Sunday, December 1, 2019

iTunes Store: Top 25 Books in Biographies & Memoirs 2019-12-01

Rachel Jeffs - Breaking Free artwork Breaking Free
How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs
Rachel Jeffs
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: November 14, 2017
Publisher: Harper
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

In this searing memoir of survival in the spirit of Stolen Innocence, the daughter of Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the FLDS Church, takes you deep inside the secretive polygamist Mormon fundamentalist cult run by her family and how she escaped it. Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Rachel Jeffs was raised in a strict patriarchal culture defined by subordinate sister wives and men they must obey. No one in this radical splinter sect of the Mormon Church was more powerful or terrifying than its leader Warren Jeffs—Rachel’s father. Living outside mainstream Mormonism and federal law, Jeffs arranged marriages between under-age girls and middle-aged and elderly members of his congregation. In 2006, he gained international notoriety when the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted List. Though he is serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, Jeffs’ iron grip on the church remains firm, and his edicts to his followers increasingly restrictive and bizarre. In Breaking Free, Rachel blows the lid off this taciturn community made famous by Jon Krakauer’s bestselling Under the Banner of Heaven to offer a harrowing look at her life with Warren Jeffs, and the years of physical and emotional abuse she suffered. Sexually assaulted, compelled into an arranged polygamous marriage, locked away in "houses of hiding" as punishment for perceived transgressions, and physically separated from her children, Rachel, Jeffs’ first plural daughter by his second of more than fifty wives, eventually found the courage to leave the church in 2015. But Breaking Free is not only her story—Rachel’s experiences illuminate those of her family and the countless others who remain trapped in the strange world she left behind. A shocking and mesmerizing memoir of faith, abuse, courage, and freedom, Breaking Free is an expose of religious extremism and a beacon of hope for anyone trying to overcome personal obstacles.



Elton John - Me artwork Me
Elton John Official Autobiography
Elton John
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $15.99
Publish Date: October 15, 2019
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Seller: Macmillan

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life, from his rollercoaster lifestyle as shown in the film Rocketman , to becoming a living legend. Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt, and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation to conquering Broadway with Aida , The Lion King , and Billy Elliot the Musical . All the while Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me , Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble, and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you by a living legend.



Samra Zafar - A Good Wife artwork A Good Wife
Escaping the Life I Never Chose
Samra Zafar
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: March 05, 2019
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

She faced years of abuse after arriving in Canada as a teenage bride in a hastily arranged marriage, but nothing could stop Samra Zafar from pursuing her dreams  At 15, Samra Zafar had big dreams for herself. She was going to go to university, and forge her own path. Then with almost no warning, those dreams were pulled away from her when she was suddenly married to a stranger at 17 and had to leave behind her family in Pakistan to move to Canada. Her new husband and his family promised that the marriage and the move would be a fulfillment of her dream, not a betrayal of it. But as the walls of their home slowly became a prison, Samra realized the promises were empty ones. In the years that followed she suffered her husband’s emotional and physical abuse that left her feeling isolated, humiliated and assaulted. Desperate to get out, and refusing to give up, she hatched an escape plan for herself and her two daughters. Somehow she found the strength to not only build a new future, but to walk away from her past, ignoring the pleas of her family and risking cultural isolation by divorcing her husband. But that end was only the beginning for Samra. Through her academic and career achievements, she has gone on to become a mentor and public speaker, connecting with people around the world from isolated women in situations similar to her own, to young schoolgirls in Kenya who never allowed themselves to dream to men making the decisions to save for their daughters’ educations instead of their dowries.  A Good Wife tell her harrowing and inspiring story, following her from a young girl with big dreams, through finding strength in the face of oppression and then finally battling through to empowerment.



