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A Life of Lies and Spies: Tales of a CIA Covert Ops Polygraph Interrogator
by Alan B. TrabueAlan Trabue chose a bizarre, dangerous way to make a living. In A Life of Lies and Spies, Trabue exposes the often perilous world of polygraphing foreign spies in support of CIA espionage programs. He recounts his incredible, true-life globe-trotting adventures, from his induction in the CIA in 1971 to directing the CIA's world-wide covert ops polygraph program.A Life of Lies and Spies brings readers into the high-stakes world of covert operations and the quest to uncover deceit, featuring a high-speed car chase, blown clandestine meetings, surreptitious room searches, tear-gassing by riot police, and confrontations with machine gun-armed soldiers. Liberally sprinkled with side anecdotes—such as debriefing an agent though a torturous swarm of mosquitoes in a jungle shack—Trabue's story highlights both the humor and the intrinsic danger of conducting CIA covert activities.Writing from a unique perspective framed by his uncommon longevity and broad experience, for which he was awarded the Career Intelligence Medal, Trabue's memoir unveils the CIA's use of polygraph and interrogation to validate recruited spies' bona fides and information obtained through their acts of espionage.The Central Intelligence Agency has not approved, endorsed or authorized this book or the use of the CIA seal, name or initials.
A Life of Listening: Discerning God's Voice and Discovering Our Own
by Leighton FordThe Christian life is a life of listening.
A Life of My Own: A Memoir
by Claire TomalinEsteemed biographer and legendary literary editor Claire Tomalin's stunning memoir of a life in literature“[An] intelligent and humane book…There is genuine appeal in watching this indomitable woman continue to chase the next draft of herself." —Dwight Garner, The New York TimesIn A Life of My Own, the renowned biographer of Charles Dickens, Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Hardy, and former literary editor for the Sunday Times reflects on a remarkable life surrounded by writers and books. From discovering books as a form of escapism during her parents' difficult divorce, to pursuing poetry at Cambridge, where she meets and marries Nicholas Tomalin, the ambitious and striving journalist, Tomalin always steered herself towards a passionate involvement with art. She relives the glittering London literary scene of the 1960s, during which Tomalin endured her husband's constant philandering and numerous affairs, and revisits the satisfaction of being commissioned to write her first book, a biography of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. In biography, she found her vocation. However, when Nick is killed in 1973 while reporting in Israel, the mother of four put aside her writing to assume the position of literary editor of the New Statesman. Her career soared when she later moved to the Sunday Times, and she tells with dazzling candor of this time in her life spent working alongside the literary lights of 1970s London. But, the pain of her young daughter's suicide and the challenges of caring for her disabled son as a single mother test Claire's strength and persistence. It is not until later in life that she is able to return to what gave her such purpose decades ago, writing biographies, and finds enduring love with her now-husband, playwright Michael Frayn. Marked by honesty, humility, and grace, rendered in the most elegant of prose, A Life of My Own is a portrait of a life, replete with joy and heartbreak. With quiet insight and unsparing clarity, Tomalin writes autobiography at its most luminous, delivering an astonishing and emotionally-taut masterpiece.
A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again
by Joanna BiggsI took off my wedding ring - a gold band with half a line of 'Morning Song' by Sylvia Plath etched inside - and for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn't throw the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my throat: it could fling my arms out. I was free.A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next.Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever - desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment.In A Life of One's Own, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed to write their best work, and how they addressed the questions she herself was struggling with: Is domesticity a trap? Is life worth living if you have lost faith in the traditional goals of a woman? Why is it so important for women to read one another?This is a radical and intimate examination of the unconventional paths these women took - their pursuits and achievements but also their disappointments and hardships. And in exploring the things that gave their lives the most meaning, we find fuel for our own singular intellectual paths.
