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Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House

The author was President George W. Bush's press secretary during his first term in office. This book describes Flasher's experiences and gives a behind-the-scenes look at the White House.

Taking Hold: My Journey into Blindness

A true story of the author's loss of vision as a young woman and of her adaptation to blindness.

Taking Land, Breaking Land: Women Colonizing the American West and Kenya, 1840-1940

In spite of considerable similarities, the American West and Kenya have rarely been compared or contrasted by historians, until now. This book examines the lives of women colonists on the American and Kenyan frontiers to demonstrate the importance of gender and race in shaping women's frontier experience. Although the West and Kenya are half a world apart, have natives of different races, and developed at different periods, the lives of women colonists show remarkable parallels. On both frontiers, white women were active agents of colonial conquest. They believed in the necessity of imposing their culture upon native peoples to bring about 'civilisation'. In turn, the colonised responded by resisting, which meant that women of colour seldom allied with white women. Riley's discussion of the historical experiences of these two frontiers addresses such crucial issues as women's roles in the continuation of colonisation in the US West as opposed to their roles in its collapse in Kenya. Although she uses post-modern theoretical concepts of self and other, of resistance and adaptation, her writing will appeal to a broad audience of students, scholars, and general readers.

Taking My Life

Discovered in her papers as a handwritten manuscript in 2008, Jane Rule's autobiography is a rich and culturally significant document that follows the first twenty-one years of her life. In writing about her formative years, she is indeed "taking" the measure of her life, assessing its contours of pleasure and pain, and accounting precisely for how it evolved, with great discretion and consideration for those who might have been affected by being represented in her work. She appreciated the ambiguity of the title she chose, with all its implications of suicide: at the end of her writing life, she was submitting herself as a person, not only to the literary and cultural, but also the moral and ethical critique of her readers. At turns deeply moving and witty,Taking My Lifeprobes in emotional and intellectual terms the larger philosophical questions that were to preoccupy her throughout her literary career, and showcases the origins and contexts that gave shape to Rule's rich intellectual life. Her autobiography will appeal to avid followers of her work, delighted to discover another of her works that has, until now, remained unpublished.

Taking the World In for Repairs

A collection of a dozen short stories, essays, and memoirs originally published in 1986, and now available in trade paperback. Richard Selzer retired as a surgeon in 1984 to write about his profession.

A Tale of Love and Darkness

From the back of the book: Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, A Tale of Love and Darkness is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been changed forever by his mother's suicide when he was twelve years old. The story of a man who leaves the constraints of his family and its community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz, change his name, marry, have children. The story of a writer who becomes an active participant in the political life of his nation.

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

The stories of extraordinary people who never stopped challenging themselves and who achieved world-class greatness through deliberate practice, including Benjamin Franklin, comedian Chris Rock, football star Jerry Rice, and top CEOs Jeffrey Immelt and Steven Ballmer.

Tales Behind the Tombstones: The Deaths and Burials of the Old West's Most Nefarious Outlaws, Notorious Women, and Celebrated Lawmen

A crumbling headstone in the cemetery at Bodie,California, memorializes Rosa May, a prostitute still known for caring for the sick. In Deadwood, South Dakota, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, infamous to the end, lie interred side by side, per Jane's last request. And at the top of Lookout Mountain in Colorado lies the greatest western showman of all time, Buffalo Bill Cody, his grave site visited by thousands every year.

Tales for Hard Times: A Story about Charles Dickens

Follows the life and works of the popular nineteenth-century English author.

