Best of
Biography-Memoir

1990

Agatha Christie


Gillian Gill - 1990
    Her books have been translated into every major language, and her two most favorite creations, Detective Poirot and Miss Marple, independently solved dozens of murders since Poirot first appeared in 1920. Unlike today's more promotional authors, Christie was very private. Thus this book's gift is to take us behind the scenes. We get to know Christie's intimate world. We share her hopes and fears over a long life, and emerge with a better understanding of what made her so remarkable. "Agatha Christie did more than just write detective fiction. She was a novelist, and that is what will keep her books alive." --A.L. Rowse

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

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton


Edward Rice - 1990
    Reprint.

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.

George Whitefield


Arnold A. Dallimore - 1990
    Even during his lifetime Whitefield was considered "the most brilliant and popular preacher the modern world has ever known." In the wake of his fearless preaching, revival swept across the British Isles, and the Great Awakening transformed the American colonies.When Whitefield died at age 55, he had preached 30,000 sermons. His hearers included not only the poor and the uneducated, but prominent English aristocrats and American statesmen such as David Hume and Benjamin Franklin.Christians today continue to take courage from Whitefield's humility and deep spirituality. A founder of Methodism, he yielded his leadership to John Wesley rather than risk splitting the movement, thus revealing his fervent commitment to the gospel of Christ rather than to personal plans or hopes.The previous two-volume work, receiving critical praise and popular acceptance, is here condensed into one magnificent volume. A great inspiration to the followers of Jesus Christ in today's pressured world."Perhaps the single most inspiring biography published in English in the 20th century. A masterful work." --Sherwood Eliot Wirt, founding editor, Decision magazine"I feel a permanent debt of gratitude to Dr. Dallimore. His wonderful two-volume study of Whitefield is one of the great biographies of the Christian Church. I share his hope that many more Christians will find this shorter version as enjoyable and stimulating!" --Sinclair B. Ferguson, Westminster Theological Seminary"This condensation of the author's classic two-volume edition contains 23 fast-moving chapters of highly interesting material. A powerful rendering of a life wholly consecrated to God." --G.A. Adams, Principal, Toronto Baptist Seminary

Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustration


James Hamilton - 1990
    Rackham's illustrations for such works as Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and Rip Van Winkle have attained the classic status of the writings themselves—and indeed, in some cases, they have become synonymous with them. His works were also included in numerous exhibitions in his lifetime, including one at the Louvre in Paris in 1914. Rackham himself, however, has previously remained a shadowy figure. As well as featuring exquisite illustrations and sketches, extracts from Rackham's correspondence and insightful commentary shed new light on this much-collected illustrator.

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 Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age


Christopher Hibbert - 1990
    The era that bears her name was one of the most exciting and dazzling in England's history. Christopher Hibbert's masterful biography introduces a new generation of readers, aware of the challenges women face in wielding power, to perhaps history's greatest monarch.

Kathryn Kuhlman: A Spiritual Biography of God’s Miracle Worker


Roberts Liardon - 1990
    In this study of a miraculous healing ministry that spanned a half a century you will:Read about the countless thousands who were healed in her presence--often without her ever laying a hand on them.Learn all about her vitality and victory, her tragedies and triumphs, and how she used them all to draw her ever closer to Jesus.Find out how she was able to allow the Holy Spirit to become her best Friend and greatest Teacher--and how you can, too.

The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists


Irene Taylor - 1990
    

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.

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration, with a Complete Filmography of Their Films Together


Gregory William Mank - 1990
    Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff starred in dozens of black-and-white horror films, and over the years managed to collaborate on and co-star in eight movies. Through dozens of interviews and extensive archival research, this greatly expanded new edition examines the Golden Age of Hollywood, the era in which both stars worked, recreates the shooting of Lugosi and Karloff's mutual films, examines their odd and moving personal relationship and analyzes their ongoing legacies. Features include a fully detailed filmography of the eight Karloff and Lugosi films, full summaries of both men's careers and more than 250 photographs, some in color.

Dickens


Peter Ackroyd - 1990
    Detailed and definitive, this profile of the Victorian writer explores the private life of the complicated, insecure, and wildly ambitious man who became the best-known author of his day.

Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy


Harry Shapiro - 1990
    To commemorate this event, the authors have revised and updated over 200 pages of Electric Gypsy, the record of Hendrix's legacy as the music world's most talented guitarist.

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

Simone de Beauvoir: A Biography


Deirdre Bair - 1990
    Bair penetrates the mystique of this brilliant and often paradoxical woman, who has been called one of the great minds of the 20th century, and surely, one of the most famously unconventional figures of her generation. "As a reference work . . . Simone de Beauvoir can be considered definitive."--The Atlantic. 16-page photographic insert.

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.

John Steinbeck, Writer


Jackson J. Benson - 1990
    Jackson J. Benson's definitive biography explores every aspect of the author's life-his campaigns for the rights of the little people; his stand on the Vietnam War; his Hollywood film scripts; and his ongoing difficulties with fame, the press, and lack of privacy-to reveal the private man behind the public persona.* Winner of the PEN-USA West award for non-fictionAuthor Bio: Jackson J. Benson has published nine books on modern American literature, including Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work, which won the David Woolley and Beatrice Cannon Evans Biography award presented by Utah State University.

Puerto Rico Mio: Four Decades of Change, in Photographs by Jack Delano


Jack Delano - 1990
    Puerto Rico Mio is an extraordinary collection from two series of photographs: the first taken when Delano first went to Puerto Rico with the Farm Security Administration in 1941-42 and the second when he rephotographed those same places in the 1980s.

Monet


Mike Venezia - 1990
    Clever illustrations and story lines, together with full-color reproductions of actual paintings, give children a light yet realistic overview of each artist's life and style in these fun and educational books.

Photographing Montana 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron


Donna M. Lucey - 1990
    Her vivid images convey the lonely strength of pioneers and the slow growth of Terry, Montana.

Beyond Survival


Gerald Coffee - 1990
    Here he narrates his own shocking story of what really happened in the prisons of North Vietnam.

From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences


Elie Wiesel - 1990
    Included are Wiesel's landmark speeches, among them his powerful testimony at the trial of Klaus Barbie and his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia: New Martyr of the Communist Yoke


Lyubov Miller - 1990
    A strikingly beautiful granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Grand Duchess Elizabeth married Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich, governor of Moscow and uncle to Tsar Nicholas II. Her life in Imperial Russia began in a whirlwind of dazzling social engagements, a world soon eclipsed by war, the assassination of her husband and the gathering storm of revolution. Consciously adopting the Orthodox Faith, she thoroughly dedicated herself to fulfilling the Great Commandment of Love nursing the sick, rescuing children from Moscow's slums, establishing the Martha-Mary Convent of Mercy-and thereby attained sanctity even before receiving a martyr's crown.

Quiet Odyssey


Mary Paik Lee - 1990
    Her father labored in the sugar plantations of Hawaii for a year and a half before taking his family to California, where Mrs. Lee has lived ever since. Though her father knew the comforts enjoyed by the educated traditional elite in Korea, after emigration he and his family shared the poverty stricken existence endured by thousands of Asian immigrants in early twentieth century America. Mrs. Lee's parents earned their living as farm laborers, tenant farmers, cooks, and janitors, and the family always took in laundry. Her father tried mercury mining until his health gave out. In their turn, Mrs. Lee and her husband farmed, sold produce, and managed apartment buildings.The author is engagingly outspoken and is extremely observant of her social and natural surroundings. Recounted incidents take on memorable life, as do the sharply etched settings of California's agricultural and mining country. She tells of singular hardship surmounted with resilience and characteristic grace. During much of her life Asian Americans were not treated as full human beings, yet she kept a powerful vision of what the United States could be.

Here at Eagle Pond


Donald Hall - 1990
    In these tender essays, Hall tells of the joys and quiddities of life in the ancestral New Hampshire place formerly worked as a dairy farm by his grandparents; of the comforts and discomforts of a world in which the year has four seasons -- maple sugar, blackfly, Red Sox, and winter. These essays are also Donald Hall's letters to friends, answers to such life-altering questions as: "What would our lives be like, living here at Eagle Pond, in solitude among relics and memories, in a countryside of birches and GMC pickups?" And they are ghost stories as well: vivid descriptions of Hall's intimate connection with the land and with his family past. Most importantly, HERE AT EAGLE POND is Donald Hall's coming home to language.

