| Rise: How a House Built a Family by Cara BrookinsAfter escaping two abusive marriages, author Cara Brookins had four children to provide for and only herself to rely on. In Rise, she describes how, after her financial situation forced her to sell her home, she then realized that she and the children could build their own house. The book's alternating chapters detail Brookins' fearful existence with her former husbands and chronicle the house construction -- which also served to heal and rebuild her family. For a frank portrait of determination to prevail over daunting challenges, take a look at this engaging memoir. |
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| Of All That Ends by Günter Grass; translated by Breon MitchellIn this absorbing collection of writings on life, creativity, and aging, Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass explores his memories in prose, poems, and drawings. Incomplete at the time of his death, Of All That Ends sums up many vivid memories, such as an account of stockpiling ribbons for his beloved Olivetti typewriter. Grass also recounts discoveries in old age, including a diminished need for sleep and the experience of designing his and his wife's coffins and trying them out once they arrived. This is an elegantly written testament to the author's life, to positive aspects of growing old, and to the power of art to inspire others. |
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| My Life, My Love, My Legacy by Coretta Scott King, as told to Barbara ReynoldsOver the course of many years, Coretta Scott King's close friend, the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, recorded interviews with King about her experiences. In My Life, My Love, My Legacy, Reynolds assembles these accounts into an authorized biography. From her childhood in segregated Heiberger, Alabama through her college days in Ohio and her classical music studies in Boston, Coretta aspired to be a professional musician. That changed after Martin Luther King Jr persuaded her to marry him, build a family together, and return South to combat Jim Crow. This up-close, graceful narrative offers a vivid depiction of the Kings' lives, especially Coretta's, and the Civil Rights movement. |
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Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life
by Yiyun Li
A first nonfiction book by the award-winning author of Kinder Than Solitude presents a searing response to George Orwell's question, "Why write?" while exploring the influence of such writers as William Trevor, Katherine Mansfield and Marianne Moore on her literary career.
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Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin
by Sybrina Fulton
An intimate and inspiring portrait of Trayvon Martin shares previously untold insights into the movement he inspired from the perspectives of his parents, who also describe their efforts to bring meaning to his short life through the movement's pursuit of redemption and justice.
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The Skin Above My Knee
by Marcia Butler
A musical prodigy relates how she sought refuge from an abusive family by immersing herself in the oboe, describing how as an adult her memories of trauma led to dangerous relationships and self-destructive habits until she returned to music as a primary source of therapy.
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Jonathan Swift: The Reluctant Rebel
by John Stubbs
A detailed portrait of the man behind Gulliver's Travels traces his early loss of a parent, the contradictions that marked his character and his achievements as a political writer and dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin.
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Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love
by Brad Gooch
A biography of the 13th-century Persian poet paints a vivid picture of the era during which he lived and how his family’s flight from Mongolia led him to meet the Shams of Tabriz who encouraged and influenced his transformation into a mystic.
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Krysia: A Polish Girl's Stolen Childhood During World War II
by Krystyna Mihulka
In the vein of Between Shades of Gray, though written for a younger audience, Krysia: A Polish Girl's Stolen Childhood During World War II is a memoir that offers details illuminating that while living in deplorable conditions, enduring starvation and illness, and witnessing death, there were also moments of tenderness, hope and even small celebrations while in captivity, and how her mother's strength, courage and kindness saw her and her brother through until they finally found freedom.
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David Bowie: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
by David Bowie
In this remarkable collection, Bowie reveals the fierce intellectualism, artistry, and humor behind it all. From his very first interview—as a teenager on the BBC, before he was even a musician—to his last, Bowie takes on the most probing questions, candidly discussing his sexuality, his drug usage, his sense of fashion, how he composed, and more.
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Expect Great Things: The Life and Search of Henry David Thoreau
by Kevin T. Dann
To mark the 200th anniversary of the writer, naturalist, philosopher, historian and transcendentalist, a sweeping biography highlights the spiritual side of his life, painting the great thinker as a mystic and natural being in an increasingly synthetic world.
