New in Biography and Memoir

"A powerful and revelatory memoir from former CIA director John Brennan, spanning his more than thirty years in government."--Dust jacket flap.

Buteau's humorous essays reflect on growing up Caribbean, Catholic, and thick in New Jersey, going to college in Miami (where everyone smells like pineapple), her many friendship and dating disasters, working as a newsroom editor during 9/11, getting started in standup opening for male strippers, marrying into her husband's Dutch family, IVF and surrogacy, motherhood, chosen family, and what it feels like to have a full heart, tight jeans, and stardom finally in her grasp.

"As a young boy growing up in the outskirts of Dublin, Gabriel Byrne sought refuge in a world of imagination among the fields and hills near his home, at the edge of a rapidly encroaching city. Born to working-class parents and the eldest of six children, he harbored a childhood desire to become a priest. When he was eleven years old, Byrne found himself crossing the Irish Sea to join a seminary in England. Four years later, Byrne had been expelled and he quickly returned to his native city. There he took odd jobs as a messenger boy and a factory laborer to get by. In his spare time, he visited the cinema where he could be alone and yet part of a crowd. It was here that he could begin to imagine a life beyond the grey world of sixties Ireland. He reveled in the theater and poetry of Dublin's streets, populated by characters as eccentric and remarkable as any in fiction, those who spin a yarn with acuity and wit. It was a friend who suggested Byrne join an amateur drama group, a decision that would change his life forever and launch him on an extraordinary forty-year career in film and theater. Moving between sensual recollection of childhood in a now almost vanished Ireland and reflections on stardom in Hollywood and Broadway, Byrne also courageously recounts his battle with addiction and the ambivalence of fame. Walking with Ghosts is by turns hilarious and heartbreaking as well as a lyrical homage to the people and landscapes that ultimately shape our destinies"-- Provided by publisher.

"A stirring and powerful memoir from black cultural critic Rebecca Carroll recounting her struggle to overcome a completely white childhood in order to forge her identity as a black woman in America"-- Provided by publisher.

The popular actress reveals her journey of self-discovery through her childhood in India, her teenage years in the United States, her success in beauty competitions, the challenges and triumphs of her acting career, and her marriage to Nick Jonas.

"The astonishing journey of a bright, utterly displaced boy, from the short-lived African nation of Biafra, to Jamaica, to the harshest streets of Los Angeles--a fierce and funny memoir that adds fascinating depth to the coming-to-America story"-- Provided by publisher.

Documents the author's investigation into her late mother's tragic experiences as an illegitimate orphan who endured an early life of discrimination, physical abuse and harsh labor serving England's ruling class at London's infamous Foundling Hospital.

Written by her great-granddaughter, a historical portrait of the boundary-breaking civil rights pioneer covers Wells' early years as a slave, her famous acts of resistance, and her achievements as a journalist and anti-lynching activist.

"A vivid, deeply researched account of the tumultuous life of one of the twentieth century's greatest novelists, the author of The End of the Affair. Graham Greene lived a life as strange and compelling as those in his brilliant novels. A journalist and MI6 officer, Greene sought out the inner narratives of war and politics across the world; he witnessed the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Mau Mau Rebellion, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the guerrilla wars of Central America. His classic novels, including The Heart of the Matter and The Quiet American, are only pieces of a career that reads like a primer on the twentieth century itself. With wit, keen understanding, and compassion informed by recently surfaced letters and new memoirs from Graham Greene's contemporaries, Richard Greene creates a nuanced portrait of a complicated man. An Unquiet Englishman delves into the conflicts that defined Greene-marriage, promiscuity, faith, and mental illness-to bring fresh insights to his work. This sensitive, fascinating biography sheds new light on one of the foremost modern writers"-- Provided by publisher.

