Book picks similar to
Supremacist by David Shapiro


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nonfiction
5-tyrant
autofiction

Center of Attention: A True Crime Memoir


Jami D. Brown Martin - 2020
    The photo looks completely out of place on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list where it’s been since December, 8, 2007. For eight of those years, Jason appeared directly beside Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden is long gone, but Jason is still wanted for armed robbery and murder.For years, his sister, Jami D. Brown Martin has watched the true crime programs and read the amateur investigative blogs devoted to Jason, his crime, and the efforts to apprehend him knowing the story wasn’t as simple, nor was it just Jason’s. To be the sister, brother, or relative of one of the world’s most wanted men is to live every day with the horrible truth and many consequences of his brutal act.CENTER OF ATTENTION is the story of a former Mormon missionary turned murderer. It is also a riveting look behind the facade of the genetically blessed, seemingly prominent and pious Brown family of Laguna Beach, California. It is a tale of the family patriarch, John Brown, who disappeared without a trace ten years before his son. More important, it is the gripping and ultimately hopeful story of the sister of one of the world’s most wanted fugitives and her journey to accept that despite being a product of the same crazy environment as her brother, her life and path are her own.

The Secret Diary of a New Mum (aged 43 1/4)


Cari Rosen - 2011
    But how do you cope when, to top it all, you discover you are old enough to be the mother of everyone else in your NCT group? The story of one woman, one new baby, a slipped disc and rather too many wrinkles, The Secret Diary of a New Mum (Aged 43 1/4) follows the tale of a midlife mum as she tries to make the transition from experienced TV producer to utterly inexperienced parent. One in five babies is born to a mum over 35, and the number of over 40s giving birth has doubled. The first humorous narrative account of what it's really like to be a midlife mum - whether it's deftly side-stepping any questions about age and baby number two or weeping as younger counterparts ping back into their size ten jeans within thirty seconds of giving birth - this is the thoroughly entertaining, insightful and often hilarious account of what happens as you face up to menopause and new motherhood at the same time.

Outlasting the Trail: The Story of a Woman's Journey West


Mary Barmeyer O'Brien - 2005
    Trading in her home for canvas roof and wheels, Mary, her husband, and their three children set out on the arduous trek westward to California.Shortly into their travels west, it became painfully obvious that Doctor Powers was simply not up to the task of making sure his family "outlasted the trail." Mary had to step in and become the head of the household with its canvas roof and wheels--leaving behind her ideals of femininity along with her beloved possessions.In Outlasting the Trail author Mary Barymeyer O'Brien uses the letters Mary Rockwood Powers wrote to her mother and sister back home as a stepping off point to further illuminate this remarkable woman's story. Based on the dramatic struggle a real family, this novel brings to life a fascinating slice of American history.

Better Late Than Never: From Barrow Boy to Ballroom


Len Goodman - 2009
    Len Goodman tells all about his new-found fame, his experiences on Strictly Come Dancing, and also on the no.1 US show Dancing with the Stars and his encounters with the likes of Heather Mills-McCartney and John Sergeant. But the real story is in his East End roots. And Len's early life couldn't be more East End. The son of a Bethnal Green costermonger he spent his formative years running the fruit and veg barrow and being bathed at night in the same water Nan used to cook the beetroot. There are echoes of Billy Elliot too. Though Len was a welder in the London Docks, he dreamt of being a professional footballer, and came close to making the grade had he not broken his foot on Hackney Marshes. The doctor recommended ballroom dancing as a light aid to his recovery. And Len, it turned out, was a natural. At first his family and work mates mocked, but soon he had made the final of a national competition and the welders descended en masse to the Albert Hall to cheer him on. With his dance partner, and then wife Cheryl, Len won the British Championships in his late twenties and ballroom dancing became his life. Funny and heart-warming, Len Goodman's autobiography has all the honest East End charm of Tommy Steele, Mike Read or Roberta Taylor.

Literally Show Me a Healthy Person


Darcie Wilder - 2017
    Blurring the lines of the written word, literally show me a healthy person is a portrait of a young girl, or woman, or something; grappling with the immediate and seemingly endless urge to document and describe herself and the world around her. Dealing with the aftermath of her mother's death, her father's neglect, and the chaotic unspoken expectations around her, this novel is a beating heart at the intersection of literature, poetry, and the internet. Darcie Wilder elevates and applies direct pressure, but the wound never stops bleeding.

A Fan's Notes


Frederick Exley - 1968
    This fictional memoir, the first of an autobiographical trilogy, traces a self professed failure's nightmarish decent into the underside of American life and his resurrection to the wisdom that emerges from despair.

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Casebook


Joanne M. Braxton - 1998
    This exciting new series assembles key documents and criticism concerning these works that have so recently become central components of the American literature curriculum. Each casebook will reprint documents relating to the work's historical context and reception, present the best in critical essays, and when possible, feature an interview of the author. The series will provide, for the first time, an accessible forum in which readers can come to a fuller understanding of these contemporary masterpieces and the unique aspects of American ethnic, racial, or cultural experience that they so ably portray.Perhaps more than any other single text, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings helped to establish the mainstream status of the renaissance in black women's writing. This casebook presents a variety of critical approaches to this classic autobiography, along with an exclusive interview with Angelou conducted specially for this volume and a unique drawing of her childhood surroundings in Stamps, Arkansas, drawn by Angelou herself.

