Audio Books in Biographies & Memoirs

The follow-up to "Diana''s Boys" explores the last twenty years in the lives of Princes William and Harry and the evolution of their relationship as adults, with one brother the designated heir, and the other doomed to life as the spare. Print run 100,000.

A book about the story of Lou''s life, as told by Lou himself.

Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, Gentle Ben--these shows captivated millions of TV viewers in the ''60s and ''70s. Join award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and audience-favorite actor Clint Howard as they frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors. "What was it like to grow up on TV?" Ron Howard has been asked this question throughout his adult life. in The Boys, he and his younger brother, Clint, examine their childhoods in detail for the first time. For Ron, playing Opie on The Andy Griffith Show and Richie Cunningham on Happy Days offered fame, joy, and opportunity--but also invited stress and bullying. For Clint, a fast start on such programs as Gentle Ben and Star Trek petered out in adolescence, with some tough consequences and lessons. With the perspective of time and success--Ron as a filmmaker, producer, and Hollywood A-lister, Clint as a busy character actor--the Howard brothers delve deep into an upbringing that seemed normal to them yet was anything but. Their Midwestern parents, Rance and Jean, moved to California to pursue their own showbiz dreams. But it was their young sons who found steady employment as actors. Rance put aside his ego and ambition to become Ron and Clint''s teacher, sage, and moral compass. Jean became their loving protector--sometimes over-protector--from the snares and traps of Hollywood. By turns confessional, nostalgic, heartwarming, and harrowing, THE BOYS is a dual narrative that lifts the lid on the Howard brothers'' closely held lives. It''s the journey of a tight four-person family unit that held fast in an unforgiving business and of two brothers who survived "child-actor syndrome" to become fulfilled adults.

George Washington spent most of his time farming, often employing experimental methods. Washington saw slave-powered scientific agriculture as the key to the nation''s prosperity. Bruce Ragsdale argues that it was slave labor''s inefficiency as much as its inhumanity that finally convinced Washington to emancipate the men and women bonded to him.

"A dual biography of poets, friends, and rivals Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton"--

The author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Perfection returns with an unforgettable account of her late mother’s childhood in Nazi-occupied Austria and the parallels she sees in present-day America. To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. Eve rarely spoke about her childhood and it was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except Manhattan, where she could be found attending Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera or inspecting a round of French triple crème at Zabar’s. In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna. After her mother passed, Julie discovered a keepsake book filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a ten-year-old girl named Eva. This long-hidden memento was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie’s mother had carried as a refugee and immigrant, shining a light on a family that had to persevere at every turn to escape the antisemitism and xenophobia that threatened their survival. Interweaving personal memoir and family history, Eva and Eve vividly traces one woman’s search for her mother’s lost childhood while revealing the resilience of our forebears and the sacrifices that ordinary people are called to make during history’s darkest hours.

From the award-winning historian and best-selling author of Gettysburg comes the definitive biography of Robert E. Lee. An intimate look at the Confederate general in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his inner turmoil and outward calm, his disloyalty and his honor. Robert E. Lee is one of the most confounding figures in American history. Lee betrayed his nation in order to defend his home state and uphold the slave system he claimed to oppose. He was a traitor to the country he swore to serve as an Army officer, and yet he was admired even by his enemies for his composure and leadership. He considered slavery immoral, but benefited from inherited slaves and fought to defend the institution. And behind his genteel demeanor and perfectionism lurked the insecurities of a man haunted by the legacy of a father who stained the family name by declaring bankruptcy and who disappeared when Robert was just six years old. In Robert E. Lee, the award-winning historian Allen Guelzo has written the definitive biography of the general, following him from his refined upbringing in Virginia high society, to his long career in the U.S. Army, his agonized decision to side with Virginia when it seceded from the Union, and his leadership during the Civil War. Above all, Guelzo captures Robert E. Lee in all his complexity--his hypocrisy and courage, his outward calm and inner turmoil, his honor and his disloyalty.

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Morris comes a revelatory new biography ofThomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history.

