Family Biography

Set in the suburbs of New York in the 1950s, Wait Till Next Year is Doris Kearns Goodwin's touching memoir of growing up in love with her family and baseball. She re-creates the postwar era, when the corner store was a place to share stories and neighborhoods were equally divided between Dodger, Giant, and Yankee fans.

"You can love a dog so much, but you can never love them as much as you will miss them." A witty, heart-warming, and touching tale of a man, and man's best friend, brought together by a moment of fate. The Life and Adventures of Bert will make you smile, laugh, and shed a tear. This irresistibly charming memoir captures hearts and imaginations as we experience Bert's life from escaping a wretched existence, forming unbreakable loving bonds, to becoming one of Twitter's most loved dogs. You'll love this life-affirming book about an ordinary dog from humble beginnings because the love of a ...

From the time she was a toddler, Lou Ann Walker acted as the ears and voice for her parents, who had lost their hearing at a young age. As soon as she was old enough to speak, her childhood ended, and she immediately assumed the responsibility of interpreter - translating doctors’ appointments and managing her parents’ business transactions. Their family life was warm and loving, but outside the home, they faced a world that misunderstood and often rejected them.

The much-anticipated and inspiring memoir by Indra Nooyi, the trailblazing former CEO of PepsiCo, offering clear-eyed insight and a call to action for how our society can really blend work and family - and advance women - in the 21st century. For more than a dozen years as one of the world's most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman, person of colour and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company, Nooyi transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence and a deep sense of purpose.

Against all odds, just barely one month after Jessica Buchanan had been rescued by SEAL Team Six by order of President Obama, she found out she was pregnant. After spending ninety-three days at the hands of Somali pirates who had demanded a 45-million-dollar ransom in exchange for her freedom, Jessica could not imagine a reality in which her traumatized mind and malnourished body could grow, birth, and nurture this new life. But he grew, and as a result, so did she; in her capacity to trust her heart, her therapist, and the wise plan of the Universe.

El exilio: un relato de familia narra los avatares de dos familias que tuvieron que salir de México tras el estallido de la Revolución: la de Porfirio Díaz y la de Joaquín Casasús. Es un relato de carácter íntimo sobre la vida que llevaron a lo largo del exilio y es, también, un recuento de los sucesos que cambiaron al país vistos a través de sus vidas en el extranjero. La historia que cuenta está basada, esencialmente, en fuentes primarias, muchas de ellas inéditas.

After surviving a traumatic childhood in 1970s New York and young adulthood living in the shadow of her flamboyant mother, Rita, a makeup-addicted former television singer, Elissa Altman has managed to build a very different life, settling in Connecticut with her wife of nearly 20 years. After much time, therapy, and wine, Elissa is at last in a healthy place, still orbiting around her mother but keeping far enough away to preserve the stable, independent world she has built as a writer and editor. Then Elissa is confronted with the unthinkable.

Jeremy Ivester is a transgender man. Thirty years ago, his parents welcomed him into the world as what they thought was their daughter. As a child, he preferred the toys and games our society views as masculine. He kept his hair short and wore boys’ clothing. They called him a tomboy. That’s what he called himself. By high school, when he showed no interest in flirting, his parents thought he might be lesbian. At 20, he wondered if he was asexual. At 23, he surgically removed his breasts.

What has happened to the dream of beloved community embraced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the early 1960s—the vision of a just, humane, and colorblind America, a nation of "black and white together" animated by mutual respect and strengthened by the bonds of brotherly love? As Adam Gussow shows, the dream, although pressured on every front, remains alive. At the heart of My Family and I is Gussow's determination to live out the meaning of America's creed.

Some families are created in different ways but are still, in every way, a family. Writer and star of My Big Fat Greek Wedding Nia Vardalos firmly believed she was supposed to be a mom, but Mother Nature and modern medicine had put her in a headlock. So she made a choice that shocked friends, family, and even herself: with only 14 hours' notice, she adopted a preschooler.

After selling her first novel - a dream she'd worked long and hard for - Stephanie Danler knew she should be happy. Instead, she found herself driven to face the difficult past she'd left behind a decade ago: a mother disabled by years of alcoholism, further handicapped by a tragic brain aneurysm; a father who abandoned the family when she was three, now a meth addict in and out of recovery.

At first glance, Josh Hanagarne seems an improbable librarian. He stands 6'7", competes in strongman contests, and was diagnosed in high school with Tourette's syndrome. But books are his first love - Josh's earliest memories involve fantastic adventures between the pages of Gulliver’s Travels and a passionate infatuation with Fern from Charlotte’s Web. Everything in Josh’s life - from his Mormon upbringing, to finally finding love, to learning to control his tics through lifting - circles back to a close connection with books.

Already a BBC documentary miniseries and excerpted in the Guardian, We Bought a Zoo is a profoundly moving portrait of an unforgettable family living in the most extraordinary circumstances. This touching memoir is set to be a major motion picture starring Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon, in theaters December 23, 2011.

Freddie Steinmark was starting safety for the undefeated University of Texas Longhorns in 1969. In the thrilling “Game of the Century,” a come-from-behind victory against Arkansas that ensured Texas the National Championship, Steinmark played with pain in his left leg. Two days later, X-rays revealed a cancerous bone tumor so large that it seemed a miracle Steinmark could walk, let alone play football. Within a week of the Arkansas game, his leg was amputated.

Well-loved author Tomie dePaola brings his childhood memories to audio in this collection of the first four books from his 26 FAIRMOUNT AVENUE series.

Nobel Peace Prize winner and New York Times best-selling author Malala Yousafzai introduces some of the people behind the statistics and news stories we read or hear every day about the millions of people displaced worldwide.

One cold November night, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, fifteen-year-old Richard Jahnke Jr., ROTC leader and former Boy Scout, waited for his parents to return from celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the night they met. When his father got out of the car, the boy blasted him through the heart with a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. Richard's seventeen-year-old sister, Deborah, was sitting on the living room couch with a high-powered rifle - just in case her brother missed.

The young listeners' edition of the true story that inspired Lion, the major motion picture starring Dev Patel, David Wenham, Rooney Mara, and Nicole Kidman.

Everybody knows that Patricia Heaton plays the hilarious, wise, and tempestuous married-with-kids everywoman on Everybody Loves Raymond. What they might not know is that in real life, she is married, has four boys under eight years old, and is just as funny offscreen as on. Motherhood and Hollywood is Patricia Heaton’s humorous and poignant collection of essays on life, love, marriage, child-rearing, show business, having parents, being a parent, spousal rage, surviving fame, success, and the shame of underarm flab. She is warm, witty, and refreshingly irreverent.

Seventeen years ago, when Rebecca Thompson endured a string of life-threatening pregnancy losses and rare medical conditions, her training as a physician didn’t protect her from feeling isolated and overwhelmed. What she longed for was a community of women—or even one encouraging story—to reassure her that she wasn’t alone. Deciding to create the community she couldn’t find in her own time of need, Dr. Thompson reached out to friends, patients, and medical colleagues and asked them to share the stories of their personal journeys to parenthood.