In the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the late twentieth century was a time of unprecedented hope for democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe. The collapse of the Soviet Union left in its wake a number of independent countries where the Scorpions’ 1990 pop ballad “Wind of Change” became a rallying cry. Communist propaganda was finally being displaced...

In Meander Belt M. Randal O’Wain offers a reflection on how a working-class boy from Memphis, Tennessee, came to fall in love with language, reading, writing, and the larger world outside of the American South. This memoir examines what it means for the son of a carpenter to value mental rather than physical labor and what this does to his relationship with...

In her memoir series Diary of a Middle-Aged Sex Goddess, Elizabeth J. Winters Waite explores the complexities of life for a single mother in her sexual prime. Bridging the gap between Sex and the City and The Golden Girls, her stories detail raising three boys, running a successful all-female accounting firm, and pursuing passions that grow her soul, all...

EXPLOSIVE FIRST-HAND ACCOUNT FROM CHARLES MANSON’S FINAL INTERVIEWS THAT WILL CHANGE THE NARRATIVE OF THE MANSON FAMILY MURDERS

You have a prepaid call from…Charles Manson.”

August 8, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Manson Family Murders. The crimes defined a generation and remain an incredible source of public fascination. How could a no-account...

In a 2005 essay, Nora Ephron wrote, “There’s a reason why 40, 50, and 60 don’t look the way they used to, and it’s not because of feminism or better living through exercise. It’s because of hair dye.” That essay coincided with the first time Dorothy Rice grew out her gray hair—it didn’t last long. Fast forward fourteen years and after decades of struggling...

What happens when a forty-something, feminist sociologist who studies gender and sexuality learns that her mother―a charming, passive-aggressive, and needy woman who hasn’t had a lover in decades―has started seeing men who wants to be bound, whipped, and sexually dominated? What happens when that same mother, shortly after diving into her newly discovered...

Nonfiction storytelling is at its best in this anthology of excerpts from memoirs by thirty authors—some eminent, some less well known—who grew up tough and talented in working-class America. Their stories, selected from literary memoirs published between 1982 and 2014, cover episodes from childhood to young adulthood within a spectrum of life-changing...

The war in Afghanistan creates an urgency for telling stories—between soldiers, as they hand off missions to each other, and between soldiers and civilians, trying to explain what is going on—while also denying a lot of the context that is important for the telling of that story. The landscape is so mountainous and isolating that one incident or anecdote...

The Cookbook: Coming of Age in Turbulent Times William Powell wrote The Anarchist Cookbook in 1969 at the age of nineteen. It included everything from making bombs to brewing LSD in the bathroom. On publication, it was hailed variously as “outrageous,” “extremely dangerous,” “communist,” and “the most irresponsible publishing venture in American history.”...

Christopher Schacht shares his incredible experiences, revealing what he has learned along the way about life, love, and God, describing touching and bizarre encounters and insights that aren’t found in any travel guide.

Christopher Schacht was only nineteen years old and had just finished school when he put a dream into motion. With only 50 euros in...

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A long-overdue biography of the head of Grand Central Terminal’s Red Caps, who flourished in the cultural nexus of Harlem and American railroads.

In a feat of remarkable research and timely reclamation, Eric K. Washington uncovers the nearly forgotten life of James H. Williams (1878–1948), the chief porter of Grand...

“The Weil Conjectures is a charming meditation on geometry, sacrifice, and adolescent self-discovery, delivered in passionate, impressionistic bursts.” —Jordan Ellenberg, New York Times-bestselling author of How Not to Be Wrong

An eloquent blend of memoir and biography exploring the Weil siblings, math, and creative inspiration

Karen Olsson’s stirring and...

Sometimes the best way to transform emotional pain and is by writing about it.

This book is a collection of stories and poems the author published after the traumatic loss of her career, income, status, friends, and, ultimately, personal identity.

Going through it was tough but writing and sharing her thoughts and feelings about it changed her life in the...

Sophonisba Breckinridge's remarkable career stretched from the Civil War to the Cold War. She took part in virtually every reform campaign of the Progressive and New Deal eras and became a nationally and internationally renowned figure. Her work informed women’s activism for decades and continues to shape progressive politics today.
Anya Jabour's biography...

Recorded in 1949, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" changed the face of American music. Earl Scruggs's instrumental essentially transformed the folk culture that came before it while helping to energize bluegrass's entry into the mainstream in the 1960s. The song has become a gateway to bluegrass for musicians and fans alike as well as a happily inescapable track...

It began on August 12, 1983, when a disturbed woman’s bizarre accusation ignited hysteria across the small Southern California community of Manhattan Beach.

