For more than 80 years, Reader's Digest has entertained and inspired the world with its stories of everyday people who accomplish the extraordinary. Now, for the first time, the world's best-read magazine has dipped into its archives and assembled into a single volume some of its most moving, amusing, surprising, and uplifting writing. Here is a celebration of people and the human spirit, written by many of the most prominent writers and observers of our time. It's not the authors--including James Michener and Carl Sandburg--who are the stars of True Lives but rather the people they are writing about. From U.S. presidents to battle-scarred soldiers, impoverished children to beloved entertainers, the cast of characters run the gamut of life experiences. This stunning collection will surprise, amuse, and dazzle readers young and old.