Prize-winning novelist Cai Emmons praises Sterry by saying she really knows how to tell a story. Sterry grew up in a succession of isolated one-room schools in northern and central Montana, where her mother, a teacher, eked out a living. A must read for anyone who loves Montana and its rich history.

    During his early years in charity hospitals, Richard observed the drama of other broken boys’ lives, children from impoverished Appalachia, tobacco country lowlands, and Richmond’s poorest neighborhoods. The son of a solitary alcoholic father whose hair-trigger temper terrorized his family, and of a mother who sought inner peace through fasting, prayer, and scripture, Richard spent his bedridden childhood withdrawn into the company of books.      As a young man, Richard, defying both his doctors and parents, set out to experience as much of the world as he could—as a disc jockey, fishing trawler deckhand, house painter, naval correspondent, aerial photographer, private investigator, foreign journalist, bartender and unsuccessful seminarian—before his hips failed him.  While digging irrigation ditches in east Texas, he discovered that a teacher had sent a story of his to the Atlantic, where it was named a winner in the magazine’s national fiction contest launching a career much in the mold of Jack London and Mark Twain.    A superbly written and irresistible blend of history, travelogue, and personal reflection, House of Prayer No. 2 is a remarkable portrait of a writer’s struggle with his faith, the evolution of his art, and of recognizing one’s singularity in the face of painful disability.  Written with humor and a poetic force, this memoir is destined to become a modern classic.

    Behind the public acclaim which his wartime achievements brought him, he had vanity and a controversial lifestyle. He had influential connections with the Royal Family but made many enemies, including Winston Churchill, who never forgave him for his part in "giving away India", while courtiers in the Royal Household disliked him for his arrogance and interference. Both Mountbatten and his wife were widely known to have had numerous affairs, but this was rarely spoken of outside their circle. He was an egotistical man, fascinated by Royalty and his own relationship to the Royal Family, and delighted in being seen with celebrities. His biographer, Brian Hoey, knew Mountbatten for ten years and interviewed him on radio and television. Hoey talked to many in the Royal Household, and also to Prince Philip, Prince Michael of Kent and King Constantine of Greece about their memories of Mountbatten. Both of Mountbatten's daughters, and his grandchildren also agreed to speak.

    McGregor, and many other Beatrix Potter characters remain in the hearts of millions. However, though Potter is a household name around the world, few know the woman behind the illustrations. Her personal life, including a romantic relationship with her publisher, Norman Warne, and her significant achievements outside of children's literature remain largely unknown. In Linda Lear's enchanting new biography, we get the life story of this incredible, funny, and independent woman. As one of the first female naturalists in the world, Potter brought the beauty and importance of nature back into the imagination at a time when plunder was more popular than preservation. Through her art she sought to encourage conservation and change the world. With never before seen illustrations and intimate detail, Lear goes beyond our perrenial fascination with Potter as a writer and illustrator of children's books, and delves deeply into the life of a most unusual and gifted woman--one whose art was timeless, and whose generosity left an indelible imprint on the countryside.

    It is the story of a violent, war-haunted, alcoholic father and a strong-willed, loving mother who struggled to protect her three sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had tainted her own life. It is the story of the life Bragg was able to carve out for himself on the strength of his mother's encouragement and belief.

    Over sixty years later, this novel, which was an immediate bestseller when published in 1942, is still selling. The child of German American parents, Betty Smith was born and raised in the immigrant slums of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Forced to go to work at the age of fourteen, she never graduated from high school, but she achieved success as a playwright and novelist, writing four bestsellers over the course of her career. She married three times, was divorced twice, lived for many years with her lover, attended and taught graduate-level courses, raised two daughters, and supported her family during the Depression. While her writing focused on Brooklyn, she lived and worked for most of her adult life in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This is the first published biography of Betty Smith. Valerie Raleigh Yow has a PhD in history from the University of Wisconsin. She has published two previous academic books and a biography of North Carolina novelist Bernice Kelly Harris (Louisiana State University Press, 1999) and is a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

    With her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, she moved in a golden aura of excitement, romance, and promise. The epitome of the Jazz Age, together they rode the crest of the era: to its collapse and their own.From years of exhaustive research, Nancy Milford brings alive the tormented, elusive personality of Zelda and clarifies as never before her relationship with Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda traces the inner disintegration of a gifted, despairing woman, torn by the clash between her husband's career and her own talent.