A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again
by Joanna BiggsNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by the New York Times, The Week, Vulture, Elle, and The MillionsA piercing blend of memoir, criticism, and biography examining how women writers across the centuries carved out intellectual freedom for themselves—and how others might do the sameI took off my wedding ring for the last time—a gold band with half a line of “Morning Song” by Sylvia Plath etched inside—and for weeks afterwards, my thumb would involuntarily reach across my palm for the warm bright circle that had gone. I didn’t fling the ring into the long grass, like women do in the movies, but a feeling began bubbling up nevertheless, from my stomach to my throat: it could fling my arms out. I was free. . . .A few years into her marriage and feeling societal pressure to surrender to domesticity, Joanna Biggs found herself longing for a different kind of existence. Was this all there was? She divorced without knowing what would come next.Newly untethered, Joanna returned to the free-spirited writers of her youth and was soon reading in a fever—desperately searching for evidence of lives that looked more like her own, for the messiness and freedom, for a possible blueprint for intellectual fulfillment.In A Life of One’s Own, Mary Wollstonecraft, George Eliot, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, and Elena Ferrante are all taken down from their pedestals, their work and lives seen in a new light. Joanna wanted to learn more about the conditions these women needed to write their best work, and how they addressed the questions she herself was struggling with: Is domesticity a trap? Is life worth living if you have lost faith in the traditional goals of a woman? Why is it so important for women to read one another?This is a radical and intimate examination of the unconventional paths these women took—their pursuits and achievements but also their disappointments and hardships. And in exploring the things that gave their lives the most meaning, we find fuel for our own singular intellectual paths.
A Life of Picasso
by John RichardsonJohn Richardson draws on the same combination of lively writing, critical astuteness, exhaustive research, and personal experience which made a bestseller out of the first volume and vividly recreates the artist's life and work during the crucial decade of 1907-17 - a period during which Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented Cubism and to that extent engendered modernism. Richardson has had unique access to untapped sources and unpublished material. By harnessing biography to art history, he has managed to crack the code of cubism more successfully than any of his predecessors. And by bringing a fresh light to bear on the artist's often too sensationalised private life, he has succeeded in coming up with a totally new view of this paradoxical man of his paradoxical work. Never before has Picasso's prodigious technique, his incisive vision and not least his sardonic humour been analysed with such clarity.
A Life of Picasso IV: 1933-1943 (A Life of Picasso #4)
by John RichardsonThe beautifully illustrated fourth volume of Picasso&’s life—set in France and Spain during the Spanish Civil War and World War II—covers friendships with the surrealist painters; artistic inspiration around Guernica and the Minotaur; and his muses Marie-Thérèse, Dora Maar, and Françoise Gilot; and much more.Including 271 stunning illustrations and drawing on original and exhaustive research from interviews and never-before-seen material in the Picasso family archives, this book opens with a visit by the Hungarian-French photographer Brassaï to Picasso&’s chateau in Normandy, Boisgeloup, where he would take his iconic photographs of the celebrated plaster busts of Marie-Thérèse, Picasso&’s mistress and muse. Picasso was contributing to André Breton&’s Minotaur magazine and he was also spending more time with the likes of Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, Lee Miller, and the poet Paul Éluard, in Paris as well as in the south of France. It was during this time that Picasso began writing surrealist poetry and became obsessed with the image of himself as the mythic Minotaur—head of a bull, body of a man—and created his most famous etching, Minotauromachie. Richardson shows us the artist is as prolific as ever, painting Marie-Thérèse, but also painting the surrealist photographer Dora Maar who has become a muse, a collaborator and more. In April 1937, the bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War inspires Picasso&’s vast masterwork of the same name, which he paints in just a few weeks for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris World&’s Fair. When the Nazis occupy Paris in 1940, Picasso chooses to remain in the city despite the threat that his art would be confiscated. In 1943, Picasso meets Françoise Gilot who would replace Dora, and as Richardson writes, &“rejuvenate his psyche, reawaken his imagery and inspire a brilliant sequence of paintings.&” As always, Richardson tells Picasso&’s story through his work during this period, analyzing how it shows what the artist was feeling and thinking. His fascinating and accessible narrative immerses us in one of the most exciting moments in twentieth century cultural history, and brings to a close the definitive and critically acclaimed account of one of the world&’s most celebrated artists.
A Life of Picasso Volume II: 1907 1917: The Painter of Modern Life (Life of Picasso #2)
by John RichardsonJohn Richardson draws on the same combination of lively writing, critical astuteness, exhaustive research, and personal experience which made a bestseller out of the first volume and vividly recreates the artist's life and work during the crucial decade of 1907-17 - a period during which Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque invented Cubism and to that extent engendered modernism. Richardson has had unique access to untapped sources and unpublished material. By harnessing biography to art history, he has managed to crack the code of cubism more successfully than any of his predecessors. And by bringing a fresh light to bear on the artist's often too sensationalised private life, he has succeeded in coming up with a totally new view of this paradoxical man of his paradoxical work. Never before has Picasso's prodigious technique, his incisive vision and not least his sardonic humour been analysed with such clarity.
