|
|
1
|
Memoirs of a Slave Girl
by Harriet Jacobs
|
|
An honest and fearless account of her exploitation as a slave. This is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, Black history, or the subject of sexual exploitation throughout history. Jacobs' story is unflinching and unusual in its candor. (Published: 2004)
Words: 82178 - Reading Time: 234-328 min.
Category: People
|
19 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
2
|
Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities [Secure]
by Richard Baer
|
|
One afternoon in 1989, Karen Overhill walks into psychiatrist Richard Baer's office complaining of vague physical pains and depression. Odder still, she reveals that she's suffering from a persistent memory problem. Routinely, she "loses" parts of her day, finding herself in places she doesn't remember going to or being told about conversations she doesn't remember having. Her problems are so pervasive that she often feels like an impersonator in her own life; she doesn't recognize the people wh... more info>>
Category: People
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
3
|
Education of a Wandering Man [Secure]
by Louis L'Amour
|
|
From his decision to leave school at fifteen to roam the world, to his recollections of life as a hobo on the Southern Pacific Railroad, as a cattle skinner in Texas, as a merchant seaman in Singapore and the West Indies, and as an itinerant bare-knuckled prizefighter across small-town America, here is Louis L'Amour's memoir of his lifelong love affair with learning--from books, from yondering, and from some remarkable men and women--that shaped him as a storyteller and as a man. Like classic L'... more info>>
Category: People
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
4
|
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster [Secure]
by Jon Krakauer
|
|
Reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion, Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996. He hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours. As he turned to begin the perilous descent from 29,028 feet (roughly the cruising altitude of an Airbus jetliner), twenty other climbers were still pushing doggedly to the top, unaware that the sky had begun to roil with clouds.... This is the terrifying story of what really happened that fateful day at the top o... more info>> (Published: 2000)
Words: 150000 - Reading Time: 428-600 min.
Category: People/People
|
33 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
5
|
The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine [Secure]
by Somaly Mam
|
|
A portion of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the Somaly Mam Foundation. A riveting, raw, and beautiful memoir of tragedy and hope.... Born in a village deep in the Cambodian forest, Somaly Mam was sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather when she was twelve years old. For the next decade she was shuttled through the brothels that make up the sprawling sex trade of Southeast Asia. Trapped in this dangerous and desperate world, she suffered the brutality and horrors of human traffi... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
6
|
A Song Flung Up To Heaven [Secure]
by Maya Angelou
|
|
The culmination of a unique achievement in modern American literature: the six volumes of autobiography that began more than thirty years ago with the appearance of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. A Song Flung Up to Heaven opens as Maya Angelou returns from Africa to the United States to work with Malcolm X. But first she has to journey to California to be reunited with her mother and brother. No sooner does she arrive there than she learns that Malcolm X has been assassinated. Devastated, she ... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Words: 90000 - Reading Time: 257-360 min.
Category: People/General Nonfiction
|
3 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
7
|
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor [Secure]
by Anthony Everitt
|
|
He found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. As Rome's first emperor, Augustus transformed the unruly Republic into the greatest empire the world had ever seen. His consolidation and expansion of Roman power two thousand years ago laid the foundations, for all of Western history to follow. Yet, despite Augustus's accomplishments, very few biographers have concentrated on the man himself, instead choosing to chronicle the age in which he lived. Here, Anthony Everitt, the bestselling aut... more info>>
Category: People/History
|
5 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
8
|
Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend
by Kal Wagenheim
|
|
The most famous and enduring baseball player in history, Babe Ruth, is remembered for his dramatic heroism not only on the baseball diamond but also in his life. Kal Wagenheim illustrates this larger-than-life athlete in his book Babe Ruth: His Life and Legend, and describes him as both a product of his childhood in Baltimore and of his formative years as a New York Yankee. Ruth struggled desperately with the dramatic contrast between the poverty of his youth and the glamour and stardom that his... more info>> (Published: 1990)
Words: 110225 - Reading Time: 314-440 min.
