Sunday, October 4, 2020

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Biographies & Memoirs 2020-10-04

Jennifer Teege & Nikola Sellmair - My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me artwork My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me
A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past
Jennifer Teege & Nikola Sellmair
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: April 07, 2015
Publisher: Workman Publishing
Seller: OpenRoad Integrated Media, LLC

The New York Times bestseller—“a stunning memoir of cultural trauma and personal identity” by the black granddaughter of a Nazi depicted in Schindler’s List ( Booklist , starred review). At age thirty-eight, Jennifer Teege happened to pluck a library book from the shelf—and discovered a horrifying fact: Her grandfather was Amon Goeth, the vicious Nazi commandant immortalized in the film Schindler’s List . Reviled as the “butcher of Plaszów,” Goeth was executed in 1946. The more Teege learned about him, the more certain she became: If her grandfather had met her—a black woman—he would have killed her. Teege’s discovery sends her into a severe depression—and fills her with questions: Why did her birth mother withhold this chilling secret? How could her grandmother have loved a mass murderer? Can evil be inherited? Teege’s story is cowritten by Nikola Sellmair, who adds further historical context and insight from Teege’s family and friends, in an interwoven narrative. Ultimately, Teege’s search for the truth leads her, step by step, to the possibility of her own liberation.



M. William Phelps - Obsessed artwork Obsessed
M. William Phelps
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: March 04, 2014
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Seller: Kensington Publishing Corp.

"Anything by Phelps is always an eye-opening experience." — Suspense Magazine Sheila Davalloo was young, attractive, and successful. When she started a new job at a cutting-edge research lab in Stamford, Connecticut, she met the man of her dreams. Nelson Sessler had no idea how violently Sheila would react when he began seeing a co-worker, Anna Lisa Raymundo. Sheila eliminated her rival in a bloody knife attack—and then turned her rage on another victim she saw as an obstacle to her passions. M. Williams Phelps recounts the riveting story of a white-collar love triangle gone horribly wrong. . .and the terrifying infatuation that drove one woman to kill. "Phelps is the Harlan Coben of real-life thrillers."—Allison Brennan "M. William Phelps dares to tread where few others will: into the mind of a killer." — TV Rage Includes 16 Pages Of Dramatic Photos



Mariah Carey - The Meaning of Mariah Carey artwork The Meaning of Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: September 29, 2020
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Seller: Macmillan

The global icon, award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, actress, mother, daughter, sister, storyteller, and artist finally tells the unfiltered story of her life in The Meaning of Mariah Carey It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the story of the moments - the ups and downs, the triumphs and traumas, the debacles and the dreams, that contributed to the person I am today. Though there have been countless stories about me throughout my career and very public personal life, it’s been impossible to communicate the complexities and depths of my experience in any single magazine article or a ten-minute television interview. And even then, my words were filtered through someone else’s lens, largely satisfying someone else’s assignment to define me. This book is composed of my memories, my mishaps, my struggles, my survival and my songs. Unfiltered. I went deep into my childhood and gave the scared little girl inside of me a big voice. I let the abandoned and ambitious adolescent have her say, and the betrayed and triumphant woman I became tell her side. Writing this memoir was incredibly hard, humbling and healing. My sincere hope is that you are moved to a new understanding, not only about me, but also about the resilience of the human spirit. Love, Mariah



Jocelyn Zichterman - I Fired God artwork I Fired God
My Life Inside---and Escape from---the Secret World of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult
Jocelyn Zichterman
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: May 14, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: Macmillan

A compelling memoir and account of the Independent Fundamental Baptist church and its shocking history of religious abuse. Jocelyn Zichterman was born, raised, married into, and finally, with her family, fled the Independent Fundamental Baptist church. Founded by the fiery preacher Bob Jones, with several hundred thousand members, IFB congregants are told they must not associate with members of other Baptist denominations and evangelicals, with an emphasis on secrecy, insular marriages within the church, a subservience for women, and unusual child raising practices. In I Fired God, Jocelyn Zichterman systematically details the IFB's disturbing history, exposing a cult-like atmosphere of corruption, greed, and abuse. Having been initiated into its innermost circles, Zichterman knows that the gentle demeanor America sees in the form of the Duggar clan on 19 Kids and Counting disguises the truth about the darker side of the church. With written documentation and sources so thorough that law enforcement has used her work as a foundation for criminal prosecutions, Zichterman exposes the IFB with revelations including: - The disturbing world of abuse within the IFB and doctors and teachers who cater exclusively to church members and fail to report physical and sexual abuse - The IFB-controlled Bob Jones University, which issues degrees of questionable value while making vast sums of money for its founders - The way the IFB influences politics on the local, state, and national level, and protects its abusive culture under the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion



Glennon Doyle - Untamed artwork Untamed
Glennon Doyle
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: March 10, 2020
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

#1  NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • “Packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today.”—Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Book Pick) In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the activist, speaker, bestselling author, and “patron saint of female empowerment” ( People ) explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet others’ expectations and start trusting the voice deep within us. “ Untamed will liberate women—emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  It is phenomenal. ”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and  Eat Pray Love This is how you find yourself. There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good: good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and wonder:  Wasn’t it all supposed to be more beautiful than this?  We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves. For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her mind:  There She Is . At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world’s expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living. Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender,  Untamed  is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and say: There She Is . Untamed  shows us how to be brave. As Glennon insists:  The braver we are, the luckier we get.



Jocelyne Cazin - Ma véritable identité artwork Ma véritable identité
Jocelyne Cazin
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: September 30, 2020
Publisher: Libre Expression
Seller: Messageries A.D.P. Inc.

« Si je peux aider des femmes qui ont vécu comme moi le cœur serré toute leur vie, j'aurai fait œuvre utile à ma petite échelle. » À l'aube de ses soixante-dix ans, la journaliste Jocelyne Cazin admet ouvertement : « La vie a été bonne pour moi, mais je n'ai pas toujours été bonne pour moi. » Dans Ma véritable identité , elle évoque avec une sincérité surprenante des événements et des épreuves qui ont marqué son existence et sur lesquels elle porte une touchante réflexion. L'histoire de cette communicatrice légendaire permettra de mieux saisir la réalité de bien des femmes de sa génération : travailleuse acharnée et féministe, elle s'est tournée vers des relations amoureuses féminines par dépit quand les deux hommes les plus importants de sa vie l'ont rejetée. Ses multiples abus auraient pu la mener sur des chemins chaotiques, mais sa détermination a eu raison de ses mauvais pas. Pour la première fois, elle accepte de lever le voile sur son parcours étonnant, tumultueux, mais combien riche !



Bob Woodward - Rage artwork Rage
Bob Woodward
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $20.99
Publish Date: September 15, 2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

Bob Woodward’s new book, Rage, is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of new reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 international bestselling author of Fear: Trump in the White House , has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency. In dramatic detail, Woodward takes readers into the Oval Office as Trump’s head pops up when he is told in January 2020 that the pandemic could reach the scale of the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed 675,000 Americans. In 17 on-the-record interviews with Woodward over seven volatile months—an utterly vivid window into Trump’s mind—the president provides a self-portrait that is part denial and part combative interchange mixed with surprising moments of doubt as he glimpses the perils in the presidency and what he calls the “dynamite behind every door.” At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump’s responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Revisiting the earliest days of the Trump presidency, Rage reveals how Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats struggled to keep the country safe as the president dismantled any semblance of collegial national security decision making. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses as well as participants’ notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 never-seen personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a “fantasy film.” Trump insists to Woodward he will triumph over Covid-19 and the economic calamity. “Don’t worry about it, Bob. Okay?” Trump told the author in July. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get to do another book. You’ll find I was right.”



Stephanie Winston Wolkoff - Melania and Me artwork Melania and Me
The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady
Stephanie Winston Wolkoff
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: September 01, 2020
Publisher: Gallery Books
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER What Melania wants, Melania gets. The former director of special events at Vogue and producer of nine legendary Met Galas, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff met Melania Knauss in 2003 and had a front row seat to the transformation of Donald Trump’s then girlfriend from a rough-cut gem to a precious diamond. As their friendship deepened over lunches at Manhattan hot spots, black-tie parties, and giggle sessions in the penthouse at Trump Tower, Wolkoff watched the newest Mrs. Trump raise her son, Barron, and manage her highly scrutinized marriage. After Trump won the 2016 election, Wolkoff was recruited to help produce the 58th Presidential Inaugu­ration and to become the First Lady’s trusted advisor. Melania put Wolkoff in charge of hiring her staff, organizing her events, helping her write speeches, and creating her debut initiatives. Then it all fell apart when she was made the scapegoat for inauguration finance irregularities. Melania could have defended her innocent friend and confidant, but she stood by her man, knowing full well who was really to blame. The betrayal nearly destroyed Wolkoff. In this candid and emotional memoir, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff takes you into Trump Tower and the White House to tell the funny, thrilling, and heartbreaking story of her intimate friendship with one of the most famous women in the world, a woman few people truly understand. How did Melania react to the Access Hollywood tape and her husband’s affair with Stormy Daniels? Does she get along well with Ivanka? Why did she wear that jacket with “I really don’t care, do u?” printed on the back? Is Melania happy being First Lady? And what really happened with the inauguration’s funding of $107 million? Wolkoff has some ideas...



