Memoir Industry

In this biography, Dave Werklund tells how he grew up on a farm, left school in Grade 9, and then built a multi-billion-dollar business in Alberta to clean up oil waste and pollution. As an environmentalist working in the oil business, he argues that Alberta has among the most stringent environmental standards anywhere in the oil world. Yet like everyone in the Alberta oil business, Werklund has faced disaster and had to find a way out.

As director of the world's largest abortion clinic and the nation's most prominent abortionist, Dr. Bernard Nathanson presided over 60,000 abortions. As co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, he helped make abortion legal. Then, in a conversion that made headkines and astonished both sides of the abortion debate, he renounced his profession to become a pro-life advocate. But Dr. Nathanson's journey was not over.

In the last half of the twentieth century, Don Thomas discovered a cure for every marrow-based disease—like leukemia, lymphoma, and sickle-cell anemia—forever changing treatment for some of the deadliest illnesses. His feats were extraordinary, earning him a Nobel Prize, and the cascade of treatments he inspired have reshaped and will continue to reshape the practice of clinical medicine. Yet no one has ever written Thomas’s courageous story.Dr. Frederick R. Appelbaum, a member of Thomas’s research team, does so for the first time.

Unsolved Medical Mysteries: Explaining the Unexplainable is your chance to explore the strangest and most confounding cases in medical history. In 12 gripping lectures, acclaimed author, historian, and medical humanities expert Dr. Brandy Schillace guides you on a fascinating journey into the unknown, from historical enigmas to modern medical conundrums. With her unique blend of storytelling and scientific insight, Dr. Schillace digs into a range of medical mysteries

J. Paul Getty (1892-1976) was a shrewd industrialist who founded the Getty Oil Company in 1942, ultimately becoming a dominant player in the oil industry. In The Great Getty, Robert Lenzner presents an in-depth biography of the savviest entrepreneur of the 20th century and the world's richest private citizen at the time of his death—worth $6 billion, the equivalent of more than $27 billion in today' s money.

Human history hinges on the battle to confront our most dangerous enemies—the half-dozen diseases responsible for killing almost all of mankind. The story of our medical triumphs reveals an inspiring tapestry of human achievement, but the journey was far from smooth. It is a tale replete with dramatic episodes as spellbinding as any blockbuster Hollywood movie. In The Masters of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Lam, an award-winning author and retinal surgeon, distills the long arc of medical progress down to the crucial moments that were responsible for the world's greatest medical miracles.

Bevy Smith was living what seemed like a glamorous dream as a fashion advertising executive, blazing a lucrative career for herself in the whitewashed magazine world. She jetsetted to Europe for fashion shows, dined and danced at every hot spot, and enjoyed a mighty roster of lovers. So it came as quite a shock to Bevy when one day, after arriving at her luxury hotel in Milan, she collapsed on the Frette bedsheets and sobbed. Years of rolling with the in-crowd had taken its toll. Her satisfaction with work and life had hit rock bottom.

In these essays, TV’s Frank Conniff focuses on twenty-five of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 films he found and riffed with his fellow MST3K writers and cast mates. It tells the story of how a comedian who was lucky enough to work on beloved Peabody Award winning TV show was transformed into a comedian who was lucky enough to work on a beloved Peabody Award winning TV show. It’s a story that will stay with you for the rest of your life, if you happen to die just as you finish listening to the book.

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.

In the first full biography of actor Sidney Poitier, Aram Goudsouzian analyzes the life and career of a Hollywood legend, from his childhood in the Bahamas to his 2002 Oscar for lifetime achievement. Poitier is a gifted actor, a great American success story, an intriguing personality, and a political symbol; his life and career illuminate America's racial history.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo shares the inspiring story of how he came to be who he is. After experiencing abuse as a child, Dr. Ladapo was incapable of connecting emotionally with other people. He was dissociated from virtually everything in his life and numbly powered through college, medical school, and residency to become a doctor and university professor. It wasn’t until he fell in love with his wife that he was forced to come face-to-face with the enormous emotional and spiritual disruption caused by his deeply buried trauma.

The most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs who were the first in the music business to read the generational writing on the wall in the mid-1960s. By recruiting outsider artists and allowing them to make the music they wanted, Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company into the voice of a generation. Along the way, they revolutionized the music industry and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry.

Dr. Bonnie Henry has been called "one of the most effective public health figures in the world" by The New York Times. She has been called "a calming voice in a sea of coronavirus madness", and "our hero" in national newspapers. But in the waning days of 2019, when the first rumours of a strange respiratory ailment in Wuhan, China began to trickle into her office in British Columbia, these accolades lay in a barely imaginable future.

El retrato demoledor de una dinastía cuya fortuna se construyó gracias a Valium y cuya reputación fue destruida por OxyContin.

Em Medicina dos horrores, a historiadora Lindsey Fitzharris narra como era o chocante mundo da cirurgia do século XIX, que estava às vésperas de uma profunda transformação. A autora evoca os primeiros anfiteatros de operações—lugares abafados onde os procedimentos eram feitos diante de plateias lotadas—e cirurgiões pioneiros, cujo ofício era saudado não pela precisão, mas pela velocidade e pela força bruta, uma vez que não havia anestesia. Não à toa, os mais célebres cirurgiões da época eram capazes de amputar uma perna em menos de trinta segundos.

Scouted by a modeling agent when she was just sixteen years old, Cameron Russell first approached her job with some reservations: She was a serious student with her sights set on college, not the runway. But modeling was a job that seemed to offer young women like herself unprecedented access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, “there are a million girls in line” who would eagerly replace her.

This is the enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men. "Doctor" John Brinkley became a world renowned authority on sexual rejuvenation in the 1920s, with famous politicians and even royalty asking for his services.

J. P. Morgan is more than just the name on one of the largest banks in America. He was a man who altered the course of American finance and the chief financier for the strategic interests of the titans of the day, such as Carnegie and Rockefeller. He also financed new and ingenious technologies developed by Thomas Edison and was a visionary who saw the potential in Nikola Tesla. Hear all about him and find areas that you may have in common with this towering titan.

From Jon King, legendary front man of iconic post-punk band Gang of Four, comes a memoir to remember. To Hell with Poverty! documents King’s story from a south London slum and working-class background to international success as core musician, lyricist, writer, and producer in the legendary post-punk/funk band Gang of Four.

As a private banker working for the largest bank in the world, UBS, Bradley Birkenfeld was an expert in Switzerland's shell-game of offshore companies and secret numbered accounts. He wined and dined ultrawealthy clients whose millions of dollars were hidden away from business partners, spouses, and tax authorities. As his client list grew, Birkenfeld lived a life of money, fast cars, and beautiful women, but when he discovered that UBS was planning to betray him, he blew the whistle to the US government.