Tales from a Dog Catcher

The Cold War had recently drawn to a close, and Lisa Duffy-Korpics's career as a dogcatcher would soon be history, too, but for very different reasons--and, indeed, with infinitely more pleasant memories. In Tales from a Dog Catcher, she brings together these experiences in a magical book that is funny, touching, and heartrending by turns. Set in a small, Hudson River town north of New York City, this book comprises twenty-two real-life stories about people and their experiences with animals, stories that both entertain and charm, and feature all creatures great and small--from plenty of dogs and cats and "peeping Tom" raccoons, to a duck and a turkey and an (imagined) mountain lion. Animal lovers of all kinds can read how: * A decades-long feud between two longtime enemies who use each other's dogs to hurt each other culminates in a dramatic courtroom battle where they unwittingly end up helping each other. * A call on an elderly woman to surrender twenty-three cats provokes a surprising revelation. * A language and culture barrier yields a situation where a woman ends up watering her cats like plants. All ends well, save for some damp kittens, but the laughter continues for miles. * The police chief forces the animal control officer (ACO) into a presentation at the local high school--for students with behavioral problems. After a few awkward moments, the ACO finds herself at ease. Drawn to these engaging teenagers, she realizes that sometimes what you are meant to do in life is not always something that you choose. Sometimes it chooses you. In the tradition of James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small and John Grogan's Marley & Me, Lisa Duffy-Korpics's Tales from a Dog Catcher is an unforgettable look at the lives of everyday people (and animals) who, whether by accident or design, come into contact with the sad, comical, and often profound world of an animal control officer.

Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World

For years Rita Golden Gelman felt she lived someone else's life. She and her husband had a privileged existence, but she wasn't happy. When she suggests they separate for a couple of weeks, she is at first horrified when he suggests a couple of months, 'so they can be free to see other people'. Then Rita decides to fulfill a long-held dream-- to travel the world. Fifteen years later, Rita is still traveling. This is the story of her journey and personal transformation. From her first tentative trip to Mexico, swept off her feet by a Latin lover; to work as a tour guide in The Galapagos Islands; to live in a royal palace Bali; to New Zealand where she 'adopts' a school- full of children, Rita takes us on her many adventures. Spending days in some places, years in others, Rita captures the joys of connecting with people everywhere and celebrates her glorious transformation from an unfulfilled suburbanite to a liberated and incredibly self-assured woman of the world. More than simply a travel memoir, TALES OF A FEMALE NOMAD is the story of a woman's rebirth.

Tales of Aztlan, The Romance of a Hero of Our Late Spanish-American War, Incidents of Interest from the Life of a Western Pioneer and Other Tales

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Tales of Famous Americans

A perfect introduction to some of the people who built, changed, and challenged the U.S.A., Tales of Famous Americans will delight young readers. Thrilling childhood stories about people from Pocahontas and Ben Franklin to Yo-Yo Ma and Mia Hamm lead into exciting accounts of their incredible accomplishments as adults. With lively art and lots of fun facts, this book is sure to inspire the next generation of famous Americans!

Tales of St. Patrick

From the dust jacket: "Not much is known for certain about Patrick, the celebrated patron saint of Ireland. Using Patrick's own writings and other ancient sources, while acknowledging that many of the best-known stories about him are clearly legends, Eileen Dunlop has written about what Patrick's life might have been like. Beginning with his privileged childhood in fifth century Britain, and continuing on through his abduction into slavery in Ireland and his religious awakening, Dunlop paints a portrait of a man who deeply loved God and the Irish people. After many setbacks and years of religious study, Patrick became Bishop of Ireland. He traveled throughout the country and taught Christianity to a largely pagan population. One of the many legends about St. Patrick proclaims that on the night he died, no darkness fell."

Tales of the Towpath: Adventures Along the Lehigh & Delaware Canal

Tales of the Towpath is a story about growth and change: the industrialization of the United States; a family struggling to prosper in a new land; the maturing of an inquisitive young boy who meets new friends and enjoys exciting adventures that shape his life.

