Book picks similar to
From Ballet to the Batcave and Beyond by Yvonne Craig
biography
batman
memoirs
comics
Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
Alan Alda - 2007
Reflecting on the transitions in his life and in all our lives, he notices that “doorways are where the truth is told,” and wonders if there’s one thing–art, activism, family, money, fame–that could lead to a “life of meaning.” In a book that is candid, wise, and as questioning as it is incisive, Alda amuses and moves us with his uniquely hilarious meditations on questions great and small.
Praise for Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself
“Engagingly thoughtful and thought-provoking . . . [Alan Alda] candidly shares many stories of his life, so easily and wittily you can hear him speak as you read.”–Sydney Sun Herald“Alda is chatty, easygoing and humble, rather like a Mr. Rogers for grownups. His words of inspiration would be a perfect gift for a college grad or for anyone facing major life changes.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Smart, engaged, funny and observant.”–San Antonio Express-News
Blood, Sweat and McAteer: A Footballer's Story
Jason McAteer - 2016
But for eleven-year-old Jason McAteer, growing up in the shadow of Liverpool FC, football became the dream. After signing with Bolton Wanderers at the age of twenty-one, the call to the international scene followed with the Republic of Ireland and, soon after, to his beloved Liverpool FC. The dream had become a reality. From his time with the Irish World Cup squad of 1994 to those tumultuous days in Saipan in 2002; on through his decision to leave Liverpool for Blackburn Rovers; his move to Sunderland, and the depression he fell into after finishing his professional career with Tranmere Rovers, Jason McAteer looks back with characteristic honesty and humour on his life - the jokes, the matches, and the personalities.This is the real Jason McAteer: a little bit bruised, a little bit battered. But still fighting.
TRAPPED
Lori L. Stephens - 2009
Stephens was thrown out into the streets by her mother. This would be the beginning of a life no one deserves to endure, ever.With nowhere to go, confused and frightened beyond comprehension, she settled in inside of a small washroom of a condo complex. Curled up as small as she could make herself, she lay abandoned. What happen next can only be adequately described in the pages within…, and this was only the beginning.Through her struggle to stay alive in a world she barely understood, with non-existent parents from a broken home, this young girl met adversity headlong, with no recourse at her disposal.In the memoirs of the next 30 years of her life of drug and alcohol abuse, with METHAMPHETAMINES as her mainstay, you will learn how she was forced to resort to physical violence to stay alive. Stabbing one of her rapists was only the beginning. Domestic violence, conflict with the Law, jail, how she escaped with the courage, the will to stay alive, and the guts to persevere through an impossible road out of the toughest trap from which one might ever have to escape, Lori L. Stephens overcomes impossible adversity. And in result, this woman’s strength to overcome—and her heroism to help others do the same, through 6 years in recovery, and living a life she never dreamed possible, are all described profoundly in this book, and can only inspire and encourage every person in their daily lives.
Family Secrets: The scandalous history of an extraordinary family
Derek Malcolm - 2017
The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.
Time Between: My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond
Chris Hillman - 2020
He went on to record and perform in various configurations, including as a member of Stephen Stills’s Manassas and as a co-founder of The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. In the 1980s he formed The Desert Rose Band, scoring eight Top 10 Billboard country hits. He’s released a number of solo efforts, including 2017’s highly acclaimed Bidin’ My Time—the final album produced by the late Tom Petty. In Time Between, Hillman shares his quintessentially Southern Californian experience, from an idyllic, rural 1950s childhood; to achieving worldwide fame thanks to hits such as “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Eight Miles High”; to becoming the first musician to move to Laurel Canyon. Featuring behind-the-scenes insights on his time in The Byrds, his productive but sometimes complicated relationship with Gram Parsons, his role in launching the careers of Buffalo Springfield and Emmylou Harris, and the ups and downs of life in various bands, music is only part of his story. Within the pages of Time Between, Hillman reveals the details of his personal life with candor and vulnerability, writing honestly about the shocking tragedy that struck his family when he was a teenager, his subsequent struggles with anger, and how his spiritual journey led him to a place of deep faith that allowed him to extend forgiveness and experience wholeness. Chris Hillman is much more than a rock star. He is truly a founding father of American music and a man who has faced down the challenges of life to discover what really matters.
The Only Pirate at the Party
Lindsey Stirling - 2016
In fact, it’s her confidence and individuality that have propelled her into the spotlight. But the road hasn’t been easy. After being rejected by talent scouts, music reps, and eventually national television, Lindsey forged her own path, step by step. Here, for the first time, she shares every triumph and trial she has faced until now. Beginning in a humble yet charmed childhood, this book follows Lindsey through a humorous adolescence, to her life as a struggling musician, through her personal struggles with anorexia, and finally all the way to her success as a world-class entertainer. Lindsey’s magnetizing story is at once remarkable and universal—a testimony that there is no singular recipe for success. And a witness that, despite what people may say, sometimes it’s okay to be The Only Pirate at the Party.
