Collection: Biography & Memoir

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER AND NEWBERY HONOR BOOK ● Before Rosa Parks, there was 15-year-old Claudette Colvin. Read the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure in this multi-award winning, mega-selling biography from the incomparable Phillip Hoose.

"When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'" --Claudette Colvin

On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South.

Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first major biography of a remarkable civil rights hero, skillfully weaving her riveting story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.

Awards and Praise for Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
National Book Award Winner
A Newbery Honor Book
A YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist
A Robert F. Sibert Honor Book

"Hoose's book, based in part on interviews with Colvin and people who knew her--finally gives her the credit she deserves." --The New York Times Book Review

"Claudette's eloquent bravery is unforgettable." --The Wall Street Journal

★ "This inspiring title shows the incredible difference that a single young person can make." --Booklist, starred review

Slaying autism stereotypes with stand-up, one joke at a time.

McKenzie Wark invents a new genre for another gender: not a memoir but an auto-ethnography of the opacity of the self.

Another genre for another gender.

What if you were trans and didn't know it? What if there were some hole in your life and you didn't even know it was there? What if you went through life not knowing why you only felt at home in your body at peak moments of drugs and sex? What if you expended your days avoiding an absence, a hole in being? Reverse Cowgirl is not exactly a memoir. The author doesn't, in the end, have any answers as to who she really is or was, although maybe she figures out what she could become.

Traveling from Sydney in the 1980s to New York today, Reverse Cowgirl is a comedy of errors, chronicling the author's failed attempts at being gay and at being straight across the shifting political and media landscapes of the late twentieth century. Finding that the established narratives of being transgender don't seem to apply to her, Wark borrows from the genres of autofiction, fictocriticism, and new narrative to create a writing practice that can discover the form of a life outside existing accounts of trans experience: an auto-ethnography of the opacity of the self.

In the early seventies, some of us were shot like stars from our parents' homes. This was an act of nature, bigger than ourselves. In the austere beauty and natural reality of Hell's Canyon of Eastern Oregon, one hundred miles from pavement, Pam, unable to identify with her parent's world and looking for deeper pathways has a chance encounter with returning Vietnam warrior Skip Royes. Skip, looking for a bridge from survival back to connection, introduces Pam to the vanishing culture of the wandering shepherd and together they embark on a four-year sojourn into the wilderness. From the back of a horse, Pam leads her packstring of readers from overlook to water crossing, down trails two thousand years old, and from the vantages she chooses for us, we feel the edges of our own experiences. It is a memoir of falling in love with a place and a man and the price extracted for that love.

Written with deep lyricism, Temperance Creek is a work of haunting beauty, fresh and irreverent and rooted in the grit and pleasure of daily life. This is Pam's story, but the courage and truth in the telling is part of our human experience. Seen through a slower more primary mirror, one not so crowded with objectivity, Pam's memoir, is a kind of home-coming, a family reunion for shooting stars.

An introduction to the history of the civil rights movement for kids ages 6 to 9

Years ago, American laws were unfair to Black people. Black people were not allowed to shop in the same stores as white people, eat at the same restaurants, or even go to the same schools. Many brave men and women, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, dedicated their lives to ending these unfair laws through protests, sit-ins, and other peaceful demonstrations. This engaging story explores the ways Black Americans were discriminated against, the protestors' many victories, and how the fight for equality continues today.

Discover what sets this book apart from other civil rights books for kids:

• A visual timeline--Kids will be able to easily follow the history of the civil rights movement with a timeline marking major milestones.
• Core curriculum--Teach kids about the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How behind the civil rights movement, and test their knowledge with a quick quiz after they finish.
• Continuing the fight--Encourage kids to explore questions that help them think about how they can make the world a better place.

Help kids understand the struggle for equality in the United States with this standout among Black history books for kids.

Hailed by David Sedaris as "perfectly, relentlessly funny" and by Colson Whitehead as "sardonic without being cruel, tender without being sentimental," from the author of the new collection Look Alive Out There.

Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.

