Biographies & Memoirs

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  • The Borgias: The Hidden History

    The Borgias: The Hidden History

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   G.J. Meyer
    Format:   Deckle Edge]
    Publisher:   Bantam (2013, Apr 2nd).
    Pages:   

    The startling truth behind one of the most notorious dynasties in history is revealed in a remarkable new account by the acclaimed author of The Tudors and A World Undone. Sweeping aside the gossip, slander, and distortion that have shrouded the Borgias for centuries, G. J. Meyer offers an unprecedented portrait of the infamous Renaissance family and their storied milieu.   THE BORGIAS   They burst out of obscurity in Spain not only to capture the great prize of the papacy, but to do so twice. Throughout a tumultuous half-century—as popes, statesmen, warriors, lovers, and breathtakingly ambitious political adventurers—they held center stage in the glorious and blood-drenched pageant known to us as the Italian Renaissance, standing at the epicenter of the power games in which Europe’s kings and Italy’s warlords gambled for life-and-death stakes. more

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  • Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me

    Shocked: My Mother, Schiaparelli, and Me

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Patricia Volk
    Format:   Deckle Edge]
    Publisher:   Knopf (2013, Apr 2nd).
    Pages:   

    From the acclaimed author of Stuffed: an intimate, richly illustrated memoir, written with charm and panache, that juxtaposes two fascinating lives—the iconoclastic designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the author’s own mother—to explore how a girl fashions herself into a woman. Audrey Morgen Volk, an upper-middle-class New Yorker, was a great beauty and the polished hostess at her family’s garment district restaurant. Elsa Schiaparelli—“Schiap”—the haute couture designer whose creations shocked the world, blurred the line between fashion and art, and believed that everything, even a button, has the potential to delight. Audrey’s daughter Patricia read Schiap’s autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, and was transformed by it. more

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  • Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

    Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Glennon Melton
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   Scribner (2013, Apr 2nd).
    Pages:   288

    For years Glennon Doyle Melton built a wall between herself and others, hiding inside a bunker of secrets and shame. But one day everything changed: Glennon woke up to life, committing herself to living out loud and giving language to our universal (yet often secret) experiences. She became a sensation when her personal essays started going viral. Her hilarious and poignant observations have been read by millions, shared among friends, discussed at water coolers, and have now inspired a social movement. In Carry On, Warrior, Melton shares new stories and the best-loved material from Momastery.com. Her mistakes and triumphs demonstrate that love wins and that together we can do hard things. Melton is a courageous truth-teller and hopespreader, a wise and witty friend who emboldens us to believe in ourselves and reminds us that the journey is the reward. more

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  • Dead Run: The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West

    Dead Run: The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Dan Schultz
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   St. Martin's Press (2013, Mar 26th).
    Pages:   320

    Evoking Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Dan Schultz tells the extraordinary true story of desperado survivalists, a brutal murder, and vigilante justice set against the harsh backdrop of the Colorado wilderness On a sunny May morning in 1998 in Cortez, Colorado, three desperados in a stolen truck opened fire on the town cop, shooting him twenty times; then they blasted their way past dozens of police cars and disappeared into 10,000 square miles of the harshest wilderness terrain on the North American continent. Self-trained survivalists, the outlaws eluded the most sophisticated law enforcement technology on the planet and a pursuit force that represented more than seventy-five local, state, and federal police agencies with dozens of swat teams, U. more

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  • All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings

    All the Best, George Bush: My Life in Letters and Other Writings

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   George H.W. Bush
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   Scribner; Revised edition (2013, Mar 5th).
    Pages:   720

    Though reticent in public, George Bush openly shared his private thoughts in correspondence throughout his life. This collection of letters, diary entries, and memos is the closest we’ll ever get to an autobiography. Organized chronologically, the volume begins with eighteen-year-old George’s letters to his parents during World War II, when, at the time he was commissioned, he was the youngest pilot in the Navy. Readers will gain insights into Bush’s career highlights—the oil business, his two terms in Congress, his ambassadorship to the U.N., his service as an envoy to China, his tenure with the Central Intelligence Agency, and of course, the vice presidency, the presidency, and the post-presidency. They will also observe a devoted husband, father, and American. more

