Millions have visited the museums that bear her name, yet few know much about Madame Tussaud. A celebrated artist, she had both a ringside seat at and a cameo role in the French Revolution. A victim and survivor of one of the most tumultuous times in history, this intelligent, pragmatic businesswoman has also had an indelible impact on contemporary culture, planting the seed of our obsession with celebrity. In Madame Tussaud, Kate Berridge tells this fascinating woman's complete story for the first time, drawing upon a wealth of sources, including Tussaud's memoirs and historical archives. It is a grand-scale success story, revealing how with sheer graft and grit a woman born in 1761 to an eighteen-year-old cook overcame extraordinary reversals of fortune to build the first and most enduring worldwide brand identified simply by reference to its founder's name: Madame Tussaud's.

When Muhammad Ali met Joe Frazier in Manila for their third fight, their rivalry had spun out of control. The Ali-Frazier matchup had become a madness, inflamed by the media and the politics of race. When the "Thrilla in Manila" was over, one man was left with a ruin of a life; the other was battered to his soul. Mark Kram covered that fight for Sports Illustrated in an award-winning article. Now his riveting book reappraises the boxers -- who they are and who they were. And in a voice as powerful as a heavyweight punch, Kram explodes the myths surrounding each fighter, particularly Ali. A controversial, no-holds-barred account, Ghosts of Manila ranks with the finest boxing books ever written.

"There are moments in life that you envision. Winning the lottery. Meeting the love of your life. Cradling your newborn child for the first time. And, if you're adopted, discovering your birth parents. I had occasionally dared to imagine this moment. But I'd never imagined it would be like this."Award-winning journalist Caroline Clarke was born in an era when adoptions were shameful and secret and sealed. Her story begins with a happy childhood in the Bronx, as the only child of educators, both with strong ties to their large West Indian families. She never had any desire to know her birth parents until her thirties when some health questions led her to contact Spence-Chapin Family Services. The adoption agency's response sparked a series of stunning discoveries. Caroline knew her biological family and had so for more than twenty years. Her birth mother, nicknamed "Cookie," was the eldest sister of one of her dearest college friends; thus, Caroline's girlfriend was actually her aunt. Moreover, the family was a prominent one, storied in old Hollywood and known throughout the world for not just one but two generations of musical greatness, including the famous singer Natalie Cole and her iconic father, Nat King Cole, whose music had actually filled Caroline's life as she was growing up. Cookie was his first child.And so Caroline's story begins again. Drawing on details provided by the agency and on her own investigative skills, she embarks on a life-changing relationship with Cookie that stretches from coast to coast, forged through e-mails, phone calls, and hundreds of postcards. The constancy, volume, and intimacy of their steady correspondence fills the days and distance between them, even as the two remain respectful of Caroline's connection with her devoted parents.Through messages squeezed onto three-inch open-faced squares, they share confidences, take risks, unite their families, and ultimately build a bond like no other. Postcards from Cookie is a story about family. It's about loss, reconciliation, and w one woman's acceptance of the secrets and lies she discovers about the people who have most shaped her life. An uplifting modern-day fairytale, this extraordinary story just happens to be true.

You have an exciting, fulfilling job. You've fallen in love with the man of your dreams and met his three kids! Now whatJacquelyn B. Fletcher shows how any professional woman turned wife and instant stepmother can build on the skills she employs at work organization, team-building, goal-setting, and planning to succeed at home in her new role as stepmom. Drawing on the latest research, her own experiences, and those of other real-life stepmothers, Fletcher offers advice, hope, encouragement, and much-needed answers to common conundrums, including: Why don't I have control over my own scheduleWhat kind of relationship do I want with my stepkidsWhat if I want to have a baby of my ownHow do we create a budget that feels fair if I make more money than my husband doesA Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom is essential reading for the professional woman who has it all and then suddenly has more than she expected.

Why is it so difficult to remain married in thetwenty-first century, and what can you do about itWe all know that half of today's marriages end in divorce, but we tend to believe that our own marriages are safe. As psychiatrist John Jacobs explains in this fresh and impassioned book, marriages today are incredibly fragile, and unless a couple understands what is making contemporary marriage so vulnerable to dissolution, the marriage is at risk.Part of the problem is that people refuse to see how social and historical forces have changed the very meaning of marriage, causing serious interpersonal unhappiness. Because of increased longevity, married people live together longer than at any time in history. There's been an erosion of the social and cultural forces that traditionally kept marriages together. Confusion over gender-role responsibilities, increased expectations of sexual satisfaction, and intense time pressures on couples to work and be successful all create marital stress.And yet, most people don't acknowledge the problems in their marriage until it is too late. We tend to believe in the "lies of marriage" -- such concepts as soul mates, unconditional love, that children improve a relationship, that the sexual revolution has made marital sex more pleasurable, or that egalitarian marriage offers couples easy solutions -- and forget to engage in the constant hardwork required to keep our marriages alive.Dr. Jacobs believes that most marriages have significant problems at some time, but until we recognize the new realities of marriage and develop the skills required to sustain a loving, intimate relationship, marriages are at risk.Of course marriage is about love. But that's just the beginning.