Almost Like a Song


Ronnie Milsap - 1990
    Now one of the hottest country crossover singers in the nation with six Grammys, 15 million records sold, and 34 number-one hits (more than Elvis Presley), Milsap's early life was a different story. 16 pages of photographs. National tour.

Norma Shearer


Gavin Lambert - 1990
    Illustrated.

Van Gogh: His Life and His Art


David Sweetman - 1990
    An engrossing account of his life, his art, and the world in which he lived, this compelling and timely portrait is illustrated with color reproductions". . . . fleshes out the man and the painter behind the popular myth".--New York Times. A New York Times Notable Book for 1990. National

The Beatles: A Private View


Robert Freeman - 1990
    Paul McCartney

Cheerful Sacrifice: The Battle of Arras 1917


Jonathan Nicholls - 1990
    Probably because the noise had hardly died down before it started up again with the explosions at Messines, shortly to be followed by the even more horrible Third Ypres - remembered as Passchendaele - the Battle of Arras has not received the attention it deserves. Yet, as the author points out, on the basis of the daily casualty rate it was the most lethal and costly British offensive battle of the First World War. In the thirty-nine days that the battle lasted the average casualty rate was far higher than at either the Somme or Passchendaele. Jonathan Nicholls, in this his first book, gives the Battle of Arras its proper place in the annals of military history, enhancing his text with a wealth of eye-witness accounts. One is left in no doubt that the survivor who described it as 'the most savage infantry battle of the war', did not exaggerate. Nor can there be much doubt that the author is destined to rise high in the firmament of military historians.

How I Became Hettie Jones


Hettie Jones - 1990
    Among them was Hettie Cohen, who'd been born into a middle-class Jewish family in Queens and who'd chosen to cross racial barriers to marry the controversial black poet LeRoi Jones. Theirs was a bohemian life in the awakening East Village of underground publishing and jazz lofts, through which drifted such icons of the generation as Allen Ginsberg, Thelonious Monk, Jack Kerouac, Frank O'Hara, Billie Holiday, James Baldwin, and Franz Kline.

Our Story: New Kids on the Block


Grace Catalano - 1990
    Members of the popular musical group discuss their childhoods, the group's formation, performing, touring, making records, and their views on personal issues.

Get to the Heart: My Story


Barbara Mandrell - 1990
    A multifaceted performer whose music strikes a chord of truth. A loving wife and mother whose traditional values and tremendous faith touch the heart. But in September 1984 fate placed Barbara Mandrell and two of her children on a Tennessee highway, where a car crossed two lanes of traffic to hit her car head-on...and Barbara Mandrell and her story book life were changed forever.Here, for the first time, the spirited star who made her professional debut at age eleven who performed with country legends such as Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash, and who was chosen Entertainer of the Year two years running, shares her memories of the accident and her long, painful journey back. This is a chronicle of her remarkable rise to fame, a tribute to the extraordinary family who protected and sustained her. But most of all this is Barbara's own triumphant story of hard-won survival.Get To The Heart

North of the Sun: A Memoir of the Alaskan Wilderness


Fred Hatfield - 1990
    

The Helen Keller Story


Catherine Owens Peare - 1990
    A biography of the blind and deaf woman who rose above her physical disabilities to international renown and who helped other handicapped persons live fuller lives.

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.

