Best of
Biography-Memoir

1986

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1986
    This definitive box set includes all the landmark speeches of the great orator and American leader Martin Luther King, Jr., from his inspirational "I Have a Dream" to his firey "Give Us the Ballot." Comprised of recordings previously included in A Call to Conscience and A Knock at Midnight, THE ESSENTIAL BOX SET is a must-have for any home, library, or school collection.

Life and Death in Shanghai


Nien Cheng - 1986
    Her background made her an obvious target for the fanatics of the Cultural Revolution: educated in London, the widow of an official of Chiang Kai-Shek's regime, and an employee of Shell Oil, Nien Cheng enjoyed comforts that few of her compatriots could afford. When she refused to confess that any of this made her an enemy of the state, she was placed in solitary confinement, where she would remain for more than six years. "Life and Death in Shanghai" is the powerful story of Nien Cheng's imprisonment, of the deprivation she endured, of her heroic resistance, and of her quest for justice when she was released. It is the story, too, of a country torn apart by the savage fight for power Mao Tse-tung launched in his campaign to topple party moderates. An incisive, rare personal account of a terrifying chapter in twentieth-century history, "Life and Death in Shanghai" is also an astounding portrait of one woman's courage.

The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom


Pamela Rosewell Moore - 1986
    Corrie's best-selling book The Hiding Place, which recounted how she and her family had hidden Jews during World War II in Holland until their betrayal and arrest by the Nazis, had launched for Corrie a worldwide ministry of travel and speaking. Awed by the spiritual challenge this companionship posed, Pam wondered how she could keep up with the energetic 83-year-old. But God knit a strong bond between the young Englishwoman and the remarkable Dutch evangelist. Then Corrie suffered a stroke. Hospitalization followed; physical therapy; then long, loving hours at home. Corrie regained a little mobility for a time -- until the next strokes hit. She never regained her speech. But the ministry that had touched millions continued as Corrie communicated through her eyes, through elaborate guessing games with those around her, through silent intercession for people God brought to mind. For those five silent years of imprisonment, Corrie's spiritual depth offered mute testimony to her ongoing trust in her heavenly Father. The details of these years will move all who loved Corrie ten Boom. They will encourage those involved with the elderly or handicapped -- and those who are themselves bedridden -- that God is at work mysteriously in and through even the most incapacitated. This book attests to the truth Corrie loved so dearly: that, in spite of everything else, Jesus is always Victor.

Kaffir Boy: An Autobiography


Mark Mathabane - 1986
    Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university. This extraordinary memoir of life under apartheid is a triumph of the human spirit over hatred and unspeakable degradation. For Mark Mathabane did what no physically and psychologically battered "Kaffir" from the rat-infested alleys of Alexandra was supposed to do -- he escaped to tell about it.

Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea


Steven Callahan - 1986
    In some ways the model for the new wave of adventure books, Adrift is an undeniable seafaring classic, a riveting firsthand account by the only man known to have survived more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized only six days out. Adrift is a must-have for any adventure library.

Stormie: A Story of Forgiveness and Healing


Stormie Omartian - 1986
    It is a glorious story of how God can bring life out of death.

One More Time


Carol Burnett - 1986
    The child of two alcoholic parents, Burnett presents a sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking coming-of-age: from her sadly hopeful mother, who was hooked on Tinseltown fantasy, to the first signs of her own comic gift; from happy weekends spent with her father, to their last tragic meeting in a public sanatorium. Featuring a new Afterword by the author, about teaming up with her daughter to bring this story to Broadway, One More Time is an intimate, touching, and astonishing narrative of a financially desperate but emotionally rich childhood on the wrong side of Hollywood’s tracks.

Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind


Robert D. Richardson Jr. - 1986
    In this new biography, based on a reexamination of Thoreau's manuscripts and on a retracing of his trips, Robert Richardson offers a view of Thoreau's life and achievement in their full nineteenth century context.

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Vol. 1: 1889-1910


L.M. Montgomery - 1986
    Spontaneous and frank, they are unusual for their narrative interest: Montgomery's gifts as a storyteller are as much evidence here as in her novels.This first volume of the immensely successful Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery launched in 1985, takes Montgomery to 1910, the year before her marriage, when she left Prince Edward Island. The autobiographical content will fascinate every devoted reader of the Anne books. But the Montgomery journals are especially interesting because they provide a unique social history and the privilege of viewing closely the life of a remarkable woman. Comprising perhaps the most vivid and detailed memoir in Canadian letters, the journals join Anne of Green Gables in ensuring Montgomery's lasting place in Canadian literature. This volume is a rich and engrossing prelude to the whole.

