Collection: Biography & Memoir

In this deeply intimate and soulful memoir about her father, Anne Serling reveals the fun-loving dad and family man behind the serious figure the public saw hosting The Twilight Zone each week. In 1975, Rod Serling's untimely death at 50 years old left 20-year-old Anne stunned and reeling. But through talking to his friends, poring over old letters, and recounting her childhood memories, Anne not only navigated her profound grief, but gained a deeper understanding of this remarkable man both as her father and as a dynamic writer. Now she shares her journey, along with personal photos, letters, scenes of her dad's youth, his service in WWII, and her family's time together. As I Knew Him is at once a portrait of a father and daughter, and a tribute to Rod Serling's legacy as a visionary, storyteller, and humanist.

A 2022 Coretta Scott King Book Award Honoree!

This luminous, defining picture book biography illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Christian Robinson, tells the remarkable and inspiring story of acclaimed singer Nina Simone and her bold, defiant, and exultant legacy.

Cover may vary.

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in small town North Carolina, Nina Simone was a musical child. She sang before she talked and learned to play piano at a very young age. With the support of her family and community, she received music lessons that introduced her to classical composers like Bach who remained with her and influenced her music throughout her life. She loved the way his music began softly and then tumbled to thunder, like her mother's preaching, and in much the same way as her career. During her first performances under the name of Nina Simone her voice was rich and sweet but as the Civil Rights Movement gained steam, Nina's voice soon became a thunderous roar as she raised her voice in powerful protest in the fight against racial inequality and discrimination.

"A lively story . . . warm with humor; bright with incident and personality."--San Francisco Chronicle

The fatherless Moody family moved from Colorado to Medford, Massachusetts, in 1912, when Ralph was entering his teens. "I tried as hard as I could to be a city boy, but I didn't have very good luck," he says at the beginning of The Fields of Home. "Just little things that would have been all right in Colorado were always getting me in trouble." So he is sent to his grandfather's farm in Maine, where he finds a new set of adventures.

A spectacular musical and scientific journey from the Bronx to the cosmic horizon that reveals the astonishing links between jazz, science, Einstein, and Coltrane

More than fifty years ago, John Coltrane drew the twelve musical notes in a circle and connected them by straight lines, forming a five-pointed star. Inspired by Einstein, Coltrane put physics and geometry at the core of his music.

Physicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander follows suit, using jazz to answer physics' most vexing questions about the past and future of the universe. Following the great minds that first drew the links between music and physics-a list including Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton, Einstein, and Rakim -- The Jazz of Physics reveals that the ancient poetic idea of the "Music of the Spheres," taken seriously, clarifies confounding issues in physics.

The Jazz of Physics will fascinate and inspire anyone interested in the mysteries of our universe, music, and life itself.

One of Esquire's best books of spring 2022

An extended meditation on late style and last works from "one of our greatest living critics" (Kathryn Schulz, New York).

How and when do artists and athletes know that their careers are coming to an end? What if the end comes early in a writer's life? How to keep going even as the ability to do so diminishes? In this ingeniously structured investigation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last works of writers, painters, musicians, and sports stars who've mattered to him throughout his life. With playful charm and penetrating intelligence, he considers Friedrich Nietzsche's breakdown in Turin, Bob Dylan's reinventions of old songs, J.M.W. Turner's proto-abstract paintings of blazing light, Jean Rhys's late-life resurgence, and John Coltrane's final works.

Ranging from Burning Man to Beethoven, from Eve Babitz to William Basinski, and from Annie Dillard to Giorgio de Chirico, Dyer's study of last things is also a book about how to go on living with art and beauty--and the sudden rejuvenation offered by books, films, and music discovered late in life. Praised by Kathryn Schulz as "one of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself," and by Tom Bissell as "perhaps the most bafflingly great writer at work in the English language today," Dyer has now blended criticism, memoir, and badinage of the most serious kind into something entirely new. The Last Days of Roger Federer is a summation of Dyer's passions and the perfect introduction to his sly and joyous work.

