The son of a poorly educated boat owner in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam had an exceptional career as a defense scientist that culminated in receiving the highest civilian honor in India, the Bharat Ratna. In his role as director of the nation’s defense R&D program, Kalam showed the enormous potential for dynamism and creativity present in what appeared to be dormant research institutions. This is the tale of Kalam’s ascent from obscurity, his difficulties on the personal and professional fronts, and the development of the Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Trishul, and Nag missiles, which have made India a missile power of note in the world stage. This is a story about internal and international politics as well as science, and it is also the story of independent India’s quest for scientific self-sufficiency and defense autonomy.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Be active! Take on responsibility! Work for the things you believe in. If you do not, you are surrendering your fate to others.”
“We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness.”
“To live only for some unknown future is superficial. It is like climbing a mountain to reach the peak without experiencing its sides. The sides of the mountain sustain life, not the peak. This is where things grow, experience is gained and technologies are mastered. The importance of the peak lies only in the fact that it defines the sides.”
“If you want to leave your footprints On the sands of time Do not drag your feet.”
“Let not thy winged days be spent in vain. When once gone no gold can buy them back again.”
Stephanie Land’s aspirations to leave her small village in the Pacific Northwest at the age of 28 and follow her goals of going to college and becoming a writer were derailed when a summer romance resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. To make ends meet, she started working as a housekeeper. Determined to provide her daughter the greatest life possible, Stephanie worked long days, pursued her college degree online, and started writing nonstop.
The movie Maid delves into the dark side of upper-middle-class America and the truth of what it’s like to work for them. Stephanie describes her interactions with her clients, many of whom she knows a lot about but who don’t recognize her from any other cleaner, as “I’d become a nameless ghost.” She starts to find optimism in her own direction as she learns more about the tragic and loving aspects of her clients’ life. She gives the “servant” worker and those living in poverty who are pursuing the American Dream a voice through her journalism. The story of Maid is not just Stephanie’s.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Our space was a home because we loved each other in it.”
“I love you, I whispered to myself. I’m here for you. Reassurance of self-love was all I had.”
“The months of poverty, instability, and insecurity created a panic response that would take years to undo.”
“Like I had been in the wrong for leaving a man who threatened me. I knew there were countless women out there in the same situation as I had been.”
“I could be as reckless as I wanted with my heart, but not with hers.”
The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Famous Rock Band is a joint autobiography of Mötley Crüe written by Neil Strauss of the New York Times and the band members Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil, and Nikki Sixx. It was first released in 2001 and details the band’s beginnings, as well as their fame and highs and lows. Over 100 images, largely in black and white, are included in the book. In the center of the book, there is a 16-page color section.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“On Ecstasy, Joan Rivers looks like Pamela Anderson, so imagine what Pamela Anderson looked like.”
“We thought we had elevated animal behavior to an art form. But then we met Ozzy.”
“Looking down on it from the helicopter, with a bottle of Jack in my left hand, a bag of pills in my right hand, and a blond head bobbing up and doen in my lap, I felt like the king of the world.”
“There was one dude in a jeans jacket who I swear to God shit in his pants when all of a sudden I was inches away from his face playing drums in the air.”
“The angry man will defeat Himself in battle As well as in life.”
Childhood for David Goggins was a nightmare filled with deprivation, discrimination, and physical abuse. However, Goggins changed himself from a hopeless, obese young man into one of the best endurance athletes in the world via self-control, mental fortitude, and hard training. He was the only man in history to successfully complete the rigorous training required to become a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller. He then broke records in a number of endurance competitions, earning him the title of “The Fittest (Real) Man in America” from Outside magazine.
He discusses his incredible life experience in Can’t Hurt Me and demonstrates that most people only use 40% of their potential. This is what Goggins refers to as The 40% Rule, and his life narrative shows how anyone can use it to overcome sorrow, face fear, and realize their full potential.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”
“In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training,”
“No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”
“I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.”
“It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.”
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, first published in 1854, is a vivid depiction of Henry D. Thoreau’s time spent alone in a remote hut at Walden Pond. It is among the most important and captivating works of literature in the United States. This new paperback edition commemorates the 150th anniversary of this timeless book and was introduced by renowned American author John Updike. The majority of Walden’s content, which includes interesting passages like “Reading” and “The Pond in the Winter,” is taken from Thoreau’s notebooks. A trip to Concord, a description of his bean field, and Thoreau’s encounters with an Irish family and a Canadian woodcutter are among his other well-known passages. This is the definitive version of Walden, as close to Thoreau’s original purpose as the evidence permits. This is the appropriate presentation of Thoreau’s monumental role of social critique and dissent for the student and the general reader.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
“Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.”
