Broken Music


Sting - 2003
    But upon arriving at the reflective age of fifty, I found myself drawn, for the first time, to write long passages that were as stimulating and intriguing to me as any songwriting I had ever done.And so Broken Music began to take shape. It is a book about the early part of my life, from childhood through adolescence, right up to the eve of my success with the Police. It is a story very few people know.I had no interest in writing a traditional autobiographical recitation of everything that’s ever happened to me. Instead I found myself drawn to exploring specific moments, certain people and relationships, and particular events which still resonate powerfully for me as I try to understand the child I was, and the man I became.From the Hardcover edition.

The Vegas Diaries


Holly Madison - 2016
    . . from scratch. Without the security of a job or relationship, she set out to reinvent herself on no one's terms but her own.Deciding to roll the dice and begin again in the glamorous and dreamlike city of Las Vegas, Holly quickly realized that while she may have left her past in the rearview mirror, the labels and stereotypes that came from it weren't so quick to leave her. With a fierce commitment to take charge of her own narrative, Holly dives headfirst into a journey of self-discovery.

The Mother of Black Hollywood: A Memoir


Jenifer Lewis - 2017
    Yet, supported by loving friends and strengthened by "inner soldiers," Jenifer never stopped entertaining and creating.We watch as Jenifer develops icon status stemming from a series of legendary screen roles as the sassy, yet loveable, mama or auntie. And we watch as her emotional disturbances, culminating in a breakdown while filming The Temptations movie, launch her on a continuing search for answers, love, and healing.Written with no-holds-barred honesty and illustrated with sixteen-pages of color photos, this gripping memoir is filled with insights gained through a unique life that offers a universal message: "Love yourself so that love will not be a stranger when it comes."From her first taste of applause at five years old to landing on Broadway within eleven days of graduation and ultimately achieving success in movies, television and global concert halls, Jenifer reveals her outrageous life story with lots of humor, a few regrets and most importantly, unbridled joy. Candid, warm and wonderfully inspiring, The Mother of Black Hollywood intimately reveals the heart of a woman who lives life to the fullest.

The Queen Mother: The Official Biography


William Shawcross - 2009
    Now, William Shawcross—given unrestricted access to the Queen Mother’s personal papers, letters, and diaries—gives us a portrait of unprecedented vividness and detail. Here is the girl who helped convalescing soldiers during the First World War . . . the young Duchess of York helping her reluctant husband assume the throne when his brother abdicated . . . the Queen refusing to take refuge from the bombing of London, risking her own life to instill courage and hope in others who were living through the Blitz . . . the dowager Queen—the last Edwardian, the charming survivor of a long-lost era—representing her nation at home and abroad . . . the matriarch of the Royal Family and “the nation’s best-loved grandmother.”A revelatory royal biography that is, as well, a singular history of Britain in the twentieth century.

Sharon Osbourne Extreme: My Autobiography


Sharon Osbourne - 2005
    In her late 20s, Sharon finally made the painful decision to break with her family. Always irrepressible, Sharon flourished, creating a loving family of her own while becoming a legendary manager and rockband promoter. In rock star Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon found her soul mate, yet Ozzy's drug and drink-fuelled excesses which culminated in his attempt to strangle her made their marriage a white knuckle ride from the start; only her devotion to their three children gave her the will to survive. From the tremendous highs of the hit show The Osbournes to the lows of Ozzy's near-fatal quad-bike accident and her own bout with colon cancer, Sharon's tenacity, honesty, and humour have triumphed again and again.

Charles: Victim or villain?


Penny Junor - 1988
    Now available complete with an updated epilogue, it will change the way you think about Charles, his Princess and his mistress.As the Prince of Wales turned fifty at the end of 1998, the media focused on the publication of Charles: Victim or Villain?, Penny Junor’s controversial biography of the heir to England’s throne. Directing the spotlight onto ‘the three people’ in the Royal marriage, this book has turned popular understanding on its head. But although Junor’s unique insight into these endlessly intriguing relationships caused fierce speculation, even outrage, nothing has been denied. Nobody has disputed that this is the true portrait of a marriage.Sourced from those closest to the Prince, the Princess and Camilla – some of whom have never spoken before – Penny Junor explodes and explains the popular myths. The result is a provocative new portrait of the man who will be King.

Lucy in the Afternoon: An Intimate Memoir of Lucille Ball


Jim Brochu - 1990
    He send it to her, and she called to say it had made her laugh for the first time in two years. Ball invited Brochu to her house for backgammon and lemonade. And a close friendship, lovingly revealed here, was begun. Illustrated.

Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love


Dava Sobel - 1999
    Though he never left Italy, his inventions and discoveries were heralded around the world. Most sensationally, his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the astounding argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced to spend his last years under house arrest. Of Galileo's three illegitimate children, the eldest best mirrored his own brilliance, industry, and sensibility, and by virtue of these qualities became his confidante. Born Virginia in 1600, she was thirteen when Galileo placed her in a convent near him in Florence, where she took the most appropriate name of Suor Maria Celeste. Her loving support, which Galileo repaid in kind, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength throughout his most productive and tumultuous years. Her presence, through letters which Sobel has translated from their original Italian and masterfully woven into the narrative, graces her father's life now as it did then. Galileo's Daughter dramatically recolors the personality and accomplishment of a mythic figure whose seventeenth-century clash with Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion. Moving between Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its place in the cosmos was being overturned. In that same time, while the bubonic plague wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, one man sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through his telescope. With all the human drama and scientific adventure that distinguished Longitude, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable story.

Personal History


Katharine Graham - 1997
    Katharine's account of her years as subservient daughter and wife is so painful that by the time she finally asserts herself at the Post following Phil's suicide in 1963 (more than halfway through the book), readers will want to cheer. After that, Watergate is practically an anticlimax.

What Remains: A Memoir of Fate, Friendship, and Love


Carole Radziwill - 2005
    Three weeks later, John's cousin Anthony Radziwill died of cancer. In this moving and candid memoir, Carole Radziwill, Anthony's widow, tells her story.

Room to Dream


David Lynch - 2018
    Lynch responds to each recollection and reveals the inner story of the life behind the art.

Marilyn Monroe Confidential: An Intimate Personal Account


Lena Pepitone - 1979
    Offers information on the last 6 years of her life, including her marriage to Arthur Miller, the making of Some Like It Hot, a notorious affair with Yves Montand,her addiction to sleeping pills and alcohol, and her early expieriences as a struggling actress. The book is shocking with specific details about Marilyn's lack of personal hygenine and love of nudity. It also suggests that Marilyn gave birth to a child, but gave it up for adoption. widely criticized however highly quoted.

Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove


Ahmir Questlove Thompson - 2013
    He digs deep into the album cuts of his life and unearths some pivotal moments in black art, hip hop, and pop culture.Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson is many things: virtuoso drummer, producer, arranger, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon bandleader, DJ, composer, and tireless Tweeter. He is one of our most ubiquitous cultural tastemakers, and in this, his first book, he reveals his own formative experiences--from growing up in 1970s West Philly as the son of a 1950s doo-wop singer, to finding his own way through the music world and ultimately co-founding and rising up with the Roots, a.k.a., the last hip hop band on Earth. Mo' Meta Blues also has some (many) random (or not) musings about the state of hip hop, the state of music criticism, the state of statements, as well as a plethora of run-ins with celebrities, idols, and fellow artists, from Stevie Wonder to KISS to D'Angelo to Jay-Z to Dave Chappelle to...you ever seen Prince roller-skate?!?But Mo' Meta Blues isn't just a memoir. It's a dialogue about the nature of memory and the idea of a post-modern black man saddled with some post-modern blues. It's a book that questions what a book like Mo' Meta Blues really is. It's the side wind of a one-of-a-kind mind.It's a rare gift that gives as well as takes.It's a record that keeps going around and around.

Bound Feet & Western Dress


Pang-Mei Natasha Chang - 1996
    Growing up in the perilous years between the fall of the last emperor and the Communist Revolution, Chang Yu-i's life is marked by a series of rebellions: her refusal as a child to let her mother bind her feet, her scandalous divorce, and her rise to Vice President of China's first women's bank in her later years.In the alternating voices of two generations, this dual memoir brings together a deeply textured portrait of a woman's life in China with the very American story of Yu-i's brilliant and assimilated grandniece, struggling with her own search for identity and belonging. Written in pitch-perfect prose and alive with detail, Bound Feet and Western Dress is the story of independent women struggling to emerge from centuries of customs and duty.

Prairie Tale: A Memoir


Melissa Gilbert - 2009
    Children across the country dreamed of the Ingalls’ idyllic life—and so did Melissa. With candor and humor, the cherished actress traces her complicated journey from buck-toothed Laura "Halfpint" Ingalls to Hollywood starlet, wife, and mother. She partied with the Brat Pack, dated heartthrobs like Rob Lowe and bad boys like Billy Idol, and began a self-destructive pattern of addiction and codependence. She eventually realized that her career on television had earned her popularity, admiration, and love from everyone but herself. Through hard work, tenacity, sobriety, and the blessings of a solid marriage, Melissa has accepted her many different identities and learned to laugh, cry, and forgive in new ways. Women everywhere may have idolized her charming life on Little House on the Prairie, but Melissa’s own unexpectedly honest, imperfect, and down-to-earth story is an inspiration.