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Growing up in Warner Robins, Georgia, with her parents--and their loving but rocky relationship--isn't always easy for Lauretta. It doesn't help that the rest of her family is a who's who list of misfits and petty criminals. Learning from them and their experiences, Lauretta develops a keen wit and an observant eye, talents she then takes on the road to Savannah and even to Europe. There she encounters even more oddballs and colorful characters--many of whom are profiled here.

While other American businesses are crumbling under low-cost foreign competition, John Deere Company thrives by maintaining such ideas as building the best product, being open for change and innovation, listening rather than leading and keeping virtuous business practices.

An acclaimed chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement, Peniel Joseph presents this sweeping overview of a key component of the struggle for racial equality--the Black Power movement. This is the story of the men and women who sacrificed so much to begin a more vocal and radical push for social change in the 1960s and 1970s.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar takes listeners on a tour through the segregated days of early basketball, including the remarkable story of the Harlem Rens--the first professional champions of basketball. Along the way, hoops icons like Charles Barkley, Julius Erving, and John Wooden share their thoughts, while broadcast legend Bob Costas narrates.

Despite the risks, some American slaves partook of the "forbidden fruit" of marriage. And when the dreaded separation inevitably occurred, slave spouses deeply felt a sorrowful anguish and sometimes made Herculean efforts to re-unite. DeRamus recounts these tales of soul mates who braved bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to preserve their vows of love.

Lester spotlights Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map and recounts the epic tale of the mariners and scholars who facilitated this watershed of Western history.

Cannato delivers a definitive history of America's landmark port of entry. From eyewitness accounts, Cannato weaves together a poignant testament to the hopes and fears of "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

From the unhappy family relationships of prominent Americans to the feuds, smear campaigns, duels, and infamous sex scandals that have punctuated our history, we see our founding fathers and other American heroes in the course of their all-too-human events. Ineffectual presidents, lazy generals, traitors; treacherous fathers, nagging mothers, ungrateful children, embarrassing siblings; and stories about insanity, death, and disturbing postmortems are all here, as are disagreeable marriages, vile habits, and, of course, sex: good sex, bad sex, and good-bad sex too.

Conmen, tricksters, charlatans, impostors, and down right liars seeking wealth, 15 minutes of fame, or the alleviation of blam rely upon the maxim that "there's a sucker born every minute." A tribe of Stone Age people is discovered in the Philippines, animals in the Central Park Zoo have escaped and are attacking New Yorkers, and P.T. Barnum displays the amazing Feejee Mermaid. History is filled with examples of the media, governments, and churches falling for as well as employing deceit.

When Texas Bob Krey gets a hot hand in cards, his good luck sparks a gunfight. Once the smoke clears, two men are dead, including the brother of Judge Henry Bass. Now Texas Bob is an outlaw, and only Arizona Ranger Sam Burrack has the firepower to save him.