Best of
Biography-Memoir

1981

Somebody Else's Kids


Torey L. Hayden - 1981
    . . "A small seven-year-old boy who couldn't speak except to repeat weather forecasts and other people's words . . . A beautiful little girl of seven who had been brain damaged by terrible parental beatings and was so ashamed because she couldn't learn to read . . . A violently angry ten-year-old who had seen his stepmother murder his father and had been sent from one foster home to another . . . A shy twelve-year-old from a Catholic school which put her out when she became pregnant . . ."What do we matter?""Why do you care?"They were four problem children-put in Torey Hayden's class because no one else knew what to do with them. Together, with the help of a remarkable teacher who cared too much to ever give up, they became almost a family, able to give each other the love and understanding they had found nowhere else.

An Interrupted Life: The Diaries, 1941-1943; and Letters from Westerbork


Etty Hillesum - 1981
    In the darkest years of Nazi occupation and genocide, Etty Hillesum remained a celebrant of life whose lucid intelligence, sympathy, and almost impossible gallantry were themselves a form of inner resistance. The adult counterpart to Anne Frank, Hillesum testifies to the possibility of awareness and compassion in the face of the most devastating challenge to one's humanity. She died at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of twenty-nine.

A Fortunate Life


Albert B. Facey - 1981
    It is the story of Albert Facey, who lived with simple honesty, compassion and courage. A parentless boy who started work at eight on the rough West Australian frontier, he struggled as an itinerant rural worker, survived the gore of Gallipoli, the loss of his farm in the Depression, the death of his son in World War II and that of his beloved wife after sixty devoted years - yet he felt that his life was fortunate.Facey's life story, published when he was eighty-seven, has inspired many as a play, a television series, and an award-winning book that has sold over half a million copies.

All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono


David Sheff - 1981
    Of course, at the heart of the conversation is the deep, rare romantic and spiritual bond between Lennon and Ono. Sympathetic and insightful questions from New York Times bestselling author David Sheff set the tone for Lennon's responses, and Sheff’s presence sets the scene, as he walks through the kitchen door of the musicians’ Dakota apartment and accompanies the famous couple to the studio, where they were recording what would turn out to be Lennon’s final albums. Sheff's new introduction looks at his forty-year-old interview afresh, and examines how what he learned from Lennon has resonated with him as a man and a parent. This is a knockout interview and a crucial piece of Beatles history: playful, intense, and inspiring.

Through the Narrow Gate: A Memoir of Spiritual Discovery


Karen Armstrong - 1981
    With refreshing honesty and clarity, the book takes readers on a revelatory adventure that begins with Armstrong's decision in the course of her spiritual training offers a fascinating view into a shrouded religious life, and a vivid, moving account of the spiritual coming age of one of our most loved and respected interpreters of religious.

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt


David McCullough - 1981
    Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. Now with a new introduction by the author, Mornings on Horseback is reprinted as a Simon & Schuster Classic Edition. Mornings on Horseback is about the world of the young Theodore Roosevelt. It is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household (and rarefied social world) in which he was raised. His father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, "Greatheart," a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, Teddy Roosevelt's first love. And while such disparate figures as Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. John Jacob Astor, and Senator Roscoe Conkling play a part, it is this diverse and intensely human assemblage of Roosevelts, all brought to vivid life, which gives the book its remarkable power. The book spans seventeen years � from 1869 when little "Teedie" is ten, to 1886 when, as a hardened "real life cowboy," he returns from the West to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew, a grown man, whole in body and spirit. The story does for Teddy Roosevelt what Sunrise at Campobello did for FDR � reveals the inner man through his battle against dreadful odds. Like David McCullough's The Great Bridge, also set in New York, this is at once an enthralling story, with all the elements of a great novel, and a penetrating character study. It is brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship, which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. For the first time, for example, Roosevelt's asthma is examined closely, drawing on information gleaned from private Roosevelt family papers and in light of present-day knowledge of the disease and its psychosomatic aspects. At heart it is a book about life intensely lived...about family love and family loyalty...about courtship and childbirth and death, fathers and sons...about winter on the Nile in the grand manner and Harvard College...about gutter politics in washrooms and the tumultuous Republican Convention of 1884...about grizzly bears, grief and courage, and "blessed" mornings on horseback at Oyster Bay or beneath the limitless skies of the Badlands. "Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough," Roosevelt once wrote. It is the key to his life and to much that is so memorable in this magnificent book.