Nick Lavery is an active-duty Green Beret within the United States Army Special Forces. Although injuries sustained in combat resulted in the above-the-knee amputation of his leg- Nick not only remained in the Army, he returned to his Special Forces Detachment and continues conducting combat operations to this day.
Objective Secure is the methodology Nick employed to return to operational status. It is also the methodology he uses today as he continues this unprecedented journey in service to his country. It is a battle tested guide forged by fire-literally.

Authors Intent
Mission: Reader will absorb the principles and vignettes of Objective Secure at times and locations suitable for maximum focus in order to enhance perspective and facilitate achievement.
Expanded Purpose: Objective Secure was developed to enable those striving toward a goal, those who perceive a goal unobtainable, and those struggling to determine a goal.
Key Tasks:
Read
Ruminate
Implement
End state: Reader has unlocked pre-existing potential. Reader is equipped with a newly acquired series of tools and methodology. Reader recognizes anything is possible with an effective mindset and strategy. Reader employs the Objective Secure system and philosophy, resulting in sustained determination, progress, and inspiration to others.

Strap in for an impactful ride as Nick methodically explains the Objective Secure philosophy and system while also providing a glimpse into the events surrounding its necessary creation and implementation.
The intent is simple-provide readers the tools necessary to achieve any goal no matter how farfetched, unlikely, or impractical it may seem. Period.

The definitive, authorized, and first-ever biography of Terry Allen, the internationally acclaimed visual artist and iconoclastic songwriter who occupies an utterly unique position straddling the disparate, and usually distant, worlds of conceptual art and country music.

"People tell me it's country music," Terry Allen has joked, "and I ask, 'Which country?'" For nearly sixty years, Allen's inimitable art has explored the borderlands of memory, crossing boundaries between disciplines and audiences by conjuring indelible stories out of the howling West Texas wind.

In Truckload of Art, author Brendan Greaves exhaustively traces the influences that shaped Allen's extraordinary life, from his childhood in Lubbock, Texas, spent ringside and sidestage at the wrestling matches and concerts his father promoted, to his formative art-school years in incendiary 1960s Los Angeles, and through subsequent decades doggedly pursuing his uncompromising artistic vision. With humor and critical acumen, Greaves deftly recounts how Allen built a career and cult following with pioneering independent records like Lubbock (on everything) (1979)--widely considered an archetype of alternative country--and multiyear, multimedia bodies of richly narrative, interconnected art and theatrical works, including JUAREZ (ongoing since 1968), hailed as among the most significant statements in the history of American vernacular music and conceptual art.

Drawing on hundreds of revealing interviews with Allen himself, his family members, and his many notable friends, colleagues, and collaborators--from musicians like David Byrne and Kurt Vile to artists such as Bruce Nauman and Kiki Smith--and informed by unprecedented access to the artist's home, studio, journals, and archives, Greaves offers a poetic, deeply personal portrait of arguably the most singularly multivalent storyteller of the American West.

Tom Brady and Joe Montana have won 11 combined Super Bowls. Fans agree that they are two of the greatest quarterbacks in football history. But which is the best? Compare their careers and find out.

The "captivating" (The New York Times), definitive biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, detailing the extraordinary rise and political brilliance of the most powerful--and elusive--woman in the world.

Angela Merkel has always been an outsider. A pastor's daughter raised in Soviet-controlled East Germany, she spent her twenties working as a research chemist, entering politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And yet within fifteen years, she had become chancellor of Germany and, before long, the unofficial leader of the West.

In this "masterpiece of discernment and insight" (The New York Times Book Review), acclaimed biographer Kati Marton sets out to pierce the mystery of Merkel's unlikely ascent. With unparalleled access to the chancellor's inner circle and a trove of records only recently come to light, she teases out the unique political genius that had been the secret to Merkel's success. No modern leader so ably confronted Russian aggression, enacted daring social policies, and calmly unified an entire continent in an era when countries are becoming more divided. Again and again, she cleverly outmaneuvered strongmen like Putin and Trump, and weathered surprisingly complicated relationships with allies like Obama and Macron.

