A Medal of Honor recipient looks back at his own service in the Vietnam War—and ahead to America’s future. Jack Jacobs was acting as an advisor to the South Vietnamese when he and his men came under devastating attack. Wounded, 1st Lt. Jacobs took command and withdrew the unit, returning again and again, saving fourteen lives—for which he received the Medal of Honor. Here, Col. Jacobs tells his stirring story of heroism, honor, and the personal code by which he has lived his life, and expounds with blunt honesty and insight his views on our contemporary world, and the nature and necessity of sacrifice. If Not Now, When? is a compelling account of a unique life at both war and peace, and the all-too-often unexamined role of the citizenry in the service and defense of the Republic.

Donna Karan is the most prominent and successful figure in American fashion. Her popularity derives from a philosophy of designing real clothes for real women - beautiful yet practical creations that are as easily worn in everyday life as on the catwalk. She is the archetypal New Yorker, drawing her inspiration from the energy, pace, and style of the world's most sophisticated city. Originating as a womenswear label, her company now produces menswear, childrenswear, and accessories, all perpetuating the uniquely modern style that has brought Donna Karan world recognition.

From award-winning actress Illeana Douglas comes a memoir about learning to survive in Hollywood while staying true to her quirky vision of the world. In 1969 Illeana Douglas' parents saw the film Easy Rider and were transformed. Taking Dennis Hopper's words, "That's what it's all about man" to heart, they abandoned their comfortable upper middle class life and gave Illeana a childhood filled with hippies, goats, free spirits, and free love. Illeana writes, "Since it was all out of my control, I began to think of my life as a movie, with a Dennis Hopper-like father at the center of it." I Blame Dennis Hopper is a testament to the power of art and the tenacity of passion. It is a rollicking, funny, at times tender exploration of the way movies can change our lives. With crackling humor and a full heart, Douglas describes how a good Liza Minnelli impression helped her land her first gig and how Rudy Valley taught her the meaning of being a show biz trouper. From her first experience being on set with her grandfather and mentor-two-time Academy Award-winning actor Melvyn Douglas-to the moment she was discovered by Martin Scorsese for her blood-curdling scream and cast in her first film, to starring in movies alongside Robert DeNiro, Nicole Kidman, and Ethan Hawke, to becoming an award winning writer, director and producer in her own right, I Blame Dennis Hopper is an irresistible love letter to movies and filmmaking. Writing from the perspective of the ultimate show business fan, Douglas packs each page with hilarious anecdotes, bizarre coincidences, and fateful meetings that seem, well, right out of a plot of a movie. I Blame Dennis Hopper is the story of one woman's experience in show business, but it is also a genuine reminder of why we all love the movies: for the glitz, the glamor, the sweat, passion, humor, and escape they offer us all.

Celine Dion Behind the Fairytale

"Based on long-lost recordings, a set of riveting and revealing conversations with America's great cultural provocateur. There have long been rumors of a lost cache of tapes containing private conversations between Orson Welles and his friend the director Henry Jaglom, recorded over regular lunches in the years before Welles died. The tapes, gathering dust in a garage, did indeed exist, and this book reveals for the first time what they contain.Here is Welles as he has never been seen before: talking intimately, disclosing personal secrets, reflecting on the highs and lows of his astonishing career, the people he knew--FDR, Winston Churchill, Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier, David Selznick, Rita Hayworth, and more--and the many disappointments of his last years. This is the great director unplugged, free to be irreverent and worse--sexist, homophobic, racist, or none of the above-- because he was nothing if not a fabulator and provocateur. Ranging from politics to literature to the shortcomings of his friends and the many films he was still eager to launch, Welles is at once cynical and romantic, sentimental and raunchy, but never boring and always wickedly funny.Edited by Peter Biskind, America's foremost film historian, My Lunches with Orson reveals one of the giants of the twentieth century, a man struggling with reversals, bitter and angry, desperate for one last triumph, but crackling with wit and a restless intelligence. This is as close as we will get to the real Welles--if such a creature ever existed. "--

Millions of adult Americans will fondly remember such entertaining movies as Carousel, The Jackpot, and There's No Business Like Show Business. Phoebe and Henry Ephron, who wrote the screenplays for these and other films, were a unique team in that they used their special talents, working with dozens of great names of screen and stage, to create everything from the comic to the somber under circumstances both humorous and quite the opposite. Whether they were working on a Carousel, starring Shirley Jones and Gordon MacRae or a new What Price Glory, or Fred Astaire's Daddy Long Legs, the Ephrons were always learning something new and exciting about a magical assortment of people (Henry remembers the famous director John Ford the day he was faulted by his producer for being two days behind in shooting a film. He tore up six pages and said: "Tell the SOB I'm six days ahead!") This is also a story of the thirty-seven-year marriage of two people who started out with very little, realized their dreams of having a play produced on Broadway, and then went to Hollywood, where they wrote major scripts for some of the biggest stars. Woven throughout the story is the family element of raising four daughters in the make-believe atmosphere of Southern California. As the two Ephrons worried about the work they'd done on one major script, the make-believe turning into a glorious reprieve when it was reported to them that Darryl Zanuck had just told a friend, "I'll never know how the Ephrons took that old chestnut and turned it into this great screenplay." Here, a professional storyteller is at his best in a personal narrative which also brings onstage a fascinating supporting cast.

