Book picks similar to
Fergie Confidential: The Real Story by Chris Hutchins
non-fiction
biography-memoir
royalty
biography
All in All: An Actor's Life On and Off the Stage
Stacy Keach - 2013
In his long, impressive career, he has been hailed as America's finest classical stage actor, earning acclaim for his portrayals of Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, and King Lear. He has worked alongside and become friends with the giants of American culture, from Joseph Papp to George C. Scott, from James Earl Jones to Oliver Stone.Keach’s memoir begins with the riveting account of his arrest in London for cocaine possession. He takes readers through his trial and his time at Reading Jail as he battles his drug addiction and then fights to revive his career. Keach poignantly reveals his acting insecurities and relationship struggles. All in All is full of priceless behind the scenes Hollywood moments and friendships—from his late-night pool and backgammon showdowns with John Huston to his passionate relationship with Judy Collins.
The Son and Heir: A Memoir
Alexander Münninghoff - 2014
This shameful memento came to symbolize not only his father’s tragically misguided allegiance but also a shattered marriage and ultimately the unconscionable separation of a mother and son.In this revelatory memoir, the author confronts his parents’ complex past as he reconstructs the fortunes and disillusions of an entire family upheaved during the changes of twentieth-century Europe. The Münninghoffs were driven by greed, rebellion, and rage. An embattled dynasty, they were torn between the right and the wrong side of history. Their saga haunted Alexander’s life for the next seventy years.Only in reconciling with them can this man find the courage to move forward as son and heir to the startling legacy of a flawed yet grand tradition.
My Beautiful Struggle
Jordan Bone - 2017
This is the inspiring true story of how a girl got her life back.Aged 15, Jordan Bone got into a car with friends. She would never walk again. Paralysed from the chest down, her life was changed forever. Becoming depressed and feeling like life wasn't worth living, these weren't the teenage years that Jordan had envisaged.However, slowly but surely, she began to get herself out of the darkness. With a little help from the internet, Jordan started to embrace positive thinking and embarked on a personal journey to get her confidence - and her life - back. Eleven years on from the accident, Jordan creates her own beauty tutorials on YouTube and has a range of successful brand partnerships. She has reclaimed her life and her independence and now wants to share her inspirational story with others and is telling it through different aspects of beauty. This isn't a book about looking good on the surface, this is a story of inner strength, believing in yourself and finding motivation when you feel like all hope is gone.
Kate: Kate Middleton: Princess in Waiting
Claudia Joseph - 2009
Sophisticated beyond her years, as well as academically gifted, Kate has charmed William's louche circle of friends as well as the House of Windsor.Yet behind her polished veneer lies the extraordinary tale of an impoverished working-class family that overcame deprivation and adversity to rise to the upper echelons of society.Claudia Joseph has spoken to members of Kate's family and friends, who have provided an intriguing insight into the extraordinary journey her family has made from the mining villages of Durham to an apartment in the royal residence of Clarence House.Drawing on exclusive interviews and containing previously unpublished photographs, this is an authoritative account of Kate Middleton's life so far.
Brooklyn NY: A Grim Retrospective: A Memoir
Jerry Castaldo - 2010
Celebrated NY Post columnist, author and playwright Chip Deffaa edited this dark, yet inspirational story. "Heartbreaking," "surprising," "emotionally charged." "Shocking," "volatile," "riveting" and "just plain scary." Those comments are from readers of this book who cut a wide swath across a varied demographic--men, women; young, old; and who are from varying socio-economic and cultural backgrounds and locales. Michael Musto, award-winning columnist for The Village Voice in NYC and TV's "E! Channel" regular calls it: A gritty tale of dark struggle!" America's largest Italian American newspaper promises: "You'll be captured by his story from the very first page!" Jerry Seinfeld, sitcom star and comedian says, "I'm tellin' you right now--this guy is gonna be the biggest thing in show business."