When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions


Sue Monk Kidd - 1990
    That was the moment... I understood. Really understood. Crisis, change, all the myriad upheavals that blister the spirit and leave us groping– they aren't voices simply of pain but also of creativity. And if we would only listen, we might hear such times beckoning us to a season of waiting, to the place of fertile emptiness.Blending her own experiences with an intimate grasp of contemplative spirituality, Sue Monk Kidd relates the passionate and moving tale of her spiritual crisis at midlife, when life seemed to have lost meaning and how her longing for hasty escape from the pain yielded to a discipline of "active waiting." Comparing her experience to the formative processes inside a chrysalis on a wintry tree branch, Kidd reflects on the fact that the soul is often symbolized as a butterfly. The simple cocoon, a living parable of waiting, becomes an icon of hope for the transformation that the author sought. Kidd charts her re–ascent from the depths and offers a new understanding of the passage away from the self, which is based upon others' expectations, to the true self of God's unfolding intention. Her wise, inspiring book helps those in doubt and crisis recognize the opportunity to "dismantle old masks and patterns and unfold a deeper, more authentic self."

How Dark the Heavens: 1400 Days in the Grip of Nazi Terror


Sidney Iwens - 1990
    The night before, he had been at a dance, enjoying himself with the other Jewish boys of his small Lithuanian city. Now he stoodwatching a dogfight between two distant planes. Tomorrow he would be fleeing for his life -- a flight that would last for nearly four terror-filled years.Lithuania, Latvia, and White Russia, directly in the path of the invading Germans, fell into the murderous clutches of the first SS Einsatzgruppen, the Special Action Groups whose only mission was to kill Jews. In four months, aided by virulent anti-Semitic Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and other native peoples, they shot 250,000 Baltic Jews. And that was just for starters. Sidney himself, herded together with other boys and young men in a city prison,reached the very gates of the killing ground, only to be reprieved temporarily -- because the SS had run out of ditches.Thereafter, his life became a patchwork of hiding, pretending to be a skilled workman (and thus worth the Germans' while to preserve for a time), fleeing to the partisans, returning to the ghetto, and finally being shipped west to Dachau.Sidney tells his story in diary form, reconstructed from memory of the diary he actually kept during the Holocaust years. he tells of his bittersweet romance in the shadow of betrayal and death, of the horrendous experiences of his friendsand fellow survivors, of having every hand against Jews, even fellow enemies ofthe Nazis, of the occasional acts of generosity -- usually from the most unpredictable source, German soldiers themselves -- of his slow starvation and final rescue (like his first) at the gates of death.This vivid and dramatic story of a Holocaust survivor is in a class by itself -- a day-by-day recounting of murder, heroism, stoic endurance, good luck, bad luck, love, intrigue, and humanity.

Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy


John McCabe - 1990
    Oliver “Babe” Hardy had been destined for a legal career, but he was obsessed with the motion picture industry and eventually moved to Hollywood. By the mid-1920s, he was working as an all-purpose comic at the legendary Hal Roach studio. Laurel and Hardy’s partnership with the pioneer filmmaker and producer began in 1926. Within a year of their first appearance, they were being touted as the new comedy duo. After collaborating on a number of silent pictures, they seamlessly made the transition to talking films, building a reputation for a warm, charismatic, casual style of comedy. But Hardy’s life was not all laughter and fun. His performances were overshadowed by a depressing paradox: although he despised being overweight, his comic identity depended on it. In Babe: The Life of Oliver Hardy, John McCabe looks at the public triumphs and personal tribulations of this celebrated comic actor.

Kovacsland: Biography Of Ernie Kovacs


Diana Rico - 1990
    Kovacsland is an engrossing and entertaining portrait of a television pioneer. Index; photographs.

A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-Film King


David F. Friedman - 1990
    Friedman, the emperor of exploitation films. He perfected the fine art of sleaze & delightfully admits that he has hurled more garbage at the public than anyone else before or since. This book is as much his story as it's the history of an idea that in recent times has enjoyed a remarkable rebirth. He writes with gusto of the glory days when there were taboos to be broken & untold amounts of money to be made. He fondly remembers his cinematic forebears, who sold titillation under the guise of moral instruction. He brought the genre to new highs & lows, producing such films as She Freak, Blood Feast, The Defilers, Scum of the Earth, Space Thing, Color Me Blood Red & the classic 2000 Maniacs. Whether sexy, gory or merely shocking, these films played for years to packed theatres & drive-ins. This book captures the core of basic integrity, the wicked sense of humor & the unerring sense of showmanship of this American original. A Youth in Babylon is the definitive book on the history of American exploitation films & a unique contribution to motion picture history.

