"Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother's dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called "calorie restriction," eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, "Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn't tint hers?"...

Through an effective combination of historical research and personal interviews, 100 Pioneers offers compelling portraits of the dedicated athletes, coaches and administrators who broke color barriers on college campuses and in professional sports all around the country. These engaging accounts detail the adversities these pioneers faced and the victories they achieved.

Presents related memories and themes that are arranged within nine decades of Brother David's life.

Chronicles the history of Europe's royal houses and their royal scandals, discussing insane, psychopathic, sex-obsessed, drunken, and otherwise debauched rulers including Kaiser Wilhelm II, Peter the Great, and Louis XV.

"In the tradition of The Boys in the Boat and Seabiscuit, a fascinating portrait of a groundbreaking but forgotten figure--the remarkable Major Taylor, the black man who broke racial barriers by becoming the world's fastest and most famous bicyclist at the height of the Jim Crow era. In the 1890s, the nation's promise of equality had failed spectacularly. While slavery had ended with the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws still separated blacks from whites,...

In the decades since his execution by the Nazis in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, theologian, and anti-Hitler conspirator, has become one of the most widely read and inspiring Christian thinkers of our time. Now, drawing on extensive new research, "Strange Glory" offers a definitive account, by turns majestic and intimate, of this modern iconThe scion of a grand family that rarely went to church, Dietrich decided as a thirteen-year-old...

For all the West's failings - terrible food, cold weather, and questionable politicians with funny hair to name a few - it has its upsides. Konstantin would know. Growing up in the Soviet Union, he experienced first-hand the horrors of a socialist paradise gone wrong, having lived in extreme poverty with little access to even the most basic of necessities. It wasn't until he moved to the UK that Kisin found himself thriving in an open and tolerant...

""42 Today" is an exploration of Jackie Robinson and his legacy."-- Jackie Robinson walked onto the diamond on April 15, 1947, as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making history as the first African American to integrate Major League Baseball in the twentieth century. Today a national icon, Robinson was a complicated man who navigated an even more complicated world that both celebrated and despised him. This collection of essays explores Robinson's...

"The forgotten story of American war hero Eddie Rickenbacker's crash landing in the Pacific during World War II, and his incredible 23-day crusade to keep his crew alive"--

"The little-known story of Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, the woman who headed the largest spy network in occupied France during World War II ... In 1941 a thirty-one-year-old Frenchwoman, a young mother born to privilege and known for her beauty and glamour, became the leader of a vast intelligence organization--the only woman to serve as a chef de r�esistance during the war. Strong-willed, independent, and a lifelong rebel against her country's conservative,...