Talk Softly

Actress and model Cynthia O'Neal was living her dream life--married to the famous stage and screen actor Patrick O'Neal, the mother of two young sons, resident of the Dakota downstairs from John Lennon, owner of the successful Ginger Man restaurant, and frequent guest at dinner parties with Leonard Bernstein and Rudolf Nureyev.And then she changed course suddenly, surprisingly, and completely. The AIDS epidemic hit the arts community hard, and after seeing the multitude of people facing an unfamiliar and stigmatized disease completely alone, Cynthia walked into the fray. With the support of longtime friend Mike Nichols, she founded Friends in Deed and soon found herself spending her days in hospitals, cramped rooms, and dirty apartments, anywhere a patient needed a hug, a hand held, or confidence boosted. And when Patrick became ill and passed away in 1994, Cynthia had to work through her own grief instead of someone else's and found her life transformed again.Talk Softly is the story of a life well-lived--with passion and compassion, in celebration of the joy of each moment, and with the ability to surprise yourself when you least expect to.

Talk to Me

Anna Deavere Smith, the award-winning playwright and actor, has spent a lifetime listening--really listening--to the people around her. As a child in the segregated Baltimore of the early 1960s, Smith absorbed the words of her parents, teachers, neighbors--even train conductors--and realized that there was something more being communicated than the actual words: The conductor's voice had a mild kind of grandeur that was a cousin to the vocal tones I had heard at funerals--"Ashes-to-ashes"--and at christenings and weddings. These are words that have been said many times, but the person who speaks them understands that each time it must be said as if it matters, because it does matter. We never know what lies ahead, and we never know what just happened, and all words must house respect of those two unknowns. In Talk to Me, Smith looks back at a singular career as a seeker and interpreter of language in America, revealing the methodology behind her extraordinary search for the truth and nuances of verbal communication. For thirty years, the defining thesis of Smith's work has been that how we speak is just as important in communicating truth and identity as what we say. Everything from individual vocal tone to grammar, Smith demonstrates, can be as identifiable and revealing as a fingerprint. Her journey has taken her from the rarefied bastions of academia to riot-torn streets; she has conducted hundreds of interviews with subjects ranging from women prisoners to presidents of the United States. In 1995, her ongoing investigation led her to Washington, D. C. After all, what better place to wage an inquiry into the power of language and the language of power than in the city where "message" is a manufactured product? What happens when we as citizens accept--which we seem to be doing more and more--our chosen leaders' failure to tell the truth? And how can we know that we are hearing what Washington really has to say when everything we receive is filtered through the media? Armed with a blazing intellect and a tape recorder, Smith tackled these questions head-on, conducting more than four hundred interviews with people both inside and outside the power structure of Washington. She recorded these sessions in her trademark verbatim transcripts, which include every tic and verbal utterance of her subjects. More than thirty of these remarkable documents appear in this book, including interviews with Bill Clinton, Anita Hill, Studs Terkel, George Bush, Mike McCurry, and Helen Thomas. After five years of searing investigation into the world of the politicians, spin doctors, and power brokers who are steering the course of our country from inside the beltway, Smith has come away with a revelatory assessment--by turns devastating and hopeful--of the lexicon of power and politics in America. Talk to Me is a landmark contribution from a woman whose pioneering insights into language speak volumes.

Talkin' about Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman

Elizabeth "Bessie" Coleman was always being told what she could & couldn't do. In an era when Jim Crow laws and segregation were a way of life, it was not easy to survive. Bessie didn't let that stop her. Although she was only 11 when the Wright brothers took their historic flight, she vowed to become the first African-American female pilot. Her sturdy faith and determination helped her overcome obstacles of poverty, racism, and gender discrimination. Innovatively told through a series of monologues.