"A magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges--some of the worst largely unknown until now--by the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back. Mike Nichols burst onto the scene as a wunderkind without parallel: while still in his 20's, he was half of a lucrative hit improv duo with Elaine May that was the talk of the country. Next he directed four hit Broadway plays, picking up the Best Director Tony for three of them, and by his mid-30's the first two films he directed, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate, were the highest-grossing movies of 1966 and 1967 respectively, and The Graduate had won him an Oscar for Best Director. Well before his 40th birthday, Nichols lived in a sprawling penthouse on Central Park West, drove a Rolls Royce, collected Arabian horses, and counted the likes of Jacqueline Kennedy, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Avedon and the Aga Khan as good friends. Where he had arrived is even more astonishing given where he began: born Igor Peschkowsky to a Jewish couple in Berlin in 1931, he and his younger brother were sent alone to America on a ship in 1939. Their father, who had gone ahead to find work, was waiting for them; their mother would follow, in the nick of time. His name changed by his father to "Michael Nichols," the young boy caught very few breaks: his parents were now destitute, and his father died when Mike was just 11, leaving his mentally unstable mother alone and overwhelmed. Perhaps most cruelly, Nichols was completely bald: as a small child an allergic reaction to an immunization shot had caused total and permanent hair loss. His parents claimed they could not afford to buy him even a cheap wig until he was almost in high school. Mark Harris gives an intimate and even-handed accounting of success and failure alike; the portrait is not always flattering, but its ultimate impact is to present the full story of one of the most richly interesting, complicated, and consequential figures the worlds of theater and motion pictures have ever seen. It is a triumph of the biographer's art"-- Provided by publisher.

"At the turn of the century, Paris was a hotbed of creativity. Technology boomed, delivering to the world electric light, the automobile, and new ways to treat disease, while imagination blossomed, creating Art Nouveau, motion pictures, and modernist literature. A pivotal figure during this time, yet largely forgotten today, Loie Fuller was an American performance artist who became a living symbol of the Art Nouveau movement with her hypnotic dances and stunning theatrical effects. Credited today as the pioneer of modern dance, she was perennially broke, never took no for an answer, spent most of her life with a female partner, and never questioned her drive. She was a visionary, a renegade, and a loyal friend. In the early 1900s, she heard about Marie Curie's discovery of a glowing blue element and dreamed of using it to dazzle audiences on stage. While Loie's dream wouldn't be realized, her connection with Marie and their shared fascination with radium endured. RADIANT is the true story of Marie Curie and Loie Fuller, two revolutionary women drawn together at the dawn of a new era by a singular discovery, and the lifelong friendship that grew out of their shared passion for enlightenment"-- Provided by publisher.

"Emmy Award-winning NPR journalist Maria Hinojosa shares her personal story interwoven with American immigration policy's coming-of-age journey at a time when our country's branding went from "The Land of the Free" to "the land of invasion.""-- Provided by publisher.

"The subject of this biography was himself the grand source of information on his life and times. Close ties aside, the authors, having interviewed Jak a number of times for other projects, now recognize that unknowingly they were then also collecting information for his biography. Jak was a source for us in our writing of A History of Kershaw County, South Carolina, University of South Carolina Press, 2011, and a source for Joan (his niece) in compiling a family history"-- Provided by publisher.

An Emmy Award-winning writer and activist describes the harrowing years she spent in early adulthood fighting leukemia and how she learned to live again while forging connections with other survivors of profound illness and suffering.

"The Good American is a story about courage, intense loneliness, and the State Department's golden age during the late Cold War and post-Cold War. It is also a celebration of ground level reporting and getting a worm's eye view of crisis zones. Robert Gersony, a high-school dropout later awarded a bronze star in Vietnam, spent over four decades on the ground in virtually every war and natural disaster zone in the world. Interviewing hundreds of refugees and displaced persons in each place to assess humanitarian crises, Gersony's research and thorough reports had an immense, underappreciated impact on US foreign policy across the globe. In every case, his recommendations made it smarter and more humane, often dramatically so. In his career as a journalist, Robert D. Kaplan often crossed paths with Gersony while covering the "hot" moments of the Cold War and its aftermath. Even as a biography, this is Kaplan's most personal book to date, and through Gersony's story, he makes a poignant case for how American diplomacy should be conducted--with a clear eye toward facts on the ground--at a time when diplomacy is too often being left behind."-- Provided by publisher.

"Dave Kindred's extraordinary investigation of the death of his grandson yields a powerful memoir of addiction, grief, and the stories we choose to tell our families and ourselves. Jared Kindred left his home and family at the age of eighteen, choosing a life of riding train cars and making friends on the street. He was an addict for most of his short life, drinking far too much and lying about it he was ultimately killed by an overdose. Yet he inspired the deepest love of Dave Kindred's life. Leave Out the Tragic Parts is not merely a reflection on love and addiction and loss. It is a hard-won, and remarkably fair-minded, account of the life Jared chose for himself and the colorful people around him--people with names like Puzzles, Stray, and Booze Cop people with stories to tell. Kindred asks painful but important questions about the lies we tell to get along, and what binds families together or allows them to fracture. Jared's story ended in tragedy, but the act of telling it is an act of healing and redemption. This is an important book on how to love your family, from a great writer who has lived its lessons"-- Provided by publisher.

