Shadow of My Father


John Gotti - 2015
    But now in "Shadow of My Father," the real story of the King of the Volcano is revealed for the first time. John A. Gotti, who survived four trials and a parole violation hearing, in four years, without a guilty verdict, now takes up his pen to tell the story of his father’s unwavering dedication to the street, and how, as his son, he entered that life, and then, with his father’s permission, left the life of crime, and put the “Family” behind him to live a legitimate life with his real family. It is a saga of betrayal and redemption, and an insider’s view of how, at times, those who are tasked with upholding the law readily broke it to further their careers.

The Kind Of Life It's Been: A Memoir


Lloyd Robertson - 2012
    The longest-serving TV news anchor in Canadian history, first on CBC and then on CTV, Robertson remains one of the most accomplished journalists of our time. His career is truly the story of Canada over the past half century, as he told us about key events like the moon landing, JFK’ s assassination, Trudeaumania, Terry Fox’ s run, the Montreal Massacre, 9/11 and the royal weddings.In The Kind of Life It’ s Been, Robertson shares the inside story and the insights he has gained over his long career, from breaking into the business in his hometown of Stratford, Ontario, to joining the CBC, to his highly public departure for CTV to his career as senior editor of CTV News. Filled with fascinating and often hilarious anecdotes about Robertson’ s career, this book captures the essential tales of our time and is a must for any Canadian interested in the inner workings of a frenetic newsroom.

The Sum of My Parts


James Sanford - 2011
    At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

Surviving Schizophrenia: A Memoir


Louise Gillett - 2011
    I am an apparently normal happily married mother of four, living the humdrum existence of an ordinary housewife. And I have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, something that I have always felt a deep sense of shame and embarrassment about, and kept hidden for many years. I have agonised for many years over whether to make my story public – I have written this book, re-written it, changed the names, changed them back again, written it again under a pseudonym, tried to change it into a novel... Finally, last year on a writing holiday at the wonderful Arvon Centre in Totleigh Barton, Devon, matters became clear. This is my story, and I am ready to stand by it. It is a true story and any value that it has for others lies in that fact. I have, however, changed the names of a very few people within the text to protect them from any repercussions of my tale.

The Upside of Being Down: How Mental Health Struggles Led to My Greatest Successes in Work and Life


Jen Gotch - 2020
    Hallucinating that she looked like Shrek was terrifying, but it led to her first diagnosis and the start of a journey towards self-awareness, acceptance, success, and ultimately, joy. With humor and candor, Gotch shares the empowering story of her unlikely path to becoming the creator and CCO of a multimillion-dollar brand. From her childhood in Florida where her early struggles with bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety, and ADD were misdiagnosed, to her winding career path as a waitress, photographer, food stylist, and finally, accidental entrepreneur, she illuminates how embracing her flaws and understanding the influence of mental illness on her creativity actually led to her greatest successes in business and life. Hilarious, hyper-relatable, and filled with fascinating insights and hard-won wisdom on everything from why it’s okay to cry at work to the myth of busyness and perfection to the emotional rating system she uses every day, Gotch’s inspirational memoir dares readers to live each day with hope, optimism, kindness, and humor.

Rise of the Footsoldier


Carlton Leach - 2008
    If trouble comes calling, Carlton isn't afraid to let his fists do the talking and woe betide anyone who crosses him, or those close to him. At last Carlton gives the full account of his life including how his story has been made into a hugely successful film. Born and raised in East London, Carlton was a key member of the notorious Essex Boys gang and the West Ham InterCity Firm, one of the most violent hooligan gangs to trouble the football terraces during the 1980s. He's been shot at, stabbed, glassed—he's even had an axe in his head. Yet the event that really brought turmoil into his life was the murder of his best friend in the infamous Range Rover murders. Carlton vowed that he would find those responsible and make them pay. There isn't much that Carlton hasn't seen or experienced in his life and his tales of violence, gang wars and close calls with death will have you on the edge of your seat. He knows how close he has come to dying and has therefore shut the door on a gangland life. He may have changed but, as he himself says, "I'll always need to exercise the Carlton Leach brand of justice. It's in me."

On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist: Expeditions in an in-between world where therapy ends and stories begin


Michael Harding - 2017
    All of a sudden, he found himself falling back into the old religious devotions of an earlier time. The meaning he had found through years of engagement with therapy began to dissolve. Here, in On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist, Harding examines the search for meaning in life which keeps him fastened to the idea of god. After many therapy sessions focused on an effort to uncover personal truth, and long solitary months on the road with a one man show, Harding is finally led to an artists' retreat in the shadow of Skellig Michael.Mixing stories from the road with dispatches from his Irish Times columns, On Tuesdays I'm a Buddhist is a spell-binding and powerful book about the human condition, the narratives we weave around the self, and the ultimate bliss of living in the present moment. 'What happens between one story and the next? That's the really interesting part. That's the space where we find bliss; where we float sometimes, suspended, and only for a brief moment. Perhaps only for a few scarce moments in an entire life.'