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
One of the most notorious figures in American finance during the 1990s was Jordan Belfort, the former boss of the infamous investment firm Stratton Oakmont. A brilliant and cunning stock-chopper, Belfort took his merry gang on a crazy ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a sizable office on Long Island. Belfort now tells a story of greed, status, and luxury that no one could have imagined in his astonishing and entertaining tell-all autobiography.
Belfort’s hyped-up, stoned-out traders browbeat clients into a stock purchase that was promised to make huge profits—for the house—at Stratton Oakmont, which is rumored to be the inspiration for the movie Boiler Room. But an insatiable thirst for vice, dubious methods, and a tragic alliance with up-and-coming shoe designer Steve Madden would put Belfort in trouble with the police and plunge him into terrifying darkness of his own.
Here is the extraordinary tale of an everyday individual who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions of dollars, from the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model wife as they ran a crazy household with two small children, full-time employees of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere. Even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them. till everything collapsed.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Without action, the best intentions in the world are nothing more than that: intentions.”
“There’s no nobility in poverty.”
“The easiest way to make money is -create something of such value that everybody wants and go out and give and create value, the money comes automatically.”
“I’ve got the guts to die. What I want to know is, have you got the guts to live?”
“They were drunk on youth, fueled by greed, and higher than kites.”
What happens when you learn that the guy you’ve centered your life around didn’t actually exist? When something that you thought “it could never happen to me” does?
When Jen Waite starts to discover that her devoted husband—the father of her little daughter, her best friend, and the love of her life—fits the standard definition of a psychopath, she asks herself these questions. Waite details every tragic find, every life-ending deception, and what transpires after the dust settles on her broken marriage in a candid, first-person account.
Waite seeks to find the truth and restore confidence in her marriage after receiving a troubling email that makes her believe her husband is having an affair. Instead, she discovers more deceit, unfaithfulness, and treachery than she ever anticipated. Waite incessantly scrutinizes her connection, searching for any instance from the previous five years that wasn’t a part of the elaborate lie and deception scheme. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we witness Waite’s romance sprout, bloom, and wither all at once, heightening the impact of the pain and disbelief.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“when you come out on the other side of this, the amount of power you walk away with is going to blow your fucking mind.”
“sometimes it takes going through hell to find yourself.”
“It’s like the mask drops when they are called on to be the nurturer in the relationship for once.”
“I’m just pointing out that it is now a pattern of behavior. Are you OK with this happening again in, say, five years? Because it seems like this type of behavior is part of who Marco is.”
“You have to grieve the family and the future you thought you would have.”
In Zen & the Art of Motorbike Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, a father and his young son travel across the American Northwest on a motorcycle during the summer. The book is an analysis of how we live and a meditation on how to live better.
Robert M. Pirsig wrote a book titled Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, which was initially released in 1974. It is the first of Pirsig’s books to examine his idea of Quality and is a dramatized autobiography.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called a Religion.”
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
“Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive”
“For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. ”
Raina merely desires to be a typical sixth-grader. However, after leaving Girl Scouts one evening, she trips and hurts her two front teeth badly. This sets off a protracted and stressful process that includes surgery, headgear that is embarrassing, and even a retainer with false teeth attached. Additionally, there are still other issues to contend with, like a significant earthquake, boy confusion, and unfriendly friends. Anyone who attended middle school will be able to relate to this authentic coming-of-age story, especially those who have experienced some dental drama of their own.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Weird…something happens when you smile at people. They smile back”
“But the more I focused on my interests, the more it brought out things I liked about myself”
A tender, poignant story of unwavering love in a family that gave the author the ferocious desire to build out a prosperous life on her own terms despite its obvious imperfections.
Jeannette Walls was raised by parents whose values and obstinate nonconformity served as both a curse and a blessing for them. Four kids were born to Rex and Rose Mary Walls. They initially led a nomadic lifestyle, traveling between Southwest desert settlements and camping in the mountains. When Rex was sober, he captivated his children’s attention by teaching them about physics, geology, and, most importantly, how to live freely. Rex was a captivating, bright man. Rose Mary, a writer and painter who couldn’t stomach having to support her family, referred to herself as an “excitement addict.” Making an artwork that would endure a lifetime was more appealing than preparing a dinner that would be eaten in fifteen minutes.