"In 1939, Jonathan Lichtenstein's father Hans escaped Nazi-occupied Berlin as a child refugee on the Kindertransport. Almost every member of his family died after Kristallnacht, and, arriving in England to make his way in the world alone, Hans turned his back on his German Jewish culture. Growing up in post-war rural Wales where the conflict was never spoken of, Jonathan and his siblings were at a loss to understand their father's relentless drive and sometimes eccentric behaviour. As Hans enters old age, he and Jonathan set out to retrace his journey back to Berlin. Published to coincide with the eightieth anniversary, this is a highly compelling account of a father and son's attempt to emerge from the shadows of history. For readers who enjoyed East West Street, The Berlin Shadow is a beautiful memoir about time, trauma and family."--Amazon.

Chronicles the extraordinary life of OSS spy Aline Griffith, who performed deep-cover intelligence missions during and after World War II throughout the upper echelons of European politics and society.

"The first biography of Dorothy Pitman Hughes, co-founder of Ms. Magazine and trailblazing Black feminist activist whose work made children, race, and welfare rights central to the women's movement"-- Provided by publisher.

"Veteran sportswriter Bill Madden writes the definitive biography of a baseball and New York sports legend, Tom Seaver, voted into the Hall of Fame by the highest percentage vote ever at the time and still the most popular player in Mets history"-- Provided by publisher.

"Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's death, the best-selling author of Shout! delivers a compelling new biography of the legendary guitarist. Celebrated as the most innovative guitarist ever to play, Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) is renowned for symphonic solos and virtuosic picking (sometimes, with his teeth). But, as Philip Norman describes, before Hendrix was setting guitars aflame onstage, he was a shy kid in Seattle, plucking at a broken ukulele and looking out for his father, who chided him for playing left-handed. Interweaving new interviews with friends, lovers, bandmates, and his family, Wild Thing vividly reconstructs Hendrix's remarkable life- from playing in segregated clubs on the Chitlin' Circuit to earning stardom in Swinging London in 1966. For more than four mindboggling years Hendrix found unparalleled success, making historic appearances at Monterey and Woodstock while becoming the highest paid musician of his day, but it all abruptly ended with his tragic death in the sordid basement of a London hotel. Filled with insights into the greatest moments in rock history, Wild Thing reveals the endlessly complex figure behind the unforgettable riffs"-- Provided by publisher.

-- The New Yorker Former vice president Joseph R. Biden Jr. has been called both the luckiest man and the unluckiest--fortunate to have sustained a fifty-year political career that reached the White House, but also marked by deep personal losses and disappointments that he has suffered. Yet even as Biden's life has been shaped by drama, it has also been powered by a willingness, rare at the top ranks of politics, to confront his shortcomings, errors, and reversals of fortune. As he says, "Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. "His trials have forged in him a deep empathy for others in hardship--an essential quality as he addresses Americans in the nation's most dire hour in decades. Blending up-close journalism and broader context, Evan Osnos, who won the National Book Award in 2014, draws on his work for The New Yorker This portrayal illuminates Biden's long and eventful career in the Senate, his eight years as Obama's vice president, his sojourn in the political wilderness after being passed over for Hillary Clinton in 2016, his decision to challenge Donald Trump for the presidency, and his choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Osnos ponders the difficulties Biden will face if elected and weighs how political circumstances, and changes in the candidate's thinking, have altered his positions. In this nuanced portrait, Biden emerges as flawed, yet resolute, and tempered by the flame of tragedy--a man who just may be uncannily suited for his moment in history

"Nadia Owusu grew up all over the world--from Rome and London to Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. When her mother abandoned her when she was two years old, the rejection caused Nadia to be confused about her identity. Even after her father died when she was thirteen and she was raised by her stepmother, she was unable to come to terms with who she was since she still felt motherless and alone. When Nadia went to university in America when she was eighteen she still felt as if she had so many competing personas that she couldn't keep track of them all without cracking under the pressure of trying to hold herself together. A powerful coming-of-age story that explores timely and universal themes of identity, Aftershocks follows Nadia's life as she hauls herself out of the wreckage and begins to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one she writes into existence"-- Provided by publisher.