Jaguar: One Man's Struggle to Establish the World's First Jaguar Preserve


Alan Rabinowitz - 1986
    Within two years, he had succeeded. In Jaguar he provides the only first-hand account of a scientist's experience with jaguars in the wild. Jaguar presents an irresistible blend of natural history and adventure; intensely personal, it is a portrait of an elusive, solitary predator and the Mayas with which it shares the jungle. Strong and sensitive, the book excitingly describes the rewards and hardships of fighting to protect this almost mythical cat." - George Schaller, author of The Last Panda and Wildlife of the Tibetan Stepp. The glimpse which Rabinowitz's painstaking and careful research gives us of the world of the mysterious jaguar is tantalizing ....... Packed with interest and adventure." - Jane Goodall, author of Reason for Hope and In the Shadow of Ma. "An intimate look at the lives of rural Central Americans. At times Rabinowitz resembles a character from Joseph Conrad ... the tension between man and beast becomes startlingly vivid." - The Washington Pos. "A jungle adventure story in the classic mold, of a daredevil westerner who penetrates the deepest jungles of Belize in search of his quarry. There are thrills and chills aplenty in this quest for the mighty feline." - Kirkus Review. Originally published in 1986, this edition includes a new preface and epilogue by the author that bring the story up to date with recent events in the region and around the world.

I, Tina


Tina Turner - 1986
    From Nut Bush, Tennessee, to Hollywood stardom...from Ike's Kings of Rhythm to onstage with Mick Jagger and the Stones...from the lowest lows to the highest highs, Tina has seen, done, suffered and survived it all. And in her spectacular bestseller "I, TINA," she tells it like it really is...

The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume I: 1902-1941, I, Too, Sing America


Arnold Rampersad - 1986
    To commemorate the centennial of his birth, Arnold Rampersad has contributed new Afterwords to both volumes of his highly-praised biography of this most extraordinary and prolific American writer. In young adulthood Hughes possessed a nomadic but dedicated spirit that led him from Mexico to Africa and the Soviet Union to Japan, and countless other stops around the globe. Associating with political activists, patrons, and fellow artists, and drawing inspiration from both Walt Whitman and the vibrant Afro-American culture, Hughes soon became the most original and revered of black poets. In the first volume's Afterword, Rampersad looks back at the significant early works Hughes produced, the genres he explored, and offers a new perspective on Hughes's lasting literary influence. Exhaustively researched in archival collections throughout the country, especially in the Langston Hughes papers at Yale University's Beinecke Library, and featuring fifty illustrations per volume, this anniversary edition will offer a new generation of readers entrance to the life and mind of one of the twentieth century's greatest artists.

A Midwife's Story


Sheryl Feldman - 1986
    A gripping first-hand account of midwife Penny Armstrong’s journey from student midwife in Glasgow to running her own practice among the Amish in rural Pennsylvania, A Midwife’s Story never fails to enlighten, inform and surprise.Going far beyond mere biography, Armstrong’s journey of self-discovery is ultimately very moving, and it is the honesty with which she describes the world she discovers which makes this book a classic, and essential reading not just for aspiring midwives but to anyone interested in natural birth.

Emergence: Labeled Autistic


Temple Grandin - 1986
    An inspiring firsthand account of a courageous and determined autistic woman who makes a remarkable discovery that eventually helps her control her condition and virtually cure her disorder captures the isolation and fears suffered by autistic children.

Daughter of Fire: A Diary of a Spiritual Training with a Sufi Master


Irina Tweedie - 1986
    This diary spans five years, making up an amazing record of spiritual transformation: the agonies, the resistance, the long and frightening bouts with the purifying forces of Kundalini, the perseverance, the movements towards surrender, the longing, and finally, the all-consuming love.

Lennon: The Definitive Biography


Ray Coleman - 1986
    The best and most complete biography about the influential Beatle.

The Orton Diaries


Joe Orton - 1986
    Sloane and the farce hit Loot, and was completing What the Butler Saw; but less than three months later, his longtime companion, Kenneth Halliwell, smashed in Orton’s skull with a hammer before killing himself. The Orton Diaries, written during his last eight months, chronicle in a remarkably candid style his outrageously unfettered life: his literary success, capped by an Evening Standard Award and overtures from the Beatles; his sexual escapades—at his mother's funeral, with a dwarf in Brighton, and, extensively, in Tangiers; and the breakdown of his sixteen-year "marriage" to Halliwell, the relationship that transformed and destroyed him. Edited with a superb introduction by John Lahr, The Orton Diaries is his crowning achievement.

