Although he was a suburban husband and father, living a far different life than the “Wolf of Wall Street,” Michael Kimelman had a good run as the cofounder of a hedge fund. He had left a cushy yet suffocating job at a law firm to try his hand at the high-risk life of a proprietary trader — and he did pretty well for himself. But it all came crashing down in the wee hours of November 5, 2009, when the Feds came to his door—almost taking the door off its hinges. While his wife and children were sequestered to a bedroom, Kimelman was marched off in embarrassment in view of his neighbors and TV crews who had been alerted in advance. He was arrested as part of a huge insider trading case, and while he was offered a “sweetheart” no-jail probation plea, he refused, maintaining his innocence. The lion’s share of Confessions of a Wall Street Insider was written while Kimelman was an inmate at Lewisburg Penitentiary. In nearly two years behind bars, he reflected on his experiences before incarceration—rubbing elbows and throwing back far too many cocktails with financial titans and major figures in sports and entertainment (including Leonardo DiCaprio, Alex Rodriguez, Ben Bernanke, and Alan Greenspan, to drop a few names); making and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in daily gambles on the Street; getting involved with the wrong people, who eventually turned on him; realizing that none of that mattered in the end. As he writes: “Stripped of family, friends, time, and humanity, if there’s ever a place to give one pause, it’s prison . . . Tomorrow is promised to no one.” In Confessions of a Wall Street Insider , he reveals the triumphs, pains, and struggles, and how, in the end, it just might have made him a better person. Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

"You're not doing it right." Writer/comedian Michael Ian Black has been hearing these five words all his life. And now--on the eve of his fortieth birthday--he is finally beginning to wonder why. As a husband and father living in the suburbs, Michael asks the question so many of us ask ourselves at one point or another: How did I end up here? (And also: If Fat Kevin Federline succumbs to his own wasted potential, what does that mean for the rest of us?) The answers to these questions, and others that you probably would have never thought to ask, are painstakingly detailed in Black's debut memoir. Darkly humorous and told with raw honesty, Michael shares his neuroses as he takes on his childhood, his marriage, his children, and his career with candor and deadpan wit in this funny-because-it's-true essay collection.--From publisher description.

The story of the fight to gain the vote for women is about much more than a peripheral if picturesque skirmish around the introduction of universal suffrage. It is an explosive story of social and sexual revolutionary upheaval, and one which has not yet ended. The movement for women's suffrage in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries prefigured to a startling extent the controversies which rage today around the role of women. Far from the stereotype of a uniform body of women chaining themselves to railings, the early feminist movement was riven by virulent arguments over women's role in society, the balance to be struck between self-fulfilment and their duties to family and children, and their relationship with men. Melanie Phillips' brilliant book tells the story of the fight for women's suffrage in a way which sets the high drama of those events in the context of the moral and intellectual ferment that characterised it.

For a group of four New York friends, the past ten years have been defined by marriage and motherhood. Educated to believe that they and their generation would conquer the world, they nonetheless left high-powered jobs to stay at home with their babies. What was intended as a temporary time-out has turned into a decade. Now at forty, with their kids growing up, Amy, Jill, Roberta and Karen wake up to a life and a future that is not what they intended. Illicit affairs, money problems, issues with children and husbands all rear their heads, and the friends wonder if it's time for a change...

Can a man be content with a piece of bread and some change tossed his way from a passerby? Today's modern welfare state expects he can. Those who control the money in our society think that giving a dollar at the train station and then appropriating a billion dollars for federal housing can cure the ails of the homeless and the poor. But the crisis of the modern welfare state is more than a crisis of government. Private charities that dispense aid indiscriminately while ignoring the moral and spiritual needs of the poor are also to blame. Like animals in the zoo at feeding time, the needy are given a plate of food but rarely receive the love and time that only a person can give. Poverty fighters 100 years ago were more compassionate--in the literal meaning of "suffering with"--than many of us are now. They opened their own homes to deserted women and children. They offered employment to nomadic men who had abandoned hope and human contact. Most significantly, they made moral demands on recipients of aid. They saw family, work, freedom, and faith as central to our being, not as life-style options. No one was allowed to eat and run. Some kind of honest labor was required of those who needed food or a place to sleep in return. Woodyards next to homeless shelters were as common in the 1890s as liquor stores are in the 1990s. When an able bodied woman sought relief, she was given a seat in the "sewing room" and asked to work on garments given to the helpless poor. To begin where poverty fighters a century ago began, Marvin Olasky emphasizes seven ideas that recent welfare practice has put aside: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, freedom, and most importantly, belief in God. In the end, not much will be accomplished without a spiritual revival that transforms the everyday advice we give and receive, and the way we lead our lives. It's time we realized that there is only so much that public policy can do. That only a richness of spirit can battle a poverty of soul. The century-old question--does any given scheme of help... make great demands on men to give themselves to their brethren?--is still the right one to ask. Most of our 20th-century schemes have failed. It's time to learn from the warm hearts and hard heads of the 19th-century.

