| The Trials of a Scold: The Incredible True Story of Writer Anne Royall by Jeff BiggersAn illuminating profile of writer Anne Royall (1769-1854), one of America’s first female muckrakers, who was infamously tried for being a “common scold.”Though now nearly forgotten, Anne Royall was a trailblazing traveler and investigative journalist who was critical of both church and state -- a very modern woman ahead of her time.
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A Life of my own
by Claire Tomalin
Acclaimed biographer Claire Tomalin turns her critical eye to another fascinating literary life: her own. Claire remembers moments of national literary history as well as intense personal emotion: a turbulent childhood disturbed by her parents' custody battle; her escape to Cambridge university, where she met her husband, the journalist Nick Tomalin; life on Gloucester Crescent with neighbours Alan Bennett and Mary-Kay Wilmers. Personally, tragedy struck when her husband was killed while reporting in Israel; professionally, Claire's career soared as she became literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday Times, working with Christopher Hitchens and Julian Barnes, before discovering her vocation as a biographer.
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The Vanity fair diaries : 1983-1992
by Tina Brown
The irreverent diaries of the author's celebrated years as editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair also serves as a vibrant portrait of the 1980s in New York and Hollywood, describing her summons from London in the hopes of saving Condé Nast's troubled periodical and her experiences within the cutthroat world of glamour magazines.
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What is it all but luminous : notes from an undergound man
by Art Garfunkel
Traces the author's experiences before, during, and after Simon & Garfunkel, from his youth in the mid-twentieth century and early successes with Paul Simon to the heyday of their popularity and the gradual divides that ended their partnership.
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Shine like it does: the life of Michael Hutchence
by Toby Cresswell
The real story of a complex man whose star is still shining two decades after his death. Michael Hutchence was a superstar, an internationally respected musician and a great bloke. There will never be another one to replace him. Born into an eccentric and difficult marriage, Hutch grew up in different countries before settling into suburban Sydney. He made friends with Andrew Farriss who provided a surrogate family. Andrew's musicality and Michael's charisma was from the start till the end the basis of INXS.For five years INXS were single-minded in their pursuit of being the biggest band in the world.
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| Hitler, My Neighbor: Memories of a Jewish Childhood, 1929-1939 by Edgar Feuchtwanger with Bertil ScaliHistorian Edgar Feuchtwanger relates how his boyhood in a prominent German-Jewish family was affected by the arrival of a new neighbor, Adolf Hitler, who moved in across the street from his Munich home in 1929.
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Codename Suzette
by Anne Nelson
Codename Suzette is one of the untold stories of the Holocaust, an account of outstanding courage in the face of evil. Suzanne Spaak was born into an affluent Belgian Catholic family, and married into the country's leading political dynasty. Her brother-in-law was the Foreign Minister and her husband Claude was a playwright and patron of the painter Rene Magritte. In occupied Paris she moved among the cultural elite. Her neighbour was Colette, France's most famous living writer, and Jean Cocteau was part of her circle of intimates. But Suzanne was living a double life. Her friendship with a Polish Jewish refugee led her to her life's purpose.
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Ascent : A Life Spent Climbing on the Edge
by Chris Bonington
Sir Chris Bonington's memoir Ascent will chart not only his many triumphs in the climbing world, such as the Eiger, and the Himalaya, but also the struggles he has faced in his life bringing up a family, and maintaining a successful and loving marriage over the decades of travelling the world to conquer mountains. He has undertaken nineteen Himalayan expeditions, including four to Mount Everest which he climbed in 1985 at the age of fifty, and has made many first ascents in the Alps and greater ranges of the world. Along the way we will be fascinated by his many daring climbs, near-death adventures, and the many luminaries of the mountain fraternity he has climbed with, and in some cases, witness their deaths on the rock.
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The sky below
by Scott Parazynski
A man who was a NASA astronaut for 17 years discusses his amazing life, including a global ozone-mapping mission, serving as John Glenn's crewmate, a death-defying spacewalk, becoming the only astronaut to summit Mt. Everest and much more.
