5 Biographies eBooks

First in the World Somewhere: The True Adventures of a Scribbler, Siren, Saucepot and Pioneer by Penny Pepper
Dancing with Elephants: Mindfulness Training For Those Living With Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain (How to Die Smiling Book 1) by Jarem Sawatsky
To Reach the Clouds: The Walk film tie in by Philippe Petit
The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion
Invincible Warrior: A Pictorial Biography of Morihei Ueshiba, the Founder of Aikido by John Stevens

First in the World Somewhere: The True Adventures of a Scribbler, Siren, Saucepot and Pioneer by Penny Pepper
English | September 7th, 2017 | ASIN: B01MS6N18U, ISBN: 1783523476 | 256 Pages | EPUB | 7.19 MB
Penny Pepper has led an extraordinary life. She is a writer. Poet. Punk. Pioneer. Activist. And she also happens to be disabled. In her absorbing memoir, which spans the mid-1980s up until the millennium, Penny paints a picture of life, love, sex, music, success, failure and misadventures in the UK punk scene of the late 20th century.
Craving freedom from the poor Chiltern Hill council estate where she grew up, Penny dreams of moving to London, of writing, of finding her way in the North London music scene. She doesn’t have what others take for granted; she is disabled. And she sets out with just her raw, burgeoning talent to fight the social demons of indifference, discrimination and out-right bigotry… all while wearing micro-mini leather bondage skirts, fishnets and hair extensions.
There are parties; there’s sex; there’s music. She exchanges letters with Morrissey. Ken Livingstone helps her find a wheelchair-accessible flat. Her demo tape is reviewed in the NME and played on the radio. Her 90s album Spiral Sky is No. 1 in Greece for a week. And there is opportunity – opportunity to join the radical beginnings of the disability rights movement.
First in the World Somewhere tells of her endless adventures. Through the years, there’s an overload of adventure, despair and joy. Often faced with prejudice, she fails, she suffers, she survives and she even sometimes succeeds. Penny does not deny her disability; rather she keeps it at the forefront of everything she stands for, and she tells her story with blood, heart and an undeniable wit.

Dancing with Elephants: Mindfulness Training For Those Living With Dementia, Chronic Illness or an Aging Brain (How to Die Smiling Book 1) by Jarem Sawatsky
English | March 6th, 2017 | ASIN: B06XF58ML9, ISBN: 0995324204 | 225 Pages | EPUB | 0.78 MB
Want to enjoy the life you are living, even as you face major life challenges?
Is your mind succumbing to age? Is your body failing you? Can you ever find joy, peace, or fulfillment in these challenging conditions? The answer is a resounding YES.
Author Jarem Sawatsky saw the countless guides out there for those caring for the ill and healing the curable, but when he was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease he found there was nothing for those living with incurable illness. He quit his job as a professor and devoted his life to exploring the possibilities of living with chronic conditions. Now he’s bringing his findings and insights to you.
In Dancing With Elephants you’ll discover:
• Simple practices to bring healing to your heart and life to your new outlook
• Humorous (and occasionally heart-wrenching) stories of Sawatsky’s own journey
• Multiple ways to build confidence in yourself, even when you’ve been shaken to the core
• A new perspective to transform your pain and renew your spirit
• Practical tools to face your seemingly inescapable fears, and much, much more!
Based on the popular blog of the same name, Dancing With Elephants includes insightful interviews with chronic disease experts Jon Kabat-Zinn, Lucy Kalanithi, and Patch Adams. Sawatsky’s landmark book provides support that only a fellow traveler down this road can offer.
If you like touching stories, mindful wisdom, and a touch of irreverent humor, then you’ll love Sawatsky’s life-changing book.

To Reach the Clouds: The Walk film tie in by Philippe Petit
English | September 15th, 2015 | ASIN: B0151XAOHY, ISBN: 163450500X | 285 Pages | EPUB | 3.67 MB
One night in 1974, a young Frenchman secretly - and illegally - rigged a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. At daybreak, he gave the high-wire performance of all time, making eight crossings over the course of an hour, 110 floors up above the earth, as a hundred thousand people gathered on the ground to watch.
In To Reach the Clouds, now filmed as The Walk, Philippe Petit re-creates a six-year quest to realise his dream, an adventure as thrilling as the walk itself. In an unforgettable memoir he tells the story of how he conspired, connived, improvised, and insisted his way to this 'coup', abetted by a motley crew of accomplices, the occasional miracle, and his own unflagging passion. He reveals himself to be not only a virtuoso of the air but also a bold and inspired performer on the page. Animated by never-seen photographs and Petit's ingenious sketches, To Reach the Clouds is a tour de force of the imagination and a serenade to his beloved towers.

The White Album: Essays by Joan Didion
English | May 9th, 2017 | ASIN: B072HMBLSM, ISBN: 0671226851, 0374532079 | 224 Pages | EPUB | 1.93 MB
An extraordinary report on the aftermath of the 1960s in America by the New York Times–bestselling author of South and West and Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
In this landmark essay collection, Joan Didion brilliantly interweaves her own “bad dreams” with those of a nation confronting the dark underside of 1960s counterculture.
From a jailhouse visit to Black Panther Party cofounder Huey Newton to witnessing First Lady of California Nancy Reagan pretend to pick flowers for the benefit of news cameras, Didion captures the paranoia and absurdity of the era with her signature blend of irony and insight. She takes readers to the “giddily splendid” Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the cool mountains of Bogotá, and the Jordanian Desert, where Bishop James Pike went to walk in Jesus’s footsteps—and died not far from his rented Ford Cortina. She anatomizes the culture of shopping malls—“toy garden cities in which no one lives but everyone consumes”—and exposes the contradictions and compromises of the women’s movement. In the iconic title essay, she documents her uneasy state of mind during the years leading up to and following the Manson murders—a terrifying crime that, in her memory, surprised no one.
Written in “a voice like no other in contemporary journalism,” The White Album is a masterpiece of literary reportage and a fearless work of autobiography by the National Book Award–winning author of The Year of Magical Thinking (The New York Times Book Review). Its power to electrify and inform remains undiminished nearly forty years after it was first published.

Invincible Warrior: A Pictorial Biography of Morihei Ueshiba, the Founder of Aikido by John Stevens
English | September 30, 1997 | ISBN: 157062075X, 1570623945 | EPUB | 255 pages | 12.3 MB
Invincible Warrior tells the fascinating story of the life of Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969), whose quest for the true meaning of warriorship lead to the creation of the martial art called Aikido, "The Art of Peace." Ueshiba—whose name means "abundant peace"—is considered by many to be one of the greatest martial artists who ever lived. His documented ability to disarm any attacker, throw a dozen men simultaneously, and down and pin opponents without touching them has accorded his life legendary status.
Invincible Warrior presents the real story behind Morihei's achievement, illuminating the man and his message. Stevens describes the people, events, and ideas that influenced Ueshiba's lifelong spiritual quest, which culminated in the development of unique teachings of Aikido. Illustrated with two hundred photographs of Morihei in action and filled with revealing anecdotes about his life and times, Invincible Warrior also offers valuable discussion of the Founder's conception of Aikido as a path of harmony and love, unifying body and mind, self and others, humans and the universe.