Calling the Shots: Ups, Downs and Rebounds – My Life in the Great Game of Hockey


Kelly Hrudey - 2017
    Kelly made seventy-three saves (to this day an NHL record for most saves made in a playoff game) against the Capitals before Pat LaFontaine scored the winner in the fourth overtime period of Game Seven at two o’clock in the morning. Later that year, Kelly was in the Canada Cup lineup of one of the most talented teams ever assembled on ice. In 1989, he joined Wayne Gretzky and Marty McSorley on a team that took Los Angeles by storm: the Kings went all the way to the Stanley Cup final against the Canadiens in 1993. Hrudey is now a well-respected hockey analyst and broadcaster and has watched with a keen eye as the game continues to evolve. Through it all, he has seen greatness and missed opportunities, inspiring moments and outright craziness. Working with bestselling author Kirstie McLellan Day, Kelly delivers a lively and thoughtful memoir, rich in behind-the-scenes anecdotes, humour and insight.

A Lot Like Me: A Father and Son's Journey to Reconciliation


Larry Elder - 2018
    I hated working for him and I hated being around him. I hated it when he walked through the front door at home. And we feared him from the moment he pulled up in front of the house in his car.” So writes conservative firebrand and popular radio host Larry Elder. For ten years Elder and his father did not talk to each other. When they finally did, the conversation went on for eight hours—eight hours that took Elder on his father’s journey from the Jim Crow South, to service in the Marine Corps, to starting a business in Southern California. Elder emerged not just reconciled with his dad, but admiring him, and realizing that he had never fully known him or understood him.  Heartfelt, beautifully written, compulsively readable, A Lot Like Me—originally published as Dear Father, Dear Son—is both a powerfully affecting memoir and a personal, provocative slice of American history.

Family Secrets: The scandalous history of an extraordinary family


Derek Malcolm - 2017
    The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.

Stepmother


Marianne Lile - 2016
    It was a role she initially embraced--but she quickly discovered she was alone in a difficult situation, with no handbook and no mentor. Here, Lile describes the complexities of the stepmom position, in a family and in the community, and shares her experience wearing a tag that is often misunderstood and weighed down by the numerous myths in society. Candid and poignant, Stepmother is a story of love and like, resentments and exasperation, resignation and hope--and a story, ultimately, of family.

Domestic Affairs: Enduring the Pleasures of Motherhood and Family Life


Joyce Maynard - 1987
    Each essay gives an unfiltered look at the ups and downs of family life and a remarkable window into the challenges of modern motherhood. Topics range from babysitter woes to family visits to coping with a child's burgeoning independence. These collected writings represent nine years' worth of stories about the greatest adventure of Maynard's life, or, as she writes, "the difficult, exhausting, humbling, and endlessly gratifying business of raising children, of ensuring the health of both body and soul." This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joyce Maynard including rare photos from the author's personal collection.

Rethinking Possible: A Memoir of Resilience


Rebecca Faye Smith Galli - 2017
    With a pastor father and a stay-at-home mother, her 1960s southern upbringing was bucolic--even enviable. But when her brother, only seventeen, died in a waterskiing accident, the slow unraveling of her perfect family began. Though grief overwhelmed the family, twenty-year-old Galli forged onward with her life plans--marriage, career, and raising a family of her own--one she hoped would be as idyllic as the family she once knew. But life had less than ideal plans in store. There was her son's degenerative, undiagnosed disease and subsequent death; followed by her daughter's autism diagnosis; her separation; and then, nine days after the divorce was final, the onset of the transverse myelitis that would leave Galli paralyzed from the waist down. Despite such unspeakable tragedy, Galli maintained her belief in family, in faith, in loving unconditionally, and in learning to not only accept, but also embrace a life that had veered down a path far different from the one she had envisioned. At once heartbreaking and inspiring, Rethinking Possible is a story about the power of love over loss and the choices we all make that shape our lives --especially when forced to confront the unimaginable.

Above Average: Naval Aviation The Hard Way


D.D. Smith - 2018
    D. Smith's personal memoir of his years in naval aviation is more than a ‘I was there’ tale. He captures the myriad of challenges that was Naval Aviation before the Vietnam War. When I arrived in the fleet, D. D. Smith and his compadres were the squadron execs or COs who led us nuggets into the inferno of Vietnam… A huge tip of the hat to D.D. Smith. This book will appeal to every naval aviator or NFO of whatever era. Highly recommended.” But the book is much more. It is a cleverly written and refreshingly honest story of the author’s life and times as he fights his way from rural Minnesota to the blazing skies over North Vietnam. Commander Smith flew 138 combat missions and made more than 800 carrier arrested landings. As the Navy’s first Chief Test Pilot, his tests in the F-14 led to the first EVER flat spin in a Tomcat – and it nearly killed him. No swaggering bravado here; this is a fresh, insightful look at life, luck and guts – in Vietnam and beyond.

