Collection: Biography & Memoir

The first memoir by Wayne Kramer, legendary guitarist and cofounder of quintessential Detroit proto-punk legends The MC5

"Voyeuristically dramatic."-THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
In January 1969, before the world heard a note of their music, the MC5 was on the cover of Rolling Stone. Led by legendary guitarist Wayne Kramer, the band was a reflection of the times: exciting, sexy, violent, chaotic, and even out of control. The missing link between free jazz and punk rock, the MC5 toured the country, played alongside music legends, and had a rabid following, their music acting as the soundtrack to the blossoming blue collar youth movement. Kramer wanted to redefine what a rock 'n' roll group was capable of, and though there was power in reaching for that, it was also a recipe for personal and professional disaster. The band recorded three major label albums but, by 1972-it was all over. Kramer's story is (literally) a revolutionary one, but it's also the deeply personal struggle of an addict and an artist, a rebel with a great tale to tell. From the glory days of Detroit to the junk-sick streets of the East Village, from Key West to Nashville and sunny L.A., in and out of prison and on and off of drugs, Kramer's is the classic journeyman narrative, but with a twist: he's here to remind us that revolution is always an option.

In The Fly Swatter, Nicholas Dawidoff--bestselling author of The Catcher Was a Spy--vividly reconstructs the life of his grandfather, Alexander Gerschenkron-the Harvard professor who knew the most.

A fascinating character, Gerschenkron feuded with Vladimir Nabokov and John Kenneth Galbraith, flirted with Marlene Dietrich, and played chess with Marcel Duchamp and one-upped both Isiah Berlin and (allegedly) Ted Williams. At Harvard, this celebrated polyglot was known as "The Great Gerschenkron." He was an influential economic theorist who knew twenty languages and so much about so many other things that he was offered chairs in three departments. All this after beginning life with traumatic dramatic escapes from the Bolsheviks (in 1920) and the Nazis (in 1938). Riveting and eloquent, The Fly Swatter's most unusual accomplishment is that it succeeds in telling the extraordinary story of a man's soul.

Now includes a new essay, "Naked Childhood," about Kushner's family, their converted school bus, and the Summers of Love in Oregon and San Francisco!

"The Hard Crowd is wild, wide-ranging, and unsparingly intelligent throughout." --Taylor Antrim, Vogue

From a writer celebrated for her "chops, ambition, and killer instinct" (John Powers, Fresh Air), a career-spanning collection of spectacular essays about politics and culture.

Rachel Kushner has established herself as "the most vital and interesting American novelist working today" (The Millions) and as a master of the essay form. In The Hard Crowd, she gathers a selection of her writing from over the course of the last twenty years that addresses the most pressing political, artistic, and cultural issues of our times--and illuminates the themes and real-life experiences that inform her fiction.

In twenty razor-sharp essays, The Hard Crowd spans literary journalism, memoir, cultural criticism, and writing about art and literature, including pieces on Jeff Koons, Denis Johnson, and Marguerite Duras. Kushner takes us on a journey through a Palestinian refugee camp, an illegal motorcycle race down the Baja Peninsula, 1970s wildcat strikes in Fiat factories, her love of classic cars, and her young life in the music scene of her hometown, San Francisco. The closing, eponymous essay is her manifesto on nostalgia, doom, and writing.

These pieces, new and old, are electric, vivid, and wry, and they provide an opportunity to witness the evolution and range of one of our most dazzling and fearless writers. "Kushner writes with startling detail, imagination, and gallows humor," said Leah Greenblatt in Entertainment Weekly, and, from Paula McLain in the Wall Street Journal: "The authority and precision of Kushner's writing is impressive, but it's the gorgeous ferocity that will stick with me."

Losing a child is an experience beyond this world. In her seminal work,

The Flight, Cammie Wolf Rice shatters reality - and in the process

reshapes our perspectives on pain, suffering and the meaning of it all. The

Flight displays her struggle to make sense of losing her son to opioids.

In this journey, you will find your own.

Author and illustrator Siobhán Gallagher's humorous and heartfelt graphic memoir details her journey from being anxious and unhappy to learning to love herself as she is.

"I'm proud of the person I've become because I fought to become her." At the age of 30, Siobhán Gallagher looks back on her teenage years struggling with anxiety and diet culture, desperate to become a beautiful, savvy, and slim adult. As an actual adult, she realizes she hasn't turned out the way she'd imagined, but through the hard work of self-reflection--cut with plenty of humor--Gallagher brings readers along on her journey to self-acceptance and self-love.

Through witty comics and striking illustrations, Full of Myself is a highly relatable story of the awkward, imperfect, and hilariously honest teenage best friend readers will wish they had had--and the awkward, imperfect, and hilariously honest woman she becomes.

