Collection: Biography & Memoir

One of WWII's most uniquely hidden figures, Hazel Ying Lee was the first Asian American woman to earn a pilot's license, join the WASPs, and fly for the United States military amid widespread anti-Asian sentiment and policies.

Her singular story of patriotism, barrier breaking, and fearless sacrifice is told for the first time in full for readers of The Women with Silver Wings by Katherine Sharp Landdeck, A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, The Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia, Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown and all Asian American, women's and WWII history books.

In 1932, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend's flight lesson. It changed her life. In less than a year, a girl with a wicked sense of humor, a newfound love of flying, and a tough can-do attitude earned her pilot's license and headed for China to help against invading Japanese forces. In time, Hazel would become the first Asian American to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. As thrilling as it may have been, it wasn't easy.

In America, Hazel felt the oppression and discrimination of the Chinese Exclusion Act. In China's field of male-dominated aviation she was dismissed for being a woman, and for being an American. But in service to her country, Hazel refused to be limited by gender, race, and impossible dreams. Frustrated but undeterred she forged ahead, married Clifford Louie, a devoted and unconventional husband who cheered his wife on, and gave her all for the cause achieving more in her short remarkable life than even she imagined possible.

American Flygirl is the untold account of a spirted fighter and an indomitable hidden figure in American history. She broke every common belief about women. She challenged every social restriction to endure and to succeed. And against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Hazel Ying Lee reached for the skies and made her mark as a universal and unsung hero whose time has come.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A moving memoir about the legendary author's relationship with her own mother.

Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf Book Club Pick!

The story of Maya Angelou's extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.

For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence--a presence absent during much of Angelou's early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call "Lady," revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.

Delving into one of her life's most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou's rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights.

Praise for Mom & Me & Mom

"Mom & Me & Mom is delivered with Angelou's trademark good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter details exposed, well, that is part of Angelou's forgiving design. As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing enough, and pretty irresistible."--The Washington Post

"Moving . . . a remarkable portrait of two courageous souls."--People

"[The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies . . . [a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelou's spectacular canon."--Elle

"Mesmerizing . . . Angelou has a way with words that can still dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a near-perfect muse and mystery woman."--Essence

Against the fascinating tapestry of Frances history during the Hundred Years' War, Diane Stanley unfolds the story of the simple thirteen-year-old village girl who in Just a few years would lead France to independence from English rule, and thus become a symbol of France's national pride. It is a story of vision and bravery, fierce determination, and tragic martyrdom.

Diane Stanley's extraordinary gift to present historical information in an accessible and child-friendly format has never been more impressive, nor her skillful, beautifully realized illustrations (here imitating medieval illuminated manuscripts) more exquisite.

From Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Elephant in the Room comes the first inside account of the Westminster Dog Show--America's oldest and most beloved dog show--following one dog on his quest to become a champion.

Tommy Tomlinson was watching a dog show on television a few years ago when he had a sudden thought: Are those dogs happy? How about pet dogs--are they happy, too? Those questions sparked a quest to venture inside the dog-show world, in search of a deeper understanding of the bond between dogs and humans that has endured for thousands of years. Dogland shares his surprising, entertaining, and unforgettable adventures.

Tomlinson spends three years on the road and goes behind the scenes at dozens of dog shows across the country, where he is licked, sniffed, or rubbed up against by dogs of nearly every size, shape, and breed. Like a real-life version of Best in Show, Dogland follows one champion show dog--a Samoyed named Striker--and his devoted entourage of breeders, handlers, and owners as he competes in the Westminster Dog Show, the oldest and most famous dog show in America. Tomlinson brings the dog-show circuit to life as he witnesses teams scrambling from town to town in search of championship points and colorful ribbons. Along the way, he also speaks to scientists who have discovered new insights into how dogs and people formed their bond--and how that bond has changed over the centuries.

Engaging, charming, and informative, Dogland is an irresistibly appealing read for pop culture followers and animal lovers alike.

"Profound insights into the current reality of America, taking on race, inequality, violence, and education. An impressive debut from an exciting new voice!"
-Daryl Farmer, author of Where We Land: Stories and Bicycling Beyond the Divide

"Sean Enfield shares tales as varied as finding connections in churches and moshpits as well as teaching at a Muslim middle school...He tells us facts we should know and reminds us of truths we shouldn't forget. "
-Sean Hill, author of Dangerous Goods and Blood Ties & Brown Liquor

"Driven by an empathic imagination and formal invention, Holy American Burnout! is a book of marked complexity and honesty."
-Sara Eliza Johnson, author of Vapor and Bone Map

Sean Enfield delves into the great American condition: burnout.

Threading his experiences both as a Texan student and later as a first-year teacher of predominately Muslim students at a Texas middle school, Holy American Burnout! weaves personal essay and cultural critique into the historical fabric of Black and bi-racial identity.

