Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant ...


Book Description

Faced with failing health and financial ruin, the Civil War's greatest general and former president wrote his personal memoirs to secure his family's future - and won himself a unique place in American letters. Devoted almost entirely to his life as a soldier, Grant's Memoirs traces the trajectory of his extraordinary career - from West Point cadet to general-in-chief of all Union armies. For their directness and clarity, his writings on war are without rival in American literature, and his autobiography deserves a place among the very best in the genre.




Ruin: A Novel of Flyfishing in Bankruptcy


Book Description

Ruin is a thoroughly engrossing novel about a young couple’s struggle back from financial catastrophe that so many of us dread. Having fled their urban life, they begin to build a new life together in a rural setting, far from former friends and colleagues—only to have it fall apart all over again in ways that could never be predicted. Frank Campbell, a thirty-something former founding owner of a high-flying New York City-based hedge fund, has gone bankrupt, losing not only all his own money but the entire inherited fortune of his artist wife, Francy. The couple take refuge in an abandoned Hudson Valley farm shared with a resident herd of congenial goats. Frank is deeply shaken by the life-changing loss that has so thoroughly ruined their life together. Frank tries to build a new microbrewery business on a shoestring but is haunted by the memory of passages from literature he revered as an undergraduate at Yale before jumping into finance. For Francy, her altered circumstances, after a lifetime of privilege, have galvanized her work as an artist and she distances herself from her struggling husband. In the midst of it all, Frank takes up fly fishing on the nearby river, aspiring to join the local fishing club. Tragedy ensues during a fishing contest, further framing Frank as a “loser loner” in life. Only when he turns to fly fishing in earnest, traveling the world in search of the ever more perfect and elusive trout (and one memorable carp), does he find his way forward in “the yowling madness” of the world.




My Side of Life: The Autobiography


Book Description

As a lead singer of Westlife, one of the most successful pop acts of all time, Shane Filan was on top of the world. Together with the band, he achieved an incredible 14 No.1 singles (a record beaten only by the Beatles) sold 44 million records and was adored by fans the world over. Everything he touched turned to gold, or so it seemed. Like many others, he had piled his fortunes into the Irish property boom and when the bubble burst, Shane struggled with mounting debt. Just ten days after Westlife’s final farewell concert, in front of a sold-out crowd of 80,000 fans, Shane was declared bankrupt with debts of £18 million – losing everything. But this wasn’t the end for Shane Filan – a devoted singer and family man, Shane circled back to his roots and a year later he launched his solo career. In My Side of Life Shane shares his story for the first time – his early years growing up as part of a large Irish family in Co. Sligo, the phenomenal success of Westlife and the ups and downs of their time together, the breakup of the band, his financial devastation, and finally going it alone as a solo artist. This is Shane’s side of the story.




The Bankrupt, the Conman, the Mafia and the Irish Connection


Book Description

Colin Lees was everybody's friend. A successful businessman in the little town of Magherafelt, County Derry, he had charm, good connections and was a winner. Until, that is, it all went wrong. debt, caused by over-ambitious expansion in previous years. Lees was in the hole for #35 million. On top of that, there was a further fraud involving a missing #23 million. Then it emerged that Lees had a second business in Scotland which was an MI6 shadow company. It had collapsed as well. passport, that is. He did not tell them about his Irish passport, with which he flew the coop and went to the United States. There he soon relieved a Texas businessman of $1 million in a scam and ruined the business of one of his father's oldest friends. He returned to Ireland in 1996 and, by the time he was finally arrested, was involved in a maze of criminal activity involving drugs shipments and money laundering for the Mafia. Colin Lees gets out of jail in 2004: the missing #23 million is waiting somewhere for him. Lees was everybody's friend. A successful businessman in the little town of Magherafelt, County Derry, he had charm, good connections and was a winner. Until, that is, it all went wrong. debt, caused by over-ambitious expansion in previous years. Lees was in the hole for #35 million. On top of that, there was a further fraud involving a missing #23 million. Then it emerged that Lees had a second business in Scotland which was an MI6 shadow company. It had collapsed as well. passport, that is. He did not tell them about his Irish passport, with which he flew the coop and went to the United States. There he soon relieved a Texas businessman of $1 million in a scam and ruined the business of one of his father's oldest friends. He returned to Ireland in 1996 and, by the time he was finally arrested, was involved in a maze of criminal activity involving drugs shipments and money laundering for the Mafia. Colin Lees gets out of jail in 2004: the missing #23 million is waiting somewhere for him.







