Birth Memoirs

In April 1969, a day before her 22nd birthday, Judith Ellen Bock gave birth to a 5 pound 15 ounce girl in a Tulsa hospital. Under the secrecy of a “NO SHOW, NO TELL” order, even Bock was kept from knowing much of anything about her newborn. Although she consented to the subsequent relinquishment of her parental rights and her daughter’s adoption, she was haunted by unresolved grief that she submerged for years under the mantra that she had “done the right thing.”

As the founder of financial futures and initiator of Globex, the world’s first global electronic trading system, Leo Melamed revolutionized the finance industry. Man of the Futures, his definitive memoir, recounts Melamed’s journey from Holocaust survivor and accidental runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), to one of the most prominent leaders in the world of finance.

In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea, by the age of 20 Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.

From early childhood, Dr. Hannah Mumby has loved wildlife, especially elephants. Her first wild elephant sighting at 24 changed the course of her life. Since then, she has devoted herself to studying these incredible animals and educating humanity about them. Hannah's field work has taken her around the world, where she has studied many elephant groups, including both orphaned elephants and the solitary elephant males. These remarkable animals have so much to teach us, Mumby argues, and Elephants takes listeners into their world as never before.

Pregnant from her first sexual encounter, a teenager living in a town of 3,000 Catholics keeps her secret from everyone until six weeks before the baby's due date. Hustled out of town and hidden in the Iowa countryside within hours of finally confiding in her mother, she concocts a scheme that will allow her to raise her child, but can she win over any of the people who might help her? As her pregnancy and its looming consequences unfold, she realizes that her life of lies and secrets has only just begun.

Handsome and charismatic, Albert Hicks had long been known in the dive bars and gin joints of the Five Points, the most dangerous neighborhood in maritime Manhattan. For years, he operated out of the public eye, rambling from crime to crime, working on the water in ships, sleeping in the nickel-a-night flops, drinking in barrooms where rat-baiting and bear-baiting were great entertainments. Rich Cohen tells the story of this notorious underworld figure, from his humble origins to the wild, globe-crossing, bacchanalian crime spree that forged his ruthlessness and his reputation.

Here is an audiobook that transcends the limits of how-to guides and honors the act of childbirth in the 21st century. Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon have gathered true birth stories by women who have made self-expression their business, including Cheryl Strayed, Julia Glass, Lauren Groff, Dani Shapiro, and many other luminaries. In Labor Day, you'll hear about women determined to give birth naturally and others begging for epidurals; women who pushed for hours and women whose labors were over practically before they'd started; women giving birth to twins and to 10-pound babies.

From the ghetto paved and unpaved streets of Indianapolis, Indiana this book begins telling the story of one fat kids rise from the projects, to his fall serving over 7 years in as many prisons, and how he was able to come out a Prison scholar that led to him writing 18 phenomenal books about redemption and attending Georgia State University graduating No.1 in his undergraduate class earning a 4.13 GPA and going on to grad school where he excelled graduating at top of his class, before becoming a very popular African-American Studies professors at Georgia State University.

Drags, fags and trans-women were attracted to the Big Apple because they were able to find work as impersonators in a small number of Lower East Side clubs. Decades before Stonewall, they occupied the margins of society, determined to live as they pleased, despite of the attentions of the police. Sometimes reduced to stealing to get their costumes, these girls were unstoppable, fearless and fabulous. When a cache of their letters were discovered, these individuals were given a voice where they had traditionally been silenced.

Felonies Before Birth is an account of one man's life journey that takes a spiritual turn. The book covers a timespan from 1954 to 2005 and offers a compelling story of the street life and struggles of a young black boy growing up in the zones of California. It walks you through several near death experiences by the age of 10. The author then takes you through his young pre-teen & young adult years with events involving shootings, drug dealing, robbery, the pimp life on the streets of Oakland, California.