In the Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti


Jean-Bertrand Aristide - 1990
    The former president of Haiti's writings and sermons on the harsh reality and stubborn hope of the people of Haiti.

Lucius D. Clay: An American Life


Jean Edward Smith - 1990
    Clay played a pivotal role in three epochal events of the 20th century: the rescue of America from the Depression, the mobilization of America for World War II and--his crowning achievement--the rehabilitation of West Germany. . . . Thoroughly researched . . . the book leaves you gasping in admiration.--Washington Post Book World.

O My Land, My Friends: The Selected Letters


Langdon Hammer - 1990
    This edition features over three hundred letters, selected to best illustrate the complexity and textures of Hart Crane's turbulent life –– from family pressures, to his creative ambition, to his homosexuality.

My World Is an Island


Elisabeth Ogilvie - 1990
    A memoir of the well-loved writer's life on a Maine island, this updated edition offers a moving, humorous account of adjustment to a way of life that has sustained Ogilvie through the creation of 42 popular novels.

The Soul of Indiscretion: Tom Driberg, poet, philanderer, legislator and outlaw – His Life and Indiscretions


Francis Wheen - 1990
    Coloured friends from the AntiguasArtistic friends, a few of whom Friends ordained and friends unfrocked,Are rather keen to kiss the groom. Friends who leave us slightly shocked,Friends from Oxford, friends from pubs, All determined not to missAnd even friends from Wormwood scrubs. So rare a spectacle as this!

A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë


Katherine Frank - 1990
    Now Frank presents a startling new interpretation: pledged to self-denial and social isolation, Emily starved herself, contributing to her wild imagination. 16-page insert.

Tales of the Weirrd


Ralph Steadman - 1990
    To be truly weird demands character and wanton disregard for the social mores of the day.Unleashed in Tales of the Weirrd is Ralph Steadman's fantastic interpretations and biographies of nineteenth century grotesques, oddities, imposters and eccentrics. The book is a hilarious catalog of nature's freakish humor and, in the best Victorian tradition, it instructs as well as entertains. This crazy collection of dwarfs, and gluttons, wits and water-spouters includes:Charles Charlesworth, who grew a beard at age four and died of old age at the age of seven Old Boots, who could hold a piece of money between his nose and chin Barbara Urselin, the hairy-faced woman Henry Lemoine, an eccentric bookseller Guillaume de Nittis, who tried to eat himself Fakir Agastiya, who kept his arm in the air for ten years Neville Vadio, the blind caricaturist, who was claimed by many to be a better draughtsman than Rembrandt. Tales of the Weirrd is an extraordinary celebration of the bizarre brought to life by the astonishing energy, imagination and power of Ralph Steadman's pen.

Letters to Freya: 1939-1945


Helmuth James von Moltke - 1990
    Throughout the war, he fought through the labyrinthine insanity of wartime bureaucracy on behalf of Jews and foreign prisoners and organized a clandestine resistance to the Nazi regime.From 1939 to the eve of his execution from treason in 1945, von Moltke wrote letters to his wife, Freya. Gathered here, these letters transcend their format to create at once a horrifying record of the daily workings of the Third Reich and an inspiring testament to the powers of love, courage, and conscience in the most conscienceless of times."Remarkable . . . A unique historical document, a morality tale, a love story, all set within the very heart of the Third Reich and, in a real sense, in the soul of a man of conscience."--Los Angeles Times Book Review"The words of this extraordinary patriot and humanitarian echo with astonishing relevance [and] stand on their own as testament to the impact for good a courageous individual can still exert."--Chicago Sun-Times"One of the great books of the twentieth century, [telling] a story of human failure, of overwhelming odds, of patience, and of grace."--Christian Science Monitor

A Lot to Ask: The Life of Barbara Pym


Hazel Holt - 1990
    Enriched by the novelist's private papers, it is a sharp, clear, sensitive portrait of a woman whose work won critical acclaim and international attention. 8-page photo insert.

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.

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.