William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life: Bookmarked


Steve Almond - 2019
    It tells the story of William Stoner, who attends the state university to study agronomy, but instead falls in love with English literature and becomes an academic. The novel narrates the many disappointments and struggles in Stoner's academic and personal life, including his estrangement from his wife and daughter, set against the backdrop of the first half of the twentieth century.In his entry in the Bookmarked series, author Steve Almond writes about why Stoner has endured, and the manner in which it speaks to the impoverishment of the inner life in America. Almond will also use the book as a launching pad for an investigation of America’s soul, in the process, writing about his own struggles as a student of writing, as a father and husband, and as a man grappling with his own mortality.

No Time for Fear: How a shark attack survivor beat the odds


Paul de Gelder - 2011
    Paul chased adventure wherever he could find it, from his wild ride as a hoodlum teen and his drug-and-alcohol fuelled stint working in a strip club to hauling his way up to the elite echelons of the defence forces.But trouble hunted him down in the form of a brutal shark in February 2009. Paul lost two limbs, and his career as a daredevil navy clearance diver was flung into jeopardy. Drawing on everything his eventful life had taught him, Paul left nothing to chance in his recovery. He fought through excruciating pain, smashing challenge after challenge, and amazing the medical staff with his will to succeed. His inspiring story takes ‘never say die’ to a whole new level.

The Edge of Normal (Kindle Single)


Hana Schank - 2015
    But when her second child is born with albinism, a rare genetic condition whose most striking characteristics are white blonde hair, pale skin and impaired vision, she discovers that the very definition of normal is up for grabs. A moving memoir with flashes of humor, this essay tells one mother’s story of navigating the spectrum of ability and disability, filled with both heartbreak and joy. And how ultimately she and her daughter learn to balance together on the edge of normal. Reviews and Praise THE EDGE OF NORMAL was selected for Amazon's Best Kindle Singles of the Year, and has been featured in the SundayTimes Magazine (UK), Longreads, and OZY. About the Author Hana Schank is an author and a technology consultant. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Atlantic.com, and her writing has appeared across the web and in national magazines. Her memoir, A More Perfect Union: How I Survived the Happiest Day of My Life, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection.

Get Divorced, Be Happy: How becoming single turned out to be my happily ever after


Helen Thorn - 2021
    Helen shares her own roller coaster journey from the initial shock of a surprise separation, the messy months hanging out in her PJs through to the highs of rediscovering online dating, tiny pants, rock-solid female friendships and the glorious joy of just being by herself.With the help of relationship experts and an army of women "who know", Get Divorced, Be Happy will show you that going it alone isn't the end, it is just the beginning, and you will come out the other side, stronger, happier and goddamn sassier than ever before.

OK


Victor "Kool AD" Vazquez - 2016
    aka Victor Vazquez’s debut novel "O.K." Written in as many languages as drugs it lists consumed (we’re counting idiolects, and music as a drug), "O.K." is a book of changes, as in flow, the Way, a contemporary perennial philosophy, starring Sun Ra, Bill Burroughs, 2Pac, you name It (knowing literary spirits)

Untitled


Blaine Hogan - 2011
    The blank page.It has so much power.Some days it's terrifying, sometimes thrilling, but mostly it's just plain old scary.It is the reason many people never finish that novel, or complete that project, or follow through with that one thing they used to dream about.Sadly, it is the reason many people never even begin.Blaine Hogan's manifesto, UNTITLED: Thoughts on the Creative Process is here to change all that.As an artist who has designed t-shirts, made light fixtures, created performance art in alleyways, performed on big and small stages all across the country, acted on network television, and is now a creative director at one of the largest churches in North America, Blaine walks you through the creative process of attacking the blank page, executing vision, finding the importance of contemplation, fighting the battle with resistance, and learning from your failures.Blank pages be gone!Read UNTITLED and get ready to fill those suckers with good and meaningful work.

The Complete Elizabeth Gilbert


Elizabeth Gilbert - 2010
    In Rome, she indulges herself and gains nearly two stone. In India, she finds enlightenment through scrubbing temple floors. Finally, in Bali a toothless medicine man reveals a new path to peace, leaving her ready to find love again. Despite vowing in EAT PRAY LOVE never to go near marriage again, in COMMITTED we find Gilbert about to wed the man she fell in love with at the end of EAT, PRAY, LOVE. Once again approaching with this most ancient of institutions, with wit and intelligence Gilbert explores marriage on a personal & global level to discover what it really means. In THE LAST AMERICAN MAN, Gilbert presents a fascinating, intimate portrait of the American naturalist and brilliant modern hero Eustace Conway, who at the age of seventeen ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape into the wild. Attempting to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature, Conway stops at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder adventures. In Gilbert's first novel STERN MEN, the eighteen-year-old irredeemably unromantic Ruth Thomas returns home from boarding school determined to join the 'stern-men'. Throwing her education overboard, this feisty and unforgettable American heroine helps work the lobster boats and brushes up on her profanity, eventually falling for a handsome young lobsterman. In PILGRIMS, Gilbert's sharply drawn and tenderly observed collection of twelve short stories, tough heroes and heroines, hardened by their experiences, struggle for their epiphanies and seek companionship as fiercely as they can.

Confessions of a Bangkok Private Eye: True stories from the case files of Warren Olson


Stephen Leather - 2006
    Fluent in Thai and Khmer, Olson walked the mean streets of Bangkok and was able to go where other Private Eyes feared to tread. The stories are based on Olson's case files, fictionalized (to protect the innocent, and the guilty) by bestselling author Stephen Leather.