Biographies & Memoirs
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The Sixteenth Rail: The Evidence, the Scientist, and the Lindbergh Kidnapping
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Adam Schrager
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Fulcrum Publishing (2013, Jul 2nd).
Pages: 256
Before there was CSI and NCIS, there was a mild-mannered forensic scientist whose diligence would help solve the twentieth century's greatest crime. Arthur Koehler was called the Sherlock Holmes of his era for his work tracing the ladder used to kidnap Charles Lindbergh's son to the culprit. The subject of an upcoming Smithsonian Channel show, this is a gripping tale of science and true crime.When people knocked on wood for good luck, Arthur Koehler actually knew why. He could explain the superstition dating back to ancient times when trees were held to be deities of the forest and simply tapping on them would invoke the aid of those higher powers to ward off evils…Koehler knew every tree in the world was distinct, just like every person. more
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The Astronaut Wives Club: A True Story
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Lily Koppel
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (2013, Jun 11th).
Pages: 384
As America's Mercury Seven astronauts were launched on death-defying missions, television cameras focused on the brave smiles of their young wives. Overnight, these women were transformed from military spouses into American royalty. They had tea with Jackie Kennedy, appeared on the cover of Life magazine, and quickly grew into fashion icons.Annie Glenn, with her picture-perfect marriage, was the envy of the other wives; platinum-blonde Rene Carpenter was proclaimed JFK's favorite; and licensed pilot Trudy Cooper arrived on base with a secret. Together with the other wives they formed the Astronaut Wives Club, meeting regularly to provide support and friendship. Many became next-door neighbors and helped to raise each other's children by day, while going to glam parties at night as the country raced to land a man on the Moon. more
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Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Sheri Booker
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Gotham (2013, May 30th).
Pages: 272
Six Feet Under meets The Wire in a dazzling and darkly comic memoir about coming-of-age in a black funeral home in Baltimore Sheri Booker was only fifteen years old when she started working at Wylie Funeral Home in West Baltimore. She had no idea that her summer job would become nine years of immersion in a hidden world. Reeling from the death of her beloved great aunt, she found comfort in the funeral home, and soon has the run of the place, from its sacred chapels to the terrifying embalming room. With AIDS and gang violence threatening to wipe out a generation of black men, Wylie was never short on business. As families came together to bury one of their own, Booker was privy to their most intimate moments of grief and despair. But along with the sadness, Booker encountered moments of dark humor: brawls between mistresses and widows, and car crashes at McDonald’s with dead bodies in tow. more
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The Possibility Dogs: What a Handful of "Unadoptables" Taught Me About Service, Hope, and Healing
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Susannah Charleson
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2013, Jun 4th).
Pages: 288
An inspiring story that shows how dogs can be rescued, and can rescue in return.With her critically acclaimed, bestselling first book, Scent of the Missing, Susannah Charleson was widely praised for her unique insight into the kinship between humans and dogs, as revealed through her work in canine search and rescue alongside her partner, golden retriever Puzzle.Now, in The Possibility Dogs, Charleson journeys into the world of psychiatric service, where dogs aid humans with disabilities that may be unseen but are no less felt. This work had a profound effect on Charleson, perhaps because, for her, this journey began as a personal one: Charleson herself struggled with posttraumatic stress disorder for months after a particularly grisly search. more
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Echoes of my Soul
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Robert K. Tanenbaum
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Kensington (2013, May 28th).
Pages: 288
New York Times bestselling author and renowned prosecuting attorney Robert K. Tanenbaum provides the first insider's account of the historic Wylie-Hoffert case, from the shocking double-murder to the wrenching interrogation of an innocent young man, and the heroic Assistant District Attorney who risked everything to unravel a disgraceful injustice. Here is a gripping chronicle of the unnerving crime that led to the Miranda Rights, and of the courageous stand that forever reformed the American justice system.It was a muggy summer day in New York when Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert were raped and murdered in their apartment on Manhattan's fashionable Upper East Side. Months passed as their families grieved the unthinkable and a shaken city awaited answers. more
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Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Jennifer Finney Boylan
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Crown (2013, Apr 23rd).
Pages: 304
New York Times bestseller and acclaimed author Jennifer Finney Boylan returns with a remarkable memoir about gender and parenting, including incredible interviews discussing gender, how families are shaped, and the difficulties and wonders of being human. A father for ten years, a mother for eight, and for a time in between, neither, or both ("the parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo"), Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. more
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Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Scott McGaugh
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Arcade Publishing; 1 edition (2013, Jul 1st).
Pages: 368
The first full-length biography of the Civil War surgeon who, over the course of the war’s bloodiest battles—from Antietam to Gettysburg—redefined military medicine.Jonathan Letterman was an outpost medical officer serving in Indian country in the years before the Civil War, responsible for the care of just hundreds of men. But when he was appointed the chief medical officer for the Army of the Potomac, he revolutionized combat medicine over the course of four major battles—Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg—that produced unprecedented numbers of casualties. He made battlefield survival possible by creating the first organized ambulance corps and a more effective field hospital system. He imposed medical professionalism on a chaotic battlefield. more
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Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Kevin Cullen
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (2013, Mar 4th).
Pages: 496
This unforgettable narrative follows the astonishing career and epic manhunt for Whitey Bulger—a gangster whose life was more sensational than fiction.Raised in a South Boston housing project, James "Whitey" Bulger became the most wanted fugitive of his generation. In this riveting story, rich with family ties and intrigue, award-winning Boston Globe reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy follow Whitey’s extraordinary criminal career—from teenage thievery to bank robberies to the building of his underworld empire and a string of brutal murders. It was after a nine-year stint in Alcatraz and other prisons that Whitey reunited with his brother William "Billy" Bulger, who was soon to become one of Massachusetts’s most powerful politicians. more
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The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Josh Hanagarne
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Gotham (2013, May 2nd).
Pages: 288
An inspiring story of how a Mormon kid with Tourette’s found salvation in books and weight-lifting Josh Hanagarne couldn’t be invisible if he tried. Although he wouldn’t officially be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time he was twenty, the young Mormon had reached his towering adult height of 6’7” when—while serving on a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints—his Tourette’s tics escalated to nightmarish levels. Determined to conquer his affliction, Josh underwent everything from quack remedies to lethargy-inducing drug regimes to Botox injections that paralyzed his vocal cords and left him voiceless for three years. more
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A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table
Author/Actors/Director/etc.: Molly Wizenberg
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (2009, Mar 3rd).
Pages: 336
When Molly Wizenberg's father died of cancer, everyone told her to go easy on herself, to hold off on making any major decisions for a while. But when she tried going back to her apartment in Seattle and returning to graduate school, she knew it wasn't possible to resume life as though nothing had happened. So she went to Paris, a city that held vivid memories of a childhood trip with her father, of early morning walks on the cobbled streets of the Latin Quarter and the taste of her first pain au chocolat. She was supposed to be doing research for her dissertation, but more often, she found herself peering through the windows of chocolate shops, trekking across town to try a new pâtisserie, or tasting cheeses at outdoor markets, until one evening when she sat in the Luxembourg Gardens reading cookbooks until it was too dark to see, she realized that her heart was not in her studies but in the kitchen. more
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