David Goggins - Can't Hurt Me artwork Can't Hurt Me
Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
David Goggins
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $9.99
Publish Date: November 15, 2018
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Seller: DIY Media Group DBA BookBaby

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 U.S. 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, inspiring Outside magazine to name him The Fittest (Real) Man in America. In Can't Hurt Me, he shares his astonishing life story and reveals that most of us tap into only 40% of our capabilities. Goggins calls this The 40% Rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.



Robert Lacey - Battle of Brothers artwork Battle of Brothers
William and Harry – The Inside Story of a Family in Tumult
Robert Lacey
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $18.99
Expected Publish Date: October 20, 2020
Publisher: Harper
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

From bestselling author and historical consultant to the award-winning Netflix series The Crown, an unparalleled insider account of tumult, secrecy and schism in the Royal family. The world has watched Prince William and Prince Harry since they were born. Raised by Princess Diana to be the closest of brothers, how have the boy princes grown into very different, now distanced men? From royal insider, biographer and historian Robert Lacey, this book reveals the untold details of William and Harry’s closeness and estrangement, asking what happens when two sons are raised for vastly different futures – one burdened with the responsibility of one day becoming king, the other with the knowledge that he will always remain spare. How have William and Harry both agreed and diverged in their views of what a modern royal owes to their country? Were the seeds of damage sowed by Prince Charles and Princess Diana as their marriage unraveled for all the world to see? In the previous generation, how have Prince Charles and Prince Andrew’s own relations strained under the Crown? What role has Queen Elizabeth II played in marshalling her feuding heirs? What parts have Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle played in helping their husbands to choose their differing paths? And what is the real, unvarnished story behind Harry and Meghan’s dramatic departure? In the most intimate vision yet of life behind closed doors, with its highs, lows and discretions all laid out, this is a journey into royal life as never offered before.



Élyse-Andrée Héroux - Pauline Marois - Au-delà du pouvoir artwork Pauline Marois - Au-delà du pouvoir
Au-delà du pouvoir
Élyse-Andrée Héroux
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $19.99
Publish Date: September 11, 2020
Publisher: Québec Amérique
Seller: Les Editions Quebec Amerique Inc.

Qui est Pauline Marois? On connaît la personnalité publique, la femme d’engagement. On a vu la battante se hisser au sommet du pouvoir et occuper, pour la première fois de notre histoire, le siège de première ministre. Mais le parcours singulier de celle qui a dirigé un nombre record de ministères reste méconnu. Aujourd’hui, Pauline Marois se raconte avec authenticité, s’attachant aux moments forts qui ont façonné la femme qu’elle est: ses origines modestes, l’importance de sa famille, ses valeurs, les causes qui lui sont chères ainsi que les hauts et les bas de sa longue carrière. En levant le voile sur ses souvenirs, elle révèle, sans complaisance et sans amertume, les deux côtés de la médaille du pouvoir, mettant en lumière les enjeux soulevés par la faible représentation des femmes en politique. Au-delà du pouvoir se lit comme un roman, tout en constituant un survol saisissant des cinquante dernières années de notre histoire politique. C’est un ouvrage incontournable pour qui veut faire un bout de chemin avec cette femme d’exception qui, au-delà des jugements et des opinions, a consacré sa vie au service du Québec.



