In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, close friends from childhood and graduates of Smith College, left home in Auburn, New York, for the wilds of northwestern Colorado. Bored by their society luncheons, charity work, and the effete young men who courted them, they learned that two teaching jobs were available in a remote mountaintop schoolhouse and applied;shocking their families and friends. “No young lady in our town,” Dorothy later commented, “had ever been hired by anybody.”
They took the new railroad over the Continental Divide and made their way by spring wagon to the tiny settlement of Elkhead, where they lived with a family of homesteaders. They rode several miles to school each day on horseback, sometimes in blinding blizzards. Their students walked or skied on barrel staves, in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string. The man who had lured them out west was Ferry Carpenter, a witty, idealistic, and occasionally outrageous young lawyer and cattle rancher. He had promised them the adventure of a lifetime and the most modern schoolhouse in Routt County; he hadn’t let on that the teachers would be considered dazzling prospective brides for the locals.

That year transformed the children, their families, and the undaunted teachers themselves. Dorothy and Rosamond learned how to handle unruly children who had never heard the Pledge of Allegiance and thought Ferry Carpenter was the president of the United States; they adeptly deflected the amorous advances of hopeful cowboys; and they saw one of their closest friends violently kidnapped by two coal miners. Carpenter’s marital scheme turned out to be more successful than even he had hoped and had a surprising twist some forty years later.

In their buoyant letters home, the two women captured the voices and stories of the pioneer women, the children, and the other memorable people they got to know. Nearly a hundred years later, New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden, the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, found the letters and began to reconstruct the women’s journey. Enhancing the story with interviews with descendants, research about these vanished communities, and trips to the region, Wickenden creates an exhilarating saga about two intrepid young women and the settling up of the West.

“I Held the Sun in My Hands” is the story of a young girl raised in a traditional Jewish family in Hungary prior to and during WWII. When Germany occupied Hungary on March 19th, 1944, Erika Jacoby was deported to Auschwitz, together with her mother. She was among the youngest that escaped the selection of Dr .Mengele and together with her mother, who was among the oldest, she endured and outlasted the atrocities and deprivations of the Nazi persecutors. In her book she describes how the teachings and values that she absorbed and incorporated into her life in her home helped her survive Auschwitz and the other concentration camps. She writes movingly about her painful disappointments in the behavior of her fellow human beings, while never losing her faith in God. This unshakable trust in the divine personal protection inspired others as well not to give up hope. In her memoir we witness how this young girl took upon herself the enormous responsibility for her mother’s survival, and the impact of that on their relationship after the war and, indeed, throughout their lives. The author, a clinical social worker, examines this relationship with much insight and compassion. This book is a remarkable account of one person’s resiliency, ability to cope with adversity and survive not only physically but also spiritually.

Ridgway looks back on more than 40 years of working with the Mouse, from Disneyland to Walt Disney World to Euro-Disney and beyond. Filled with lighthearted and hilarious reminiscences of famous people and outlandish publicity stunts, this memoir will delight Disney fans young and old.

**One of The Huffington Post’s 27 Nonfiction Books By Women Everyone Should Read in 2017**
**One of Glamour’s Best Books to Read in 2017**
**One of Bustle’s 17 of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2017**
**One of BookRiot’s ’11 Books to Help Us Make It Through a Trump Presidency’**

Whenever I think about Michelle Obama, I think, When I grow up, I want to be just like her. I want to be that intelligent, confident, and comfortable in my own skin . Roxane Gay

Even after eight years of watching them daily in the press, the fact that the most powerful man in the world is a Black man is still breathtaking to me. The fact that he goes home to a tight-knit, loving family headed by a Black woman is soul-stirring. That woman is Michelle. Michelle. That name now carries a whole world of meaning… From the Preface by Ava DuVernay

Michelle Obama is unlike any other First Lady in American History. From her first moments on the public stage, she has challenged traditional American notions about what it means to be beautiful, to be strong, to be fashion-conscious, to be healthy, to be First Mom, to be a caretaker and hostess, and to be partner to the most powerful man in the world. What is remarkable is that, at 52, she is just getting started.

An unusual and uncommonly moving family memoir, with a twist that give new meaning to hindsight, insight, and forgiveness.

Heather Sellers is face-blind-that is, she has prosopagnosia, a rare neurological condition that prevents her from reliably recognizing people’s faces. Growing up, unaware of the reason for her perpetual confusion and anxiety, she took what cues she could from speech, hairstyle, and gait. But she sometimes kissed a stranger, thinking he was her boyfriend, or failed to recognize even her own father and mother. She feared she must be crazy.

Yet it was her mother who nailed windows shut and covered them with blankets, made her daughter walk on her knees to spare the carpeting, had her practice secret words to use in the likely event of abduction. Her father went on weeklong “fishing trips” (aka benders), took in drifters, wore panty hose and bras under his regular clothes. Heather clung to a barely coherent story of a “normal” childhood in order to survive the one she had.

That fairy tale unraveled two decades later when Heather took the man she would marry home to meet her parents and began to discover the truth about her family and about herself. As she came at last to trust her own perceptions, she learned the gift of perspective: that embracing the past as it is allows us to let it go. And she illuminated a deeper truth-that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt.

A living legend of Country Music and a worldwide music icon, superstar Kenny Rogers has enjoyed a fascinating five decades in show business, and he tells the full story of his remarkable life and career in Luck or Something Like It. From his days with hit group The First Edition to his sterling solo work, the artist who “knows when to hold ’em and knows when to fold ’em” knows how to tell a captivating life story as well–bringing a golden era of Country Music to life as he recounts his remarkable rise to the top of the charts. An honest, moving, eye-opening view of a musician’s life on the road, Luck or Something Like It is the definitive music memoir–a backstage pass to fifty years of performing and recording presented by the one and only Kenny Rogers, one of the bestselling artists ever.