(Percussion). Jeff Porcaro was a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning band Toto, and he also recorded and toured with a list of artists that reads like a who's who of popular music in the late twentieth century. His long-time friend, Robyn Flans has written this biography of one of the most recorded drummers in history, held in equal esteem by fans and music professionals alike. It includes interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Ron Howard, Jackson Browne, Michael McDonald, Boz Scaggs, Peter Frampton and others, plus extensive commentary from Jeff's Toto bandmates and his family. The book also includes a 24-page glossy photo center section, including many never-before-seen pictures.

In this exquisitely written memoir, poet Patrick Lane describes his raw and tender emergence at age sixty from a lifetime of alcohol and drug addiction. He spent the first year of his sobriety close to home, tending his garden, where he cast his mind back over his life, searching for the memories he'd tried to drown in vodka. Lane has gardened for as long as he can remember, and his garden's life has become inseparable from his own. A new bloom on a plant, a skirmish among the birds, the way a tree bends in the wind, and the slow, measured change of seasons invariably bring to his mind an episode from his eventful past. What the Stones Remember is the emerging chronicle of Lane's attempt to face those memories, as well as his new self--to rediscover his life. In this powerful and beautifully written book, Lane offers readers an unflinching and unsentimental account of coming to one's senses in the presence of nature.

The last surviving witness to the lynching of Emmett Till tells his story, with poignant recollections of Emmett as a boy, critical insights into the recent investigation, and powerful lessons for racial reckoning, both then and now.

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice - "In this moving and important book, the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr. and Christopher Benson give us a unique window onto the anguished search for justice in a case whose implications shape us still."--Jon Meacham

In 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was lynched. That remains an undisputed fact of the case that ignited a flame within the Civil Rights Movement that has yet to be extinguished. Yet the rest of the details surrounding the event remain distorted by time and too many tellings.

What does justice mean in the resolution of a cold case spanning nearly seven decades? In A Few Days Full of Trouble, this question drives a new perspective on the story of Emmett Till, relayed by his cousin and best friend--the Reverend Wheeler Parker Jr., a survivor of the night of terror when young Emmett was taken from his family's rural Mississippi Delta home in the dead of night.

Rev. Parker offers an emotional and suspenseful page-turner set against a backdrop of reporting errors and manipulations, racial reckoning, and political pushback--and he does so accompanied by never-before-seen findings in the investigation, the soft resurrection of memory, and the battle-tested courage of faith. A Few Days Full of Trouble is a powerful work of truth-telling, a gift to readers looking to reconcile the weight of the past with a hope for the future.

From an Idea to Google is a behind-the-computer-screen look into the history, business, and brand of the world's largest search engine. With humorous black & white illustrations throughout, learn about the company that even earned its own catchphrase: Google it!

Today, Google is the number one internet search engine and the most visited website in the world. But a long time ago, two college friends, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, started out with just an idea. Find out more about Google's history, the business, and the brand in this illustrated nonfiction book!

Find out where the name "Google" came from. (Hint: It involves a LOT of zeros!)

Discover how Google became the fastest and most popular internet search engine of all time.

Explore how Google transformed from a tiny startup (in someone's garage!) into one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Legendary writing coach Jack Hart spent twenty-six years at the Oregonian and has taught students and professionals of all stripes, including bloggers, podcasters, and more than one Pulitzer Prize winner. Good writing, he says, has the same basic attributes regardless of genre or medium. Wordcraft shares Hart's techniques for achieving those attributes in one of the most broadly useful writing books ever written.

Originally published in 2006 as A Writer's Coach, the book has been updated to address the needs of writers well beyond print journalists. Hart breaks the writing process into a series of manageable steps, from idea to polishing. Filled with real-world examples, both good and bad, Wordcraft shows how to bring such characteristics as force, brevity, clarity, rhythm, and color to any kind of writing.

Wordcraft now functions as a set with the second edition of Hart's book Storycraft, on the art of storytelling, also available from Chicago.

Acclaimed CEO, TED Speaker, and Entrepreneurship Professor James Rhee shares the inspirational true story of finding success through kindness (plus a little math). Learn the deceptively simple and positive way to embrace your agency, lead change, and fly free--in the business of life and the life of business.

In kindergarten, James Rhee received a toy red helicopter in gratitude for a simple act of generosity--sharing his lunch. Decades later, the lesson from that small gift led him to develop a human-centered framework for business and personal achievement that helped him overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles and find unprecedented success.

Rhee was a high school teacher turned private equity investor when he unexpectedly took the helm of Ashley Stewart, an iconic company predominantly employing and serving Black women. Inspired by the values his dying Korean immigrant parents instilled in him, he knew that a radically different--yet familiar--approach was required to lead this twice-bankrupt company from certain liquidation to true transcendence. The entire world bet against him and Ashley, but Rhee trusted his instincts to identify, measure, and leverage the intangible goodwill at the company's core, a decision which ultimately multiplied its fortunes several times over.

