Collection: Biography & Memoir

An incredible true story in graphic novel form that lays bare the tortured and triumphant history of Taiwan, an island claimed and fought over by many countries, through the life story of a man who lived through its most turbulent times.

Part One: Taiwan, 1930s. Tsai Kun-lin, an ordinary boy born in Qingshui, recounts a carefree childhood despite the Japanese occupation: growing up happily with the company of nursery rhymes and picture books on Qingshui Street. As war emerges Tsai's memories shift to military parades, air raids, and watching others face conscription into the army. It seems no one can escape. After the war, the book-loving teenager tries hard to learn Mandarin and believes he is finally stepping towards a comfortable future; but little does he know, a dark cloud awaits him ahead.

Part Two: Taiwan, 1950s. In his second year at Taichung First Senior High School, Tsai is arrested simply for joining a book club and subsequently tortured, deprived of civil rights, and sent to Green Island for "reformation." Lasting until his release in September 1960, Tsai, a victim of the White Terror era, spends ten years of his youth in prison on an unjust charge. But he is ready to embrace freedom.

Experience parts one and two of the tour-de-force graphic novel series that took Taiwan by storm - parts three and four coming May 2024.

P R A I S E

★ "The stupendous achievements here are many: a synergistic literary success; a historic record of twentieth-century Taiwan; the remarkable account of a boy's life; and a triumph of translation." --Booklist (starred)

"A story of persistence, both hopeful and chilling, and a powerful vision of the personal implications of Taiwan's mid-century history." --School Library Journal

"Stunning."
--Kirkus

P R A I S E

★ "The stupendous achievements here are many: a synergistic literary success; a historic record of twentieth-century Taiwan; the remarkable account of a boy's life; and a triumph of translation." --Booklist (starred)

"A story of persistence, both hopeful and chilling, and a powerful vision of the personal implications of Taiwan's mid-century history." --School Library Journal

"Stunning."
--Kirkus

Walter Isaacson's "enthralling" (The New Yorker) worldwide bestselling biography of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.

Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues--Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. Isaacson's portrait touched millions of readers.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. He himself spoke candidly about the people he worked with and competed against.

His friends, foes, and colleagues offer an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Steve Jobs is the inspiration for the movie of the same name starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A powerful memoir of a love that leads two people to find a courageous way to part--and a woman's struggle to go forward in the face of loss--that "enriches the reader's life with urgency and gratitude" (The Washington Post)

"A pleasure to read . . . Rarely has a memoir about death been so full of life. . . . Bloom has a talent for mixing the prosaic and profound, the slapstick and the serious."--USA Today

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, Time, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, Real Simple, Prospect (UK), She Reads, Kirkus Reviews

Amy Bloom began to notice changes in her husband, Brian: He retired early from a new job he loved; he withdrew from close friendships; he talked mostly about the past. Suddenly, it seemed there was a glass wall between them, and their long walks and talks stopped. Their world was altered forever when an MRI confirmed what they could no longer ignore: Brian had Alzheimer's disease.

Forced to confront the truth of the diagnosis and its impact on the future he had envisioned, Brian was determined to die on his feet, not live on his knees. Supporting each other in their last journey together, Brian and Amy made the unimaginably difficult and painful decision to go to Dignitas, an organization based in Switzerland that empowers a person to end their own life with dignity and peace.

In this heartbreaking and surprising memoir, Bloom sheds light on a part of life we so often shy away from discussing--its ending. Written in Bloom's captivating, insightful voice and with her trademark wit and candor, In Love is an unforgettable portrait of a beautiful marriage, and a boundary-defying love.

Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Allie Brosh--beloved author and artist of the extraordinary #1 New York Times bestseller Hyperbole and a Half--returns with a long-awaited collection of "hilarious and slyly poignant" (People), autobiographical, illustrated essays.

Solutions and Other Problems includes humorous stories from Allie Brosh's childhood; the adventures of her very bad animals; merciless dissection of her own character flaws; incisive essays on grief, loneliness, and powerlessness; as well as reflections on the absurdity of modern life. "No one sums up the hilarity, devastation, and bizarreness of life quite like comic artist and blogger Allie Brosh" (NPR).

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features all-new material with more than 1,600 pieces of art. Solutions and Other Problems marks the return of a beloved American humorist who has "the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian" (Bill Gates).

FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION - ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S CRITICS' PICKS - ONE OF THE BOSTON GLOBE'S 55 BOOKS WE LOVED THIS YEAR - ONE OF KIRKUS'S BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR- An intimate, insightful, at times even humorous blend of memoir and philosophy that examines why the thought of death is so compulsive for some while demonstrating that there's always another solution--from the acclaimed writer and philosophy professor, based on his viral essay, "I'm Still Here."