The Walls eventually returned to the depressing West Virginia mining town, and the family from which Rex Walls had tried everything in his power to flee when the money ran out or the romanticism of the nomadic existence faded. He ingested. He took the cash for groceries and vanished for many days. As the family’s instability worsened, Jeannette and her siblings were left to fend for themselves. They helped one another cope with their parents’ betrayals until they eventually had the means and the determination to leave the house.
Not only does Jeannette Walls’ ability to escape with her wits, courage, and determination astound us, but she also portrays her parents with such warmth and kindness. Hers is a tale of triumph over all adversity as well as a beautiful, touching account of unwavering love in a family that, despite its severe defects, gave her the burning desire to forge a prosperous life on her terms. Jeannette Walls concealed her ancestry for 20 years. She now shares her own narrative.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”
“Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.”
“If you don’t want to sink, you better figure out how to swim”
This is how the enormous, captivating first book, which is set in the underground of modern Bombay, begins. Lin, an ex-convict with a fake passport who escapes from an Australian maximum security prison in search of a city’s bustling streets where he may vanish, tells the story of Shantaram. The two enter Bombay’s secret society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and performers, Indians and exiles from other nations, who look for what they cannot find elsewhere in this amazing location, accompanied by his guide and devoted buddy Prabaker.
Lin is a guy on the run who has no family, home, or identification. He runs a clinic in one of the city’s most impoverished slums while learning the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. He discovers war, torture in detention, murder, and a string of sinister betrayals as a result of his search. Two people possess the keys that can free Lin from the secrets and intrigues that have bound her. The first is Khader Khan, a mafia figurehead, criminal philosopher, and saint who served as Lin’s tutor in the Golden City’s criminal underworld. The second is Karla, who is attractive, secretive, and motivated by secrets that torture her but endow her with frightening power.
This massive novel encompasses the entirety of human existence, with a deep love for India at its core. It includes burning slums and five-star hotels, passionate love and jail agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood movies, spiritual gurus, and mujaheddin guerrillas. It is unquestionably the literary debut of an amazing voice, based on the author’s life.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.”
“Sometimes you break your heart in the right way, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.”
“The best revenge, like the best sex, is performed slowly, and with the eyes open.”
“Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.”
The first time Tara Westover entered a classroom, she was 17 years old. She was raised by survivalists in the highlands of Idaho, where she stocked up on home-canned peaches and slept with her “head-for-the-hills bag” in case the world ended. She salvaged in her father’s junkyard in the winter and boiled herbs for her mother, a midwife, and healer, in the summer.
Tara saw a doctor or nurse because her father forbids going to hospitals. Herbalism was used to heal burns from explosions as well as gashings and concussions at home. The family was so cut off from society that no one was there to make sure the kids went to school or to step in when Tara’s older brother started acting violently.
The story of the battle for self-invention is told in the book Educated. It is a story about devoted family relationships and the pain associated with breaking them. Westover has created a global coming-of-age story that captures the essence of what education is and what it provides: the viewpoint to see one’s personal life through new eyes and the determination to alter it. Westover has done this with the acute insight that sets all great writers apart.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you.”
“My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
“We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell”
“I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”
“Whomever you become, whatever you make yourself into, that is who you always were.”
Untamed is a powerful wake-up call as well as an intimate narrative that is simultaneously soulful and hilarious, aggressive and sympathetic. It is the tale of how one woman came to understand that a good mother does not slowly die for her kids, but rather teaches them how to live completely. It is the tale of navigating divorce, creating a new blended family, and realizing that whether a family is fractured or entire depends less on its makeup than on each individual’s capacity to contribute her whole self to the table. And it’s the tale of how every one of us can start to believe in ourselves enough to establish boundaries, come to terms with our bodies, honor our rage and heartache, and unlock new our most real, wildest instincts in order to transform into women who can, at long last, look in the mirror and declare: There She Is.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.”
“This life is mine alone. So I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.”
“Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right.”
“Blessed are those brave enough to make things awkward, for they wake us up and move us forward.”
“WE CAN DO HARD THINGS.”
A tender, poignant story of unwavering love in a family that gave the author the ferocious desire to carve out a prosperous life on her own terms despite its obvious imperfections.
