Stephen Stills: Change Partners: The Definitive Biography 2016


David Roberts - 2019
    During his six-decade career, he has played with all the greats. His career sky-rocketed when Crosby, Stills & Nash played only their second gig together at Woodstock in 1969. With the addition of Neil Young, the band would go on to play the first rock stadium tour in 1974. Stephen Stills is the only person to have been inducted twice in one night into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Who Was Albert Einstein?


Jess M. Brallier - 2002
    Everyone has heard of Albert Einstein-but what exactly did he do? How much do kids really know about Albert Einstein besides the funny hair and genius label? For instance, do they know that he was expelled from school as a kid? Finally, here's the story of Albert Einstein's life, told in a fun, engaging way that clearly explores the world he lived in and changed.

The Day John Met Paul: An Hour-By-Hour Account of How the Beatles Began


James O'Donnell - 1994
    In the early evening, Paul pulled out his guitar and ran through a medley of tunes for John, impressing the young leader of the Quarry Men Skiffle Group with both his playing and his knowledge of rock music. One of the most important partnerships in the history of modern music was begun. The Day John Met Paul is the story of two spirited boys on the brink of manhood who recognized a shared passion, a feeling for music so intense and pure that their seemingly simple meeting ultimately changed the face of music - and the world.

Muddy: The Story of Blues Legend Muddy Waters


Michael James Mahin - 2017
    When Grandma Della said the blues wouldn’t put food on the table, Muddy didn’t listen. And when record producers told him no one wanted to listen to a country boy playing country blues, Muddy ignored them as well. This tenacious streak carried Muddy from the hardscrabble fields of Mississippi to the smoky juke joints of Chicago and finally to a recording studio where a landmark record was made.Soon the world fell in love with the tough spirit of Muddy Waters. In blues-infused prose and soulful illustrations, Michael Mahin and award-winning artist Evan Turk tell Muddy’s fascinating and inspiring story of struggle, determination, and hope.

The Amazingly Disorganised Help Dictionary


Georgia Productions - 2018
    It contains random and relatable lists, hot tips, advice, activities, stories from my past, info about how I got started on YouTube, lots of LOLs and so much more!Hopefully this book will make you laugh, but also help you to see that everyone’s brain works differently and that your so-called weaknesses can really be gifts.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: Dreams Taking Flight


Kathleen Krull - 2008
    She kept reaching up and up as she grew. There were people who told her no. But she didn't listen to them. There were people who didn't think she could do it. But she believed in herself. And Hillary has been making history ever since. This is the inspiring story of a girl with dreams as big as the open sky.

Princess Helena


John Van der Kiste - 2013
    A steady, dependable young woman, known as ‘Lenchen’ within the family, she was particularly ‘useful’ to her demanding and recently widowed mother, who could not bear to lose her to a marriage which would oblige her to move and live abroad with her husband. In 1866 she married Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, a kindly but penniless bachelor fifteen years older than her. Despite the difference in ages, it was the only marriage among the Queen’s children in which both partners lived long enough to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. For nearly sixty years Helena was a tireless supporter of good causes, particularly in the field of nursing and education. This concise biography examines her life, work and relationships with her family.

A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson


Michelle Y. Green - 2002
    Sizes him up for a curve- or a fastball. Stretches her 5'2" frame. And pops a surefire, windup, coming-right-at-ya pitch smack dab over the plate. One that lets the batter know that this "peanut of a girl" means business. Fueled by her passion for the game and buoyed by the inspiration of Jackie Robinson, Mamie Johnson is determined to be a professional baseball pitcher. From the time she insists on trying out for the all-male all-white Police Athletic League team until she becomes one of only three women to play in the Negro Leagues, this biography of Mamie Johnson's life shows that courage-and a fierce curveball-can make a childhood dream come true. Illustrated with nineteen black-and-white photographs.