The Doors: The Illustrated History


Danny Sugerman - 1981
    This book consists of magazine and newspaper articles, interviews, record reviews, excerpts from books, and other material related to the history of The Doors, to whose memory it is dedicated.This book consists of magazine and newspaper articles, interviews, record reviews, excerpts from books, and other material related to the history of The Doors, to whose memory it is dedicated.

Still Cove Journal


Gladys Taber - 1981
    A collection of thoughts on the beauty and lore of Cape Cod, presented with pen-and-ink drawings, reflects upon the people, the weather, and the country.

Radha: Diary of a Woman's Search


Sivananda Radha - 1981
    Her pilgrimage is vividly captured in Radha: Diary of a Woman's Search, an account of Swami Sivananda Radha's journey of personal transformation. This book intelligently and intimately illustrates the challenges and victories of taking the first steps on the spiritual path. From the banks of the Ganges and the streets of Rishikesh, this engaging pilgrimage will take you inside the heart and mind of one of the foremost yoginis of our time.

The Tapestry: The Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer


Edith Schaeffer - 1981
    Book by Schaeffer, Edith

Lou's on First


Chris Costello - 1981
    Starting in the 1930s, Costello attained enormous fame touring the burlesque circuits with straight man Bud Abbott (1895-1974). Their live skits (including "Who's on First?"), radio programs, and films such as One Night in the Tropics, Buck Privates, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and In the Navy made comic history.Behind the scenes, however, Costello faced numerous crises: a bout with rheumatic fever that left him bedridden for months, the drowning death of his young son, and constant haggles with Universal Studios over its reluctance to adequately finance productions of Abbott and Costello films. Lou's on First goes beyond Costello's clownish persona to explore his Pagliacci nature: the private demons behind the happy public face, the heartbreaking moments in an otherwise storybook marriage, the business ventures soured by unscrupulous managers, and the true nature of the breakup of his twenty-one-year partnership with Bud Abbott.

Don't Sit Under the Grits Tree With Anyone Else But Me


Lewis Grizzard - 1981
    Ruminations on lardbutts. bra-padders. Good ol'boys and giggling Yankee girls. The joys of white bread and knowing your way around a 1957 Chevrolet. And lots more from one of America's favorite writers.

An Unknown Woman


Alice Koller - 1981
    Why am I here? There's no place else to be. What am I doing here? I don't really know. What am I trying to do here? To find some way to live."This is the true story of a courageous journey - a journey inward, undertaken alone, in the middle of winter, thirty miles out to sea. It is the story of Alice Koller, who went to Nantucket to find - Alice Koller. During the course of her extraordinarily brave and honest self-analysis, she found and discarded the deepest source of her profound unhappiness. Alone, she faced all that she had fled from throughout the thirty-seven years of her life. Alone. she discovered the beginnings of her own vision for a new life.The intensely personal account of a philosopher's struggle to articulate the process of coming to understand oneself, "An Unknown Woman" speaks with startling intimacy to the unknown person within each of us.

Mary Chesnut's Civil War


C. Vann Woodward - 1981
    Vann Woodward won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for History, drawn from the diaries of a Southern aristocrat, records the disintegration and final destruction of the Confederacy.

How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger


David King Dunaway - 1981
    He was investigated for sedition by the House Committee on Un-American activities, harassed by the FBI and CIA, blacklisted, picketed, and even stoned by conservative groups. How Can I Keep from Singing is an inside history of Pete Seeger, whose life has remained a closely guarded secret until now. In this ASCAP award-winning book, David Dunaway parts the curtain through interviews with Pete, his family, friends, and fellow musicians to present a rich, compelling portrait of one of the most remarkable performers, composers, and activists of this century.