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  • Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family

    Brothers Emanuel: A Memoir of an American Family

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Ezekiel J. Emanuel
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   Random House (2013, Mar 26th).
    Pages:   288

    NATIONAL BESTSELLERFor years, people have been asking Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, the brash, outspoken, and fiercely loyal eldest brother in the Emanuel clan, the same question: What did your mom put in the cereal? Middle brother Rahm is the mayor of Chicago, erstwhile White House chief of staff, and one of the most colorful figures in American politics. Youngest brother Ari is a Hollywood superagent, the real-life model for the character of Ari Gold on the hit series Entourage. And Zeke himself, whom the other brothers consider to be the smartest of them all, is one of the world’s leading bioethicists and oncologists, and a former special advisor for health policy in the Obama administration. How did one family of modest means produce three such high-achieving kids? Here, for the first time, Zeke provides the answer. more

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  • As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling

    As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Anne Serling
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   Citadel Trade (2013, Apr 30th).
    Pages:   288

    In Twilight Zone reruns, I search for my father in the man on the screen, but I can't always find him there. Instead, he appears in unexpected ways. Memory summoned by a certain light, a color, a smell--and I see him again on the porch of our old red lakeside cottage, where I danced on the steps as a child.To Anne Serling, the imposing figure the public saw hosting The Twilight Zone each week, intoning cautionary observations about fate, chance, and humanity, was not the father she knew. Her fun-loving dad would play on the floor with the dogs, had nicknames for everyone in the family, and was apt to put a lampshade on his head and break out in song. He was her best friend, her playmate, and her confidant. After his unexpected death at 50, Anne, just 20, was left stunned. more

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  • The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry

    The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Gary Greenberg
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   Blue Rider Press (2013, May 2nd).
    Pages:   416

    For more than two years, author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the DSM—the American Psychiatric Association’s compendium of mental illnesses and what Greenberg calls “the book of woe.”             Since its debut in 1952, the book has been frequently revised, and with each revision, the “official” view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness. Homosexuality, for instance, was a mental illness until 1973, and Asperger’s gained recognition in 1994 only to see its status challenged nearly twenty years later. more

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  • Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight

    Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   M.E. Thomas
    Format:   Hardcover
    Publisher:   Crown (2013, May 14th).
    Pages:   288

    As M.E. Thomas says of her fellow sociopaths, we are your neighbors, co-workers, and quite possibly the people closest to you: lovers, family, friends. Our risk-seeking behavior and general fearlessness are thrilling, our glibness and charm alluring. Our often quick wit and outside-the-box thinking make us appear intelligent—even brilliant. We climb the corporate ladder faster than the rest, and appear to have limitless self-confidence.  Who are we? We are highly successful, non-criminal sociopaths and we comprise 4% of the American population (that’s 1 in 25 people!).  Confessions of a Sociopath takes readers on a journey into the mind of a sociopath, revealing what makes the tick and what that means for the rest of humanity. more

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  • Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir

    Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir

    Author/Actors/Director/etc.:   Amanda Knox
    Format:   Deckle Edge]
    Publisher:   Harper (2013, Apr 30th).
    Pages:   384

    Amanda Knox spent four years in a foreign prison for a crime she did not commit. In the fall of 2007, the 20-year-old college coed left Seattle to study abroad in Italy, but her life was shattered when her roommate was murdered in their apartment. After a controversial trial, Amanda was convicted and imprisoned. But in 2011, an appeals court overturned the decision and vacated the murder charge. Free at last, she returned home to the U.S., where she has remained silent, until now.Filled with details first recorded in the journals Knox kept while in Italy, Waiting to Be Heard is a remarkable story of innocence, resilience, and courage, and of one young woman’s hard-fought battle to overcome injustice and win the freedom she deserved. more

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