Driven by over-zealous investigators and a sensational news media, the legend of The McMartin Preschool became the “case of the century”—the longest, most expensive criminal trial in United States...

In this revelatory memoir, Doctor Cynthia Li shares the truth about her disabling autoimmune illness, the limitations of Western medicine, and her hard-won lessons on healing—mind, body, and spirit.

Li had it all: a successful career in medicine, a loving marriage, children on the horizon. But it all came crashing down when, after developing an autoimmune...

Life isn't all fairytales and glass slippers...

‘Cinderella’, I wish! is the powerful true story of Dominiquè DeVeraux’s life. Beginning with her early childhood as a young black child living with loving white foster parents, Dominiquè is content and adored. But when Nanny dies suddenly, Dominiquè is taken away from the loving home that she knew and thrust...

When 17-year-old Hazel Newlevant takes a summer job clearing ivy from the forest in her home town of Portland, Oregon, her only expectation is to earn a little money. Homeschooled, affluent, and sheltered, Hazel soon finds her job working side by side with at-risk teens to be an initiation into a new world that she has no skill in navigating.

This...

Born in the Netherlands at a time when girls are to be housewives and mothers and nothing else, Hendrika de Vries is a “daddy’s girl” until her father is deported from Nazi-occupied Amsterdam to a POW camp in Germany and her mother joins the Resistance. In the aftermath of her father’s departure, Hendrika watches as freedoms formerly taken for granted are...

This is the true story of William Alexander Morgan, the Yankee Comandante, an idealistic young American who found fame fighting in the Cuban Revolution. The blond American didn’t speak a word of Spanish, but he felt his rightful place was among the guerilleros of the Escambray Mountains, fighting to bring down dictator Fulgencio Batista. Morgan was among...

Haytham al-Aswad is a young boy like any other, growing up in the Syrian town of Deera: he plays soccer, hangs out with his friends, and is studying for an upcoming test. But when the revolution breaks out and people take to the streets to protest the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad, Haytham suddenly goes from kicking the ball to dodging bullets. His...

Ronnie and Hilda Williams met by chance aged 21 in Lancashire in November 1945, when Ronnie was home on his first leave after fighting in some of the most bitter campaigns of the Second World War in Italy.

With the uncertainty of the future and Ronnie’s obligation to return to active duty as a soldier abroad, Hilda and Ronnie took the ultimate leap of...

From THE NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of BY SOME MIRACLE I MADE IT OUT OF THERE and PARTY GIRL comes an uproarious and gritty read which shows that no matter how dark it gets, the light can always show through the cracks.

Anna David was, in every way, groomed for success. She grew up in an affluent community and came from a family that prioritized SAT...

Holocaust to Resistance, My Journey is a powerful, awe-inspiring memoir from author and activist Suzanne Berliner Weiss. Born to Jewish parents in Paris in 1941, Suzanne was hidden from the Nazis on a farm in rural France. Alone after the war, she lived in Communist-run orphanages, where she gained a belief in peace and brotherhood. Adoption by a New...

In the United States, more than 15 million women are parenting children on their own, either by circumstance or by choice. Too often these moms who do it all have been misrepresented and maligned. Not anymore. In We Got This, seventy-five solo mom writers tell the truth about their lives—their hopes and fears, their resilience and setbacks, their...

The long-hidden diary of a young Polish woman's life during the Holocaust, translated for the first time into English

Renia Spiegel was born in 1924 to an upper-middle class Jewish family living in southeastern Poland, near what was at that time the border with Romania. At the start of 1939 Renia began a diary. “I just want a friend. I want somebody to talk...

"Do you have a list of your books, or do I just have to stare at them?" Shaun Bythell is the owner of The Bookshop in Wigtown, Scotland. With more than a mile of shelving, real log fires in the shop and the sea lapping nearby, the shop should be an idyll for bookworms. Unfortunately, Shaun also has to contend with bizarre requests from people who...

An unauthorised biography about John Candy.

Legendary comedic actor, John Candy, is often described as one of the sweetest men in Hollywood.

Police Academy legend, Tim Kazurinksy, once said that “John wasn’t just a one in a million guy - he was a one in a hundred million guy”.

Incredibly talented, full of heart and extraordinarily hard working, with...

Lingerie is the foundation for every woman’s wardrobe, but it’s also where we feel the most pressure to be beautiful—and feel the most shame at falling short of impossible standards.

Concerns about our age, body type, family expectations, jobs, and romantic partners crowd into the dressing room with us. The result is a bra that fits other people’s standards...