"A deep meditation that searches through Martin's past looking for answers about why he is the way he is, while also examining the role suicide has played in our culture for centuries, how it has evolved, and how philosophers have examined it." --Esquire

"A rock for people who've been troubled by suicidal ideation, or have someone in their lives who is." --The New York Times

"If you're going to write a book about suicide, you have to be willing to say the true things, the scary things, the humiliating things. Because everybody who is being honest with themselves knows at least a little bit about the subject. If you lie or if you fudge, the reader will know."

The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn't die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt from his wife, family, coworkers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and series of vague explanations.

In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his multiple suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. He argues that, for the vast majority of suicides, an attempt does not just come out of the blue, nor is it merely a violent reaction to a particular crisis or failure, but is the culmination of a host of long-standing issues. He also looks at the thinking of a number of great writers who have attempted suicide and detailed their experiences (such as David Foster Wallace, Yiyun Li, Akutagawa, Nelly Arcan, and others), at what the history of philosophy has to say both for and against suicide, and at the experiences of those who have reached out to him across the years to share their own struggles.

The result combines memoir with critical inquiry to powerfully give voice to what for many has long been incomprehensible, while showing those presently grappling with suicidal thoughts that they are not alone, and that the desire to kill oneself--like other self-destructive desires--is almost always temporary and avoidable.

For eight years, thousands of readers across San Francisco and beyond have laughed, cried, and felt inspired by the true, tender, and hilariously honest tales of a gay-parented, mixed-race, super-heroic family growing up together in a Bedlam Blue Bungalow... located somewhere in the Outer, Outer, Outer, Outer Excelsior neighborhood.

Told every Wednesday by SF Chronicle columnist Kevin Fisher-Paulson, 65 of these evocative stories were col-

lected in a 2019 book entitled How We Keep Spinning...! the journey of a family in stories. Four years later, this volume

shares 75 more true tales of family life at the very edge of San Francisco, as experienced by Kevin, Brian, Aidan, Zane and their faithful rescue dogs.

Marguerite Higgins was both the scourge and envy of the journalistic world. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, she first catapulted to fame with her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. Brash, beautiful, ruthlessly competitive, and sexually adventurous, she forced her way to the front despite being told the combat zone was no place for a woman. Her headline-making exploits earned her a reputation for bravery bordering on recklessness and accusations of "advancing on her back," trading sexual favors for scoops.

While the Herald Tribune exploited her feminine appeal--regularly featuring the photogenic "girl reporter" on its front pages--it was Maggie's dogged determination, talent for breaking news, and unwavering ambition that brought her success from one war zone to another. Her notoriety soared during the Cold War, and her daring dispatches from Korea garnered a Pulitzer Prize for foreign correspondence--the first granted to a woman for frontline reporting--with the citation noting the unusual dangers and difficulties she faced because of her sex. A star reporter, she became part of the Kennedy brothers' Washington circle, though her personal alliances and politics provoked bitter feuds with male rivals, who vilified her until her untimely death.

Drawing on new and extensive research, including never-before-published correspondence and interviews with Maggie's colleagues, lovers, and soldiers and generals who knew her in the field, journalist and historian Jennet Conant restores Maggie's rightful place in history as a woman who paved the way for the next generation of journalists, and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time.

An instant New York Times Best Seller!

The legendary country musician, reading advocate, and philanthropist Dolly Parton is the 28th in the New York Times bestselling picture book biography series for ages 5 to 8. (Cover may vary)

This book spotlights Dolly Parton, known for her beloved country songs, who has also sent over 150 million free books to children through her Imagination Library.

This friendly, fun biography series inspired the PBS Kids TV show Xavier Riddle and the Secret Museum. One great role model at a time, these books encourage kids to dream big. Included in each book are:

- A timeline of key events in the hero's history
- Photos that bring the story more fully to life
- Comic-book-style illustrations that are irresistibly adorable
- Childhood moments that influenced the hero
- Facts that make great conversation-starters
- A virtue this person embodies: Dolly Parton's love is seen in everything she does.

You'll want to collect each book in this dynamic, informative series!

In 2017, stuck in a loop of codependency and people-pleasing, 32-year-old novice backpacker Nicole Antoinette sets off to find her self-belief and inner resilience by doing something she does not for one second believe she can actually do: solo- hike all 800 miles of the rugged Arizona Trail.

The guiding question she brings with her is this: What do we find when we push ourselves further than we ever thought we could go?

