Kategoria BISAC: Biography & Autobiography >> Women

An explosive first-person account by a young woman who spent fifteen years in a sex cult called the Children of God, which encouraged "sacred prostitution" and taught that "The Lord is our pimp."

Miriam Williams was an idealistic child of the sixties who, at seventeen, accepted an invitation from a "Jesus person" to visit a commune in upstate New York. She would soon be prostituting herself for a perverse cult that used sex to lure sinners to the Lord -- and this is her shocking, searingly honest account of a fifteen-year spiritual odyssey gone haywire.

The Children of God turned its...

Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu--the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Desert Flower is her extraordinary story.

Unique among presidents' wives, Lady Bird Johnson was not only one of the leading environmentalists of the twentieth century, she also redefined the institution of First Lady. In this first book in an innovative new series, Lewis Gould shows why Mrs. Johnson ranks with Eleanor Roosevelt as a significant innovator of the First Lady role.

Building upon his much admired Lady Bird Johnson and the Environment, Gould has refocused and revised his thinking to create a fresh, informative, and entertaining new portrait of LBJ's First Lady. Using Lady Bird's White House papers and interviews with...

First Lady Betty Ford will long be remembered for her active support of the Equal Rights Amendment, her struggles with breast cancer and substance abuse, and her later involvement with the addiction treatment center that bears her name. But perhaps more than these, Betty Ford will stand as a paragon of candor and courage, an outspoken woman whose public positions did not always conform with those of her husband.

An independent, free spirit who regularly ranks among the most-admired First Ladies, Betty Ford is considered by many to be the most outspoken since Eleanor Roosevelt: she spoke...

Although overshadowed by her higher-profile successors, Lou Henry Hoover was in many ways the nation's first truly modern First Lady. She was the first to speak on the radio and give regular interviews. She was the first to be a public political persona in her own right. And, although the White House press corps saw in her "old-fashioned wifehood," she very much foreshadowed the "new woman" of the era.

Nancy Beck Young presents the first thoroughly documented study of Lou Henry Hoover's White House years, 1929-1933, showing that, far from a passive prelude to Eleanor Roosevelt, she was a...

Life began for Paula Rothenberg in a privileged home in New York City, but it took her to the battlefields of the culture wars on behalf of the underprivileged. Now this veteran of that cultural clash examines the subtle and complex ways in which issues of race, class, and gender impact people's lives.

A prominent figure in the creation of women's studies and multicultural studies as academic disciplines, Rothenberg is perhaps best known for her textbook Race, Class and Gender in the United States, which was widely attacked by conservatives defending traditional curricula. Now she...

It was fitting for a soldier's wife to make curtains out of military-surplus parachutes. That they would hang in the White House made little difference.

Mamie Doud Eisenhower was a president's wife who seemed to most Americans like the friend next door. She gave us "Mamie pink" and "Mamie bangs" but has stood in the shadows of first ladies who followed. Yet she accomplished more than even her own contemporaries noticed, and her popularity not only enhanced her husband's presidency but also put a distinctive stamp on the role of first lady.

This first scholarly biography of Mamie...

Before Hillary, there was Rosalynn.

Rosalynn Carter--the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt--was sometimes called the second most powerful person in the United States. Even when her husband Jimmy Carter's approval ratings sank to record lows, she still tied with Mother Teresa as the most admired woman in the world.

In this first biography of Rosalynn Carter since 1980 and first book-length account since her own 1984 memoir, Scott Kaufman depicts a hard-working first lady whose energetic style sparked an administration that seemed to have lost its way--and who...

The beautiful Langhorne sisters lived at the pinnacle of society from the end of the Civil War through the Second World War. Born in Virginia to a family impoverished by the Civil War, Lizzie, Irene, Nancy, Phyllis, and Nora eventually made their way across two continents, leaving rich husbands, fame, adoration, and scandal in their wake.
At the center of the story is Nancy, who married Waldorf Astor, one of the richest men in the world. Heroic, hilarious, magnetically charming, and a bully, Nancy became Britain's first female MP. The beautiful Irene married Charles Dana Gibson and was...

Breast cancer made Jennie Nash a wise old woman at the age of thirty-six. She learned, among other things, that her instincts are good, her kids are really resilient, and that, in the fight against breast cancer, the journey for patients, family, and friends can be a surprisingly positive, life-changing experience.
Some five years younger than the AMA-recommended age for mammograms, Jennie Nash insisted she be tested, not because of a lump but because of a hunch brought on by a friend's battle with lung cancer. Jennie was as shocked to discover as her friend had been that cancer knows no...

In 1931, Irma S. Rombauer, a recent widow, took her life savings and self-published a cookbook that she hoped might support her family. Little did she know that her book would go on to become America's most beloved cooking companion. Thus was born the bestselling Joy of Cooking, and with it, a culinary revolution that continues to this day.
In Stand Facing the Stove, Anne Mendelson presents a richly detailed biographical portrait of the two remarkable forces behind Joy -- Irma S. Rombauer and her daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker -- shedding new light on the classic...

NPR commentator Sojourner delivers a powerful memoir about the joys of rejecting the pace, addictions, and false values of society and learning to live without compromise.

The lively, authoritative, New York Times bestselling biography of Abigail Adams.

This is the life of Abigail Adams, wife of patriot John Adams, who became the most influential woman in Revolutionary America. Rich with excerpts from her personal letters, Dearest Friend captures the public and private sides of this fascinating woman, who was both an advocate of slave emancipation and a burgeoning feminist, urging her husband to "Remember the Ladies" as he framed the laws of their new country.

John and Abigail Adams married for love. While John traveled in America and...

At the center of West of Then is Karen Morgan -- island flower, fifth-generation haole (white) Hawaiian, Mayflower descendant -- now living on the streets of downtown Honolulu. Despite her recklessness, Karen inspires fierce loyalty and love in her three daughters. When she goes missing in the spring of 2002, Tara, the eldest, sets out to find and hopefully save her mother. Her journey is about what you give up when you try to renounce your past, whether personal, familial, or historical, and what you gain when you confront it.
By turns tough and touching, Smith's modern detective...

A timeless, "triumphant" (Entertainment Weekly) story of healing and recovery from the victim of a crime that shocked the nation: the Central Park Jogger.

Shortly after 9:00 p.m. on April 19, 1989, a young woman jogs alone near 102nd Street in New York City's Central Park. She is attacked, raped, savagely beaten, and left for dead. Hours later she arrives at the emergency room--comatose--she has lost so much blood that her doctors believe it's a miracle she's still alive. Meet Trisha Meili, the Central Park Jogger.

I Am the Central Park Jogger recounts the mesmerizing,...

The critically acclaimed, heartbreaking memoir that is at once a gorgeous, profound, and redemptive story of a family holding desperately to the memory of a lost child; and a touching, intelligent, and inspiring coming-out story.

A luminous, true story, Name All the Animals is an unparalleled account of grief and secret love: the tale of a family clinging to the memory of a lost child, and of a young woman struggling to define herself in the wake of his loss. As children, siblings Alison and Roy Smith were so close that their mother called them by one name, Alroy. But when Alison...