A Life of Privilege, Mostly: A Memoir
by Gardner BotsfordGardner Botsford's A Life of Privilege tells the fascinating and humorous story of his WWII experiences, from his assignment to the infantry due to a paperwork error to a fearful trans-Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary, to landing under heavy fire on Omaha Beach and the Liberation of Paris. After the war, he began a distinguished literary career as a long-time editor at the New Yorker, and chronicles the magazine's rise and influence on postwar American culture with wit and grace.
A Life on Hold: Living with Schizophrenia
by Josie Méndez-NegreteFor more than twenty years Josie Méndez-Negrete has endured the emotional journey of watching her son Tito struggle with schizophrenia. Her powerful account is the first memoir by a Mexican American author to share the devastation and hope a family experiences in dealing with this mental illness. Méndez-Negrete depicts the evolution of the disease from her perspective as a parent and by relating Tito&’s own narrative, illuminating the inadequacies of the US mental health system and the added burdens of addiction and blame. Through the author, Tito paints a vivid picture of his lived experiences and everyday traumas to show how his life and the lives of his loved ones have been impacted by mental illness.
A Life on the Edge: Memoirs of Everest and Beyond
by Jim WhittakerJim Whittaker's achievement on Everest and his many successes before and after are the natural outcome of a life driven by a passion for outdoor adventure combined with strong leadership qualities and a commitment to making a difference. In A Life on the Edge, readers will discover a true hero-someone who tells his story not to boast or preach, but to share his love of the environment and outdoor adventure and to inspire others to seek challenges in their own lives.
A Life on the Road
by Charles KuraltFor more than 30 years, Charles Kuralt, the host of CBS News' "Sunday Morning," has traveled the world's byways. In this warm, deeply affecting memoir, Kuralt retraces the steps of a journey that began when he was a young CBS news reporter frantically trying to cover international events, a journey that took him to South America, Vietnam, and the Okefenokee Swamp. From an Arizona cowboy who confessed to wearing pantyhose under his chaps and a Moscow dentist who tearfully thanked former American POW's for saving his life in a German prison camp, to memorable meetings with Marlon Brando and Nikita Khrushchev---here is a story of triumphs and tragedies, swimming pigs and cattle roundups, and one man's lifelong love of the road and the people he's met along the way.
A Life with Ghosts: True, Terrifying, and Insightful Tales from My Favorite Haunts
by Steve GonsalvesThe debut book from paranormal investigator and Ghost Hunters TV star Steve Gonsalves! Steve Gonsalves—already considered to be one of the top paranormal investigators in the world and a pioneer in the industry—now presents his debut book, A Life with Ghosts! Widely known as a lead investigator of the smash hit TV series Ghost Hunters as well as Ghost Hunters Academy and Travel Channel&’s ratings king, Ghost Nation, Steve presents a collection of his most meaningful paranormal experiences from some of his favorite haunted locations. Along with the compelling history of each location, Steve recounts his terrifying experiences with disembodied voices, haunting EVPS, mysterious dark masses, and other unexplained phenomena—in addition to what he learned about living through a life with ghosts. His beliefs and theories on the craft are told through heartwarming, hilarious, and profound stories, reflecting the fun-loving personality that has garnered him millions of fans. Filled with facts and anecdotes to add an extra level of insight—all intricately woven together to create the perfect balance of spooky fun and unique information—this is the ultimate book for paranormal enthusiasts, history buffs, and horror fans.
A Life with Karol
by Cardinal Stanislaw DziwiszThis intimate, affectionate portrait of Pope John Paul II by his longtime secretary and confidant reveals fascinating new details about the opinions, hopes, fears, and dramatic life of this public man. "I had accompanied him for almost forty years: twelve in Kraków and then twenty-seven in Rome. I was always with him, always at his side. Now, in the moment of death, he'd gone on alone...And now? Who is accompanying him on the other side?"- From A Life with Karol Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz worked side by side with Pope John Paul II for almost forty years, enjoying unique access to both the public and private man. In A life with Karol, he provides a close-up glimpse into the Pope's life and the critical events of his papacy. Dziwisz was sitting next to the Pope during the assassination attempt in 1981. He recounts the Pope's reaction to 9/11, describing his thoughts and feelings on that day. And the Cardinal's moving description of the Pope's haunting memories of World War II uncovers the roots of the pontiff's intense opposition to George W. Bush's war on Iraq.The two men shared moments of fun and spontaneity as well. Dziwisz writes about the times the Pope would slip out of the Vatican, wearing a Panama hat, to stroll the streets of Rome, and he describes the clandestine ski and hiking trips the pair made to escape the Vatican. His firsthand account of the Pope's last years also reveals that John Paul II considered resigning. These stories and others lend added poignancy to Dziwisz's extraordinary portrayal of the Pope's courage and calmness during his final illness.
