At the age of seventeen, Marco Martinez was a thug At the age of twenty-two, he was a hero Hard Corps tells the story of a young man’s incredibletransformation from gun-toting gang member to recipient of the NavyCross, the second-highest honor a U.S. Marine can receive. Gritty,riveting, and ultimately inspiring, Hard Corps captures the“ooh-rah” spirit of the U.S. Marine Corps and the grueling life onthe front lines.
The New York Times Bestseller That Reads Like a Back-PorchConversation with Reba! In a dazzling career, Reba McEntire has become a true countrysuperstar--and a trailblazing businesswoman with her own multimediaentertainment corporation. Yet she is a rare celebrity who is alsobeloved by her millions of fans for the way she lives her life. ForReba has balanced the demands of career and family, succeeded inshow business without sacrificing her values, and kept up with thetimes without abandoning her country roots. Here Reba writes about the roles a modern woman tries to fill,roles as many and varied as the fabric pieces of an heirloom quilt.Facing the challenges of being a wife, mother, stepmother,daughter, sister, performer, executive, community member, andChristian, Reba has found inspiration and comfort in the values ofher past as an Oklahoma ranch girl. In this generous and wise book,she shows how you can keep traditional values fresh and vital inyour own search for a fulfilling life. Whether you read it
Country music superstar Reba McEntire describes her Oklahomachildhood as a member of a cattle ranching family, her early daysas a performer, her award-winning musical achievements, the tragicloss of her eight band members, and her marriages. Reprint.
Welcome to the daring, thrilling, and downright strangeadventures of William Willis, one of the world’s original extremesportsmen. Driven by an unfettered appetite for personal challengeand a yen for the path of most resistance, Willis mounted asingle-handed and wholly unlikely rescue in the jungles of FrenchGuiana and then twice crossed the broad Pacific on rafts of his owndesign, with only housecats and a parrot for companionship. Hisfirst voyage, atop a ten-ton balsa monstrosity, was undertaken in1954 when Willis was sixty. His second raft, having crossed eleventhousand miles from Peru, found the north shore of Australiashortly after Willis’s seventieth birthday. A marvel of vigor andfitness, William Willis was a connoisseur of ordeal, all butorchestrating short rations, ship-wreck conditions, and crushingsolitude on his trans-Pacific voyages. He’d been inspired by Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl’s bid to provethat a primitive raft could negotiate the open ocean. Willis’strips confirmed tha
Moody's famous autobiography is a classic work on growing uppoor and Black in the rural South. Her searing account of lifebefore the Civil Rights Movement is as moving as The Color Purpleand as important as And Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. "A history ofour time . . . (and) a reminder that we cannot now relax".--SenatorEdward Kennedy.
In the spring of 1884 Ulysses S. Grant heeded the advice of MarkTwain and finally agreed to write his memoirs. Little did Grant orTwain realize that this seemingly straightforward decision wouldprofoundly alter not only both their lives but the course ofAmerican literature. Over the next fifteen months, as the two menbecame close friends and intimate collaborators, Grant racedagainst the spread of cancer to compose a triumphant account of hislife and times—while Twain struggled to complete and publish hisgreatest novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . Inthis deeply moving and meticulously researched book, veteran writerMark Perry reconstructs the heady months when Grant and Twaininspired and cajoled each other to create two quintessentiallyAmerican masterpieces. In a bold and colorful narrative, Perry recounts the early careersof these two giants, traces their quest for fame and elusivefortunes, and then follows the series of events that brought themtogether as friends. The reason Grant let Twain talk
Albert Einstein's brain floats in a Tupperware bowl in a grayduffel bag in the trunk of a Buick Skylark barreling acrossAmerica. Driving the car is journalist Michael Paterniti. Sittingnext to him is an eighty-four-year-old pathologist named ThomasHarvey, who performed the autopsy on Einstein in 1955 -- thensimply removed the brain and took it home. And kept it for overforty years. On a cold February day, the two men and the brain leave NewJersey and light out on I-70 for sunny California, where Einstein'sperplexed granddaughter, Evelyn, awaits. And riding along as theimaginary fourth passenger is Einstein himself, an id-drivengenius, the original galactic slacker with his head in the stars.Part travelogue, part memoir, part history, part biography, andpart meditation, Driving Mr. Albert is one of the most unique roadtrips in modern literature.