Mary L. Trump - Too Much and Never Enough artwork Too Much and Never Enough
How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Mary L. Trump
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: July 14, 2020
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

In this revelatory, authoritative portrait of Donald J. Trump and the toxic family that made him, Mary L. Trump, a trained clinical psychologist and Donald’s only niece, shines a bright light on the dark history of their family in order to explain how her uncle became the man who now threatens the world’s health, economic security, and social fabric. Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in the heart of Queens, New York, where Donald and his four siblings grew up. She describes a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse. She explains how specific events and general family patterns created the damaged man who currently occupies the Oval Office, including the strange and harmful relationship between Fred Trump and his two oldest sons, Fred Jr. and Donald. A firsthand witness to countless holiday meals and interactions, Mary brings an incisive wit and unexpected humor to sometimes grim, often confounding family events. She recounts in unsparing detail everything from her uncle Donald’s place in the family spotlight and Ivana’s penchant for regifting to her grandmother’s frequent injuries and illnesses and the appalling way Donald, Fred Trump’s favorite son, dismissed and derided him when he began to succumb to Alzheimer’s. Numerous pundits, armchair psychologists, and journalists have sought to parse Donald J. Trump’s lethal flaws. Mary L. Trump has the education, insight, and intimate familiarity needed to reveal what makes Donald, and the rest of her clan, tick. She alone can recount this fascinating, unnerving saga, not just because of her insider’s perspective but also because she is the only Trump willing to tell the truth about one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families.



Immaculée Ilibagiza - Left to Tell artwork Left to Tell
Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
Immaculée Ilibagiza
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: June 01, 2007
Publisher: Hay House
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family was brutally murdered during a killing spree that lasted three months and claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans. Incredibly, Immaculee survived the slaughter. For 91 days, she and seven other women huddled silently together in the cramped bathroom of a local pastor while hundreds of machete-wielding killers hunted for them. It was during those endless hours of unspeakable terror that Immaculee discovered the power of prayer, eventually shedding her fear of death and forging a profound and lasting relationship with God. She emerged from her bathroom hideout having discovered the meaning of truly unconditional love—a love so strong she was able seek out and forgive her family’s killers. The triumphant story of this remarkable young woman’s journey through the darkness of genocide will inspire anyone whose life has been touched by fear, suffering, and loss.



Jesse Thistle - From the Ashes artwork From the Ashes
My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way
Jesse Thistle
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $9.99
Publish Date: August 06, 2019
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

*Winner, Kobo Emerging Writer Prize Nonfiction *Winner, Indigenous Voices Awards *Finalist, CBC Canada Reads *Finalist, High Plains Book Awards *A Globe and Mail Book of the Year *An Indigo Book of the Year *A CBC Best Canadian Nonfiction Book of the Year In this extraordinary and inspiring debut memoir, Jesse Thistle, once a high school dropout and now a rising Indigenous scholar, chronicles his life on the streets and how he overcame trauma and addiction to discover the truth about who he is. If I can just make it to the next minute...then I might have a chance to live; I might have a chance to be something more than just a struggling crackhead. From the Ashes is a remarkable memoir about hope and resilience, and a revelatory look into the life of a Métis-Cree man who refused to give up. Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse Thistle briefly found himself in the foster-care system with his two brothers, cut off from all they had known. Eventually the children landed in the home of their paternal grandparents, whose tough-love attitudes quickly resulted in conflicts. Throughout it all, the ghost of Jesse’s drug-addicted father haunted the halls of the house and the memories of every family member. Struggling with all that had happened, Jesse succumbed to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, spending more than a decade on and off the streets, often homeless. Finally, he realized he would die unless he turned his life around. In this heartwarming and heart-wrenching memoir, Jesse Thistle writes honestly and fearlessly about his painful past, the abuse he endured, and how he uncovered the truth about his parents. Through sheer perseverance and education—and newfound love—he found his way back into the circle of his Indigenous culture and family. An eloquent exploration of the impact of prejudice and racism, From the Ashes is, in the end, about how love and support can help us find happiness despite the odds.



Michelle Labrèche Larouche - Les 40 hommes de ma vie artwork Les 40 hommes de ma vie
Couchés sur le papier
Michelle Labrèche Larouche
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: September 17, 2020
Publisher: Les Éditions La Presse
Seller: Les editions La Presse Ltee

De ses premières amours dans le jardin de ses parents à sa conquête du désert indien (et d’un homme du désert!) en passant par le Studio54 et un camp de pêche idyllique, MichelleLabrèche-Larouche raconte les hommes de sa vie, des hommes inoubliables, chacun à leur façon.   Les 40hommes de ma vie ,c’est aussi l’histoire d’une femme indépendante et libre qui découvre, au cœur de la révolution sexuelle des années60, que le mariage n’est pas la seule option, surtout pas pour un esprit curieux et aventureux comme le sien. Au menu, des histoires d’amour, de passion, de désir, d’amitié, de ruptures, avec Jean-Pierre, Gino, Kano et les autres, des hommes qui l’ont éblouie, étonnée, déçue, troublée, mais toujours touchée.  «Après la fin d’un amour ou d’une passion, si la récupération s’avérait difficile, j’enfilais un anneau en brillants pour me rappeler que j’étais d’abord mariée avec moi-même. Ainsi, je retrouvais mon autonomie et ne m’en portais que mieux.»