Abbess Thaisia of Leushino: An Autobiography of a Spiritual Daughter of St. John of Kronstadt (Modern Matericon Series)


Thaisia - 1990
    Her autobiography is the product of a quick mind and a deeply feeling heart inclined to the mystical life. Accessible to readers on any level, it is thoroughly engrossing and brings one right into the author’s world. She opens herself up as an ordinary person with normal feelings, and by her testimony she shows us that communion with the Divine Source of life is attainable by all. In her we see how patristic wisdom can be applied in order to lead one out of two-dimensional worldly reality and into a transcendent sphere. Illustrated with rare pictures from Abbess Thaisia’s time which help express the essence of the text, this volume also contains selections from her poetry and a complete translation of her book "Conversations with St. John of Kronstadt".

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".

Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual, Edited by Robert Hill


Robert Hill - 1990
    This title features a dialogue held in Amherst, MA where Rodney discussed his own political and intellectual development, and exchanged views on the role of the black intellectual.

Lost Souls of the River Kwai: Experiences of a British Soldier on the Railway of Death


Bill Reed - 1990
    Unlike so many (it is said that one Commonwealth POW died for every sleeper laid) Bill lived to tell the tale. Indeed it is remarkable that this story has not been told before, so graphic are Bill's memories of the hardships and horrors. The book goes on to describe how the experiences of those years have affected his life since.

Vincent and Theo Van Gogh: A Dual Biography


Jan Hulsker - 1990
    

California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party


Dorothy Ray Healey - 1990
    As a strike leader, opponent of McCarthyism, Vietnam war protestor, candidate for public office, and mentor to Angela Davis, she won fame as "a tough lady red," one of the few women to rise to Communist party leadership.

James Dean: Behind the Scene


Leith Adams - 1990
    Hundreds of photographs taken on the sets of 'East of Eden', 'Rebel Without a Cause', and 'Giant', as well as frame enlargements from the films make up a collage of his screen and private personalities.

Blue Thunder: How the Mafia Owned and Finally Murdered Cigarette Boat King Donald Aronow


Thomas Burdick - 1990
    Here, told with the urgency of ndwsbreaking copy, is the true story of his life and death--a story of fast boats, fast women, drug running, and a host of America's famous. 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

Rachmaninoff: Composer, Pianist, Conductor


Barrie Martyn - 1990
    After surveying his place in Russian musical history and his creative activity, the author examines, with musical examples, each working chronological order against the background of the composer's life. Among the the many subjects upon which new light is shed are the operas, the songs, and the religious music. Rachmaninoff's remarkable career as a pianist, his style of playing and repertoire are analysed along with his historically important contribution to the gramophone and his work for the reproducing piano. The book includes a survey of his activity as a conductor. There are extensive references to Russian sources and the first appearance of a complete Rachmaninoff disconography is included. This book is the only comprehensive study in any language of the three aspects of Rachmaninoff's musical career and is a stimulating read for music lovers everywhere.

Esther


Susan Martins Miller - 1990
    The problem: No one knows she is Jewish! Here is a nonstop story of faith and loyalty despite the overwhelming evil of persecution.

Back Where I Came From


A.J. Liebling - 1990
    With wry wit and knowing affection, Liebling describes a host of colorful metropolitan characters, including the mayor of Mulberry Street, a professional faster who weighs 260 pounds, and more.

The Ink of Melancholy: Faulkner's Novels from the Sound and the Fury to Light in August


André Bleikasten - 1990
    It is the four children of this miracle that Andre Bleikasten re-examines and re-evaluates in his substantial new book on Faulkner. But rather than approach Faulkner's fiction from a priori theoretical assumptions and process it through some prefabricated grid, he has concentrated on the text themselves: on the motivations and circumstances of their composition, on the rich array of their themes, structures, textures, on their various narrative protocols and the endless interplay of their tropes and codes, on their points of emphasis and repetition as well as their rifts and gaps.Brilliant in its thought and argument, drawing eclectically on the resources of philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, and other disciplines, and using modern critical theory without ever being arcane or trendy, Bleikasten's book is a highly personal performance and one of the most insightful and stimulating studies that Faulkner has received.