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Take My Word for It: A Memoir
by Levar Burton
This is my attempt to pull back the curtain. Not just on the roles I've played, but on the life I've lived. The fears. The fight. The survival. And yes, the joy. All of it. Tracing the different eras of his life--from Kunta Kinte to Geordi La Forge to Reading Rainbow and far beyond the camera--celebrated actor LeVar Burton fearlessly opens up about growing up during the Civil Rights Movement, being raised by a remarkable mother, and discovering his calling as a storyteller. He explores how acting has served as both a source of transformation and an escape from the most difficult parts of his past, while also confronting the challenges of being a parent, husband, and householder. As Burton honors the loved ones whose strength and resilience shaped him in this inspiring memoir, he also asks what we owe to our ancestors and to each other, reflecting on the deep necessity he's always felt advocating for liberation and equity. Generous, deeply moving, and illustrated with personal family photos, Take My Word For It is a courageous self-portrait of an iconic artist.
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My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments
by Eric Dane
A moving personal narrative from Grey's Anatomy and Euphoria star Eric Dane, on the most impactful days--past, present, and future--of his life. In 2006, Eric Dane guest starred on Grey's Anatomy as Dr. Mark McSteamy Sloan, a moment that would change his life. What was intended to be a one-time guest appearance, landed him a regular role on the Emmy nominated show and would launch his acting career, leading to other roles in hit series like The Last Ship and Euphoria. Years later, Dane experienced another life-changing moment: being diagnosed with ALS. The sudden diagnosis caused him to slow down and reflect on the moments that had shaped him. In My Book of Days, Dane shares these reflections and invites readers to do the same with their lives. Told through a series of days that each illuminate a defining experience or emotional truth, My Book of Days captures everything from the grind of his early years in Hollywood and the hard-won peace of sobriety to the profound clarity that came with his ALS diagnosis. With his newfound perspective that our days are all we truly have, Dane reflects on the beauty and weight of each one--on the joy, the pain, the lessons, and the grace found in simply being present.
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Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?
by Judi Dench
Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea chat about her life on the stage, on the screen, and, above all, behind the scenes... In Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? Judi Dench and Brendan O'Hea take us on a heartfelt and hilarious tour of her extraordinary life and career. From growing up in York and being miffed at not getting the part of Mary in the school Nativity play, to playing before sold-out houses on Broadway and in London's West End, she's done it all. She walked the red carpets of Hollywood, turned James Bond's M into the most astute, unflinching Head of MI6 anyone could ever have imagined, and won an Oscar, a Tony, Golden Globes, Oliviers, and BAFTAs along the way. Yet despite the accolades, she has been accompanied by doubt. From the movie producer who said she had everything wrong with her face, to the theatre director who advised her against doing sitcom. Is it any wonder she leaves a bag by the rehearsal room door in case she has to make a run for it? But stepping out of her comfort zone has been Judi's guiding principle and in Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It?, she reveals all to Brendan - her friend and writing partner. She tells stories of pranks (both onstage and off), dissects her greatest screen roles, shares tales of her joyful marriage to actor Michael Williams, and talks about her passion for nature and animals. As told to Brendan O'Hea, this is Judi Dench's story - funny, honest, intimate, enlightening, surprising, moving, and deeply inspiring. Over ninety years in the making, Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? is the story of the world's most beloved actor.
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My Pressures: The Bizarrely True Story of Andy Serkis
by Andy Serkis
If Gollum, Caesar and Ulysses Klaue could hear Andy Serkis tell his story, would they choose him to play them? This is the question at the heart of his long-awaited memoir. Beginning in a childhood split between Ruislip and Baghdad, Andy Serkis takes us - and his characters - on a journey through the early influences that shaped him: acting mentors, early roles at a regional repertory theatre, a passion for mountaineering, a desire for film-making and the love story with Lorraine Ashbourne that became the foundation of his life. Then, the call arrives in 1999 that changes everything. Peter Jackson is preparing to make The Lord of the Rings and Andy is asked to audition for the voice of a certain animated character. What follows is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes journey through the fantastical worlds Andy has helped shape - The Lord of the Rings, Planet of the Apes, Black Panther, Star Wars and more - as he pioneered a new form of performance that would forever redefine the possibilities of cinema. In this book, Andy invites us into a genre-defying conversation between actor and character, imagination and reality, and provides an answer to the question: what would Andy's most iconic characters make of the man that brought them to life?
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William Howard Taft: A Great American Life
by Walter Stahr
From an acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer comes a remarkable new look at the only man to serve as both president and chief justice of the United States. The conventional wisdom is that William Howard Taft was a mediocre president, a man almost without political skills. Yet Taft's modest, judicial approach to the presidency--he served as a state and then federal judge before entering the White House--looks quite extraordinary in retrospect. Admired by those on either side of the aisle for his genial personality and hearty chuckle, Taft spent his four years in office reducing tariffs, eliminating federal deficits, pursuing government efficiency, avoiding foreign wars, and honoring the Constitution. Yet even Taft's presidency would serve as merely a prelude to one of the greatest second acts in American history. More than any chief justice since John Marshall, Taft transformed the judicial branch, particularly as the principal proponent of the legislation that allowed the Supreme Court to begin choosing its cases--and thus to devote its energy entirely to deciding key constitutional and statutory issues. A rigorously researched and elegant account of five decades of public service, William Howard Taft offers a bold reassessment of a forgotten great American.
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Counting Penguins: How a Penguin Colony Stole My Heart and Changed My Life
by Peter John Watson
Welcome to Port Lockroy – the world’s southernmost post office, a tiny outpost on a soccer-pitch-sized island off the Antarctic Peninsula, shared by a handful of humans and a thousand curious gentoo penguins.