Enfield intersects examinations of which voices are granted legitimacy by virtue of school curriculum, the complex relationship between basketball and education for Black and brown students, his students' burgeoning political consciousness during the 2016 presidential campaign, and cultural figures ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Hamlet.

These classroom narratives weave around Enfield's own formative experiences contending with a conflicted bi-racial family lineage, reenacting the Middle Passage as the only Black student in his 7th grade history class, and moshing in both Christian and secular hardcore pits.

As Enfield wrestles with the physical, mental, and emotional burdens that American society places on educators, students, and all relatively conscious minorities in this country, he reaches for an education that better navigates our burnt-out empire.

"During her decades-long career at NASA, my friend and colleague Vickie Kloeris made sure my fellow astronauts and I were well-fed and healthy while in space. Space Bites is not only a compilation of stories of her amazing career but also a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of human space travel. Read this book to be inspired and to learn, and don't be surprised if it also leaves you hungry for some space food." ​--Mike Massimino, Former NASA Astronaut and NY Times Bestselling Author of Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe
As a microbiology undergrad entering her final semester at Texas A&M University, Vickie found she was missing a single one-hour credit in her elective studies. As she scanned through the list of approved options, a course in food microbiology caught her eye. Vickie didn't know it then, but that seemingly simple decision would drastically change the course of her career--and life--from that moment forward.
Vickie Kloeris's Space Bites: Reflections of a NASA Food Scientist takes readers through the many memorable moments of her career as she worked on both the Shuttle and International Space Station food systems. If you've ever wanted an inside look at what it's like to assemble a sandwich in space, produce a space food breakfast for the cast of Apollo 13, or work side by side with astronauts as they prepare for the journey of a lifetime, you're sure to learn something new with the turn of every page. A charming balance of technical knowledge and human experience, Vickie's career memoir is a story for the scientist, space enthusiast, and spontaneous reader alike.

The Year of the Horseless Carriage: 1801, presents the dawn of the 19th century with all its brilliant advancements in transportation, communication, and technology. While the world of technology is progressing rapidly, human rights and liberty are variously being trampled or rising. The megalomaniac Napoleon is proclaiming "liberty, equality, and fraternity" to a war-weary Europe, Jefferson is contemplating the largest land purchase in the history of the world, and Toussaint L'Ouverture is fighting for liberty in Haiti. Robert Livingston, Robert Fulton, Richard Trevithick, Beethoven, Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea, and Dolley Madison are all playing their parts. In this memorable retelling, youthful readers will come to appreciate why Foster was convinced that "history is drama."

A true-adventure, coming-of-age tale set in the exhilarating first wave of Beatlemania ...

It's 1964, and 16-year-old Janice is struggling in an unhappy home in Cleveland when she falls suddenly, deeply in love ... with the Beatles. They and their music stir in her an ecstatic new sense of freedom. With a friend, she hatches a bold plan to escape their dreary lives and run away to London to meet the Fab Four.

On their own for the first time-in "Beatleland"-they explore a new city, a new culture, and a new life, visiting the hippest clubs of Soho, meeting some nice English boys, hitchhiking to Liverpool ...

But unbeknownst to them, the runaways have become international news-and a hunt is on.

Adventure and newfound freedom end abruptly when Janice is apprehended by London police and hauled home to Cleveland and an unforgiving juvenile justice system. Warned by responsible adults to put it all behind her, she doesn't speak of her extraordinary adventure for more than fifty years.

In this memoir, she looks back with fresh insight on the heady early days of Beatlemania and an era in America when young women exercising some control over their lives presented a serious threat to adult society.

Alan Light, former writer for Rolling Stone, editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin magazines, and author of The Holy or the Broken, "gets inside Prince's mind palace in Let's Go Crazy--a history of the making of his historic, semi-autobiographical musical masterwork, Purple Rain" (Vanity Fair).

Purple Rain is a song, an album, and a film--widely considered to be among the most important albums in music history and often named the best soundtrack of all time. It sold over a million copies in its first week of release in 1984 and blasted to #1 on the charts, where it would remain for a full six months and eventually sell over 20 million copies worldwide. It spun off three huge hit singles, won Grammys and an Oscar, and took Prince from pop star to legend--the first artist ever simultaneously to have the #1 album, single, and movie in the country.

In Let's Go Crazy, acclaimed music journalist Alan Light takes a timely look at the making and incredible popularizing of this once seemingly impossible project. With impeccable research and in-depth interviews with people who witnessed and participated in Prince's audacious vision becoming a reality, Light reveals how a rising but not yet established artist from the Midwest was able not only to get Purple Rain made, but deliver on his promise to conquer the world.

"A must-read for the Prince die-hards who have remained devoted through the musical meanderings of the last three decades" (Kirkus Reviews), Let's Go Crazy examines how the masterpiece that blurred R&B, pop, dance, and rock sounds altered the recording landscape and became an enduring touchstone for successive generations of fans.

