Biography: general Books
Little, Brown & Company Sink: A Memoir
Book Synopsis"A brilliant and brilliantly different" (Kiese Laymon), wrenching and redemptive coming-of-age memoir about the difficulty of growing up in a hazardous home and the glory of finding salvation in geek culture. Stranded within an ever-shifting family’s desperate but volatile attempts to love, saddled with a mercurial mother mired in crack addiction, and demeaned daily for his perceived weakness, Joseph Earl Thomas grew up feeling he was under constant threat. Roaches fell from the ceiling, colonizing bowls of noodles and cereal boxes. Fists and palms pounded down at school and at home, leaving welts that ached long after they disappeared. An inescapable hunger gnawed at his frequently empty stomach, and requests for food were often met with indifference if not open hostility. Deemed too unlike the other boys to ever gain the acceptance he so desperately desired, he began to escape into fantasy and virtual worlds, wells of happiness in a childhood assailed on all sides. In a series of exacting and fierce vignettes, Thomas guides readers through the unceasing cruelty that defined his circumstances, laying bare the depths of his loneliness and illuminating the vital reprieve geek culture offered him. With remarkable tenderness and devastating clarity, he explores how lessons of toxic masculinity were drilled into his body and the way the cycle of violence permeated the very fabric of his environment. Even in the depths of isolation, there were unexpected moments of joy carved out, from summers where he was freed from the injurious structures of his surroundings to the first glimpses of kinship he caught on his journey to becoming a Pokémon master. SINK follows Thomas's coming-of-age towards an understanding of what it means to lose the desire to fit in—with his immediate peers, turbulent family, or the world—and how good it feels to build community, love, and salvation on your own terms.
£20.90
Grand Central Publishing What Would Dolly Do?: How to Be a Diamond in a
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£18.40
Little, Brown & Company The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an
Book SynopsisBarbara Pierce Bush was one of the country's most popular and powerful figures, yet her full story has never been told.THE MATRIARCH tells the riveting tale of a woman who helped define two American presidencies and an entire political era. Written by USA TODAY's Washington Bureau chief Susan Page, this biography is informed by more than one hundred interviews with Bush friends and family members, hours of conversation with Mrs. Bush herself in the final six months of her life, and access to her diaries that spanned decades. THE MATRIARCH examines not only her public persona but also less well-known aspects of her remarkable life. As a girl in Rye, New York, Barbara Bush weathered criticism of her weight from her mother, barbs that left lifelong scars. As a young wife, she coped with the death of her three-year-old daughter from leukemia, a loss that changed her forever. In middle age, she grappled with depression so serious that she contemplated suicide. And as first the wife and then the mother of American presidents, she made history as the only woman to see -- and advise -- both her husband and son in the Oval Office. As with many women of her era, Barbara Bush was routinely underestimated, her contributions often neither recognized nor acknowledged. But she became an astute and trusted political campaign strategist and a beloved First Lady. She invested herself deeply in expanding literacy programs in America, played a critical role in the end of the Cold War, and led the way in demonstrating love and compassion to those with HIV/AIDS. With her cooperation, this book offers Barbara Bush's last words for history -- on the evolution of her party, on the role of women, on Donald Trump, and on her family's legacy.Barbara Bush's accomplishments, struggles, and contributions are many. Now, Susan Page explores them all in THE MATRIARCH, a groundbreaking book certain to cement Barbara Bush as one of the most unique and influential women in American history.
£22.50
Grand Central Publishing All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron
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£9.49
Grand Central Publishing Radiant: The Dancer, the Scientist, and a
Book Synopsis Part hidden history, part love letter to creative innovation, this is the 'imaginative and immersive' (The Star Tribune) true story of an unlikely friendship between a dancer, Loie Fuller, and a scientist, Marie Curie, brought together by an illuminating discovery. At the turn of the century, Paris was a hotbed of creativity. Technology boomed, delivering to the world electric light, the automobile, and new ways to treat disease, while imagination blossomed, creating Art Nouveau, motion pictures, and modernist literature. A pivotal figure during this time, yet largely forgotten today, Loie Fuller was an American performance artist who became a living symbol of the Art Nouveau movement with her hypnotic dances and stunning theatrical effects. Credited today as the pioneer of modern dance, she was perennially broke, never took no for an answer, spent most of her life with a female partner, and never questioned her drive. She was a visionary, a renegade, and a loyal friend. In the early 1900s, she heard about Marie Curie's discovery of a glowing blue element and dreamed of using it to dazzle audiences on stage. While Loie's dream wouldn't be realized, her connection with Marie and their shared fascination with radium endured. Radiant is the true story of Marie Curie and Loie Fuller, two revolutionary women drawn together at the dawn of a new era by a singular discovery, and the lifelong friendship that grew out of their shared passion for enlightenment.