When travel writer Peter John Watson boards a ship bound for Antarctica, he has no idea how deeply life at the end of the world will change him. Between long shifts counting penguin chicks, welcoming passing ships, and sorting mail, he discovers a whimsical world where climate science, storied heritage, and captivating wildlife converge in one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
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How to Be Less Useful: The Joy of Inefficiency
by Priyanka Mattoo
I have done everything right, and I have missed everything. Think about what we choose to cut out or overlook as we approach the deep end of adulthood: Dessert. Naps. Pretty underwear. Sweaty dancing. Pointless hangs with the people we love most. And then, activities that used to be fun somehow lose their luster, usually in the decade between thirty and forty: summer vacation (exhaustion), stay-in-touch texting (bandwidth), finding the perfect restaurant (the algorithm). When did our lives become entirely about efficiency and optimization? Priyanka Mattoo shares her journey toward being less useful, delivering life lessons without an ounce of preachiness or pressure. She looks at where pleasure begins and what it serves. Did you know karaoke can cure a stomachache? Or that Paddington Bear is a stealth lifestyle guru? Or that nobody actually asked you to do that labor-intensive thing you begrudgingly did? With self-deprecating humor, devastating insight, and bracing honesty, Priyanka shows us how to step out of the grind as a friend, as a partner, even as a parent, and welcome joy back into our lives without burning it all down. What if, instead of being useful, we could all learn how to be happier, lighter, more present, more engaged? Refreshingly funny and sparklingly astute, How to Be Less Useful is the perfect book for our current moment.
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Castles: A Fortified History of the World
by Dan Jones
From New York Times bestselling historian Dan Jones, a grand and sweeping history of the world, told through over three thousand years of iconic fortifications Castles have been built to defend humanity for millennia--from the walls of Troy in the Bronze Age and the desert bastion of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria; to Windsor Castle and the Tower of London; to Himeji in Japan and Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. They have inspired terror and passion, foiled conquering forces, and been deployed as the ultimate expression of wealth, status, and supremacy. In Castles, Jones leads readers on a journey through the many eras of castle-building and across continents as each stronghold tells a unique story of power, politics, and survival, revealing the shifting tides of warfare, the rise and fall of empires, the resilience of people under siege, and the flourishing of new ideas. Blending rich storytelling, deep research, and beautiful original illustrations, Castles is an epic story of why humans build fortifications and how they powerfully capture our imagination. With Jones's trademark scholarship and flair, he shows how defiance, endurance, and ambition have been carved into the landscapes we've inherited.
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Ocean of Bones: The Hunt for the Pirate Slave Ship Guerrero
by David Kushner
In the tradition of Shadow Divers and The Wager, the incredible story of the Guerrero, a pirate ship in the transatlantic slave trade that was shipwrecked in the Florida Keys, and the scuba divers who tracked it down nearly two hundred years later. In 1827, the brig Guerrero was racing across the Florida Straits with 561 kidnapped Africans in its hold. Though Britain and the United States had banned the Atlantic slave trade, outlaw captains like Jos Gomez attempted to get around their Navy patrols and make for Cuba, where markets remained open. Gomez was particularly ruthless, not only a trader but also a pirate who stole captives from other vessels. When a Black diver and Vietnam veteran named Ken Stewart learned in 2004 that the Guerrero might still be in American waters, he marshalled a group he called Diving with a Purpose to go looking for the lost shipwreck. In partnership with Corey Malcom--a marine archeologist whose affiliation with a famous Floridian treasure hunter made some initially wary of his motives--the group began to recover the buried tale of the Guerrero and its survivors. The saga involved President John Quincy Adams, an African princess turned American slaveholder, and the founders of Liberia. Ocean of Bones is about two connected journeys: one in the 19th century and one in the 21st. It is a powerful and thrilling book, illuminating a forgotten history, connecting ancestors and descendants across centuries and oceans, and reminding us of lessons of the past that must be kept alive in the present.
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A Natural History of the Spirits: On Ecology, Belonging, and the Sublime
by Jori Lewis
A Natural History of the Spirits offers profound meditations on the history of colonialism, racism, and social and ecological change, exploring such wide-ranging subjects as the reproduction crisis of the long-lived African baobab tree in the face of climate change; the evolutionary history of the watermelon and how racist stereotypes related to it developed and persist in the United States; the disquieted spirits of the Senegalese island Sangomar in the wake of new oil and gas exploration in the area; and how, by observing the habits of plants and animals, we may more deeply understand how we create home. For readers of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams, A Natural History of the Spirits grapples with how we have made, and continue to make, meaning of the world by reading the land, the animals, the water, and the skies.
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The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
by Bob Drury
Soldier, spy, scout, saboteur, and French Resistance leader in the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe--the untold story of Marine legend Pete Ortiz. Major Pierre Pete Ortiz was a Manhattan-born and Paris-educated polymath fluent in five languages. An adventuresome French Foreign Legion veteran specifically recruited by Wild Bill Donovan's Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to both the CIA and U.S. Special Forces) upon his enlistment in the Marines, Ortiz was the officer Wild Bill instinctively knew he needed and could rely on to complete a string of clandestine missions. While recuperating from gunshot wounds received during a behind-the-lines excursion into enemy-held North Africa, Ortiz delivered his After-Action Report directly to Donovan in Washington. After reading it, Wild Bill scrawled across the top of the report: Please re-employ this man as soon as possible. Ortiz's handlers heeded Donovan's request. Within a year Ortiz was surreptitiously parachuted into the Haute Savoie region of Occupied France, where he made contact with the resistance fighters who called themselves Maquisards. By the time he retired as a United States Marine Corps colonel, he received two Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism in World War II. He was one of the very few U.S. Marines to serve in combat in Europe during World War II, and one of the most decorated Marine officers of the war.
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