Ashlee Vance - Elon Musk artwork Elon Musk
Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
Ashlee Vance
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: May 19, 2015
Publisher: Ecco
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley’s most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs—a real-life Tony Stark—and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new “makers.” Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his Internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits. Vance uses Musk’s story to explore one of the pressing questions of our age: can the nation of inventors and creators who led the modern world for a century still compete in an age of fierce global competition? He argues that Musk—one of the most unusual and striking figures in American business history—is a contemporary, visionary amalgam of legendary inventors and industrialists including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs. More than any other entrepreneur today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as the visionaries of the golden age of science-fiction fantasy. Thorough and insightful, Elon Musk brings to life a technology industry that is rapidly and dramatically changing by examining the life of one of its most powerful and influential titans.



Barbara Hosking - Exceeding My Brief artwork Exceeding My Brief
Memoirs of a Disobedient Civil Servant
Barbara Hosking
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: November 21, 2017
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Seller: Perseus Books, LLC

From the tragic massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, to signing the Treaty of Rome when Britain entered the Common Market, Barbara Hosking was there. This is the story of a Cornish scholarship girl with no contacts who ended up in the corridors of power. It is also the very personal story of her struggle with her sexuality as a bewildered teenager, and as a young woman in the 1950s, a time when being gay could mean social ostracism. Born during the General Strike in 1926, Barbara Hosking worked her way through London’s typing pools in the 1950s to executive posts in the Labour Party, then to No. 10 as a press officer to Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. Between working on a copper mine in the African bush, pioneering British breakfast television and negotiating the complexities of government, hers has been a life of breadth and bravery. Looking back at the age of ninety-one, this is Barbara Hosking’s unheard-of account of the innermost workings of politics and the media amid the turbulence of twentieth-century Britain.



Michelle Obama - Becoming artwork Becoming
Michelle Obama
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: November 13, 2018
Publisher: Crown
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States   #1  NEW YORK TIMES  BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.   In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.



Maude Julien - The Only Girl in the World artwork The Only Girl in the World
A Memoir
Maude Julien
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $3.99
Publish Date: December 12, 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

AN AMAZON BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH. For readers of Room and The Glass Castle , an astonishing memoir of one woman rising above an unimaginable childhood. Maude Julien's parents were fanatics who believed it was their sacred duty to turn her into the ultimate survivor--raising her in isolation, tyrannizing her childhood and subjecting her to endless drills designed to "eliminate weakness." Maude learned to hold an electric fence for minutes without flinching, and to sit perfectly still in a rat-infested cellar all night long (her mother sewed bells onto her clothes that would give her away if she moved). She endured a life without heat, hot water, adequate food, friendship, or any kind of affectionate treatment. But Maude's parents could not rule her inner life. Befriending the animals on the lonely estate as well as the characters in the novels she read in secret, young Maude nurtured in herself the compassion and love that her parents forbid as weak. And when, after more than a decade, an outsider managed to penetrate her family's paranoid world, Maude seized her opportunity. By turns horrifying and magical, The Only Girl in the World is a story that will grip you from the first page and leave you spellbound, a chilling exploration of psychological control that ends with a glorious escape.



Bill Browder - Red Notice artwork Red Notice
A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Bill Browder
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $12.99
Publish Date: February 03, 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

New York Times bestseller THE BOOK THAT EXPLAINS WHY RUSSIANS WANTED TO MEET WITH THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN “Part John Grisham-like thriller, part business and political memoir.” — The New York Times “[ Red Notice ] does for investing in Russia and the former Soviet Union what Liar’s Poker did for our understanding of Salomon Brothers, Wall Street, and the mortgage-backed securities business in the 1980s. Browder’s business saga meshes well with the story of corruption and murder in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, making Red Notice an early candidate for any list of the year’s best books” ( Fortune ). This is a story about an accidental activist. Bill Browder started out his adult life as the Wall Street maverick whose instincts led him to Russia just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, where he made his fortune. Along the way he exposed corruption, and when he did, he barely escaped with his life. His Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky wasn’t so lucky: he ended up in jail, where he was tortured to death. That changed Browder forever. He saw the murderous heart of the Putin regime and has spent the last half decade on a campaign to expose it. Because of that, he became Putin’s number one enemy, especially after Browder succeeded in having a law passed in the United States—The Magnitsky Act—that punishes a list of Russians implicated in the lawyer’s murder. Putin famously retaliated with a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian orphans. A financial caper, a crime thriller, and a political crusade, Red Notice is the story of one man taking on overpowering odds to change the world, and also the story of how, without intending to, he found meaning in his life.



