Showing titles in Women

In the tradition of Antonia Fraser and Alison Weir, prize-winning historian Helen Castor delivers a compelling, eye-opening examination of women and power in England, witnessed through the lives of six women who exercised power against all odds - and one who never got the chance. Exploring the narratives of the Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, Margaret of Anjou, and other "she-wolves," as well as that of the Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, Castor invokes a magisterial discussion of how much - and how little - has changed through the centuries.

In this unique combination of African American music and cultural history, we come to know one of the greatest stars the world has ever seen - Eartha Kitt - as revealed by the person who knew her best, her daughter. Eartha, who was a mix of Black, Cherokee, and White, identified as Black, but Kitt, her biological daughter by a White man, is blonde and pale. This is the story of a little White girl raised by her natural mother, who was the biggest Black celebrity in the world. For three decades before Kitt married, they traveled the world together, mother and daughter.

For decades, Kathleen Buhle chose to play the role of the good wife, beginning when, as a naïve young woman from a working-class family on the South Side of Chicago, she met the dashing son of a senator in Oregon. Within months, Kathleen found herself pregnant and engaged. Determined to build her family on a foundation of love, Kathleen was convinced her and Hunter’s commitment to each other could overcome any obstacle. But when Hunter’s drinking evolved into dependency, she was forced to learn how irrevocably a marriage can fall apart under the merciless power of addiction.

The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all.

When twenty-two-year-old Jennifer Worth, from a comfortable middle-class upbringing, went to work as a midwife in the direst section of postwar London, she not only delivered hundreds of babies and touched many lives, she also became the neighborhood';s most vivid chronicler. Woven into the ongoing tales of her life in the East End are the true stories of the people Worth met who grew up in the dreaded workhouse, a Dickensian institution that limped on into the middle of the twentieth century.

During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven people, white nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island, yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed facility, dubbed “the pest house” where “no one left alive.”

Hattie McDaniel is best known for her performance as Mammy, the sassy foil to Scarlett O’Hara in the movie classic Gone with the Wind. Her powerful performance won her an Oscar® and bolstered the hopes of Black Hollywood that the entertainment industry was finally ready to write more multidimensional, fully realized roles for Blacks. But despite this victory, and pleas by organizations such as the NAACP and SAG, roles for Blacks continued to denigrate the African American experience.

For fashion journalist Lauren (“LoLo”) Scruggs, a short flight to look at Christmas lights turned into a nightmare when she was struck by the plane’s spinning propeller blades. As Lauren was rushed to the hospital, fighting for her life, the world watched in shock and horror. Several major surgeries and thousands of prayers later, Lauren was still alive. But she had suffered brain trauma and lost her left hand and left eye. Some thought that this would be the end of everything for her, a beautiful young woman working in an industry focused completely on appearance. They were wrong.

Eleanor Roosevelt was born into the privileges and prejudices of American aristocracy and into a family ravaged by alcoholism. She overcame debilitating roots: in her public life, fighting against racism and injustice and advancing the rights of women; and in her private life, forming lasting intimate friendships with some of the great men and women of her time.

Honest, relatable, and raw, every listener will connect with Sally’s story and see how they too can overcome even the most difficult situations in life and sport. Choose Strong is a story for everyone from every age and walk of life looking to live their strongest life.

When Aline Griffith was born in Pearl River, New York, in 1923, one might have guessed from her exceptional beauty that a career as an actress or model might be in her future. Few would have imagined that twenty-one years later, she would find herself in Spain as a deep-cover OSS agent, infiltrating the highest levels of Spanish society, or that five years later still, she would marry a Spanish grandee and become one of the most watched, most admired, most fascinating women of international society. This is the story of Aline, Countess of Romanones, a story of courage, beauty and success that is far more exciting than any fictionalized thriller.

Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows listeners how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.

As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers.

The longest reigning British monarch and female sovereign in history, Queen Victoria was a figure of profound paradox who has mystified historians for over a century. Now in this magisterial biography, A.N. Wilson rebukes the conventional wisdom about her life - that she was merely a "funny little woman in a bonnet" who did next to nothing - to show she was in fact intensely involved in state affairs despite a public façade of inaction.

With practical tools, poetry, and prompts for journaling and meditation to lead to self-understanding in each chapter, Zebian shows you how to build each room in your house. Written with her trademark power, candor, and warmth, Welcome Home is an answer to the pain we all experience when we don't feel at peace with ourselves.

More than seven years after his death, Michael Jackson continues to fascinate the world. Shana Mangatal was one of Jackson's only constant and true rocks of stability for nearly two decades. Their relationship was quiet and sweet and real - a closely guarded secret, known only to a few trusted employees and friends. Shana is now coming forward to tell their love story. Her story is rich with every little detail.

This memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia Child embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became.

American Empress is the best-selling history of the dramatic life of heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, daughter of breakfast-cereal magnate C.W. Post, founder of the Postum Cereal Company.

For fans of Tina Fey and David Sedaris - Internet star Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, makes her literary debut. Jenny Lawson realized that the most mortifying moments of our lives - the ones we'd like to pretend never happened - are in fact the ones that define us. In Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Lawson takes readers on a hilarious journey recalling her bizarre upbringing in rural Texas, her devastatingly awkward high school years, and her relationship with her long-suffering husband, Victor.

In November 2015 Sarah Outen completed her five-year, 25,000 mile journey looping the planet by cycling across Europe, Asia and North America and canoeing and kayaking across the North Pacific and most of the North Atlantic.