£19.79
Grand Central Publishing Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After
Book SynopsisRenowned, bestselling novelist Chuck Palahniuk takes us behind the scenes of the writing life, with postcards from decades on the road and incredible examination of the power of fiction and the art of storytelling.In this spellbinding blend of memoir and insight, bestselling author Chuck Palahniuk shares stories and generous advice on what makes writing powerful and what makes for powerful writing.With advice grounded in years of careful study and a keenly observed life, Palahniuk combines practical advice and concrete examples from beloved classics, his own books, and a "kitchen-table MFA" culled from an evolving circle of beloved authors and artists, with anecdotes, postcards from the road, and much more.Clear-eyed, sensitive, illuminating, and knowledgeable, Consider This is Palahniuk''s love letter to stories and storytellers, booksellers and books themselves. Consider it a classic in the making.
£17.09
Grand Central Publishing Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women
Book Synopsis';Fans of Dava Sobel's The Glass Universe and Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures are in for a treat' (Publishers Weeky) with thisuntold, World War II-era story of the six American women who programmed the worlds first modern computer. After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing, begun during the war to aid those on the front lines, continued across the United States as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their confidential assignments. Among them were six pioneering women, tasked with figuring out how to program the worlds first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer--better known as the ENIAC even though there were no instruction codes or programming languages in existence. While most students of computer history are aware of this innovative machine, the great contributions of the women who programmed it were never told -- until now. Over the course of a decade, Kathy Kleiman met with four of the original six ENIAC Programmers and recorded extensive interviews with the women about their work. PROVING GROUND restores these women to their rightful place as technological revolutionaries. As the tech world continues to struggle with gender imbalance and its far-reaching consequences, the story of the ENIAC Programmers groundbreaking work is more urgently necessary than ever before, and PROVING GROUND is the celebration they deserve.
£15.99
Grand Central Publishing Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story
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£17.09
Grand Central Publishing Filthy Rich: The Jeffrey Epstein Story
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£9.49
Twelve Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search
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£14.44
Grand Central Publishing Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of
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£16.14
Twelve The Andy Warhol Diaries
Book SynopsisThe classic, scandalous, and bestselling tell-all-and-then-some from Andy Warhol—now a Netflix series produced by Ryan Murphy.This international literary sensation turns the spotlight on one of the most influential and controversial figures in American culture. Filled with shocking observations about the lives, loves, and careers of the rich, famous, and fabulous, Warhol's journal is endlessly fun and fascinating.Spanning the mid-1970s until just a few days before his death in 1987, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES is a compendium of the more than twenty thousand pages of the artist's diary that he dictated daily to Pat Hackett. In it, Warhol gives us the ultimate backstage pass to practically everything that went on in the world-both high and low. He hangs out with 'everybody': Jackie O ('thinks she's so grand she doesn't even owe it to the public to have another great marriage to somebody big'), Yoko Ono ('We dialed F-U-C-K-Y-O-U and L-O-V-E-Y-O-U to see what happened, we had so much fun'), and 'Princess Marina of, I guess, Greece,' along with art-world rock stars Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, Salvador Dali, and Keith Haring.Warhol had something to say about everyone who crossed his path, whether it was Lou Reed or Liberace, Patti Smith or Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson. A true cultural artifact, THE ANDY WARHOL DIARIES amounts to a portrait of an artist-and an era-unlike any other.
