Archive for the 'Biographies and Memoirs' Category

Confessions of a Carb Queen: A Memoir

Confessions of a Carb Queen: A Memoir

When her doctor told her she could suffer a stroke just by walking across the street, Susan Blech knew drastic action was called for. She was only 38 years old, and the scale registered a life-threatening 468 pounds. Rejecting the idea of gastric bypass surgery, Susan relocated to Durham, North Carolina, giving up all that was familiar and $70,000 of her life savings to devote herself to losing weight and getting healthy on the famed Rice Diet.
In Confessions of a Carb Queen, Susan Blech speaks candidly about topics no obese person has dared to address: fat sex, eating binges, the lies you tell others, and the lies you tell yourself. She explores the psychological component of overeating and the connection between her own binge eating and the aneurysm that left her mother brain-damaged and paralyzed when Susan was a toddler. Her gripping story—a blend of memoir, advice, and delicious, health-conscious recipes—is a testament to her personal strength and willpower, and will be an inspiration to all who read it.

Customer Review: A Book Only A Current Or Former Fat Person Could Understand!
Meet Susan Blech, a former 468-pound woman who backed on the pounds despite being healthy and fit as a kid and then a bodybuilding in young adulthood. But, as she says in her book, LIFE happened and the rest was history. Thankfully, at the age of 38, Susan took back her life and lost 250 pounds. But it wasn’t before some rather humiliating circumstances in her life woke her up to this grave problem that she had been trying to deal with since the weight came pouring on. Anyone who has ever been obese will relate to these stories because they hit home. Susan moved to Durham, North Carolina to lose the weight…how did that go? This little square book reads like a riveting suspense novel and will entertain, educate, and motivate you to start doing some confessing of your own.
Customer Review: Nauseating
If you want to read about a woman’s multiple sexual encounters, descriptions of male genitalia, the woes of on-line dating (and the author’s obsession with it), or the many places and ways to have sex, then this book is for you. If you want tips on how to beat carb addition, then go elsewhere. Other than cutting out salt and hiring an exercise coach, this book has nothing of value to offer. It was one BIG disappointment.

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed Customer Review: Great book on a legendary company
This book is based as an (auto)biography of Ben Rich the boss of the legendary Lockheed “Skunkworks”. It is a lot more than that however with an overview of secret ‘black-ops’ of the cold war period. The development of the U2 and SR-71 as well as an in depth introduction to the F117 Stealth fighter make this a must have book for the technophile. But it is more than that, there are great snippets from ‘other voices’ such as engineers, pilots and even the military have their say about the Skunk works and in particular its enigmatic founder Clarence “Kelly” Johnson.

Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High

Warriors Don’t Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High You’ve gotta learn to defend yourself. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling.
— The soldier assigned to protect Melba

Please, God, let me learn how to stop being a warrior. Sometimes I just need to be a girl.
— Melba’s diary, on her sixteenth birthday

In 1957 Melba Pattillo turned sixteen. That was also the year she became a warrior on the front lines of a civil rights firestorm. Following the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board Education, she was one of nine teenagers chosen to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School. This is her remarkable story.

You will listen to the cruel taunts of her schoolmates and their parents. You will run with her from the threat of a lynch mob’s rope. You will share her terror as she dodges lighted sticks of dynamite, and her pain as she washes away the acid sprayed into her eyes. But most of all you will share Melba’s dignity and courage as she refuses to back down.
Customer Review: A Great Read!
Warrior’s Don’t Cry is about a young girl faced with challenges larger than life. At the age of 15, she is chosen to be one of the 9 students to integrate Central High in Little Rock Arkansas. It is the true story of Melba and her 8 African American classmates as they face all of the challenges of being placed in the all white classrooms of Central High.
The book starts off with Melba’s first day at school. We all know how stressful it is to start our first day in High School. These 9 students were never able to have a successful first day because of the hundreds of angry people surrounding the school, yelling “2-4-6-8 We don’t want to integrate!” Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, takes the bus to school. As she gets off of the bus, she is faced with an angry white mob. She tries to circumvent them but they move along with her, creating a human barricade preventing her from going to school. This was during the times when people were hung from a noose by angry white mobs. Throughout the ordeal, Elizabeth keeps her head up and tries to get away. Melba and her mom concoct a plan to distract the hundreds of people and create an escape route for Elizabeth. Finally, she escapes and returns home safely.



Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight’s Cross

Sniper on the Eastern Front: The Memoirs of Sepp Allerberger, Knight’s Cross Josef “Sepp” Allerberger was the second most successful sniper of the German Wehrmacht and one of the few private soldiers to be honoured with the award of the Knight’s Cross.

An Austrian conscript, after qualifying as a machine gunner he was drafted to the southern sector of the Russian Front in July 1942. Wounded at Voroshilovsk, he experimented with a Russian sniper-rifle while convalescing and so impressed his superiors with his proficiency that he was returned to the front on his regiment’s only sniper specialist.