A Life with Words: A Writer's Memoir
by Richard WrightFrom the acclaimed writer of the beloved Clara Callan comes a beautifully crafted, charming portrait of the writing life. Combining his characteristic wit and self-deprecation with his extraordinary imagination and insight, Richard B. Wright has created a deeply affecting memoir that reads like a novel.As a small, watchful boy growing up in a working class family in Midland, Ontario, during the Second World War, Wright gradually discovered that he saw the world through different eyes. His intellectual and sexual awakenings, his exploits as a young salesman in Canadian publishing, his painful struggles to become a writer--all of this is balanced against the extraordinary reception that in the 1970s greeted his first novel, The Weekend Man, which was published around the world to great acclaim. In spite of the sometimes crippling depression that haunted him and the ups and downs of the mid-life writer, he would finally achieve overwhelming success with Clara Callan, the Giller-winning work that swept every award in Canada and revitalized his career. Lovers of Wright's work will appreciate behind-the-scenes glimpses of his craft in individual novels and his exploration of how a writer transmutes experience into art. And readers will enjoy his thoughtful exploration of the essential role of storytelling in our lives. A Life with Words is both a celebration of the writing life and a deeply personal--at times revelatory--invitation into the world of the imagination.
A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict
by Esther De WaalEsther de Waal in simple and practical terms, writing on how the Rule of St. Benedict has shaped her life, takes the reader chapter by chapter through the Rule. She details how profoundly biblical it is and how this text, which has formed the way of life of Benedictines and other monastics since the sixth century, also serves as a guide for lay people of all denominations." This volume contains both St. Benedict's Rule and Esther de Waal's commentary on the Rule.
A Lifetime In A Race
by Matthew PinsentWith his last-gasp victory as part of the Great British coxless four team at the Athens Olympics, Matthew Pinsent clinched an historic fourth Olympic Gold to add to the three already won with his legendary rowing partner Steve Redgrave. In an uniquely exciting and evocative autobiography, Pinsent interweaves the build-up to Athens 2004 with the extraordinary story of his career and unforgettable partnership with Redgrave. Plucked from obscurity at the age of 20, told to partner his hero, and trained to within an inch of his life, Pinsent's story is uniquely revealing about what it takes to be a champion and the mixed blessings of success. Culminating with a nail-biting final chapter detailing the team's extraordinary victory in Athens in blow-by-blow detail, A Lifetime in a Race is a sports book in a different mould.
A Lifetime Journey of Trust & Adventure
by Thomas Richard DealtryA Lifetime Journey of Trust & Adventure is a classic, warm, and inspiring recollection from Richard’s childhood, during wartime, to the heights of management in government and business development. Read this personal and reflective real-time life account. This is an intriguing book for everyone who has a progressive personal interest in a challenging lifetime journey.
A Lifetime in Academia
by Rayson HuangRayson Huang began his studies at the University of Hong Kong in 1938. Thirty-four years later, in 1972, he became the University's first Chinese Vice-Chancellor and served in that position until 1986. He sat on the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and on the Drafting Committee that formulated China's Basic Law for Hong Kong after its return to China in 1997. In this lively and frank autobiography, Huang reflects on his diverse university career of almost half a century - in Hong Kong, China, Britain, the United States, Singapore and Malaysia - and on his experiences during World War II, when he moved, as a refugee, into Free China to study and teach. This expanded second edition includes substantial additional material on his childhood, his experiences in occupied Hong Kong, and his activities as vice-chancellor.
A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Author of A Wrinkle in Time
by Sarah ArthurMadeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time has captured the imagination of millions - from literary sensation to timeless classic and now a major motion picture starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Storm Reid, and Mindy Kaling. A Light So Lovely tells the story of the woman at the center of it all - her imagination, her faith, her pattern of defying categories, and what readers today can learn from her legacy.Bestselling and beloved author Madeleine L'Engle, Newbery winner for A Wrinkle in Time, was known the world round for her imaginative spirit and stories. She was also known to spark controversy - too Christian for some, too unorthodox for others. Somewhere in the middle was a complex woman whose embrace of paradox has much to say to a new generation of readers today. A Light So Lovely paints a vivid portrait of this enigmatic icon's spiritual legacy, starting with her inner world and expanding into fresh reflections of her writing for readers today. Listen in on intimate interviews with L'Engle's literary contemporaries such as Philip Yancey and Luci Shaw, L'Engle's granddaughter Charlotte Jones Voiklis, and influential fans such as Makoto Fujimura, Nikki Grimes, and Sarah Bessey, as they reveal new layers to the woman behind the stories we know and love. A vibrant, imaginative read, this book pulls back the curtain to illuminate L'Engle's creative journey, her persevering faith, and the inspiring, often unexpected ways these two forces converged. For anyone earnestly searching the space between sacred and secular, miracle and science, faith and art, come and find a kindred spirit and trusted guide in Madeleine - the Mrs Whatsit to our Meg Murry - as she sparks our imagination anew.
