Whether through his writing, live appearances, tweets, or thousands of hours of videos and podcasts, his work has been seen by many. He’s set two Guinness World Records, earned the ire of legendary baseball players, penned two novels about an alligator fighter pilot, raised thousands for charity via custom Super Mario Bros. levels, and works a side job as a professional wrestling manager. These are the stories that people already know. Before jumping headfirst into the public eye, Ryckert’s history was just as unique. He’s been a Catholic schoolboy and an insufferable movie theater employee. He’s befriended the insane and almost been stabbed. Time and time again, he’s taken long shots that have inexplicably paid off in ridiculous ways. Dan Ryckert’s history of unlikely events didn’t start in 2009. They were happening for 25 years prior to that, and the details can be found in The Dumbest Kid in Gifted Class.

    His father – an ex-army man – and his mother helped him to a good school and a good university. Nicky rarely thought of his birth parents, until a combination of an imploding marriage and a chance meeting with a private detective led him to track his mother down. Nicky Campbell brilliantly recalls their reunion and tentative steps towards a relationship, evoking all the complex and deep-seated emotions that being reunited elicited in each of them. But as they talked it became clear that there was more to Nicky’s background than he expected. . . In this emotionally gripping and refreshingly honest memoir, Nicky Campbell describes the many sides of a family’s dark history, and how it feels to find out where you come from.

    In 2000, after the Olympic Games closed with much fanfare in Sydney, legendary wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat watched, dejected and heartbroken, as the prize reserved by his state government for winners of Olympic medals in wrestling was left unclaimed. Determined to never see this instance repeated, Phogat decided to do the unthinkable. Much to his neighbours’ curiosity he spent two days digging a pit in his courtyard and asked his young daughters and nieces to join him there at the break of dawn one day. Little did they know that this unusual command from him would change their lives forever.Yet, each of their wins in the ring, every ambition he had for them, came at great personal cost. In the small village of Balali in Haryana, a state infamous for its practice of female foeticide and low literacy rates, Phogat had to battle not just deep social stigma and an apathetic government, but also a disapproving family and personal tragedy, to train the girls in his sport. Due to his efforts, the girls have all gone on to win medals and acclaim at the national and international levels, including at the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games.Akhada tells the remarkable story of a man of tremendous fortitude, of a father who fought against all odds to give his daughters a future they could not have dreamed for themselves.

    It's all a long way from his childhood, growing up in a terraced house in post-war Accrington, Lancashire. But cricket has taken him all over the globe, and he has experienced everything from excruciating agony Down Under to the Bollywood glamour of the IPL - he's even risked it all to cross the Pennines into Yorkshire.  In Around the World in 80 Pints, Bumble relives some of the most exciting and remarkable periods in his life, showing how his travels have opened up new and exciting avenues for him. The book is packed full of brilliant stories from famous Ashes matches and Roses clashes, sharing the commentary box with Ian Botham and Shane Warne, and much else besides - all told in his idiosyncratic style that has won him so many fans the world over. His previous autobiography, Last in the Tin Bath, was a huge bestseller, and this one is sure to appeal to anyone who shares Bumble's unquenchable love for cricket - and life!

    Cold Comfort is his temperamental tribute to the city of Duluth, Minnesota, where bears wander the streets and canoe racks are standard equipment.

    The idea of crap lies in the real-life messes, hiccups, disasters and bad meals that many of us dish up and deal with every day. This mum is tired of the photos of perfectly packed school lunches, posts about gourmet family dinners eaten together over the table, and tales of neat, tidy and obedient children with smoothly brushed hair. It's time to reset the bar. Make expectations realistic. Strive to be kind, loving, smart and funny. Perfection is not required.

    Lining up alongside some of the greatest to ever play the game, he was a key player in a Hawthorn team that will live on as one of the best of any era.In 2015, when a melanoma was found on his bottom lip, it seemed like only a small setback. The spot was removed and, soon after, Jarryd was back on the ground, helping the Hawks secure their famous three-peat – his fourth premiership. He was newly married, planning a family, and life seemed carefree. Then, during a routine check-up in 2016, a scan showed the melanoma had moved into his lungs. He had cancer.Jarryd was one of the first to receive an immunotherapy treatment that is now saving lives around the world – and ultimately saved his. But the side effects were brutal. Endless days and nights of agony, including nerve damage to his feet that threatened any possible return to footy.What saw Jarryd through was the same resilience, drive and positivity that had turned him into an elite footballer in the first place. Not only did he return to play AFL, he was named captain of Hawthorn. A one-club man, Roughy retired as a legend and an inspiration.

