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Biography and Memoir August 2018
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You're on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir
by Parker Posey
In her first book, actress and star of movies such as Dazed and Confused, Party Girl, You’ve Got Mail, The House of Yes, and so many more, Posey opens up about the art of acting, life on the set, and the realities of its accompanying fame. A funny and colorful southern childhood prepared Posey for a life of creating and entertaining, which not only extends to acting but to the craft of pottery, sewing, collage, yoga, and cooking, all of which readers will find in this whimsical, hilarious, always entertaining book. Parker takes us into her childhood home, behind the scenes of the indie film revolution in the 90s, the delightful absurdity of the big-budget genre thrillers she’s turned into art in a whole new way, and the creativity that will always be part of both her acting and her personal life.
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A Girl's Guide to Missiles: Growing Up in America's Secret Desert
by Karen Piper
The China Lake missile range is located in a huge stretch of the Mojave Desert, about the size of the state of Delaware. It was created during the Second World War, and has always been shrouded in secrecy. But people who make missiles and other weapons are regular working people, with domestic routines and everyday dilemmas, and four of them were Karen Piper's parents, her sister, and--when she needed summer jobs--herself. Her dad designed the Sidewinder, which was ultimately used catastrophically in Vietnam. When her mom got tired of being a stay-at-home mom, she went to work on the Tomahawk. Once, when a missile nose needed to be taken offsite for final testing, her mother loaded it into the trunk of the family car, and set off down a Los Angeles freeway. Traffic was heavy, and so she stopped off at the mall, leaving the missile in the parking lot.
Piper sketches in the belief systems--from Amway's get-rich schemes to propaganda in The Rocketeer to evangelism, along with fears of a Lemurian takeover and Charles Manson--that governed their lives. Her memoir is also a search for the truth of the past and what really brought her parents to China Lake with two young daughters, a story that reaches back to her father's World War II flights with contraband across Europe. Finally, it recounts the crossroads moment in a young woman's life when she finally found a way out of a culture of secrets and fear, and out of the desert.
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Black Klansman: A Memoir
by Ron Stallworth
When detective Ron Stallworth, the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, comes across a classified ad in the local paper asking for all those interested in joining the Ku Klux Klan to contact a P.O. box, Detective Stallworth does his job and responds with interest, using his real name while posing as a white man. He figures he’ll receive a few brochures in the mail, maybe even a magazine, and learn more about a growing terrorist threat in his community.
A few weeks later the office phone rings, and the caller asks Ron a question he thought he’d never have to answer, “Would you like to join our cause?” This is 1978, and the KKK is on the rise in the United States. Its Grand Wizard, David Duke, has made a name for himself, appearing on talk shows, and major magazine interviews preaching a “kinder” Klan that wants nothing more than to preserve a heritage, and to restore a nation to its former glory.
Ron answers the caller’s question that night with a yes, launching what is surely one of the most audacious, and incredible undercover investigations in history. Ron recruits his partner Chuck to play the "white" Ron Stallworth, while Stallworth himself conducts all subsequent phone conversations. During the months-long investigation, Stallworth sabotages cross burnings, exposes white supremacists in the military, and even befriends David Duke himself.
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Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret
by Craig Brown
She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando tongue-tied. She iced out Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was madly in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy.
Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death in 2002, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.
Such an enigmatic and divisive figure demands a reckoning that is far from the usual fare. Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues, and essays, Craig Brown’s Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.
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| Romance Is My Day Job: A Memoir of Finding Love at Last by Patience BloomA whimsical, lighthearted memoir of Harlequin editor Patience Bloom's romantic history -- at work and after-hours.
Bloom skillfully deploys her knowledge of romance novel tropes, juxtaposing them with her own real-life romantic entanglements -- she refers to one ex-boyfriend as "The Secretive Hero (Who May Be Hiding Something Really Bad)."
For fans of Bridget Jones's Diary and romantic comedies. |
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| American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent by Tamer Elnoury with Kevin MaurerA layered and compelling reconstruction of pseudonymous FBI agent Tamer Elnoury's infiltration of an al-Qaeda unit.
This intimate account provides an insightful look into the worldview of al-Qaeda operatives, perfect for fans of Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower. |
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| Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle KuoReading with Patrick is a book about the transformative power of literature, movingly experienced by Teach for America volunteer-turned-law student Michelle Kuo and her former pupil Patrick Browning, who met regularly for book discussions while the latter was in jail on a murder charge.
The two discussed works by Frederick Douglass, Rita Dove, C.S. Lewis, Marilynne Robinson, Derek Walcott, and Walt Whitman, among others. |
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| Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter by Nina MacLaughlinOn the cusp of her 30th birthday, dissatisfied journalist Nina MacLaughlin quit her job at the Boston Phoenix to become a carpenter's assistant, despite having no previous experience in the trade.
"Book groups will love this engaging and entertaining chronicle" (Booklist); "effortless blending of literary craft with woodcraft" (Library Journal). |
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| Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Mike MassiminoA humble and endearing memoir from retired astronaut Mike Massimino, recounting his unlikely two-decade career at NASA (he was rejected by the agency three times before receiving a job offer).
Topics include the impact of the Challenger explosion on Massimino's burgeoning career; his under-the-wire repair of the Hubble Telescope in 2002; becoming the first person to tweet from space.
Read it for Massimino's childlike sense of wonder and excitement and his remarkably detailed yet straightforward prose. |
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