They believed they would live forever. So begins Mira Ptacin''s haunting account of the women of Camp Etna--an otherworldly community in the woods of Maine that has, since 1876, played host to generations of Spiritualists and mediums dedicated to preserving the links between the mortal realm and the afterlife. Beginning her narrative in 1848 with two sisters who claimed they could speak to the dead, Ptacin reveals how Spiritualism first blossomed into a national practice during the Civil War, yet continues--even thrives--to this very day. Immersing herself in this community and its practices--from ghost hunting to releasing trapped spirits to water witching-- Ptacin sheds new light on our ongoing struggle with faith, uncertainty, and mortality. Blending memoir, ethnography, and investigative reportage, The In-Betweens offers a vital portrait of Camp Etna and its enduring hold on a modern culture that remains as starved for a deeper sense of connection and otherworldliness as ever.

This powerful memoir traces Brazilian-born American Julie Lindahl''s journey to uncover her grandparents'' roles in the Third Reich as she is driven to understand how and why they became members of Hitler''s elite, the SS. Out of the unbearable heart of the story--the unclaimed guilt that devours a family through the generations--emerges an unflinching will to learn the truth. In a remarkable six-year journey through Germany, Poland, Paraguay, and Brazil, Julie uncovers, among many other discoveries, that her grandfather had been a fanatic member of the SS since 1934. During World War II, he was responsible for enslavement and torture and was complicit in the murder of the local population on the large estates he oversaw in occupied Poland. He eventually fled to South America to evade a new wave of war-crimes trials. The pendulum used by Julie''s grandmother to divine good from bad and true from false becomes a symbol for the elusiveness of truth and morality, but also for the false securities we cling to when we become unmoored. As Julie delves deeper into the abyss of her family''s secret, discovering history anew, one precarious step at a time, the compassion of strangers is a growing force that transforms her world and the way that she sees her family--and herself.

"An intricately constructed and emotionally devastating book about the appearance and disappearance of love." --Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II has reigned for 64 years, longer than any British monarch in history. During that time the Queen has endured the ups and downs that long life will bring. She was a beacon of hope during and after the Second World War in difficult times when the world faced a precarious future, and she has served as a role model for generations of men and women who continue to be in awe of her commitment to service, sacrifice, and the Commonwealth of nations over which she rules. The abdication of her uncle, Edward VIII, in 1936 turned her family’s world upside-down. When her father was crowned King George VI, Elizabeth was thrust into the eye of the storm as a future queen. A shy and reserved child, she grew into a wise and insightful monarch who has dealt ably with nine British Prime Ministers during her long reign, from Winston Churchill to Theresa May. It was, of course, not always straightforward and the Queen has found herself in hot water several times, most notably during the marriage of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales. When Diana was tragically killed in a car crash the standing of the Royal Family was probably at its lowest ebb. It is unlikely that we will ever see a monarch reign so long or so effectively again, holding together a disparate group of nations, each with its own aspirations, customs and traditions. Catherine Ryan has written an intriguing biography of one of the most famous women of modern times, who at 91 years old still seems fit and healthy and looks very unlikely to hand over the reins to her successors any time soon.

A portrait of the divergent lives of Thomas Jefferson''s three daughters reveals how his white daughters struggled with the realities of lives they were ill-prepared to manage, while the daughter he fathered with a slave did not achieve freedom until adulthood.

Witty, inspiring, and charismatic, Oscar Wilde is one of the Greats of English literature. Today, his plays and stories are beloved around the world. But it was not always so. His afterlife has given him the legitimacy that life denied him. Making Oscar Wilde reveals the untold story of young Oscar''s career in Victorian England and post-Civil War America. Set on two continents, it tracks a larger-than-life hero on an unforgettable adventure to make his name and gain international acclaim. "Success is a science," Wilde believed, "if you have the conditions, you get the result." Combining new evidence and gripping cultural history, Michele Mendelssohn dramatizes Wilde''s rise, fall, and resurrection as part of a spectacular transatlantic pageant. With superb style and an instinct for story-telling, she brings to life the charming young Irishman who set out to captivate the United States and Britain with his words and ended up conquering the world. Following the twists and turns of Wilde''s journey, Mendelssohn vividly depicts sensation-hungry Victorian journalism and popular entertainment alongside racial controversies, sex scandals, and the growth of Irish nationalism. This ground-breaking revisionist history shows how Wilde''s tumultuous early life embodies the story of the Victorian era as it tottered towards modernity. Riveting and original, Making Oscar Wilde is a masterful account of a life like no other.

