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From hardcore criminal and heroin addict at eighteen, to self-made millionaire at thirty, this is the incredible story of one man's success against all odds. When it comes to mischief and mayhem, Dean King is a boy who can rip it up with the best of them - stealing cars, smoking pot, dropping acid, and generally running amok - Dean has a no-holds-barred, fearless approach to life. Until his antics lead him to be charged for murder and put in a maximum-security prison at the tender age of fourteen. Born in the suburb of Balmain, Sydney, to alcoholic parents, Dean does not seem to have much of a chance at life. In and out of boys homes and prisons for the next ten years, Dean learns some tough lessons in life, and undergoes some experiences that will change him forever. Dean's incredible journey from hardened criminal and drug user to an entrepreneur and multi-millionaire is an often humorous, sometimes moving, and always inspiring story of one man's rise from a past of poverty and crime, to a new awareness and understanding of how to use what life throws at him to move upwards and forwards, to create a new and better version of himself. This is Dean's story, in his own words.
The dramatic and uplifting story of legendary outdoorsman and conservationist John Muir’s journey to become the man who saved Yosemite—from the author of the bestselling Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival. In June of 1889 in San Francisco, John Muir—iconic environmentalist, writer, and philosopher—meets face-to-face for the first time with his longtime editor Robert Underwood Johnson, an elegant and influential figure at The Century magazine. Before long, the pair, opposites in many ways, decide to venture to Yosemite Valley, the magnificent site where twenty years earlier, Muir experienced a personal and spiritual awakening that would set the course of the rest of his...
In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic flight to safety. Only thirty were women. Their trek would eventually cover 4,000 miles over 370 days. Under enemy fire they crossed highland awamps, climbed Tibetan peaks, scrambled over chain bridges, and trudged through the sands of the western deserts. Fewer than 10,000 of them would survive, but remarkably all of the women would live to tell the tale. Unbound is an amazing story of love, friendship, and survival written by a new master of adventure narrative.
A crucial, forgotten chapter of American history--immortalized in a survivor's firsthand account that became one of the bestselling books in 19th-century America and influenced Abraham Lincoln's thoughts on slavery--is brilliantly retold for a new generation.
Legendary Rat Pat singer and actor Dean Martin has perhaps become even more respected since his death. Today fans of all ages download his songs from the Net and purchase his recordings on CD. His extraordinary renaissance is detailed in this absorbing biography of the man the world knew as the eternal essence of cool. From his early days as a trainee boxer to work as a croupier in the local casino, where he proved to be a big hit with the women who frequented his table, this compelling biography dispels the myths about the consummate professional who worked hard to cultivate a reputation for laziness. Michael Freedland has had exclusive access to Martin's family and friends, including some who have never spoken of Dino before. Freedland takes an indepth look at Martin's career, as well as his lifelong friendship with Frank Sinatra, his chronic claustrophobia and his manic fear of hospitals. Here at last is the truth behind the iconic singer, including his three failed marriages and the reconciliation with Jeanne, his second wife.
This is the book that restarted the James Dean cult by celebrating him as the cool, defiant visionary of pop culture who made adolescence seem heroic instead of awkward and who defined the style of rock 'n' roll's politics of delinquency. The only book to fully show how deliberately and carefully Dean crafted his own image and performances, and the product of still unequalled research, vivid writing, intimate photographs, and profound meditation, James Dean: The Mutant King has become almost as legendary as its subject.
DIVA revealing and insightful look at one of the modern world’s most acclaimed historical novelists/div DIVPatrick O’Brian was well into his seventies when the world fell in love with his greatest creation: the maritime adventures of Royal Navy Captain Jack Aubrey and ship’s surgeon Stephen Maturin. But despite his fame, little detail was available about the life of the reclusive author, whose mysterious past King uncovers in this groundbreaking biography./divDIV /divDIVKing traces O’Brian’s personal history, beginning as a London-born Protestant named Richard Patrick Russ, to his tortured relationship with his first wife and child, to his emergence from World War II with the entirely new identity under which he would publish twenty volumes in the Aubrey–Maturin series. What King unearths is a life no less thrilling than the seafaring world of O’Brian’s imagination./div