    He was in the prime of his life enjoying good health, financial success, world travel and a bustling social life. But, things weren't always so good for him. His life began in dismal circumstances, and tragically, it ended worse than it began. He was born to drug addicted parents and suffered many of the worst privations of life. His family was poor and his parents were neglectful and abusive. He was teased and bullied as a small child and had few, if any, friends.    After running away at the age of ten and going to live with his Grandmother, he became active in his church. Travis began to thrive in this environment. He had found a place where he was accepted. He had a support group, many friends and a purpose. Travis did not let his dark childhood stop him from accomplishing great things in his life. He used his negative experiences to propel him into a life of abundance and success by becoming better every day. Like many single, thirty-year-old men, he was dating in hopes of finding Mrs. Right, so he could get married, start a family and live the good life. Unfortunately, Jodi Arias, one of the women Travis was dating, was a psychopath. When Travis was dating her, they were living in different states. Soon after he broke things off, she moved within a mile of his house in Mesa, Arizona! She stalked him, hacked his email and social media accounts, and made his life unlivable. Her manipulation, lies, conniving, need for control and invasive behaviors were too much for Travis and he finally convinced her to move back to Yreka, California in April of 2008. On May 26, 2008 Travis finally saw Jodi for the evil monster she is. Via text, chat and email, they got into a huge fight. In June 2008, she set off on a 1,027 mile road trip to Mesa, Arizona to murder Travis. With Travis’ blood still under her fingernails, she headed to Utah to hook-up with a new love interest. Travis was found with twenty-nine stab wounds, shot in the face, and with his throat slit from ear to ear. After a heart-wrenching, five-year delay, the case finally went to trial, and became one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. On May 8, 2013, his killer was convicted of first-degree, pre-meditated murder. During the grueling, ten month trial, which was in large part a circus act of character assassination, lies and fiction, Travis’s life was purposefully distorted and despicably misrepresented. This book was written to share with the world who Travis Victor Alexander was, the reality of what he endured, and the positive impact he continues to have on the world. Our Friend Travis is a book about the real Travis; his life, his light, his triumphs, his mistakes, his death, his murderer’s trial and his legacy. Chris and Sky Hughes are able to offer an insight that few, if any, have into Travis’s life and the evil that ended it. The world deserves to know the real Travis, and they hope you will get to know him through this book. They hope that his loving demeanor, zest for life, passion for service and ability to make people realize their divine potential jumps off the pages and into your heart. NOTE ABOUT REVIEWS OF THIS BOOK: This book includes information about the Jodi Arias murder trial, which was one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. As a result of the media attention this case garnered, millions around the world have come to know Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias, the woman who viciously murdered him. Though the public came out overwhelmingly in support of Travis Alexander, his friends and family, there is a very small, but vocal group, who, for whatever reason, are supportive of a convicted murderer.

    This is the book Kyle's fans have been waiting for, straight from the man himself. From his difficult childhood in Brisbane, through to his steely determination to succeed in radio and the successes and disasters he's experienced along the way, Kyle tells his full life story with disarming honesty. The King of Controversy also spills the beans on the various on-air "incidents" that he has become notorious for – taking the blame when it's deserved (which is often) and giving us the sometimes surprising real stories behind the multitudinous "Vile Kyle" headlines. Along the way Kyle shoots straight from the saddle on everything from celebrity gossip and his famous co-host Jackie O, to his failed marriage to pop star Tamara Jaber and allegations of misogyny, as well as giving us an insider's view into the cut-throat breakfast radio. Funny, frank and very revealing, Kyle's memoirs give us a very different view of one of Australia's best-known and most controversial media figures.

    Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother’s kitchen in South India.Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi’s extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges’ table of Top Chef and beyond. It chronicles the fierce devotion of the remarkable people who shaped her along the way, from her headstrong mother who flouted conservative Indian convention to make a life in New York, to her Brahmin grandfather—a brilliant engineer with an irrepressible sweet tooth—to the man seemingly wrong for her in every way who proved to be her truest ally. A memoir rich with sensual prose and punctuated with evocative recipes, it is alive with the scents, tastes, and textures of a life that spans complex geographies both internal and external.Love, Loss, and What We Ate is an intimate and unexpected story of food and family—both the ones we are born to and the ones we create—and their enduring legacies.

    As a memoir The Jan and Dean Story has elements of humor, tragedy and redemption. It tells their story from the early high school friendship struck up between Jan Berry and Dean Torrence and their ascent to the dizzying heights of stardom riding the crest of the “surf” craze. The Jan and Dean Story is as much about the culture of the 1960s as it is about music. Dean has lived an incredible life and continues to promote a lifestyle and surf culture that is now universally admired and followed throughout the world.The story also recounts Jan’s tragic car accident and his ability to recover enough to continue to perform will be inspiring to many readers even those not familiar with surf music. For pop culture addicts and music buffs alike this book is indispensable. As early teen icons, Jan and Dean left an indelible mark on the music of the 60’s and the American psyche.Dean Torrence is still touring and creating music and often appears with the Beach Boys and other groups from the heyday of surf music.

