Fail! And we are stamped for life. Don’t we try and run from failure all our lives? But, ‘spontaneous doing has to go through failures.’ Acknowledging failure is singularly the most difficult thing to do. It takes tremendous courage to come out and say, yes, I failed. Shweta Punj chronicles sixteen such leaders who have celebrated their failure as much as their success. Each story is an anatomy of failure. So whether it was the difference between ‘need’ and ‘want’ that led Abhinav Bindra to miss that winning shot, or whether it was a suicide attempt that pushed Sabyasachi Mukherjee into fully realizing his potential—these stories will prod you to look at failure differently.

Scholarly volumes have been written about the causes of the war, presenting plausible reasons for the bloodbath of the 1860s. The arguments are endless and fascinating. Every generation finds new insight into the times. What has largely been ignored is the role of songs in America’s Civil War. This book chronicles the war’s social history in terms of its seldom discussed musical side, and is told from the perspective of the South. Outmanned and outgunned during the War, the South was certainly not musically bested.

This memoir narrates the story of a Korean-American woman who overcame challenges to become the first female DJ at Americas #1 radio station. Without a DJ, theres no music; without music, theres no party. The right music can make or break a party; promoters, club owners, and stars alike know this. In this memoir, successful turntablist DJ Shy narrates the story of how she became a sought-after DJ and the first female on-air mixer at the No. 1 radio station in America, 102.7 KIIS FM in Los Angeles. Beauty and the Beats tells how this small-town girl from Pennsylvania made it to the big time in California. Shy describes how she a poor, nave, Asian girl from a broken home overcame her lifes challenges and the discrimination in the male-dominated music industry to thrive. From surviving a drive-by shooting and eluding midnight stalkers to being cheated on her paychecks, she shares her story and shows how she remained positive throughout her journey. Providing a sneak peek into the music and entertainment industry, Beauty and the Beats provides motivation and inspiration to encourage teenagers to make sound career choices and follow their dreams to achieve happiness and success.

I have learned a lot from my dad, simply by how he lived his life. His example set the blueprint for me. From my earliest memories until now, he's been a guiding force in my life. I was very fortunate to have someone like him setting a light to my path. And while the journey wasn't always easy (whose is?), it was filled with love and laughter. By example, he taught us to live with integrity, to love and to take care of one another. For him, family was everything.

For decades, researchers and policymakers have grappled with the issue of the underachievement of African American students. An age-old problem has been that these students on average lag behind their peers of other racial/ethnic groups in math, science, and reading. Recently, California, like some other states, has implemented a high-stakes standardized testing program that has revealed that when test scores are disaggregated along racial/ethnic lines, the scores of African American students continue to trail those of their peers. The study described in this book was undertaken in an effort to uncover schooling practices that are advantageous or detrimental to the achievement of African American students. The study was based on interviews and questionnaire results from nearly 300 African American high school seniors. Most of these students resided in a region that had a low college attendance rate and a high child poverty rate. The students were given an opportunity to discuss numerous issues pertaining to their schooling experiences, including teacher attitudes and expectations, the curriculum, homework practices, the quality of services provided by their high school counselors, racism at school, school safety, parental involvement, and their early reading habits and attitudes about reading. In addition to quantitative results, most chapters include detailed narratives describing the elementary and secondary schooling experiences of the interviewees.