Popular obsession with genealogy has some twisted roots. Let’s talk about it – but first: An award-winning actress and gladiator receives a call from her parents on a routine afternoon. Their nervous hesitations let her know something is wrong. She turns her car around, drives to the home, and sits in the living of the people she’s known all her life as mom and dad, her protectors, her withholding parents. There, in that familiar home, they share a secret that begins to unravel the loose ends of her childhood memories.

An heir and a spare: One son, protected future king, and the other a dense, drug-using recluse, destined for failure – that is, if we are to believe the press. In the best-selling memoir of all time, a high-ranking member of the royal family gives us an inside look into the world he was born into and ultimately left for his sanity and health.

An heir and a spare: One son, protected future king, and the other a dense, drug-using recluse, destined for failure – that is, if we are to believe the press. In the best-selling memoir of all time, a high-ranking member of the royal family gives us an inside look into the world he was born into and ultimately left for his sanity and health.

As always, before discussing this week's book, we discuss a theme inspired by the book. This week's theme is The Power of Traveling Abroad. Then, on to our story: Many have their opinions about him. But this is his story told in his own words through a series of uninhibited conversations with one of the most influential authors of his time.

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Iconic American poet, activist, playwright, and holder of numerous awards and 50 honorary degrees, Maya Angelou, was a giant among humans- but like all giants, she started small before learning to grow. This, the first of her famous autobiographies, tells of her modest start and the beginning of her meteoric rise. The lesson — no matter what we've been through, we all decide where we're going.

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