Renowned journalist Don Lattin, longtime reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and more recently the San Francisco Chronicle, interprets the American spiritual and religious landscape since the 60s with insight, wit, and telling reporting. What David Brooks did for the American social and commercial landscape in the bestselling Bobos In Paradise, he does for the spiritual landscape, showing how the 60s have had a profound transformative impact in every area of spirituality. This is the first comprehensive look at the spiritual legacy of the 60s and 70s, as seen through the lives of those raised amid some of the eras wildest experimentation.

Over the past decade, the stakes in youth sports have reached startling heights; the pressure to win often eclipses the desire to have fun. Sports injuries have increased tenfold; aggression on and off the field between kids, parents, and coaches is at a fever pitch; and drug and alcohol use among young athletes is on the rise. While there are plenty of books that help the best-intentioned parent, most of them are written by men, for men. They do not address concerns specific to mothers, nor empower them to confidently step onto the out-of-control playground to assume whatever role they choose spectator, advocate, administrator, coach, fund-raiser, or team mom.Home Team Advantage is an essential resource manual that will inspire women to confidently tackle some of the issues preventing their kids from enjoying sports. Brooke de Lench authoritatively covers issues ranging from ensuring playing time and confronting out-of-control coaches to countering the "winning at all costs" mentality. Packed with real-life anecdotes and information from experts, Home Team Advantage provides constructive, practical, and forward-thinking advice to help mothers understand the critical role they can play in putting the words fun, game, and play back into youth sports.

The co-author of the monumental bestseller Reengineering the Corporation continues the reengineering revolution with another national bestseller that has already sold more than 165,000 copies in hardcoverReengineering Management is a brilliant, practical and much needed book on the most powerful management idea of the decade. Reengineering changing the traditional and outdated organization, processes and culture of a company is corporate America's greatest challenge today.In Reengineering Management, Champy examines the far-reaching changes managers must make for themselves and their companies to succeed in an era of unprecedented competition. Through his extensive consulting and research work, he shows how reengineering succeeds only when managers reinvent their own jobs and managerial styles. Otherwise, the ultra-efficient and effective reengineered processes for acquiring and serving customers, filling orders, bringing new concepts to market and other key business activities eventually fall apart.Champy illustrates this new management agenda through first-hand experiences of managers of reengineered operations at Federal Express, Wisconsin Electric, CIGNA Health Care, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T Universal Card Services and other companies. Champy shows how they are mastering the managerial challenges of reengineering, and as a result are making their organizations exciting and competitive. As more and more organizations reengineer, the experiences of these managers will become an insiders' guide to managerial life in the company of the future.Reengineering Management picks up where Reengineering the Corporation left off by exploring the managerial implications of the reengineered workplace. As reengineering becomes critical to all organizations, Reengineering Management will be the road map for managerial success in the future. It is, indeed, the manifesto for the next managerial revolution.

Our neighboring planets may have the answer to this question. Scientists have already identified ice caps on Mars and what appear to be enormous oceans underneath the ice of Jupiter's moons. The atmosphere on Venus appeared harsh and insupportable of life, composed of a toxic atmosphere and oceans of acid -- until scientists concluded that Earth's atmosphere was eerily similar billions of years ago.An extraterrestrial colony, in some form, may already exist, just awaiting discovery.But the greatest impediment to such an important scientific discovery may not be technological, but political. No scientific endeavor can be launched without a budget, and matters of money are within the arena of politicians. Dr. Ben Bova explores some of the key players and the arguments waged in a debate of both scientific and cultural priorities, showing the emotions, the controversy, and the egos involved in arguably the most important scientific pursuit ever begun.