Philosophy of Sailing: Offshore in Search of the Universe
Christian Williams - 2018
There’s No Bones in Ice Cream: Sylvain Sylvain’s Story of the New York Dolls
Sylvain Sylvain - 2018
A cross between the Rolling Stones and the Sex Pistols, the Dolls became the link in the chain between them, offering a crash course in mischief, cross-dressing and anarchy, but like unheralded prophets of Biblical times they were cast aside until the world finally caught up.“Other people turned the New York Dolls into legends. We just went along for the ride.”
A Lot Like Me: A Father and Son's Journey to Reconciliation
Larry Elder - 2018
I hated working for him and I hated being around him. I hated it when he walked through the front door at home. And we feared him from the moment he pulled up in front of the house in his car.” So writes conservative firebrand and popular radio host Larry Elder. For ten years Elder and his father did not talk to each other. When they finally did, the conversation went on for eight hours—eight hours that took Elder on his father’s journey from the Jim Crow South, to service in the Marine Corps, to starting a business in Southern California. Elder emerged not just reconciled with his dad, but admiring him, and realizing that he had never fully known him or understood him. Heartfelt, beautifully written, compulsively readable, A Lot Like Me—originally published as Dear Father, Dear Son—is both a powerfully affecting memoir and a personal, provocative slice of American history.
Leah Remini: My Escape from Scientology
Johnny Dodd - 2016
Ron Hubbard—begins in Brooklyn's working-class Bensonhurst neighborhood, where she was introduced to the religion by her mom. More than three decades later, Leah summoned the courage to leave the church—something few celebrities at her level of fame have ever done before and almost none have ever talked about. This People Spotlight Story explores Leah Remini and her escape from Scientology.
The Making of Some Like It Hot: My Memories of Marilyn Monroe and the Classic American Movie
Tony Curtis - 2009
. . Some Like It Hot occupies a unique place in American culture. This beloved classic showcases five comic geniuses: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, I. A. L. Diamond, Billy Wilder, and Marilyn Monroe. It has been honored by the American Film Institute as the "Funniest Film of All Time". It has contributed quotes, styles, and stories to film lore. Yet the full story of its making has never been told—until now.
Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor: Music, Manchester, and More: A Memoir
Dave Haslam - 2018
He interviews Johnny Marr and John Lydon; Sonic Youth sleep on his floor; he meets writers including Raymond Carver and Jonathan Franzen; he discusses masturbation with Viv Albertine, and ecstasy with Roisin Murphy; he has a gun pulled on him at the Hacienda, a drug dealer threatens to slit his throat; and Morrissey comes to tea.In the late 1970s, a teenage John Peel listener and Joy Division fan, Haslam's face was pressed against a window, looking out at a world of music, books, ideas. In 2017, four decades later, he finds himself in the middle of that world, collaborating with New Order on a series of five shows in Manchester.Haslam builds a rich context to the story of those decades; a definitive portrait of Manchester as a music city; the impact of life-shaking events (from the nightmare of the Yorkshire Ripper to the shock of the Manchester Arena terror attack); and how music has soundtracked his life, his times, his generation.Sonic Youth Slept On My Floor is a masterful insider account of the Hacienda, the rise of Madchester and the birth of the rave era, and so much more . . .
Fear Strikes Out: The Jim Piersall Story
Jim Piersall - 1955
. . . This account of his experience is a frank and fascinating one."-Chicago Sunday Tribune "The story of a man who became mentally 'sick, ' and how, through competent medical care, the help of a sympathetic and most understanding wife, the patience and encouragement of manager, teammates and fans, and above all his own splendid courage, he made a complete recovery and resumed his baseball career. . . .. How we overcame his fears is a dramatic, heart-warming story."-Library Journal Jim Piersall played baseball in the 1950s and 1960s for the Boston Red Sox, the Cleveland Indians, the Washington Senators, the New York Mets, and the California Angels. After brief forays into professional football and wrestling businesses, he has worked for many years in broadcasting and minor league player development for the Chicago Cubs. He lives in Arizona during the off-season and in Chicago during the season.
Trail Blazer: My Life as an Ultra-distance Runner
Ryan Sandes - 2016
Since bursting onto the international trail-running scene by winning the first multistage race he ever entered – the brutal Gobi March – Ryan has gone on to win various other multistage and single-day races around the globe. Written with bestselling author and journalist Steve Smith, Trail Blazer – My Life as an Ultra-distance Trail Runner recounts the life story of this intrepid sportsman, from his experiences as a rudderless party animal to becoming a world-class athlete, and includes details on his training regimes, race strategies and aspirations for future sporting endeavours.Sports enthusiasts will enjoy the adrenaline-inducing trials and tribulations of one of South Africa’s most awe-inspiring athletes, while endurance-sport participants – from beginners to aspirant pros – will benefit from his insights and advice. As Professor Tim Noakes says in the Foreword to this book: ‘However much we might think we know and understand, there are some phenomena which now, and perhaps forever, we will never fully comprehend. We call such happenings “enigmas”. Or even miracles. Ryan Sandes is one such.’
My Life in Baseball: The True Record
Ty Cobb - 1961
Introduction by Charles C. Alexander.