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Biography and Memoir November 2017
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| Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. by Danielle AllenHarvard University professor Danielle Allen had a much-loved younger cousin, Michael, who drifted into petty criminal activities that escalated until he was convicted of a felony at age 15; while rebuilding his life after 11 years of imprisonment, he was murdered. In Cuz, Allen chronicles Michael's life and death while criticizing the American criminal justice system. This heartwrenching memoir starkly contrasts Michael's life with Allen's relatively privileged one and offers details about how society fails young African American men. For additional memoirs that delve into these issues, try Jesmyn Ward's Men We Reaped and Lezley McSpadden's Tell the Truth & Shame the Devil. |
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| A Disappearance in Damascus: Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War by Deborah CampbellCanadian journalist Deborah Campbell began working undercover in Syria in 2007, reporting on Iraqi refugees. She became friends with Ahlam, an Iraqi woman who did humanitarian work and (at risk to her own safety) provided information to foreign reporters. After they had worked together for several years, Ahlam was arrested, and Campbell embarked on a dangerous and frustrating search for her. Vividly describing conditions in Syria, from the refugee camps to the jails, this award-winning, emotionally intense memoir may appeal to those who appreciated David Rhode and Kristen Mulvihill's A Rope and a Prayer or Amanda Lindhout's A House in the Sky. |
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| Ali: A Life by Jonathan EigIn this balanced biography of boxer Muhammad Ali, author Jonathan Eig relates Ali's family background, the complexities of his status as a celebrity, and his later life, in addition to his boxing career. Ali places political and personal controversies in the context of the 1960s and draws on previously unavailable resources to correct the record in some instances. For another well-researched and compelling study of Ali, take a look at David Remnick's King of the World. |
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Growing Up Fisher : Musings, Memories, and Misadventures
by Joely Fisher
Growing up in an iconic Hollywood Dynasty, Joely Fisher knew a show business career was her destiny. The product of world-famous crooner Eddie Fisher and ’60s sex kitten Connie Stevens, she struggled with her own identity and place in the world on the way to a decades-long career as an acclaimed actress, singer, and director. Now, Joely shares her unconventional coming of age and stories of the family members and co-stars dearest to her heart, while stripping bare her own misadventures. In Growing Up Fisher, she recalls the beautifully bizarre twist of fate by which she spent a good part of her childhood next door to Debbie Reynolds. She speaks frankly about the realities of Hollywood—the fame and fortune, the constant scrutiny. Throughout, she celebrates the anomaly of a two-decade marriage in the entertainment industry, and the joys and challenges of parenting five children, while dishing on what it takes to survive and thrive in the unrelenting glow of celebrity.
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The Inheritance of Shame : A Memoir
by Peter Gajdics
Canadian. Author Peter Gajdics spent six years in a bizarre form of conversion therapy that attempted to “cure” him of his homosexuality. Kept with other patients in a cult-like home in British Columbia, Canada, Gajdics was under the authority of a dominating, rogue psychiatrist who controlled his patients, in part, by creating and exploiting a false sense of family. Juxtaposed against his parents’ tormented past―his mother’s incarceration and escape from a communist concentration camp in post-World War II Yugoslavia, and his father’s upbringing as an orphan in war-torn Hungary―The Inheritance of Shame: A Memoir explores the universal themes of childhood trauma, oppression, and intergenerational pain. Told over a period of decades, the story shows us the damaging repercussions of conversion therapy and reminds us that resilience, compassion, and the courage to speak the truth exist within us all.
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Breaking Free : How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs
by Rachel Jeffs
Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined by subordinate sister wives and men they must obey. No one in this radical splinter sect of the Mormon Church was more powerful or terrifying than its leader Warren Jeffs—Rachel’s father. Living outside mainstream Mormonism and federal law, Jeffs arranged marriages between under-age girls and middle-aged and elderly members of his congregation. In 2006, he gained international notoriety when the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted List. Though he is serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, Jeffs’ iron grip on the church remains firm, and his edicts to his followers increasingly restrictive and bizarre. Sexually assaulted, compelled into an arranged polygamous marriage, locked away in "houses of hiding" as punishment for perceived transgressions, and physically separated from her children, Rachel, Jeffs’ first plural daughter by his second of more than fifty wives, eventually found the courage to leave the church in 2015. Rachel’s experiences illuminate those of her family and the countless others who remain trapped in the strange world she left behind.