What would you do if your eighty-year-old father dragged you into his hell-bent hunt for new loveBob Morris, a seriously single son, tells you all about it in this warm, witty, and wacky chronicle of a year of dating dangerously.A few months after the death of his wife, Joe Morris, an affable, eccentric, bridge-obsessed octogenarian, starts flapping about for a replacement. If he can get a new hip, he figures, why not a new wifeAt first, his son Bob is appalled, but suspicion quickly turns to enthusiasm as he finds himself trolling the personals, screening prospects, and offering etiquette tips, chaperoning services, and post-date assessments to his needy father.Bob hopes that Joe will find a well-heeled lady or at least one who is very patient to get him out of his hair. But soon they discover that finding a new mate will not be as easy as they think: one date is too morose, another too liberal; one's a three-timer, another just needs an escort until Mr. Right comes along. Dad persists and son assists. Am I pimping for my fatherhe begins to wonder. Meanwhile, Bob suffers similar frustrations; trying to find love isn't easy in a big-city market that has little use for a middle-aged gay man with an attitude and a paunch. But with the encouragement of his father (his biggest fan and the world's "most democratic Republican") he prevails. In the end, this memoir becomes a twin love story and a soulful lesson about giving and receiving affection with an open heart.With wicked humor and a dollop of compassion, Bob Morris gleefully explores the impact of senior parents on their boomer kids and the perils of dating at any age.

Technology is not the answer. It is also not the problem. What matters insteadAwareness, Engagement, and Wisdom.Wisdom 2.0 addresses the challenge of our age:to not only live connected to one another through technology,but to do so in ways that are beneficial, effective, and useful.

He is a giant among coaches, a Hall of Famer with a legacy that spans six full decades of coaching, and arguably the greatest Division I college football coach in history. And now Bobby Bowden finally has a biography that befits his stature: Bowden by award-winning journalist and author Mike Freeman.Based on six years of research and interviews with Bowden himself, not to mention the Bowden family, former players, and opposing coaches, Bowden is the complete stunning story of the making of a legend. Despite growing up in the segregated South and witnessing the ugly racism of the time, Bowden still developed into one of the most race-sensitive coaches in college history. When sick as a child, he listened to the radio and gained a taste for war strategy and for Alabama football games on Saturdays. He played football in high school but decided he wanted to be a coach. After years of turning around smaller football programs, and following a tumultuous but successful head coaching tenure at West Virginia University, Bowden accepted the post at Florida State University (FSU), a failing program that was regularly beaten by in-state rival University of Florida. In fact, just the year before Bowden became coach, in 1975, the president of FSU contemplated terminating the program altogether, particularly because the team had won only four games in the past three years.What Bowden accomplished at FSU is nothing short of miraculous: twenty-one bowl wins and two national championships. And he was the only coach to secure a top-five ranking in the Associated Press polls for fourteen straight seasons. A brilliant tactician, he helped usher the pro passing game into college football, after initially doubting it could work on the college level. He has been an unrivaled recruiter, not only coaching his players but also becoming a surrogate father to many of them, all while producing thirty-one consensus All-Americans over the course of his tenure. He spawned one of the greatest rivalries in sports against the University of Miami. He trails only Penn State's Joe Paterno in career victories.Along the way he has had to deal with family tragedies, scandals, and the rise and fall of his three sons' coaching careers. But he has been steadfast, with his good humor intact and with Ann, his wife of sixty years, at his side, raising a family of six children and now twenty-one grandchildren. As he nears the end of his career, though, the critics have their knives out, claiming, among many other things, that he has become a dinosaur who clings to his job so that he can win more games than Paterno.This work examines the total Bowden and is the first of its kind on a one-of-a-kind coach. Poignant, blunt, and eye-opening, Bowden is a towering biography of a man who has left his mark on FSU and the game of college football.

From the founders of ClassyMommy.com and MomGenerations.com comes the ultimate guide to helping moms build successful careers at home by doing what they already do online just better.To work or not to work it's the toughest question for most mothers today. But Audrey McClelland and Colleen Padilla have found the coveted middle ground, creating successful careers from home via the Internet. They've literally Skyped, blogged, vlogged, tweeted, and Facebooked their way to the top and in this eye-opening book they show other moms how to find success through these seven basic steps: 1. Find your passion. 2. Hang a digital shingle and start typing. 3. Find your tribe. 4. Make opportunity knock and learn how to answer that door. 5. Manage the Benjamins. 6. Don't forget the children! 7. Live happily ever after by living your values.

