...[U]npredictable in the way that only the best nonfiction can be....I found myself thinking of the Bhagavad-Gita...What struck me was the idea of non-attachment....Weschler writes, One works and works at something, which then happens of its own accord....its happening cannot be said to have resulted from all that work, the way effects are said to result from a series of causes."-M.G. Lord, The New York Times Book Review An excerpt A few months ago, a friend I was talking with began to tell me about a friend of his named Gary Isaacs, who was working at the downtown headquarters of one of the city's top investment houses as an executive in the division monitoring the savings-and-loan crisis. Though Isaacs was just thirty-two years old, my friend recounted, he had previously worked on the Street in several other capacities as well, and before that he'd had a notably successful career in an entirely different field; what's more, it seemed he was about to quit this one, too, and to head off in yet another direction. When I asked my friend what the previous career had been, and, for that matter, what the new one was going to be, he replied that it would be far more entertaining for me to hear the whole story from the man himself, which is how, a few days later, I came to find myself in the sleek elevator of one of downtown's better-known headquarters zooming up towards I didn't have the faintest idea what. "Mr. Weschler has an extraordinary power to catch the crucial moment in people's lives--that moment (of passion or conviction) which suddenly alters the course of a life. Such 'conversions' may be absurd or tragic, or delightful, or sublime--we see all of these, and more, in these sometimes very odd, but intensely human, and beautifully told tales." -Oliver Sacks

In this heartfelt, passionate and inspiring account, Kirk Douglas describes in powerful detail the incident that changed his life. He explains the fear he felt following his stroke, and the depression that took him to the brink of suicide. But a mixture of love, support and sheer determination pulled him through. Encouraged by the stories of Christoper Reeve and Stephen Hawking, Kirk, one of the great screen actors, had to learn how to speak all over again. When he recovered to receive an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement, it made all the hard work worthwhile.

A disabled foreigner in Japan--a society historically hostile to difference--Kenny Fries spins a tale of exciting, bewildering adventure. As he visits Japanese gardens, experiences Noh and butoh, and meets artists and scholars, he also discovers disabled gods, one-eyed samurai, blind chanting priests, and A-bomb survivors. When he is diagnosed as HIV-positive, all his assumptions about Japan, the body, and mortality are shaken, and he must find a way to re-enter life on new terms.

HONORABLE MENTION, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award, Autobiography & Memoir! Lifelong activist Judy Gumbo, an original member of The Yippies, a 1960s anti-war satirical protest group, offers an insider feminist memoir of her involvement with the Yippies, Black Panthers, women's rights, environmental actions, and a life of activism. In 1968, a 24-year-old woman moved to Berkeley, California and immediately became enmeshed in the Youth International Party, aka The Yippies, an anti-war satirical protest group. In the next few years, Judy Gumbo (a nickname given her by Eldridge Cleaver), was soon at the center of counter-cultural activity-from protests in People's Park, to meetings at Black Panther headquarters, to running a pig for President at the raucous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, a protest that devolved into violent attacks by the police and arrests that led to the notorious Chicago Conspiracy Trial. In this historical account, Gumbo reveals intimate details of--and struggles with--her fellow radicals Jerry Rubin, Anita & Abbie Hoffman, Eldridge Cleaver, Paul Krassner, Stew Albert, and more, detailing their experiences in radical protests. This deep dive into her activism includes details of her organization of a national women's rights group, her visit to North Vietnam during the war, her travels around the globe to promote women's liberation and anti-war protest, and her environmental activism. It also includes extensive excerpts from illegal wiretaps and surveillance by the FBI. "A welcome addition to the literature of radical activism." --Kirkus Reviews "A fun read and a valuable political document, long overdue." --Counterpunch Yippie Girl explores Gumbo's life as a protester to show that, while circumstances always change, protesters can stay loyal to the causes they believe in and remain true to themselves. She also reveals how dogmatism, authoritarianism, and interpersonal conflict can damage those same just causes, offering a timeless and strategic guide for activists today protesting against injustice in all its forms.

A thoroughly engrossing memoir that recounts Beckwith's halting steps toward scientific triumphs--among them, the discovery of the genetic element that turns on genes--as well as his emergence as a world-class political activist, "Making Genes, Making Waves" is a compelling history of the major controversies in genetics during the last 30 years.