"When Alexi Pappas was four years old, her mother committed suicide, drastically altering the course of Pappas's life and setting her on a perpetual search for female role models. When her father started signing her up for sports teams as a way to keep his bereaved daughter busy, female athletes became some of the first women Pappas looked up to, and she became a girl with a goal: to be an Olympian. Despite setbacks and hardships, Pappas held fast to that dream, putting in the tremendous hard work, both mentally and physically, and letting nothing stand in her way until she achieved it, making her Olympic debut as a runner in 2016. Unflinching, often exuberant, and always entertaining, Bravey showcases Pappas's signature, charming voice as she reflects upon the touchstone moments in her life and the lessons that have powered her career as both an athlete and artist--chief among them, how to be brave. She faces obstacles with optimism and finds the dark moments as important to her process as the breakthroughs, from high school awkwardness to post-Olympic depression, offering valuable wisdom on the benefits of embracing what hurts, both physical and emotional. To Pappas, bravery is inward-facing; it's all in how you feel about yourself, as much about always believing in yourself as it is about running toward your goals. Pappas's experiences reveal how anyone can overcome hardship, befriend pain, celebrate victory, relish the loyalty found in teammates, and claim joy. In short: how anyone can be a bravey"-- Provided by publisher.

"For the first time ever, legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton brings you behind the lyrics of 175 of her songs to reveal the personal stories and vibrant memories that have inspired sixty years of songwriting. Lushly illustrated and told in Dolly's inimitable voice, this rich collection offers an intimate, exclusive look at the colorful life, prolific career, and rags-to-rhinestones journey of one of the most revered entertainers of our time"-- Provided by publisher.

"In the days before Homeira Qaderi gave birth to her son, Siawash, the road to the hospital in Kabul would often be barricaded because of the frequent suicide explosions. With the city and the military on edge, it was not uncommon for an armed soldier to point his gun at the pregnant woman’s bulging stomach, terrified that she was hiding a bomb. Frightened and in pain, she was once forced to make her way on foot. Propelled by the love she held for her soon-to-be-born child, Homeira walked through blood and wreckage to reach the hospital doors. But the joy of her beautiful son’s birth was soon overshadowed by other dangers that would threaten her life. No ordinary Afghan woman, Homeira refused to cower under the strictures of a misogynistic social order. Defying the law, she risked her freedom to teach children reading and writing and fought for women’s rights in her theocratic and patriarchal society. Devastating in its power, Dancing in the Mosque is a mother’s searing letter to a son she was forced to leave behind. In telling her story—and that of Afghan women—Homeira challenges you to reconsider the meaning of motherhood, sacrifice, and survival. Her story asks you to consider the lengths you would go to protect yourself, your family, and your dignity" --Amazon.

"The definitive, revelatory biography of Marvel Comics creator Stan Lee, an artist and entrepreneur who reshaped global pop culture at a steep personal cost. Stan Lee--born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922--is one of the most beloved and influential entertainers to emerge from the twentieth century. He served as editor in chief of Marvel Comics for three decades and, in that time, launched more pieces of internationally recognizable intellectual property than anyone other than Walt Disney: Spider-Man, the Avengers, the X-Men, Black Panther, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor...the list seems to never end. On top of that, his carnival-barker marketing prowess more or less single-handedly saved the comic-book industry and superhero fiction. Without him, the global entertainment industry would be wildly different-and a great deal poorer. But Lee's unprecedented career was also pitted with spectacular failures, controversy, and bitter disputes. Lee was dogged by accusations from his longtime collaborators Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko over who really created Marvel's signature characters--icons for whom Lee had always been suspected of taking more than his due share of credit. A major business venture, Stan Lee Media, resulted in stock manipulation, bankruptcy, and criminal charges. And in his final years, after the death of his beloved wife, Joan, rumors swirled that Lee was a virtual prisoner in his own home, issuing cryptic video recordings as a battle to control his fortune and legacy ensued. Abraham Riesman is a veteran culture reporter who has conducted extensive new interviews and research, turning up never-before-published revelations about Lee's life and work. Lee's most famous motto was: "With great power comes great responsibility." True Believer chronicles every triumph and every misstep of an extraordinary life, and leaves it to readers to decide whether Lee lived up to the responsibilities of his own talent"-- Provided by publisher.

