Collection: Biography & Memoir

The peaceful farm life of a teenage girl in Germany is abruptly upended when WWII comes knocking at her family's door. One month before her sixteenth birthday, Mildred "Mickchen" Schindler and her family are captured by Russian Soldiers. Having already survived life in Hitler's Nazi Germany, they now face the terror of a new enemy-Stalin's Red Army.

Mildred recounts, in meticulous detail, her treacherous journey and the roller coaster of raw emotions she experiences -fear, regret, loneliness, humility, perseverance, and defiance. Mildred's odyssey of making her way home and finding her family in a war-torn countryside takes many riveting twists and turns. The discovery of a secret, hidden document offers hope for a brighter future.

From harrowing to heartwarming, this memoir provides a unique perspective of a Gentile girl's road to resilience and her fortitude against all odds to forge a life filled with love and laughter. Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin is a remarkable testimony to the strength of the unconquerable human spirit and an endearing account of God's faithfulness in the midst of faithless circumstances.

Surviving Hitler, Evading Stalin has garnered numerous awards. Mildred was personally awarded the National Medal of Honor by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) in September of 2021 and received the Women in American History Medal in June of 2022.

2020 Sunbury Press SUNNY Award

2021 Mississippi Library Association Non-fiction Author Award

2021 American Book Fest - Best Book Award Finalist: Autobiographies & Memoirs

2021 Sunbury Press SUNNY Award

2022 Illumination Book Award Silver Medal: Biography/Memoir-Inspiration

2022 International Book Award: Autobiography/memoir

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2022 BY THE NEW YORKER
National Bestseller * New York Times Editors' Choice * Financial Times "Books to Read in 2022"
A SABEW BEST IN BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS FINALIST

"A gripping account of PayPal's origins and a vivid portrait of the geeks and contrarians who made its meteoric rise possible" (The Wall Street Journal)--including Elon Musk, Amy Rowe Klement, Peter Thiel, Julie Anderson, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, and many others whose stories have never been shared.

Today, PayPal's founders and earliest employees are considered the technology industry's most powerful network. Since leaving PayPal, they have formed, funded, and advised the leading companies of our era, including Tesla, Facebook, YouTube, SpaceX, Yelp, Palantir, and LinkedIn, among many others. As a group, they have driven twenty-first-century innovation and entrepreneurship. Their names stir passions; they're as controversial as they are admired.

Yet for all their influence, the story of where they first started has gone largely untold. Before igniting the commercial space race or jumpstarting social media's rise, they were the unknown creators of a scrappy online payments start-up called PayPal. In building what became one of the world's foremost companies, they faced bruising competition, internal strife, the emergence of widespread online fraud, and the devastating dot-com bust of the 2000s. Their success was anything but certain.

In The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, award-winning author and biographer Jimmy Soni explores PayPal's turbulent early days. With hundreds of interviews and unprecedented access to thousands of pages of internal material, he shows how the seeds of so much of what shapes our world today--fast-scaling digital start-ups, cashless currency concepts, mobile money transfer--were planted two decades ago. He also reveals the stories of countless individuals who were left out of the front-page features and banner headlines but who were central to PayPal's success.

Described as "an intensely magnetic chronicle" (The New York Times) and "engrossing" (Business Insider), The Founders is a story of iteration and inventiveness--the products of which have cast a long and powerful shadow over modern life. This narrative illustrates how this rare assemblage of talent came to work together and how their collaboration changed our world forever.

A gorgeous, lyrical picture-book biography of Vincent van Gogh by the Caldecott Honor team behind The Noisy Paint Box.

Vincent can't sleep . . .
out, out, out he runs!
flying through the garden--marigold, geranium, blackberry, raspberry--
past the church with its tall steeple, down rolling hills and sandy paths meant for sheep,
He dives at last into the velvety, violet heath, snuggles under a blanket of sapphire sky,
and looks up, up, up . . . to visit with the stars.