By combining the clarity and imagination we had as children with fundamental business metrics, anyone can apply this refreshingly intuitive approach to lead change at work and at home. While eloquently sharing a story of personal and professional success, red helicopter presents a comforting yet bold solution to the dissatisfaction and worry we all feel in a chaotic and sometimes terrifying world. The insights and knowledge that Rhee imparts have been accumulated over decades of investing and leading at the highest levels of business. Drawing on this experience, he encourages us to trust the wisdom deep inside each of us so we can learn how to:

Create and measure "goodwill," the ultimate collective goodDiscover agency and the truth about kindness it entailsIdentify the invisible obstacles standing in your wayLead transformational change through small, scalable acts Construct an accurate "balance sheet" of our assets and liabilitiesReorient our lives, organizations, and the world to reflect the best in us

A poignant and uplifting celebration of humanity, red helicopter--a parable for our times is a beautiful literary tale of struggle and triumph, as well as a clear, instructional path to create a more sustainable balance between life, money, and joy for both ourselves and others.

red helicopter--a parable for our times features approximately 20 original illustrations by Korean artist Heyon Cho.

A riveting biography of Alexander the Great's final years, when the leader's insatiable desire to conquer the world set him off on an exhilarating, harrowing journey that would define his legacy.

By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world.

Alexander's unrelenting desire to press on resulted in a perilous seven-year journey through the unknown eastern borderlands of the Persian empire that would test the great conqueror's physical and mental limits. He faced challenges from the natural world, moving through deadly monsoons and extreme temperatures; from a rotating cast of well-matched adversaries, who conspired against him at every turn; and even from his own men, who questioned his motives and distrusted the very beliefs on which Alexander built his empire. This incredible sweep of time, culminating with his death in 323 BC at the age of 32, would come to determine Alexander's legacy and shape the empire he left behind.

In Alexander at the End of the World, renowned classicist and art history professor Rachel Kousser vividly brings to life Alexander's labyrinthine, treacherous final years, weaving together a brilliant series of epic battles, stunning landscapes, and nearly insurmountable obstacles. Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Kousser's narrative is an unforgettable tale of daring and adventure, an inspiring portrait of grit and ambition, and a powerful meditation on the ability to learn from failure.

2020 was a year of change. Caught between occupations and a global pandemic, 24-year-old Joe Jackson decided to write an essay for every fly-fishing trip he took. And just like the fishing itself, these essays drift from the metaphysical to the wholly matter-of-fact.

Book Features:
- Ages 8-11, Grades 3-5, Guided Reading Level U, Lexile 870L
- 32 pages, 7 inches x 9 inches
- Simple, easy-to-read pages with full-color pictures

- Includes sports-related vocabulary and review activities
- Reading/teaching tips and index included

Life Of A Champion: In Women in Sports: Simone Biles, your 3rd through 5th grade reader will learn about the dedication and determination it took Biles to become a member of the US Olympic gymnastics team and the most decorated gymnast in history.

Inspirational: With captivating photos that bring Biles's story to life, young readers will see how she found the sport shortly after being adopted at the age of 6. And, how her persistent practice made her one of the greatest women in sports.

Build Reading Skills: This engaging 32-page light biography will help your child improve comprehension and build confidence with guided pre- and post-reading questions, close reading prompts, in-text vocabulary definitions, and a fun review activity.

Leveled Books: Part of the Women in Sports series, this lower reading level biography and full-color pictures make the story of this amazing female athlete easily comprehendible for kids as they follow along in this engaging story.

Why Rourke Educational Media: Since 1980, Rourke Publishing Company has specialized in publishing engaging and diverse non-fiction and fiction books for children in a wide range of subjects that support reading success on a level that has no limits.

Why is Earth called the Blue Planet? Because there's so much water on the surface that the planet looks blue from outer space!

Marine biology is the study of the plant and animal life in salt water environments, from microscopic plankton to the largest animal on earth, the blue whale. In Marine Biology: Cool Women Who Dive readers ages 9 to 12 explore the careers of three women who work within the science of marine biology?Natalie Arnoldi, Ashanti Johnson, and Lauren Mullineaux.

Nomad Press books in the Girls in Science series supply a bridge between girls' interests and their potential futures by investigating science careers and introducing women who have succeeded in science. Compelling stories of real-life scientists provide readers with role models that they can look toward for examples of success.

Marine Biology uses engaging content, links to primary sources, and essential questions to whet kids' appetites for further exploration and study. This book explores the history of marine biology, the women who made key discoveries, and the multitude of varied careers in this exciting and important field. Marine Biology encourages both boys and girls to envision what lies beneath the miles of water that make up our planet.