Turn: The Journal of an Artist


Anne Truitt - 1986
    The second journal of an artist by "an extraordinary woman: sensitive, intelligent, perceptive"--Doris Grumbach.

My Pride and Joy: An Autobiography


George Adamson - 1986
    Now George tells the rest of the story.

Bed Number Ten


Sue Baier - 1986
    BED NUMBER TEN reads like a compelling novel, but is entirely factual.You will meet:The ICU staff who learned to communicate with the paralyzed woman - and those who did not bother.The physicians whose visits left her baffled about her own case.The staff and physicians who spoke to her and others who did not recognize her presence.The nurse who tucked Sue tightly under the covers, unaware that she was soaking with perspiration.The nurse who took the time to feed her drop by drop, as she slowly learned how to swallow again.The physical therapist who could read her eyes and spurred her on to move again as if the battle were his own.In these pages, which reveal the caring, the heroism, and the insensitivity sometimes found in the health care fields, you may even meet people you know.

The Screaming Room: A Mother's Journal of Her Son's Struggle With AIDS--A True Story of Live, Dedication, and Courage


Barbara Peabody - 1986
    Peabody writes with a blunt straightforward style that hits home in our hearts, our minds, and our beliefs. She brings into sharp focus the very personal and real struggles that families, friends, and health care providers of AIDs patients undergo each day. This book is strongly recommended for all laypersons and health care workers for whom the term AIDS has a personal or professional significance. Mark L. Dembert, M.D., Navy Environmental Health Ctr., Norfolk, Va.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Survival of Jan Little


John Man - 1986
    Then Jan was left alone to survive in the dangerous jungle. An inspiring story.

Say Goodnight, Gracie!: The Story of George Burns & Gracie Allen


Cheryl Blythe - 1986
     This book is a comprehensive ‘backstage look’ at the making of this historic TV show – how the writers contrived that delicious misinterpretation of Gracie’s world; the real Gracie and George vs. the characters they play; and an early look at broadcast television - kinescopes, then the coaxial cable – and loaded with George’s comedic wisdom and dialog from the series! The comedy is timeless. The genius behind the show may have been George Burns, who played the "straight man," but the one who got the laughs was Gracie, whose "illogical logic" made the show catch on like wildfire.

To hell and back


Niki Lauda - 1986
    

Low Life: A Kind of Autobiography


Jeffrey Bernard - 1986
    The complete collection of 'the Tony Hancock of journalism' Jeffrey Bernard s first 'Low Life' Spectator series, with all the original illustrations"

Ford: The Men and the Machine


Robert Lacey - 1986
    Now Robert Lacey has captured in one volume the public achievements and the private tragedies, the feuds, affairs, and personalities that make up this epic tale.Ford is above all the story of a handful of powerful individuals whose ambitions have helped shape modern American society:Henry Ford I, the founder, one of history's great figures, whose legendary achievements - the Model T, the moving assembly line, the Five Dollar Day, the Peace Ship - and down-home folk wisdom are recounted in school civics courses. Here for the first time Lacey reveals the extraordinarily complex and contradictory man behind the public icon Henry Ford was at once a dedicated pacifist and a war profiteer; a champion of the rights of minorities and a virulent anti-Semite; a dedicated family man who supported a mistress and an illegitimate son; a loving father who hounded and bullied his only legitimate son intoan early grave.

Peter Cushing An Autobiography and Past Forgetting


Peter Cushing - 1986
    readers the story of a gentle man who became one of the indisputable Kings of HorrorPeter Cushing. Mr. Cushing discusses his childhood, his early acting career in films and on stage, his BBC television work and his renowned years at Hammerall with literary wit and charm. While Mr. Cushing's humor will tickle readers' funny bones, the everlasting love story between Mr. Cushing and his dear wife Helen will touch their hearts.