Howard Stern - Howard Stern Comes Again artwork Howard Stern Comes Again
Howard Stern
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $22.99
Publish Date: May 14, 2019
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

Rock stars and rap gods. Comedy legends and A-list actors. Supermodels and centerfolds. Moguls and mobsters. A president. Over his unrivaled four-decade career in radio, Howard Stern has interviewed thousands of personalities—discussing sex, relationships, money, fame, spirituality, and success with the boldest of bold-faced names. But which interviews are his favorites? It’s one of the questions he gets asked most frequently. Howard Stern Comes Again delivers his answer. This book is a feast of conversation and more, as between the lines Stern offers his definitive autobiography—a magnum opus of confession and personal exploration. Tracy Morgan opens up about his near-fatal car crash. Lady Gaga divulges her history with cocaine. Madonna reminisces on her relationship with Tupac Shakur. Bill Murray waxes philosophical on the purpose of life. Jerry Seinfeld offers a master class on comedy. Harvey Weinstein denies the existence of the so-called casting couch. An impressive array of creative visionaries weigh in on what Stern calls “the climb”—the stories of how they struggled and eventually prevailed. As he writes in the introduction, “If you’re having trouble finding motivation in life and you’re looking for that extra kick in the ass, you will find it in these pages.” Interspersed throughout are rare selections from the Howard Stern Show archives with Donald Trump that depict his own climb: transforming from Manhattan tabloid fixture to reality TV star to president of the United States. Stern also tells of his Moby Dick -like quest to land an interview with Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 election—one of many newly written revelations from the author. He speaks with extraordinary candor about a variety of subjects, including his overwhelming insecurity early in his career, his revolutionary move from terrestrial radio to SiriusXM, and his belief in the power of psychotherapy. As Stern insightfully notes in the introduction: “The interviews collected here represent my best work and show my personal evolution. But they don’t just show my evolution. Gathered together like this, they show the evolution of popular culture over the past quarter century.”



Jon Dorenbos - Life Is Magic artwork Life Is Magic
My Inspiring Journey from Tragedy to Self-Discovery
Jon Dorenbos
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: November 05, 2019
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

“Jon Dorenbos is a magical person. Life Is Magic shows how we can all choose happiness in the face of overwhelming odds.” —Ellen DeGeneres An extraordinary and empowering story of resilience, forgiveness, and living a life of purpose in the face of unfathomable obstacles. You might recognize him as an NFL All-Pro or as an elite magician who made the finals of Amer­ica’s Got Talent and regularly appears on The Ellen DeGeneres Show . But Jon Dorenbos says that what he does is not who he is. Who he is is someone forced, at the most tender of ages, to coach himself into turning tragedy to triumph. One morning in August 1992, when Jon was twelve years old and living a seemingly idyllic childhood in suburban Seattle, he woke up for baseball camp. His dad waved good-bye. Later that day, Jon heard the news: his father had murdered his mother in the family’s three-car garage. In an instant, his life had shattered. He’d been essentially orphaned. Thrust into foster care while his father stood trial for murder, Jon struggled. Left to himself, he discovered an unlikely escape performing magic tricks. If you found a way to alter your reality after your dad—your hero—killed your mom, wouldn’t you cling to it too? Then came football, which provided a release for all of Jon’s pent-up anger. Together, magic and football saved him, leading to fourteen NFL seasons on the gridiron and raucous sleight-of-hand perfor­mances to packed houses across the globe. In 2017, after being traded to the New Orleans Saints, Jon was diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition. He had a choice: break down, or—as he’d long by now taught himself—bounce back. “ Talk to yourself, don’t listen to yourself,” Dorenbos advises for those moments when the inner voice of self-doubt screams. In Life Is Magic , Dorenbos draws a road map for how to shut that voice up by choosing happi­ness. At his darkest times, he writes, he’s learned lessons of love, forgiveness, and perseverance. His story is poignant and powerful, told by a char­ismatic and optimistic man who has overcome life-or-death challenges with grace, persistence, a childlike sense of wonder...and jaw-dropping card tricks.



