Book picks similar to
Herman Melville: A Biography by Hershel Parker


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Clark Gable: A Biography


Warren G. Harris - 2002
    He was a gambler among gamblers, a heavy drinker in the days when everyone drank seemingly all the time, and a lover to legions of the most attractive women in the most glamorous business in the world, including the great love of his life, Carole Lombard.In this well-researched and revealing biography, Warren G. Harris gives an exceptionally acute portrait of one of the most memorable actors in the history of motion pictures—whose intimates included such legends as Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, Loretta Young, David O. Selznick, Jean Harlow, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Spencer Tracy, and Grace Kelly—as well as a vivid sense of the glamour and excess of mid-century Hollywood.

A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce


Alec Baldwin - 2008
    Using a very personal approach, he offers practical guidance to help others avoid the anguish he has endured.An Academy and Tony Award nominee and a 2007 recipient of Golden Globe, SAG, and Television Critics Association Awards for best actor in a comedy, Alec Baldwin is one of the best-known, most successful actors in the world. His relationship with Kim Basinger, the Academy Award–winning actress, lasted nearly a decade. They have a daughter named Ireland, and for a time, theirs seemed to be the model of a successful Hollywood marriage. But in 2000 they separated and in 2002 divorced. Their split---specifically the custody battle surrounding Ireland---would be the subject of media attention for years to come.In his own life and others’, Baldwin has seen the heavy toll that divorce can take---psychologically, emotionally, and financially. He has been extensively involved in divorce litigation, and he has witnessed the way that noncustodial parents, especially fathers, are often forced to abandon hopes of equitable rights when it comes to their children. He makes a powerful case for reexamining and changing the way divorce and child custody is decided in this country and levels a scathing attack at what he calls the “family law industry.”When it comes to his experiences with judges, court-appointed therapists, and lawyers, Baldwin pulls no punches. He casts a light on his own divorce and the way the current family law system affected him, his ex-wife, and his daughter, as well as many other families. This is an important, informative, and deeply felt book on a contentious subject that offers hope of finding a better way.

My Favorite Summer 1956


Mickey Mantle - 1991
    He was already America's home run king, and he was about to become a national hero. Now Mantle brings it all back just the way it happened.

New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation with Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Others, 1974-1981


Gary Valentine - 2002
    Glitter tried to save music's soul, but was too commercial to be cutting edge for long. Then, in 1974, a rescue movement arrived. Three chords, black jeans, a pair of shades, and a whole lot of attitude made music that matched the facts of life on its home ground, mid-70's New York City's East Village. The initiators of punk, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine, and Patti Smith had one foot in nineteenth-century French symbolist poetry and the other in the raw sound of their predecessors such as the Velvet Underground. This first-hand account of a little-documented era features luminaries such as Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Debbie Harry, Divine, Devo, and the New York Dolls, and tells of the gigs at CBGB hitting the news as Warhol and his glittering crew descended. What began as a unique blend of fin-de-sièe ennui and razor-sharp rock became anarchic frenzy and safety pins, overrun by gutter decadence and stupid-chic. With Malcolm McLaren hijacking the scene's momentum, the Blank Generation plunged into excess and eventual ruin, its survivors making the leap into mainstream.

Now I Walk on Death Row: A Wall Street Finance Lawyer Stumbles Into the Arms of a Loving God


Dale S. Recinella - 2011
    A successful finance lawyer began to ask, What does Jesus want me to do? The answer led him to became a chaplain to death row inmates.

Funny How Life Works


Michael Jr. - 2021
    draws on personal stories infused with humor and wisdom to extract impactful life lessons. He walks us through some of his most career-defining moments to emphasize the importance of living life with the punchline in mind. With a comedian's cadence and a dependable friend's outstretched hand, Michael Jr. addresses provocative issues including race, policing in America, forgiveness, socio-economics, and faith with gritty familiarity. While you will find yourself laughing out loud, at its core, FUNNY HOW LIFE WORKS reveals that if you pay close attention, the obstacles you face day to day are part of a much bigger plan that can help you realize and fulfill your life's mission. Like many of us, Michael Jr. wrestled with several moments of uncertainty, from living in his car to being held up by officers, but he never lost sight of the bigger picture. In this inspiring and self-reflective book, he implores us to do the same.

Forever Young : The Life, Loves, and Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend ; The Authorized Biography of Loretta Young


Joan Wester Anderson - 2000
    The real life and faith journey of Loretta Young -- her strong devotion to her Catholic faith and her passion for helping others in need.