Vincent van Gogh often found himself unable to sleep and wandered under starlit skies. Those nighttime experiences provided the inspiration for many of his paintings, including his most famous, The Starry Night. Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime--but he continued to pursue his unique vision, and ultimately became one of the most beloved artists of all time.

From the same team behind the Caldecott Honor Book The Noisy Paint Box, Vincent Can't Sleep is a stunning book that offers insight into the true meaning of creativity and commitment.

Praise for The Noisy Paint Box:

"Even those who aren't inspired to visit a museum will take away the lesson of Kandinsky's life: Listen to what excites you and follow its call." --The New York Times

* "Rosenstock's prose strikes a balance between lightheartedness and lyricism. GrandPré's paintings conjure up an entire epoch . . . breathing life into all the characters." --Publishers Weekly, starred

* "The rich word choice is a delight: pistachio, cobalt, and saffron introduce readers to colors while hissing, blaring, and whispering reveal the sounds of the colors. . . . This is a beautiful blend of colors, music, and life." --Booklist, starred

* "A rich, accomplished piece about a pioneer in the art world." --Kirkus Reviews, starred

* "The book offers diverse potential for different types of study, whether one is reading for information or for pleasure. Outstanding." --School Library Journal, starred

The Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller

The global icon, award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, actress, mother, daughter, sister, storyteller, and artist finally tells the unfiltered story of her life in The Meaning of Mariah Carey

It took me a lifetime to have the courage and the clarity to write my memoir. I want to tell the story of the moments - the ups and downs, the triumphs and traumas, the debacles and the dreams, that contributed to the person I am today. Though there have been countless stories about me throughout my career and very public personal life, it's been impossible to communicate the complexities and depths of my experience in any single magazine article or a ten-minute television interview. And even then, my words were filtered through someone else's lens, largely satisfying someone else's assignment to define me.

This book is composed of my memories, my mishaps, my struggles, my survival and my songs. Unfiltered. I went deep into my childhood and gave the scared little girl inside of me a big voice. I let the abandoned and ambitious adolescent have her say, and the betrayed and triumphant woman I became tell her side.

Writing this memoir was incredibly hard, humbling and healing. My sincere hope is that you are moved to a new understanding, not only about me, but also about the resilience of the human spirit.

Love,
Mariah

Classical music was never meant to be an art for snobs!

In the 1700s and 1800s, classical music was popular music. People went to concerts with their friends, they brought snacks and drinks, and cheered right in the middle of the concert.

Well, guess what? Three hundred years later, that music is just as catchy, thrilling, and emotional.

From Bach to Mozart and Chopin, history's greatest composers have stood the test of time and continue to delight listeners from all walks of life. And in Classical Music For Dummies, you'll dive deeply into some of the greatest pieces of music ever written. You'll also get:

• A second-by-second listening guide to some of history's greatest pieces, annotated with time codes
• A classical music timeline, a field guide to the orchestra, and listening suggestions for your next foray into the classical genre
• Expanded references so you can continue your studies with recommended resources
• Bonus online material, like videos and audio tracks, to help you better understand concepts from the book

Classical Music For Dummies is perfect for anyone who loves music. It's also a funny, authoritative guide to expanding your musical horizons--and to learning how the world's greatest composers laid the groundwork for every piece of music written since.

The remarkable story of the powerful visionary episodes Stephen Harrod Buhner experienced over half a century ago.

The demands that were made for his reformulation of the self, and his subsequent training with the plants of the high Rocky Mountains into their uses as medicines and ecological modulators for planetary health. And as well, his meeting and training with some of the most innovative teachers of the latter half of the twentieth century. This is the most extensive description of visionary experience since that of Black Elk's in Black Elk Speaks and Manual Cordova Rios's in Wizard of the Upper Amazon.