Dune Boy: The Early Years of a Naturalist


Edwin Way Teale - 1986
    In Dune Boy, first published in 1943, he recounts these buccolic visits and his budding interest in the natural world around him. A loner, often bullied by other children, Teale escaped to the roof of the old house where he gazed at the golden dunes in the distance, and dreamed his own fantastic dreams.The young Teale was fascinated by moths, dragonflies, snakes, and the workings of the farm. He yearned to fly. He tried to hitch a calf to a cart, to ride a pig. He created a "museum" for his collections of arrowheads, stones, and fish skeletons. Most of all, he enjoyed his storytelling, hardworking grandfather, and his book-reading, equally hardworking grandmother. They reveled in and encouraged him. He returned to Lone Oak every summer until he was fifteen, when the old farm house caught fire and burned down.Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Grace Livingston Hill


Robert Munce - 1986
    Born in Wellsville, New York, the day after President Lincoln's death, Grace nearly died during her first hours. She was named for the source of her miraculous survival. Her father was a Presbyterian minister and her mother a published writer. From them, Grace learned the art of storytelling. And at twelve, a close aunt surprised her with a hardbound, illustrated copy of one of her stories and this advice: "This is your first book, and I am your first publisher. But in the future, you must write down your own stories and find a publisher on your own." Little did anyone know then the career that was launched with that gift.

The Young Hemingway


Michael S. Reynolds - 1986
    He reveals the fraught foundations of Hemingway's persona: his father's self-destructive battle with depression and his mother's fierce independence and spiritualism. He brings Hemingway through World War I, where he was frustrated by being too far away from the action and glory, despite his being wounded and nursed to health by Agnes Von Kurowsky—the older woman with whom he fell terribly in love.

Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali (1541-1600)


Cornell H. Fleischer - 1986
    Most modern scholars of the Ottoman period have focused on economic and institutional issues, but this study uses Ali and his works as the basis for analyzing the nature of intellectual and social life in a formative period of the Ottoman Empire.Originally published in 1986.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son


Adam Hochschild - 1986
    The author lyrically evokes his privileged childhood on an Adirondack estate, a colorful uncle who was a pioneer aviator and fighter ace, and his first explorations of the larger world he encountered as he came of age in the tumultuous 1960s. But above all this is a story of a father and his only son and of the unexpected peace finally made between them.

Born to Run


Bruce Springsteen - 1986
    

Woman Of The Boundary Waters: Canoeing, Guiding, Mushing, and Surviving


Justine Kerfoot - 1986
    In 1928, Justine Kerfoot arrived, a Northwestern University graduate headed for medical school until her family lost both their Illinois homes in the stock market crash. Thrust into year-round life at her mother's fledgling summer resort, Justine was confronted with learning survival in the frigid north woods, a challenge she met with extraordinary verve and recounts with great candor and humor in this remarkable book. Kerfoot has paddled all the lakes and streams in this border country, and she knows them well. Her lyrical descriptions of wildlife and seasonal environments express the deep reverence for nature that has become her way of life. In a new afterword, she reflects on the impact of restricted wilderness status on the region - called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness since 1978 - and on her own convictions about people living in the wild.

Dr. Seuss from Then to Now


Mary Stofflet - 1986
    Seuss, here is a compendium of his work--a picture book, a reference book and a biography all in one volume. More than 250 photographs, sketches and drawings.

Bess Truman


Margaret Truman - 1986
     Bess Truman is more than a rare, intimate, and surprising portrait of a famous First Lady who kept her deepest feelings - and considerable influence on President Truman - hidden from public view. It also is the heartwarming story of an enduring love and a remarkable political partnership. Bess Wallace was born in 1885 in Independence, Missouri, into a secure world full of strong ideas. Young Bess was beautiful, popular, and strong-willed and could play third base and swim and ride as well as any boy. Harry Truman was a farmer's son to whom Bess always seemed out of reach. Their courtship was long and arduous, but Harry - as revealed through his endearing letters - was full of humor, gentleness, determination, and undying love that would win Bess over to him. And for sixty-nine years, Harry would be the center of her life. Margaret Truman has been able to draw on her own personal reminiscences and a treasure trove of letters never before published - more than 1,000 from Bess found after her death and several hundred from Harry - to bring her mother and father wonderfully alive. Through their frank, uninhibited correspondence, we get a richly detailed picture of their lifelong love affair and marriage. And through the eyes of the Trumans, we come to know history as they made it. Margaret Truman reveals the strong role her mother played in Harry Truman's important decisions. We are there during Harry's ascent to the Senate, the vice presidency, and after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to the White House itself. And we see history from the inside out as the lives of Harry and Bess evoke the great events of the Truman era - the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the stunning upset of Thomas Dewey, the firing of Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War, the vicious McCarthy hearings, and much more. And we are there during sickness, tragedy, and triumph, as well as the Trumans' final years in Independence. Bess Truman recreates the human drama of an extraordinary woman and a man who became one of America's most beloved presidents.