Graham Norton - The Life and Loves of a He Devil artwork The Life and Loves of a He Devil
A Memoir
Graham Norton
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $1.99
Publish Date: October 23, 2014
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

'I defy anyone not to snort, howl and recoil' The Sunday Times ' Full of wicked asides, tart observations and sharp remarks that could only have originated in Graham Norton's witty brain.' Terry Wogan Looking around the room I saw what life really was. It was made up of my passions. I saw my life reflected back at me. People I liked, people I loved, people I had shared half a century with. All the stories of my life were together in that one room and it made me very happy. Who wouldn't want a friend like Graham Norton? A little bit naughty, full of frank advice, bursting with gossip about the world's biggest stars - but most of all with an emphatic love of life and all its joys, big and small. Join him - glass of wine in hand, faithful doggy friend by your side - and delve in as he shares the loves of his life.



Demi Moore - Inside Out artwork Inside Out
A Memoir
Demi Moore
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $17.99
Publish Date: September 24, 2019
Publisher: Harper
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir. For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight—or the headlines. Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years—all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception.  As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress—and, always, if she was simply good enough. As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience. In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life—laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness. Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender—a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.



Phil Knight - Shoe Dog artwork Shoe Dog
A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Phil Knight
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $14.99
Publish Date: April 26, 2016
Publisher: Scribner
Seller: Simon & Schuster Canada

In this instant and tenacious New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” ( Booklist , starred review), illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. Bill Gates named Shoe Dog one of his five favorite books of 2016 and called it “an amazing tale, a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like. It’s a messy, perilous, and chaotic journey, riddled with mistakes, endless struggles, and sacrifice. Phil Knight opens up in ways few CEOs are willing to do.” Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In this age of start-ups, Knight’s Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery. In Shoe Dog , he tells his story at last. At twenty-four, Knight decides that rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something all his own, new, dynamic, different. He details the many risks he encountered, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors and hostile bankers—as well as his many thrilling triumphs. Above all, he recalls the relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a ragtag group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers. Together, harnessing the electrifying power of a bold vision and a shared belief in the transformative power of sports, they created a brand—and a culture—that changed everything.



Carl English & Blake Murphy - Chasing a Dream artwork Chasing a Dream
The Carl English Story
Carl English & Blake Murphy
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: November 29, 2019
Publisher: Flanker Press
Seller: eBOUND Canada

"Never doubt yourself, never stop chasing your dreams, and always believe the impossible.” — Carl English When Carl English was five years old, he was faced with an unimaginable tragedy. The loss of his parents in a fire would change his life as he knew it. But he found an outlet, a comfort zone, a way out of the emotional turmoil he experienced: basketball. He played, hours upon hours, on the side of the highway, in rain, wind, and even snow. As time passed, basketball grew into a passion, and then a dream. Where would it take him? How big could he dream? And what would he need to make this dream a reality? Hard work, discipline, practice, determination, and most important, self-belief. Basketball has taken Carl all around the world and, in his own words, has blessed him with so much. Chasing a Dream is the memoir of Newfoundland basketball phenom Carl English. It’s an inspirational true story of persevering through hard work and dedication to make a dream become reality. In Carl’s case, he always dreamed of playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Although he went undrafted through all his years playing, he enjoyed the career of a lifetime playing the sport he loves. The basketball pro from small-town Newfoundland travelled overseas and crushed the European basketball circuit. He became a superstar in his own right, by playing in Europe and for the Canadian national team, and returned to his home province to a hero’s welcome.