Nate Shaw's father was born under slavery. Nate Shaw was born into a bondage that was only a little gentler. At the age of nine, he was picking cotton for thirty-five cents an hour. At the age of forty-seven, he faced down a crowd of white deputies who had come to confiscate a neighbor's crop. His defiance cost him twelve years in prison. This triumphant autobiography, assembled from the eighty-four-year-old Shaw's oral reminiscences, is the plain-spoken story of an "over-average" man who witnessed wrenching changes in the lives of Southern black people--and whose unassuming courage helped bring those changes about.

The New York Times bestselling autobiography by the lead guitarist of Black Sabbath and the architect of heavy metal

Iron Man chronicles the story of both pioneering guitarist Tony Iommi and legendary band Black Sabbath, dubbed "The Beatles of heavy metal" by Rolling Stone. Iron Man reveals the man behind the icon yet still captures Iommi's humor, intelligence, and warmth. He speaks honestly and unflinchingly about his rough-and-tumble childhood, the accident that almost ended his career, his failed marriages, personal tragedies, battles with addiction, band mates, famous friends, newfound daughter, and the ups and downs of his life as an artist.

Everything associated with hard rock happened to Black Sabbath first: the drugs, the debauchery, the drinking, the dungeons, the pressure, the pain, the conquests, the company men, the contracts, the combustible drummer, the critics, the comebacks, the singers, the Stonehenge set, the music, the money, the madness, the metal.

Even as a kid, everyone thought Jeff Kinney was talented. People loved his drawings, and when he went to college, his comic strip Igdoof was so popular that it spread to other universities! Still, Jeff faced challenges. His cartoons were rejected by syndicates that claimed his art was unprofessional. Then, an idea struck: Jeff would write a journal from the perspective of a child, illustrated with doodles just like a kid might do. And so, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series was born--and it was a hit! In this biography, Jeff's brother, Patrick Kinney, provides a knowledgeable look at the life of this best-selling author/illustrator. From Jeff's childhood pranks to his job developing online games, kids will love the chance to learn more about the creator of the popular Wimpy Kid books.

The earliest known prison memoir by an African American writer--recently discovered and authenticated by a team of Yale scholars--sheds light on the longstanding connection between race and incarceration in America.

"[A] harrowing [portrait] of life behind bars . . . part confession, part jeremiad, part lamentation, part picaresque novel (reminiscent, at times, of Dickens and Defoe)."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

In 2009, scholars at Yale University came across a startling manuscript: the memoir of Austin Reed, a free black man born in the 1820s who spent most of his early life ricocheting between forced labor in prison and forced labor as an indentured servant. Lost for more than one hundred and fifty years, the handwritten document is the first known prison memoir written by an African American. Corroborated by prison records and other documentary sources, Reed's text gives a gripping first-person account of an antebellum Northern life lived outside slavery that nonetheless bore, in its day-to-day details, unsettling resemblances to that very institution.

Now, for the first time, we can hear Austin Reed's story as he meant to tell it. He was born to a middle-class black family in the boomtown of Rochester, New York, but when his father died, his mother struggled to make ends meet. Still a child, Reed was placed as an indentured servant to a nearby family of white farmers near Rochester. He was caught attempting to set fire to a building and sentenced to ten years at Manhattan's brutal House of Refuge, an early juvenile reformatory that would soon become known for beatings and forced labor.

Seven years later, Reed found himself at New York's infamous Auburn State Prison. It was there that he finished writing this memoir, which explores America's first reformatory and first industrial prison from an inmate's point of view, recalling the great cruelties and kindnesses he experienced in those places and excavating patterns of racial segregation, exploitation, and bondage that extended beyond the boundaries of the slaveholding South, into free New York.

Accompanied by fascinating historical documents (including a series of poignant letters written by Reed near the end of his life), The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict is a work of uncommon beauty that tells a story of nineteenth-century racism, violence, labor, and captivity in a proud, defiant voice. Reed's memoir illuminates his own life and times--as well as ours today.