Walt Disney: An American Original


Bob Thomas - 1960
    After years of research, with the full cooperation of the Disney family and access to private papers and letters, Bob Thomas produced the definitive biography of the man behind the legend--the unschooled cartoonist from Kansas City who went bankrupt on his first movie venture but became the genius who produced unmatched works of animation. Complete with a rare collection of photographs, Bob Thomas' biography is a fascinating and inspirational work that captures the spirit of Walt Disney.

Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story


Jewel - 2015
    In the tradition of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell (she has been compared to both), a singer-songwriter of her kind had not emerged in decades. Now, with over 30 million albums sold worldwide, Jewel tells the story of her life and the lessons learned from her experience and her music.Living on a homestead in Alaska, Jewel learned to yodel at age three and joined her parents' act, working in hotels, honky-tonks, and biker bars. Behind a strong-willed and independent family life, with an emphasis on music and artistic talent, was also instability, abuse, and trauma.At age 15 Jewel was accepted into the prestigious Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, where she began writing her own songs as a means of expression. She was 18, homeless, and living out of her car in San Diego when a radio DJ aired a bootleg version of one of her songs. It was requested in the top-10 countdown, something unheard of for an unsigned artist. By age 21, her debut album went multiplatinum.There is so much more to Jewel's story, one complicated by family and financial woes, by crippling fear and insecurity, by parents who forced a child to grow up far too quickly, and by the extraordinary circumstances in which she became a world-famous singer and songwriter. Here Jewel reflects on how she survived and how writing songs, poetry, and prose have saved her life many times over. She writes beautifully about the natural wonders of Alaska, about pain and childhood trauma, and about discovering her own identity years after the entire world had discovered the beauty of her songs.

Jazz ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits


Wynton Marsalis - 2005
    As for sax master Sonny Rollins, whose "robust style radiates roundness," could there be a better tribute than a poetic rondeau? In an extraordinary feat, Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz composer Wynton Marsalis harmonizes his love and knowledge of jazz's most celebrated artists with an astounding diversity of poetic forms — from simple blues (Count Basie) to a complex pantoum (Charlie Parker), from a tender sonnet (Sarah Vaughan) to a performance poem snapping the rhythms of Art Blakey to life. Matching Wynton Marsalis's musical cadences note for note is the bold, poster-style art of Paul Rogers, highlighted in two phenomenal foldout spreads. The art's vibrant nostalgic feel is echoed in an exquisite design, with its size simulating an old 78 LP and its endpapers die-cut to mimic a vintage record sleeve. Complete with a discography and brief biographies of the featured musicians as well as notes on the various poetic forms, this is truly an incomparable gift book — for older children learning about jazz, longtime jazz aficionados, lovers of poetry, and readers of all ages who appreciate the finest in book design.

It's Always Summer Somewhere: A Matter of Life and Cricket


Felix White - 2021
    His passion for the game is at the fore on the BBC 's number one cricket podcast and 5Live show, Tailenders, which he co-presents with Greg James and Jimmy Anderson. It's Always Summer Somewhere is his funny, heartbreaking and endlessly engaging love letter to the game.Felix takes us through his life growing up in South West London and describes how his story is forever punctuated and given meaning by cricket. Through his own exploits as a slow left arm spinner of 'lovely loopy stuff', to the tragic illness of his mother, life with The Maccabees and his cricket redemption, Felix touches on both the comedic and the tragic in equal measure. Throughout, there's the ever-present roller coaster of following the England cricket team. The exploits of Tufnell (another bowler of 'lovely loopy stuff'), Atherton, Hussain et al, are given extra import through the eyes of a cricket-obsessed youth. Felix meets them at each signposted moment to find out what was really behind those moments that gave cricket fans everywhere sporting memories that would last forever, sending the book into an exploration of grief, transgenerational displacement and how the people we've known and things we've loved culminate and take expression in our lives. It's Always Summer Somewhere is an incredibly honest detail of a life lived with cricket. It offers a sense of genuine empathy and understanding not just with cricket fans, but sports and music fans across the world, in articulating our reasons for pouring so much meaning into something that we simply cannot control.Culminating in the heart-stopping World Cup Final in 2019, the book finally answers that question fans have so often asked...what is it about this game?