How To Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail is a cathartic adventure memoir that explores the privilege to be able to choose your own suffering, as well as the process of becoming a better friend to yourself along the way.

A USA Today Must Read New Book

From the bestselling author of Women Rowing North and Reviving Ophelia-a memoir in essays reflecting on radiance, resilience, and the constantly changing nature of reality.

In her luminous new memoir in essays, Mary Pipher-as she did in her New York Times bestseller Women Rowing North-taps into a cultural moment, to offer wisdom, hope, and insight into loss and change. Drawing from her own experiences and expertise as a psychologist specializing in women, trauma, and the effect of our culture on our mental health, she looks inward in A Life in Light to what shaped her as a woman, one who has experienced darkness throughout her life but was always drawn to the light.

Her plainspoken depictions of her hard childhood and life's difficulties are dappled with moments of joy and revelation, tragedies and ordinary miseries, glimmers and shadow. As a child, she was separated from her parents for long periods. Those separations affected her deeply, but in A Life in Light she explores what she's learned about how to balance despair with joy, utilizing and sharing with readers every coping skill she has honed during her lifetime to remind us that there is a silver thread of resilience that flows through all of life, and that despite our despair, the light will return.

In this book, she points us toward that light.

For the 10th anniversary of David Lynch's bestselling reflection on meditation and creativity, this new edition features interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

When it first appeared in 2006, David Lynch's Catching the Big Fish was celebrated for being "as close as Lynch will ever come to an interior shot of his famously weird mind" (Rocky Mountain News) Now for the bestseller's 10th anniversary, Lynch dives deeper into the creative process and the benefits of Transcendental Meditation with the addition of his exclusive q-and-a interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.

The musicians open up to Lynch about their artistry, history, and the benefits they have experienced, artistically and personally, from their decades-long practice of Transcendental Meditation -- a technique that they and their fellow Beatles helped popularize in the 1960s.

Catching the Big Fish is a revelation for all want to understand Lynch's personal vision. And it is equally compelling for any who wonder how they can nurture their own creativity.

This is not a novel. This book, like the other eight books of the WARDEN FORCE series, is a collection of short stories, all true, the fascinating and often harrowing experiences of real game wardens pursuing armed violators in wild and remote places. TV shows such as WILD JUSTICE (National Geographic), NORTH WOODS LAW (Animal Planet) and LONE STAR LAW (Animal Planet) introduced the public to the real-life adventures of game wardens and conservation officers, a public hungry for more. And now, for readers, the WARDEN FORCE series provides the most exhaustive and comprehensive work in literature on this little known and often dangerous profession.

Award winning author Terry Hodges was himself a California State Fish and Game warden and supervisor/leader of game wardens for over 30 intense years. He writes with the authority possible only by those who have actually lived the life, who have actually packed a badge and a gun on behalf of wildlife and battled all manner of wildlife-destroying outlaws.

Season 1 contains the first 13 episodes

1. The Midnight Ride of Bonnie and Clyde: Wardens tangle with a murderous mother-and-son poaching team.
2. Night Rider: A California warden pursues highly dangerous night-poachers of wild pigs.
3. Decisions: Wardens off the coast of Southern California's Catalina Island risk their lives to save the crew of a sinking commercial squid-fishing boat.
4. A Second Second Chance: A California game warden ambushes outlaw catfish fishermen using baby swallows for bait.
5. The Collectors: California wardens take on a nest of Nazi-worshiping, weapons-collecting, deer poaching outlaws.
6. Nothin' Personal: California wardens track down a thief who steals the head and antlers of another hunter's buck.
7. Bottom Feeders: California wardens go after a band of white-trash, sturgeon-poaching hillbillies with attitudes.
8. An Outing with Team Taylor: A California game warden and his family, on a short vacation, team up to capture antelope, bear and steelhead poachers.
9. Rookie: A rookie California game warden gets his first taste of his hazardous new career.
10. Grand Trickery: A California warden employs a magnificent bluff to catch outlaws night-poaching deer.
11. Tough Luck on the Little Sur: California wardens pursue gaunch-hook steelhead poachers.
12. Serial Poacher: Wardens pursue a disturbing and dangerous lone-wolf deer poacher.
13. The Vision: A boy's fondest dream comes true.

"Hodges is a gifted writer able to let you imagine you are right there experiencing the workings of California's game wardens. I have read most of his books and thoroughly enjoy his writing. He is able to capture factual events mixed with creativity to describe events in a manner that puts you there. Anyone who enjoys the outdoors will appreciate this book."- John Johnson

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book - Robert F. Sibert Honor Book

An evocative picture book biography about the prolific life of Jackie Ormes, whose groundbreaking cartoons became some of the first empowering depictions of Black women in America!