£27.00
Grand Central Publishing Murder, Interrupted
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£13.59
Grand Central Publishing Home Sweet Murder
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£15.99
Grand Central Publishing Murder Beyond the Grave
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£15.99
Grand Central Publishing Meghan and the Unmasking of the Monarchy
Book Synopsis Extensively updated with brand new chapters and images chronicling Meghan Markle's life after the royal wedding, this revised edition of renowned royal biographer Andrew Morton's New York Times bestselling biography is a comprehensive look at the American actress who—like Princess Diana before her—threw the British monarchy into turmoil.When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry went on a blind date in 2016, little did they know that the resulting whirlwind romance would lead not only to their marriage, but ultimately to their eventual withdrawal from the royal family. From the joy and laughter of her wedding day to dark days when her mental health was so rocky she feared being left alone, Meghan’s life amongst the royals has been dramatic and tempestuous. She has now experienced the highs and lows of motherhood with Archie and Lilibet, and though she vowed to hit the ground running when she first joined the royal family, she felt—rightly or wrongly—that she ran full-tilt into a wall of prejudice and indifference.With updates throughout the book and several entirely new chapters that provide a deep dive into the tumultuous journey Meghan has had in the wake of the royal wedding—acclimating to the demands of Buckingham Palace, the birth of her son Archie, and her and her husband's decision to leave the royal family and forge a new life outside of England—this biography is the full and intimate story of Meghan's life so far. Drawing on exclusive interviews with her family members and closest friends, and including never-before-seen photographs, Morton offers a window to the real Meghan as he reflects on the impact that she has had on the rigid traditions of the House of Windsor, as well as what the future might hold.
£13.59
Twelve Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of
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£16.14
Grand Central Publishing Sisters in Resistance: How a German Spy, a
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£15.60
Little, Brown & Company Five Floors Up: The Heroic Family Story of Four
Book SynopsisSeen through the eyes of four generations of a firefighter family, Five Floors Up is on one level the story of the modern New York City Fire Department. From the days just after the horse-drawn firetruck, to the devastation of the 1970s when the Bronx was Burning, to the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11, to the culture-busting department of today, a Feehan has worn the shoulder patch of the FDNY. The tale especially shines the spotlight on the career of William M. Feehan. “Chief” Feehan is only person to have held every rank in the FDNY including being New York City's 28th Fire Commissioner. He died in the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. But Five Floors Up is at root an intimate look at a firefighter clan, the selflessness and bravery of not only those who face the flames, but the family members who stand by their sides. Alternately humorous and harrowing, rich with anecdotes and meticulously researched and reported, Five Floors Up takes us inside a world few of us truly understand, and documents an era that is quickly passing us by.
£20.90
Little, Brown & Company The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous
Book SynopsisAt the turn of the twentieth century, American women began to reject Victorian propriety in favor of passion and livelihood outside the home. This alarmed authorities, who feared certain "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization if allowed to reproduce and pass on their defects. Set against this backdrop, THE UNFIT HEIRESS chronicles the fight for inheritance, both genetic and monetary, between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her mother Maryon.In 1934, aided by a California eugenics law, the socialite Maryon Cooper Hewitt had her "promiscuous" daughter declared feebleminded and sterilized without her knowledge. She did this to deprive Ann of millions of dollars from her father's estate, which contained a child-bearing stipulation. When a sensational court case ensued, the American public was captivated. So were eugenicists, who saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come. This riveting story unfolds through the brilliant research of Audrey Clare Farley, who captures the interior lives of these women on the pages and poses questions that remain relevant today: What does it mean to be "unfit" for motherhood? In the battle for reproductive rights, can we forgive the women who side against us? And can we forgive our mothers if they are the ones who inflict the deepest wounds?
£20.69
Little, Brown & Company The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous
Book SynopsisNAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY THE NEW YORK POST AND BOOK RIOTNAMED A BEST TRUE CRIME BOOK OF 2021 BY CRIMEREADSAt the turn of the twentieth century, emboldened American women began to seek passion and livelihood outside the home. This alarmed authorities, who feared "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization, either by crossing the color line or passing their evident defects on to their children. Set against this backdrop, The Unfit Heiress chronicles the fight for inheritance between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her socialite mother Maryon, who had her daughter sterilized without her knowledge. A sensational court case ensued, and powerful eugenicists saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come.This riveting story unfolds through the brilliant research of Audrey Clare Farley, who captures the interior lives of these women on the pages and poses questions that remain relevant today: What does it mean to be "unfit" for motherhood? How do racial anxieties continue to influence who does and does not reproduce? In the battle for reproductive rights, can we forgive those who side against us? And can we forgive our mothers if they are the ones who inflict the deepest wounds?