From his extraordinary beginnings-his mother went into labor while gambling at a French casino-to escaping Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and ultimately hoping to conquer New York City, John Gruen writes a subtly revealing self-portrait in Callas Kissed Me...Lenny Too! As a boy unable to speak a single word of English, Gruen was determined to make a successful life for himself in America. Anxious to know what his adopted country was truly about, he ventured to the Midwest to attend the University of Iowa, where he emerged, five years later, as a more-or-less Americanized graduate student on his way to a PhD scholarship to the prestigious Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, and as the 20-year-old husband of ravishing fellow student and painter Jane Wilson. The story of the Gruens' life in New York City, from the 1950s to the present, explores a complex marriage and two parallel journeys of artistic growth. Gruen worked as a composer, photographer, and journalist; Wilson developed as a distinguished painter, though often supported the two with work as a fashion model. Life was always on the move for the couple. Though hardly well-connected and certainly not wealthy, the Gruens knew everyone during their many years in the artistic milieu of which they were an active part. From the many apartments they occupied in New York City to the countless dinner parties, nights at the Cedar bar, and weekends at their Hamptons barn, their life was a nonstop social whirlwind. There were chance encounters with Salvador Dalí, evenings spent pretending to be Chekhov characters at home with E.E. Cummings and Marion Morehouse, working vacations to Italy with the Leonard Bernsteins, and a long working visit to Gian Carlo Menotti's baronial Scottish estate. Their ever-expanding circle of acquaintances and friends also included Rudolf Nureyev, Maria Callas, Willem De Kooning, Francis Bacon, Judy Garland, Tennessee Williams, Bette Davis, Samuel Beckett, Lucien Freud, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and so many others. It was all quite head-spinning, at times producing hugely complicated situations, but throughout it all, John Gruen and Jane Wilson built successful careers based on hard work and a steady conviction that life should be lived to the fullest.

"I am so proud to be Jamie's 'dad.' She is not only a talented actress but also a bright, generous, and inspiring young lady." -- James Gandolfini "Jamie-Lynn Sigler definitely knows how to inspire people....I'm grateful to call her my friend." -- Lance Bass, *N'SYNC SHE'S YOUNG, TALENTED, BEAUTIFUL AND FAMOUS. BUT NOTHING IS THAT SIMPLE... Everyone knows Jamie-Lynn Sigler as Meadow Soprano on the HBO hit television series The Sopranos. But there's so much more to her, as her candid, outspoken autobiography proves. In Wise Girl, Jamie-Lynn reveals both the perks and the pressures that have come with fame, and how uncertain, fearful times have made her stronger, more confident, and able to face life's challenges. Writing openly and from the heart, she describes the emotional and physical toll taken when Lyme disease left the healthy 19-year-old paralyzed at the height of The Soprano 's popularity; an obsession with her weight that nearly destroyed her career; and the dark side of overnight success. Her story will both surprise and inspire you. For this wise girl, the key to success isn't just what's on the outside -- it's using your brains, going with your gut, and learning from your experiences, including the mistakes, every day.

A history of the influential labor Zionist youth movement Habonim. the movement's history is recounted in its members' words, including those of Golda Meir, Mordecai Richler and Leonard Fein. the afterword is provided by Chaim Herzog, a founder of habonim in ireland

Zusammenfassung: The stories of Albert Schatz, discoverer of streptomycin, and Inge Auerbacher, a concentration camp survivor whose life was saved by the drug.

Greenwich Village in the 1950s was a haven to which young poets, painters, and jazz musicians flocked. Among them was Hettie Cohen, who'd been born into a middle-class Jewish family in Queens and who'd chosen to cross racial barriers to marry the controversial black poet LeRoi Jones. Theirs was a bohemian life in the awakening East Village of underground publishing and jazz lofts, through which drifted such icons of the generation as Allen Ginsberg, Thelonious Monk, Jack Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, Billie Holiday, James Baldwin, and Franz Kline.

"In Fireweed, Gerda Lerner, a pioneer and leading scholar in women's history, tells her story of moral courage and commitment to social change with a novelist's skill and a historian's command of context. Lerner's memoir focuses on the formative experiences that made her an activist for social justice before her academic career began. The child of a well-to-do Viennese Jewish family, she was still a teenager when a fascist regime came to power in 1934, and she became involved in the underground resistance movement. The Nazi takeover of Austria cast her into prison, then forced her and her family into exile; she alone was able to leave Europe. Once in the United States, she experienced the harshness of the Depression and despair over the fate of her family. Still, she persisted in adapting to the new culture and to becoming a writer. Here she met and married her life-long partner, Carl Lerner, a film editor and director. Together they become deeply involved in left-wing activities, from struggling to unionize the film industry and resisting the blacklist in Hollywood to community organizing for peace, for an interracial civil rights movement, and for better schools in New York City. Lerner insists that her decades of grassroots organizing largely account for the theoretical insights she was later able to bring to the development of women's history." -- Publisher's description.