Category: People
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
9
|
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance [Secure]
by Barack Obama
|
|
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father--a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man--has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey--first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Keny... more info>>
Category: People/General Nonfiction
|
29 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
10
|
Eisenhower and Churchill: The Partnership that Saved the World [Secure]
by James C. Humes
|
|
Although born and raised more than an ocean apart, Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill-the two titans of the greatest generation-led remarkably parallel lives whose paths would intersect during history's most harrowing days. Through their youth, education, and military training, both men experienced similar triumphs and failures that shaped their lives, though they met only for the first time upon the eve of war in 1941. Eisenhower and Churchill tells the magnificent story of these two great... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
11
|
Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite With His Mother [Secure]
by Sonia Nazario
|
|
In this astonishing true story, award-winning journalist Sonia Nazario recounts the unforgettable odyssey of a Honduran boy who braves unimaginable hardship and peril to reach his mother in the United States. When Enrique is five years old, his mother, Lourdes, too poor to feed her children, leaves Honduras to work in the United States. The move allows her to send money back home to Enrique so he can eat better and go to school past the third grade. Lourdes promises Enrique she will return quick... more info>>
Category: People/General Nonfiction
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
12
|
Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland [Secure]
by Gerald Clarke
|
|
She lived at full throttle on stage, screen, and in real life, with highs that made history and lows that finally brought down the curtain at age forty-seven. Judy Garland died over thirty years ago, but no biography has so completely captured her spirit--and demons--until now. From her tumultuous early years as a child performer to her tragic last days, Gerald Clarke reveals the authentic Judy in a biography rich in new detail and unprecedented revelations. Based on hundreds of interviews and d... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
13
|
Hold Me Close, Let Me Go [Secure]
by Adair Lara
|
|
What does a mother do when her teenaged daughter is spinning out of control and nothing is bringing her back? Here is a searingly honest memoir of motherhood and a testament to the power of love and family. When Adair Lara's daughter Morgan turned thirteen, she was transformed, seemingly overnight, from a sweet, loving child into an angry, secretive teenager who would neither listen nor be disciplined. The author, her youngest son, Patrick, her ex-husband, Jim, and her new husband, Bill, all ste... more info>> (Published: 2001)
Words: 90000 - Reading Time: 257-360 min.
Category: People
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
14
|
John Glenn: A Memoir [Secure]
by John Glen
|
|
He was the first astronaut to orbit the Earth. Nearly four decades later, as the world's oldest astronaut, his courage reveted a nation. But these two historical events only bracketed a life that covers the sweep of an extraordinary century. John Glenn's autobiography spans the seminal events of the twentieth century. It is a story that begins with his childhood in Ohio where he learned the importance of family, community, and patriotism. He took these values with him as a marine fighter pilot d... more info>> (Published: 2000)
Words: 100000 - Reading Time: 285-400 min.
Category: People
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
15
|
Le Corbusier [Secure]
by Nicholas Fox Weber
|
|
From acclaimed biographer and cultural historian, author of Balthus and Patron Saints--the first full-scale life of le Corbusier, one of the most influential, admired, and maligned architects of the twentieth century, heralded is a prophet in his lifetime, revered as a god after his death. He was a leader of the modernist movement that sought to create better living conditions and a better society through housing concepts. He predicted the city of the future with its large, white apartment build... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
16
|
My Dark Places: An L. A. Crime Memoir [Secure]
by James Ellroy
|
|
"Astonishing ... original, daring, brilliant."--Philadelphia InquirerIn 1958 Jean Ellroy was murdered, her body dumped on a roadway in a seedy L.A. suburb. Her killer was never found, and the police dismissed her as a casualty of a cheap Saturday night. James Ellroy was ten when his mother died, and he spent the next thirty-six years running from her ghost and attempting to exorcize it through crime fiction. In 1994, Ellroy quit running. He went back to L.A., to find out the truth about his mo... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
17
|
My Losing Season [Secure]
by Pat Conroy
|
|
"I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one.... There was a time in my life when I walked through the world known to myself and others as an athlete. It was part of my own definition of who I was and certainly the part I most respected. When I was a young man, I was well-built and agile and ready for the rough and tumble of games, and athletics provided the single outlet for a repressed and preternaturally shy boy to express himself in public.... I lost myself in the beauty of sport... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Words: 125000 - Reading Time: 357-500 min.