Conversations with Tennessee Williams


Tennessee Williams - 1986
    Collections of interviews with notable modern writers

Forrest J Ackerman, Famous Monster of Filmland


Forrest J. Ackerman - 1986
    150 pages. I guess you could call this book the "best of" Famous Monsters Magazine

Treasure: The Search for Atocha


Robert Daley - 1986
    a wonderful treat ... adventure in the grand tradition." - The New York Times Treasure is the harrowing story of Mel Fisher's quest for the 600-ton galleon Nuestra Sehora de Atocha. Vice-flagship of King Philip IV of Spain, the Atocha sank off Key West in 1622, taking to the bottom 250,000 silver coins, more than 1,000 silver ingots, 161 pieces of gold bullion, emeralds, and other jewels - forty-seven tons of treasure in all. With incredible persistence, raw courage, and luck, Fisher and his divers searched the reefs and seas surrounding the Keys for clues, fighting storms and sharks. Salvage vessels sank, and four crewmen were killed as Fisher spent years making futile dives and arranging desperate financial deals to continue his search. Mel Fisher, the indomitable optimist, cheered his crew each morning with his mantra, "Today's the day!" Here, from New York Times bestselling author Robert Daley, is his amazing story.

Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman


Judy Taylor - 1986
    This biography takes the reader through her life, from her Victorian childhood in London to her final years farming in the Lake District.

Cambodian Witness: An Autobiography of Someth May


Someth May - 1986
    

The Prodigy: A Biography of William James Sidis, America's Greatest Child Prodigy


Amy Wallace - 1986
    

The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival


Alicia Partnoy - 1986
    Smuggled out and published anonymously, The Little School is Partnoy's memoir of her disappearance and imprisonment.

The Courage to Care: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust


Carol Rittner - 1986
    Jewish survivors of World War II tell the stories of some of the non-Jews who helped them escape the Nazis in France, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, Norway, and Denmark.

Darlinghissima: Letters to a Friend


Janet Flanner - 1986
    Edited and with an Introduction by Natalia Danesi Murray; Index; photographs.

Up the Creek: An Amazon Adventure


John Harrison - 1986
    Harrison's tale is compelling, full of suspense, humor and wonderful descriptions of Amazon wildlife, all told in down-to-earth unpretentious language with disarming honesty. His quest is ambitious, exciting and, ultimately, flawed.

A Pocketful of Goobers: A Story about George Washington Carver


Barbara Mitchell - 1986
    He took the common goober--today's peanut--and created hundreds of useful products from it, turning goobers into a very profitable staple for the South. At the same time, this very special man passed on to everyone who knew him the importance of following one's own dreams.

Full House: The Story of the Anderson Quintuplets


Karen Anderson - 1986
    

Siouxsie and the Banshees Photo Book


Ray Stevenson - 1986
    

Weldon Kees and the Midcentury Generation: Letters, 1935-1955


Weldon Kees - 1986
    What remains is a body of work and a large collection of letters that shed light on Kees’s complex personality. Robert E. Knoll traces the odyssey of a Nebraska boy who made his way in a fiercely competitive national scene, befriending the movers and shakers of the art worlds on both coasts. Kees’s letters—satirical, witty, poetic, gossipy, intensely individual—provide the feel of lives being lived, of a career going forth, and finally, of the darkness that engulfed him when, in Knoll's phrase, he was "ten minutes from triumph."

Red: A Biography of Red Smith


Ira Berkow - 1986
    From Red Smith’s first story for the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1927 to his last column for the New York Times five days before his death in 1982, his inimitable style graced the country’s sports pages for over half a century. Even in his earliest column, his writing showed evidence of the wit, clarity, and eloquence that would become his hallmarks. In 1976 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism.  The people who appear throughout Red comprise a distinguished twentieth-century hall of fame: Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Joe Louis, Ernest Hemingway, Grantland Rice, Ring Lardner, and Damon Runyon. A biography of one of this country’s finest writers, Red is also American history of a rich and lasting sort.

Hilbert-Courant


Constance Bowman Reid - 1986
    I have always felt that they belonged together, Courant being, as I have written, the natural and necessary sequel to Hilbert- the rest of the story. To make the two volumes more compatible when published as one, we have combined and brought up to date the indexes of names and dates. U nfortu- nately we have had to omit Hermann Weyl's article on "David Hilbert and his mathematical work," but the interested reader can always find it in the hard- back edition of Hilbert and in Weyl's collected papers. At the request of a number of readers we have included a listing of all of Hilbert's famous Paris problems. It was, of course, inevitable that we would give the resulting joint volume the title Hilbert-Courant.