    A college track star and budding entomologist, Nnedi’s lifelong battle with scoliosis was just a bump in her plan—something a simple operation would easily correct. But when Nnedi wakes from the surgery to find she can’t move her legs, her entire sense of self begins to waver. Confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. Psychedelic bugs crawl her hospital walls; strange dreams visit her nightly. Nnedi begins to put these experiences into writing, conjuring up strange, fantastical stories. What Nnedi discovers during her confinement would prove to be the key to her life as a successful science fiction author: In science fiction, when something breaks, something greater often emerges from the cracks.In Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Nnedi takes the reader on a journey from her hospital bed deep into her memories, from her painful first experiences with racism as a child in Chicago to her powerful visits to her parents’ hometown in Nigeria. From Frida Kahlo to Mary Shelly, she examines great artists and writers who have pushed through their limitations, using hardship to fuel their work. Through these compelling stories and her own, Nnedi reveals a universal truth: What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths—far greater than when we were unbroken.A guidebook for anyone eager to understand how their limitations might actually be used as a creative springboard, Broken Places & Outer Spaces is an inspiring look at how to open up new windows in your mind.

    Thompson, the man who saved Winston Churchill's life more than once.Walter H. Thompson was Churchill's bodyguard from 1921 until 1945, brought back from retirement at the outbreak of war.Tom Hickman's authorised biography draws heavily on extracts from a manuscript recently discovered by his great-niece, in which Thompson gives a unique insider's account of a number of occasions on which Churchill's life was put seriously at risk and his intervention was needed.After the war, Thompson married one of Churchill's secretaries, and her recollections, as well as those of surviving family members, are interwoven to tell the revelatory inside story of life beside the Greatest Briton.

    The first volume of his selected letters, edited by renowned biographer and Beat scholar Ann Charters, was widely regarded as a vital and momentous contribution to Kerouac scholarship. In Jack Kerouac: Selected Letters 1957-1969, the second and final volume of his correspondence, Charters highlights letters written to his closest friends and colleagues that paint a heart-wrenching portrait of this broken American genius.The first volume of Kerouac's letters documented the writer's discovery of his "spontaneous prose" method and the inspired composition of 11 books between 1951 and 1956. "The second volume," writes Charters, "demonstrates that the publication of his books and the attendant publicity and hostile critical response literally destroyed him." The book opens with letters written prior to the publication of On The Road, an event that would make Kerouac famous overnight and permanently alter the landscape of American literature, and concludes only days before his death in St. Petersburg, Florida, at age 47.Charters provides indispensable commentary between the letters to give the biographical background of what was happening in Kerouac's life, while allowing the writer to comment on his own work as much as possible. Charters also includes some letters from his friends, such as Gary Snyder's reaction to being the fictional hero of The Dharma Bums, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti's letter to Time magazine defending Kerouac from malicious attacks by critics on his books and lifestyle. Occasionally Kerouac responded to fan mail and queries from academics, and some of these replies have also been included. The few letters from his mother and from his third wife, Stella, show just how dependent the writer was on his family.Kerouac is often thought of as being very much like the rugged, wandering, Zen-loony characters that populate his books. But by the late '60s, while pals Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Peter Orlovsky were on pilgrimage in Nepal, he was living with his mother, getting rejected on credit card applications. A severe alcoholic, Kerouac suffered rapidly declining health, and he grew increasingly bitter and paranoid. Each book by Kerouac that was published in hardcover after The Dharma Bums was quickly remaindered, yet despite this, Kerouac kept writing right up to the day he died.Unfortunately, his greatest successes came too late for him to enjoy. At least eight works of Kerouac's fiction, poetry, and Buddhist writings have been published posthumously, not to mention the countless studies and biographies that fill the shelves of bookstores each year. In 1999, Jack Kerouac and the Beats are a business unto themselves.Soon after completing her own doctorate work in American literature at Columbia in 1966, Ann Charters had the crazy idea that the Beats needed a scholar like herself to secure a place for them in our nation's history. Thirty years later it is quite clear just how crucial a role she has played in the literary afterlife of Jack Kerouac.—Cary Goldstein

