In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed $8,000 his first year. Today, Nike s annual sales top $30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after bac

This is the definitive biography of music legend Johnny Cashby the leading authority on the star. This major new biography is afull and frank account of the late country legend Johnny Cash(1932-2003), an artist who ranks with Elvis Presley and FrankSinatra as one of the 20th century's major singers. Written byMichael Streissguth, a leading authority on the singer, and theauthor of "Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison" and "Ring of Fire", it isthe first full-length biography of Johnny Cash since ChristopherWren's was published more than 30 years ago. This biography isunauthorized - though written with the full backing of Cathy Cash(Cash's daughter from his first marriage) - and provides a far morerounded view of the singer than previous books such "A Man CalledCash", which stops short at the final stage of his life, and Cash'sautobiography which has many gaps. Although a fan of Cash,Streissguth is not afraid to approach the less romantic side of hissubject. The book is propelled by Streissguth's unrivalledknow

Alistair Urquhart was a soldier in the Gordon Highlanderscaptured by the Japanese in Singapore. He not only survived workingon the notorious Bridge on the River Kwai , but he was subsequentlytaken on one of the Japanese 'hellships' which was torpedoed.Nearly everyone else on board died and Urquhart spent 5 days aloneon a raft in the South China Sea before being rescued by a whalingship. He was taken to Japan and then forced to work in a mine nearNagasaki. Two months later a nuclear bomb dropped just ten milesaway ...This is the extraordinary story of a young men, con*edat nineteen and whose father was a Somme Veteran, survived not justone, but three close encounters with death - encounters whichkilled nearly all his comrades.

Marty Sklar was hired by The Walt Disney Company after hisjunior year at UCLA, and began his Disney career at Disneyland inJuly 1955, the month before the park opened. He spent his firstdecade at Disney as "the kid," the very youngest of the creativeteam Walt had assembled at WED Enterprises. But despite his youth,his talents propelled him forward into substantial responsibility:he became Walt's speech writer, penned Walt's and Roy's messages inthe company's annual report, composed most of the publicity andmarketing materials for Disneyland, conceived presentations for theU.S. government, devised initiatives to obtain sponsors to enablenew Disneyland developments, and wrote a twenty-four-minute filmexpressing Walt's philosophy for the Walt Disney World project andEpcot. He was Walt's literary right-hand man. Over the next forty years, Marty Sklar rose to become presidentand principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, andhe devoted his entire career to creating, enhancing, and expand

国际读书网站Goodreads评选的 2013年度*传记类作品. "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALAis the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed

The 50th-anniversary edition of the German general's legendarymemoir. When published in 1952, Panzer Leader quickly became a bestseller, but over the half-decade that followed, it also establisheditself as a classic, lauded by Stephen Ambrose as "a mesmerizingread." A dramatic first-person account by the father of modern tankwarfare, it is also a searing group portrait of the Third Reich'sleading personalities as they turned imminent victory intoagonizing defeat.

The Romans regarded her as "fatale monstrum”—a fatal omen.Pascal said the shape of her nose changed the history of the world.Shakespeare portrayed her as an icon of tragic love. But who wasCleopatra, really? We almost feel that we know Cleopatra, but ourdistorted image of a self-destructive beauty does no justice toCleopatra’s true genius. In Cleopatra, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesleyoffers an unexpectedly vivid portrait of a skillful Egyptian ruler.Stripping away our preconceptions, many of them as old as Egypt’sRoman conquerors, Cleopatra is a magnificent biography of a mostextraordinary queen.

This book is both a revelatory biography and an accessiblestudy of Leonardo's life and multi-faceted work as a scientist andengineer. It covers all aspects of the man's life but is also are-interpretation of the voluminous evidence to paint an originalpicture of Leonardo da Vinci not only as the archetypal polymath,but as the first true scientist. Topics include: * A detailedinvestigation of how Leonardo's manu*s and notebooks were lostto the world and kept secret during his own lifetime and how thisaltered the progress of science. * A thorough analysis of his workas a scientist and how he predated many of the great figures of the16th and 17th centuries, including Galileo, Kepler, William Harvey,Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. * Leonardo's legacy -- what didLeonardo leave in his notebooks and how may they be viewed in thelight of modern scientific understanding? What did he achieve inscience?

No tennis player since Andre Agassi has captivated the worldlike Rafael Nadal. He's a rarity in today's sporting arena - a truesportsman who chooses to let his raw talent, dedication andhumility define him. This autobiography, written by Nadal withaward-winning journalist John Carlin, includes memorable highlightssuch as winning the Wimbledon 2008 final in what John McEnroecalled, "the greatest game of tennis ever played" and completing acareer Grand Slam after winning the French Open, Wimbledon, and theUS Open in 2010.? This book gives Nadal's millions of fans whatthey've been waiting for - a glimpse behind the racquet to learnwhat really makes Nadal - an intensely private person who until nowhas never talked about his personal and family life - tick.

国际读书网站Goodreads评选的 2013年度*传记类作品. "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and e

"Miller is an excellent historian...and a fine biographer....[His] artful arrangement of his conclusions...makes the booksomething of an intellectual thriller."-- New York Times BookReview. The most important scientist of the twentieth century and themost important artist had their periods of greatest creativityalmost simultaneously and in remarkably similar circumstances. This fascinating parallel biography of Albert Einstein andPablo Picasso as young men examines their greatestcreations--Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Einstein'sspecial theory of relativity. Miller shows how these breakthroughsarose not only from within their respective fields but from largercurrents in the intellectual culture of the times. Ultimately,Miller shows how Einstein and Picasso, in a deep and importantsense, were both working on the same problem.