"Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure...

A Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's masterful memoir of his childhood in Ireland.
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic...

Mallory O'Meara uncovers the life and work of Milicent Patrick, one of Disney's first female animators and the only woman in history to create one of Hollywood's classic movie monsters. O'Meara discovered that Patrick's contribution had been claimed by a jealous male colleague, and she soon after had disappeared from film history. O'Meara set out to right the wrong, and in the process discovered the full, fascinating story of an ambitious, artistic...

It was like a romance novel, an old Broadway musical, and a John Wayne western rolled into one. Out for a quick drink with friends, Ree Drummond wasn't looking to meet anyone, let alone a tall, rugged cowboy who lived on a ranch miles away from her cultured, corporate hometown. But before she knew it, she'd been struck with a lightning bolt...

"In this relatable, charming book, Ree unveils real goings-on in the Drummond house and around the ranch. In stories brimming with the lively wit and humor found in her cookbooks and her bestselling love story, The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, Ree pulls back the curtain and shares her experiences with childbirth, wildlife, isolation, teenagers, in-laws, and a twenty-five-year marriage to a cowboy/rancher." -- Amazon.com. The Food...

Walden first published in 1854 as Walden; or, Life in the Woods) is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and-to some degree-a manual for self-reliance. Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months,...

"'...One of the gutsiest memoirs I've ever read. And the writing--oh my god the writing'--Entertainment Weekly; A child of the Rhodesian wars and daughter of two deeply complicated parents, Alexandra Fuller is no stranger to pain. But the disintegration of Fuller's own marriage leaves her shattered. Looking to pick up the pieces of her life, she finally confronts the tough questions about her past, about the American man she married, and about the...

"He was history's most creative genius. What secrets can he teach us? The author of the acclaimed bestsellers Steve Jobs, Einstein, and Benjamin Franklin brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography. Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson weaves a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills...

Meet the Grogans. Before there was Marley, there was a gleefully mischievous boy navigating his way through the seismic social upheaval of the 1960s. On the one side were his loving but comically traditional parents, whose expectations were clear. On the other were his neighborhood pals and all the misdeeds that followed. The more young John tried to straddle these two worlds, the more spectacularly, and hilariously, he failed. Told with Grogan's...

Born in a poor village in India, Saroo lived hand-to-mouth in a one room hut with his mother and three siblings... until at age five, he mistakenly boarded a train by himself, and ended up in Calcutta, all the way across the country. Uneducated, illiterate, and unable to recall the name of his hometown, he managed to survive for weeks on that city's rough streets. Soon after, he was adopted by a couple in Tasmania. But despite growing up in a loving...