Biography & Autobiography : Women

Celebrated as the most successful geisha of her generation, Mineko Iwasaki was only five years old when she left her parents' home for the world of the geisha. For the next twenty-five years, she would live a life filled with extraordinary professional demands and rich rewards. She would learn the formal customs and language of the geisha, and study the ancient arts of Japanese dance and music. She would enchant kings and princes, captains of industry, and titans of the entertainment world, some of whom would become her dearest friends. more...

Price: $11.99

Anne Kreamer considered herself a youthful 49 until a photo of herself with her teenage daughter stopped her in her tracks. In one moment she saw herself for what she really was -- a middle-aged woman with her hair dyed much too harshly. Kreamer realized that she was not  fooling anyone about her age and decided it was time to get real. She set out for herself a program to let her hair become its true color, and to discover her true self. Going Gray is an exploration of that experience and a frank, warm and funny investigation of aging. Through interviews and experiments, Kreamer probes the issues behind two of the biggest fears mature women face: Can I be sexually attractive as a gray-haired middle-aged woman? and Will I be discriminated against in the work world? Her answers are surprising and provocative. more...

Price: $17.99

The first female head of state in the Western world and one of the most influential women in modern history, Golda Meir was a member of the tiny coterie of founders of the State of Israel, the architect of its socialist infrastructure, and its most tenacious international defender. Her uncompromising devotion to shaping and defending a Jewish homeland against dogged enemies and skittish allies stunned political contemporaries skeptical about the stamina of an elderly leader, and transformed Middle Eastern politics for decades to follow. A blend of Emma Goldman and Martin Luther King Jr. in the guise of a cookie-serving grandmother, Meir was a tough-as-nails politician who issued the first prescient warnings about the rise of international terrorism, out-maneuvered Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger at their own game of realpolitik, and led Israel through a bloody war even as she eloquently pleaded for peace. A prodigious fundraiser and persuasive international voice, Golda carried the nation through its most perilous hours while she herself battled cancer. In this masterful biography, critically acclaimed author and Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist Elinor Burkett looks beyond Meir's well-known accomplishments to the complex motivations and ideals, personal victories and disappointments, of her charismatic public persona. Beginning with Meir's childhood in virulently anti-Semitic Russia and her family's subsequent relocation to the United States, Burkett places Meir within the framework of the American immigrant experience, the Holocaust, and the single-mindedness of a generation that carved a nation out of its own nightmares and dreams. She paints a vivid portrait of a legendary woman defined by contradictions: an iron resolve coupled with magnetic charm, an utter ordinariness of appearance matched to extraordinary achievements, a kindly demeanor that disguised a stunning hard-heartedness, and a complete dedication to her country that often overwh more...

Price: $19.95

In The Heart of Business Liz Mohn describes her experiences as a woman and an entrepreneur at Bertelsmann, Europe’s largest media corporation, in a powerful call to action for organizations of every size and purpose to adapt to the evolving criteria of success in the twenty-first century. more...

Price: $12.00

You think you know Hollywood Hulk Hogan™? Brother, you don't know squat about me. Yeah, I'm the towering red-and-yellow warrior who revolutionized the wrestling business, the larger-than-life superhero who transformed an entire country into a horde of Hulkamaniacs. I'm the guy who spit blood and breathed fire to help create an empire called World Wrestling Entertainment™. more...

Price: $7.99