“She was the child of American missionaries, but she spoke Chinese before she learned English, and her friends were the children of Chinese farmers. She took it for granted that she was Chinese herself until she was eight years old, when the terrorist uprising known as the Boxer Rebellion forced her family to flee for their lives. It was the first of many desperate flights. Flood, famine, drought, bandits, and war formed the background of Pearl's life in China… As a phenomenally successful writer and civil-rights campaigner, Buck did more than anyone else in her lifetime to change Western perceptions of China. In a world with its eyes trained on China today, she has much to tell us about what lies behind its astonishing reawakening.”
“The myth of Marie Curie—the penniless Polish immigrant who, through genius and obsessive persistence, endured years of toil and deprivation to produce radium, a luminous panacea for all the world's ills including cancer—has obscured the remarkable truth behind her discoveries. Curie's shrewd though controversial insight was that radioactivity was an atomic property that could be used to discover new elements. While her work won her two Nobel Prizes and transformed our world, it did not liberate her from the prejudices of either the male-dominated scientific community or society. Here is an all-too-human woman trying to balance science, love, and the family values that constitute her legacy.”
After twenty years of spectacular, unparalleled wildlife filmmaking together, Joan and Alan Root divorced and a fascinating woman found her own voice. Renowned journalist Mark Seal offers this breathtaking, culturally relevant portrait of a strong woman discovering herself and fighting for her beliefs before her mysterious and brutal murder. With a cast of characters as wild, wondrous, and unpredictable as Africa itself, Wildflower is a real-life adventure tale set in the world’s fast-disappearing wilderness. Rife with personal revelation, intrigue, corruption, and murder, readers will remember Joan Root’s extraordinary journey long after they turn the last page of this utterly compelling book.
Fuller's memoir of a childhood dominated by the Rhodesian civil war of 1971-1979 captures the fascinating life of a white family living in one of the most remote regions of Africa.
A profile of the only World War II Marine to win the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, and a Purple Heart parallels his career with notable World War II memoirists while tracing his significant achievements at Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima.
The last empress of Iran tells the story of her decades-long marriage to the Shah. Her story is set during a time of change and, ultimately, revolution that forced the Pahlavi family to flee the country.
"Martha Custis was an attractive, wealthy widow and the mother of two young children when she agreed to marry again in 1759 and begin a new life as Martha Washington. For the next forty-one years, Martha was not only her husband's beloved partner, but also the absolute mainstay of his increasingly powerful and stressful life. Far from the kindly frump of popular mythology, Brady has discovered a decisive, indomitable woman who contributed greatly to the character of the new country in war and peace." (Book Description)
"Three Cups of Tea traces Mortenson's decade-long odyssey to build schools (especially for girls), throughout the region that gave birth to the Taliban and sanctuary to Al Qaeda. In a region where Americans are often feared and hated, he has survived kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. But his success speaks for itself--at last count, his Central Asia Institute had built fifty-five schools." (Book Description)