A collection of personal stories and reflections based on the memoirs of Junko Tabei, the first woman to climb Mount Everest and the Seven Summits. Honouring High Places is a compelling collection of highlights from Junko Tabei''s stirring life that she considered important, inspiring and interesting to mountaineering culture. Until now, her works have been available only in Japanese, and RMB is honoured to be sharing these profound and moving stories with the English-speaking world for the first time. The collection opens on Mount Everest, where the first all-women''s expedition is met with disaster but pushes on against all odds. The story then shifts to the early years of Tabei''s life and reflects on her countryside childhood as a frail girl with no talent for sport, and cultural expectations that ignored her passion for mountains. With reminiscences of the early days of female climbers on Everest, the deaths of fellow mountaineers, Tabei''s pursuit of Mount Tomur, a cancer diagnosis, and efforts to restore a love for nature in the surviving youth of the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, this beautifully curated collection of essays captures the essence of a notable time and the strength of character of one of the 20th and 21st centuries'' female mountaineering pioneers.

"Dorothy Day (1897-1980) was a prominent Catholic, writer, social activist, and co-founder of a movement dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. Her life has been revealed through her own writings as well as the work of historians, theologians, and academics. What has been missing until now is a more personal account from the point of view of someone who knew her well. Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved by Beauty is a frank and reflective, heartfelt and humorous portrayal as written by her granddaughter, Kate Hennessy" -- Publisher''s website

Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long, Dodge City’s streets were lined with saloons and brothels and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge City was known as the most violent and turbulent town in the West. Enter Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. Young and largely self-trained men, the lawmen led the effort that established frontier justice and the rule of law in the American West, and did it in the wickedest place in the United States. When they moved on, Wyatt to Tombstone and Bat to Colorado, a tamed Dodge was left in the hands of Jim Masterson. But before long Wyatt and Bat, each having had a lawman brother killed, returned to that threatened western Kansas town to team up to restore order again in what became known as the Dodge City War before riding off into the sunset. #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Clavin''s Dodge City tells the true story of their friendship, romances, gunfights, and adventures, along with the remarkable cast of characters they encountered along the way (including Wild Bill Hickock, Jesse James, Doc Holliday, Buffalo Bill Cody, John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid, and Theodore Roosevelt) that has gone largely untold—lost in the haze of Hollywood films and western fiction, until now.

Foreword / by Joe Biden -- A political life -- Against the grain -- Oakington -- A plan for life -- Reform and independence -- Against the legislative tide -- Regulating savings and loan associations -- Kennedy Man -- A prosecutor the organization didn''t want -- A thirty-two-month learning experience -- A tangle of savings and loan scams -- Kidnapping, murder, and assassination -- Challenging the Democratic machine -- A break with the past -- A freshman senator''s voice -- Defending the great Warren Court decisions -- "A voteless people is a hopeless people" -- Fairness in federal court -- Congress and the City of Washington -- The hardest fights -- Vietnam and the political costs of war -- The environment and overpopulation -- Gun control -- One progressive position too many -- Citizen public service -- Epilogue: An open letter to my grandchildren (and their generation)