"Captures the resilience of human dignity and optimism. . . . A powerful must-read." -- Booklist (starred review) During World War II, Tama is sent to live in an incarceration camp in the desert. All Japanese Americans from the West Coast--elderly people, children, babies--now live in camps like Minidoka. To be who she is has become a crime, and Tama doesn't know when or if she will ever leave. Trying not to think of the life she once had, she works in the incarceration camp's tiny library, taking solace in pages bursting with color and light, love and fairness. And she isn't the only one. George waits each morning by the door, his arms piled with books checked out the day before. As their friendship grows, Tama wonders: Can anyone possibly read so much? Is she the reason George comes to the library every day? Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura's beautifully illustrated, elegant love story features a photo of the real Tama and George--the author's grandparents--and an unflinching and necessary afterword that helps readers to learn more about a time in our history that continues to resonate.

"Mae's work may be more relevant now than in her heyday. Like those of many other freedom fighters throughout history, the ghost of Mae Brussell will never rest till justice is served."--Tim Cahill "The main Brussell thesis, if I dare risk commit the sin of summary on her complex work, was that an ex-Nazi scientist-Old Boy OSS clique in the CIA using Mafia hit men changed the course of American history by bumping off one and all, high and low, who became an irritant to them."--Warren Hinkle, San Francisco Examiner columnist The Essential Mae Brussell is a compilation of chilling essays and radio transcripts by the seminal American anti-fascist researcher, famously supported by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Mae Brussell was a married housewife with five children living in southern California before she took up the study of fascism in America. After the Kennedy assassination, she purchased the twenty-six-volume Warren Commission Report, and compiled, for herself, evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was, as he maintained after his arrest, a "patsy." She had a regular radio broadcast on KLRB, an independent FM radio station in Carmel, California. She also published articles in Paul Krassner's the Realist , Hustler , People's Almanac , and the Berkeley Barb . In 1983, Mae's hour-long program shifted to KAZU-FM in Pacific Grove, California, and she remained on the air weekly until her final broadcast in June 1988. On October 3, 1988, at sixty-six, Brussell died of cancer.

Simon and Flora Beaufort have three perfect children and a comfortable, happy life in London. When Flora takes the children for a month-long vacation in France, Simon stays home to work on his latest film project...what could go wrong? A Pure Clear Light examines a marriage at the moment it goes haplessly off-track: Simon succumbs to the temptation of his cool, blonde accountant and Flora heeds the cry of her reawakened faith. Ultimately, though, neither Simon nor Flora can escape the revelation that lies beyond excuses and remorse and candour, at the heart of the phenomenon called love. In St John's hands, what is commonplace is transformed and transcendent.

With black humour and luminously crafted lyricism, these poems weave together the stories of an unnamed rural village. We meet children with unspoken secrets and adults on the verge of adultery, living against a natural world that is blind and ravenous.

With three-fourths of all poor families headed by women and about 54 percent of single-mother families living below the poverty line, a rethinking of the fundamental assumptions of our much-reviled welfare program is clearly necessary. Here, Linda Gordon unearths the tangled roots of AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children). Competing visions of how and to whom public aid should be distributed were advanced by male bureaucrats, black women's organizations, and white progressive feminists. From their policy debates emerged a two-track system of public aid, in which single mothers got highly stigmatized "welfare" while other groups, such as the aged and the unemployed, received "entitlements." Gordon strips today's welfare debates of decades of irrelevant and irrational accretion, revealing that what appeared progressive in the 1930s is antiquated in the 1990s. She shows that only by shedding false assumptions, and rethinking the nature of poverty, can we advance a truly effective welfare reform.

The glorious novel from the bestselling Lesley Lokko; an epic tale of three women whose lives interweave over decades. In a beachfront mansion in Martha's Vineyard, Annick and Rebecca relax, safe in the knowledge that their young children are in the care of life-long friend Tash. But by the end of the afternoon, one of the children will have vanished... Annick, daughter of an actress and an assassinated president, has spent her life running from the truth of her family's wealth. Rebecca has always done the right thing. Perfect daughter. Perfect wife. Perfect mother. She's beginning to wonder if she'll ever get chance to live for herself. And Tash, free from the poverty of her heritage, has the world at her feet. So why is she struggling to keep a grip on her life? This is the sweeping story of three very different women; their pasts, their secrets, and their friendship.