Using never before seen sources, Once a King is a fresh, revelatory and gripping insight into the Duke of Windsor - King Edward VIII - who gave up the throne to marry the woman he loved, twice divorced American Wallis Simpson.

Considering Edward VIII's travels and interests as Prince of Wales as well as his relationship with Wallis Simpson and the course of events leading up to his abdication and subsequent exile, Once a King offers a previously unexplored lens through which we encounter first-hand the hitherto concealed subtlety and raw emotion of two of the twentieth century's most iconic Royal figures: the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The True Story of Pocahontas is the first public publication of the Powhatan perspective that has been maintained and passed down from generation to generation within the Mattaponi Tribe, and the first written history of Pocahontas by her own people.

A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year

The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times, now adapted for younger readers, with a revised foreword by Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson.

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only 29 years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

But with a criminal justice system with the cards stacked against Black men, Hinton was sentenced to death . He spent his first three years on Death Row in despairing silence--angry and full of hatred for all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon--transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.

With themes both timely and timeless, Hinton's memoir tells his dramatic 30-year journey and shows how you can take away a man's freedom, but you can't take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

"Complex and challenging... push[es] the boundaries of writing about trauma." --The New York Times
"A True Crime Masterpiece" - Vogue
Entertainment Weekly "Must" List and Best Books of the Year So Far
Real Simple's Best New Books
Guardian Best Book of the Year
Lambda Literary Award Winner
Chautauqua Prize Winner

"The Fact of a Body is one of the best books I've read this year. It's just astounding."
-- Paula Hawkins, author of Into the Water and The Girl on the Train

"This book is a marvel. The Fact of a Body is equal parts gripping and haunting and will leave you questioning whether any one story can hold the full truth." -- Celeste Ng, author of the New York Times bestselling Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere

Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, they are staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley's face flashes on the screen as they review old tapes--the moment they hear him speak of his crimes -- they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, they dig deeper and deeper into the case. Despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar.

Crime, even the darkest and most unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alex pores over the facts of the murder, they find themself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky's childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky's case, they are forced to face their own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, and reckon with a past that colors their view of Ricky's crime.

But another surprise awaits: They weren't the only one who saw their life in Ricky's.

An intellectual and emotional thriller that is also a different kind of murder mystery, THE FACT OF A BODY is a book not only about how the story of one crime was constructed -- but about how we grapple with our own personal histories. Along the way it tackles questions about the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth. This groundbreaking, heart-stopping work, ten years in the making, shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe -- and the truth more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.

Parenting is hard. So what do you do when you're parenting a child who has experienced trauma or has extra challenges? You often feel alone and inadequate. You want so much to help your child, but you are at the end of your own rope. You feel guilty that sometimes you want to just quit.What can you do -- how can you make it through the day -- how can you help your child while also taking care of yourself?

Maybe someone you love is parenting a traumatized child. Or perhaps you are a social worker, counselor, or other professional who sees families like these every day. You want to know how to better help them.

In Dancing with a Porcupine, Jennie Owens shares with humor and raw honesty the compelling story of her struggle to save her own life while caring for three children she and her husband adopted from foster care. How could she stay loving, giving, and forgiving in the midst of a daily battle with children acting out the rage, resentment, and pain of their own traumatic pasts?

When faith, endurance, and creativity are not enough, what's next?

Albers in "the promised land of abstract art" the little-known influence of Mexico

"Mexico is truly the promised land of abstract art," Josef Albers wrote to his former Bauhaus colleague Vasily Kandinsky in 1936. Josef Albers in Mexico reveals the profound link between the art and architecture of ancient Mesoamerica and Albers' abstract works on canvas and paper. With his wife, the artist Anni Albers, Albers toured pre-Columbian archeological sites and monuments during his 12 or more trips to Mexico and other Latin American countries between 1935 and 1968. On each visit, Albers took black-and-white photographs of pyramids, shrines, sanctuaries and landscapes, which he later assembled into rarely seen photo collages. The resulting works demonstrate Albers' continued formal experimentation with geometry, this time accentuating a pre-Columbian aesthetic.

Josef Albers in Mexico brings together photographs, photo collages, prints and significant paintings from the Variants/Adobe (1946-66) and Homage to the Square (1950-76) series from the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Anni and Josef Albers Foundation. Two scholarly essays, an illustrated map and vivid color reproductions of paintings and works on paper illuminate this little-known period in the influential artist's practice.

Gabriela Mistral loved words and sounds and stories. Born in Chile, she would grow to become the first Nobel Prize-winning Latina woman in the world. As a poet and a teacher, she inspired children across many countries to let their voices be heard. This beautifully crafted story, where words literally come to life, is told with the rhythm and melody of a poem. The second in Luna Rising's bilingual storybook biography series. My Name is Gabriela/Me llamo Gabriela is beautiful tribute to a woman who taught us the power of words and the importance of following our dreams. The story of Gabriela Mistral will continue to inspire children everywhere.