Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman


Marjorie Shostak - 1981
    This book is the story of the life of Nisa, a member of the !Kung tribe of hunter-gatherers from southern Africa's Kalahari desert. Told in her own words--earthy, emotional, vivid--to Marjorie Shostak, a Harvard anthropologist who succeeded, with Nisa's collaboration, in breaking through the immense barriers of language and culture, the story is a fascinating view of a remarkable woman.

The Weight of Being: My Journey from One End of the Scale to the Other


Kara Richardson Whitely - 2017
    After all, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro-three times! But now she's off the mountain and back home again, and there's one thing she just can't manage to do: lose weight.In many ways, Kara is living the life of everywoman, except that she's not everywoman because she weighs 300 pounds and is tormented by binge eating disorder. Her weight is a constant source of conflict and shame, as the people from every corner of her life, from her coworkers to the neighbors down the street, judge Kara for the size of her body. When it becomes just too much to tolerate, Kara turns to therapy and weight-loss surgery, a choice that transforms her body-and her life.Kara's story is one of living as a fat woman in America, where fat prejudice is rampant despite our nation's pandemic of obesity. In this fresh, raw memoir, Kara reveals this epic contradiction, and offers a revealing comparison of life before and after radical weight loss.

Becoming A Son


David Labrava - 2015
    David writes from life experience as he has lived more lives than most people ever will, and he did it all over the globe. David is an accomplished Glass artist, Tattoo artist, Five Diploma Harley Davidson Motorcycle Mechanic, Producer, Director and an award winning Writer and Actor. David is a member of the most famous and notorious motorcycle club in the world. David was the Technical Advisor on the hit TV series Sons of Anarchy from the inception to the completion of the series. David was also a series regular on the show, reaching that position after being hired as the technical advisor, then becoming a day player actor, then a recurring character then moving to series regular. All of these things had to be earned, as they were not for sale at any price. Becoming A Son is not about them. It’s about David getting to those spots. It’s about overcoming great odds and coming out alive. David left home at fifteen years old and hit the streets. This is David’s journey of discovery and redemption spanning a course of forty years. From the beaches of Hawaii and California, to the forest of the great Northwest, to years in Amsterdam, San Francisco, New York City, Miami then back to California. David hit some highs and survived severe lows, living years on the streets, in and out of jail only to take his life back, and then squeeze every bit out of it that life has to offer. Becoming A Son is a journey of epic proportion. It’s about realizing your dreams and then against the odds achieving them. Adventuring across the globe David learned many lessons by reaching out and trying everything, making many mistakes and paying the price for it and living through it. Now he wrote about it. David has been writing and getting published for over 14 years. He wrote for the Motorcycle magazine ‘The Horse’ then had his own column in the National Hot Rod Magazine ‘Ol Skool Rodz’ for eight years. He co-wrote Episode ten in season four of SOA which Time magazine awarded an honorable mention to as best of the season. David also won the 2013 Readers Choice Buzz focus award for Best Wildcard Actor. Like great authors before him Labrava takes the reader into some dark places most people would never dare to go. Becoming A Son is a modern day story of living on the street and redemption, it is one man’s journey into the darkness of himself crossing the planet and transcending all levels and then coming back again full circle. It is an inspiration for anyone who is chasing their dreams and making them their reality. Becoming A Son will come to be known as an instant classic.

One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time


Craig Brown - 2020
    At that point, we will be at the same distance in time from 1970 as 1970 was from 1920, the year Al Jolson's ‘Swanee’ was the bestselling record and Gustav Holst composed The Planets.The Beatles continue to occupy a position unique in popular culture. They have entered people's minds in a way that did not occur before, and has not occurred since. Their influence extended way beyond the realm of music to fashion, politics, class, religion and ethics. Countless books have doggedly catalogued the minutiae of The Beatles. If you want to know the make of George Harrison's first car you will always be able to find the answer (a second hand, two-door, blue Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe, purchased from Brian Epstein's friend Terry Doran, who worked at a dealership in Warrington). Before she met John Lennon, who was the only Beatle Yoko Ono could name, and why? Ringo. Because ‘ringo’ means ‘apple’ in Japanese. All very interesting, but there is, as yet, no book about The Beatles that combines the intriguing minutiae of their day-to-day lives with broader questions about their effect – complicated and fascinating – on the world around them, their contemporaries, and generations to come.Until now. Craig Brown's 1-2-3-4: The Beatles in Time is a unique, kaleidoscopic examination of The Beatles phenomenon – part biography, part anthropology, part memoir, by turns humorous and serious, elegiac and speculative. It follows the unique “exploded biography” form of his internationally bestselling, Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret.