Flight Path: A Search for Roots beneath the World's Busiest Airport


Hannah Palmer - 2017
    Having uprooted herself from a promising career in publishing in her adopted Brooklyn, Palmer embarks on a quest to determine the fate of her lost homes—and of a community that has been erased by unchecked Southern progress. Palmer's journey takes her from the ruins of kudzu-covered, airport-owned ghost towns to carefully preserved cemeteries wedged between the runways; into awkward confrontations with airport planners, developers, and even her own parents. Along the way, Palmer becomes an amateur detective, an urban historian, and a mother. Lyrically chronicling the overlooked devastation and beauty along the airport’s fringe communities in the tradition of John Jeremiah Sullivan and Leslie Jamison, Palmer unearths the startling narratives about race, power, and place that continue to shape American cities. Part memoir, part urban history, Flight Path: A Search for My Roots beneath the World's Busiest Airport is a riveting account of one young mother's attempt at making a home where there’s little home left.

Harvest of Yesterdays


Gladys Taber - 1976
    Taber shares memories of her childhood in the Southwest and Mexico as well as her married life and early pursuit of a writing career.

The Happiness of Pursuit: A Father's Courage, a Son's Love and Life's Steepest Climb


Davis Phinney - 2011
    He won two stages at the Tour de France and an Olympic medal. But after years of feeling off, he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s. The body that had been his ally was now something else: a prison. The Happiness of Pursuit is the story of how Davis sought to overcome his Parkinson’s by reaching back to what had made him so successful on the bike and adjusting his perspective on what counted as a win. The news of his diagnosis began a dark period for this vibrant athlete, but there was also light. His son Taylor’s own bike-racing career was taking off. Determined to beat the Body Snatcher, Davis underwent a procedure called deep brain stimulation. Although not cured, his symptoms abated enough for him to see Taylor compete in the Beijing Olympics. Davis Phinney had won another stage. But the joy, he discovered, was in the pursuit. With humor and grace, Phinney weaves the narrative of his battle with Parkinson’s with tales from his cycling career and from his son’s emerging career. The Happiness of Pursuit is a remarkable story of fathers and sons and bikes, of victories large and small.

The Nanny Chronicles of Hollywood


Julie Swales - 2015
    Amidst the fantastic luxury, sexy celebrities, and hyped-up household politics, the nanny certainly has more to handle than diapers and bedtimes. But if you’re just looking for dirt, you won’t find it in these pages. Instead, authors Julie Swales and Stella Reid share anecdotes and insights about what happens when money, power, and fame intersect with the highly personal arena of raising children.

My Last Step Backward


Tasha Schuh - 2012
    No one knew that the stage itself would steal her dream-and almost her life-during a rehearsal for the next big show.Just days before her opening night performance in The Wizard of Oz, sixteen-year- old Tasha took one step backward and fell sixteen feet through a trap door. On that day, Nov. 11, 1997, she landed on the concrete floor of the historic Sheldon Theater, breaking her neck, crushing her spinal cord, and fracturing her skull. She would never walk again.For the next three days, Tasha prepared for a surgery that would at best leave her a C-5 quadriplegic. Post-op complications turned Tasha's struggle and ultimate triumph into an unbelievable journey. From loss and grief to self-discovery and achievement, Tasha's faith, resilience, and honesty have allowed her to leave the old Tasha behind while she confronts the new Tasha's life from a state of the art wheelchair.Discover Tasha's remarkable spirit in My Last Step Backward, a poignant memoir that seeks to inspire you to welcome adversity and face your own trap door of opportunity.

Leah Remini: My Escape from Scientology


Johnny Dodd - 2016
    Ron Hubbard—begins in Brooklyn's working-class Bensonhurst neighborhood, where she was introduced to the religion by her mom. More than three decades later, Leah summoned the courage to leave the church—something few celebrities at her level of fame have ever done before and almost none have ever talked about. This People Spotlight Story explores Leah Remini and her escape from Scientology.

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.

An Heiress of Holocaust: How my family survived the holocaust and the lasting effects on my life


Sarah Segal - 2020