It all began when design student Anaïs Bordier viewed a YouTube video and saw her own face staring back. After some research, Anaïs found that the Los Angeles actress Samantha Futerman was born in a South Korean port city called Busan on November 19, 1987 - the exact same location and day that Anaïs was born. This propelled her to make contact - via Facebook. One message later, both girls wondered: Could they be twins?

As the sole production assistant for Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, Ted Chapin had a front row seat for the creation of one of the most important American musicals of all time. He kept a detailed journal of his experiences, and his rich storehouse of memories forms the core of Everything Was Possible, which itself has become a modern classic of musical theater history. Combining the zeal of an enthusiast with a journalist’s narrative chops, Chapin takes the listener on a roller-coaster ride through the creation of an original Broadway musical.

It is 1965, and Swinging London is coming into its prime years. The streets are alive with mods and rockers, playboys and good-time girls, all revelling in the blossoming artistic, creative and cultural energies of the decade. Amid the colour and chaos is a boy sporting drainpipe jeans, an immaculately tailored sports coat and a half-inch wide tie. A devoted fan of The Who, he looks the part in his pristine mod gear. As the lead singer of the Lower Third, his talent is shaping itself into something truly special. His name is Davie Jones.

October, 1997. Late one night in Fairbanks, Alaska, a passerby finds a teenager unconscious, collapsed on the edge of the road, beaten nearly beyond recognition. Two days later, he dies in the hospital. His name is John Gilbert Hartman and he's just turned 15 years old. The police quickly arrest four suspects, all under the age of 21 and of Alaska Native and American Indian descent. Police lineup witnesses, trials follow, and all four men receive lengthy prison terms. Case closed. But journalist Brian Patrick O'Donoghue can't put the story out of his mind.

Enrico Fermi is unquestionably among the greats of the world's physicists, the most famous Italian scientist since Galileo. Called "the Pope" by his peers, he was regarded as infallible in his instincts and research. His discoveries changed our world; they led to weapons of mass destruction and conversely to life-saving medical interventions. This unassuming man struggled with issues relevant today, such as the threat of nuclear annihilation and the relationship of science to politics.

In the 1910s, as the birth control movement was born, two leaders emerged: Margaret Sanger and Mary Dennett. Sanger would go on to found Planned Parenthood, while Dennett’s name has largely faded from public awareness. Each held a radically different vision for what reproductive autonomy and birth control access should look like in America. Few are aware of the fierce personal and political rivalry that played out between Sanger and Dennett over decades—a battle that had a profound impact on the lives of American women.

My life was flipped upside down on April 7, 2001, one day before my 43rd birthday. I received the DNA test results that had answered a lifetime of questions. Everything—and I mean everything—I knew about myself wasn’t true. I turned into my own private investigator, digging through records and interviewing nurses who worked at the hospital, where my life changed forever. It’s a devastating and bizarre story, so out of this world that my life even garnered worldwide attention. The research and wisdom I have gained regarding trauma have given me hope and understanding.

In the autumn of 1982, a single stone fell from high on the south face of Annapurna and struck Alex MacIntyre on the head, killing him instantly and robbing the climbing world of one of its greatest talents. Although only 28 years old, Alex was already one of the leading figures of British mountaineering's most successful era. His ascents included hard new routes on Himalayan giants like Dhaulagiri and Changabang and a glittering record of firsts in the Alps and Andes.

In No Woman Left Behind, Grant recounts her decision to abandon a promising advertising career, and the ups and downs of building Silicon Valley–based Fistula Foundation from a modest start-up into the global leader in fistula treatment. Through vivid firsthand accounts of surgeons toiling in remote corners of Africa and Asia, we see inside the fight to restore hope to some of the world’s most vulnerable women.

This is a story about two boys who, at birth, were inexplicably switched, a switch that would dramatically change the author’s life in every aspect—religion, ethnicity, economics, and culture. Time and time again, the two boys’ paths cross with one another’s before ultimately discovering, decades later, that they aren’t who they spent their whole lives believing they were.