The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency


Tove Ditlevsen - 2021
    Childhood tells the story of a misfit child's single-minded determination to become a poet; Youth describes her early experiences of sex, work, and independence. Dependency picks up the story as the narrator embarks on the first of her four marriages and goes on to describe her horrible descent into drug addiction, enabled by her sinister, gaslighting doctor-husband.Throughout, the narrator grapples with the tension between her vocation as a writer and her competing roles as daughter, wife, mother, and drug addict, and she writes about female experience and identity in a way that feels very fresh and pertinent to today's discussions around feminism. Ditlevsen's trilogy is remarkable for its intensity and its immersive depiction of a world of complex female friendships, family and growing up--in this sense, it's Copenhagen's answer to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels. She can also be seen as a spiritual forerunner of confessional writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Annie Ernaux, Rachel Cusk and Deborah Levy. Her trilogy is drawn from her own experiences but reads like the most compelling kind of fiction.Born in a working-class neighborhood in Copenhagen in 1917, Ditlevsen became famous for her poetry while still a teenager, and went on to write novels, stories and memoirs before committing suicide in 1976. Having been dismissed by the critical establishment in her lifetime as a working-class, female writer, she is now being rediscovered and championed as one of Denmark's most important modern authors, with Tove fever gripping readers.

Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf


Helene Cooper - 2017
    Madame President is the inspiring, often heartbreaking story of Sirleaf’s evolution from an ordinary Liberian mother of four boys to international banking executive, from a victim of domestic violence to a political icon, from a post-war president to a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and bestselling author Helene Cooper deftly weaves Sirleaf’s personal story into the larger narrative of the coming of age of Liberian women. The highs and lows of Sirleaf’s life are filled with indelible images; from imprisonment in a jail cell for standing up to Liberia’s military government to addressing the United States Congress, from reeling under the onslaught of the Ebola pandemic to signing a deal with Hillary Clinton when she was still Secretary of State that enshrined American support for Liberia’s future. Sirleaf’s personality shines throughout this riveting biography. Ultimately, Madame President is the story of Liberia’s greatest daughter, and the universal lessons we can all learn from this “Oracle” of African women.

Ozzy: Unauthorized


Sue Crawford - 2002
    This biography is a comprehensive study of his past, and with its specially commissioned astrological chart, the future of this survivor and star.

21 Years Gone: The Autobiography


Jack Osbourne - 2006
    By the time Jack was 16, he was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs, was hanging out with rock stars in LA and living a life that any teenager would aspire to—and then the reality show The Osbournes turned him into a global celebrity. As much as Jack enjoyed his fame, underneath it all he was still an awkward teenager, using his sense of humor as a protective shield. With fame and money came greater access to drugs and soon his addictions took a firmer hold on him and his behavior was soon out of control. In 21 Years Gone Jack writes with brutal frankness about his descent into addiction and the low point he reached when his mother Sharon was diagnosed with cancer. Scared that his she might die, Jack retreated further into his alcoholic shell, hating who he was, hating what he did. When Sharon realized what was happening she told Jack he had to go into rehab and slowly he turned his life around. Discovering a passion for extreme sports, he went from overweight and unfit to the lean young man he is today—courtesy of such adventures as running with the bulls in Pamplona, fighting a Thai martial arts expert, and scaling El Capitan, one of the world's toughest climbs.

In the Name of Honour: A Memoir


Mukhtar Mai - 2006
    While certainly not the first account of a female body being negotiated for honor in a family, this time the survivor had bravely chosen to fight back. In doing so, Mai single-handedly changed the feminist movement in Pakistan, one of the world's most adverse climates for women. By July 2002, the Pakistani government awarded her the equivalent of 8,500 U.S. dollars in compensation money and sentenced her attackers to death — and Mukhtar Mai went on to open a school for girls so that future generations would not suffer, as she had, from illiteracy.In this rousing account, Mai describes her experience and how she has since become an agent for change and a beacon of hope for oppressed women around the world. Timely and topical, "In the Name of Honor" is the remarkable and inspirational memoir of a woman who fought and triumphed against exceptional odds.