From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions -- or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There'd Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

The blazing rock opera of the greatest drummer of all-time, Jim Gordon, from the legendary Wrecking Crew to redefining rock on the Seventies' biggest hits and outrageous tours, and ultimately to the most shocking crime in rock history--a story of musical genius, uncontrollable madness, and the big fill

Jim Gordon was the greatest rock drummer of all-time. Just ask the world-famous musicians who played with him--John Lennon, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Frank Zappa, Steely Dan, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, Joe Cocker, and many more. They knew him for his superior playing, extraordinary training and technique, preternatural intuition, perfect sense of time, and his "big fill"--the mathematically-precise clatter that exploded like detonating fireworks on his drum breaks. And as best-selling author and award-winning journalist Joel Selvin reveals, the story of Jim Gordon is the most brilliant, turbulent, and wrenching rock opera ever.
This riveting narrative follows Gordon as the very chemicals in his brain that gifted him also destroyed him. His head crowded with a hellish gang of voices screaming at him, demanding obedience, Gordon descended from the absolute heights of the rock world--playing with the most famous musicians of his generation--to working with a Santa Monica dive-bar band for $30 a night. And then he committed the most shocking crime in rock history.
With full cooperation from the late Gordon's family, and based on his trademark extensive, detailed research, Joel Selvin's account is at once an epic journey through an artist's monumental musical contributions, a rollicking history of rock drumming, and a terrifying downward spiral into unimaginable madness that Gordon fought a valiant but losing battle against. One of the great untold stories of rock is finally being told.

"A detail-rich picture book." --Kirkus Reviews
"Straightforward and inviting." --School Library Journal

From award-winning author Lesa Cline-Ransome and acclaimed illustrator Raúl Colón comes the sensitive, informative, and inspiring picture book biography of the remarkable mathematician Katherine Johnson, one of the NASA "human computers" whose work was critical to the first US space launch.

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws were in place in the early 1950s, Katherine worked analyzing data at the NACA (later NASA) Langley laboratory.

In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon and John Glenn said "get the girl" (Katherine Johnson) to run the numbers by hand to chart the complexity of the orbital flight. He knew that his flight couldn't work without her unique skills.

President Barack Obama awarded Katherine Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and her incredible life inspired the Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Get to know this incredible and inspirational woman with this beautifully illustrated picture book from an award-winning duo.

Tackling some of the world's most profound questions through the intimate lens of fatherhood, Bayo Akomolafe embarks on a journey of discovery as he maps the contours of the spaces between himself and his three-year-old daughter, Alethea. In a narrative that manages to be both intricate and unguarded, he discovers that something as commonplace as becoming a father is a cosmic event of unprecedented proportions. Using this realization as a touchstone, he is led to consider the strangeness of his own soul, contemplate the myths and rituals of modernity, ask questions about food and justice, ponder what it means to be human, evaluate what we can do about climate change, and wonder what our collective yearnings for a better world tell us about ourselves. These Wilds Beyond Our Fences is a passionate attempt to make sense of our disconnection in a world where it is easy to feel untethered and lost. It is a father's search for meaning, for a place of belonging, and for reassurance that the world will embrace and support our children once we are gone.

This engrossing memoir charts Ruiz's journey toward self-identity, tracing the tortuous path of her life--a life in which Ruiz assumed contradictory roles: gang chola, high school drop-out, disowned daughter, battered wife, welfare mother, student, and policewoman.

This extraordinarily intimate and "gripping" (Vanity Fair) biography of Janis Joplin establishes the Queen of Rock & Roll as the rule-breaking musical trailblazer and complicated, gender-bending rebel she was.

Janis Joplin's first transgressive act was to be a white girl who gained an early sense of the power of the blues, music you could only find on obscure records and in roadhouses along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. But even before that, she stood out in her conservative oil town. She was a tomboy who was also intellectually curious and artistic. By the time she reached high school, she had drawn the scorn of her peers for her embrace of the Beats and her racially progressive views. Her parents doted on her in many ways, but were ultimately put off by her repeated acts of defiance.

Janis Joplin has become a legend known as a brash, impassioned soul doomed by the pain that produced one of the most extraordinary voices in rock history. But in these pages, Holly George-Warren provides a revelatory and deeply satisfying portrait of a woman who wasn't all about suffering. Janis was a perfectionist: a passionate, erudite musician who was born with talent but also worked exceptionally hard to develop it. She was a woman who pushed the boundaries of gender and sexuality long before it was socially acceptable. She was a sensitive seeker who wanted to marry and settle down--but couldn't, or wouldn't. She was a Texan who yearned to flee Texas but could never quite get away--even after becoming a countercultural icon in San Francisco.

Written by one of the most highly regarded chroniclers of American music history, and based on unprecedented access to Janis Joplin's family, friends, band mates, archives, and long-lost interviews, Janis is the "significance-establishing project Joplin appreciators have been waiting for" (The New York Times Book Review).

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - From a renowned behavioral neuroscientist and recovering addict, a rare page-turning work of science that draws on personal insights to reveal how drugs work, the dangerous hold they can take on the brain, and the surprising way to combat today's epidemic of addiction.