"An astounding collection of adventures and observations, woven into a dramatic account that helps to clarify some of the mysteries of our nation's recent history....Hamilton's story offers a rare combination of insight, wry humor, and real inspiration." -- Jimmy Carter, in the Foreword Hamilton Jordan has had a life full of personal struggles, from firsthand encounters with racial hatred in the Civil Rights-era South to exposure to Agent Orange as a civilian volunteer in Vietnam and his tumultuous years as the youngest chief of staff in presidential history, under Jimmy Carter. But a more powerful opponent has defined Jordan's life -- cancer. Three times in the last twenty years he has been diagnosed with the disease: non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, melanoma, and prostate cancer. Each time, Jordan credits early detection, being well-informed, and keeping positive as the keys to his survival. In this beautifully written book, Jordan weaves together his remarkable life to date with the uplifting story of his victories over cancer. Moving, inspiring, and powerful, No Such Thing As A Bad Day is a read that no one will soon forget.

"The 1990s was a decade of extreme change. Shifts in culture, politics, and technology radically altered the way Americans did business, expressed themselves, and thought about their role in the world. At the center of it all was Bill Clinton, the charismatic and flawed baby boomer president, along with his polarizing but increasingly popular wife, Hillary. Although it was in many ways a Democratic Gilded Age, the 1990s was also a time of great anxiety. The Cold War was over. America was stable and prosperous. Yet Americans felt more unmoored and isolated. This was the era of glitz and grunge, when we relished living in the Republic of Everything even as we feared it might degenerate into the Republic of Nothing. Bill Clinton dominated this era, but his complex legacy has yet to be clearly defined. Historian Gil Troy examines Clinton's presidency alongside the decade's cultural changes. Taking the '90s year by year, Troy shows how the culture of the day shaped the Clintons even as the Clintons shaped it, offering answers to two enduring questions about Bill Clinton's legacy: How did such a talented politician leave Americans thinking he accomplished so little when he actually accomplished so much? And to what extent was Clinton responsible for the catastrophes of the following decade, specifically 9/11 and the collapse of the housing market? Even more relevant as we head toward the 2016 election, The Age of Clinton will appeal to readers on both sides of the aisle as it chronicles the wild, transformative decade and the president at its center"--

'Perec is serious fun' The Guardian Both an affectionate portrait of mid-century Paris and a daring memoir, Georges Perec's I Remember is now available in English to UK readers for the first time, with an introduction by David Bellos. In 480 numbered statements, all beginning identically with 'I remember', Perec records a stream of individual memories of a childhood in post-war France, while posing wider questions about memory and nostalgia. As playful and puzzling as the best of his novels, I Remember is an ode to life: the ordinary, the extraordinary, and the sometimes trivial, as seen through the eyes of the irreplaceable Georges Perec.

The dramatic story of the defense attorney's 1912 bribery trial and the spectacular events leading up to it. A revisionist biography and a rich courtroom drama, here is a fascinating look at L.A. law at the turn of the century and the corruption of justice by the wealthy and powerful. 8 pages of photos.

Book by Goldman, Emma, Berkman, Alexander

No one believed it could happen in their town. But it did. Valarie Clark Miller seemed to have it all. Smart and beautiful with a wealthy, successful husband and growing family, Valarie appeared to be the picture-perfect Mormon wife. But it was all a façade. Inside, she was crumbling from the pressures of long-repressed memories of a childhood filled with sexual and physical abuse. In Hometown Betrayal , author Emily Benedek brings you behind the closed doors of the remote Mormon community of Clarkston, Utah. With the help of hundreds of individual stories, she pieces together not only what happened to Valarie, but also the conditions and culture that allowed it. Hometown Betrayal culminates in an account of the Miller family's fight to hold accountable the men--including the local cop-- who abused Valarie and controlled the systems designed to look the other way.