£15.29
Little, Brown & Company Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School
Book Synopsis"[C]harming and surprising. . . The work of Admissions is laying down, with wit and care, the burden James assumed at 15, that she - or any Black student, or all Black students - would manage the failures of a racially illiterate community. . . The best depiction of elite whiteness I've read."-New York TimesEarly on in Kendra James' professional life, she began to feel like she was selling a lie. As an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment for independent prep schools, she persuaded students and families to embark on the same perilous journey she herself had made-to attend cutthroat and largely white schools similar to The Taft School, where she had been the first African-American legacy student only a few years earlier. Her new job forced her to reflect on her own elite education experience, and to realize how disillusioned she had become with America's inequitable system.In ADMISSIONS, Kendra looks back at the three years she spent at Taft, chronicling clashes with her lily-white roommate, how she had to unlearn the respectability politics she'd been raised with, and the fall-out from a horrifying article in the student newspaper that accused Black and Latinx students of being responsible for segregation of campus. Through these stories, some troubling, others hilarious, she deconstructs the lies and half-truths she herself would later tell as an admissions professional, in addition to the myths about boarding schools perpetuated by popular culture.With its combination of incisive social critique and uproarious depictions of elite nonsense, ADMISSIONS will resonate with anyone who has ever been The Only One in a room, dealt with racial microaggressions, or even just suffered from an extreme case of homesickness.
£22.50
Grand Central Publishing First Gen: A Memoir
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£23.20
Grand Central Publishing All-American Murder: The Rise and Fall of Aaron
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£19.79
Little, Brown & Company New York's Finest: Stories of the NYPD and the
Book SynopsisThe gritty, true blue story of two remarkable cops and an equally extraordinary nurse who provided the spirit and smarts that transformed Fear City into the safest big city in America.NEW YORK'S FINEST is the story of a city's transformation through the tireless efforts of Detective Steven McDonald, Nurse Justiniano, Jack Maple, and a host of hero cops-including the great niece of Jazz Age great Josephine Baker-the finest of The Finest.The son and grandson of cops, Officer McDonald was shot and paralyzed from the neck down while on patrol in 1986. The doctors said that if he did survive, he would be better off dead. It was then he came under the care of one Nurse Nina Justiniano. Where the teenage gunman was produced by the worst of Harlem's social ills, she personified its many graces, rescuing Steven from despair and urging him to transcend hate and bitterness.McDonald was then promoted to detective at the urging of NYPD Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple, a postal worker's son who sported a bow tie, Homburg hat, and two-tone shoes as he implemented transformative crime-fighting strategies to deter violent subway robberies. Coming up in the force, Maple had been routinely mocked for imagining the impossible: that Times Square would one day be a destination for families and tourists.Now, resentments and tensions are mounting in the same neighborhoods that most benefited from the careful consideration of officers like McDonald and Maple. But as NEW YORK'S FINEST illustrates, their legacies, and those of people like Nurse Justiniano, may well rescue New York City from its present state of unrest and struggle in the wake of protests and the pandemic.
£14.24
Grand Central Publishing Only Say Good Things: Surviving Playboy and
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£27.00
Baker Academic Concise Guide to the Life of Muhammad
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£37.99
Lerner Publishing Group Call Me Miss Hamilton: One Woman's Case for
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£16.99
Lerner Publishing Group A Boy Named Beckoning: The True Story of Dr.
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£9.49
Kar-Ben Copies Ltd Frank, Who Liked to Build: The Architecture of
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£7.59
Basic Books Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the
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£15.19
Basic Books Mutinous Women: How French Convicts Became
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£30.60
Basic Books Uncrowned Queen: The Life of Margaret Beaufort,
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£24.00
Basic Books Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the
Book SynopsisThe epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power -- and how it transformed America.In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own.In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women—Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more—who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.
£22.50
Basic Books The Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L.
Book SynopsisA group biography of renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking "Are Women Human?" Women''s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers''s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human. Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity. A celebration of feminism and female friendship, The Mutual Admiration Society offers crucial insight into Dorothy L. Sayers and her world.
