Best of
Autobiography

1990

An American Life


Ronald Reagan - 1990
    He tells us, with warmth and pride, of his early years and of the elements that made him, in later life, a leader of such stubborn integrity, courage, and clear-minded optimism. Reading the account of this childhood, we understand how his parents, struggling to make ends meet despite family problems and the rigors of the Depression, shaped his belief in the virtues of American life—the need to help others, the desire to get ahead and to get things done, the deep trust in the basic goodness, values, and sense of justice of the American people—virtues that few presidents have expressed more eloquently than Ronald Reagan.

Unreasonable Behaviour: An Autobiography


Don McCullin - 1990
    He has come back from God knows how many brinks, all different. His experience in a Ugandan prison alone would be enough to unhinge another man - like myself, as a matter of fact - for good. He has been forfeit more times than he can remember, he says. But he is not bragging. Talking this way about death and risk, he seems to be implying quite consciously that by testing his luck each time, he is testing his Maker's indulgence' - John le Carre'McCullin is required reading if you want to know what real journalism is all about' - The Times'From the opening...there is hardly a dull sentence: his prose is so lively and uninhibited... An excellent book' - Sunday Telegraph'Unsparing reminiscences that effectively combine the bittersweet life of a world-class photojournalist with a generous selection of his haunting lifework... A genuinely affecting memoir that reckons the cost and loss involved in making one's way on the cutting edge of conflict' - Kirkus Reviews'If this was just a book of McCullin's war photographs it would be valuable enough. But it is much more' - Sunday Correspondent

The Long Haul: An Autobiography


Myles Horton - 1990
    A major catalyst for social change in the United States for more than 70 years, this school has touched the lives of so many people, including Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Pete Seeger. Filled with disarmingly honest insight and gentle humor, The Long Haul is an inspiring hymn to the possibility of social change. It is the story of Myles Horton, in his own words: the wise and moving recollections of a man of uncommon determination and vision.

Da Nang Diary: A Forward Air Controller's Gunsight View of Flying with SOG


Tom Yarborough - 1990
    This true story of the Prairie Fire FACs describes the impossible rescues and harrowing day-long missions these courageous fliers experienced as they took the war into the enemy's backyard. Photographs. Martin's.

Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama


Dalai Lama XIV - 1990
    In this astonishingly frank autobiography, the Dalai Lama reveals the remarkable inner strength that allowed him to master both the mysteries of Tibetan Buddhism and the brutal realities of Chinese Communism.

In the Name of the Father: The Story of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four


Gerry Conlon - 1990
    One of four innocent people convicted of a terrorist bombing in Guildford, England, tells of the miscarriage of justice that resulted in imprisonment for himself and members of his family, including his father, and describes the struggle to clear his name and gain his freedom.

The Memoirs of Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free/The Torch in My Ear/The Play of the Eyes


Elias Canetti - 1990
    Canetti worked brilliantly in many forms, but the three volumes that comprise his autobiography are where his genius is perhaps most evident. The first volume, "The Tongue Set Free," presents the events, personalities, and intellectual forces that fed Canetti's early creative development. "The Torch in My Ear" explores his admiration for the first great mentor of his adulthood, Karl Krauss, and also describes his first marriage. The final volume, "The Play of the Eyes," is set in Vienna between 1931 and 1937, with the European catastrophe imminent; here he vividly portrays relationships with Hermann Broch and Robert Musil, among others.

God, Country, Notre Dame: The Autobiography of Theodore M. Hesburgh


Theodore M. Hesburgh - 1990
    Hesburgh

The Journals of John Cheever


John Cheever - 1990
    The work provides peerless insights into the creation of his novels and stories, as well the man himself.

The Complete Helen Forrester 4-Book Memoir: Twopence to Cross the Mersey / Liverpool Miss / By the Waters of Liverpool / Lime Street at Two


Helen Forrester - 1990
    672p hardback, a fresh copy, clean, firm binding, dustjacket in excellent condition, like new, signed by the author

Rough Ride: Behind the Wheel with a Pro Cyclist


Paul Kimmage - 1990
    He knew it wouldn't come easy, but he was prepared to put in the graft. The dedication paid off – he finished sixth in the World Championships as an amateur and in 1986, he turned professional.He soon discovered it wasn't about courage, training hours or how much you wanted to win. It was about gruelling defeats, total exhaustion, and drugs - drugs that would allow you to finish the race and start another day. Kimmage ultimately left the sport to write this book – profoundly honest and ground-breaking, Rough Ride broke the silence surrounding the issue of drugs in sport, and documents one man’s love for, and struggle with, the complex world of professional cycling. ‘A must read for any cyclist’ CyclistWINNER OF WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR

The Sun in the Morning: My Early Years in India and England


M.M. Kaye - 1990
    Kaye's fiction will discover here the source of the characters, settings, and certain incidents of her novels. Most of all, they will bask in this warm account of a young woman's remarkable life--and the beginnings of a love affair with an India whose time has passed but which has not been forgotten. 24 pages of black-and-white photographs.

A Moment's Liberty: The Shorter Diary


Virginia Woolf - 1990
    Anne Olivier Bell edited the five-volume original, and she has now abridged the Diary in this splendidly readable single volume edition.

Dr. Ambedkar : Life and Mission


Dhananjay Keer - 1990
    To highlight the importance of the role played by Ambedkar in improving the conditions of untouchables, and the constructive and leading role he played in building modern India, this timeline of events is of great help. The book talks about the crowning achievements of the man in drafting the constitution of India, and the uplifting work he remained loyal to, all his life. The author has added a genealogical table of the Ambedkar family, Ambedkar’s educational career, a list of his basic writings and a bibliography. This chronology will serve as one of the best reference works to those who are interested in Dr. Ambedkar’s influence on the advancement of the downtrodden.

Holding On to the Air


Suzanne Farrell - 1990
    This memoir, first published in 1990 and reissued with a new preface by the author, recounts Farrell's transformation from a young girl in Ohio dreaming of greatness to the realization of that dream on stages all over the world. Central to this transformation was her relationship with George Balanchine, who invited her to join the New York City Ballet in the fall of 1961 and was in turn inspired by her unique combination of musical, physical, and dramatic gifts. He created masterpieces for her in which the limits of ballet technique were expanded to a degree not seen before. By the time she retired from the stage in 1989, Farrell had achieved a career that is without precedent in the history of ballet. One third of her repertory of more than 100 ballets were composed expressly for her by such notable choreographers as Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Maurice Bejart. Farrell recalls professional and personal attachments and their attendant controversies with a down-to-earth frankness and common sense that complements the glories and mysteries of her artistic achievement.  Suzanne Farrell has staged Balanchine’s ballets in New York, Boston, Seattle, and Miami and for the Vienna Opera Ballet, the Kirov, and the Bolshoi. She is the subject of an Academy Award nominated documentary, Suzanne Farrell--Elusive Muse.

Sunday Nights at Seven


Jack Benny - 1990
    Here, in what PW termed an "entertaining and moving" manner, he reveals the secrets of his tremendous appeal as his daughter supplements the text with accounts of the family's home life. According to PW , "The daughter's sensibilities, at least as expressed here, contrast sharply with the father's bighearted outlook on life." Photos.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Library JournalAbout half of this book consists of an unpublished autobiography that Jack Benny wrote in the late 1960s; the remainder comprises reminiscences and commentary by Joan Benny. Joan's feeling for her mother, Mary Livingstone, could best be described as ambivalent, and her life (including three marriages) hasn't been perfect, but the love and admiration she feels for her father is apparent. By virtually all accounts Benny was a nice, pleasant man, and those same adjectives also apply to this book. The best Benny biography is still The Jack Benny Show by Milt Josefsberg ( LJ 3/15/77), a long-time writer for Benny. But Sunday Nights is better than his manager Irving Fein's Jack Benny: An Intimate Biography ( LJ 12/15/75) or Mary Livingstone Benny and others' Jack Benny ( LJ 2/15/78). Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/90.- John Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, N.J.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Querencia


Stephen J. Bodio - 1990
    He never left. With an assortment of birds, dogs, snakes, and books, he took up residence in a ramshackle two-story house along US 60 and set out to live in the way of country people. "Querencia"--the Zen-like Spanish term means something like the tiny pocket of one's inner life where one is truly at home--details a decade of life there. Throughout the early pages of his memoir, Stephen finds himself tested by the locals for his knowledge of raptor birds, of snakes, of dogs. When he begins to pass the tests, his transformation is complete, earning him a home, a place in the heart. Querencia offers a fine brief on rural living, alternately reveling in country matters and acknowledging the difficulties involved in such exercises as luring cows home from the mountain wilderness into which they've strayed while steering clear of venomous reptiles and combative bull elk. It's a treasure. --Greg McNamee

Indus Journey: A Personal View of Pakistan


Imran Khan - 1990
    Recently he set out to travel through Pakistan, revisiting those places that meant most to him along the great Indus river, from its delta on the Arabian Sea to its headwaters in the Himalayas, by way of the mysterious ruins at Mohenjodaro, the plains of Sind and the Punjab, the Khyber Pass, and his home town of Lahore. Imran’s amusing anecdotes and acute observations provide a unique insight into the richly varied life of Pakistan’s past and present; a life vividly portrayed by the superb colour photographs of Mike Goldwater. The result is a sumptuous personal view of Pakistan seen through the eyes of one of its most illustrious countrymen.

Worldwalk


Steven M. Newman - 1990
    With no sponsorship, meager funds, and with luggage on his back, he spent four years traversing 20 countries on foot. Photos, maps, index.

Voices in the Mirror


Gordon Parks - 1990
    Refusing to succumb to despair, he instead transformed his anger at poverty and racism into a creative force and went on to break down one barrier after another. He was the first black photographer at Vogue and Life, and the first black screenwriter and director in Hollywood, at the helm of such projects as the award-winning Shaft. And his novel, The Learning Tree, has sold more than a quarter of a million copies.Spanning the major events of five decades, Voices in the Mirror takes readers from Minnesota and Washington, D.C., to the glamour of Paris and the ghettos of Rio and Harlem. His intimate portrayals of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini; of the Muslim and African American icons Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad and Muhammad Ali; of the young militants of the civil rights and black power movements; and of the tragic experiences of the less famous, like the Brazilian youngster Flavio, combine to form an unforgettable story.Gordon Parks’s life is a metaphor for the courageous vision and extraordinary resilience of the African American community, while also serving as a testament to the spirit and generosity that are its hallmarks.

Soul Travelers of the Far Country


Harold Klemp - 1990
    

Green Are My Mountains


Christine Marion Fraser - 1990
    A time she never forgot. As a child there, in the 1950s, she contracted a rare muscular disease which led to her being confined in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Not deterred by her disability, she went on to lead a normal life. She married Ken and had a daughter, Evelyn. Her spirits were not affected. In Green Are My Mountains, bestselling author Christine Marion Fraser continues the uplifting and inspiring story which began in Blue Above the Chimneys and Roses Round the Door. With her characteristic warmth and good humour, she conveys the joy of finding this little house. A home she and her family could live in with the surrounding beauty of the landscape. But it was a home that was full of problems, structurally. The leaky roof was a contention for them … the lack of a tank for water was another. There were mice … a constant presence. Tania, her beloved dog was her main companion during the day. Despite the problems that came with the cottage, Christine was determined to see her book, Rhanna, published. Her success as an author meant travelling and speaking, something she wasn’t all together prepared for, but Ken was her rock. As they settled into their new home, Christine’s self-discipline and hard work prevailed. She went on to write the sequel to Rhanna… not an easy feat when bound to a wheelchair in a problematic house. Christine shares the ups and downs she encountered during this time in her life. Her strength, her love of animals and her compassion took her through another tragic event that unfolded following their move to the new house. Praise for Christine Marion Fraser ‘Christine Marion Fraser writes characters so real they almost leap out of the pages… you would swear she must have grown up with them.’ — The Sun ‘Christine Marion Fraser weaves an intriguing story in which the characters are alive against a spellbinding background'— Yorkshire Herald Fraser writes with a great depth of feeling and has the knack of making her characters come alive. She paints beautiful pictures of the countryside and their changing seasons — Aberdeen Express Full-blooded romance, a strong, authentic setting — The Scotsman Christine Marion Fraser (1938-2002) was one of Scotland's best-selling authors. She was the author of the much-loved Rhanna series, a Scottish saga set on the Hebridean island of Rhanna. She also wrote the acclaimed King’s Croft series as well as the Noble series. Christine’s formative years were spent in the post-war Govan district of Glasgow and she spent her later life in Argyll with her husband.

You've Had Your Time: Second Part of the Confessions


Anthony Burgess - 1990
    Rarely, if ever, has a writer exposed his inner life so completely and with such vigour, humour and linguistic verve.

Fire in the Heart: Healers, Sages, and Mystics


Kyriacos C. Markides - 1990
    Markides explores the amazing world of a master healer and spiritual teacher on the Isle of Cyprus.

Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges: His Life in His Words


Preston Sturges - 1990
    At the height of his career, Sturges had not only won an Academy Award but was also one of the most highly paid executives in the country.The only account of his life in his own words, Preston Sturges by Preston Sturges unveils the source of his extraordinary creativity: a life that was every bit as antic and unconventional as his movies.

Molder of Dreams


Guy Rice Doud - 1990
    Its neighbor, Lake Wobegon seems to have grabbed the national spotlight. That doesn't deter Guy from regaling the reader with stories of what it's like to grow up in a town where the police are alerted to a problem by a light on top of the water tower. A master storyweaver, Guy recounts growing up in the warmth of love and freshly baked oatmeal revel cookies. But all wasn't sweetness and light in the Doud household. Both Guy's parents were alcoholics. While his mother quietly fought her addiction, his father's black moods disrupted and frightened the family. Even in grade school, Guy realized the many inadequacies of his life -- his family was too poor to take a vacation, he was obese, he wasn't a particularly good student, and his desk was always a mess. Guy was picked last for kickball. The encouraging and discouraging messages Guy received about himself taught him that we all mold one another's dreams. We all hold each others' fragile hopes in our hands. We all touch others' hearts.

Memoirs


Andrei D. Sakharov - 1990
    The late Soviet physicist, activist, and Nobel laureate describes his upbringing, scientific work, rejection of Soviet repression, peace and human rights concerns, marriage and family, and persecution by the KGB.

Journal I, 1945-1955


Mircea Eliade - 1990
    Eliade came to Paris virtually empty-handed, following the death of his first wife and the Soviet takeover of Romania, which made him a persona non grata there. He had left half a lifetime in Romania: his parents, whom he never saw again; his library; unpublished and unfinished manuscripts, including the journal notebooks prior to 1940; an academic career; and Zalmoxis, the journal of religious studies he founded. During the lean years in Paris Eliade lived and worked in small, cold rooms; prepared meals on a Primus stove; pawned his valuables; and asked friends for loans. Eventually he secured a research stipend from the Bollingen Foundation. His ten years in Paris were among his most productive; the books he wrote during this period brought him worldwide acclaim as a historian of religions. He records his first meetings with Carl Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Gershom Scholem, Georges Bataille, André Breton, Raffaele Pettazzoni, and many other scholars and writers. Eliade also continued to write literary works. Numerous entries describe his five-year struggle with his novel The Forbidden Forest. Spanning the twelve fateful years from 1936 to 1948, it expresses within a fictional framework the central themes of Eliade's work on religions. Writing the novel was a Herculean task in which Eliade summarized and memorialized his old Romanian life.

Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves: My Personal Plan for Fitness and Well-Being


Angela Lansbury - 1990
    Angela Lansbury's Positive Moves, by Lansbury, Angela with Mimi Avins

Between Two Fires: Europe's Path in the 1930s


David Clay Large - 1990
    Episodes are linked to illustrate this, such as the Stavinsky affair in France, the murder of Ernst Roehm, and the civil war in the red quarters of Vienna.

Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer's Workbook


Timothy Findley - 1990
    Pilgrim, hisnewest and most ambitious novel yet, has gone like a bullet to the upperechelons of all the Canadian lists. Findley fans are out in full force, and manywill be looking for another Findley fix. Inside Memory: Pages from a Writer’sNotebook will satisfy the craving with equally wonderful doses of memories,love and laughter.Now repackaged in the popular new PerennialCanada imprint, InsideMemory invites the reader to share Findley’s life and work. Drawing fromhis personal journal entries and eclectic reflections, recollections and even anout-take from one of his early novels, the award-winning author shares hisextraordinary life with his readers.From his early days as an actor in London’s West End, through to histransition to a writer, Findley entertains with the fascinating people and reallife settings that have shaped his life. At the same time, he reveals thecreative landscape of his mind and his work, a journey that shows how memoryinforms and infuses every aspect of his books. Above all, Findley tells greatstories, showing once again that he is a true master of his craft.

Red Rowans and Wild Honey


Betsy Whyte - 1990
    She recounts in vivid detail the heady years of her adolescence, her courtship and her mother's struggle to bring up four children in the only way a travelling woman knew: hawking wares, fruit picking, tatty howking—in fact any kind of work that would provide the next meal.

Feet Wet: Reflections of a Carrier Pilot


Paul Gillcrist - 1990
    In his remarkable career - from nugget, to competent jet aviator, to test pilot, to Vietnam fighter pilot, to air wing commander, to head of Fightertown, USA, Gillcrist flew the F-8 Crusader, F-4 Phantom, F-14 Tomcat, and a myriad of other tactical aircraft. He took part in the Navy\s transition to jet aircraft, when accident rates were high and many feared that jets would not be able to operate in the harsh, demanding environment of blue water ops. Gillcrist saw the introduction of critical innovations - the angled deck, steam catapult, optical landing system - that saved carrier jet aviation from extinction. Few aviators have had such varied and fascinating experiences, and few could write about them with such eloquence. Available now in a new hard cover reprint edition, Feet Wet (aviator talk for reaching the safety of water) is a chronicle of adventure, heroism, courage, and humor, with some of the most exciting passages ever written on flying. From his magical first flight - the sheer exstasy of being airborne, to the heart-pounding excitement of his first night trap, the terror of ejecting from a test plane spinning out of control, to dodging SAMs and jousting with MiGs over Hanoi - Gillcrist takes the reader into his world and vividly conveys what all pilots live for - the tremendous high of all-out flying. As part of his absorbing stories. Gillcrist shares technical information on carrier aviation; the reader sees, step-by-step, how an airplane is launched, and then trapped again on a small deck aboard a moving ship - this, the most dificult feat in aviation. Paul gillcrist retired in 1985 after a 33-year career as a naval aviator. He commanded a fighter squadron, a carrier air wing, a major jet base, and as a flag officer, the Pacific Fleet fighter wing. He flew 167 combat missions in three Vietnam combat deployments, for which he was awarded seventeen combat decorations. Paul Gillcrist is also the author of Tomcat! The Grumman F-14 Story, Crusader! Last of the Gunfighters, and Vulture\s Row: Thirty Years in Naval Aviation (all three titles are available from Schiffer Publishing Ltd.).

Ayrton Senna: The Hard Edge of Genius


Christopher Hilton - 1990
    Yet many regard him as a shy and introverted personality.

Russell Chatham: One Hundred Paintings


Russell Chatham - 1990
    He belongs to no current movement, lives far from the bicoastal art world, and his paintings consequently defy easy description. This volume, published in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of the Rockies, includes Chatham's early oils from Northern California as well as the Montana paintings that have brought him national acclaim.

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness


William Styron - 1990
    Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.

M.D.: One Doctor's Adventures Among the Famous and Infamous from the Jungles of Panama to a Park Avenue Practice


B.H. Kean - 1990
    

Maverick: The Personal War Of A Vietnam Cobra Pilot


Dennis J. Marvicsin - 1990
    

The Story of Your Life: Writing A Spiritual Autobiography


Dan Wakefield - 1990
    "What a wonderful book is Dan Wakefield's The Story of Your Life. Surely it will help many people to write their own spiritual autobiographies, and so to become more aware of their own journeys."-Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time

Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors


John Densmore - 1990
    Here is the book that Rolling Stone called "the first Doors biography that feels like it was written for the right reasons, and it is easily the most informed account of the Doors' brief but brilliant life as a group".

Moving The Mountain: My Life In China From The Cultural Revolution To Tiananmen Square


Li Lu - 1990
    As press spokesman for the Democracy Movement, 23-year-old Li Lu was at the centre of the drama which captured the attention of the world. This book tells the author's story - one man' odyssey from a victim of the Cultural Revolution to a leader of hundreds of thousands of students. Li Lu escaped arrest after the events in Tianenmen Square, but remains on the list of China's "ten most wanted men". Since leaving China he has travelled widely on behalf of human rights and the Democracy Movement in China.

Life of Moravia


Alberto Moravia - 1990
    He had no friends, no social life, no years at a university to connect him to the world. The result was a kind of unblinking gaze and acceptance of life which made him first one of the great novelists of the age, and finally one of the great memoirists. The Time of Indifference, his first novel (published this season by Steerforth), begun when he was only eighteen and published three years later, in 1929, changed the Italian literary landscape forever. That early fame never died and later novels - The Woman of Rome, The Conformist - only enhanced his reputation. Moravia put his life into his books but only now, with this unusual autobiography in the form of an interview with his friend, the writer Alain Elkann, is it possible to understand the literary use he made of the bourgeois world of his childhood in Rome, of his encounter with Fascism under Mussolini, of his months in hiding from the Germans in the mountains south of Rome, and of his marriages to two of the leading writers of his time - Elsa Morante and Dacia Maraini.

A POW's Story: 2801 Days in Hanoi


Larry Guarino - 1990
    Through eight years of humiliation and imprisonment which included physical and mental torture, and through the bleakest periods of suffering and despair, Guarino never lost his courage, his patriotism, or his will to live. His riveting tale of survival is truly a triumph of the human spirit.

Adolf Galland: The Authorized Biography


David Baker - 1990
    As a fighter ace, he became the youngest general in the Wehrmacht, whose combat career spanned the years from biplanes over Spain to the first operational jet fighters. His command position put him in perilously close contact with the leaders of the Third Reich. Over several years, General Galland has told his story - including much which for political reasons could not be said in his 1950s memoir, "The First and the Last" - to aerospace historian and writer, David Baker. The General has also opened his private photograph collection.

The Memoirs of Count Witte


Sergei Witte - 1990
    Witte presents incisive and often piquant portraits of the mighty and those around them--powerful Alexander III, the weak-willed Nicholas II, and the neurasthenic Empress Alexandra, along with his own notorious cousin, Madam Blavatsky, the "priestess of the occult".

My Life of Absurdity: The Later Years, the Autobiography of Chester Himes


Chester Himes - 1990
    Himes takes us to the heart of Paris expatriate cafe society and through the writing of his eighteen books and novels. He also paints fascinating glimpses of lowers, three continents, and friends such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin.My Life of Absurdity is the story of a life only Himes could have lived -- just on the edge of reality, about three steps short of fantasy, and three generations out of slavery.---from book jacket