Behind The Door: the Real Story of Loretta Young


Edward J Funk - 2015
    Then, in 2012, Linda Lewis, Loretta Young’s daughter-in-law, called, urging me to finally bring this book to full life. I’ll be forever grateful to Loretta Young, a guarded woman by nature, who finally decided to tell a very personal story. In doing so, she enlisted the help of her three sisters and life-long friends. These people have all passed on, but their voices remain vividly in the present.Excerpts pertaining to Loretta’s relationship with Clark GableGable arrived at Loretta’s train compartment uninvited. She recalled,” I allowed him in as I would have any member of the crew, thinking he was there for a visit. He had other intentions. Very persistent intentions. He wasn’t rough, but I kept saying no, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Loretta received a phone call from Ria Gable a few weeks later. Loretta recalled, "I was in Mama's room and I picked up the phone. Mrs. Gable said, 'This is very presumptuous of me, but you may or may not know that there are rumors flying around town about you and my husband.'”In 1998, when Loretta was eighty-five, she was watching television with Edward Funk. There was the mention of date-rape on the news, and she asked him what exactly did that mean. He explained to the best of his ability. The following day, Loretta called her daughter-in-law, Linda and said. “I know now that there was a word for what happened to me with Clark.”Clark Gable arrived on the set of THE CRUSADES. Loretta recalled, “He waited until I was through and then offered to take me home. We went for a drive up in the Hollywood Hills. He didn’t say much, but it was apparent that he was agitated. With the long silences, I felt very uncomfortable and finally felt the pressure to say something. I blurted out, ‘Would it make any difference if I told you that I wasn’t pregnant?’ He turned and looked at me and then asked, ‘Well, are you or aren’t you?’ I felt like such a fool. I didn’t know why I had said that except that I had tried to think of something to say he wanted to hear, my inherent need to please taken to an illogical length. I had to tell him that I was pregnant. His look toward me was one of total exasperation, and very little was said as he drove me home.” There would be some phone calls in the interim, but it would be more than a year before Loretta would see Clark Gable again. Loretta’s sister, Sally, "I remember taking an odd route to get there (the house in Westwood where Loretta and the baby were in hiding). My mother didn't approve that I was going at all because of all the secrecy, but I was dying to see the baby. She was very big by the time I did. I just loved her looks and kept saying, ‘Oh Loretta, I hope I have a baby that looks just like this.' In response to my enthusiasm about Judy, Loretta referred to Gable’s visit earlier in the week, the first time he had seen his daughter, and said, 'Yes, and do you know after all that has gone on, all that we've gone through, instead of having any interest in his daughter, he tried to knock me down on the bed! Can you imagine, Sally? That bastard! Who the hell does he think he is?' And I thought, 'With all that's happened, she thinks he's a bastard. He didn't understand that Loretta was a human being that had suffered very much.”Loretta acted like she couldn’t have been more flattered that MGM’s two biggest male stars (Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy) would come to see her (on the set of UNGUARDED HOUR). Under her smile she thought differently. She reflected, “I thought how different these two men were.

The Serpents of Arakesh


V.M. Jones - 2003
    One day Adam enters the Quest Golden Opportunity Competition, with the ultimate prize of working with the reclusive software genius Quentin Quested, test-driving his latest top-secret breakthrough in computer game technology. Adam is unbelievably chosen to undergo the final selection process. At Quested Court, Adam enters a world he never dreamed existed. A world of kindly adults and potential friends, in which the boundaries between fantasy and reality start to become blurred. Only when Adam and his companions begin the gaming workshop does Quentin Quested reveal their real-life quest into the parallel world of Karazan, where the Serpents of Arakesh stand guard over the most precious prize of all.

The Brontë Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne


Catherine Reef - 2012
    In this sometimes heartbreaking young adult biography, Catherine Reef explores the turbulent lives of these literary siblings and the oppressive times in which they lived. Brontë fans will also revel in the insights into their favorite novels, the plethora of poetry, and the outstanding collection of more than sixty black-and-white archival images. A powerful testimony to the life of the mind. (Endnotes, bibliography, index.)