Tara Westover - Educated artwork Educated
Tara Westover
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: February 20, 2018
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

For readers of The Glass Castle and Wild, a stunning new memoir about family, loss and the struggle for a better future #1 International Bestseller Tara Westover was seventeen when she first set foot in a classroom. Instead of traditional lessons, she grew up learning how to stew herbs into medicine, scavenging in the family scrap yard and helping her family prepare for the apocalypse. She had no birth certificate and no medical records and had never been enrolled in school. Westover’s mother proved a marvel at concocting folk remedies for many ailments. As Tara developed her own coping mechanisms, little by little, she started to realize that what her family was offering didn’t have to be her only education. Her first day of university was her first day in school—ever—and she would eventually win an esteemed fellowship from Cambridge and graduate with a PhD in intellectual history and political thought.



Maria Campbell - Halfbreed artwork Halfbreed
Maria Campbell
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $13.99
Publish Date: November 05, 2019
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

A new, fully restored edition of the essential Canadian classic. An unflinchingly honest memoir of her experience as a Métis woman in Canada, Maria Campbell's Halfbreed depicts the realities that she endured and, above all, overcame. Maria was born in Northern Saskatchewan, her father the grandson of a Scottish businessman and Métis woman--a niece of Gabriel Dumont whose family fought alongside Riel and Dumont in the 1885 Rebellion; her mother the daughter of a Cree woman and French-American man. This extraordinary account, originally published in 1973, bravely explores the poverty, oppression, alcoholism, addiction, and tragedy Maria endured throughout her childhood and into her early adult life, underscored by living in the margins of a country pervaded by hatred, discrimination, and mistrust. Laced with spare moments of love and joy, this is a memoir of family ties and finding an identity in a heritage that is neither wholly Indigenous or Anglo; of strength and resilience; of indominatable spirit. This edition of Halfbreed includes a new introduction written by Indigenous (Métis) scholar Dr. Kim Anderson detailing the extraordinary work that Maria has been doing since its original publication 46 years ago, and an afterword by the author looking at what has changed, and also what has not, for Indigenous people in Canada today. Restored are the recently discovered missing pages from the original text of this groundbreaking and significant work.



Robyn Crawford - A Song for You artwork A Song for You
My Life with Whitney Houston
Robyn Crawford
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $16.99
Publish Date: November 12, 2019
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Seller: Penguin Random House Canada

The New York Times Bestseller! After decades of silence, Robyn Crawford, close friend, collaborator, and confidante of Whitney Houston, shares her story. Whitney Houston is as big a superstar as the music business has ever known. She exploded on the scene in 1985 with her debut album and spent the next two decades dominating the charts and capturing the hearts of fans around the world. One person was there by her side through it all—her best friend, Robyn Crawford. Since Whitney’s death in 2012, Robyn has stayed out of the limelight and held the great joys, wild adventures, and hard truths of her life with Whitney close to her heart. Now, for the first time ever, Crawford opens up in her new memoir, A Song for You . With warmth, candor, and an impressive recall of detail, Robyn describes the two meeting as teenagers in the 1980s, and how their lives and friendship evolved as Whitney recorded her first album and Robyn pursued her promising Division I basketball career. Together during countless sold-out world tours, behind the scenes as hit after hit was recorded, through Whitney’s marriage and the birth of her daughter, the two navigated often challenging families, great loves, and painful losses, always supporting each other with laughter and friendship.   Deeply personal and heartfelt, A Song for You is the vital, honest, and previously untold story that provides an understanding of the complex life of Whitney Houston. Finally, the person who knew her best sets the record straight.



Lene Fogelberg - Beautiful Affliction artwork Beautiful Affliction
A Memoir
Lene Fogelberg
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $0.99
Publish Date: September 15, 2015
Publisher: She Writes Press
Seller: Ingram DV LLC

WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER GOLD MEDAL WINNER OF THE 2016 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS ("IPPY”) Lene Fogelberg is dying—she is sure of it—but no doctor in Sweden, her home country, believes her. Love stories enfold her, with her husband, her two precious daughters, her enchanting surroundings, but the question she has carried in her heart since childhood— Will I die young? —is threatening all she holds dear, even her sanity. When her young family moves to the US, an answer, a diagnosis, is finally found: she is in the last stages of a fatal congenital heart disease. But is it too late? A young woman risks everything to save her own life in this “unusual, riveting medical drama crafted with deep emotion and exquisite detail” (BookPage).