The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 1, 1907-1922 (The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway)


Ernest Hemingway - 1981
    Full description

Princess Alice: Countess of Athlone


Theo Aronson - 1981
     Princess Alice was the daughter of Queen Victoria's youngest son Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. She grew up under the watchful eye of Queen Victoria and in 1904 married Prince Alexander of Teck, afterwards known as the Earl of Athlone, Queen Mary's brother. Renowned for her beauty, elegance and vivacity, she was for the remainder of her long life one of the most popular and energetic members of the Royal Family. In 1923 Lord Athlone was appointed Governor General of South Africa and his wife was at his side through some of that country's most turbulent years. When he was appointed Governor General of Canada during the Second World War, Princess Alice won the hearts of Canadians as well. For many years she was Chancellor of the University of the West Indies and until her death in 1981 at the age of 97 she remained lively and interested in a great variety of social and cultural events.

Sonya


Anne Edwards - 1981
    A sympathetic account of Sonya Tolstoy's struggle for independence reveals Sonya to be a forerunner of today's modern woman, showing how her intense love for Tolstoy was diminished by his refusal to see her as her own person

The Composer's Advocate: A Radical Orthodoxy for Musicians


Erich Leinsdorf - 1981
    . . . A book any musician, or any serious student or concertgoer, will find stimulating, provocative and instructive."-- Robert C. Marsh, Chicago Sun-Times"Wise, detailed and valuable book. . . . Should become a set text for all performing artists.-- Andrew Porter, The New Yorker"Throughout the book, Leinsdorf displays his knowledge and wisdom with a near total lack of pretense or vanity. This work must be considered one of the most significant books on conducting ever written, ranking in importance with those of Wagner and Weingartner. Its scope, however, suggests that it should be read not only by conductors but by every practicing musician."-- Robert Johnson, Music Library Association Notes"Concise, witty and rewarding. . . . That Maestro Leinsdorf is an extraordinarily astute and sensitive musician is evident on every page of The Composer’s Advocate. Musicians will find his insights profound and his ideas compelling."-- Hugh Wolff, Washington Post Book World"Leinsdorf’s book will be of interest to anyone curious about how music is translated from the printed page into sound."-- Harry Haskell, The Kansas City Star

Eight Years in Another World


Harding Lemay - 1981
    And how that affected the writer’s personal life.

The Horn Island Logs of Walter Inglis Anderson


Walter Inglis Anderson - 1981
    Revised edition.

Moving Zen


C.W. Nicoll - 1981
    In 1962 at age twenty-two, C. W. Nicol left Wales to study Karate in Japan. He quickly found that the study of the martial art engaged his whole being and transformed his outlook on life. Moving Zen is the multifaceted story of a young man who arrived in Japan to study the technique of, and spirit behind, Karate. Joining the Japan Karate Association, or Shotokan, Nicol discovered that Karate, while extremely violent, also called for politeness and a sense of mutual trust and responsibility. He learned that the stronger the Karateka, the more inclined he was to be gentle with others. Those who have gained a measure of skill but have not yet achieved spiritual maturity are the dangerous practitioners. Studying kata, Nicol came to realize that these forms are, in essence, moving Zen and that the ultimate goal of all the martial arts is tranquility. Through the help of many gifted teachers, C. W. Nicol gained his black belt, and moved progressively closer to his goal of tranquility. His story, Moving Zen, was first published in 1975 and has achieved the status of a modern classic.

God's Outlaw: The Story of William Tyndale and the English Bible


Brian H. Edwards - 1981
    Compelled to flee from his homeland, he continued with his work of translating the Scriptures whilst slipping from city to city in Germany, Holland and Belgium in an attempt to avoid the agents which were sent from England to arrest him.