A Multitude of Sins: Golden Brown, The Stranglers and Strange Little Girls: The Autobiography


Hugh Cornwell - 2004
    The book also covers the heady days of early punk in London, described by someone who was at its epicenter, right there with the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned. The life and times of one of the most notorious and gifted rock groups of the 1970s and 1980s, are described in detail, including the drug busts, fights, prison terms and—in one case—the tying up of journalists. Throughout this time Hugh encountered a host of other extraordinary people—Malcolm McClaren, Joe Strummer, Kate Bush, and Debbie Harry, to name a few, and he recounts the outrageous times he lived through with them, as well as providing an inside take on the other members of The Stranglers.

Laid Bare


Jesse Fink - 2012
    Add to cart now and you can thank me later.'TIM ROSS ('ROSSO')LAID BARE is Jesse Fink’s startlingly honest, deeply personal account of emotional and mental oblivion after divorce, interwoven with his experiences as an accidental ‘player’ in a world where dating is a blood sport and finding a true connection is harder than ever because of the distractions provided by technology.It doesn’t shy away from self-exposition, discussion of taboo subjects and what men really think about women, marriage and relationships.But at the heart of this extraordinary book is how Fink, then a single father whose personal and professional life was falling apart, maintained and repaired his relationship with his now-teenage daughter, Evie. LAID BARE is one man’s view of love as he tries to figure out what it all means while searching for ‘The One’.‘X-rated, honest and compelling, this is a must-read.’MEN'S HEALTH‘A great read. Go out there and get it, especially if you are a newly single dad as well. It might teach you a thing or two about what to do and what not to do.’DAVID CAMPBELL‘If you’ve had your heart broken/been on the dating scene/had sex, read Laid Bare. Unputdownable.’KERRI SACKVILLE'An unputdownable read. Essential for every man, post separation, nearing separation, in the event of separation, or just anyone who wants the warts and all insights into an unpredictable voyage you never knew you needed before you could come out the other side. Women who want to understand the male psyche should also read this book. For me, it was astonishingly close to the bone from what I hear from men so frequently. If you're up for honesty, rawness and real life, get yourself a copy.'JASMIN NEWMAN, SEX & RELATIONSHIPS COACH, RELATING TO MEN‘An extraordinary depiction of how sex, even too much sex, can be a normal and healthy part of coping and grief in the life of a man.’DR DAVID LEY, AUTHOR, THE MYTH OF SEX ADDICTION‘An excellent writer and storyteller … compelling reading. Fink’s honesty is admirable, his story bittersweet and his experiences will make the reader squirm.’ DAILY TELEGRAPH ‘One notable exception [to the string of unsatisfying books and articles about sex in the digital age] was Jesse Fink’s harrowing memoir, Laid Bare, in which he chronicled his sex-addled online dating adventures as a newly single father. The difference was Fink readily admitted he behaved as a ruthless cad towards the women he met and his self-loathing gave his book an authenticity sorely lacking in similar works.’SYDNEY MORNING HERALD‘A balls-and-all account of a bloke using extreme physical activity to try to mend a broken heart. Fink opens his deep wounds for inspection, his engaging style pitch perfect to document both his foolhardy actions and his extreme vulnerability.’TOWNSVILLE BULLETIN‘Like Penthouse Letters with post-orgasmic guilt … one man’s journey into the “gratification now” of the internet while slowly accepting his complicity in his divorce, before his sanity is salvaged by the unconditional love of his daughter. An engrossing read.’ HERALD SUN‘A great book.’PENTHOUSE‘Fink’s brutally honest, tell-all memoir about his adventures in online dating is worth reading as much for his personal journey from committed family man to ruthless cad to devoted dad as for the missives it issues from the frontlines of modern love … Laid Bare doesn’t just chronicle Fink’s post-divorce “festival of sexual bounty”, but also offers some incisive commentary on modern life – including the observation that there are serious pitfalls to having too much choice.’THE DRUM (ABC)‘Laid Bare might be a story of the apocalypse of and after divorce, but it’s still applicable to the broader male experience, especially as modern man sinks further into the Internet Age.’CAIRNS POST

The Hurt Artist: My Journey from Suicidal Junkie to Ironman


Shane Niemeyer - 2014
    His struggles with heroin addiction led him to jail, and he eventually hit rock bottom. Soon, his two pack a day cigarette habit was the healthiest thing he did. One dark night in jail, his suicide attempt failed. What happened next transcends the term recovery.The Hurt Artist is the searing yet luminous travelogue of Shane's powerful journey from suicidal addict to Ironman. He vividly depicts the landscape of pain in which he's lived his life—emotional and physical pain inflicted upon him and that he inflicts upon himself, pain that pulls him down, and, in detailing his training, the pain he harnesses to lift himself up. Ultimately, Shane's story is one of redemption and triumph, a lesson in the value of second chances and a clear reminder that nobody, regardless of how seemingly desperate their circumstances, is beyond the reach of salvation.From inmate #71768 to Ironman Triathlon World Championship competitor #1419, Shane paints a stirring self-portrait in this hilarious, horrifying, and hopeful account that is sure to hook readers of edgy sports biographies.