Paramahansa Yogananda - Autobiography of a Yogi (Complete Edition) artwork Autobiography of a Yogi (Complete Edition)
Paramahansa Yogananda
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $2.99
Publish Date: May 08, 2014
Publisher: Self-Realization Fellowship
Seller: Self-Realization Fellowship

Autobiography of a Yogi  is at once a beautifully written account of an exceptional life and a profound introduction to the ancient science of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation. Profoundly inspiring, it is at the same time vastly entertaining, warmly humorous and filled with extraordinary personages. With engaging candor, eloquence, and wit, Paramahansa Yogananda tells the inspiring chronicle of his life: the experiences of his remarkable childhood, encounters with many saints and sages during his youthful search throughout India for an illumined teacher, ten years of training in the hermitage of a revered yoga master, and the thirty years that he lived and taught in America. Also recorded here are his meetings with Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Luther Burbank, the Catholic stigmatist Therese Neumann, and other celebrated spiritual personalities of East and West. The author clearly explains the subtle but definite laws behind both the ordinary events of everyday life and the extraordinary events commonly termed miracles. His absorbing life story becomes the background for a penetrating and unforgettable look at the ultimate mysteries of human existence.  Selected as "One of the 100 Best Spiritual Books of the Twentieth Century", Autobiography of a Yogi has been translated into more than 30 languages, and is regarded worldwide as a classic of religious literature. Several million copies have been sold, and it continues to appear on best-seller lists after more than sixty consecutive years in print. Self-Realization Fellowship's  editions, and none others, include extensive material added by the author after the first edition was published, including a final chapter on the closing years of his life.



Doug Wead - Inside Trump's White House artwork Inside Trump's White House
The Real Story of His Presidency
Doug Wead
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $19.99
Publish Date: November 26, 2019
Publisher: Center Street
Seller: Hachette Digital, Inc.

After dozens of books and articles by anonymous sources, here is finally a history of the Trump White House with the President and his staff talking openly, on the record. In Inside Trump's White House , Doug Wead offers a sweeping, eloquent history of President Donald J. Trump's first years in office, covering everything from election night to the news of today. The book will include never-before-reported stories and scoops, including how President Trump turned around the American economy, how he "never complains and never explains," and how his actions sometimes lead to misunderstandings with the media and the public. It also includes exclusive interviews with the Trump family about the Mueller report, and narrates their reactions when the report was finally released. Contains Interviews with the President in the Oval Office, chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, Jared and Ivanka Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric and Lara Trump, and White House insiders.



Anthony Ray Hinton & Lara Love Hardin - The Sun Does Shine artwork The Sun Does Shine
How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection)
Anthony Ray Hinton & Lara Love Hardin
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: March 27, 2018
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Seller: Macmillan

Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection The Instant New York Times Bestseller A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. “An amazing and heartwarming story, it restores our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.” —Archbishop Desmond Tutu In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty–nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free. But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence—full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty–seven years he was a beacon—transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty–four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015. With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.



Lisa Brennan-Jobs - Small Fry artwork Small Fry
Lisa Brennan-Jobs
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: September 04, 2018
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

A Top Ten Book of the Year The New York Times, The New Yorker, People, San Francisco Chronicle A Best Book of the Year Publishers Weekly, NPR, GQ, The Week, Vogue UK, Los Angeles Times “Brennan-Jobs is a deeply gifted writer. . . . Beautiful, literary and devastating.” —The New York Times Book Review “A masterly Silicon Valley gothic.” —Vogue Born on a farm and named in a field by her parents—artist Chrisann Brennan and Steve Jobs—Lisa Brennan-Jobs’s childhood unfolded in a rapidly changing Silicon Valley. When she was young, Lisa’s father was a mythical figure who was largely absent from her life. His rare attention was thrilling, but he could also be cold, critical and unpredictable. Part portrait of a complex family, part love letter to California in the seventies and eighties, Small Fry is a “shockingly honest and beautifully understated” (Vogue UK) debut.



