New Memoirs

A marriage with an imperfect love story goes tragically wrong one summer in a small college town in Virginia, and the husband is left picking up the pieces of pain and regret. How did it end in suicide instead of divorce? What he discovers six months later is both heartbreaking and astonishing.

"The Girl of Many Crowns" is the true and inspiring story of Judith, the first princess of France, who is a pawn in a complex political game of chess as her father, King Charles, tries to hold on to his kingdom. King Charles, grandson of Emperor Charlemagne, is beset on every side by Vikings, rebel lords, and greedy neighboring monarchs. He marries 12-year-old Judith to Aethelwulf, the aging King of Wessex, for political advantage. When she is widowed, less than two years later, he arranges a second marriage for her.

In August 2004, Governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey made history when he stepped before microphones, declared, "My truth is that I am a gay American", and resigned his office. The story made international headlines, but what led to that moment was a human and political drama more complex and fascinating than anyone has yet revealed.

It’s an age-old question: Why do some great ideas or inventions take off and soar while others never get off the ground? Today, with more and more young entrepreneurs seeking to incorporate social justice, economic equity, climate concerns, and communal health into their endeavors, the need for practical-yet-think-big answers is great. Thibault Manekin has a few.

In this delightful memoir, Jared Gulian describes the first four years of their new life in the country, its disasters, small triumphs, surprises, and pleasures. But most of all, he describes the warmth of the local community that welcomed them, saved them from certain peril, taught them how to cook, how to care for animals, and how to understand and love the land.

Jemima Atar first experienced the unfolding of her complex narrative when she began exploring her life with the help of her therapist. Throughout the turmoil that characterized facing up to the truth of painful childhood trauma, Jemima’s therapist was her steadfast anchor, providing safety and support. But when he suddenly had to terminate the sessions after almost two years, Jemima found herself thrown into the depths of unfamiliar, isolating, misunderstood grief.

I Return to Versions of Myself: A Reckoning by Gary Troia is a deeply introspective memoir that delves into the complexities of self-discovery, mental health, and the pursuit of authenticity. This powerful and raw narrative explores the different versions of the author—some hidden, some lived openly, and others that embody darkness, depression, and self-doubt. Troia’s journey reflects the struggle to reconcile these conflicting selves, ultimately seeking the elusive, authentic version that lies beneath the surface. In this poignant memoir, Troia confronts the difficult and often painful...

In Cambodia in the 1960s, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge declared war on their own people, enslaving and slaughtering anybody who disagreed with them. Sichan Siv knew he would soon be a target - ending up, perhaps, as one of the millions of anonymous human skeletons buried in his nation's Killing Fields - so he heeded his mother's pleas and ran. Captured and forced to perform slave labor, Siv feared that he'd be worked to death or killed. But he never abandoned hope or his improbable dream of freedom - a dream that liberated him.

Most scholars consider Melanchthon to be a Reformation enigma. He, the developer of the Reformation doctrine of forensic justification, is contrarily condemned as a synergist. Known well as the Protestant preceptor of Germany, he was Martin Luther's lifelong friend, colleague, teacher of Greek, and fellow reformer. Upon arriving at Wittenberg, Melanchthon was a theologian neither by trade nor by training. He was a classically trained expert in classical languages, neo-Latin poet, textbook author, Greek scholar, humanist, and above all, an educator

In this perceptive, compelling essay, Katharine Murphy offers a profile of Anthony Albanese in motion – a piece about character, the balance of forces, and the mood of the nation. Are Albanese and his party up for change? Are Australians up for it? What does the new prime minister embody, if anything? Has the centre of the polity shifted, with the success of the Teals and the Greens? Where could – and should – the new government be ambitious?

Picture a man, he’s tall, not excessively so, yet as wide as he is high. This man is a spitting and growling street brawler; a tank full of ready-to-blow, muscle-fuelled aggression. Imagine, if you will, the comic-book style Bulldog of Great British stamp. Well, there you have him! The prototypical face taken from the terraces of an ’80s football fan’s rolled-up newspaper cosh; a poster-boy of malevolence left over from Thatcher’s post-punk Britain.

Follow the author on his odyssey from a 24-year-old Midwesterner unable to speak a word of Japanese as he recounts his initial struggle to survive even Japanese 101, to cramming four years of college Japanese into one year with top grades, to gaining functional fluency, conquering kanji, and finally gaining sufficient mastery over the language to develop marketable Japanese skills as a Japanese teacher and translator, all within four short years.

Ramses was the best dog in the world—the cleverest, friendliest, most expressive, understanding, amusing dog that ever was, and it was only a happy coincidence that he happened to be ours.

As a teenage orphan in England in 1791, Mary Reibey was sentenced to death for stealing a horse. When police cornered her, she was dressed as a boy, and she maintained that disguise until she was unmasked at her trial. Due to her 'tender age', Reibey was spared the hangman's noose and sentenced to seven years' transportation to the colony of New South Wales. With the odds stacked against her, Reibey went on to become Australia's first female business tycoon and the richest woman in the colony, founding the Bank of New South Wales, now one of the nation's biggest financial institutions.

Supermaker is a guide to business and career development by Jaime Schmidt: acclaimed entrepreneur, founder of Schmidt's Naturals, and icon of the Maker Movement. In Supermaker, she shares how you too can start or grow your own business with advice on branding, product development, social media marketing, scaling, PR, and customer engagement, all based on her own hard-won mastery.

Writer, comedienne, and full-time Blonde Selena Coppock offers up adventures, misadventures, and golden-hued nuggets of wisdom in a laugh-out-loud anthem for those of us who really do have more fun. The modern blonde is savvy, wise, confident, capable, and not afraid to laugh at herself when the occasion calls for it. She knows who she is and is prepared to subvert all stereotypes (although she's not above wielding her golden tresses to her advantage), and knows how to be both classy and a little brassy.

Navigating the Spanish Lake examines Spain's long presence in the Pacific Ocean (1521-1898) in the context of its global empire. Building on a growing body of literature on the Atlantic world and indigenous peoples in the Pacific, this pioneering book investigates the historiographical "Spanish Lake" as an artifact that unites the Pacific Rim (the Americas and Asia) and Basin (Oceania) with the Iberian Atlantic.

Home of the Jersey Devil, New Jersey has its share of other devils, from predatory nurses to thrill killers and sadists. Here you'll find a family that preyed on one of their own, a mass murderer with a list of grudges, an adulterous minister killed with his mistress, and a wife who cut up her husband. This state is rich in crime, with a significant number of high-profile cases, like the Lindbergh and Reso kidnappings, Unruh's rampage, and the celebrated success of America's Most Wanted in tracking down a man who'd slaughtered his entire family.

In That Time tells the story of the American experience in Vietnam through the life of Michael O'Donnell, a bright young musician and poet who served as a soldier and helicopter pilot. O'Donnell wrote with great sensitivity and poetic force, and his best-known poem is among the most beloved of the war. In 1970, during an attempt to rescue fellow soldiers stranded under heavy fire, O'Donnell's helicopter was shot down in the jungles of Cambodia. He remained missing in action for almost three decades.

Antoine Lavoisier reinvented chemistry, overthrowing the long-established principles of alchemy and inventing an entirely new terminology, one still in use by chemists. Madison Smartt Bell’s enthralling narrative comes across like a race to the finish line, as the very circumstances that enabled Lavoisier to secure his reputation as the father of modern chemistry—a considerable fortune and social connections with the likes of Benjamin Franklin—also caused his glory to be cut short by the French Revolution.