Category: People/Sports/Entertainment
|
5 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
18
|
October Sky: A Memoir (aka Rocket Boys) [Secure]
by Homer Hickam
|
|
The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir--a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space ... and who made those dreams come true. With the grace of a natural storyteller, NASA engineer Homer Hickam paints a warm, vivid portrait of the harsh West Virginia mining town of his youth, evo... more info>> (Published: 1999)
Words: 100000 - Reading Time: 285-400 min.
Category: People
|
7 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
19
|
Sax on the Streets: Confessions of an American Street Musician in Europe
by Daniel Gordon
|
|
A first-hand perspective of the life of a street musician as he and his friend travel through Europe with only a saxophone to their name. (Published: 2005)
Words: 70867 - Reading Time: 202-283 min.
Category: People/Travel
|
1 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
20
|
The Infant Husband in Jean Harlow's Life
by Charles Nuetzel
|
|
She was known to be the Blonde Bombshell. Her short career was electric on screen, starring with some of the top male leads of her time. The films she made have become classic, some quite good even in today's standards as prime examples of Hollywood at its best. Of course things have changed over the decades, but she still stands out as a major star. Her private life, though, was something else. And Mr. Nuetzel has offered a revealing look into her life, and especially that which involved marria... more info>> (Published: 1969)
Words: 9295 - Reading Time: 26-37 min.
Category: People
|
4 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
21
|
Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad [Secure]
by Mike Greenberg
|
|
Meet Mike Greenberg, the popular host of ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning, the highest-rated drive-time sports talk show on the dial. To his three-million-plus listeners, Greeny is the guy who's equally as comfortable dissecting zone defenses as he is discussing cashmere sweaters. He's been to Super Bowls and World Series, All-Star Games and Final Fours. He's interviewed Michael Jordan, Joe Montana, and Wayne Gretzky. He gets paid to enthuse about sports, which means he's the envy of mo... more info>>
Category: People/People
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
22
|
A Coach's Life: My Forty Years in College Basketball [Secure]
by Dean E. Smith
|
|
Legendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith tells the full story of his fabled career, and shares the life lessons taught and learned over forty years of unparalleled success as a coach and mentor. For almost forty years, Dean Smith coached the University of North Carolina men's basketball program with unsurpassed success--on the court and in shaping young men's lives. In his long-awaited memoir, he reflects on the great games, teams, players, strategies, and rivalries tha... more info>> (Published: 1999)
Words: 100000 - Reading Time: 285-400 min.
Category: People/Sports/Entertainment
|
2 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
|
|
23
|
A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East [Secure]
by Tiziano Terzani
|
|
Warned by a Hong Kong fortune-teller not to risk flying for a whole year, Tiziano Terzani - a vastly experienced Asia correspondent - took what he called "the first step into an unknown world. . . . It turned out to be one of the most extraordinary years I have ever spent: I was marked for death, and instead I was reborn." Traveling by foot, boat, bus, car, and train, he visited Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. Geography expand... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
24
|
A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties [Secure]
by Suze Rotolo
|
|
A Freewheelin' Time is Suze Rotolo's firsthand, eyewitness, participant-observer account of the immensely creative and fertile years of the 1960s, just before the circus was in full swing and Bob Dylan became the anointed ringmaster. It chronicles the back-story of Greenwich Village in the early days of the folk music explosion, when Dylan was honing his skills and she was in the ring with him. A shy girl from Queens, Suze Rotolo was the daughter of Italian working-class Communists. Growing up a... more info>>
Category: People
|
|
|
|
|
25
|
A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana [Secure]
by Haven Kimmel
|
|
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would run around like a circus monkey, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back in time to when small-town America was still trapped in the amber of the innocent post-war period--people help their neighbors, go to church, keep barnyard animals in their backyards. To three-year-ol... more info>> (Published: 2002)
Words: 150000 - Reading Time: 428-600 min.
Category: People/General Nonfiction
|
8 Reader Ratings:
|
|
|
|
|
| Great |
Good |
OK |
Poor |
|
|
![Long [82178 words]](/images/long.gif "Long [82178 words]")
![Very Long [150000 words]](/images/verylong.gif "Very Long [150000 words]")