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Elizabeth's Rival : The Tumultuous Life of the Countess of Leicester: the Romance and Conspiracy That Threatened Queen Elizabeth's Court
by Nicola Tallis
The remarkable story of Lettice Knollys, who angered Queen Elizabeth I by marrying her favourite, Robert Dudley, and whose son rebelled against the Queen. At 7 o'clock in the morning on 21 September 1578, a wedding ceremony was conducted within the privacy of a country house in Wanstead. The groom was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, favourite and one-time suitor to Queen Elizabeth, but the woman who exchanged marital vows with the Earl was the Queen's cousin, the widowed 34-year-old Lettice Knollys, then Countess of Essex, described by the Spanish ambassador as 'one of the best-looking ladies of the court' with a noted resemblance to Elizabeth.
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Help
by Simon Amstell
Simon Amstell did his first stand-up gig at the age of thirteen. His parents had just divorced and puberty was confusing. Trying to be funny solved everything. HELP is the hilarious and heartbreaking account of Simon's ongoing compulsion to reveal his entire self on stage. To tell the truth so it can't hurt him any more. Loneliness, anxiety, depression, this book has it all. And more. From a complicated childhood in Essex to an Ayahuasca-led epiphany in the Amazon rainforest, this story will make you laugh, cry and then feel happier than you've ever been.
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King of Spies : The Dark Reign of America's Spymaster in Korea
by Blaine Harden
The story of one of the most powerful spies in American history, shedding new light on the U.S. role in the Korean War, and its legacy In 1946, master sergeant Donald Nichols was stationed on the sleepy island of Guam when he caught the eye of recruiters from the Army's Counter Intelligence Corps. After just three months' training, he was sent to Korea, then a backwater largely beneath the radar of MacArthur's Pacific Command. Though he lacked the education and pedigree of most spies, Nichols quickly metamorphosed from army mechanic to black ops phenomenon.
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Only Fools and Stories
by David Jason
In his first book David Jason told us about himself from his early years training as an electrician through to making it as one of Britain's greatest actors. This autumn, in a follow up autobiography, he tells us about the many other lives he has lived his characters. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost, he takes us behind the scenes and under the skins of some of the best loved acts of his career. And in the process he reflects on how those characters changed his life too. The result told with his characteristic charm and wit is both funny and poignant, honest and heart warming.
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Tracker: stories of Tracker Tilmouth
by Alexis Wright
A collective memoir of the charismatic Aboriginal leader, political thinker and entrepreneur Tracker Tilmouth, who died in Darwin in 2015 at the age of 62. Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council of the Northern Territory.
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The French exception: Emmanuel Macron: the extraordinary rise and risk
by Adam Plowright
Can the audacious new French President turn the tide of populism and division in Europe? 39-year old Emmanuel Macron is the youngest-ever inhabitant of the Elysee Palace. A surprise candidate from the start, Macron was considered a rank outsider until a series of fortuitous events - including his survival of a massive last-minute data hack - cleared his path to victory and condemned Marine Le Pen to a resounding defeat in May 2017, in France's most emotional election since 1948. British journalist Adam Plowright presents the inside story of Macron's sudden rise to power, delving into his personal and political background, his vision for the future, and how he is perceived inside France and throughout the rest of the world.
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| The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff HobbsWhat it's about: the haunting life story of Robert Peace, a brilliant young African American who grew up in the ghettos of 1980s Newark, New Jersey, but made his way into the Ivy League -- only to end up dealing drugs after graduation, which ultimately led to his death.
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The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Documents the story of how scientists took cells from an unsuspecting descendant of freed slaves and created a human cell line that has been kept alive indefinitely, enabling discoveries in such areas as cancer research, in vitro fertilization, and gene mapping, in a book that inspired the forthcoming HBO film starring Oprah Winfrey.
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Obama : An Intimate Portrait: The Historic Presidency in Photographs
by Pete Souza
A visual biography of Barack Obama's historic presidency, captured in unprecedented detail by his White House photographer, includes images documenting the most consequential hours of the Obama administration as well as the 44th President's encounters with world leaders, cultural figures and family members.
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| Writing to Save a Life: The Louis Till File by John Edgar WidemanA moving and thought-provoking meditation on the 1955 death of teenager Emmett Till and also that of his father, Louis Till, who was executed by the U.S. Army ten years earlier.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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