Career Memoirs

This cultural history and memoir of stage fright will resonate with anyone terrified of speaking or performing in public. Stage fright is one of the human psyche's deepest fears, challenging actors, musicians, professional athletes, and people from all walks of life. Surveys in the United States repeatedly rank public speaking as one of the top fears, affecting up to 74 percent of people.

In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.

John Harvey Kellogg was one of America's most beloved physicians; a best-selling author, lecturer, and health-magazine publisher; founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium; and patron saint of the pursuit of wellness. His youngest brother, Will, was the founder of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. In The Kelloggs, Howard Markel tells the sweeping saga of these two extraordinary men, whose lifelong competition and enmity toward one another changed America's notion of health and wellness and who helped change the course of American medicine, nutrition, wellness, and diet.

Infertility is a battle that women have been fighting for centuries, but the seemingly taboo subject is rarely discussed openly. Here, Bailey Henry describes her journey with infertility, including four miscarriages, marriage, grief, love, and the chance she was never properly potty-trained. With raw honesty, heartbreak, and a bit of humor, Bailey discusses the trials of being pregnant but never having a baby. If you've known the devastating loss of a child, or if your life simply hasn't turned out the way you thought it would, this one is for you.

Frank Lorenzo is the epitome of the American dream. A first-generation American and entrepreneur, Lorenzo started an airline advisory business in his mid-twenties and ultimately rose to control the largest fleet of airplanes in the free world. Flying for Peanuts explains how the son of Spanish immigrants put himself through Columbia College by driving a Coca-Cola truck and then grew the fledgling advisory into ownership of Texas International Airlines. From there, Lorenzo became CEO of Continental Airlines, a large loss-making west coast airline at the time.

Nattanya Andersen's cherished career as a flight-attendant for one of the world's largest airlines careened to a halt, when a jet-engine-explosion five feet away from her at 6,000 feet altitude shortly after take-off left her with post-traumatic-stress-disorder (PTSD). The mental health professions' apparent lack of knowledge concerning the treatment of PTSD-sufferers and Nattanya's desire to help herself lead her to search for empirical studies on PTSD and other health-issues and dangers facing air-crew - and by extension their passengers - on a daily basis.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, a ferocious, sexy, hilarious memoir about going off the rails at midlife and trying to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become. Claire Dederer is a happily married mother of two, ages nine...

After a diagnosis of a degenerative eye disease, John Samuel’s life—and his chance at success—started to vanish. In a world systemically unequipped for accessibility, disability inclusion is often left out of conversations about diversity. For people with disabilities, it can feel impossible to adapt and thrive when you’re already set up for failure.

Given his legacy, many Americans today believe Jackie Robinson was the first black man to play in Major League Baseball, but that answer is wrong. As far back as the late 19th century, there had been professional baseball leagues that were every bit as segregated as any other aspect of society, but before that, there were, for a brief shining moment, there were teams of black and white men playing with and against each other.

Having spent over twenty years building her hugely successful beauty empire, Maria Hatzistefanis managed to achieve all her childhood dreams and goals. Whilst this life of glamour and success is exhilarating, Maria is shocked to find that the happiness it brings is fleeting. This leads her to realize that her life needs a new focus. In this easy-to-follow guide, Maria asks the fundamental question: "What is happiness?" Brimming with good sense, great advice and clear tips, How to Live Your Best Life will equip you with the tools you need to be in control of your own destiny.

Remembering the truth of what it's like to be a kid is vital because most of us are stuck in some phase of arrested development, thanks to something traumatic that happened to us during our youth. Do you know what that trauma was and how it has affected who you are today? Understanding where you got stuck can free you to be the parent and adult you were meant to be.

Anyone who says there is no life after death has obviously never died. “I was high as a kite by the time I got there. I dropped five hits of acid that night. I made it through the first two bands before I started peaking. Then it happened...." I was a runaway, a dropout, a drug addict, a thief, a trouble maker, and a drug dealer. I was given a second chance at life. It has been a hard road. My life has been a battlefield. It has been a constant struggle, but I couldn’t be more grateful. This is my story.

Lisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter with a handsome stranger presented her with an opportunity to move halfway around the world, Lisa left behind cosmopolitan Los Angeles for a new adventure in the...

When Ted Turner started out in business, he owned a small billboard company in rural Georgia. Over the decades, he built a multi-billion empire that included CNN, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), MGM studios, and the Atlanta Braves. Risk-taking, careful planning, and steely determination are the hallmarks of this brash, outspoken, and wildly successful media mogul. On the other side of the world, his counterpart—Australian-born Rupert Murdoch—began with one small newspaper and parlayed it into more than 100 newspapers and magazines around the globe.

In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability.

In this engaging, inspiring, and educational Holocaust survivor memoir, Ben Lesser invites listeners to revisit a time in history when the world went mad. Learn how this ordinary, young Jewish teenager from Krakow, Poland, survived through extraordinary times living in ghettos, enduring four concentrations camps -- including Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau -- two death marches, and two death trains. After liberation from Dachau, the Holocaust survivor slowly healed, eventually recovering physically from his near-death experience.

For Julie, an elementary school librarian and mother of two boys, there was no time for debilitating anxiety. Yet, the terrifying aftershocks of her first panic attack left her grappling with questions about the causes of her mental health crisis and where it would lead next.

On June 13, 2013, as she drives to work, Tyila Cooks comes to the scene of an accident and quickly learns that the driver of the mangled vehicle is one of her six children - her oldest son. Years later, her oldest daughter’s long-term health condition worsens, and she finds herself in a fight for her own life. As this family journeys through two of the biggest storms of their lives, this mother’s faith is stretched, and her hope is shaken. With God’s grace, Tyila learns how to face grief, fear, doubt and a host of other emotions head on.

A searing, deeply personal memoir of a tenacious Afghan girl who educated herself behind closed doors and fought her way to a new life. “Stories like this inspire me. Seeing the way people like Sola Mahfouz think about the world reinforces my optimism about the future.”―BILL GATES...

A remarkable teenager who went from public assistance to a million dollar net worth shares his story and offers nine key principles to success. Farrah Gray is no ordinary teenager. He wears a suit and tie; he has an office on Wall Street and another one in Los Angeles...and he sold his first business at the age of 14 for more than a million dollars.