Jeannette Walls was raised by parents whose values and obstinate nonconformity served as both a curse and a blessing for them. Four kids were born to Rex and Rose Mary Walls. They initially led a nomadic lifestyle, traveling between Southwest desert settlements and camping in the mountains. When Rex was sober, he captivated his children’s attention by teaching them about physics, geology, and, most importantly, how to live freely. Rex was a captivating, bright man. Rose Mary, a writer and painter who couldn’t stomach having to support her family, referred to herself as an “excitement addict.” Making an artwork that would endure a lifetime was more appealing than preparing a dinner that would be eaten in fifteen minutes.
The Walls eventually returned to the depressing West Virginia mining town, and the family from which Rex Walls had tried everything in his power to flee when the money ran out or the romanticism of the nomadic existence faded. He ingested. He took the cash for groceries and vanished for many days. As the family’s instability worsened, Jeannette and her siblings were left to fend for themselves. They helped one another cope with their parents’ betrayals until they eventually had the means and the determination to leave the house.
Not only does Jeannette Walls’ ability to escape with her wits, courage, and determination astound us, but she also portrays her parents with such warmth and kindness. Hers is a tale of triumph over all adversity as well as a beautiful, touching account of unwavering love in a family that, despite its severe defects, gave her the burning desire to forge a prosperous life in her own way.
Jeannette Walls concealed her ancestry for 20 years. She now shares her own narrative.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.”
“Things usually work out in the end.”
“What if they don’t?”
“That just means you haven’t come to the end yet.”
“One benefit of Summer was that each day we had more light to read by.”
“I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes.”
“Sometimes you need a little crisis to get your adrenaline flowing and help you realize your potential.”
The 2012 memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by American author, writer, and podcaster Cheryl Strayed. In her memoir, Strayed refers to her 1995 1,100-mile trek over the Pacific Crest Trail as a voyage of self-discovery.
Cheryl Strayed believed she had lost everything when she was twenty-two. After her mother passed away, her family dispersed, and her marriage quickly fell apart. With nothing left to lose, she took the rashest choice of her life four years later. She would travel more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail by herself, without any expertise or preparation, from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State.
Wild effectively conveys the terrors and delights of one young lady pressing forth against all odds on a trip that maddened, empowered, and finally healed her. It is told with suspense and elegance, glittering with love and humor.
ISBN 13:9780307592736
A young neurosurgeon who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer seeks to respond to the question, “What makes a life worth living?” in this profoundly touching and precisely observed memoir. Readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott will find this work to be highly recommended.
On the cusp of finishing ten years of training to become a neurosurgeon at the age of 36, Paul Kalanithi received a stage IV lung cancer diagnosis. He alternated between working as a doctor caring for the terminally ill and being patient fighting for life. The future he and his wife had envisioned vanished in an instant. When Breath Becomes Air follows Kalanithi’s development from a gullible medical student who was “possessed,” as he put it, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life,” to a Stanford neurosurgeon who works in the brain, the most important location for a person’s identity, and then to a patient and new father who must face his own mortality.
When faced with death, what makes life worthwhile? What do you do when your future flattens out into an endless present and is no more a ladder toward your aspirations in life? What does it mean to foster a new life as one dies off when you have a child? In this extraordinarily compelling and astutely observed book, Kalanithi addresses some of these issues. While writing this book, Paul Kalanithi passed away in March 2015, yet his words continue to serve as a mentor and a gift to all of us. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.'” A talented writer who also served as a doctor, When Breath Becomes Air is a memorable, inspirational look at the difficulty of facing death and the bond between a patient and a doctor.
Sylvia Plath, an American author, and poet, only wrote one book, The Bell Jar. The book, which was first released in 1963 under the alias “Victoria Lucas,” is semi-autobiographical, albeit places and people’s identities have been changed.
The Bell Jar details Esther Greenwood’s breakdown: clever, attractive, incredibly gifted, and accomplished, but slowly crumbling—possibly for the final time. Sylvia Plath expertly engrosses the reader in Esther’s breakdown to the point where Esther’s insane behavior seems entirely plausible and approachable like watching a movie. The Bell Jar is a disturbing American classic thanks to its astounding achievement of penetrating so deeply into the terrifying recesses of the psyche.