Jackie Ormes made history. She was the first Black woman cartoonist to be nationally syndicated in the United States. She was also a journalist, fashionista, philanthropist, and activist, and she used her incredible talent and artistry to bring joy and hope to people everywhere. But in post-World War II America, Black people were still being denied their civil rights, and Jackie found herself in a dilemma: How could her art stay true to her signature "Jackie joy" while remaining honest about the inequalities Black people had been fighting?

Rising stars Traci N. Todd, author of the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Nina: A Story of Nina Simone, and Shannon Wright, co-creator of the bestselling graphic novel Twins, have crafted a gorgeous and heartfelt tribute to the indelible legacy of Jackie Ormes, whose life and work still influences illustrators and cartoonists today.

A mesmerizing memoir from three-time Newbery Honor-winning author Gary Paulsen--whose books have sold over 35 million copies worldwide--giving readers a new perspective on the origins of his blockbuster contemporary classic Hatchet and other famed survival stories.

"Leaves you gritting your teeth and clutching the pages . . . Haunted me as a reader." --The New York Times Book Review

★ "This literary treasure is written for book lovers of any age." --Shelf Awareness, starred review

His name is synonymous with high-stakes wilderness survival adventures. Now, beloved author Gary Paulsen portrays a series of life-altering moments from his turbulent childhood as his own original survival story. If not for his summer escape from a shockingly neglectful Chicago upbringing to a North Woods homestead at age five, there never would have been a Hatchet. Without the encouragement of the librarian who handed him his first book at age thirteen, he may never have become a reader. And without his desperate teenage enlistment in the Army, he would not have discovered his true calling as a storyteller.

An entrancing and critically lauded account of grit and growing up, perfect for newcomers and lifelong fans alike, Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood is literary legend Gary Paulsen at his rawest and realest.

Don't miss Gary Paulsen's other acclaimed books from Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers: the father-son comedy How to Train Your Dad and the page-turning survival adventure Northwind.

"Vivid." --The Wall Street Journal

"A dazzling addition to the history of the American Revolution." ―Kirkus Review (starred)

"Finally... a full and fascinating portrait of a true hero of the American Revolution, until he was visited by villainy. A riveting read." ―Tom Clavin, New York Times bestselling author of Follow Me to Hell

Benedict Arnold committed treason-- for more than two centuries, that's all that most Americans have known about him.

Yet Arnold was much more than a turncoat--his achievements during the early years of the Revolutionary War defined him as the most successful soldier of the era. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD tells the gripping story of Arnold's rush of audacious feats--his capture of Fort Ticonderoga, his Maine mountain expedition to attack Quebec, the famous artillery brawl at Valcour Island, the turning-point battle at Saratoga--that laid the groundwork for our independence.

Arnold was a superb leader, a brilliant tactician, a supremely courageous military officer. He was also imperfect, disloyal, villainous. One of the most paradoxical characters in American history, and one of the most interesting. GOD SAVE BENEDICT ARNOLD does not exonerate him for his treason--the stain on his character is permanent. But Kelly's insightful exploration of Arnold's career as a warrior shines a new light on this gutsy, fearless, and enigmatic figure. In the process, the book offers a fresh perspective on the reasons for Arnold's momentous change of heart.

THE #2 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER

Based on a career of making high-stakes, split-second decisions as a U.S. fighter pilot, The Art of Clear Thinking teaches readers to apply Hasard Lee's combat-tested techniques in everyday life.

The training to become a fighter pilot is among the most competitive and difficult in the world with fewer than one in a thousand succeeding. Pushing a cutting-edge jet to its limits at over 1,000 mph means that every split-second decision can have catastrophic consequences. This extreme environment has forged a group of warriors who for the last fifty years have been considered at the apex of decision-making theory and practice.

In The Art of Clear Thinking, Hasard Lee distills what he's learned during his career flying some of the Air Force's most advanced aircraft. With gripping firsthand accounts from his time as a fighter pilot and fascinating turning points throughout history, Hasard reveals powerful decision-making principles that can be used in business and in life, including:

- HOW TO LEARN BETTER AND FASTER
- CULTIVATING MENTAL TOUGHNESS
- DEVELOPING THE SKILLS TO QUICKLY ASSESS, CHOOSE, AND EXECUTE
- AND MUCH, MUCH MORE

Hasard has used and taught these techniques across the full spectrum of human endeavors and proven their effectiveness in both the cockpit and the boardroom. Those who have already benefited include CEO's, astronauts, CIA agents, students, parents, and many others. The Art of Clear Thinking is a book that will change how you interact with the world around you.