Praise for The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict

"One of the most fascinating and important memoirs ever produced in the United States."--Annette Gordon-Reed, The Washington Post

"Remarkable . . . triumphantly defiant . . . The book's greatest value lies in the gap it fills."--O: The Oprah Magazine

"Reed displays virtuosic gifts for narrative that, a century and a half later, earn and hold the reader's ear."--Thomas Chatterton Williams, San Francisco Chronicle

"[The book's] urgency and relevance remain undiminished. . . . This exemplary edition recovers history without permanently trapping it in one interpretation."--The Guardian

"A sensational, novelistic telling of an eventful life."--The Paris Review

"Vivid and painful."--NPR

"Lyrical and graceful in one sentence, burning with fury and hellfire in the next."--Columbus Free Press

"[Kurt Vonnegut] is either the funniest serious writer around or the most serious funny writer."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

In this self-portrait by an American genius, Kurt Vonnegut writes with beguiling wit and poignant wisdom about his favorite comedians, country music, a dead friend, a dead marriage, and various cockamamie aspects of his all-too-human journey through life. This is a work that resonates with Vonnegut's singular voice: the magic sound of a born storyteller mesmerizing us with truth.

"Vonnegut is at the top of his form, and it is wonderful."--Newsday

The legendary bass player tells the full, true story of his years with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead in this "insightful and entertaining" (Austin Chronicle) memoir of life in the greatest improvisational band in American history. In a book "as graceful and sublime as a box of rain" (New York Times Book Review), the beloved bassist tells the stories behind the songs, tours, and jams in the Grateful Dead's long, strange trip from the 1960s to the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995 and beyond. From Ken Kesey's "acid tests" to the Summer of Love to bestselling albums and worldwide tours, the Dead's story has never been told as honestly or as memorably as in this remarkable memoir. "A fun ride...Even for the most well-read Deadhead, there's enough between the covers to make Searching for the Sound worth a look." --Associated Press

Elizabeth Wurtzel's New York Times best-selling memoir, with a new afterword

"Sparkling, luminescent prose . . . A powerful portrait of one girl's journey through the purgatory of depression and back." --New York Times

"A book that became a cultural touchstone." --New Yorker

Elizabeth Wurtzel writes with her finger on the faint pulse of an overdiagnosed generation whose ruling icons are Kurt Cobain, Xanax, and pierced tongues. Her famous memoir of her bouts with depression and skirmishes with drugs, Prozac Nation is a witty and sharp account of the psychopharmacology of an era for readers of Girl, Interrupted and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar.

Go behind the scenes at the Constitutional Convention, thanks to award-winning author Jean Fritz's words!

This factual gem that's written with Newbery Honor author Jean Fritz's humorous touch chronicles the hot summer of 1787 where fifty-five delegates from thirteen states huddled together in the strictest secrecy in Philadelphia to draw up the constitution of the United States!

Includes a copy of the Constitution and those who signed it!

"An informative, interesting, and immensely readable account of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 . . . An excellent choice for introducing young readers to the complexities of the constitution."--School Library Journal

Although polio left him wheelchair bound, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression and served as president during World War II. Elected four times, he spent thirteen years in the White House. How he led the country through tremendously difficult problems, much like the ones facing America today, makes for a timely and engrossing biography.

One of Philadelphia's first female stockbrokers. The first woman real estate developer in America to renovate old factory buildings into historic condos. A woman not afraid to volunteer in one of the nation's highest-security prisons. A woman who started one of the first websites to help seniors in need.

And a woman who didn't know who she was until the age of eighty-two.

Meet Florence Klein, a trailblazer who grew up during the Second World War, decided one day at the age of twelve that she needed to take charge of her life, and lived it that way for the next seven decades. Always impeccably dressed, Florence learned to keep her hat on-literally-as she navigated the male-dominated worlds of finance, real estate, and business while raising a family and following her dreams, no matter how utterly unorthodox they were.

In this candid memoir, Florence also shares her thoughts with a new generation of women and men about living a life of courage, purpose, inclusion, and kindness in a world that can be confusing and cruel. Her remarkable life story proves that we each have what it takes to be trailblazers-and to encourage others to become them too.