Famously private, the woman who emerges from this "impressively researched" (The Wall Street Journal) account is a role model for anyone interested in gaining and keeping power while staying true to one's moral convictions. At once a "riveting" (Los Angeles Review of Books) political biography, an intimate human portrait, and a revelatory look at successful leadership in action, The Chancellor brings forth one of the most extraordinary women of our time.

What could possibly go wrong in a wealthy matriarch's country home when her dilettante son, his restless wife, and his widowed brother live there together? Strong Passions, rooted in the beguiling times of Edith Wharton's "old New York," recounts the true story of a tumultuous marriage. In 1862, Mary Strong stunned her husband, Peter, by confessing to a two-year affair with his brother. Peter sued Mary for divorce for adultery--the only grounds in New York--but not before she accused him of forcing her into an abortion and having his own affair with the abortionist. She then kidnapped their young daughter and disappeared.

The divorce trial Strong v. Strong riveted the nation during the final throes and aftermath of the Civil War, offering a shocking glimpse into the private world of New York's powerful and privileged elite. Barbara Weisberg presents the chaotic courtroom and panoply of witnesses--governess, housekeeper, private detective, sisters-in-law, and many others--who provided contradictory and often salacious testimony. She then asks us to be the jury, deciding each spouse's guilt and the possibility of a just resolution.

Social history at its most intimate, Strong Passions charts a trial's twists and turns to portray a family and country in turmoil as they faced conflicts over women's changing roles, male custody of children, and men's power--financial and otherwise--over wives.

Bighearted and hopeful. Unflinchingly honest and healing. A profound compendium of intimate, inspiring essays and thoughtful prompts that will keep you afloat in difficult times and sustain you in the everyday.

Microjoys are a practice of uncovering joy and finding hope at any moment. They are accessible to everyone, despite all else. When we hone the ability to look for them, they are always available. Microjoys are the hidden wisdom, long-ago memories, subtle treasures, and ordinary delights that surround us: A polka-dot glass on a thrift store shelf. A dear friend's kindness at just the right time. The neighborhood spice shop. A beloved family tradition. The simple quietude of being in love. A cherished chai recipe.

Cyndie Spiegel first began taking note of microjoys during the most difficult year of her life--when she experienced back-to-back unprecedented and devastating losses--and she found that these fleeting moments of hope helped her move through each day with a semblance of comfort and a lot more joy.

Through beautifully written narrative essays and prompts, Cyndie shares the microjoys that have kept her going through tough times and shows us how we can learn to see the microjoys in our own lives. Microjoys don't change the truth of loss or make grief any more convenient, but they allow us to temporarily touch joy, keeping us buoyed and moving forward, one moment at a time.

"A frank chronicle of healing."-Kirkus Reviews

What happens when a trauma therapist is traumatized by loss?

Esteemed trauma therapist Meghan Riordan Jarvis knew how to help her patients process grief. For nearly twenty years, Meghan expected that this clinical training would inoculate her against the effects of personal trauma. But when her father died after a year-long battle with cancer, followed by her mother's unexpected passing while on their family vacation, she came undone.

Thrown into a maelstrom of grief, with long-buried childhood tragedy rising to the surface, Meghan knew what she had to do―check herself into the same trauma facility to which she often sent her clients. In treatment, trading the therapist's chair for the patient's couch, Meghan took her first steps toward healing.

A brave story of confronting life's hardest moments with emotional honesty, End of the Hour is for anyone who has experienced the unpredictable, lasting power of grief―and wondered how they'd ever get through it.

"Honest, vulnerable, delightful and disturbing." -David Hayward, NakedPastor

If you doubt and you're angry, if you're confused and hurting, if Sundays feel weird and you want something more, this book is for you.