Discover The Power Of Ancient Wisdom For centuries , Traditional Chinese Medicine has helped millions of cancer patients in China, specializing in reducing the risk of breast cancer and healing it by identifying and treating its root cause. Chinese medicine offers a broad range of time-tested, natural, safe, self-healing treating that can complement prevailing Western cancer treatments.Traditional Chinese Medicine provides a nine-point healing guide that can be individually customized for women diagnosed with breast cancer; those about to undergo surgery, chemotherapy or radiation; breast cancer survivors who want to prevent recurrence, and any woman looking for serious prevention techniques. With his training, Dr. Nan Lu revives the ancient healing wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine --Early warning signs from your body Ancient self-healing evergy movements Healing, strengthening foods and ancient techniques to strengthen you before surgery How to manage your health during chemotherapy or radiation Why and how to create a new Traditional Chinese Medicine lifestyle that addresses the root cause of breast cancer... and much more!

For Abraham Lincoln, whether he was composing love letters, speeches, or legal arguments, words mattered. In Lincoln, acclaimed biographer Fred Kaplan explores the life of America's sixteenth president through his use of language as a vehicle both to express complex ideas and feelings and as an instrument of persuasion and empowerment. Like the other great canonical writers of American literature a status he is gradually attaining Lincoln had a literary career that is inseparable from his life story. An admirer and avid reader of Burns, Byron, Shakespeare, and the Old Testament, Lincoln was the most literary of our presidents. His views on love, liberty, and human nature were shaped by his reading and knowledge of literature.Since Lincoln, no president has written his own words and addressed his audience with equal and enduring effectiveness. Kaplan focuses on the elements that shaped Lincoln's mental and imaginative world; how his writings molded his identity, relationships, and career; and how they simultaneously generated both the distinctive political figure he became and the public discourse of the nation. This unique account of Lincoln's life and career highlights the shortcomings of the modern presidency, reminding us, through Lincoln's legacy and appreciation for language, that the careful and honest use of words is a necessity for successful democracy.Illuminating and engrossing, Lincoln brilliantly chronicles Abraham Lincoln's genius with language.

"What are the possibilities inherent in SocialismWhat is itWhat can it mean to humanity ’s futureWhat would it look like in AmericaThese are the questions raised in this exquisitely timely book. We must profoundly change the way we live, or we will not survive. A Socialism that we make ourselves could be the answer."—Alice Walker The polar ice caps are melting, hurricanes and droughts ravish the planet, and Earth’s population is threatened by catastrophic climate change. Millions of American jobs have been sent overseas and aren’t coming back. Young African American men make up the majority of America’s prison population. Half of the American population is poor or near poor, living precariously on the brink, while the top one percent owns as much as the bottom eighty. Government police-state spying on its citizens is pervasive. Consequently, as former President Jimmy Carter has said, "we have no functioning democracy." Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA is at once an indictment of American capitalism as the root cause of our spreading dystopia and a cri di coeur for what life could be like in the United States if we had economic as well as a real political democracy. It features thirty-one concise and accessible essays by revolutionary thinkers and activists on various aspects of a new society and, crucially, on how to get from where we are now to where we want to be, living in a society that is truly fair and just. Contributors Include Paul Street Joel Kovel Ron Reosti Rick Wolff Michael Steven Smith Mumia Abu-Jamal Angela Davis Ajamu Baraka Harriet Fraad Tess Fraad-Wolff Renate Bridenthal Blanche Wiesen Cook Leslie Cagan Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz Steven Wishnia ?Juan Gonzalez Frances Fox Piven Arun Gupta Tom Angotti Dave Lindorff William Ayers Mat Callahan Clifford D. Conner Fred Jerome Michael Moore Michael Ratner Kazembe Balagun Michael Zweig Dianne Feeley Paul Le Blanc Martín Espada Terry Bisson

Transactional Analysis delineates three observable ego-states (Parent, Adult, and Child) as the basis for the content and quality of interpersonal communication. "Happy childhood" notwithstanding, says Harris, most of us are living out the Not ok feelings of a defenseless child, dependent on ok others (parents) for stroking and caring. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a "position" about ourselves and others that determines how we feel about everything we do. And for a huge portion of the population, that position is "I'm Not OK -- You're OK." This negative "life position," shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational Adult capabilities, leaving us vulnerable to inappropriate emotional reactions of our Child and uncritically learned behavior programmed into our Parent. By exploring the structure of our personalities and understanding old decisions, Harris believes we can find the freedom to change our lives.