    In the last four years his TV show has become a number 1 ratings success and he's even making a movie.But Brendan has had to battle hard for success. The youngest of eleven children, his mother was Maureen O'Carroll, a former nun who went on to become the first woman to be elected to the Irish parliament. Brendan adored his strong, widowed mother—and she later became the inspiration for his indomitable character Agnes Brown.However, the family endured poverty reminiscent of Angela's Ashes and Brendan saw no option but to leave school at 12 to work. He married young and for decades struggled to make ends meet. Eventually, bankrupt and desperate, Brendan went to see a fortune teller who told him she could see his future achieving worldwide success as a comedian and actor. At first Brendan laughed at the notion, but then he thought of how much his friends loved his gags, and decided to give it a go...This is the magical story of how a loveable Irishman with a wig and a wit as caustic as battery acid surprised everyone—most of all himself—by becoming one of the best-loved comedians in the world.It is a story of hardship, heartbreak, and talent and will remind readers afresh that sometimes the facts can be even more extraordinary than the fiction.

     Ingrid Bergman emerges as a devoted artist whose refusal to be a caricature caused her endless trouble - but also produced brilliant performances, from her early role opposite Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca to her profound and final appearance as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. In between, there were four children (including actress Isabella Rossellini), three husbands, and passionate affairs with war photographer Robert Capa, Wizard of Oz director Victor Fleming, and Spellbound co-star Gregory Peck. She was perhaps the most international star in the history of entertainment, and, without a doubt, one of the most misunderstood. In a career that spanned six decades, two Academy Awards, and ten Oscar nominations, Bette Davis became one of the greatest screen legends of all time. But, as her epitaph says, "She did it the hard way." She was in constant battles with co-stars, directors, and studios and struggled with addictions to alcohol and cigarettes. She had four stormy marriages, and even her three children brought pain and controversy - one wrote a scathing tell-all book, another had a severe mental disability, and a third was the subject of a prolonged custody battle. But in her iconic film roles, Davis transcended her troubles to leave an indelible mark on American cinema. Possessing none of the glamorous beauty of Greta Garbo, she had something more powerful and lasting: a restless, incandescent energy that made her mesmerizing to watch on the big screen. Katharine Hepburn was far more than an iconic movie star who won four Academy Awards for best actress and made classic films that still rank among the greatest of all time. She also exerted a unique influence on American popular culture, challenging rigid assumptions about how women should behave - and almost single-handedly gave them permission to wear pants. The list of adjectives used to describe Hepburn - bold, stubborn, witty, beautiful - only begin to hint at the complex woman who entranced audiences around the world. So here is the full, epic story of "the patron saint of the independent American female," as one critic described her. Hepburn always lived life strictly on her own terms. And oh, what a life it was. For a time, Elizabeth Taylor was the world's biggest star, but it was her off-screen life - eight stormy marriages, a jewel-encrusted lifestyle, and struggles with weight and various addictions - that provided the most riveting drama. Long before the age of reality television, Taylor showed how fame could take on a volatile life of its own, obscuring the real person behind the media façade. Now, in this compelling biography, we meet the real Elizabeth Taylor as she grows from precocious child star to "the most beautiful woman in the world" to serious actress to pop-culture punch line, and finally, successful entrepreneur, philanthropist, and HIV/AIDS activist. Along the way, she is vilified by fans for stealing singer Eddie Fischer from Debbie Reynolds, becomes trapped in a cycle of destructive affairs with Richard Burton, and desperately tries to recapture the childhood she never had with the eccentric pop star Michael Jackson. "I've always admitted that I'm ruled by my passions," she once said - and those passions make for a gripping, epic tale of tribulation and triumph.

    Kim Rich longed for normalcy, yet she was inescapably her father's child, and she had no choice but to grow up fast. Her mother was a stripper and B-girl: her father was a major player in the underworld of Anchorage, Alaska in the sixties, a city flush with newfound oil money.  Only after her father was gruesomely murdered and Kim became a journalist was she able to fill in the missing pieces of one American dream gone horribly wrong. Kim's true story is a tale of a woman's search for her parent's secrets. What she finds is both shocking and tragic, but in the end she's able to discover her true self amid the remnants of her parents' lost lives.

    The Hockey Hall of Famer from Kingston, Ontario, played for seven teams over his twenty-year career, netting 450 goals and 964 assists during the regular season and another 188 points in the playoffs, making him one of the highest-scoring centres of all time. Gilmour played a big role in the 1989 Stanley Cup victory, scoring the winning goal for the Calgary Flames. Perhaps most famously, he led the Toronto Maple Leafs to multiple winning seasons and in 1993, took them to the brink of their first Stanley Cup final in decades, only to lose out on one of the most controversial calls in hockey history.In Killer, Doug Gilmour bares all about his on- and off-the-ice exploits and escapades. Gilmour has always been frank with the media, and his memoir is as revealing as it is hilarious. He played with the greatest players of his generation, and his love for the game and for life are legendary.