In a beachfront mansion in Martha's Vineyard, Annick and Rebecca relax, safe in the knowledge that their young children are in the care of life-long friend Tash. But by the end of the afternoon, one of the children will have vanished...Annick, daughter of an actress and an assassinated president, has spent her life running from the truth of her family's wealth. Rebecca has always done the right thing. Perfect daughter. Perfect wife. Perfect mother. She's beginning to wonder if she'll ever get chance to live for herself. And Tash, free from the poverty of her heritage, has the world at her feet. So why is she struggling to keep a grip on her life? This is the sweeping story of three very different women; their pasts, their secrets, and their friendship.

Short and inspiring, but rarely surprising, this collection of remarks, aphorisms and exhortations about the nature and purpose of poetry began in the late 1950s, when Ferlinghetti was just coming into his own as a Beat poet and publisher of City Lights Books. After 50 years of revisions and additions, his claims may not strike experienced readers as fresh-and some may even seem cliched: "The state of the world," his first page declares, "calls out for poetry to save it." On the other hand, Ferlinghetti's very large body of fans (he is one of the bestselling 20th-century American poets) should find reason and justice in these eternal verities, couched in up-to-date lingo: "Poems are e-mails from the unknown beyond cyberspace," for example. Beginning teachers of creative writing should also find Ferlinghetti's instructions of use: "Read between the lines of human discourse." Two groups of aphorisms make up most of the volume, to which Ferlinghetti adds a short essay and two 1970s poems. "Modern Poetry Is Prose" encourages young writers to discover the "dark spirit of earth and blood"; "Populist Manifesto #1" hopes "Whitman's wild children," however pressed down by modernity, will soon "Awake and sing in the open.

Children's welfare is the driving force behind Dr. Laura Schlessinger's mission. A devoted mother to her son, Deryk, she identifies herself as "her kid's mom" because that's her most important job. Never one to shy away from tough truths, Dr. Laura marshalls compelling evidence for the widespread neglect of America's children and convincingly condemns the numerous rationalizations to excuse it. Parents, special interest groups, and professionals in education and psychology all contribute to a dangerous trend that places adult fulfillment above obligation to children. Parenthood by Proxy addresses the serious causes and effects of this national crisis, among them the high rate of divorce, serial marriages, single parenting, the premature sexualization of children, dual-career families, disdain for religion, the redefinition of immoral behavior as lifestyle choices, and societal intolerance for the concept of judgment. In Parenthood by Proxy, Dr. Laura exhorts parents to make their own children their top priority and, if necessary, to change their lives to do so. In her inimitable, straight-shooting style, Dr. Laura entreats parents to involve themselves in their children's hearts, minds, and souls, to cherish and protect them, and to commit to the essential task of teaching them right from wrong. She acknowledges that parents no longer get much support from neighbors or public and private institutions, but she urges mothers and fathers to work even harder to counteract the prevailing culture of selfishness and irresponsibility. Parenthood by Proxy covers all aspects of parenting, from childbearing to discipline, from multiple families to being role models. Dr. Laura also tackles such cultural and societal concerns as abortion, modern sexuality, drug and alcohol use, violence, discipline, and a child's right to privacy. Parenthood by Proxy is a passionate and provocative summation of the perils of parenting and a road map to safety for America's families.

They number in the millions and they are incredibly important to families and to our society, yet they are underappreciated, little respected, and even controversial. Who are they? They are the stay-at-home moms. These are women who know in their hearts that staying home to raise their children is the right choice for the whole family. Whether they do it from the outset of their marriages or make the difficult transition from career-driven women to homemakers, it is a choice that is incredibly rich and rewarding, not to mention challenging. Building on principles developed during her long career as a licensed marriage and family therapist, Dr. Laura provides a wealth of advice and encouragement to women as they navigate the wonders and struggles of being stay-at-home moms. In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms can help you to: Hold your head high and deal with naysayers Recognize the benefits for your children and your marriage Understand the changes you notice in yourself Realize that your current sacrifices will make for lasting bonds and a stronger family, in addition to a more cohesive community

"The Threepenny Opera" is Bertolt Brecht's savage satire on the bourgeois Weimar Republic, and his most performed and studied play. Edited and translated by Ralph Manheim and John Willett, this student edition contains commentary, analysis and context, as well as the full text of the play. One of the major dramatists of the twentieth century, Bertolt Brecht's plays include "The Life of Galileo," "Mother Courage and her Children" and "The Caucasian Chalk Circle," He died in 1956.

With the simple power and astonishing candor that made his 1988 autobiography, The Ragman's Son, a number one international bestseller, Kirk Douglas now shares his quest for spirituality and Jewish identity -- and his heroic fight to overcome crippling injuries and a devastating stroke. On February 13, 1991, at the age of seventy-four, Kirk Douglas, star of such major motion-picture classics as Champion, Spartacus, and Paths of Glory, was in a helicopter crash, in which two people died and he himself sustained severe back injuries. As he lay in the hospital recovering, he kept wondering: Why had two younger men died while he, who had already lived his life fully, survived? The question drove this son of a Russian-Jewish ragman to a search for his roots and on a long journey of self-discovery -- a quest not only for the meaning of life and his own relationship with God, but for his own identity as a Jew. Through the study of the Bible, Kirk Douglas found a new spirituality and purpose. His newfound faith deeply enriched his relationship with his own children and taught him -- a man who had always been famously demanding and impatient -- to listen to others and, above all, to hear his own inner voice. Told with warmth, wit, much humor, and deep passion, Climbing the Mountain is inspirational in the very best sense of the word.