Peter Baker & Susan Glasser - The Man Who Ran Washington artwork The Man Who Ran Washington
The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
Peter Baker & Susan Glasser
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: September 29, 2020
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

From two of America's most revered political journalists comes the definitive biography of legendary White House chief of staff and secretary of state James A. Baker III: the man who ran Washington when Washington ran the world. For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a page-turning portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations. A scion of Texas aristocracy who became George H. W. Bush's best friend on the tennis courts of the Houston Country Club, Baker had never even worked in Washington until a devastating family tragedy struck when he was thirty-nine. Within a few years, he was leading Gerald Ford's campaign and would go on to manage a total of five presidential races and win a sixth for George W. Bush in a Florida recount. He ran Ronald Reagan's White House and became the most consequential secretary of state since Henry Kissinger. He negotiated with Democrats at home and Soviets abroad, rewrote the tax code, assembled the coalition that won the Gulf War, brokered the reunification of Germany and helped bring a decades-long nuclear superpower standoff to an end. Ruthlessly partisan during campaign season, Baker governed as the avatar of pragmatism over purity and deal-making over division, a lost art in today's fractured nation. His story is a case study in the acquisition, exercise, and preservation of power in late twentieth-century America and the story of Washington and the world in the modern era--how it once worked and how it has transformed into an era of gridlock and polarization. This masterly biography by two brilliant observers of the American political scene is destined to become a classic.



Alan Cumming - Not My Father's Son artwork Not My Father's Son
A Memoir
Alan Cumming
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: October 07, 2014
Publisher: Dey Street Books
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

“Equal parts memoir, whodunit, and manual for living . . . a beautifully written, honest look at the forces of blood and bone that make us who we are, and how we make ourselves.”  --Neil Gaiman In his unique and engaging voice, the acclaimed actor of stage and screen shares the emotional story of his complicated relationship with his father and the deeply buried family secrets that shaped his life and career. A beloved star of stage, television, and film—“one of the most fun people in show business” (Time magazine)—Alan Cumming is a successful artist whose diversity and fearlessness is unparalleled. His success masks a painful childhood growing up under the heavy rule of an emotionally and physically abusive father—a relationship that tormented him long into adulthood. When television producers in the UK approached him to appear on a popular celebrity genealogy show in 2010, Alan enthusiastically agreed. He hoped the show would solve a family mystery involving his maternal grandfather, a celebrated WWII hero who disappeared in the Far East. But as the truth of his family ancestors revealed itself, Alan learned far more than he bargained for about himself, his past, and his own father. With ribald humor, wit, and incredible insight, Alan seamlessly moves back and forth in time, integrating stories from his childhood in Scotland and his experiences today as a film, television, and theater star. At times suspenseful, deeply moving, and wickedly funny, Not My Father’s Son will make readers laugh even as it breaks their hearts.



Matthew McConaughey - Greenlights artwork Greenlights
Matthew McConaughey
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $16.99
Expected Publish Date: October 20, 2020
Publisher: Crown
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction   “Unflinchingly honest and remarkably candid, Matthew McConaughey’s book invites us to grapple with the lessons of his life as he did—and to see that the point was never to win, but to understand.”—Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.   Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges—how to get relative with the inevitable —you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”   So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.   Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.   It’s a love letter. To life.   It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights—and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.   Good luck.