Destination Truth: Memoirs of a Monster Hunter


Josh Gates - 2011
    . . and your journey into both begins here. World adventurer and international monster hunter Josh Gates has careened through nearly 100 countries, investigating frightening myths, chilling cryptozoological legends, and terrifying paranormal phenomena. Now, he invites fans to get a behind-the-scenes look at these breathtaking expeditions. Follow Gates from the inception of the groundbreaking hit show (at the summit of Kilimanjaro) to his hair-raising encounters with dangerous creatures in the most treacherous locations on earth. Among his many adventures, he unearths the flesh-crawling reality of the Mongolian Death Worm, challenges an ancient curse by spending the night in King Tut’s tomb, descends into a centuries-old mine to search for an alien entity in subterranean darkness, pursues ghosts in the radioactive shadow of Chernobyl, and explores sightings of Bigfoot from the leech-infested rain forests of Malaysia to the dizzying heights of the Himalayas. Part journey into the unexplained, part hilarious travelogue, part fascinating look at the making of a reality-based TV show—and featuring never-before-published photographs— this Destination Truth companion takes readers on the supernatural expedition of a lifetime.

Left for Dead in the Outback: How I Survived 71 Days Lost in a Desert Hell


Ricky Megee - 2008
    

Things The Grandchildren Should Know


Mark Oliver Everett - 2007
    Left to run wild with his sister, his father off in some parallel universe of his own invention, Everett's upbringing was 'ridiculous, sometimes tragic and always unsteady'. But somehow he manages to not only survive his crazy upbringing and ensuing tragedies; he makes something of his life, striking out on a journey to find himself by channelling his experiences into his, eventually, critically acclaimed music with the Eels. But it's not an easy path. Told with surprising candour, Things The Grandchildren Should Know is an inspiring and remarkable story, full of hope, humour and wry wisdom.

Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist


Donald P. Ryan - 2010
    I heartily recommend his book to all Egyptology buffs.”—Barbara Mertz ( a.k.a. Elizabeth Peters), author of Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs A real-life “Indiana Jones,” Donald P. Ryan, Ph.D., offers a breathtaking personal account of his adventures in archaeology in Beneath the Sands of Egypt. Fans of The Lost City of Z will thrill to the exploits of this “unconventional archaeologist” as he retrieves the remains of Egypt’s past—including his breakthrough discovery in the Valley of the Kings of Egypt’s famous female pharaoh, Hatshepsut.

Baruch Spinoza


Thomas Cook - 1994
    Unable to find deep satisfaction in the usual pleasures of social life, politics or business (or in riches, fame, or sensual pleasure), Spinoza sought a more stable source of contentment. And he found this contentment in God, though not the God of Moses or the Christian Trinity.Spinoza wrote in the rationalist style of a geometric proof to develop his idea that God is a permanent, indwelling cause of all things. He sees God as a single, unified, all-inclusive causal system that is virtually synonymous with nature. Spinoza believed that the Biblical account of creation is demonstrably false; that there is no such thing as a free will, either for God or man; all things are necessary and inevitable; and all objects, including humans are part of God's active self-expression. Spinoza saw the presence of God in the constant and orderly working of nature.Spinoza's sophisticated moral psychology sees evil in the "unruly passions," and says they can be overcome by stronger, positive passions. Our minds can participate in the eternity of God by focusing on natural laws and the way all things follow from God or nature.

Punk Rock Blitzkrieg: My Life as a Ramone


Marky Ramone - 2014
    Already a young veteran of the prototype American metal band Dust, Bell took residence in artistic, seedy Lower Manhattan, where he played drums in bands that would shape rock music for decades to come, including Wayne County, who pioneered transsexual rock, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, who directly inspired the entire early British punk scene.If punk had royalty, in 1978 Marc became part of it when he was knighted "Marky Ramone" by Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee of the iconoclastic Ramones. The band of tough misfits were a natural fit for Marky, who dressed punk before there was punk, and who brought his "blitzkrieg" style of drumming as well as the studio and stage experience the band needed to solidify its lineup. Together, they changed the world.But Marky Ramone changed, too. The epic wear and tear of a dysfunctional group (and the Ramones were a step beyond dysfunction) endlessly crisscrossing the country and the world in an Econoline "practically a psychiatric ward on wheels" drove Marky from partying to alcoholism. When his life started to look more out of control then Dee Dees, he knew he had a problem. Marky left music in the mid-eighties to enter recovery and eventually returned to help the Ramones finally receive their due as one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time.Covering in unflinching detail the cult film Rock ’N’ Roll High School to “I Wanna Be Sedated” to Marky’s own struggles, Punk Rock Blitzkrieg is an authentic and always honest look at the people who reinvented rock music, and not a moment too soon.