They are America's forgotten children, the hundreds of thousands of child prostitutes who walk the Las Vegas Strip, the casinos of Atlantic City, the truck stops on interstates, and the street corners of our cities. Many people wrongly believe sex trafficking involves young women from foreign lands. In reality, the majority of teens caught in the sex trade are American girls--runaways and throwaways who become victims of ruthless pimps. In Somebody's Daughter: The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them, meet the girls who are fighting for their dignity, the cops who are trying to rescue them, and the community activists battling to protect the nation's most forsaken children. Author Julian Sher takes you behind the scenes to expose one of America's most underreported crimes: A girl from New Jersey gets arrested in Las Vegas and, at great risk to her own life, helps the FBI take down a million-dollar pimping empire. An abused teenager in Texas has the courage to take the stand in a grueling trial that sends her pimp away for 75 years. Survivors of the sex trade in New York, Phoenix, and Minneapolis set up shelters and rescue centers that offer young girls a chance to break free from the streets. "The sex trade is the new drug trade," says one FBI special agent, and Somebody's Daughter is a call to action, shining a light on America's dirty little secret.

The first of four volumes collecting Feiffer's landmark "Village Voice" strips.""My aim was to take the Robert Benchley hero and launch him into the Age of Freud.""--Jules FeifferIn 1956, a relatively unknown cartoonist by the name of Jules Feiffer started contributing a strip to the only alternative weekly published in the US, a small radical newspaper called "The Village Voice," It was originally titled "Sick Sick Sick," but Feiffer changed the name to, simply, Feiffer, because he got tired of explaining that the title referred to the society he was commenting on, not the nature of his humor, which, he insisted, was not sick.Politically, the '50s was dominated by the insipid Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower; the backwash of Joe McCarthy; and the Cold War, which was in full swing. Culturally, the Beats were revolutionizing literature, Marlon Brando was changing the face of acting, and Elvis Presley was altering the public's perception of pop music. The post-war suburban bliss of the country was being challenged by sociologists and economists in books like "The Lonely Crowd, The Other America," and "The Afflulent Society," The civil rights movement was gaining momentum. Camelot was just around the corner, and would be shattered by the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK. The Vietnam War would polarize the country. It was into this scrambled political-cultural climate that Jules Feiffer flung himself full throttle for the next ten years.His strip tackled just about every issue, private and public, that affected the sentient relationships, sexuality, love, family, parents, children, psychoanalysis, neuroses, presidents, politicians, media, race, class, labor, religion, foreign policy, war, and one or two other existential questions. It was the first time that the American public had been subjected to a weekly dose of comics that so uncompromisingly and wittily confronted individuals' private fears and society's public transgressions. "Explainers" is the first of four volumes collecting Feiffer's entire run of weekly strips from "The Village Voice," This edition contains approximately 500 strips originally published between 1956 and 1966 in a brick-like landscape hardcover format.

"There's a little Jewish mother in every mother," as comedienne Judy Gold reveals in her achingly hilarious and poignant book For a Jewish girl who remembers the first book ever read to her as a child was the pop-up version of The Diary of Anne Frank, learning how to be a Jewish mother who wasnt a carbon copy of HER Jewish mother wasnt easy. Here, Emmy Awardwinning comedienne Judy Gold asks, "Are there any Jewish mothers out there like me, or are they all, G-d forbid, like my mother" In 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, she incorporates her own adventures in Jewish motherdom and her memories of growing up Jewish in suburban New Jersey -- communicating with her mother by putting Ann Landers articles on the fridge ("Dear Ann, My mother wont let me walk alone to school and Im 16! Please help." "Dear Ann, The crossing guard drinks. Please help.") -- with the voices of the fifty other Jewish mothers, she and her co-author, Kathleen Moira Ryan, interviewed. They asked homemakers, lawyers, Holocaust survivors twenty-five questions, including: --Who's your favorite Jewish mother (Judy's is Barbra Streisand.)? --How many times a day do you talk to your children or mother (for Judy, it's anywhere from one to the high double digits)? --Are Jewish mothers really more paranoid (or, "Why do I have to write an entire itinerary with names, addresses, and phone numbers every time I leave the house")? And so on. The culmination of these extraordinary stories confirms that there is ultimately something strong, courageous, and loving in every Jewish mother -- a hopeful -- and very funny -- message to mothers and their children everywhere.