Glennon Doyle & Glennon Doyle Melton - Love Warrior artwork Love Warrior
A Memoir
Glennon Doyle & Glennon Doyle Melton
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: September 06, 2016
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Seller: Macmillan

#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Bookclub 2016 Selection "Riveting…a worthy investment…this book has real wisdom." — New York Times Book Review "Provocative….I adore her honesty, her vulnerability, and her no-nonsense wisdom, and I know you will, too." — Oprah Winfrey The highly anticipated memoir by bestselling author Glennon Doyle, Love Warrior tells the story of her journey of self-discovery after the implosion of her marriage. Just when Glennon Doyle Melton was beginning to feel she had it all figured out—three happy children, a doting spouse, and a writing career so successful that her first book catapulted to the top of the New York Times bestseller list—her husband revealed his infidelity and she was forced to realize that nothing was as it seemed. A recovering alcoholic and bulimic, Glennon found that rock bottom was a familiar place. In the midst of crisis, she knew to hold on to what she discovered in recovery: that her deepest pain has always held within it an invitation to a richer life. Love Warrior is the story of one marriage, but it is also the story of the healing that is possible for any of us when we refuse to settle for good enough and begin to face pain and love head-on. This astonishing memoir reveals how our ideals of masculinity and femininity can make it impossible for a man and a woman to truly know one another—and it captures the beauty that unfolds when one couple commits to unlearning everything they’ve been taught so that they can finally, after thirteen years of marriage, commit to living true—true to themselves and to each other. Love Warrior is a gorgeous and inspiring account of how we are born to be warriors: strong, powerful, and brave; able to confront the pain and claim the love that exists for us all. This chronicle of a beautiful, brutal journey speaks to anyone who yearns for deeper, truer relationships and a more abundant, authentic life.



Jeff Blackstock - Murder in the Family artwork Murder in the Family
How the Search for My Mother's Killer Led to My Father
Jeff Blackstock
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: September 01, 2020
Publisher: Penguin Canada
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

Diplomat father. Murdered mother. Emotionally neglected children. An apparent cover-up. Family dinners will never be the same. "I think that my father murdered my mother." That terrible belief spurs author Jeff Blackstock to investigate the circumstances of his mother Carol's death when he was a child. Carol Blackstock died at age 24 in 1959--poisoned by arsenic--but the cause of her death remained shrouded in mystery for decades. Jeff's father George Blackstock was a career diplomat in Canada's foreign service, posted to glamorous Buenos Aires with his wife Carol and their three children. A little more than a year after the family's arrival, the vivacious young mother, now emaciated and in terrible pain, was transferred to Montreal for treatment of a mysterious illness that proved fatal. In the following year, George Blackstock remarried, and a young woman named Ingrid became the feared stepmother to Jeff and his two siblings. Carol's parents soon had suspicions about their son-in-law George but were unable to get justice for their daughter. Class privilege--George was the scion of a Toronto establishment family and Carol was from modest beginnings--and an aversion to scandal all figured in an apparent cover-up. But secrets have a way of eventually disrupting all families. A damning autopsy report about arsenic poisoning, found among their grandmother's effects, leads Jeff Blackstock and his sister to horrifying revelations about their father. Eventually, they confront him and accuse him of their mother's murder. But George offers only vague explanations that don't add up. George died a broken man, mostly abandoned by his adult children. A compelling story of a high-society murder, a heartbreaking tale of emotionally neglected children, and an inquiry into the power and privilege of the Anglo upper classes of the time, Murder in the Family chronicles the shocking legacy of deeply buried secrets and betrayal in one's own family.



Philippe Paul - Code 4-1 artwork Code 4-1
Le pouvoir de l'informateur
Philippe Paul
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: September 30, 2020
Publisher: Éditions Druide
Seller: De Marque, Inc.

Philippe Paul, ex-enquêteur au SPVM, est de ceux qui considèrent que, pour parvenir à résoudre nombre de dossiers complexes, rien ne se compare au pouvoir de l’informateur : le « code 4-1 » dans le jargon policier. Il faut toutefois vouloir y mettre le temps et les efforts : gagner la confiance d’individus parfois réticents, entretenir de nombreux contacts et accepter d’être dérangé à toute heure du jour et de la nuit. Grâce à ce travail de longue haleine, Philippe Paul a pu, avec ses coéquipiers, saisir des armes, de la drogue de tout acabit, procéder à des arrestations et sauver des vies. Ses récits nous amènent à constater combien ces liens si délicats avec une multitude d’indics qui infiltraient le monde interlope, parfois à leurs risques et périls, en ont valu la chandelle.