On February 17, 1986, after years of addiction and self-destruction, Christopher Kennedy Lawford reached a turning point in his life, one that would mark the beginning of his long road to recovery. In his New York Times bestselling memoir, Symptoms of Withdrawal, he chronicled his deep descent into near-fatal drug and alcohol addiction, and his subsequent hard-won journey back to sobriety, which he has maintained for more than twenty years. The Before and the After. But before and after whatWhat happened at that point in time to trigger the understanding within himself that he had to changeWhat finally forces any person to choose life over death?The overwhelming response he received to his book impressed upon Lawford the number of people struggling to find their own way back from addiction and the need to share their stories. There was no easy way out for any of them. They all had to go through a moment of humility, vulnerability, and transformation and choose to take that first step of the journey. And each had their own intensely personal moment that signaled a Before and an After. The histories gathered here are the recollections of lives snatched back from the brink of a precipice so wide and deep it threatened to engulf them.Every segment of society has been touched by addiction and its aftermath. Moments of Clarity collects stories from men and women, young and old, and across all barriers of celebrity, color, and class. Represented in these pages are the singer and the actress, the writer and the anchorman, the man from the movie screen and the woman who lives down the street. A myriad of different moments but all with the common understanding of where these men and women have been and where they must go. As they bravely share their stories, they shed light not only on their own experiences but also on the journey we all take as human beings, looking to make sense of our world.

In the tradition of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and Thomas L. Friedmam's Hot, Flat, and Crowded, prominent journalist Amanda Little maps out the history and future of America's energy addiction in a wonk-free, big-picture, solutions-oriented adventure story. After covering the environment and energy beat for more than a decade, Amanda Little decided that the only way to really understand America's energy crisis was to travel into the heart of it. She embarks on a daring cross-country power trip, and describes in vivid, fast-paced prose the most extreme and exciting frontiers of our energy landscape.At her side we visit an offshore oil rig, the cornfields of Kansas, the Pentagon's fuel-logistics division, the Talladega Superspeedway, New York City's electrical grid, and laboratories creating the innovations of a clean-energy future. As Little explains, energy is everything: It grows our crops, fights our wars, makes our plastics and medicines, warms our homes, moves our products and vehicles, and animates our cities.How did we develop this insatiable appetite for fossil fuelsLittle travels through history to track the evolution of America's energy addiction: the 1897 installation of the world's first power plant (a Thomas Edison J. P. Morgan venture); the 1901 Spindletop gusher that threw open the era of cheap American fuel; FDR's encounter with a Saudi king that set the stage for our dependence on Middle Eastern oil; General Motors' early decision to sell big guzzlers rather than small, efficient cars.Little illustrates how abundant oil and coal built the American superpower even as they posed political and environmental dangers to the nation and the world. More important, we learn how the same American ingenuity that got us into this mess can get us out of it. With next-generation candor and optimism, Little explores the most promising clean-energy solutions on the horizon, arguing that everything we know about our past teaches us that we can solve the problems of our future.Hard-hitting yet forward-thinking, Power Trip is a lively and impassioned travel guide for all readers trying to navigate our shifting landscape and a clear-eyed manifesto for the younger generations who are inheriting the earth.

From the author of Pitching Around Fidel and Far Afield comes an account of the accidental death of minor league first base coach Mike Coolbaugh, illustrating the many ways in which baseball still has a hold on America.Heart of the Game centers on the death of Mike Coolbaugh, a minor league coach who was killed on a sweltering Sunday evening in Little Rock in July 2007 when a foul ball rocketed off Tino Sanchez's bat. Coolbaugh died almost instantly, his body carted off the field of the Double-A Arkansas Travelers. He was thirty-five years old and the father of two; a third child was on the way.Mike's exemplary life his devotion to the game and to his family is the spine of the story. But it isn't the drama. The drama is in the telling of what can happen when a projectile hits the human body, of the narratives of the remarkable people who happened to be in the ballpark at that fatal moment, of the impact of Coolbaugh's death on the man who hit the ball, and of all the lives left behind.Price reveals anew that classic heart of Americana small-town sports, small-town lives and makes us understand that a game played away from the mindless churn of Internet blather and highlight shows can be more important than those played on the national stage.

James Blake's life was getting better every day. A rising tennis star and People magazine's Sexiest Male Athlete of 2002, he was leading a charmed life and loving every minute of it. But all that ended in May 2004, when Blake fractured his neck in an on-court freak accident. As he recovered, his father who had been the inspiration for his tennis career lost his battle with stomach cancer. Shortly after his father's death, Blake was dealt a third blow when he contracted zoster, a rare virus that paralyzed half of his face and threatened to end his already jeopardized career.In Breaking Back, Blake provides a remarkable account of how he came back from this terrible heartbreak and self-doubt to become one of the top tennis players in the world. A story of strength, passion, courage, and the unbreakable bonds between a father and son, Breaking Back is a celebration of one extraordinary athlete's indomitable spirit and his inspiring ability to find hope in the bleakest of times.