The Art of Resistance: My Four Years in the French Underground
Justus Rosenberg - 2020
Justus Rosenberg, now 98, has taught literature at Bard College for the past fifty years.In 1937, as the Nazis gained control and anti-Semitism spread in the Free City of Danzig, a majority German city on the Baltic Sea, sixteen-year-old Justus Rosenberg was sent to Paris to finish his education in safety. Three years later, France fell to the Germans. Alone and in danger, penniless, and cut off from contact with his family in Poland, Justus fled south. A chance meeting led him to Varian Fry, an American journalist in Marseille helping thousands of men and women, including many artists and intellectuals—among them Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall, Andre Breton, and Max Ernst—escape the Nazis.With his German background, understanding of French cultural, and fluency in several languages, including English, Justus became an invaluable member of Fry’s refugee network as a spy and scout. The spry blond who looked even younger than his age flourished in the underground, handling counterfeit documents, secret passwords, black market currency, surveying escape routes, and dealing with avaricious gangsters. But when Fry was eventually forced to leave France, Gussie, as he was affectionately known, could not get out. For the next four years, Justus relied on his wits and skills to escape captivity, survive several close calls with death, and continue his fight against the Nazis, working with the French Resistance and later, becoming attached with the United States Army. At the war’s end, Justus emigrated to America, and built a new life.Justus’ story is a powerful saga of bravery, daring, adventure, and survival with the soul of a spy thriller. Reflecting on his past, Justus sees his life as a confluence of circumstances. As he writes, “I survived the war through a rare combination of good fortune, resourcefulness, optimism, and, most important, the kindness of many good people.”
Without My Mum
Leigh Van Der Horst - 2015
In Without My Mum, Leigh Van Der Horst shares her own honest, heartfelt story of losing her beloved mother to cancer in 2008. She invites us on a journey that is at times heartbreaking and others heartwarming, yet is ultimately comforting and inspiring. With genuine warmth and candor, Leigh tells of her transformative passage through devastating grief to rediscover and redefine her own identity. Without My Mum reveals the sisterhood amongst motherless mothers. Featuring stories from mothers around the world, Without My Mum offers resounding reassurance that no motherless mother is ever alone. Leigh Van Der Horst further reaches out to her motherless ‘sisters’ supported by contributions of motherly wisdom from a collection of encouraging mothers world wide together with a host of inspiring popular personalities such as Jools Oliver, Amanda de Cadenet and Megan Gale. The motherless mother’s heart needs to know that she can and will move through grief to reclaim a fulfilling, grateful and loving life. Without My Mum addresses this need by providing a definitive source of emotional and practical resources specifically for women dealing with the loss of their mum.
No Quarter: The Three Lives of Jimmy Page
Martin J. Power - 2015
Starting with the early Sixties session scene when the teenage Page contributed to recordings by The Who, The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones and many more, the author goes on to explore Page's time in The Yardbirds, the band that would metamorphose into the legendary Led Zeppelin.Supported by album reviews, rare photographs, a full discography and candid conversations with Page's friends, managers and musical collaborators, author Martin Power's No Quarter: The Three Lives Of Jimmy Page represents the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography yet written about Jimmy Page—a "one man guitar army" and true music legend.
What was I Thinking
Paul Henry - 2011
It will keep you entertained for hours. It's the very unusual story of Paul Henry - from his eventful childhood to his adventurous career in journalism to his recent outrageous comments on television which divided the country.A natural-born story teller, Paul spins many great yarns in this book. It's fascinating insight into his complex character. He's surprising -- he doesn't adhere to any prescribed set of beliefs. He's bold -- he set himself up as an international news correspondent working out of his Masterton lounge. And he's versatile -- turning his hand to running a cafe, running for Parliament and running from terrorists.
Mob Cop: My Life of Crime in the Chicago Police Department
Fred Pascente - 2015
Pascente and Spilotro grew up together on Chicago’s Near West Side, and as young toughs they were rousted and shaken down by Hanhardt. While Spilotro became one of the youngest made men in Chicago Outfit history, Pascente was drafted into the army and then joined the police department. Soon taken under Hanhardt’s wing, Pascente served as Hanhardt’s fixer and bagman on the department for more than a decade. At the same time, Pascente remained close to Spilotro, making frequent trips to Las Vegas to party with his old friend while helping to rob the casinos blind. As a policeman he led a double life, doing genuine police work under Hanhardt’s tutelage while at the same time keeping an eye out for opportunities for bribery and theft. His position on both sides of the law gave him unrivaled knowledge of the workings of Chicago’s deeply rooted culture of corruption. Mob Cop details the decline of traditional organized crime in the United States, and reveals information about the inner workings of the Outfit that has never been publicly released. Fred Pascente’s colorful stories of crooked cops and dangerous criminals make his memoir a matchless tell-all.