"An inspiring memoir of defying the odds from Kareem Rosser, captain of the first all-black squad to win the National Interscholastic Polo championship. "Crossing the Line will not just leave you with hope, but also ideas on how to make that hope transferable" (New York Times bestselling author Wes Moore). Born and raised in West Philadelphia, Kareem thought he and his siblings would always be stuck in "The Bottom", a community and neighborhood devastated by poverty and violence. Riding their bicycles through Philly's Fairmount Park, Kareem's brothers discover a barn full of horses. Noticing the brothers' fascination with her misfit animals, Lezlie Hiner, founder of The Work to Ride stables, offers them their escape: an after school job in exchange for riding lessons. What starts as an accidental discovery turns into a love for horseback riding that leads the Rossers to discovering their passion for polo. Pursuing the sport with determination and discipline, Kareem earns his place among the typically exclusive players in college, becoming part of the first all-Black national interscholastic polo championship team-all while struggling to keep his family together. Crossing the Line: A Fearless Team of Brothers and the Sport That Changed Their Lives Forever is the story of bonds of brotherhood, family loyalty, the transformative connection between man and horse, and forging a better future that comes from overcoming impossible odds"-- Provided by publisher.

"The life and mysterious death of Otto Wachter, former Governor of Nazi-occupied Poland, who died in the Vatican after World War II"-- Provided by publisher.

A revelatory biography of the first Black woman to stand for Vice President charts how the daughter of two immigrants in segregated California became one of the most effective power players in the United States.

"Not your typical candidate for a midlife crisis, Bevy Smith had what seemed like a fantastic life and career. As a fashion and beauty editor at Vibe, and then Rolling Stone, she traveled to Paris six times a year for fashion shows and was seen at every hot spot. She was a shopaholic with discounts at every store and a mighty roster of lovers. So it came as quite a shock to her when one day, after a Mercedes had dropped her off at her luxury Milan hotel, Bevy collapsed on the Frette sheets of her king-sized bed and sobbed. After that, she resigned from Rolling Stone and set out on her own path, one that she carved from a tremendous amount of self-reflection and, ultimately, clarity. Going from a $350K annual salary to about $35K would have most running back to corporate America, but not Bevy. With renewed self-confidence and acceptance, she embraced this season as one of the most creative times of her life. In her signature lively and infectious voice, Bevy provides her story as an example of how we too can manifest our biggest dreams. From reclaiming her bold childhood nature and realizing she'd become a Googleable star to envisioning where's she's headed next (Malibu Bevy, with natural hair, a huge charitable organization, and a midcentury house overlooking the Pacific Ocean), Bevy shows how each of us can live our best lives with honesty and joy"-- Provided by publisher.

"A vivid window into the world of working class men and the value of hard labor, set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota Shiftless and unsatisfied in his life, Michael Patrick Smith decided in his mid-thirties to seek out the hardest work he could find, to see if he could do it. He wanted to be a person, unlike his father, who knew how to work and get things done. He found himself in the oil fields of North Dakota during the Bakken fracking boom of 2013, where he spent a year as a swamper, assisting the truck drivers who hauled oil rigs from one site to another. The Good Hand is a saga of fear, danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit that explores the struggles and rewards of one of the most difficult jobs on the planet. In doing so, the story delves into the internal struggles of people who seem naturally drawn to hard work and hard luck--the rough-hewn, castoff, disposable men who populate boomtowns. As an oil field greenhorn, Smith finds the job is a continual battle; men are mocked and clobbered by equipment. But he comes to love the intensity and camaraderie, forming close bonds with a number of fellow workers, including Huck, an aw-shucks friendly young giant of a man who is constantly getting into trouble with the law, and "The Wildebeest," a truck driver in his fifties who initially torments Smith but later becomes instrumental in helping him to become "a good hand." Smith also examines his troubled relationship with his father--a trait that most of his coworkers seem to share--and draws fascinating parallels between his labor as an oil field hand and his previous careers in theatre and folk music. The Good Hand is ultimately a book about transformation--a classic American story about submitting to something elemental and larger than oneself. Smith discovers that the communities forged by hard work can awaken both the heart and the hands"-- Provided by publisher.

