The History of Joseph Smith by His Mother offers a unique glimpse into the life of the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, through the eyes of his own mother, Lucy Mack Smith. This account brings to life the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, capturing the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of the Smith family.

The narrative, carefully restored and verified with the original notebook by Scot & Maurine Proctor, preserves Lucy's heartfelt language and emotional depth. Readers are invited into a historical journey that not only highlights Joseph Smith's prophetic mission but also the personal sacrifices and steadfast faith of his family.

A graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself.

Long before George Takei braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father's -- and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.

In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten "relocation centers," hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.

They Called Us Enemy is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

The Daughter of Kurdland is a powerful portrayal of a little school girl who defies Saddam Hussein's regime, survives the Anfal Genocide, and goes on to become an award-winning champion for human rights.

By combining crisp prose with utterly enthralling storytelling, Widad Akreyi pulls back the curtain to reveal in vivid detail and with unflinching honesty the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood in the Kurdistan region where she faced persecution, to her years as a university student chronicling crimes against humanity at just 17 years old, to her phenomenal resilience in exile.

The Daughter of Kurdland takes the reader on an intimate journey to uncover deep truths that are valid in any age, but especially so in our present context. Sparkling with wit and wisdom, this book poses universal questions: Should we always do what others tell us to do? How important is it to defy norms? How much of ourselves should we be willing to compromise for the sake of others? And how much should we be prepared to pay?

A profile in courage, Widad Akreyi is today an international icon for peace and women's empowerment. A testament to the power of human endurance, The Daughter of Kurdland will inspire and surprise men and women alike.

Twenty three years ago, Vivian Stanshall tragically died in a fire, trapped in a north London flat. Drunk, he slept through his own death. Vivian was the ineffable, unflappable, elegant, and irreverently funny frontman and songwriter for the Bonzo Dog Dada Band, a group of art students who created a band unlike any other. They are still adored by thousands long after their short time in the sun was knocked on the head by Vivian himself.

"We were art students. We were Dada. We were making fun of the worst excesses of rock 'n roll. One day I looked around to discover we'd become what we were parodying," he once reflected.

Written by his wife of 18 years, herself an artist, this is a behind-the-scenes, beneath-the-sheets, under-the-bed tale of an actual genius—few who admired him would disagree. In many ways, this is Vivian through his own private words gleaned from his personal journals.

The book is also full of up-close and revealing portraits of legends: Keith Moon, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Stephen Fry, Michael Palin, John Peel, Joe Cocker, and so many more. But even more than all that, it’s an ART BOOK: crammed full of Vivian’s paintings, sketches, unpublished family photos, letters, and poems.

Vivian Stanshall was the last of the true Bohemians. This is also a tale of Dada, a mad, sad, glad voyage through life on a grand scale made by one of England’s greatest treasures: the genius who was Vivian Stanshall.

Brother Claude Ely (1922-1978), once described as the King Recording Label's "Gospel Ranger," was a revered religious singer-songwriter and a Pentecostal-Holiness preacher, cherished throughout the Appalachian mountains. Despite his fame, few knew the intricate details of his childhood, military service, and years of hard toil in the coal fields of southwestern Virginia.

What Ely was most celebrated for was his brilliance as a preacher and his songwriting gifts. His iconic song, "There Ain't No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down," left a musical and spiritual legacy that continues to echo through the Appalachians and the world of gospel music today.

This oral biography, authored by Ely's great-nephew Macel Ely, is composed from recorded interviews with more than 1,000 people in the Appalachian Mountains who knew Brother Claude Ely personally. The book paints a vivid picture of Ely's life and his enduring influence on those who heard his message of hope and love.

As private secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, Suetonius gained access to the imperial archives and used them (along with eye-witness accounts) to produce one of the most colorful biographical works in history. The Twelve Caesars chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire under Julius Caesar and Augustus, to the decline into depravity and civil war under Nero, and the recovery that came with his successors.

A masterpiece of anecdote, wry observation and detailed physical description, The Twelve Caesars presents us with a gallery of vividly drawn — and all too human — individuals.

At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity"—a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners in Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world.

At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

First U.S. Publication

A major literary event—the complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath, published in their entirety for the first time. Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version authorized by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes. This new edition is an exact and complete transcription of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life.

Sixty percent of the book is material that has never before been made public, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet's personal and literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons.

The complete Journals of Sylvia Plath is essential reading for all who have been moved and fascinated by Plath's life and work.

In their 200+ combined years, Sadie and Bessie Delany have seen it all. They saw their father, who was born into slavery, become America's first black Episcopal bishop. They saw their mother—a woman of mixed racial parentage who was born free—give birth to ten children, all of whom would become college-educated, successful professionals in a time when blacks could scarcely expect to receive a high school diploma.

They saw the post-Reconstruction South, the Jim Crow laws, Harlem's Golden Age, and the Civil Rights movement—and, in their own feisty, wise, inimitable way, they've got a lot to say about it.

More than a firsthand account of black American history, Having Our Say teaches us about surviving, thriving, and embracing life, no matter what obstacles are in our way.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian.

The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges.

The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur.

Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri” who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.

A Bright Shining Lie is a passionate and epic account of the Vietnam War, centering on Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann. His story illuminates America's failures and disillusionment in Southeast Asia. Vann, a field adviser to the army when US involvement was just beginning, quickly became appalled at the corruption of the South Vietnamese regime, their incompetence in fighting the Communists, and their brutal alienation of their own people.

Finding his superiors too blinded by political lies to understand that the war was being thrown away, Vann secretly briefed reporters on the true happenings. Among those reporters was Neil Sheehan, who became fascinated by Vann, befriended him, and followed his tragic and reckless career.

Sheehan recounts Vann's astonishing story in this intimate and intense meditation on a conflict that scarred the conscience of a nation. The narrative is an eloquent and disturbing portrait of a man who, in many ways, personified the US war effort in Vietnam, a soldier cast in the heroic mold, an American Lawrence of Arabia.