Childhood Biography

Alistair Horne is a leading scholar of French history. Here he trains his sights on one of the most compelling figures of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte. Far from a mere dictator, Napoleon was a military, political and social visionary whose legacy can still be felt in France and all over the world. Horne examines the one-time emperor at his most human, from his greatest triumphs to his disastrous failures.

As one of the most profound and insightful scholars of the Middle East, Fouad Ajami’s sensibility was powerfully shaped by his childhood and youth in Lebanon in the ’50s and ’60s. The time was a transitional one - not only for the Middle East but for America and the world. Lebanon in this era was just coming into its own as a cosmopolitan destination of the international jet set as well as earnest American educators seeking to modernize Arab society.

Introducing Releasing Me: A Memoir" by Kimberly Y. Frederick-Griffin. In this powerful narrative, Kimberly shares the deeply personal story of her tumultuous childhood, marked by trauma and emotional turmoil that shaped her relationships and hindered her pursuit of happiness. Through candid reflections, she unveils the struggles she faced, from battling destructive patterns to grappling with feelings of isolation and unacceptance.

Bill Bryson's hilarious memoir of growing up in middle America in the Fifties, complete, unabridged and read by the author. Born in 1951 in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24 carat memoir gold.

In this memoir, Natasha takes on the therapist's role with her past selves to drag her social anxiety into the open. From feisty Miss 6, lonely Miss 14 reeling from a tumultuous childhood, and defiant Miss 18 pushing back against a world where she didn't fit, through to her present self, Natasha explores the way social anxiety colored her experiences and finds healing through self-acceptance.

A small and effeminate boy bullied for years while growing up in an alcoholic family in suburban Cleveland Gil finds refuge in the equestrian world. A coach instills in him the dream of going to the Olympics and becomes his mentor, his guide and his predator. Gil survives rape, betrayals, setbacks, and the loss of family and friends all while on a quest to fulfill his dream. This book is not only about surviving; it's about the resilience of the human spirit and the pursuit of dreams against all odds.

Inspirational words on parenting from the beloved Fred Rogers, showing appreciation for parents whose children are grown as well as giving advice to those parents raising young ones.

For six months between 1966 and 1967, Wayne Johnston and his family lived in a wreck of a house across from his grandparents in Goulds, Newfoundland. At seven, Wayne was sickly and skinny, unable to keep food down, plagued with insomnia and a relentless cough that no doctor could diagnose, though they had already removed his tonsils, adenoids and appendix. To the neigh­bours, he was known as “Jennie’s boy,” a back­handed salute to his tiny, ferocious mother, who felt judged for Wayne’s condition at the same time as worried he might never grow up.

Sex, drugs, and...bug stew? In the vein of The Glass Castle and Wild, Cea Sunrise Person's compelling memoir of a childhood spent with her dysfunctional counter-culture family in the Canadian wilderness - a searing story of physical, emotional, and psychological survival.

This compelling memoir takes listeners through the eyes of a child surviving World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a nine-year-old, the author witnessed his father being herded into a truck - never to be seen again. He, his mother, and sister fled to Warsaw to live in disguise as Catholics under the noses of the Nazi SS, constantly fearful of discovery and persecution. A sobering reminder of the personal toll of the Holocaust on Jews during World War II, this book is a harrowing portrait of one child’s loss of innocence.

Growing up in a Chinese takeaway in rural Wales, Angela Hui was exposed from a very young age the struggle of being East Asian in Britain. From attacks on the shopfront (in other words, their home), to verbal abuse from customers and confrontations that ended with her dad wielding the meat cleaver, life growing up in a takeaway was far from peaceful. But alongside the strife, there was also beauty in the rhythm and joy that came from living in the takeaway and being surrounded by the food of her home culture.

A glorious new voice on Africa, Robyn Scott's adventures growing up in Botswana in a loving but eccentric family will be one of the season's most talked-about memoirs.

They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But in this raw and powerful memoir, when Phil’s seemingly perfect life begins to unravel, he realizes there are secrets locked in his subconscious that, like a huge elephant surfacing beneath him, insist on forging their own path. After his unconventional brother, Holly, dies in a boating accident in San Francisco Bay, Phil is haunted by flashbacks and disturbing dreams, hinting at a buried trauma. As the memories claw their way to the surface, Phil's world starts to crumble.

This is the story of John McGahern's childhood - of his mother's death, his father's anger and bafflement, and of his own discovery of literature and his ambition to become a writer. At the heart of the book is an unembarrassed homage by a loving son to a woman who protected him and his sisters from his father's unpredictable moods. His joy in her presence is recovered with great lyrical tact.

Throughout history, people have experimented, invented, and created new ways of doing things. Kid Innovators tells the stories of a diverse group of brilliant thinkers in fields like technology, education, business, science, art, and entertainment, reminding us that every innovator started out as a kid. Florence Nightingale rescued baby mice, Alan Turing was a daydreamer with terrible handwriting, and Alvin Ailey felt like a failure at sports.

In a 1970s commuter town, Tracey Thorn's teenage life was forged from what failed to happen. Her diaries were packed with entries about not buying things, not going to the disco, the school coach not arriving. Before she was a best-selling musician and writer, Tracey Thorn was a typical teenager: bored and cynical, despairing of her aspirational parents. Her only comfort came from house parties, Meaningful Conversations and the female pop icons who hinted at a new kind of living.

Inspiring, relatable, and totally true biographies tell the childhood stories of a diverse group of trailblazers including Kamala Harris, Greta Thunberg, Ai Weiwei, Benazir Bhutto, Elliot Page, and John Lewis, along with ten other powerful figures. Kid Trailblazers highlights contemporary figures who have led the way in government, social activism, environmental justice, and the arts.

On the heels of the cult television hit Friday Night Lights, The New York Times best-selling author of The Junction Boys pens the story of Texas high school football integration, and the three men who put together a championship team.

In this vivid memoir, Neidhardt explores her childhood in wider familial and social contexts. Drawing upon a trove of family letters and other archival material, she follows her parents’ journey from privilege to food stamps—from their formative youths, to their embrace of pioneer homemaking and rural poverty, to their sudden and wrenching return to conventional society—and explores the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s as it was, and as she lived it.

Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland have each suffered significant, debilitating brain injury - one through rare disease and the medical interventions that followed, the other through deep childhood trauma. In this brave and honest book, Jamila and Rosie share their parallel stories of becoming and being sick, alongside the experience and advice of those who've been there before. They reveal that their 'broken brains' have more in common than they initially realised, proving how mental and physical health are inextricably entwined.