£22.50
Basic Books Queens of a Fallen World: The Lost Women of
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£22.50
Seal Press (CA) Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret
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£24.00
Basic Books The Chief: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief
Book SynopsisAn incisive biography of the Supreme Court''s enigmatic Chief Justice, taking us inside the momentous legal decisions of his tenure so far.John Roberts was named to the Supreme Court in 2005 claiming he would act as a neutral umpire in deciding cases. His critics argue he has been anything but, pointing to his conservative victories on voting rights and campaign finance. Yet he broke from orthodoxy in his decision to preserve Obamacare. How are we to understand the motives of the most powerful judge in the land? In The Chief, award-winning journalist Joan Biskupic contends that Roberts is torn between two, often divergent, priorities: to carry out a conservative agenda, and to protect the Court''s image and his place in history. Biskupic shows how Roberts''s dual commitments have fostered distrust among his colleagues, with major consequences for the law. Trenchant and authoritative, The Chief reveals the making of a justice and the drama on this nation''s highest court.
£16.14
Basic Books The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How
Book SynopsisThe inspiring true story of an enslaved woman who liberated an infamous slave jail and transformed it into one of the nation's first HBCUs In The Devil's Half Acre, New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green draws on years of research to tell the extraordinary and little-known story of young Mary Lumpkin, an enslaved woman who blazed a path of liberation for thousands. She was forced to have the children of a brutal slave trader and live on the premises of his slave jail, known as the "Devil's Half Acre." When she inherited the jail after the death of her slaveholder, she transformed it into "God's Half Acre," a school where Black men could fulfil their dreams. It still exists today as Virginia Union University, one of America's first Historically Black Colleges and Universities. A sweeping narrative of a life in the margins of the American slave trade, The Devil's Half Acre brings Mary Lumpkin into the light. This is the story of the resilience of a woman on the path to freedom, her historic contributions, and her enduring legacy.
£22.50
Basic Books The Word Detective
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£14.44
Basic Books Game of Queens
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£17.09
PublicAffairs Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero,
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£24.00
PublicAffairs Agent Josephine
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£18.73
PublicAffairs My Home Team: A Sportswriter's Life and the
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£22.50
PublicAffairs,U.S. The Mercenary: A Story of Brotherhood and Terror
Book SynopsisIn the early days of the Afghanistan war, Jeff Stern was scouring the streets of Kabul for a big story. He was accompanied by a driver, Aimal, who had ambitions of his own: to get rich off the sudden infusion of foreign attention and cash.In this gripping adventure story, Stern writes of how he and Aimal navigated an environment full of guns and danger and opportunity, and how they forged a deep bond.Then Stern got a call that changed everything. He discovered that Aimal had become an arms dealer, and was ultimately forced to flee the country to protect his family from his increasingly dangerous business partners.Tragic, powerful, and layered, The Mercenary is more than a wartime drama. It is a Rashomon-like story about how politics and violence warp our humanity, and keep the most important truths hidden.
£22.50
PublicAffairs Zarifa: A Woman's Battle in a Man's World
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£21.75
PublicAffairs The Sister: North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the Most
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£22.50
PublicAffairs Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci
Book Synopsis An exploration into the curation of the self in Western civilization from Da Vinci to Kim Kardashian.In a technologically-saturated era where nearly everything can be effortlessly and digitally reproduced, we're all hungry to carve out our own unique personalities, our own bespoke personae, to stand out and be seen. As the forces of social media and capitalism collide, and individualism becomes more important than ever across a wide array of industries, 'branding ourselves' or actively defining our selves for others has become the norm. Yet, this phenomenon is not new. In Self-Made, Tara Isabella Burton shows us how we arrived at this moment of fervent personal-branding.As attitudes towards religion, politics and society evolved, our sense of self did as well, moving from a collective to individual mindset. Through a series of chronological biographical essays on famous (and infamous) 'self-creators' in the modern Western world, from the Renassiance to the Enlightenment to modern capitalism and finally to our present moment of mass media, Burton examines the theories and forces behind our never-ending need to curate ourselves. Through a vivid cast of characters and an engaging mix of cultural and historical commentary, we learn how the personal brand has come to be.
£22.50