    Its beloved antiheroine, Harriet, is erratic, unsentimental, and endearing-very much like the woman who created her, Louise Fitzhugh.Born in 1928, Fitzhugh was raised in segregated Memphis, but she soon escaped her cloistered world and headed for New York, where her expanded milieu stretched from the lesbian bars of Greenwich Village to the art world of postwar Europe, and her circle of friends included members of the avant-garde like Maurice Sendak and Lorraine Hansberry. Fitzhugh's novels, written in an era of political defiance, are full of resistance: to authority, to conformity, and even -- radically, for a children's author -- to make-believe.As a children's author and a lesbian, Fitzhugh was often pressured to disguise her true nature. Sometimes You Have to Lie tells the story of her hidden life and of the creation of her masterpiece, which remains long after her death as a testament to the complicated relationship between truth, secrecy, and individualism.

     In the ten years since the publication of her beloved, groundbreaking Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, #1 New York Times bestselling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal has been quietly tinkering away. Using her distinct blend of nonlinear narrative, wistful reflections, and insightful wit, she has created a modest but mighty new work.Why the title T​extbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal?​ • Because the book is organized into chapters with classic subject headings such as Social Studies, Music, Language Arts, Math, etc. • Because textbook ​is an expression meaning “quintessential,” as in, Oh, that wordplay and unconventional format is so typical of her, so textbook Amy. • Because for the first time ever, readers can further engage with a book via text messaging. • Because if an author’s previous book has E​ncyclopedia i​n the title, following it up with a ​Textbook would be rather nice.Not exactly a memoir, not just a collection of observations, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal is an exploration into the many ways we are connected on this planet and speaks to the awe, bewilderment, and poignancy of being alive.

    What would this reading trajectory say about you? With passion, humor, and insight, the editor of The New York Times Book Review shares the stories that have shaped her life.Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for twenty-eight years – carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk – reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob.Bob is Paul’s Book of Books, a journal that records every book she’s ever read, from Sweet Valley High to Anna Karenina, from Catch-22 to Swimming to Cambodia, a journey in reading that reflects her inner life – her fantasies and hopes, her mistakes and missteps, her dreams and her ideas, both half-baked and wholehearted. Her life, in turn, influences the books she chooses, whether for solace or escape, information or sheer entertainment.But My Life with Bob isn’t really about those books. It’s about the deep and powerful relationship between book and reader. It’s about the way books provide each of us the perspective, courage, companionship, and imperfect self-knowledge to forge our own path. It’s about why we read what we read and how those choices make us who we are. It’s about how we make our own stories.

    No one in this radical splinter sect of the Mormon Church was more powerful or terrifying than its leader Warren Jeffs—Rachel’s father.Living outside mainstream Mormonism and federal law, Jeffs arranged marriages between under-age girls and middle-aged and elderly members of his congregation. In 2006, he gained international notoriety when the FBI placed him on its Ten Most Wanted List. Though he is serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, Jeffs’ iron grip on the church remains firm, and his edicts to his followers increasingly restrictive and bizarre.In Breaking Free, Rachel blows the lid off this taciturn community made famous by John Krakauer’s bestselling Under the Banner of Heaven to offer a harrowing look at her life with Warren Jeffs, and the years of physical and emotional abuse she suffered. Sexually assaulted, compelled into an arranged polygamous marriage, locked away in "houses of hiding" as punishment for perceived transgressions, and physically separated from her children, Rachel, Jeffs’ first plural daughter by his second of more than fifty wives, eventually found the courage to leave the church in 2015. But Breaking Free is not only her story—Rachel’s experiences illuminate those of her family and the countless others who remain trapped in the strange world she left behind.A shocking and mesmerizing memoir of faith, abuse, courage, and freedom, Breaking Free is an expose of religious extremism and a beacon of hope for anyone trying to overcome personal obstacles.

    When she walked into the Body Art Workshop in Laramie, Wyoming, she found what she was looking for: a culture on the fringe of polite society, complete with outlaw signature. Soon Karol was a full-time tattoo artist, an occasional outlaw, and a tattooed woman looking for love in all the wrong places. By the mid nineties, the West had been invaded by suburban culture; and tattoos had become a mass commodity of coolness, compelling Karol to go even farther to find the authentic outsiders she romanticized. She eventually hooked up with a real old-fashioned Wyoming outlaw, complete with felony convictions and outstanding warrants—which is how Karol wound up looking down the barrel of a gun held by a tattooed caricature of true love.