Malcolm X rose to prominence as one of the twentieth century’s most important figures through a lifetime of passion and hardship. He describes his transformation from hoodlum to Muslim cleric in this captivating narrative of his voyage from a prison cell to Mecca. The guy dubbed “the angriest Black man in America” describes how his conversion to real Islam helped him confront his fury and recognize the oneness of all humans.
An acknowledged modern American classic, “The New York Times praised “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as “extraordinary.” A wonderful, heartbreaking, and significant book.” This thrilling story changed Malcolm X’s life into his legacy, and it is still outstanding and significant. The power of his words, and the power of his beliefs, continue to ring true more than a generation later.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle.”
“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
“Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”
“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”
“I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being–neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being.”
Explore the enchanting, memorable world of James Herriot, the world’s greatest renowned veterinarian, and his menagerie of uplifting, hilarious, and heartbreaking animal patients. Generations of readers have been enthralled by Herriot’s fascinating tales, a profound passion for life, and remarkable storytelling powers for almost four decades. Herriot traveled the isolated, magnificent Yorkshire Dales for decades, treating every patient, from the smallest to the largest, and watching animals and humans equally with his sharp, caring eye.
We follow the young Herriot as he eats up his calling and realises that the facts of veterinary practise in rural Yorkshire are significantly different from the antiseptic atmosphere of veterinary school in All Creatures Great and Small. Some visits are heartbreakingly difficult, such as one to an elderly man in the village someone whose ill dog is his only friend and companion; others are lighthearted and amusing, such as Herriot’s ability to visit the overfed and pampered Pekinese Tricki Woo, who throws parties and has his own stationery; and still, others are truly inspiring and insightful, such as Herriot’s remembrances of poor farmers who will scrape together their meager earnings to get the proper care.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.”
“I don’t think he ever gave a thought to other people’s opinions, which was just as well because they were often unkind”
“At times it seemed unfair that I should be paid for my work; for driving out in the early morning with the fields glittering under the first pale sunshine and the wisps of mist still hanging on the high tops.”
“When all world goes one road, I go t’other.”
“If you decide to become a veterinary surgeon you will never grow rich but you will have a life of endless interest and variety.”
Hillbilly Elegy is an impassioned and intimate examination of a white working-class American culture in crisis. Although the dissolution of this group has been reported on increasingly frequently and with increasing worry over the past forty years, it has never previously been described as searingly from the inside. In his real account, J. D. Vance describes what it’s like to be born with a social, geographic, and class decline hanging over your head.
Hopefully, the Vance family’s journey starts in wartime America. The grandparents of J. D. relocated to Ohio from the Appalachian region of Kentucky because they were “dirt poor and in love” and wanted to get away from the abject poverty they were surrounded by. One of their grandchildren would later earn a Yale Law School degree, which is a traditional indicator of success in attaining generational upward mobility. They raised a middle-class family. But as the Hillbilly Elegy family saga unfolds, we discover that J.D.’s grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most importantly, his mother struggled greatly with the requirements of their new middle-class life, never truly escaping the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma that is so typical of their region of America. Vance demonstrates with piercing honesty how he still battles the ghosts of his turbulent familial past.
Hillbilly Elegy is a profoundly affecting book with a healthy dose of comedy and brilliantly colored characters that tells the true story of what upward mobility is like. Additionally, it is an important and unsettling reflection on how a sizable portion of this nation no longer lives the American ideal.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasing: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.”
“Psychologists call it “learned helplessness” when a person believes, as I did during my youth, that the choices I made had no effect on the outcomes in my life.”
“We don’t study as children, and we don’t make our kids study when we’re parents. Our kids perform poorly in school. We might get angry with them, but we never give them the tools—like peace and quiet at home—to succeed.”
“I don’t know what the answer is, precisely, but I know it starts when we stop blaming Obama or Bush or faceless companies and ask ourselves what we can do to make things better.”
“People talk about hard work all the time in places like Middletown. You can walk through a town where 30 percent of the young men work fewer than twenty hours a week and find not a single person aware of his own laziness.”
For the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight tell the inner story of the company’s beginnings as an adventurous start-up and how it developed into one of the most recognizable, game-changing, and successful brands in the world in this candid and compelling biography.
After graduating from business school in 1962, Phil Knight borrowed $50 from his father and started a business with the straightforward goal of importing high-end, reasonably priced athletic shoes from Japan. Knight made $8,000 his first year by selling the shoes out of the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant. Nike now has annual sales of almost $30 billion. In an era of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all companies, and the swoosh has developed into a revolutionary, global icon, one of the most pervasive and well-known symbols in existence right now.