I Wanna Be Well: How a Punk Found Peace and You Can Too


Miguel Chen - 2018
    Just like everyone else. But—also like everyone else—he’s suffered. A lot. Running from difficult personal losses—like the deaths of loved ones—was something he did for years, and it got the best of him. Eventually, though, he stopped running and started walking a spiritual path. That might be surprising for a dude in a relentlessly touring punk band (Teenage Bottlerocket), but Miguel quickly found that meditation, mindfulness, and yoga really helped. They allowed him to turn inward, to connect to himself and the world around him. Suddenly, he had found actual happiness. Miguel’s realistic. He knows it'll never be all sunshine and peaches. And yet, he is (for the most part) at peace with the world and with himself. It shocks even him sometimes. But he’s come to see the interconnectedness of all things, the beauty of life…even the parts that suck. Each short chapter ends with a hands-on practice that the reader can put into action right away—and each practice offers a distilled “TL;DR” takeaway point. TL;DR: Miguel Chen shares stories, meditations, and practices that can help us reconnect to each other, ourselves, and the world. They’ve worked for him—they can work for anyone.

The Woman Who Thought too Much


Joanne Limburg - 2010
    As a small child, she would chew her hair all day and lie awake at night wondering if heaven had a ceiling; a few years later, when she should have been doing her homework, she was pacing her bedroom, agonizing about the unfairness of life as a woman, and the shortness of her legs. By the time she was an adult, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors had come to dominate her life. She knew that something was wrong with her, but it would take many years before she understood what that something was. This memoir follows Limburg’s quest to understand her OCD and to manage her symptoms, taking the reader on a journey through consulting rooms, libraries, and websites as she learns about rumination, scrupulosity, avoidance, thought-action fusion, fixed-action patterns, anal fixations, schemas, basal ganglia, tics, and synapses. Meanwhile, she does her best to come to terms with an illness which turns out to be common and even—sometimes—treatable. This vividly honest memoir is a sometimes shocking, often humorous revelation of what it is like to live with so debilitating a condition. It is also an exploration of the inner world of a poet and an intense evocation of the persistence and courage of the human spirit in the face of mental illness.

Keep Clear: my adventures with Asperger’s


Tom Cutler - 2019
    The final realisation that he has Asperger’s allows a light to dawn on the riddles of his life: his accidental rudeness, maladroitness, Pan Am smile, and other social impediments. But, like many with Asperger’s, Tom possesses great facility with words, and this shines through this exceptionally warm, bright, and moving memoir, which is alternately strikingly revealing, laugh-out-loud funny, and achingly sad.Tom explores his eccentric behaviour from boyhood to manhood, examines the role of autism in his strange family, and investigates the scientific explanations for the condition. He recounts his anxiety and bewilderment in social situations, his sensory overload, his strange way of dressing, and his particular trouble with girls. He shares his autistic adventures in offices, toyshops, backstage in theatres, and in book and magazine publishing houses, as well as on — or more often off — roads.

An Unbroken Chain: My Journey Through the Nazi Holocaust


Henry A. Oertelt - 2000
    A Holocaust survivor chronicles the chain of events that kept him alive, providing first-hand accounts of Hitler's rise to power, Kristallnacht, and confinement in various concentration camps.

They Call Me Assassin


Jack Tatum - 1980
    He hits people with pile driver force. Running backs and pass receivers shudder with expectation as the charging free safety crashes into them. Surprisingly, Jack Tatum is a gentle man off the gridiron. Though he loves the combat, he hates the injuries that result, some permanently, and he has been responsible for his share. He also hates the cheap shot. Tatum says enforce the rules...cut down the injuries and allow the game to be played with some degree of civilized behavior. This is the only sport, except for boxing and hockey, where everyone is inevitably injured because the rules don't provide for adequate safety. The classic combat of the gridiron began for Tatum, an under-privileged kid, in Passaic, New Jersey, where he became just about the most celebrated football player that area of the country had every produced. Tatum makes no apologies for his roughness; but he says the wold picture and was strongly moved by the terrible accident which paralyzed Darryl Stingley after Tatum hit him in a pres-season game. In the book, Tatum evaluates the players, especially the quarterbacks, the coaches, his teammates, the fans and the total ambiance of the football experience in a hardhitting colorful style.