Best of
Memoir

1975

The Periodic Table


Primo Levi - 1975
    It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain, and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement.

The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People


Ben Logan - 1975
    Ben Logan grew up on Seldom Seen Farm with his three brothers, father, mother, and hired hand Lyle—“the fifth Logan boy.” The boys discussed and argued and joked over the events around their farm, marked the seasons by the demands of the land, tested each other and themselves, and grew up learning timeless lessons. This paperback edition features Logan's never-before-published afterword that traces the Logan land to an earlier time, bringing the story full circle to the farm and its people.

Woodswoman I: Living Alone in the Adirondack Wilderness


Anne LaBastille - 1975
    Here is the unusual story of a young wildlife ecologist who has done just that. When her marriage ended in divorce, Anne LaBastille bought twenty-two acres of virgin forest on a lonely lake in New York State's vast Adirondack Park, and there built the log cabin that has been her home ever since.

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters


John Steinbeck - 1975
    Opening with letters written during Steinbeck's early years in California, and closing with a 1968 note written in Sag Harbor, New York, Steinbeck: A Life in Letters reveals the inner thoughts and rough character of this American author as nothing else has and as nothing else ever will.

Bring on the Empty Horses


David Niven - 1975
    He recounts stories and anecdotes of the stars, producers, directors, tycoons and oddballs, many of whom were his friends.

All the Strange Hours: The Excavation of a Life


Loren Eiseley - 1975
    It was in pursuit of this interest, and in the expression of his natural curiosity and wonder, that Eiseley sprang to national fame with the publication of such works as The Immense Journey and The Firmament of Time. In All the Strange Hours, Eiseley turns his considerable powers of reflection and discovery on his own life to weave a compelling story, related with the modesty, grace, and keen eye for a telling anecdote that distinguish his work. His story begins with his childhood experiences as a sickly afterthought, weighed down by the loveless union of his parents. From there he traces the odyssey that led to his search for early postglacial man—and into inspiriting philosophical territory—culminating in his uneasy achievement of world renown. Eiseley crafts an absorbing self-portrait of a man who has thought deeply about his place in society as well as humanity’s place in the natural world.

Loving Natalee: A Mother's Testament of Hope and Faith


Beth Holloway - 1975
     In May of 2005, Beth Holloway received the worst phone call a parent can imagine. Her beautiful daughter, Natalee, had disappeared without a trace in Aruba during her high school senior class trip. Two years later, for the first time, Beth Holloway steps forward in this astonishingly candid and inspirational memoir to tell of her harrowing ordeal and her never-ending belief in the power of faith that gave her hope against all odds. Natalee's senior class picture was splashed across the front pages of the country's newspapers and on television. Desperate for a clue as to her daughter's whereabouts, Beth and an army of faithful volunteers searched tirelessly for the missing eighteen-year-old. In their pursuit of Natalee, they encountered many roadblocks. As the horror stretched out, Beth stood on her foundation of faith, which at times was all she had to give her strength against a barrage of unbearable questions with no answers. Natalee's disappearance remains unsolved and her location unknown to this day. Beth's search continues.

Shantung Compound


Langdon Gilkey - 1975
    This vivid diary of life in a Japanese internment camp during World War II examines the moral challenges encountered in conditions of confinement and deprivation.

Roland Barthes


Roland Barthes - 1975
    "Barthes par Barthes is a genuinely post-modern autobiography, an innovation in the art of autobiography comparable in its theoretical implications for our understanding of autobiography to Sartre's The Words."--Hayden White, University of California

Journey


Robert K. Massie - 1975
    Journey is Robert and Suzanne Massie's memoir of raising their hemophiliac son in the 1950's, and the significant differences they found between the American and French healthcare systems.

A False Spring


Pat Jordan - 1975
    When the reader meets Jordan, he is a hard-throwing pitcher with seemingly limitless potential, one of the first “bonus babies” for the Milwaukee Braves organization. Jordan’s sojourn through the lower levels of minor-league ball takes him through the small towns of America: McCook, Waycross, Davenport, Eau Claire, and Palatka. As the promised land of the majors recedes because of his inconsistency and lack of control, the young man who had previously known only glory and success is forced to face himself.

The Jim Corbett Omnibus (Volume 2)


Jim Corbett - 1975
    Written in Corbett’s clear, simple style and enlivened by his descriptions of jungle sights and sounds and village life, this is a must-read for those interested in wildlife and tiger tales.

Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General Frantisek Moravec


František Moravec - 1975
    

Paracuellos, Volume 1


Carlos Giménez - 1975
    Paracuellos is a work of great courage, created at a time when telling the truth about Spain's political past could get one killed. It is arguably the most important graphic memoir ever created in comics. Carlos Gimenez s autobiographical account of the plight of children in post-World War II Fascist Spain has won virtually every comics award in Europe, including Best Album at the 1981 Angouleme Festival, and the Heritage Award atAngouleme in 2010. In the late 1930s when Spanish fascists led by Franco, and aided by Hitler and Mussolini, overthrew the elected government, almost 200,000 men and women fell in battle, were executed, or died in prison. Their orphaned children and others ripped from the homes of the defeated were shuttled from Church-run home to home and fed a steady diet of torture and disinformation by a totalitarian state bent on making them productive citizens. Carlos Gimenez was one of those children. In 1975, after Franco s death, Carlos began to tell his story. Breaking the code of silence proved to be a milestone, both for the comics medium and for a country coming to terms with its past. An illustrated essay by Carmen Moreno-Nuno, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky, places the comics in historical perspective. The stories transcend just being about a historical moment in Spain. Their humanity will speak to everyone. The stories are heartbreakers, but Carlos never loses his sense of humor. William Stout"

Call of the Great Master


Daryai Lal Kapur - 1975
    

Honorary White


E.R. Braithwaite - 1975
    R. Braithwaite ("To Sir, With Love") chronicles the brutality, oppression, and courage he witnessed as a black man granted "Honorary White" status during a six-week visit to apartheid South AfricaAs a black man living in a white-dominated world, author E. R. Braithwaite was painfully aware of the multitude of injustices suffered by people of color and he wrote powerfully and poignantly about racial discrimination in his acclaimed novels and nonfiction works. So it came as a complete surprise when, in 1973, the longstanding ban on his books was lifted by the South African government, a ruling body of minority whites that brutally oppressed the black majority through apartheid laws. Applying for a visa--and secretly hoping to be refused--he was granted the official status of "Honorary White" for the length of his stay. As such, Braithwaite would be afforded some of the freedoms that South Africa's black population was denied, yet would nonetheless be considered inferior by the white establishment.With "Honorary White," Braithwaite bears witness to a dark and troubling time, relating with grave honesty and power the shocking abuses, inequities, and horrors he observed and experienced firsthand during his six-week stay in a criminal nation. His book is a personal testament to the savagery of apartheid and to the courage of those who refused to be broken by it.

And the Children Played


Patricia Joudry - 1975
    

Two of the Missing: Remembering Sean Flynn and Dana Stone


Perry Deane Young - 1975
    Their friend and fellow journalist, Perry Deane Young, tells their story here in a remarkable memoir first published in 1975. This new Press 53 Classics edition features photos by Flynn, Stone, their friends Tim Page, Nik Wheeler, and others, including a new chapter with updates on the lives of those involved and the ongoing search for two of the missing.

Backstage At The Strips


Mort Walker - 1975
    Besides just being a source of entertainment, they comment on our lives, they contain philosophy and political comment and often help children learn to read. They are a wonderful way to study history.”—Mort WalkerBackstage at the Strips is a compilation of Walker's obvious passion for this truly American art form and the business that runs it. He invites us in to show us the process and the history behind it. We also get to meet the funny people that draw the comics we dearly love to read, the fans that make them so popular and man that gives us this delightful glimpse.

On Eagles' Wings: The personal story of the leading commander of the Israeli Air Force


Ezer Weizman - 1975
    

Stranger at the Party: A Memoir


Helen Lawrenson - 1975
    

Musical Stages: An Autobiography


Richard Rodgers - 1975
    The ensuing years of toil and disappointment nearly convinced the young composer to abandon the theater for the security of a salesman's job in the clothing industry, but the overnight success of The Garrick Gaieties in 1925 determined his career. Ultimately, Rodgers wrote the scores for over forty Broadway musicals and collaborated with two of the world's greatest lyricists, the brilliantly talented but tormented Hart, and the sturdier but equally inspired Oscar Hammerstein II. These partnerships contributed a tremendous legacy to the musical theater, including Babes in Arms, On Your Toes, Pal Joey, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music . Musical Stages is more than the inside story behind Rodgers's prodigious successes; it is an honest, astute meditation on the influences and people who encouraged him. Filled with revealing glimpses of celebrities and packed with Broadway and Hollywood anecdotes, it also contains fascinating passages on the art of lyric writing and composing, and insights into the troubles and triumphs of collaboration. Through his songs Richard Rodgers has given pleasure to millions of people; Musical Stages is one more gift in that tradition.