Jeff Pearlman - Three-Ring Circus artwork Three-Ring Circus
Kobe, Shaq, Phil, and the Crazy Years of the Lakers Dynasty
Jeff Pearlman
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $20.99
Publish Date: September 22, 2020
Publisher: HMH Books
Seller: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

The story of the Lakers dynasty from 1996 through 2004, when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal combined—and collided—to help bring the Lakers three straight championships and restore the franchise as a powerhouse In the history of modern sport, there have never been two high-level teammates who loathed each other the way Shaquille O’Neal loathed Kobe Bryant, and Kobe Bryant loathed Shaquille O’Neal. From public sniping and sparring, to physical altercations and the repeated threats of trade, it was warfare. And yet, despite eight years of infighting and hostility, by turns mediated and encouraged by coach Phil Jackson, the Shaq-Kobe duo resulted in one of the greatest dynasties in NBA history. Together, the two led the Lakers to three straight championships and returned glory and excitement to Los Angeles.  In the tradition of Jeff Pearlman’s bestsellers Showtime,   Boys Will Be Boys,  and  The Bad Guys Won, Three-Ring Circus is a rollicking deep dive into one of sports’ most fraught yet successful pairings. 



Rob Halford - Confess artwork Confess
The Autobiography
Rob Halford
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: September 29, 2020
Publisher: Hachette Books
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

The legendary frontman of Judas Priest, one of the most successful heavy metal bands of all time, celebrates five decades of heavy metal in this tell-all memoir. Most priests hear confessions. This one is making his. Rob Halford, front man of global iconic metal band Judas Priest, is a true "Metal God." Raised in Britain's hard-working, heavy industrial heartland, he and his music were forged in the Black Country. Confess , his full autobiography, is an unforgettable rock 'n' roll story-a journey from a Walsall council estate to musical fame via alcoholism, addiction, police cells, ill-fated sexual trysts, and bleak personal tragedy, through to rehab, coming out, redemption . . . and finding love. Now, he is telling his gospel truth. Told with Halford's trademark self-deprecating, deadpan Black Country humor, Confess is the story of an extraordinary five decades in the music industry. It is also the tale of unlikely encounters with everybody from Superman to Andy Warhol, Madonna, Jack Nicholson, and the Queen. More than anything else, it's a celebration of the fire and power of heavy metal. Rob Halford has decided to Confess . Because it's good for the soul.



Chrisann Brennan - The Bite in the Apple artwork The Bite in the Apple
A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs
Chrisann Brennan
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: October 29, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: Macmillan

An intimate look at the life of Steve Jobs by the mother of his first child providing rare insight into Jobs's formative, lesser-known years Steve Jobs was a remarkable man who wanted to unify the world through technology. For him, the point was to set people free with tools to explore their own unique creativity. Chrisann Brennan knows this better than anyone. She met him in high school, at a time when Jobs was passionately aware that there was something much bigger to be had out of life, and that new kinds of revelations were within reach. The Bite in the Apple is the very human tale of Jobs's ascent and the toll it took, told from the author's unique perspective as his first girlfriend, co-parent, friend, and—like many others—object of his cruelty. Brennan writes with depth and breadth, and she doesn't buy into all the hype. She talks with passion about an idealistic young man who was driven to change the world, about a young father who denied his own child, and about a man who mistook power for love. Chrisann Brennan's intimate memoir provides the reader with a human dimension to Jobs' myth. Finally, a book that reveals a more real Steve Jobs.



Carmel Dumas - Mouffe artwork Mouffe
Au coeur du showbiz
Carmel Dumas
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $18.99
Publish Date: October 01, 2020
Publisher: Les Éditions La Presse
Seller: Les editions La Presse Ltee

La parolière d’ Ordinaire et du Mur du son , c’est elle.  La muse du jeune Charlebois, c’est encore elle.  La metteure en scène de spectacles mythiques ( Magie rose , J’ai vu le loup, le renard, le lion ) et d’innombrables galas, c’est toujours elle.  « Elle », c’est Mouffe, figure légendaire du Québec en marche, née Claudine Monfette, alouette! Diplômée de l’École nationale de théâtre, interprète de chansons en duo et de rôles d’ingénue, éternelle tête chercheuse, semeuse de bonnes idées et mentore de la relève, elle a contribué à faire de notre milieu artistique ce qu’il est.  Journaux personnels de Mouffe, entrevues avec celle-ci mais aussi avec sa famille, ses amis, ses collègues : Carmel Dumas a remonté pendant plus de dix ans le fil de cette vie palpitante et trace ici le portrait d’une femme omniprésente et effacée, fantaisiste et sage. Une vieille âme enveloppée de candeur, extraordinaire survivante.