The Talking Cure

As a kid growing up in Queens, Mike Feder identified with Scheherazade of The Thousand and One Nights: "The idea of someone having to tell a new tale every night to prevent their head getting chopped off seemed sadly familiar to me." Back then, the author's audience was his mentally ill mother, who used to stay in the house all day with the shades drawn, and then insist that her son tell her stories so that she might vicariously experience the world outside. Eventually she committed suicide, and Feder grew up to be a relentless, comic storyteller on the radio. The Talking Cure tells the story of his ridiculous jobs, first failed marriage, the string of psychiatrists, and the misery of reluctant fatherhood; throughout he maintains a kind of bizarre balancing act--hilariousness and deep seriousness, conventionality and strangeness. An ironist and a comic, Feder looks unflinchingly at his own foibles and frailties, enabling him to connect to other people's stories. The reader emerges from this book with a sense of forgiveness for the human condition, and awe at the mystery of human life. Deeply funny, and at the same time breathtakingly dark, this is a book to provoke, amuse and, in some strange way, reassure: God loves a challenge.

Talking with Adventurers

Answering questions such as "What was the scariest thing that ever happened in your work?", "What was the job that got you started in your field?", and "What is left for you to explore next?", 12 world-renowned adventurers present an inspiring picture of their lives and fascinating work.

Tania: Memories of a Lost World

Alexander's memoir about her life in Estonia in the early 1900s.

Tania: Undercover with Che Guevara in Bolivia

The story of the Cuban undercover agent sent to Bolivia in advance of Che's arrival, told by a key participant in the revolutionary movement in Latin America. Ulises Estrada was the principal organizer of Che's guerrilla mission to Bolivia and the man who trained Tania in her position as Cuba's Bolivian spy. Tania, born Haydee Tamara Bunke to German Jewish refugees in Argentina, became one of Cuba's most successful agents, penetrating Bolivia's high society and attaining direct contact with the President. She was killed in the 1967 ambush of Che's guerrilla group.

The Tao of Bruce Lee

In this companion volume to his critically acclaimed first book, The Tao of Muhammad Ali, Davis Miller turns his attention to a second iconic figure of the twentieth century--and another of Miller's own seminal influences: film star and martial arts legend Bruce Lee.Just weeks after completing Enter the Dragon, his first vehicle for a worldwide audience, Bruce Lee--the self-proclaimed world's fittest man--died mysteriously at the age of thirty-two. The film has since grossed over $500 million, making it one of the most profitable in the history of cinema, and Lee has acquired almost mythic status.Lee was a flawed, complex, yet singular talent. He revolutionized the martial arts and forever changed action moviemaking. But what has his legacy truly meant to the fans he left behind? To author Davis Miller, Lee was a profound mentor and a transformative inspiration. As a troubled young man in rural North Carolina, Miller was on a road to nowhere when he first saw Enter the Dragon, an encounter that would lead him on a physical, emotional, and spiritual journey and would change his life.As in The Tao of Muhammad Ali, Miller brilliantly combines biography--the fullest, most unflinching and revelatory to date--with his own coming-of-age story. The result is a unique and compelling book.From the Hardcover edition.

Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2012

Carol Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major article that supplies context and her own informed point of view. Readers will gain fresh insights into Buffett's investment strategies and his thinking on management, philanthropy, public policy, and even parenting.

Tara and the Place of Irish Kings: A Memoir Based on the Writings and Life of Tara Owen, June 18, 1973 - October 24, 2001

Tara Owen was born with cystic fibrosis (CF). A beautiful young woman, she fought courageously to live life on her own terms. She continued to fight for over 28 years, until a tragic error brought her battle to an end. This story is not about her death; it's about her life. Smart, beautiful, and full of love with so much to live for, yet she had every reason to have had an understandably lousy attitude. Tara's story will fill you with hope and a sense of purpose. Facets of her life are included in this story where wisdom nuggets permeate. With such love for family and a fondness for a farm she called, "The place fit for Irish kings," this story is a celebration of Tara's life and the people that meant the most to her. The reality of the illness she bravely battled will be part of the story. How else could her story be told? It's an account of perseverance, hope, love, and the desire to live life to its fullest. We'll take the journey with Tara from birth until her death. And in the space of her life, we'll learn what it means to love and to triumph through adversity, regardless. Twenty-eight years may not be long for many, but when one has inside them the heart of kings, great times and a life of love and being loved will somehow encompass you.