Survivor's Game (Holocaust - World War II)
David Karmi - 2012
Twelve-year-old David Karmi, a master of the art, is about to be put to the ultimate test.War has consumed the world and David finds himself in the middle of a human slaughter on a planetary scale. Whole towns are vaporized. Cities obliterated in firestorms. More than fifty million people will die—twelve million either gassed, shot, hanged, worked to death or subjected to biological experiments. And now David’s luck has finally run out. Having already endured one horrifying deportation, he and his family are rounded up for the second time and forced onto a train that will bring them all to the very heart of the Nazi extermination machine.Separated from his parents and siblings, the teenager is hurled into a nightmare of death camps, forced marches, sickness, violence and depravity. On his own, through the torturous months that follow, David endures Auschwitz, Dachau, and the Warsaw ghetto. Though he’s just a kid, David will try to stay alive by his wits and instincts, taking terrifying chances, making split-second decisions, and learning the tricks and techniques of survival. But time is running out. His only hope is that the Nazis will be defeated and the American soldiers will free him—and his family—before it’s too late. “[Karmi’s debut forgoes] the despair employed by Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, instead echoing the optimism of Anne Frank…Eminently readable and largely remarkable.”—Kirkus Reviews"‘Some people have a knack for survival, for getting out of jams.’ Karmi is one of those, and he faces the ultimate test as a young teen in Nazi-occupied Europe as he and his family are deported to Auschwitz."—Publishers Weekly"Survivor’s Game reads not so much like a memoir but a novel, replete with tension, drama, and twists and turns. Recommended."—Midwest Book Review"This is a story we all need to know…the cost of forgetting is too high."—New York Times best-selling author Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
L.E.O.: The True Stories of Lt. Wayne Cotes
Wayne Cotes - 2018
Some of his tales will seem far fetched, unless you're a cop and then you know that anything can happen - and just when you think you've seen it all, someone will surprise you.
Captain In The Cauldron: The John Smit Story
Mike Greenaway - 2009
The longest serving captain in Springbok rugby history gives a revealing account of the simultaneous joys and travails of one of the most challenging - and rewarding - jobs in sport in this much anticipated autobiography.
A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
Jimmy Carter - 2015
He adds detail and emotion about his youth in rural Georgia that he described in his magnificent An Hour Before Daylight. He writes about racism and the isolation of the Carters. He describes the brutality of the hazing regimen at Annapolis, and how he nearly lost his life twice serving on submarines and his amazing interview with Admiral Rickover. He describes the profound influence his mother had on him, and how he admired his father even though he didn't emulate him. He admits that he decided to quit the Navy and later enter politics without consulting his wife, Rosalynn, and how appalled he is in retrospect.In A Full Life, Carter tells what he is proud of and what he might do differently. He discusses his regret at losing his re-election, but how he and Rosalynn pushed on and made a new life and second and third rewarding careers. He is frank about the presidents who have succeeded him, world leaders, and his passions for the causes he cares most about, particularly the condition of women and the deprived people of the developing world.This is a wise and moving look back from this remarkable man. Jimmy Carter has lived one of our great American lives -- from rural obscurity to world fame, universal respect, and contentment. A Full Life is an extraordinary read.
Out of the Wild: Seven Years in the Wilderness
Charlie Paterson
Away from all the modern conveniences and comforts most take for granted, his tale is one of adversity, building a dream with dogged determination. Battling against considerable and powerful opposition, bureaucracy, severe lack of money, unforgiving nature, loneliness and ultimately his own ill health; only to find the dream fulfilled will almost destroy him. A sometimes spiritual and critical tale of self-discovery where ultimately his growing faith in God literally saves him from a very sorry end in the mountainous wilderness of New Zealand. A story that exposes wilderness living as it truly is, not for the faint hearted. However, Out of the Wild is more than just a candid wilderness survival tale, but includes some very interesting snippets of New Zealand's early pioneer history associated to the Fiordland National Park, the Hollyford Valley, Martins Bay, the beautiful deserted ghost town of Jamestown Bay and even the fabled "lost ruby mine" in the inaccessible Red Hills. For the outdoor and "back to basics" enthusiasts Charlie details his accounts of hunting red deer in the thick Fiordland rainforest around his wilderness home to using the old traditional methods to store his kills, through to trapping introduced predators destroying the special rainforest ecosystems of Fiordland. "Out of the Wild" is a very unique New Zealand wilderness tale which will appeal to the outdoor conservative types.