The Green Gables Letters: From L.M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber 1905-1909


L.M. Montgomery - 1981
    Montgomery early in the century, were found in 1956 among the papers of Ephraim Weber who was living in the West. Now lodged in the National Archives in Ottawa, the letters, reproduced here exactly as they were written, form a fascinating footnote to the history of Canadian letters.These letters are of interest and importance not only because they were written during the years of gestation and birth and outstanding success of the book Anne of Green Gables, but also because they reveal a lively extrovert in an eminently healthy balance. This should prove an absorbing book, both to those adults who have nostalgic memories of "Anne," and to writers who need encouragement in their struggle for literary recognition.

Priscilla


Colene Copeland - 1981
    She was raised in the house, slept on our bed and could flip the television on and off with her nose. Our dog, Mitzi, "housebroke" Priscilla. Instead of getting a pig sitter, Priscilla was taken along on an unforgetable three week vacation trip. One day we realized our little pet had outgrown the house. Problem was we had neglected to tell Priscilla she was a pig! What would become of her in the barn living around hogs?The first three nights Papa and I slept in the barn too! Then Hotsie, Papa's prized brood sow, was moved in to teach Priscilla to act like a pit. She failed miserably.Tom Cat, though he appeared quite vain, looked out for Priscilla. Most of the sows disliked our girl. Tom Cat said they were jealous. Elsie hated her. Priscilla was different. But she was kind and determined in her two great desires, to please Mama and Papa and to be accepted by all the sows. Priscilla will pleasantly entertain you as she unravels the tender details of how she accomplished her goals and became revered by all her peers. Although Priscilla adds color to the telling, the "events" in the story are true.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man


Martin Kemp - 1981
    Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo, takes us on a mesmerizing journey through the whole span of the great man's life, painting a fully integrated picture of his artistic, scientific, and technological achievements. Kemp shows how Leonardo's early training inFlorence provided a crucial foundation in the science of art, particularly perspective and anatomy, while his period in the service of the Sforzas of Milan enlarged his outlook to embrace a wide range of natural sciences and mathematics, as he searched for scientific rules governing both man andthe universe. It was these rules, Kemp argues, which provided the basis for his imaginative reconstruction of nature in masterworks such as the Last Supper, The Mona Lisa, and St. John, which reveal his increasingly complex vision of man in the context of nature. And towards the end of his life, Leonardo became fascinated with the mathematics underlying the design of nature, behind which lay the ultimate force of the prime mover, as manifested with supreme power in his Deluge drawings. Covering every aspect of Leonardo's achievement, generously illustrated, and now including a new introductory chapter setting Leonardo's work in its historical context, this fully updated edition provides unparalleled insight into the mind of this central figure in western art

The Four-Minute Mile


Roger Bannister - 1981
    A personal and heartfelt account of the most stunning athletic achievement of the twentieth century.

In Search of Taylor Caldwell


Jess Stearn - 1981
    

TALES FROM THE RIFLE BRIGADE: Adventures in the Rifle Brigade Random Shots From a Rifleman: "Adventures in the Rifle Brigade" AND "Random Shot


John Kincaid - 1981
    

Champion's Story


Bob Champion - 1981
    

Secrets Of Grown Ups


Vera Caspary - 1981
    With a career that spanned from the 1920s through 1970s, one that produced over twenty novels, in addition to her many credits for film and theater, Caspary centered her life around a passion for writing. From her early experiences at an advertisement agency-where she developed a correspondence school and invented its "famed" instructor-to the struggles of being gray-listed in the McCarthy Era, Caspary constantly found a way to turn her creative needs into viable work. Caspary recalls the rest of a full life, too, including her flirtation with communism, travels across Europe, and a marriage. Caspary's skillful writing makes her incredible depictions of people, and the times in which they lived, jump off the page."

The Power of Integrity: The Story of J.C. Penney


Phyllis Colonna - 1981
    Penney, who became a millionaire in the dry goods business, while adhering to his principles of honesty and integrity.