As millions exit the church due to its politics and treatment of LGBTQ people, Brandon Flanery brings us Stumbling: A Sassy Memoir about Coming Out of Evangelicalism, an LGBTQ memoir that gives us a glimpse into why he and others are leaving and to show us the hope he's found on the other side.

Flanery drank deep of the evangelical waters: growing up in a megachurch, working as a missionary and pastor, all while wearing a purity ring and Relient K t-shirt. Flanery gave his life to the church, but everything changed once he came out. Using moving and candid anecdotes, Flanery shares stories of hitchhiking and sex, betrayal and forgiveness, despair and hope, all with a sarcastic-yet-sincere humor that brings refreshing levity to pain.

Stumbling is a story of rediscovery and forging oneself after Christian deconstruction, inviting you to find your own way, a way that's absolutely not perfect but definitely good. Happy stumbling.

A 2018 Notable Poetry Book for Children (National Council of Teachers of English)

Introduce your children to the beautiful words of classic American poet, Walt Whitman. Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman makes the work engaging and easy to understand.

Walt Whitman is considered by many to be one of the most prolific poets in American history. What better time to introduce your children to the written word than now?

This collection of thirty-five of Walt's best works has been carefully curated for kids. Each piece of work is lovingly illustrated, and are both presented and explained by New York University professor Karen Karbenier, PhD, a primary authority Whitman's poetry.

Walt Whitman includes enlightening commentary for each poem, definitions of key words, and a foreword by the expert so that kids, or even parents new to poems, will understand.

Starting off with "I Hear America Singing," the collection includes excerpts from "Song of Myself," "O Captain! My Captain!", poems from Leaves of Grass, and many more thought-provoking, descriptive, and kid-friendly selections.

In the late 1970s, Robert Brunk discovered the world of auctioneering. Drawn to the unique mountain culture and the history of fine art in and around Asheville, North Carolina, Bob started a business, Brunk Auctions, that became part of a bustling network of commerce. America's passion for collecting, buying, and selling reached remarkable heights in the following decades. Auction houses and antiques stores thrived; people paid hundreds of dollars for a humble country basket and thousands for a rare piece of folk art.

In this collection of compelling, compassionate essays, Bob considers specific items and remarkable situations he encountered in his long and successful work as an auctioneer and appraiser. He presents objects as invitations to consider personal and collective histories often related to unresolved social inequities. Bob also describes how, as his business grew to offer the finest examples of American and European art, his career often conflicted with his Mennonite background and the complexities of ownership and value. The result is a portrait that reflects the best and worst of us as we search for ways to live with objects--and then decide what to do when it's time to let them go.

When British poet Amy Key was growing up, she envisioned a life shaped by love--and Joni Mitchell's album Blue was her inspiration. "Blue became part of my language of intimacy," she writes, recalling the dozens of times she played the record as a teen, "an intimacy of disclosure, vulnerability, unadorned feeling that I thought I'd eventually share with a romantic other." As the years ticked by, she held on to this very specific idea of romance like a bottle of wine saved for a special occasion.

But what happens when the romance we are all told will give life meaning never presents itself Now single in her forties, Key explores the sweeping scales of romantic feeling as she has encountered them, using the album Blue as an expressive anchor: from the low notes of loss and unfulfilled desire--punctuated by sharp, discordant feelings of jealousy and regret--to the deep harmony of friendship, and the crescendos of sexual attraction and self-realization.

Finding solace in Mitchell's songs, Key plumbs Blue's track list for themes that resonate with her heart's seasons. Listening to the song "California," she explores the mixed emotions that come with traveling alone in a world built for couples; she juxtaposes the lonely lyrics of "My Old Man" with the pleasurable art of curating a perfect apartment for one; and with the utmost tenderness, she parses out her decision to not have children with the eloquent "Little Green."

Mapping the evolution of her early conceptions of love through her adulthood, Key offers a tender and nakedly candid celebration of the many forms of intimacy that often go unnoticed. An essential work for both the single and the partnered, Arrangements in Blue is a bold manual for building a life on your own terms.