Trafficked


Sophie Hayes - 2012
    At first, it was a typical whirlwind romance. But one day Bledi told her that love always comes at a price ...Bledi tricked Sophie into travelling to Italy, where he forced her to sell her body to help him pay off a debt. Terrified and ashamed, Sophie worked the dangerous Italian streets without rest, seeing as many as 30 clients in a night. She was completely at Bledi′s mercy for food, clothes and shelter. And without money, friends or family, she was trapped.But Sophie found the strength to keep going, clinging to life by a single thread of hope: that somehow she′d find a way to escape.

In the Sanctuary of Outcasts


Neil W. White III - 2009
    The emotional, incredible true story of Neil White, a man who discovers the secret to happiness, leading a fulfilling life, and the importance of fatherhood in the most unlikely of places—the last leper colony in the continental United States.

Papillon


Henri Charrière - 1969
    Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped . . . until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.Charrière's astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic -- the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who simply would not be defeated.

Four Girls from Berlin: A True Story of a Friendship that Defied the Holocaust


Marianne Meyerhoff - 2007
    The Holocaust had left Lotte the lone survivor of her family, and these precious objects gave her back a crucial piece of her past. Four Girls from Berlin vividly recreates that past and tells the story of Lotte and her courageous non-Jewish friends Ilonka, Erica, and Ursula as they lived under the shadow of Hitler in Berlin.Written by Lotte's daughter, Marianne, this powerful memoir celebrates the unseverable bonds of friendship and a rich family legacy the Holocaust could not destroy.

Off My Rocker: One Man’s Tasty, Twisted, Star-Studded Quest for Everlasting Music


Kenny Weissberg - 2013
    He cured a dying sparrow with Joan Baez. He counted a pile of cash with Aretha Franklin. He got bamboozled by Chuck Berry. Kenny Weissberg followed the music his entire career. A disc jockey, critic, rock singer, bandleader, and concert promoter, he lived all his childhood dreams - some of which turned into nightmares. In Off My Rocker, he presents a rollicking, backstage look at the joys and painful realities of a life devoted to music. During his early years as a radio personality, he basks in the creative glow of the free-spirited, post-Woodstock era but later rebels against the soulless corporate takeover of the music he's loved forever. Along the way, he detours to the dark side, succumbing to the greed, deceit, theft, and drugs so rampant in the entertainment industry. Equal parts spicy confessional and pop-culture adventure, with trenchant insights throughout, this page-turner of a memoir will stay with you long after the closing credits.

Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line


Abby Johnson - 2010
    That simple act became a national news story because Abby was the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas who, after participating in her first actual abortion procedure, walked across the road to join the Coalition for Life. "Unplanned" is a heartstopping personal drama of life-and-death encounters, a courtroom battle, and spiritual transformation that speaks hope and compassion into the political controversy that surrounds this issue. Telling Abby’s story from both sides of the abortion clinic property line, this book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the life versus rights debate and helping women who face crisis pregnancies.

American Son: My Story


Oscar De La Hoya - 2008
    From boxing to business, from the recording industry to the charitable accomplishments of his foundation, his success is a testament to what one can achieve in the United States. But who is this man who has changed the lives of so many? Who has imprinted a positive mark upon the sport of boxing, for which many have all but given up hope? Who has become a symbol of success for an entire community, without many heroes to call their own?American Son answers these questions.Born into a boxing family, De La Hoya has defeated more than a dozen world champions and won six world titles as well as an Olympic gold medal—a moment forever marked in the memory of anyone who has followed his career. Yet within the maelstrom of this success lay a man whose earnest belief in the goodness of everyone around him sometimes led him to stray far from his intended path. This book is The Golden Boy, and he bares his most heartbreaking mistakes as well as his most stunning triumphs for all of the world to see.This thrilling tale of an immigrant's son—a quintessentially American story—is the chronicle of an amazing journey that will provide readers with new insight into the private life of a figure who has to many reached iconic status.

Silvertown: An East End Family Memoir


Melanie McGrath - 2002
    As McGrath acknowledges, "It was the kind of life that could have belonged to a thousand women living in the mid years of the twentieth century in the East End of London. Except that it didn't. It belonged to Jenny". McGrath's achievement in the book is to make Jenny's very commonplace, circumscribed life not only believable and moving but also to turn it into a mirror in which the reader can see the changes that the century visited upon the East End. When Jenny was a young girl, the London docks were the biggest port in the world, teeming with life and industry. By the time she was an old woman, all the docks were closed and the old East End was a part of history. Not that Silvertown encourages nostalgia. The descriptions of Jenny's impoverished childhood, of the pulling of all her teeth on her 17th birthday, of the sweatshop where she worked, are enough to make readers throw away any rose-tinted glasses they might be tempted to use. Very occasionally the dialogue in the book lapses into the "Cor, blimey, strike a light, guv'nor" kind of Cockney heard in so many bad British films of the black-and-white era. Largely, both dialogue and narrative combine to provide a remarkably convincing and lively portrait of an ordinary life rescued from oblivion and of a world that's gone.--Nick Rennison

The President's Daughter


Nan Britton - 1927
    No. This is not a tawdry fable. This is fact. The President was Warren G. Harding who then died suddenly. Some say he was murdered. Her book is great. In Chapter 18 she describes how on July 30, 1917 she finally lost her virginity to the future president after a long courtship, in a New York City hotel on 30th Street overlooking Broadway. Only moments after the intercourse had been completed, the New York City Vice Squad broke down the door. Harding was forced to identify himself. When the police realized that their target, Warren G. Harding, was a United States Senator (he was not yet president), the Vice Squad apologized and beat a hasty retreat. It was not before long that Nan Britton discovered that she was pregnant. Senator Harding set her up in a house in Asbury Park, New Jersey near a casino where he sometimes played poker, and he sent her money through messengers. She was able to keep her pregnancy and the subsequent birth to her of an illegitimate child a secret from everybody, except for her actual lover who was US Senator and then President Warren G. Harding. The child, Elizabeth Ann, was born on October 22, 1919, not in a hospital but in the same house in Asbury Park NJ where Nan Britton had been staying. The resulting book, The President's Daughter, has a story all its own. Bills were introduced in the United States Congress to stop the publication of this book or to make possession of it illegal. The New York City Vice Squad raided the printing plant and confiscated all the plates. No major, reputable book publisher would touch this book. All turned it down. Finally, the book was published. Naturally, as the book featured sex romps in the White House, it became a best seller.

Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin


Chris Welch - 2001
    The book reveals the facts about his suspended prison sentence, his dispute with the group over unpaid royalties and his retiring from the music industry, and his rumoured heroin addiction.Written with the full co-operation of Grant's family and friends to give a unique access into the most fabled and feared man in the music business.