Nearly a century and a half after his death, Abraham Lincoln remains an intrinsic part of the American consciousness, yet his intentions as president and his personal character continue to stir debate.Now, in The Lincoln Enigma, Gabor Boritt invites renowned Lincoln scholars, and rising new voices, to take a look at much-debated aspects of Lincoln's life, including his possible gay relationships, his plan to send blacks back to Africa, and his high-handed treatment of the Constitution. Boritt explores Lincoln's proposals that looked to a lily-white America. Jean Baker marvels at Lincoln's loves and marriage. David Herbert Donald highlights the similarities and differences of the Union and Confederate presidents' roles as commanders-in-chief. Douglas Wilson shows us the young Lincoln--not the strong leader of popular history, but a young man who questions his own identity and struggles to find his purpose. Gerald Prokopowicz searches for the military leader, William C. Harris for the peacemaker, and Robert Bruce meditates on Lincoln and death. In a final chapter Boritt and Harold Holzer offer a fascinating portfolio of Lincoln images in modern art.Acute and thought-provoking in their observations, this all-star cast of historians--including two Pulitzer and three Lincoln Prize winners--questions our assumptions of Lincoln, and provides a new vitality to our ongoing reflections on his life and legacy.

"Timely and beautifully written, New England Beyond Criticism provides a passionate defense of the importance of the literature of New England to the American literary canon, and its impact on the development of spirituality, community, and culture in America. An exploration and defense of the prominence of New England's literary tradition within the canon of American literature. Traces the impact of the literature of New England on the development of spirituality, community, and culture in America. Includes in-depth studies of work from authors and poets such as William Bradford, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, Susan Howe, and Marilynne Robinson. Examines the place and impression of New England literature in the nation's intellectual history and the lives of its readers"--

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When Armand Hammer died at the age of 92, he was chairman of the Occidental Petroleum Company, lauded for his financial support of cancer research and for his art collection. But behind the facade of respectability lay a lifetime of fraud, both personal and professional. Now, the bestselling author of The Assassination Chronicles reveals the true story of this manipulative and corrupt man. of photos.

From such films as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and GoodFellas, Martin Scorsese has won a reputation as the most talented filmmaker of his generation. Now, with the director's full cooperation, esteemed critic David Ehrenstein examines every aspect of Scorsese's life and career in penetrating detail. Illustrated with numerous photographs, many rare.

A hilarious, quirky, and unflinchingly honest memoir about one young woman's terrible and life-changing decisions while hoping (and sometimes failing) to find herself, in the style of Never Have I Ever and Adulting. Join Dana Schwartz on a journey revisiting all of the terrible decisions she made in her early twenties through the internet's favorite method of self-knowledge: the quiz. Part-memoir, part-VERY long personality test, CHOOSE YOUR OWN DISASTER is a manifesto about the millennial experience and modern feminism and how the easy advice of "you can be anything you want!" is actually pretty fucking difficult when there are so many possible versions of yourself it seems like you could be. Dana has no idea who she is, but at least she knows she's a Carrie, a Ravenclaw, a Raphael, a Belle, a former emo kid, a Twitter addict, and a millennial just trying her best.--Amazon.com.

The legendary lyricist, playwright, screenwriter and performer reveals her life offstage and behind the scenes, her difficulties with her daughter, the loss of her son to drugs, and people who changed her life forever

What a century of life experience can teach us about happiness, ambition, courage, love and how to make the most of the lives we've been given. How many people do you know grew up as a poor immigrant in America during the Great Depression, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day, were present at the liberation of concentration camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Flossenburg, held leading Nazis to account at the Nuremberg trials and have fought for an International Criminal Court to hold war criminals to account the world over? Now you know one. Benjamin Ferencz turned 100 in 2020. In this extraordinary book, he shares his remarkable life story and the nine humble, compelling and life-affirming lessons he's learned along the way that we can all harness for ourselves.