to Goddard, who sent the first liquid-fuel rocket toward space.

Veteran political journalist Anne Michaud knows the hidden agendas women employ to gain and cling to power. Working as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and awarded “Columnist of the Year” by the New York News Publishers Association, Anne has researched the women behind some of the most notorious men in the public eye. She discovered a surprising pattern as old as the dynastic maneuverings of England’s medieval queens.

When James Forrestal resigned as secretary of defense in March 1949 before apparently committing suicide (arguably the highest ranking US government official to do so), he left in his office a large accumulation of files and papers. Among them was a private record. This was the "diary", as he called it, that he had maintained in one form or another since the middle of 1944, shortly after his appointment as secretary of the Navy.

This volume relates the stories of the Borgias and the Cenci. The former, a family of Spanish adventurers, came to dominate the Italian peninsula, and, when Rodergio Borgia became Pope Alexander VI, the world of Christendom, in the late 15th century. The Cenci was an aristocratic family, in which rampant sexual and domestic abuse led to murder and very public execution.

In this new biography of General Donn Starry, armor officer Mike Guardia examines the life and work of this pioneering, crusading officer using extracts from interviews with veterans and family and from Starry's personal papers.

Nineteenth-century reformer Susan B. Anthony advocated for many causes, including limitations on alcohol access and abolition of slavery. However, she is best known for her tireless efforts as a suffragist seeking equal and civil rights for women. Nellie Bly was a courageous and feisty female reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's The World newspaper in the late 1800s. In this landmark interview, Anthony discusses her history in several areas of social reform.

Magician and escape artist Harry Houdini profiles his onetime hero, French magician Robert-Houdin, whose name he used as inspiration for his own, and discovers that his former idol's claims and professional accomplishments conceal disturbing realities. Houdini's effort becomes an investigation through England and Europe that also serves as a general history of magic.

There's honest graft and dishonest graft, according to George Washington Plunkitt. Listen to this candid discourse from a 19th-century politician and decide for yourself if things have changed.

Known as an actor-manager, Sir Henry Irving (1838-1905) took complete responsibility for season after season at London’s Lyceum Theatre, establishing himself and his company as representative of English classical theater. Beginning in 1878, author Bram Stoker worked for Irving as a business manager at the Lyceum for much of Irving’s career. Stoker revered Irving, and when he began writing Dracula, Irving was the chief inspiration for the title character.

In the 21st century interior design uses repurposed artifacts to create elegance. This includes books. They may not be for reading, but for beauty. Would it be a surprise to see that this mindset was in place nearly a century ago? This is a delightfully warm tale of a storyteller who moves and has no idea how to catalogue his own books except by how they look to guests. From the mind of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne

Volume Seven of Alexander' Dumas' catalogue of crime features three colourful historical figures. Albanian tyrant Ali Pacha (or Pasha) was a brigand who later became an operative of the Ottoman empire. After extending his territory to include large areas of Greece and Macedonia, and aspiring to become an independent leader, he attracted the enmity of the Sultan and was declared a rebel. He died in battle at the age of 80.

He did not come from a home of influence. He didn't have abundant wealth at his disposal. Dwight Lyman Moody began his career selling shoes and it was the encouragement of a teacher that moved him toward a lifestyle that demonstrated a love for others that was unearned. In time, a church he founded, that met first in a saloon, became a beloved church that still impacts the city of Chicago.

From Vietnam vet Ronald Wheatley, A Time for War features in-depth interviews with 65 veterans who served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as stories of veterans from the Revolutionary, Civil, and Cold Wars. These are enlisted men and women, officers and volunteers, connected by a small seacoast town located midway between Boston and Plymouth. A Time for War is a rigorous and moving exploration of what it means to serve in war, from the chaos of combat to the idealism that drives people to enlist.

Only two people were in a position to experience all the events leading up to the first flight of a viable airplane, and here in three short essays they report how it came about.The idea of powered flight was so new that there were not even accepted methods of measuring the forces at play on a machine in-flight.

Philip Walsingham Sergeant's biography of Barbara from 1912 draws on contemporary writings to tell her story, giving a more vivid and faithful presentation of the spirit of the time. He traces her life from her early girlhood, through her time at Court, her exile, and ending with her involvement in a bigamy trial.

In this missive Ambrose Bierce recounts two days in his life, April 6 and April 7, 1862, perhaps the two most significant days of his life. He and over 100,000 other combatants have gathered about a small church near the town of Corinth, "a wretched place--the capital of a swamp, two days' march west of the Tennessee River". The church is Shiloh, and it will lend its name to the great battle that took place there.

Published just seven weeks after the killing of Jesse James, this volume gives the full particulars of each and every dark and desperate deed in the career of this most noted outlaw of any time or nation! The facts and incidents contained herein were dictated to the author by the bandit's wife and his mother, to ensure that every secret act, every hitherto unknown incident, every crime, and every motive was truthfully disclosed!

In 1971, Elizabeth Garber’s domineering father announced he was sending his “problem children”—seventeen-year-old bookish Elizabeth and her fourteen-year-old brother Woodie—to a school on a sailing ship, in order to “shape up and learn to work.” Sailing at the Edge of Disaster chronicles Garber’s adventures, along with the fifty teen misfits and their teacher chaperones aboard the sailing school housed on a once-magnificent yacht formerly owned by General Post heiress, socialite, and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post.