The first biography of America''s greatest twentieth-century sculptor, Alexander Calder: an authoritative and revelatory achievement, based on a wealth of letters and papers never before available, and written by one of our most renowned art critics. Alexander Calder is one of the most beloved and widely admired artists of the twentieth century. Anybody who has ever set foot in a museum knows him as the inventor of the mobile, America''s unique contribution to modern art. But only now, forty years after the artist''s death, is the full story of his life being told in this biography, which is based on unprecedented access to Calder''s letters and papers as well as scores of interviews. Jed Perl shows us why Calder was--and remains--a barrier breaker, an avant-garde artist with mass appeal. This beautifully written, deeply researched book opens with Calder''s wonderfully peripatetic upbringing in Philadelphia, California, and New York. Born in 1898 into a family of artists--his father was a well-known sculptor, his mother a painter and a pioneering feminist--Calder went on as an adult to forge important friendships with a who''s who of twentieth-century artists, including Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Braque, and Piet Mondrian. We move through Calder''s early years studying engineering to his first artistic triumphs in Paris in the late 1920s, and to his emergence as a leader in the international abstract avant-garde. His marriage in 1931 to the free-spirited Louisa James--she was a great-niece of Henry James--is a richly romantic story, related here with a wealth of detail and nuance. Calder''s life takes on a transatlantic richness, from New York''s Greenwich Village in the Roaring Twenties, to the Left Bank of Paris during the Depression, and then back to the United States, where the Calders bought a run-down old farmhouse in western Connecticut. New light is shed on Calder''s lifelong interest in dance, theater, and performance, ranging from the Cirque Calder, the theatrical event that became his calling card in bohemian Paris to collaborations with the choreographer Martha Graham and the composer Virgil Thomson. More than 350 illustrations in color and black-and-white--including little-known works and many archival photographs that have never before been seen--further enrich the story.

Prologue : Crowds in the streets -- Van -- From Juilliard to the big time -- The big decision -- A tale of two nations -- The great convergence -- The land of snow and spies -- Some wins, some losses -- The storm before the calm -- Hurt feelings -- Red, white, and blues -- The Van effect -- The end of the road -- Epilogue : The other competitors.

The Women Who Made New York reveals the untold stories of the phenomenal women who made New York City the cultural epicenter of the world. Many were revolutionaries and activists, like Zora Neale Hurston and Audre Lorde. Others were icons and iconoclasts, like Fran Lebowitz and Grace Jones. There were also women who led quieter private lives but were just as influential, such as Emily Warren Roebling, who completed the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge when her engineer husband became too ill to work.--Amazon.com

"THE INTERNATIONAL BEST SELLER! When Pablo Escobar died in 1993, his seventeen-year-old son initially vowed revenge. But Juan Pablo quickly recognized that reaction entailed following in his father''s footsteps--something neither he nor his father ever wanted. Their lives in immense danger, Juan Pablo, his mother, and his sister assumed new identities and fled to Argentina, where he would spend the next two decades grappling with his father''s legacy. Now an architect and advocate of drug policy reform, Juan Pablo breaks his silence to tell his side of the story, shedding new light on the infamous kingpin--the man who was also his loving father"--

"First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Yellow Jersey Press"--Title page verso.

Since bursting onto the scene in the mid 70s, the pop duo Captain and Tennille have long defined the sparkling, optimistic idea of everlasting love, both in their music and through their image as a happy and, seemingly, unbreakable couple. But underneath the image was an entirely different story that the fans never saw: a woman who fought a lonely struggle against the controlling and often bizarre behavior of her emotionally inaccessible husband. Toni Tennille: A Memoir is a visceral account of Toni Tennille s life from her childhood in the segregated South to her thrilling rise to fame in the world of pop music to where she is now: no longer one-half of a famed couple, but a stronger woman for all she has experienced both the good and the bad."

Tells the story of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki through the eyes of Sachiko Yasui, who was six when the devastation was wrought, describing her experiences in the aftermath of the attack as well as her long journey to find peace.

"In We the People, renown journalist, Fox political analyst, and bestselling author Juan Williams examines the lives of the men and women in the 20th century who have extended the Founding Fathers'' original vision of the country and reshaped what America is"--