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley


Charlotte Gordon - 2015
    Nevertheless their lives were so closely intertwined, their choices, dreams and tragedies so eerily similar, it seems impossible to consider one without the other.Both women became famous writers; fell in love with brilliant but impossible men; and were single mothers who had children out of wedlock; both lived in exile; fought for their position in society; and thought deeply about how we should live. And both women broke almost every rigid convention there was to break: Wollstonecraft chased pirates in Scandinavia. Shelley faced down bandits in Naples. Wollstonecraft sailed to Paris to witness the Revolution. Shelley eloped in a fishing boat with a married man. Wollstonecraft proclaimed that women’s liberty should matter to everyone.Not only did Wollstonecraft declare the rights of women, her work ignited Romanticism. She inspired Coleridge, Wordsworth and a whole new generation of writers, including her own daughter, who – with her young lover Percy Shelley – read Wollstonecraft’s work aloud by her graveside. At just nineteen years old and a new mother herself, Mary Shelley composed Frankenstein whilst travelling around Italy with Percy and roguish Lord Byron (who promptly fathered a child by Mary’s stepsister). It is a seminal novel, exploring the limitations of human nature and the power of invention at a time of great religious and scientific upheaval. Moreover, Mary Shelley would become the editor of her husband’s poetry after his early death – a feat of scholarship that did nothing less than establish his literary reputation.Romantic Outlaws brings together a pair of visionary women who should have shared a life, but who instead shared a powerful literary and feminist legacy. This is inventive, illuminating, involving biography at its best.

Just the Job, Lad


Mike Pannett - 2011
    Working a rural beat in God's Own Country he finds that life and crime in the countryside continue to throw up fresh challenges.

Broken Harts: The Life and Death of Owen Hart


Martha Hart - 2002
    Owen's wife Martha, tells the story of their life together from the days as high school sweethearts, through Owen's rise to fame in the WWF.

George Orwell


Gordon Bowker - 2003
    He left an enduring mark on our language and culture, with concepts such as 'Big Brother' and 'Room 101.' His reputation rests not only on his political shrewdness and his sharp satires (Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four) but also on his marvellously clear style and superb essays, which rank with the best ever written. Gordon Bowker's new biography includes fascinating new material which brings Orwell'slife into unfamiliar focus. He writes revealingly about Orwell's family background; the lasting influence of Eton on his work and character; his superstitious streak and youthful flirtation with black magic; and his chaotic and reckless sex life, which included at least one homoerotic relationship. It highlights the strange circumstances of his first marriage and provides remarkable new evidence of his experiences in Spain and their nightmarish consequences. It also offers a fresh look at his peculiar deathbed marriage to a woman fifteen years his junior. All this has enabled Bowker to give Orwell's life a brilliantly fresh and distinctive interpretation.

When The Going Gets Weird: The Twisted Life And Times Of Hunter S. Thompson: A Very Unauthorized Biography


Peter O. Whitmer - 1993
    Thompson, American journalist and personality. Sold out in hard and trade paperback by Disney / Hyperion. Eight pages of illustrations. New Prologue, ISBN, and copy of Stipulation preventing me from delivering flowers to Hunter's Mother.

Over My Shoulder: A Columbine Survivor's Story of Resilience, Hope, and a Life Reclaimed


Kacey Ruegsegger Johnson - 2019
    

Mr Pikes: The Story Behind The Ibiza Legend


Tony Pike - 2017
    the real Hugh Hefner BOY GEORGE Tony created the concept of the boutique hotel. PAUL OAKENFOLD Roguish and very appealing. I like ebullient, charming characters. GRACE JONES I found extraordinary peace at Pikes, and Tony Pike is the best host... the number one ! JOAN BAEZ There's no place like Pikes. You arrive... then a few days later you come round again without fully knowing quite what happened... but you know it was great. KYLE SIMMONS (BASTILLE) I have never seen a man so happy in a leopard skin thong as Tony ! SHIRLEY KEMP (WHAM) Thanks for a fab time, Tony FREDDIE MERCURY

With Billie: A New Look at the Unforgettable Lady Day


Julia Blackburn - 2005
    In With Billie, we hear the voices of those people who knew Billie best: piano players and dancers, pimps and junkies, lovers and narcs, producers and critics, each recalling intimate stories of the Billie they knew. What emerges is a portrait of a complex, contradictory, enthralling woman, a woman who — contrary to myth — knew what she wanted and what really mattered to her. Julia Blackburn has pieced together an oral history of this jazz great, creating a unique and fascinating view of an astonishing woman.