But Knight, the person responsible for the swoosh, has never been made public. Now, for the first time, he relates his narrative, starting with his crossroads experience, in a memoir that is open, humble, brave, and wry. After traveling the world on a backpack at the age of 24, he made the unorthodox choice to launch his own company, one that would be lively and distinctive.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog
“The single easiest way to find out how you feel about someone. Say goodbye.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog
“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
― Phil Knight (original quote by George S Patton), Shoe Dog
“I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
“Life is growth. You grow or you die.”
― Phil Knight, Shoe Dog
In Zen & the Art of Motorbike Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig, a father and his young son travel across the American Northwest on a motorcycle during the summer. The book is an analysis of how we live and a reflection on how to live better.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“You look at where you’re going and where you are and it never makes sense, but then you look back at where you’ve been and a pattern seems to emerge.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone. ”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Robin Wall Kimmerer has been educated as a botanist to use scientific methods to raise questions about nature. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she believes that plants and animals are our earliest teachers. Kimmerer weaves these knowledge lenses together in Braiding Sweetgrass to demonstrate how the awakening of a broader ecological consciousness necessitates the recognition and celebration of our reciprocal link with the rest of the living world. We can only grasp the earth’s generosity and learn to contribute our own gifts when we can understand the languages of other beings.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“In some Native languages, the term for plants translates to “those who take care of us.”
“Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”
“The land knows you, even when you are lost.”
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
“This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.”
Piper Kerman, with her work, live-in boyfriend, and loving family, bears little resemblance to the rebellious young woman who became involved with drug runners and sent a bag of drug money to Europe over a decade ago. But her wild past catches up with her when she least expects it; convicted and sentenced to fifteen months in an infamous women’s jail in Connecticut, Piper becomes inmate #11187-424. She learns to navigate this bizarre world with its arbitrary rules and regulations, it’s unpredictable, even hazardous interactions, from her first strip search until her last release. She encounters women from many walks of life who surprise her with kind gestures, harsh realities, and simple acts of compassion.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Brave enough to be quiet when quiet was called for, brave enough to observe before flinging me into something, brave enough to not abandon my true self when someone else wanted to seduce or force me in a direction I didn’t want to go, brave enough to stand my ground quietly.”
“Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the word, a place where the U.S. government now puts not only the dangerous but also the inconvenient—people who are mentally ill, people who are addicts, people who are poor and uneducated and unskilled. Meanwhile, the ghetto in the outside world is a prison as well, and a much more difficult one to escape from than this correctional compound. In fact, there is basically a revolving door between our urban and rural ghettos and the formal ghetto of our prison system.”
“how important it is to stay true to yourself even in the midst of an adventure or experiment.”
“Maybe, because all these good people loved me enough to help me, maybe I wasn’t quite as bad as I felt. Maybe there was a part of me that was worthy of their love.”
“From a young age I had learned to get over–to cover my tracks emotionally, to hide or ignore my problems in the belief that they were mine alone to solve.”
Burch was abandoned at an orphanage and never spent enough time in a single foster home to develop any friendships. This is the account of how he matured and developed the bravery to pursue love.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“The table and chair legs were like bars of the cage around me. This time they weren’t keeping me in, they were keeping her out.”
“Education is the most important thing you can have,” he said.”
“She smiled a wonderful smile and pinched my cheek.”
“Tomorrow, or when you feel better, we’ll go to the store and buy you all the things you need.”
A beaten child named Brooke Nolan calls the police anonymously to report the increasing violence in her family. It’s a glass of spilled milk at the dinner table that causes her to talk about the cruelty she’s been hiding when social services put her safety in danger and force her to preserve her father’s secret. Brooke faces a dysfunctional system that tries to maintain her father in the house in her pursuit of safety and justice. She risks losing the support of her family and learns that some people just do not want to be saved when the jury and a potential love interest gather to motivate her to fight. The book Spilled Milk features a stunning narrative, success, and tenacity.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Just remember, rain doesn’t seem all that threatening at first, but too much rain can turn into a flood.”
“Not everyone is abused by getting hit or slapped around, no child. Some people get put down by being called names, or the abuser makes them feel like they crazy and that the abuse ain’t happening.”
