Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

Gladys needed something even she didn’t understand. She married her first husband when she was 20, and her second husband only 14 months later. The second marriage lasted only two years, the third less than 16 months. Leslie Lincoln was her fifth, and Dr. Broadhurst became her sixth. But what desperate need drove her to go from marriage to marriage? Then what dark mindset moved her and her young cowboy chauffeur to commit murder?

What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High priest of art? Court jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities, looking at what costumes they have assumed, what roles they have chosen to play. In her final chapter she takes up the challenge of the title: if a writer is to be seen as "gifted", who is doing the giving and what are the terms of the gift?

Wide-ranging yet intimate, The Lives of Isaac Stern is a portrait of an artist and statesman who began as an American dreamer and left a lasting inheritance to his art, profession, and the world. 

The Beatles landing in New York in February 1964 was the opening shot in a cultural revolution nobody predicted. Suddenly the youth of the richest, most powerful nation on earth was trying to emulate the music, manners and the modes of a rainy island that had recently fallen on hard times.

Drummer with The Police, Stewart Copeland, sets out to uncover the truth about his father, Miles Axe Copeland ll - musician, raconteur, international businessman... and, it turns out, secret CIA operative. Going back to the 1950s to trace his father’s involvement in the birth of the CIA, Stewart enters a murky world of dictators and dirty tricks. He learns about his dad’s role in overthrowing governments, assassination plots, and befriending an infamous Soviet double agent.

For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare - poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a US Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events.

On 13th June 2020, Patrick Hutchinson, a Black man, was photographed carrying a White injured man to safety during a confrontation in London between Black Lives Matter demonstrators and counter-protesters. The image went viral and quickly travelled around the world with Patrick being widely praised for his actions. In the press interviews that followed, Patrick revealed a simple philosophy for his own personal beliefs on racism and why he had responded in the way he had. ‘It’s not Black versus White, it’s everyone versus the racists,’ he said.

Twenty-four sensational docu-dramas based on real-life historical murder cases, presented by Nick Ross. In these four series, Nick Ross introduces two dozen true tales of murder from days gone by - complete with gory details. As he recounts infamous crimes from the 1900s to the 1960s, he transports us to a time when police cars had bells and the men from the Yard wore Trilby hats.

Cosa Nostra is the compelling story of the Sicilian mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity. The mafia has been given many names since it was founded 140 years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, Cosa Nostra reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day. 

Gore Vidal: Sexually Speaking presents the author’s often provocative and always engaging thoughts on sexuality. Here, fourteen essays and three rare, vintage interviews published over the past four decades tackle hot-button topics such as gay American founding fathers, sex and the Catholic church, gay bashing and the U.S. Congress, and bedding Jack Kerouac. 

When Michele Kirsch's father is killed in a train crash, her mother gets the vapours and Michele gets extremely nervous. By her mid-teens, she has found salvation in valium. Her favourite words on the prescription sheet are 'Take as Needed', which she interprets as Take All the Time. Later, as a wife and mother, she adds alcohol into the mix, and before long her life is spinning out of control. Leaving home 'for the sake of the family', she takes the scenic route to rehab, redemption and reinvention.

In the 1940s, it was unheard of for women to be members of a professional orchestra, let alone play “masculine” instruments like the bass or trombone. Yet despite these formidable challenges, the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra (MWSO) became the only all-women orchestra in Canadian history. Formed in 1940, the MWSO became the first orchestra to represent Canada in New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The stories of those musicians are illuminated here, including the life of the incredible Ethel Stark, the co-founder and conductor of the MWSO.

Since Joel tackles what happens when the unimaginable loss of a child becomes reality. Julie Schwartz introduces listeners to her son Joel David Schwartz, who lived with Autism Spectrum Disorder and died by accidental overdose at age 25. Joel’s unique cognition created situations where he baffled yet informed; infuriated yet endeared; lost and yet won. His mother describes how Joel was a “charming nerd”, inviting us to get to know him in all his complicated detail. She asks that we maintain Joel’s memory by finding small ways to be kind and celebrating our differences.

In late 1936, as Franco’s armies stormed toward Madrid, Stalin famously termed the defence of Spain “the common cause of all advanced and progressive mankind.” As a German emigrant to Winnipeg, Hans Ibing recognized the importance of the Spanish Civil War to the struggle against worldwide fascism in a way that most people in Canada did not - joining the International Brigades in their fight to defend the Spanish Republic was his “chance to fight Hitler.”

Paul Verhoeven's ex-cop dad, John, spent years embroiled in some of the seediest, scariest intrigue and escapades imaginable. What unfolded in Loose Units was a goldmine of true-crime stories, showcasing John's dramatic experience of policing in Sydney in the 1980s and brilliantly twisted sense of humour. But what happened next in John's career was twice as weird. Electric Blue spans the final years of John's stint in the New South Wales police force, when he took up an offer to move into the grimy, analytical world of forensics.

In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to incite a riot. Some of them barely knew one another, having come together briefly to protest the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the war in Vietnam. First dubbed the "Conspiracy 8" and later the "Chicago 7", the group included firebrands like Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale, but also a little-known community activist and social worker named Lee Weiner, who was just as surprised as the rest of the country when his name was called.

Minutes before Brian Walsh, then just a teenager, heard his beeper go off, calling him to help put out another fire, he was on top of the world. An hour later, after a freak flashover and confusion that sent the junior firefighter into the inferno against regulations, Brian had suffered such profound burns to his face that he was unidentifiable to his fellow firefighters. Nearly everyone expected him to die that night. He did not. In this stirring autobiography, he tells his incredible story, sharing the lessons that only tragedy could teach.

Intimate and richly detailed, The Beauty of Living begins with E. E. Cummings's Cambridge upbringing and his relationship with his socially progressive but domestically domineering father. It follows Cummings through his undergraduate experience at Harvard, where he fell into a circle of aspiring writers including John Dos Passos, who became a lifelong friend. Steeped in classical paganism and literary Decadence, Cummings and his friends rode the explosion of Cubism, Futurism, Imagism, and other "modern" movements in the arts. 

Rust in Peace details the making of Megadeth's iconic record, which was released in 1990, at an incredible time of flux and creativity in the rock world. Relayed by the lead vocalist and guitarist of Megadeth himself, Dave Mustaine, the book covers the process of hiring the band and supporting cast, of trying to handle the ensuing success, and ultimately the pressure of fame and fortune - which caused the band to finally break up.

It was facts that helped him explain how the world works. But it was curiosity and commitment that made the late Hans Rosling, author of worldwide best seller Factfulness, the most popular researcher of our time. How I Learned to Understand the World is Hans Rosling's own story of how a young scientist learned became a revolutionary thinker, and takes us from the swelter of an emergency clinic in Mozambique to the World Economic Forum at Davos.