Philip Ziegler - King Edward VIII artwork King Edward VIII
Philip Ziegler
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $11.99
Publish Date: February 16, 2012
Publisher: HarperPress
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

The authorised life story of the king who gave up his throne for love, by one of our most distinguished biographers. In this masterly authorized biography, Philip Ziegler reveals the complex personality of Edward VIII, the only British monarch to have voluntarily renounced the throne. With unique access to the Royal Archives, Ziegler overturns many myths about Edward and tells his side of the story – from his glamorous existence as Prince of Wales to his long decline in semi-exile in France. At the heart of the book is an unflinchingly honest examination of Edward’s all-consuming passion for Wallis Simpson, which led to his dramatic abdication. Elegant and devastating, this is the most convincing portrait of Edward ever published. Reviews ‘Philip Ziegler is a master of biographical narrative …Seldom has such exhaustive research been made so compellingly readable’ Michael Holroyd ‘Ziegler has told Edward’s story with consummate skill’ Sarah Bradford, Sunday Times ‘Beautifully written and constructed’ Michael Bloch, Sunday Telegraph ‘Ziegler writes with urbanity and generosity but is unflinching in his judgements … an exemplary biography’ Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Literary Supplement ‘A splendid book of impeccable scholarship, admirably written, moving, ironical and at times very amusing …’ Robert Blake, Country Life ‘A book of such compelling interest and frankness that it is difficult to put down … a very fine book’ New York Times Book Review ‘I found Ziegler’s book riveting’ Paul Barker, Listener ‘He writes brilliantly’ Christopher Hudson, Evening Standard About the author Philip Ziegler was born in 1929 and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford, where he gained first class honours in Jurisprudence. He then joined the Diplomatic Service and served in Vientiane, Paris, Pretoria and Bogota before joining the publishers William Collins, where he was editorial director for fifteen years. His many books include biographies of William IV, Lady Diana Cooper, Louis Mountbatten and Harold Wilson, as well as the classic history of the Black Death.



Kathie Lee Gifford - The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi artwork The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi
My Journey into the Heart of Scriptural Faith and the Land Where It All Began
Kathie Lee Gifford
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: March 06, 2018
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Seller: Harper Collins Canada Limited

As a lifelong student of Scripture, Kathie Lee Gifford has always desired a deeper understanding of God’s Word and a deeper knowledge of God Himself. But it wasn’t until she began studying the biblical texts in their original Hebrew and Greek—along with actually hiking the ancient paths of Israel—that she found the fulfillment of those desires. Now you can walk with Kathie on a journey through the spiritual foundations of her faith: The Rock (Jesus Christ): Hear directly from Kathie about her life-changing and ever-deepening connection with Jesus, the Lover of her soul.The Road (Israel): Explore dozens of ancient landmarks and historical sites from Israel, the promised land of God’s covenant.The Rabbi (God’s Word): Go beyond a “Sunday school” approach to the Bible by digging into the original languages and deeper meanings of the Holy Scriptures. As you journey through The Rock, The Road, and The Rabbi, you’ll also find additional content from Messianic Rabbi Jason Sobel throughout the book. Jason’s insight into the Hebrew language, culture, and heritage will open your eyes to the Bible like never before. Come! Begin your journey toward a deeper faith through The Rock, the Road, and the Rabbi.



Dorothy Ellen Palmer - Falling for Myself artwork Falling for Myself
Dorothy Ellen Palmer
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Price: $9.99
Publish Date: November 05, 2019
Publisher: Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd
Seller: Chicago Review Press, Inc. DBA Independent Publishers Group

In this searing and seriously funny memoir, Dorothy Ellen Palmer falls down, a lot, and spends a lifetime learning to appreciate her disability. Born with two very different, very tiny feet, she was adopted as a toddler by an already wounded 1950s family. From childhood surgeries to decades as a feminist teacher, mom, improv coach and unionist, she tried to hide being different. But now, standing proud with her walker, she's sharing her journey. Navigating abandonment, abuse and ableism, she finds her birth parents and a new chosen family in the disability community.