“We don’t have the luxury of fallin’ apart, for someone else to come picking up the pieces.”
“We were fifteen months apart in age which meant everything was a competition; who could read all the Disney books the fastest, ride their bike further or know all answers to the universe both large and small.”
“Abuse can mean so many things, like threatening someone, hitting them, or controlling them by making them feel worthless.”
The heartbreaking account of the battle as seen by a child soldier. Beah describes how, when he was twelve years old, he ran away from rebels who were attacking and wandered a violently altered landscape. By the age of thirteen, he had joined the government army and was a soldier. My new friends are starting to think I haven’t given them the whole truth about my life.
“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.”
“Yes, sometimes.”
The way wars are fought today is by young people who have been drugged up and are armed with AK-47s. Children are now preferred as soldiers. There are thought to be some 300,000 child soldiers involved in the more than fifty conflicts that are currently raging around the world. One of them used to be Ishmael Beah.
What is combat like from a child soldier’s perspective? How does a killer get started? The best way to stop? Journalists have chronicled child soldiers, and novelists have had a difficult time imagining their experiences. However, the first-person story of someone who made it through this torment and survived has not yet been published. Beah, who is now 25 years old, narrates a gripping tale in A Long Way Gone about how, when he was 12 years old, he ran away from rebels who were invading and traveled to a country that had been devastated by war. By the time he was thirteen, the government army had taken him in, and Beah, a youngster who was kind at heart, discovered that he was able of doing some pretty horrible things.
This is a unique and captivating story that is heartbreakingly honest and written with tremendous literary intensity.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them. ”
“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”
“I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I’ve come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end…”
“We must strive to be like the moon”
“My childhood had gone by without my knowing, and it seemed as if my heart had frozen.”
McNab’s work, a work of fiction titled “Remote Control,” has already earned him a spot on this list. The former member of the SAS makes a second appearance in his book that was published in 1993 and is about a mission that took place behind enemy lines during the 1991 Gulf War. During that conflict, eight members of the SAS regiment set out on a top-secret mission that was intended to infiltrate them deep behind enemy lines.
They were to locate and destroy mobile Scud launchers, as well as sever the underground network connection that connected Baghdad and the northwestern part of Iraq. This was to be done under the command of Sergeant Andy McNab. Others who were involved in the mission have claimed that certain aspects of the book are either made up or exaggerated to heighten the sense of suspense. McNab weaves a compelling tale of bravery in the face of overwhelming challenges, and this story is compelling regardless of the truth regarding the mission.
American author Mitch Albom’s memoir, Tuesdays with Morrie, details a number of visits he paid to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz as Schwartz slowed down and eventually passed away from ALS.
Perhaps it was a grandmother, teacher, or coworker. Someone more experienced, kind, and wise who helped you navigate it when you were young and in search of answers. Morrie Schwartz, his college lecturer from over two decades ago, was that person for Mitch Albom. The insights may have gone because, like Mitch, you lost sight of this mentor as you moved forward. Wouldn’t it be nice to talk to that individual once again and ask the deeper questions that are still bothering you?
It was a second chance for Mitch Albom. In the final few months of the elderly man’s life, he rediscovered Morrie. Every Tuesday, just as they were accustomed to when they were in college, Mitch visited Morrie in his study since he knew he had ALS, also known as motor neuron disease. Their restored romance evolved into one last “class” of life lessons.
Childhood for David Goggins was a nightmare filled with deprivation, discrimination, and physical abuse. However, Goggins changed himself from a hopeless, obese young man into one of the best endurance athletes in the world via self-control, mental fortitude, and hard training. He was the only man in history to successfully complete the rigorous training required to become a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller. He then broke records in a number of endurance competitions, earning him the title of “The Fittest (Real) Man in America” from Outside magazine.
He discusses his incredible life experience in Can’t Hurt Me and demonstrates that most people only use 40% of their potential. This is what Goggins refers to as The 40% Rule, and his life narrative shows how anyone can use it to overcome sorrow, face fear, and realize their full potential.
Best Quotes from this Book:
“Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. There’s no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if you’re lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
“It won’t always go your way, so you can’t get trapped in this idea that just because you’ve imagined a possibility for yourself you somehow deserve it. Your entitled mind is dead weight. Cut it loose. Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim at what you are willing to earn!”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
“In the military, we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training,”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
“No one is going to come to help you. No one’s coming to save you.”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds