Best of
Biography-Memoir

1979

These Strange Ashes


Elisabeth Elliot - 1979
    In These Strange Ashes, Elliot captures the mysteries and stark realities surrounding the colorful and primitive world in which she ministered. More than just a recounting of her early days, this is a beautifully crafted and deeply personal reflection on the important questions of life and a remarkable testimony to an authentic Christian commitment.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt


Edmund Morris - 1979
    The publication of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt on September 14th, 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt becoming president.

Dorie: The Girl Nobody Loved


Doris Van Stone - 1979
    God had stood beside me when no one else wanted me. He was not going to abandon me now. God would have to heal the emotional pain that throbbed through my body."As a child, Dorie was rejected by her mother, sent to live in an orphanage where she was regularly beaten by the orphanage director, was beaten time and again by cruel foster parents, and was daily told that she was ugly and unlovable. Dorie never knew love until a group of college students visited the orphanage and told her that God loved her. As she accepted that love, her life began to change.Dorie is a thrilling true account of what God's love can do in a life. Doris Van Stone takes readers through the hard years of her childhood into her fascinating years as a missionary with her husband to the Dani tribe in New Guinea. With the rise of illegitimate births, the increase in divorce statistics, and the frightening escalation of child abuse, this story stands as a reminder that God's love, forgiveness, and grace are greater than human hurt and sorrow.More than 170,000 in print.

With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman


Howard Thurman - 1979
    Index; photographs.

James Herriot's Yorkshire


James Herriot - 1979
    Glorious color photography is supplemented by Herriot's own irresistable descriptions.

Adventures of a Bystander


Peter F. Drucker - 1979
    This personal and informal work portrays Drucker as a leader and thinker of infinite curiosity, imaginative, sympathetic, and enormously interested in people, ideas, and the forces behind them.

Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy


Richmond P. Hobson Jr. - 1979
    It is a story of hardship and endurance--of cattle drives, frozen faces, and marauding wolf packs. It is the story of the cowboy way of life--the starry nights and mountain air. And it is the story and mystery of the author's recurring vision of the blonde dream woman who broke into his solitary existence. Rich Hobson and his business partner, Panhandle "Pan" Phillips, have established themselves in British Columbia's wild interior as successful cattle ranchers. But their skills are about to be put to the ultimate test as a harsh winter arrives--and so does the Great White North's entrance into the Second World War. With intolerable weather conditions and a shortage of supplies, Rich and Pan will have to pull out all the stops in order to ensure the survival of themselves and their livelihood. From the celebrated author of Grass Beyond the Mountains comes a true adventure story, told by a natural rancher, pioneer, and storyteller.

Drawn from New England: Tasha Tudor, A Portrait in Words and Pictures


Bethany Tudor - 1979
    Bethany Tudor relates the story of her mother's life through a smooth-flowing narrative, old and contemporary photographs and samples of the artist's work.

Escape from Laos


Dieter Dengler - 1979
    An American pilot shot down over Laos in 1966 tells of his inhumane treatment and torture at the hands of the Communist Pathet Lao and his daring escape from a prison camp five months after capture.

The Letters of Charlotte Brontë


Charlotte Brontë - 1979
    We read of her long struggle to complete 'Villette', and her indignation when Harriet Martineau finds in it evidence that her mind is 'full of the subject of one passion - love'.

The Storyteller's Nashville


Tom T. Hall - 1979
    The popular recording star and successful songwriter--known in Nashville as the Storyteller--recounts his rise to stardom, provides inside glimpses of the country-music business, and profiles his fellow Opryland stars.

Self-Portrait


Gene Tierney - 1979
    Recreating the glamour of Hollywood in the 1940s, the actress tells of the roles she played, the rich and famous men who have pursued her, the failure of her first marriage, and her struggle against mental illness

The Value of Helping: The Story of Harriet Tubman


Ann Donegan Johnson - 1979
    Describes the helpful work of Harriet Tubman in aiding slaves to flee the South, in assisting the Union army during the Civil War, and in establishing homes for the old and needy after the war.

Death of a Rebel: A Biography of Phil Ochs


Marc Eliot - 1979
    Altho his recordings were never bestsellers & there were times when he was more greatly appreciated in the UK, Canada & the 3rd World than at home, the late Philip David Ochs was one of the few American folksingers, aside from Woody Guthrie & Bob Dylan, who wrote & performed his own songs. This singing journalist's earliest ballads--championing civil rights, pacifism & revolution, attacking unemployment & US foreign policy--dealt with the romance of politics. Later ones celebrated the politics of romance. Fascinated by night, death, drowning, James Dean & Elvis Presley, Ochs was only 36 when, after surviving an attack in Africa followed by a psychotic break, he hanged himself in 1976. Eliot's sympathetic, powerful biography 1st appeared in paperback in 1979. Newer editions contain an epilog that updates information on Ochs's family & friends, discusses the FBI's 13-year surveillance of him & offers a revised discography.

With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker


William S. Burroughs - 1979
    Bockris has collected into a cogent whole the man's most brilliant moments of conversation, thinking, and interview repartee. This fascinating material, gleaned from the fertile time at Burroughs's New York headquarters, the Bunker (which was located on the Bowery, three blocks from CBGB), encompasses the years 1974 to 1980, and also includes a 1991 Burroughs interview from Interview magazine. The Beats' devotion to subjective experience has left readers with a profound amount of objective material to analyze and debate. Choice public and private utterances, hallucinatory and prescient diatribes such as these, remain rich sources of literary history. As Americans we find the Beats' approach to life romantic, even heroic. Tearing the walls down in the name of freedom and spirituality strikes a particularly pilgrimesque chord. With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker is a fascinating compendium of Burroughs-speak, so complete it can be considered a credo.

The Spiritual Journey of Joseph L. Greenstein: The Mighty Atom, World's Strongest Man


Ed Spielman - 1979
    Here is the true story of a man who realized that myth: Joseph Greenstein, "The Mighty Atom". He was a modern-day Samson who could stop bullets and hold back roaring airplanes, a man who rose from the Jewish ghettos of Poland to become the most remarkable strongman of the century.The Spiritual Journey of Joseph L. Greenstein, World's Strongest Man is a fully-documented and illustrated biography that also details the methods Greenstein used to train himself for the "impossible". As a vaudeville star, he bit through iron bars, crushed steel spikes in his hands, and held back airplanes tied to his hair. These feats were all the more amazing because he stood only five feet four inches and weighed in at just 145 pounds. But The Mighty Atom had developed his own technique for tapping into the "life-force; " a technique that encompassed Asian methods of concentration, Jewish mystical writings, and a then-unheard-of vegetarian natural diet. He unlearned the subconscious mechanism that forces us to stop when we think we have reached our physical limits. Each time he broke an iron chain, he revealed the enormous potential of the life-force. That potential exists inside every one of us and, as The Mighty Atom showed, it is within our grasp.

Clementine Churchill: The Biography of a Marriage


Mary Soames - 1979
    As a young woman, her character, intelligence, and good looks won the attention of the impetuous Winston Churchill. Their courtship was swift, but their marriage proved immensely strong, spanning many of the major events of the twentieth century. Written with affection and candor by the Churchills’ daughter Mary Soames, this revised and updated biography of a lionhearted couple’s life together is not only of historic interest but deeply moving.

Georg Cantor: His Mathematics and Philosophy of the Infinite


Joseph Warren Dauben - 1979
    This revolution is the subject of Joseph Dauben's important studythe most thorough yet writtenof the philosopher and mathematician who was once called a "corrupter of youth" for an innovation that is now a vital component of elementary school curricula. Set theory has been widely adopted in mathematics and philosophy, but the controversy surrounding it at the turn of the century remains of great interest. Cantor's own faith in his theory was partly theological. His religious beliefs led him to expect paradoxes in any concept of the infinite, and he always retained his belief in the utter veracity of transfinite set theory. Later in his life, he was troubled by recurring attacks of severe depression. Dauben shows that these played an integral part in his understanding and defense of set theory.

Hessian Tapestry: The Hesse Family and British Royalty


David Duff - 1979
    

Annie Oakley: Young Markswoman


Ellen Wilson - 1979
    Using simple language that beginning readers can understand, this lively, inspiring, and believable biography looks at the childhood of Wild West personality Annie Oakley.

No Job for a Lady: The Autobiography of M. Phyllis Lose, VMD


M. Phyllis Lose - 1979
    Tells of how Phyllis Lose fought against prejudice, ridicule, and opposition to become a horse veterinarian and describes her efforts to establish an award-winning equine clinic where she has ministered to today's most famous stallions and racers

Diary of Bergen-Belsen: 1944-1945


Hanna Lévy-Hass - 1979
    Her observations shed new light on the lived experience of Nazi internment. Levy-Hass stands alone as the only resistance fighter to report on her own experience inside the camps, and she does so with unflinching clarity in dealing with the political and social divisions inside Bergen-Belsen.Amira Hass, the only Israeli journalist living in and writing from within the Occupied Territories, offers a substantial introduction to her mother’s work.Praise for Hanna Levy-Hass and Diary of Bergen-Belsen“A compelling document of historic importance which shows, with remarkable composure, that ethical thought about what it means to be human can be sustained in the most inhuman conditions. Hanna Levy-Hass teaches us how a politics of compassion and justice can rise out of the camps as the strongest answer to the horrors of the twentieth century.”—Jacqueline Rose, historian, Queen Mary University of London; author, The Question of Zion“Diary of Bergen-Belsen is a poignant testimonial whose direct and clear-eyed observations on life in Hell belong in the select company of Primo Levi and Margarete Buber-Neumann, whose recently translated Under Two Dictators is the only comparable account in English of the female experience at Bergen-Belsen. Hannah Levy-Hass was clearly a quite extraordinary woman — brave, honest, and undiminished in her idealism and hopes: qualities that also characterize her daughter Amira, a fearless Israeli journalist who introduces the Diary with a moving account of her mother’s life and death.”—Tony Judt, historian; University Professor and Director of The Remarque Institute, New York University; author, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945“Diary of Bergen-Belsen vividly captures the tempestuous spirits of one of the darkest places on earth during one of the darkest times in history. Hanna Levy-Hass writes with captivation of unthinkable brutality. Her careful writings have created an unforgettable and indispensable chronicle that will live on for generations. She will help us remember, and to never forget.”—Edwin Black, author, IBM and the Holocaust“No other diary carries quite the same lessons of moral courage and political urgency as Levy-Hass’s does, with her repeated attempts to salvage some form of solidarity out of the abyss of depravity and selfish individualism that engulfed Belsen’s inmates. This new edition includes a powerful foreword and afterword by Levy-Hass’s daughter, Amira, who, without sentimentality or false analogy, links the struggles of her own present with those of her mother’s past.”—Jane Caplan, Professor of Modern European History, Oxford UniversityThe history of the Holocaust is often reduced to a simple conflict between the persecutors and their victims, but it was a much more complex process. It was also the history of the struggle against the barbarism of Twentieth century: and that is the reason why this diary is so important to us.”—Enzo Traverso, historian, University of Picardie, France; author, The Origins of Nazi ViolenceBorn in Sarajevo, Hanna Levy-Hass was an activist in the resistance to the German occupation of Yugoslavia. She was taken by the Nazis from Montenegro to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944. Her diary has been published in many languages.Amira Hass, the daughter of Hanna Levy-Hass, is an Israeli journalist who is best known for her columns in Ha’aretz. She is the author of Drinking the Sea at Gaza and has received many awards for her writing.

Kayaks down the Nile


John Goddard - 1979
    She has been playing a vital role in the development of the human race for 6,000 years. The water of the Nile is the source of life for an immense human population, which consists of dozens of breeds. Moreover, the Nile runs along an impressive variety of nature: from the 4,500-meter-high Moon Mountains - the Ruwenzori Mountains in Uganda, with an exotic alpine vegetation that turns into dense, tropical rainforests - to the scorching, cork-dry deserts of Sudan and Egypt. Between these two extremes lies the largest swamp in the world.Since the very beginning of human history, this great river has fascinated and challenged people. For centuries, countless expeditions have attempted to follow her endless course through Africa and to solve the oldest and most controversial mystery in geography: the secret of its origins.In 1950, John Goddard and his two companions, as the first in history, followed the river from its source in the heart of Africa to its mouth in the Mediterranean. The call of the Nile is the diary of Goddard: a travelogue in the best tradition of the great explorers of history.

Experiences of God


Jürgen Moltmann - 1979
    Enduring meditations on hope, anxiety, and mysticalexperience, together with the author's personalconfession of faith.

Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography


Jean Rhys - 1979
    From the early days on Dominica to the bleak time in England, living in bedsits on gin and little else, to Paris with her first husband, this is a lasting memorial to a unique artist.

J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The Real Story Behind Peter Pan


Andrew Birkin - 1979
    M. Barrie, the man who created Peter Pan and his Lost Boys “For an insightful exploration of Barrie and the boys who inspired him, nothing rivals [this book].”—Norman Allen, Smithsonian Magazine J. M. Barrie, Victorian novelist, playwright, and author of Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, led a life almost as magical and interesting as as his famous creation. Childless in his marriage, Barrie grew close to the five young boys of the Llewelyn Davies family, ultimately becoming their guardian and devoted surrogate father when they were orphaned. Andrew Birkin draws extensively on a vast range of material by and about Barrie, including notebooks, memoirs, and hours of recorded interviews with the family and their circle, to describe Barrie’s life and the wonderful world he created for the boys. Originally published in 1979, this enchanting and richly illustrated account is reissued with a new preface to mark the release of Neverland, the film of Barrie’s life, and the upcoming centenary of Peter Pan. “A psychological thriller . . . one of the year’s most complex and absorbing biographies.”—Gerald Clarke, Time “A terrible and fascinating story.”—Eve Auchincloss, Washington Post

Tormented Master


Arthur Green - 1979
    It unlocks the great themes of spiritual searching that make him a ^gure of universal religious importance.

The Fire That Will Not Die


Michele McBride - 1979
    Written by a survivor, this book takes a look at the tragedy and its emotional aftermath.