Judith Grisel was a daily drug user and college dropout when she began to consider that her addiction might have a cure, one that she herself could perhaps discover by studying the brain. Now, after twenty-five years as a neuroscientist, she shares what she and other scientists have learned about addiction, enriched by captivating glimpses of her personal journey.

In Never Enough, Grisel reveals the unfortunate bottom line of all regular drug use: there is no such thing as a free lunch. All drugs act on the brain in a way that diminishes their enjoyable effects and creates unpleasant ones with repeated use. Yet they have their appeal, and Grisel draws on anecdotes both comic and tragic from her own days of using as she limns the science behind the love of various drugs, from marijuana to alcohol, opiates to psychedelics, speed to spice.

With more than one in five people over the age of fourteen addicted, drug abuse has been called the most formidable health problem worldwide, and Grisel delves with compassion into the science of this scourge. She points to what is different about the brains of addicts even before they first pick up a drink or drug, highlights the changes that take place in the brain and behavior as a result of chronic using, and shares the surprising hidden gifts of personality that addiction can expose. She describes what drove her to addiction, what helped her recover, and her belief that a "cure" for addiction will not be found in our individual brains but in the way we interact with our communities. Set apart by its color, candor, and bell-clear writing, Never Enough is a revelatory look at the roles drugs play in all of our lives and offers crucial new insight into how we can solve the epidemic of abuse.

When Abigail Thomas's husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institu-tion. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life.

How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude.This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail discovered in the five years since the acci-dent: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it.

"The startling power and beauty of Abigail Thomas's memoir comes not only from her acute perceptions of a man without memories and her fear of losing her husband but from her refusal to surrender the shards of a loving relationship."--O, the Oprah Magazine

From the governor-elect of Maryland comes a story of two fatherless boys from Baltimore, both named Wes Moore. One is in prison, serving a life sentence for murder. The other is a Rhodes Scholar, an army veteran, and an author whose book is being turned into a movie produced by Oprah Winfrey.

The story of "the other Wes Moore" is one that the author couldn't get out of his mind, not since he learned that another boy with his name--just two years his senior--grew up in the same Baltimore neighborhood. He wrote that boy--now a man--a letter, not expecting to receive a reply. But a reply came, and a friendship grew, as letters turned into visits and the two men got to know each other. Eventually, that friendship became the inspiration for Discovering Wes Moore, a moving and cautionary tale examining the factors that contribute to success and failure--and the choices that make all the difference.

Two men. One overcame adversity. The other suffered the indignities of poverty. Their stories are chronicled in Discovering Wes Moore, a book for young people based on Wes Moore's bestselling adult memoir, The Other Wes Moore.

Includes an 8-page photo insert.

Praise for Discovering Wes Moore

"Moore wisely opens the door for teens to contemplate their own answers and beliefs, while laying out his own experiences honestly and openly."--Publishers Weekly

"He argues earnestly and convincingly that young people can overcome the obstacles in their lives when they make the right choices and accept the support of caring adults."--Kirkus Reviews

"Engrossing...the first formal biography of a woman who has heretofore been relegated to the sidelines."-The New York Times

From the author of the New York Times bestseller A Woman of No Importance, a long overdue tribute to the extraordinary woman who was Winston Churchill's closest confidante, fiercest critic and shrewdest advisor that captures the intimate dynamic of one of history's most fateful marriages.

Late in life, Winston Churchill claimed that victory in the Second World War would have been "impossible" without the woman who stood by his side for fifty-seven turbulent years. Why, then, do we know so little about her? In this landmark biography, a finalist for the Plutarch prize, Sonia Purnell finally gives Clementine Churchill her due.

Born into impecunious aristocracy, the young Clementine Hozier was the target of cruel snobbery. Many wondered why Winston married her, when the prime minister's daughter was desperate for his attention. Yet their marriage proved to be an exceptional partnership. "You know,"Winston confided to FDR, "I tell Clemmie everything."

Through the ups and downs of his tumultuous career, in the tense days when he stood against Chamberlain and the many months when he helped inspire his fellow countrymen and women to keep strong and carry on, Clementine made her husband's career her mission, at the expense of her family, her health and, fatefully, of her children. Any real consideration of Winston Churchill is incomplete without an understanding of their relationship. Clementine is both the first real biography of this remarkable woman and a fascinating look inside their private world.

"Sonia Purnell has at long last given Clementine Churchill the biography she deserves. Sensitive yet clear-eyed, Clementine tells the fascinating story of a complex woman struggling to maintain her own identity while serving as the conscience and principal adviser to one of the most important figures in history. I was enthralled all the way through." -Lynne Olson, bestselling author of Citizens of London