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, gave birth to a generation of leaders forged not in classrooms through hypothetical training but on the front lines of war through hands-on experience. U.S. Navy SEAL Teams were at the forefront of this transformation, emerging from the triumphs and tragedies of war with an understanding of leadership in the most challenging environments. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin are just such leaders-highly decorated Navy SEAL officers who served together in some of the toughest combat of the Iraq War. Together, they developed leadership lessons and organizational practices through years of experience, alongside heroes such as sniper Chris Kyle. They took those lessons and helped write doctrine for the next generation of SEALs as BUD/S instructors.Today, Babin and Willink apply these principles in the boardroom via their company Echelon Front. Across the country, they demonstrate how the SEAL approach to leadership that made them successful soldiers can help countless organizations and individuals achieve the highest level of success. With Extreme Ownership, their proven plan is available to everyone, with lessons that include:* EXTREME OWNERSHIP: Take it upon yourself to push harder and improve* CHECK THE EGO: Operate with a high degree of humility by admitting mistakes and taking responsibility* COVER & MOVE: Have each other''s back and work together to accomplish the mission* And much more

"The story of Daniel Ellsberg and his decision to steal and publish secret documents about America''s involvement in the Vietnam War"--

In one way or another, Donald Trump has been a topic of conversation in America for almost forty years. No one in the world of business-not Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Warren Buffett-has been as famous as Trump for as long. First associated with high-profile real estate development in 1970s Manhattan, his name has since become synonymous with success defined by wealth and luxury.What does one make of a grown man who, when he argues with women, stoops to insulting their appearance and habitually courts controversy? What if the same man were among the most prominent people in the world, and a privately generous person who once handed a dying child a $50,000 check so that he could enjoy the last months of his life? Add to the picture a kind of resilience that has allowed him to stage countless comebacks and truly a boundless level of optimism, and you get a figure so compelling that he cannot be dismissed simply because of his personality.Drawing upon exclusive interviews and detailed research, Michael D''Antonio presents the full story of Donald Trump, a man who, for all of his excesses, is perfectly adapted to our world.

The sensational story of a cache of masterpieces not seen since they vanished during the Nazi terror--a bizarre tale of a father and aged son, of secret deals, treachery and the search for truth.

A new account of America''s most controversial diplomat that moves beyond praise or condemnation to reveal Kissinger as the architect of America''s current imperial stance In his fascinating new book, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin argues that to understand the crisis of contemporary America--its never-ending wars abroad and political polarization at home--we have to understand Henry Kissinger. Examining Kissinger''s own writings, as well as a wealth of newly declassified documents, Grandin reveals how Richard Nixon''s top foreign policy advisor, even as he was presiding over defeat in Vietnam and a disastrous, secret, and illegal war in Cambodia, was helping to revive a militarized version of American exceptionalism centered on an imperial presidency. Believing that reality could be bent to his will, insisting that intuition is more important in determining policy than hard facts, and vowing that past mistakes should never hinder future bold action, Kissinger anticipated, even enabled, the ascendance of the neoconservative idealists who took America into crippling wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Going beyond accounts focusing either on Kissinger''s crimes or accomplishments, Grandin offers a compelling new interpretation of the diplomat''s continuing influence on how the United States views its role in the world.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A one-woman media phenomenon and a leading YouTube influencer takes readers behind the camera, and deep inside her world. Justine Ezarik has been tech-obsessed since unboxing her family’s first Apple computer. By sixth grade she had built her first website. A decade later, she became one of the Internet’s first—and most popular—“lifecasters,” inviting people around the world to watch her every move, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But it was a one-minute video about an itemized AT&T bill that gave Justine her first taste of viral success: Within ten days of release, her “300-page iPhone bill” had garnered more than 3 million views and international media attention. These days, iJustine is a one-woman new media phenomenon: The popular techie, gamer, vlogger, and digital influencer has an army of nearly 3.5 million subscribers across multiple YouTube channels, with total views approaching half a billion. Now, Justine is giving friends and fans a look behind the scenes, sharing never-before-told stories about the hilarious (and sometimes heartbreaking) reality of sharing your life online. With her trademark wit and delightfully weird sense of humor, Justine delivers an inspirational message in support of creativity, entrepreneurship, and the power of staying true to yourself, while reminding readers that the Internet is a very small world—you just never know who you’re going to meet.

A companion to Bill O''Reilly''s documentary series Legends and Lies: The Real West offers an eye-opening look at the truth behind the western legends we all think we know.