Book picks similar to
Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative by Hershel Parker


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Off Mike: How a Kid from Basketball-Crazy Indiana Became America's NHL Voice


Mike Emrick - 2020
    Yesterday in broadcasting. Tomorrow in book form.” —Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun After nearly 50 years behind the microphone, the voice of hockey in America opens up in a must-read memoir. Mike “Doc” Emrick has seen everything there is to see in a hockey game. Sizzling slap shots. Commitment, courage, and camaraderie. Pugnacious pugilists. Game-winning goals. To hockey fans across the country, his voice—and vocabulary—have become synonymous with the game they love.  In Off Mike, Doc takes readers back to the beginning, detailing how a Pittsburgh Pirates fan from small-town Indiana found himself in the wild world of professional hockey, calling games for the New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, and finally NBC.    He’s covered All-Star Games, Stanley Cup Finals, the Olympics, and everything in between, rubbing shoulders with hockey’s immortals both on and off the ice. Yet Doc’s life has had its share of ups and downs, from almost leaving behind the love of his life to the passing of beloved companions to personal health scares.  After years of being welcomed into our homes, in this autobiography Doc welcomes us into his, revealing the stories, wit, and wisdom that have made him one of the most beloved figures in sports.

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of The Great Gatsby


Sarah Churchwell - 2013
      The autumn of 1922 found F. Scott Fitzgerald at the height of his fame, days from turning twenty-six years old, and returning to New York for the publication of his fourth book, Tales of the Jazz Age. A spokesman for America’s carefree younger generation, Fitzgerald found a home in the glamorous and reckless streets of New York. Here, in the final incredible months of 1922, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald drank and quarreled and partied amid financial scandals, literary milestones, car crashes, and celebrity disgraces. Yet the Fitzgeralds’ triumphant return to New York coincided with another event: the discovery of a brutal double murder in nearby New Jersey, a crime made all the more horrible by the farce of a police investigation—which failed to accomplish anything beyond generating enormous publicity for the newfound celebrity participants. Proclaimed the "crime of the decade" even as its proceedings dragged on for years, the Mills-Hall murder has been wholly forgotten today. But the enormous impact of this bizarre crime can still be felt in The Great Gatsby, a novel Fitzgerald began planning that autumn of 1922 and whose plot he ultimately set within that fateful year.Careless People is a unique literary investigation: a gripping double narrative that combines a forensic search for clues to an unsolved crime and a quest for the roots of America’s best loved novel. Overturning much of the received wisdom of the period, Careless People blends biography and history with lost newspaper accounts, letters, and newly discovered archival materials. With great wit and insight, acclaimed scholar of American literature Sarah Churchwell reconstructs the events of that pivotal autumn, revealing in the process new ways of thinking about Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. Interweaving the biographical story of the Fitzgeralds with the unfolding investigation into the murder of Hall and Mills, Careless People is a thrilling combination of literary history and murder mystery, a mesmerizing journey into the dark heart of Jazz Age America.

I Had a Ball: My Friendship with Lucille Ball


Michael Z. Stern - 2011
    I HAD A BALL is full of stories no one but Michael would know. His friendship with Mom is evident on every page. A good read. Thank you Michael." -DESI ARNAZ J R ."Michael's memories are my memories, only clearer. What a talent for details! It was very moving for me to relive so much of our lives through Michael's eyes. Very entertaining. Charming. And, more importantly, true. As Mom wrote on one of her photos to him, 'Happy Thoughts.'" -LUCIE ARNAZIn 1971, ten-year-old Michael Stern thought he had died and gone to heaven as he watched a filming of Here's Lucy. He was enthralled with a redhead gifted with beauty, stage presence, and the ability to make others laugh. Over the next few years, he would attend several more filmings, meet Lucy, and eventually become (in Lucy's own words) her "number-one fan."In his memoir, Michael Stern offers a refreshing glimpse into the life of a natural comedienne and actress as he provides a fascinating narrative on what it was like to become first a fan and then a friend with one of the biggest television personalities of all time. Known to fans simply as Lucy, she entertained millions of people across the world with shows like I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, and Here's Lucy. But to Michael, who was eventually allowed access into her private world, she was a fascinating woman with whom he would share many unforgettable adventures.I Had a Ball is a unique tribute to Lucy's legacy, her spirit, her talent, and her enthusiasm for life-sure to entertain Lucy fans, television aficionados, and comedy lovers around the world.

Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship That Shaped the Sixties


Kevin M. Schultz - 2015
    Buckley, Jr., were towering personalities who argued publicly and vociferously about every major issue of the 1960s: the counterculture, Vietnam, feminism, civil rights, the Cold War. Behind the scenes, the two were friends and trusted confidantes. In Buckley and Mailer, historian Kevin M. Schultz delivers a fresh and enlightening chronicle of that tumultuous decade through the rich story of what Mailer called their "difficult friendship." From their public debate before the Floyd Patterson–Sonny Liston heavyweight fight and their confrontation at Truman Capote’s Black-and-White Ball, to their involvement in cultural milestones like the antiwar rally in Berkeley and the March on the Pentagon, Buckley and Mailer explores these extraordinary figures’ contrasting visions of America.

The Misfit (Kindle Single)


Steven Poser - 2011
    Ralph Greenson, the star of Hollywood psychoanalysts, treated Marilyn Monroe for fifteen months until her August 1962 suicide. He saw her seven days a week and brought her into his home. He never got over losing her. Written by a practicing psychoanalyst, The Misfit recounts this tragic alliance and Marilyn Monroe’s borderline personality.

Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me


Lucinda Franks - 2014
    She’s a radical, self-styled hippie, and he is New York’s famous district attorney, a legal luminary of the establishment; she’s a prizewinning New York Times journalist who has chained herself to fences, bloodied draft files, and otherwise broken the law for her beliefs, and he is a secret iconoclast who could have put her in jail.     Timeless: Love, Morgenthau, and Me is the memoir of their triumph against the odds, their ongoing thirty-five-year marriage, a union between two people so deeply in love but so different—and with so many decades separating them—that their family and friends fought to keep them apart.     Franks offers a confidential tour of their marriage, as well as the never-revealed, behind-the-scenes details of Morgenthau’s famous cases. We see a red-faced Ronald Lauder storm into Morgenthau’s office after the DA seizes a priceless Egon Schiele painting from the walls of the Museum of Modern Art; we witness the CIA dismissing Morgenthau’s discovery of the growing terrorist cell in New York that would become al-Qaeda headquarters. This is an unusually close look at the privates lives of two well-known people who have always refused to reveal themselves to the public.

No Cake, No Jam: Hardship and happiness in wartime London


Marian Hughes - 1995
    She spent most of her early childhood with her elder sisters and brother in Spurgeon's Orphanage in South London. There she learned to love extravagant hymns and to receive regular beatings.Suddenly, when Marian was ten, her mother appeared. All four children were swept up by their mother to live in a damp and filthy flat off Baker Street. There began a life of moonlight flits, camping and squats. Marian's mother forgot to feed her children, and paid no attention to school or the bombing. Marian soon turned to begging and stealing to help the family get by.Marian's brother and elder sisters left home as soon as they could, but Marian remained to support her deranged and frequently violent mother, evading Care and Protection Orders and often running away. Then the day finally came when Marian had to sign the papers to have her mother committed. From that moment, 14-year-old Marian had to find out if she was strong enough to live for herself ...Throughout all the twists and turns of her childhood, Marian never lost her spirit and never faltered in her loyalty. Full of vigour, truth, humour and curiosity, No Cake, No Jam is a passionate celebration of a life and love.

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."

Second Coming: The Strange Odyssey Of Michael Jordan From Courtside To Home Plate And Back Again


Sam Smith - 1995
    The story of Jordan's departure from and return to the Chicago Bulls describes his anguish over his father's death and his attempts to succeed in major league baseball.

As the Smoke Clears: The inspirational true story of surviving Greece’s deadly wildfires, overcoming devastating loss, and discovering a path to renewal


Zoe Holohan - 2021
    

Tales from the Dugout: Football at the Sharp End


Richard Gordon - 2015
    When the action heats up on the pitch, emotions in the dugout boil over. Grown men lose control. The normally sane turn into irrational agitators. And every decision, no matter how minor, is hotly contested. Tales From The Dugout is a fantastically entertaining collection of incidents and memories gathered from managers, players, referees, linesmen and broadcasters, which encapsulates the unique environment of the technical area and reveals how even limited exposure to it can transform people unrecognisably. And when the red mist descends, the consequences can be almost unbelievable - and frequently hilarious. With contributions from a host of those who have been at the sharp end and lived to tell the tale, Tales From The Dugout is a unique insight into life in the technical area. There are tales from Scotland manager Gordon Strachan, Craig Brown, Pat Nevin, Kenny Clark, Pat Bonner, Scott Booth, Terry Butcher, Jimmy Calderwood, Billy Dodds, Jim Duffy, Alex McLeish, Alex Smith, Willie Young and Chick Young - amongst many others. And brilliant stories about legends of the game like Tommy Burns, Walter Smith, Martin O'Neill, Ally McCoist, Jim McLean and, of course, Sir Alex Ferguson. And it explains why that small area by the side of the pitch is no place for the faint-hearted.

Mother's Ruin: The Extraordinary True Story of How Alcohol Destroys a Family


Nicola Barry - 2007
    And of how Nicola battled with her own alcoholism but, determined to throw off her mother's legacy, came through a survivor.

One of the Family: Why A Dog Called Maxwell Changed My Life


Nicky Campbell - 2021
    Ever since the death of his beloved dog Candy, he'd craved the unique companionship that had so enriched his childhood. Co-presenter of ITV's Long Lost Family, reuniting parents with children, as an adopted child himself Nicky knows all too well the tangled emotions and inner conflicts that go with being given up by your birth mother. It has taken a lifetime - and a miracle dog - to come to terms with abandonment and the feeling of being an imposter in your own life. Raw, honest and courageous in One of the Family, Nicky opens up about how being adopted has made him always feel like an outsider; the guilt he has carried towards his Mum and Dad for needing to trace his birth mother, and the crushing disappointment he felt when he finally met her. And for the first time, he writes about his emotional breakdown and how he has learned to live with a late diagnosis of bipolar. Through it all his passion for dogs and animals has been a lifeline. It is Maxwell's magic, a lesson from a Labrador in simple unconditional friendship, that has allowed him to see all the good in his life: from the security and safety of his childhood home, the love of his wife and four daughters and above all, to better understand the decisions taken by his birth mother to give him up for adoption.

My Dad the Spy


Stewart Copeland
    

Surviving James Dean


William Bast - 2006
    A beautifully written memoir, candid and definitive, that tells the story of Bast's five year relationship with the charismatic actor and American legend--James Dean.