Traces the life of the Polish exile who became an important influence on the development of European socialism and explains why she became politically active

"The definitive memoir of one of Israel's most influential soldier-statesmen and one-time Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, with insights into forging peace in the Middle East. In the summer of 2000, the most decorated soldier in Israel's history--Ehud Barak--set himself a challenge as daunting as any he had faced on the battlefield: to secure a final peace with the Palestinians. He would propose two states for two peoples, with a shared capital in Jerusalem. He knew the risks of failure. But he also knew the risks of not trying: letting slip perhaps the last chance for a generation to secure genuine peace. It was a moment of truth. It was one of many in a life intertwined, from the start, with that of Israel. Born on a kibbutz, Barak became commander of Israel's elite special forces, then army Chief of Staff, and ultimately, Prime Minister. My Country, My Life tells the unvarnished story of his--and his country's--first seven decades; of its major successes, but also its setbacks and misjudgments. He offers candid assessments of his fellow Israeli politicians, of the American administrations with which he worked, and of himself. Drawing on his experiences as a military and political leader, he sounds a powerful warning: Israel is at a crossroads, threatened by events beyond its borders and by divisions within. The two-state solution is more urgent than ever, not just for the Palestinians, but for the existential interests of Israel itself. Only by rediscovering the twin pillars on which it was built--military strength and moral purpose--can Israel thrive"--

A funny, candid, insightful, and unflinchingly honest memoir from one of New York City's most spirited and outspoken mayors Ed Koch—the bold, colorful, forthright, and impassioned three-term mayor of the city of New York—lived his eighty-eight years to the fullest. In I'm Not Done Yet Koch reflects on life after politics, taking readers through his various career turns since losing the Democratic mayoral primary to David Dinkins in 1989, during which time he worked as a radio talk-show host, a newspaper columnist, a college instructor, a SlimFast spokesman, and an arbitrator on the television show The People's Court. With occasional looks back at his childhood in the Bronx and his political experiences, Koch speaks openly about the ups and downs of what he calls "the third act" of his storied career, offering a frank account of his health and medical challenges, and considering what it has meant to live a life without a partner or children. I'm Not Done Yet is a fearless account of an extraordinary man's under-standing of what it means to reach one's autumn years, and offers proof that the healthiest outlook on advancing age is to keep active at the work you love.

Deborah Solomon's biography sets Jackson Pollock in his time and portrays him as a shy, often withdrawn person, full of insecurities and self-doubts, and frequently unable to express himself about his art or its meaning. Solomon interviewed two hundred people who knew Pollock and his work and she has drawn extensively on Pollock's own writings and other personal papers. She examines the artist's relationships with his family; his wife and fellow artist Lee Krasner; art patron Peggy Guggenheim; the painters Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and many more.

""The Indispensable Man: The Story Of Thomas Alva Edison's Life And Inventive Genius"" by David Sarnoff is a detailed biography of one of the most influential inventors of all time. Thomas Alva Edison is known for his inventions that changed the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the electric light bulb. The book explores Edison's life, from his early years as a curious child to his rise as a successful inventor and entrepreneur. It covers his struggles and failures, as well as his many successes, including his development of the first industrial research laboratory. Sarnoff delves into Edison's creative process, examining how he came up with his ideas and how he worked to turn them into reality. The book also explores Edison's personal life, including his relationships with his family and his colleagues. Overall, ""The Indispensable Man"" provides a comprehensive look at the life and work of Thomas Alva Edison, offering insights into his genius and his lasting impact on the world.The Story Of Thomas Alva Edison's Life And Inventive Genius Seen In 130 Photographs, The Most Unusual Collection About The Inventor Ever Assembled. Additional Authors Are Thomas W. Martin, Giorgio Valerio, Sherman R. Knapp, And Walker L. Cisler. Edited By George E. Probst.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

From This American Life alum David Rakoff comes a hilarious collection that single-handedly raises self-deprecation to an art form. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, or learning primitive survival skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff clearly demonstrates how he doesn’t belong–nor does he try to. In his debut collection of essays, Rakoff uses his razor-sharp wit and snarky humor to deliver a barrage of damaging blows that, more often than not, land squarely on his own jaw–hilariously satirizing the writer, not the subject. Joining the wry and the heartfelt, Fraud offers an object lesson in not taking life, or ourselves, too seriously.

A take-no-prisoners tale of growing up without knowing who you are David Matthews was born on the line between races. His mother was white, but she disappeared when he was an infant, leaving him with pale skin and the prospect of a Jewish identity. His father was black, a journalist and activist who counted Malcolm X among his friends. So growing up in the Baltimore ghetto in the 1980s, Matthews had a choice. He took one look at the school lunchroom and chose white. But that choice took on new implications when he came home to a neighborhood where his chosen race was a liability, if not a hazard. In the years that followed, Matthews slipped in and out of identities as the situation demanded, making use of each to get what he needed. He read the culture around him, soaked up its expectations, biases, and passwords, and fashioned a character that could only exist in this generation in America, an exuberant, open-minded, opportunistic young man making up his life and identity on the fly.