"A fascinating and illuminating account of how George Washington became the single most dominant force in the creation of the United States of America, from award-winning author David O. Stewart"-- Provided by publisher.

The award-winning composer and biographer shares insights into Wolfgang Mozart's remarkable mind and how his boundless energy, hedonism, and extraordinary perspectives shaped his history-impacting achievements.

"The autobiography of the legendary coach of the Georgetown Hoyas, whose achievements on and off the basketball court reflect America's unresolved struggle with racial justice"-- Provided by publisher.

"MIT psychologist and bestselling author of RECLAIMING CONVERSATION and ALONE TOGETHER, Sherry Turkle's intimate memoir of love and work In this vivid and poignant narrative, Sherry Turkle ties together her coming-of-age story and her groundbreaking research on technology, empathy, and ethics. Growing up in post-war Brooklyn in a house filled with mysteries, Turkle searched for clues. She mastered the codes that governed her secretive mother's world. She learned never to ask about her absent scientist father. And never to use his name, her name. Empathy was her strategy for survival. Turkle's intellect and curiosity propelled her to the thresholds of defining cultural moments that became life-lessons: she practiced friendship at Harvard/Radcliffe at the cusp of co-education during the antiwar movement, mourned the loss of her mother in Paris as students returned from the 1968 barricades, and faced the extent of her ambition while fighting for her place in the academy as a woman at MIT. There, Turkle found turbulent love and chronicled the wonders of the new computer culture, even as she warned of its threat to our most essential human connections. THE EMPATHY DIARIES captures all this in rich detail--and offers a masterclass in finding meaning through life's work."-- Provided by publisher.

The Academy, Tony, and Emmy Award-winning actor and trailblazer tells her stunning story, looking back at her life and six-decade career.

Documents the life of the Negro League star and Hall of Famer, tracing Bell's sharecropping heritage, his extraordinary switch-hitting talents, and how Major League Baseball's racial barriers impacted his career.

"From Beau Wise and Tom Sileo comes Three Wise Men, an incredible memoir of family, service and sacrifice by a Marine who lost both his brothers in combat--becoming the only "Sole Survivor" during the war in Afghanistan. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, three brothers by blood became brothers in arms when each volunteered to defend their country. No military family has sacrificed more during the ensuing war, which has become the longest ever fought by America's armed forces. While serving in Afghanistan, US Navy SEAL veteran and CIA contractor Jeremy Wise was killed in an al Qaeda suicide bombing that devastated the US intelligence community. Less than three years later, US Army Green Beret sniper Ben Wise was fatally wounded after volunteering for a dangerous assignment during a firefight with the Taliban. Ben was posthumously awarded the Silver Star, while Jeremy received the Intelligence Star-one of the rarest awards bestowed by the U.S. government-and also a star on the CIA's Memorial Wall. United States Marine Corps combat veteran Beau Wise is the only known American service member to be pulled from the battlefield after losing two brothers in Afghanistan. Told in Beau's voice, Three Wise Men is an American family's historic true story of service and sacrifice"-- Provided by publisher.

"The powerful story of one Marine who found healing and renewed purpose after returning from combat, for himself and tens of thousands of fellow veterans. When Marine sniper Jake Wood came home in 2009 from grueling tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, his country asked yet more of him: to compartmentalize his traumatic memories, put his elite military training on a shelf, and adjust to living outside high-stakes situations. Jake feared he would join the huge population of veterans struggling to reintegrate. Since 2001, more service members have died by suicide than have been killed in Afghanistan. One activity helped Jake and his friend and fellow Marine Clay Hunt find a measure of hope: helping communities after disasters, where their training rendered them unusually effective in high-stakes situations. But as their new organization struggled to get off the ground and the VA tied up Clay's meds in red tape, Clay committed suicide. Reeling, Jake resolved to help as many disaster-affected communities and provide a mission to as many veterans as possible. Over the past 10 years, with no money or experience, he and his team have recruited over 100,000 volunteers to his organization Team Rubicon. It's established a reputation for delivering desperately needed aid faster and better than other organizations hindered by bureaucracy. Racing against the clock, veteran volunteers utilize their military training to untangle complex problems quickly and keep calm under pressure in catastrophic scenarios. What's more, Team Rubicon gives meaningful direction to men and women who need the disaster response work as much as the work needs them. Having a continued purpose--a mission that matters--can be the key to a veteran's successful transition from war to peace"-- Provided by publisher.