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The Mother of Black Hollywood : A Memoir
by Jenifer Lewis
Jenifer Lewis keeps it real in this provocative and touching memoir by a mid-western girl with a dream whose journey from poverty to Hollywood will move, shock, and inspire readers. Told in the audacious voice her fans adore, Jenifer describes a road to fame made treacherous by dysfunction and undiagnosed mental illness, including a sex addiction. Yet, supported by loving friends and strengthened by "inner soldiers," Jenifer never stopped entertaining and creating. We watch as Jenifer develops icon status stemming from a series of legendary screen roles as the sassy, yet loveable, mama or auntie. And we watch as her emotional disturbances, culminating in a breakdown while filming The Temptations movie, launch her on a continuing search for answers, love, and healing.
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Liner Notes : On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay & A Few of my Other Favorite Things
by Loudon Wainwright
Loudon Wainwright III, the son of esteemed Life magazine columnist Loudon Wainwright, Jr., is the patriarch of one of America’s great musical families. With a career spanning more than four decades, Wainwright has established himself as one of the most enduring singer-songwriters who emerged from the late 1960s. There is probably no singer-songwriter who has so blatantly inserted himself into his songs. The songs can be laugh-out-loud funny, but they also can cut to the bone. In this memoir, Wainwright details the family history his lyrics have referenced and the fractured relationships among generations: the alcoholism, the infidelities, the competitiveness—as well as the closeness, the successes, and the joy. Wainwright writes poignantly about being a son, but also about being a parent, a brother, and a grandfather. His lyrics are featured throughout the book, amplifying his prose and showing the connections between the songs and real life.
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| God's Wolf: The Life of the Most Notorious of All Crusaders, Scourge of Saladin by Jeffrey LeeCrusader Reynald de Chatillon was the only Christian leader who directly attacked the legendary Sultan Saladin during the 1180s. He's seldom recalled in the West, but is still viewed with hostility in the Islamic world -- in 2010 a terrorist bomb addressed to "Reynald de Chatillon" was hidden in a London FedEx shipment. Though Reynald's Christian rivals and Muslim enemies characterized him as a brutal, violent renegade, journalist Jeffrey Lee portrays a brilliant leader with diverse talents and a chivalric manner. This accessible, thoroughly researched portrait will intrigue Crusades buffs and those interested in current Christian-Islamic relations. |
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Focus on: Science and Medicine
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| My Brief History by Stephen HawkingIn My Brief History, British physicist Stephen Hawking recounts his personal story with humor (he's often laugh-out-loud funny). He describes his early years, his barely average secondary and undergraduate marks, and his diagnosis at age 21 with a motor neuron disease. Summarizing his subsequent scientific achievements and his failed marriages, Hawking presents a charming account of his life, captivating the reader with humility and frankness rather than emotion. If this short autobiography leaves you wanting more, try Hawking's A Brief History of Time; the 2014 film The Theory of Everything; or episodes of the PBS television series Genius. |
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| Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center by Ray MonkOften called "the father of the atomic bomb," physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer followed his work on the Manhattan project with a postwar position as the chief advisor to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission -- although his political affiliations and reluctance to work on the development of the hydrogen bomb later made him an outcast. Focusing explicitly on Oppenheimer's scientific contributions, author Ray Monk's account also details how anti-Semitism affected his earlier career and McCarthy-era anticommunism muted his later achievements. This book offers a valuable complement to Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin's American Prometheus. |
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| The Birds of Pandemonium: Life Among the Exotic and the Endangered by Michele RaffinA certified aviculturist and founding director of Pandemonium Aviaries in Los Altos, California, author Michele Raffin became involved in bird rescue when she helped a friend who had found an injured dove. Over the course of 15 years, she began to volunteer at a homeless bird shelter, took in birds at her home, and became an expert at caring for exotic birds. Affecting and informative vignettes about the birds she's known add color to her informative memoir, which discusses the plight of endangered species alongside Raffin's adventures in aviculture. |
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| Second Suns: Two Doctors and Their Amazing Quest to Restore Sight and Save Lives by David Oliver RelinWhile planning a book on Himalayan mountaineers, journalist David Oliver Relin met a mountain-climbing American ophthalmologist who inspired him to write about a project that restores the sight of Nepalese villagers. American Geoff Tabin and Nepali Sanduk Ruit have developed a method for cataract surgery that allows them to treat patients in under four minutes for only $20. Overcoming skepticism at their unconventional technology deployed in challenging conditions, the two doctors have made a huge difference both in Nepal and other parts of the world. Second Suns provides an inspiring chronicle of their achievements. |
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