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Rowdy: The Roddy Piper Story
by Ariel Teal Toombs
The children of the late wrestler present the story of their father's life, from his hardscrabble youth in western Canada to his unprecedented successes in and out of the ring.
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Pimp: The Story of My Life
by Iceberg Slim
This is the story of Iceberg Slim's life, as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it. A trip through hell by the one man who lived to tell the tale, and the dangers of jail, addiction and death that are still all too familiar.
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Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship
by Barney Rosset
The biography of the influential book and magazine publisher describes his life and career, which helped reshape modern culture by winning battles over censorship to publish controversial works including Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Tropic of Cancer.
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The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing up in Communist Russia
by Liudmila Petrushevskaia
A memoir from the best-selling and award-winning Russian author, describes waiting in bread lines with her Bolshevik family who once lived across the street from the Kremlin and being raised by her aunt and grandmother after her mother left.
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Dean Smith: A Basketball Life
by Jeff Davis
Presents a new biography of legendary former University of North Carolina and Olympic men’s basketball coach Dean Smith.
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Abandon Me: Memoirs
by Melissa Febos
In her follow-up to Whip Smart, the former professional dominatrix fearlessly explores art, love and identity as she searches her childhood for resounding emotional truths about the bonds of family and the need for connections with other people.
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Contemporary and Historic Women
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| Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin DowneyWhen Europe was beginning its transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, one of the most powerful monarchs was Isabella I of Castile. Though she's typically named second in the pair "Ferdinand and Isabella," she was the sovereign Queen, who unified Spain in an era of frequent wars, forced Moors and Jews to convert to Catholicism under threat of banishment, and funded Columbus' voyages to the Western Hemisphere on behalf of Spanish expansion. In Isabella, historian Kirstin Downey demonstrates why she was one of the most significant women in history. This detailed, engaging portrait displays the queen's "fingerprints on Renaissance culture and religion" (Publishers Weekly). |
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| I'll Drink to That: A Life in Style, with a Twist by Betty Halbreich with Rebecca PaleyWhen Betty Halbreich published this book in 2014, she was 86 years old and still working as a personal shopper for luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman, where she'd acquired a loyal following over her 40 years there. I'll Drink to That is as much a personal accounting of her life (privileged childhood, early marriage, and a divorce that forced her into the working world) as it is about her influential role in the lives of her clients. If you're interested in the world of women's fashion and couture gossip, you'll enjoy reading about Halbreich and her trademark style -- which you can now follow on Facebook! |
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| Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring her Home by Laura Ling and Lisa LingIn March 2009, American citizen Laura Ling and her translator Euna Lee were working on a documentary near the border between China and North Korea when they were captured, tried for trespassing and "hostile acts," and sentenced to hard labor. Laura's sister, journalist Lisa Ling, launched a campaign for their release that involved a worldwide media appeal and solicited support from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, among other prominent leaders. In Somewhere Inside, Laura and Lisa relate their ordeals in alternating chapters, revealing the sisters' persistent faith and unwavering love over the five months of Laura and Euna's captivity. |
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| The Bolter by Frances OsborneIn 1982, when author Frances Osborne was 13, she was reading the London Sunday Times when she found a compelling photo showing an elegant woman, Idina Sackville, framed between two elephant tusks. When Frances' parents saw what she had discovered, they broke the news to her that the notorious Idina was her great-grandmother. This revelation eventually led Frances to trace Idina's life and write The Bolter -- a choice of title that reflects Idina's nickname, inspired by her serial marriages and over-the-top behavior. For more on the prominent but often unconventional Sackville family, try Juliet Nicolson's A House Full of Daughters. |
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| Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen by Anna WhitelockKing Henry VIII of England's first child to survive past infancy was a girl: Mary Tudor's birth was a disappointment and the lack of surviving brothers a source of consternation to her father. Declared a bastard by King Henry, she fought to take the throne as Mary I while asserting her Catholic faith. Biographer Anna Whitelock paints her as a tenacious survivor who demonstrated her intelligence and administrative abilities as queen. If you're a fan of women's history or an English history buff, you'll find this vivid, engaging account riveting. |
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Never be without a book you love! |
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