A Light That Never Goes Out
by Tony FletcherThe definitive book about The Smiths, one of the most beloved, respected, and storied indie rock bands in music history.They were, their fans believe, the best band in the world. Hailing from Manchester, England, The Smiths--Morrissey, Johnny Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce--were critical and popular favorites throughout their mid-1980s heyday and beyond. To this day, due to their unforgettable songs and lyrics, they are considered one of the greatest British rock groups of all time--up there with the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, and the Clash. Tony Fletcher paints a vivid portrait of the fascinating personalities within the group: Morrissey, the witty, literate lead singer whose loner personality and complex lyrics made him an icon for teenagers who felt forlorn and forgotten; his songwriting partner Marr, the gregarious guitarist who became a rock god for a generation of indie kids; and the talented, good-looking rhythm section duo of bassist Rourke and drummer Joyce. Despite the band's tragic breakup at the height of their success, A Light That Never Goes Out is a celebration: the saga of four working-class kids from a northern English city who come together despite contrasting personalities, find a musical bond, inspire a fanatical following, and leave a legacy that changed the music world--and the lives of their fans.
A Light in the Dark: Surviving More than Ted Bundy
by Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi Kathy Kleiner RubinTHE FIRST BOOK BY A CONFIRMED SURVIVOR OF TED BUNDY, AND THE ONLY MEMOIR TO CHALLENGE THE POPULAR NARRATIVE OF BUNDY AS A HANDSOME KILLER WHO CHARMED HIS VICTIMS INTO TRUSTING HIM In January 1978, I slept in my bed at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University as Ted Bundy stalked nearby. He grabbed an oak log from a stack of firewood, slipped through a back door with a broken padlock, and headed upstairs.He began twisting doorknobs. Room 9 was open, and he quietly and quickly killed one of my sleeping sorority sisters. Across the hall, he found another unlocked door and murdered again. Then, he turned the knob to my bedroom and found it was open. I remember the attack vividly. Bundy bashed me once in the head with the log and then attacked my roommate. He heard me moaning and came to finish me off. He never let his victims live. But he stopped suddenly when a bright light filled the room. He fled the sorority house and the light disappeared. Bundy wasn't my first brush with death, and he wasn't my last. I've long been a survivor. I was born into a Cuban American family in 1957 in Florida. I had a happy childhood until I received my first death sentence at the age of thirteen. Physicians weren't sure why I was always so exhausted and running a low-grade fever. The prognosis was grim after my left kidney started to fail. Then, a physician from Cuba saved my life with a surprise diagnosis—lupus—and treatment plan: chemotherapy. I endured chemotherapy again in my early thirties when I was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. This is my story of surviving three death sentences and finding love and happiness along the way. I was saved by a bright light, and I hope my story is one for people who are experiencing their own dark times. I am a victim, but I am also a survivor, and I want to speak up for all the women and girls whom Bundy murdered. He has become a legend, and our voices have been muted or ignored. It's time we were heard.
A Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust
by Albert MarrinFrom National Book Award Finalist Albert Marrin comes the moving story of Janusz Korczak, the heroic Polish Jewish doctor who devoted his life to children, perishing with them in the Holocaust. <P><P>Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today." Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child. <P><P>Korczak was also a Polish Jew on the eve of World War II. He turned down multiple opportunities for escape, standing by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka. <P><P>But this book is much more than a biography. In it, renowned nonfiction master Albert Marrin examines not just Janusz Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state. <P><P>And throughout, Marrin draws readers into the Warsaw Ghetto. What it was like. How it was run. How Jews within and Poles without responded. Who worked to save lives and who tried to enrich themselves on other people's suffering. And how one man came to represent the conscience and the soul of humanity. <P><P>Filled with black-and-white photographs, this is an unforgettable portrait of a man whose compassion in even the darkest hours reminds us what is possible.
A Light in the Darkness: Stories About God's Mysterious Ways from Guideposts
by Arthur Gordon Elizabeth Searle-LambStories of God's often mysterious presence in our lives.