Financial Recovery


Book Description

After healing her own unhealthy relationship with money, and transforming her financial disaster into prosperity and security, Karen McCall created a recovery program she has now used for more than twenty years to help individuals, couples, and businesses large and small. In the midst of her money troubles, she saw a need for something other than financial planners, accountants, and credit counselors. These experts could tell her what she should be doing differently, but she needed someone to help her understand the underlying causes of chronic, self-defeating overspending and credit card debt, underearning, and low or no savings. To save herself, she created practical, holistic tools that address these sources of pain and shame. McCall’s program supports people as they uncover their deep-seated attitudes about money; provides simple, step-by-step tools for healing areas of physical, emotional, and spiritual deprivation; and teaches skills and strategies for experiencing lasting personal and financial fulfillment even in the midst of economic challenges and reversals.




Unbreak My Heart


Book Description

The bestselling solo R&B artist finally opens up about her rocky past and her path to redemption While Toni Braxton may appear to be living a charmed life, hers is in fact a tumultuous story: a tale of personal triumph after a public unraveling. In her heartfelt memoir, the six-time Grammy Award-winning singer and star of WE tv's hit reality series Braxton Family Values is unapologetically honest in revealing the intimate details of her journey. Toni and the entire Braxton clan have become America's favorite musical family, but what fans may not know is the intense guilt Toni once felt when she accepted a recording deal that excluded her sisters. That decision would haunt Toni for years to come, tainting the enormous fame she experienced as a popular female vocalist at the top of the charts. Despite her early accomplishments, Toni's world crumbled when she was forced to file for bankruptcy twice and was left all alone to pick up the pieces. Always the consummate professional, Toni rebuilt her life but then found herself in the midst of more heartache. The mother of an autistic child, Toni had long feared that her son's condition might be karmic retribution for some of the life choices that left her filled with remorse. Later, when heart ailments began plaguing her at the age of forty-one and she was diagnosed with lupus, Toni knew she had to move beyond the self-recrimination and take charge of her own healing—physically and spiritually. Unbreak My Heart is more than the story of Toni's difficult past and glittering success: it is a story of hope, of healing, and, ultimately, of redemption.




The Autobiography of Francis Place


Book Description

Francis Place's autobiography presents a vivid and readable account of the early life of one of the best-known radical reformers of the early 19th century. The publication of Place's manuscript for the first time in book form is a landmark in the expanding field of studies in artisan self-consciousness of the pre-Victorian era. The book will be of obvious value to those interested in the origins of the Reform Movement and especially of the controversial reform group, the London Corresponding society. In his description of the rise and fall of the LCS and of the men who composed it and other reform groups. Place brings to life the human feelings and failings of the working-class democratic movement, and his own lifelong attempts to 'promote the welfare of the working class'.




Unsinkable


Book Description

Unsinkable is the definitive memoir by film legend and Hollywood icon Debbie Reynolds. In Unsinkable, the late great actress, comedienne, singer, and dancer Debbie Reynolds shares the highs and lows of her life as an actress during Hollywood’s Golden Age, anecdotes about her lifelong friendship with Elizabeth Taylor, her experiences as the foremost collector of Hollywood memorabilia, and intimate details of her marriages and family life with her children, Carrie and Todd Fisher. A story of heartbreak, hope, and survival, “America’s Sweetheart” Debbie Reynolds picks up where she left off in her first memoir, Debbie: My Life, and is illustrated with previously unpublished photos from Reynolds’s personal collection. Debbie Reynolds died on December 28, 2016, at the age of 84, just one day after the death of her daughter, actress and author Carrie Fisher.




Iacocca


Book Description

“Vintage Iacocca . . . He is fast-talking, blunt, boastful, and unabashedly patriotic. Lee Iacocca is also a genuine folk hero. . . . His career is breathtaking.”—Business Week He’s an American legend, a straight-shooting businessman who brought Chrysler back from the brink and in the process became a media celebrity, newsmaker, and a man many had urged to run for president. The son of Italian immigrants, Lee Iacocca rose spectacularly through the ranks of Ford Motor Company to become its president, only to be toppled eight years later in a power play that should have shattered him. But Lee Iacocca didn’t get mad, he got even. He led a battle for Chrysler’s survival that made his name a symbol of integrity, know-how, and guts for millions of Americans. In his classic hard-hitting style, he tells us how he changed the automobile industry in the 1960s by creating the phenomenal Mustang. He goes behind the scenes for a look at Henry Ford’s reign of intimidation and manipulation. He recounts the miraculous rebirth of Chrysler from near bankruptcy to repayment of its $1.2 billion government loan so early that Washington didn’t know how to cash the check.