Self Biography

At the age of 32, on an assignment to walk the most famous pilgrimage in the world – the Camino de Santiago, in northern Spain – Phoebe Smith somehow lost her way. Having spent a lifetime exploring unfamiliar places, she quit her dream job, ended her long-term relationship and headed home to North Wales to discover the point to…everything. In her search for answers she found herself – quite by accident – walking some of Britain’s oldest pilgrim paths. And in following these old ways, she ended up confronting past traumas that she thought she had laid to rest.

Today everyone - whether they know it or not - is in the emotional transportation business. More and more, success is won by creating compelling stories that have the power to move partners, shareholders, customers, and employees to action. Simply put, if you can’t tell it, you can’t sell it. And this book tells you how to do both. Peter Guber, whose executive and entrepreneurial accomplishments have made him a success in multiple industries, has long relied on purposeful story telling to motivate, win over, shape, engage, and sell.

First came parents with the good sense to flee Europe in 1940 and the good fortune to reach the land of freedom. Their daughter, Ruth, grew up in the shadow of genocide - but in tandem with the birth of Israel, which remained her lodestar. She learned that although Jewishness is biologically transmitted, democracy is not, and both require intensive, intelligent transmission through education in each and every generation.

This is the true story of Amanda who, through no fault of her own, found herself caught up by the darkest most insidious corners of the criminal world of sex trafficking minors. Her husband, the man she loved and the father of her children, was a criminal. And when it all came down, she was left holding the pieces.

After months of following one-size-fits-all advice for a 57-year-old widow, Linda Crill is still miserable, until she makes a rebellious spur-of-the-moment decision: she trades her corporate suits for motorcycle leathers and commits herself to a 2,500-mile road trip down America’s Pacific Northwest coast on a Harley. The problem: she doesn’t know how to ride and has only 30 days to learn. Four short weeks later, Linda joins two men and a woman for a white-knuckled, exhilarating road trip along the west coast from Vancouver, Canada, to the wine country of Mendocino, California....

Since he was 12, Brandon Sulser has survived four brushes with death. One of those life-threatening injuries left him paralyzed from the chest down. Although his life story appears to be unfair, Brandon knows that life is only negative and hard if you allow it to be. And in his experience, we are all paralyzed in our own way, by bad choices, by circumstance, by illness, and more. His paralysis happens to be more obvious than most, but make no mistake; we are all paralyzed. But we don't have to stay that way.

On January 21, 2008, a routine medical procedure left Mallory paralyzed from her waist down. Less than two years later, Mallory had broken eight world records, and by the 2012 Paralympic Games, she held fifteen world records and thirty-four American records. Two years after that, a devastating fall severely damaged her left arm. But despite all of the hardships that Mallory faced, she was sure about one thing: she refused to give up.

Kym Gold's mantra - "never settle for a no, always look for a yes" - is what led her to co-create True Religion Brand Jeans, a major retail clothing company that she sold for close to a billion dollars in 2013. In Gold Standard, she finally gives her side of the story of how the once fledgling jeans company that nobody wanted,went on to become a giant, revolutionizing player in the fashion industry.

Be Quick - But Don't Hurry! tells the story of the friendship between UCLA basketball coach John Wooden and former player-turned-successful television executive Andrew Hill, while sharing the lessons and secrets that hold the key to managing creativity in the idea-driven economy of the 21st century.

Like so many American women, Shauna M. Ahern spent decades feeling not good enough about her body, about money, and about her worth in this culture. For a decade, with the help of her husband, she ran a successful food blog, wrote award-winning cookbooks, and raised two children. In the midst of this, at age 48, she suffered a mini-stroke. Tests revealed she would recover fully, but when her doctor impressed upon her that emotional stress can cause physical damage, she dove deep inside herself to understand and let go of a lifetime of damaging patterns of thought.

Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day.

The Civil Rights movement brought author Alice Walker and lawyer Mel Leventhal together, and in 1969 their daughter, Rebecca, was born. Some saw this unusual copper-colored girl as an outrage or an oddity; others viewed her as a symbol of harmony, a triumph of love over hate. But after her parents divorced, leaving her a lonely only child ferrying between two worlds that only seemed to grow further apart, Rebecca was no longer sure what she represented. In this book, Rebecca Leventhal Walker attempts to define herself as a soul instead of a symbol.

When Bridget Hustwaite blew out her thirtieth birthday candles, she had no idea of the profound changes that awaited her in this new decade. Instead of ticking off the traditional expectations (buy a house, get married, start a family), Bridget's list of early thirties life moments looked wildly different to what she anticipated. Her long-term relationship of five years had just ended, she said goodbye to her dream job, was diagnosed with ADHD and became a lockdown dog mum. And that was just the beginning . . .

What’s it like to parent a child in transition? Inspired by the acclaimed podcast How to Be a Girl, this is a highly personal and beautifully narrated memoir by Marlo Mack recounting the journey she’s been on since her three-year-old declared he should have been born a girl. And Mack agrees to the child’s request to be a girl.

After failing at 22 other jobs, Barbara Corcoran borrowed $1,000 from her boyfriend, quit her job as a diner waitress, and started a tiny real estate office in New York City. Using 24 unconventional lessons learned from her mom, Barbara built that tiny company into a $4 billion business, and today she's richer than her wildest childhood dreams.

Much more than a showbiz memoir, Hot Pants in Hollywood tells of a baby boomer's life on steroids. Susan Silver was one of the first female TV comedy writers with credits like the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, Bob Newhart, among others. From Milwaukee, Susan went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood, had a successful career as one of the first women in TV sitcoms, and reinvented herself in different prominent arenas in New York. Though her story is unique, her life is relatable to all women looking for advice in work or love.

From childhood, Sarah Robb O'Hagan felt destined to become a champion, but her early efforts at sports, in school, and in music made it clear she was no natural superstar. Unwilling to settle for average, she decided to go Extreme. From working with Richard Branson as a thriving Virgin Atlantic executive in her 20s to being fired and nearly deported a matter of months later, she learned through a series of surprising successes and epic fails that the extremes of her experiences were the engine of her success.

Spirit Traffic recounts how, at the age of 50, the author learned to ride a motorcycle, overcame the terror of navigating her steep dirt driveway in Vermont, and, three days after her son’s college graduation, set off with him and her yoga-teacher husband (his stepdad) on a 10,000-mile two-wheel adventure that took them all into uncharted territory - both as novice riders, and as a family.

For the first time, Army Ranger hero Nate Self tells his story. Self recounts the Roberts Ridge Rescue mission, the ferocious battles in Afghanistan, and the lone war of attrition that Nate Self has waged against post-traumatic stress disorder. This audio will become a go-to work for understanding the long-term effects of the war on terror. Thousands of families are fighting this battle, and Nate Self opens up his whole life - tragedies, successes, failures, and a struggle with suicidal thoughts - to share the facts.

Written with the passion of an obsessive, Nicotine addresses a lifelong addiction, from the thrill of the first drag to the perennial last cigarette. Reflecting on his experiences as a smoker from a young age, Gregor Hens investigates the irreversible effects of nicotine on thought and patterns of behavior. He extends the conversation with other smokers to meditations on Mark Twain and Italo Svevo, the nature of habit, and the validity of hypnosis.