Southern Memoirs

What was it in Sandra Day O'Connor's background and early life that helped make her the woman she is today - the first female justice of the US Supreme Court, and one of the most powerful women in America? In this beautiful, illuminating, and unusual book, Sandra Day O'Connor, with her brother, Alan, tells the story of the Day family and of growing up on the harsh yet beautiful land of the Lazy B Ranch in Arizona. Laced throughout these stories about three generations of the Day family, and everyday life on the Lazy B, are the lessons Sandra and Alan learned about the world.

Ernesto Che Guevara was a voyager - and thus a letter writer - for his entire adult life. The letters collected in I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor: Letters 1947-1967 range from letters home during his Motorcycle Diaries trip, to the long letter to Fidel after the success of the Cuban revolution in early 1959 (from which the book's title comes).

In 1942, Norman Hanson learned to fly the Royal Navy's newest fighter: the US-built Chance Vought Corsair. Fast, rugged, and demanding to fly, it was an intimidating machine. But in the hands of its young Fleet Air Arm pilots, it also proved to be a lethal weapon. Posted to the South Pacific aboard HMS Illustrious, Hanson and his squadron took the fight to the Japanese. Facing a desperate and determined enemy, Kamikaze attacks, and the ever-present dangers of flying off a pitching carrier deck, death was never far away.

This book provides an interesting view of Peace Corps in the "Olden Days". The days when training included 2-3 months at a US University, a month of outward bound hiking/mountain climbing/ocean swimming, and a week or two in the cross-cultural setting of a poverty ridden neighborhood, be it urban slum or rural Appalachia, migrant stream camp or Native American reservation. The book then takes us through arrival in-country and three days later delivery to the village or neighborhood of assignment. Those were the days when little or no advance program planning had been done by PC staff at ...

In July 1776 a pair of Franciscan friars, Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante, were charged by the governor of New Mexico with discovering a route across the unknown Southwest to the new Spanish colony in California. They had other goals as well, some of them secret: converting the indigenous natives along the way to the true faith, discovering a semi-mythical paradise known as Teguayo, hunting for sources of gold and silver, and paving the way for Spanish settlements from Santa Fe to Monterey. In strict terms, the expedition failed.

In this dual memoir, Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano take turns telling how they went from tentative business partners to dear friends while turning a dilapidated formerly segregated Greyhound bus station into The Grey, now one of the most celebrated restaurants in the country. Recounting the trying process of building their restaurant business, they examine their most painful and joyous times, revealing how they came to understand their differences, recognize their biases, and continuously challenge themselves and each other to be better.

Pablo Escobar was a mama’s boy who cherished his family and sang in the shower, yet he bombed a passenger plane and formed a death squad that used genital electrocution. Most Escobar biographies only provide a few pieces of the puzzle, but this action-packed 1000-page book reveals everything about the king of cocaine.

From her childhood in Norway to the seasons she spent working as a guide on Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, Arnesen courted the cold, and her memoir reflects the knowledge and passion for Arctic and Antarctic exploration that grew with her adventures in the wintry reaches of Norway and beyond. Tracing her path from the heroic stories of explorers like Fridtjof Nansen and Ernest Shackleton to her own crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap in 1992, Arnesen credits the inspiring feats of those who preceded her.

One ordinary spring morning in Reykjavik, Iceland, Thordis Elva kisses her son and partner good-bye before boarding a plane to do a remarkable thing: fly 7,000 miles to South Africa to confront the man who raped her when she was just 16. Meanwhile, in Sydney, Australia, Tom Stranger nervously embarks on an equally life-changing journey to meet Thordis, wondering whether he is worthy of this milestone.

Former tour manager and plane crash survivor Ron Eckerman reveals the rigors of life on the road as Lynyrd Skynyrd takes the world by storm in 1976, and the ironic turn of events preceding the tragic plane crash in 1977.

The definitive book on the hunt to find the most ruthless serial killer in Los Angeles' history, told by the fearless reporter who broke the story. In 2008, Christine Pelisek broke the story of a terrifying serial killer who went unchecked in Los Angeles for decades, killing the most vulnerable women in one South Central neighborhood.

Anyone doubting that Diego Maradona was more than just a football player had only to witness the outpourings after his death on 25th November 2020. During his tempestuous life and career, he played for top clubs in South America and Europe, notably Napoli, where he became an adored hero and adopted son, and grew to be a legend in his homeland of Argentina after leading them to victory in the 1986 World Cup.

Returning to his days as a reporter for El Espectador, Gabriel García Márquez chronicles, with consummate skill, the period in late 1990 when Colombian security forces mounted a nationwide manhunt for Pablo Escobar, the ruthless and elusive head of the Medellin cartel. Ten men and women were abducted by Escobar’s henchmen and used as bargaining chips against extradition to the United States. From the testimonies and diaries of the survivors, García Márquez reconstructs their bizarre ordeal with cinematic intensity, breathtaking language, and rigor.

Drag icon Ginger Minj brings her signature humor and sass to this tongue-in-cheek memoir-cum-life manual-cum-cookbook. Featuring Ginger’s favorite Southern-inspired recipes, Southern Fried Sass showcases some of her most vulnerable and celebratory moments, revealing the most valuable lessons she’s learned after years in drag and the pearls of wisdom she’s gleaned from her grandmother’s personal brand of Southern resilience.

The Martin Luther King Jr. of popular memory vanquished Jim Crow in the South. But in this myth-shattering book, award-winning and New York Times bestselling historian Jeanne Theoharis argues that King's time in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago—outside Dixie—was at the heart of his campaign for racial justice. King of the North follows King as he crisscrosses the country from the Northeast to the West Coast, challenging school segregation, police brutality, housing segregation, and job discrimination.

Since childhood Helene Stapinski heard lurid tales about her great-great-grandmother, Vita. In Southern Italy she was a loose woman who had murdered someone. Immigrating to America with three children, she lost one along the way. Helene's youthful obsession with Vita deepened as she grew up, eventually propelling the journalist to Italy, where, with her own children in tow, she pursued the story, determined to set the record straight.

July 30, 1945 - The USS Indianapolis and its 1,196-man crew is making its way toward a small island in the South Pacific. The ship is sailing unescorted, assured by headquarters the waters are safe. It is midnight, and Marine Edgar Harrell and several others have sacked out on deck rather than spend the night in their hot and muggy quarters below. Fresh off a top-secret mission to deliver uranium for the atomic bombs that would ultimately end World War II, they are unaware their ship is being watched.

In 1996, Patterson Hood recruited friends and fellow musicians in Athens, Georgia, to form his dream band: a group with no set lineup that specialized in rowdy rock and roll. The Drive-By Truckers, as they named themselves, grew into one of the best and most consequential rock bands of the 21st century, a great live act whose songs deliver the truth and nuance rarely bestowed on Southerners, so often reduced to stereotypes. Where the Devil Don’t Stay tells the band’s unlikely story not chronologically but geographically.

Born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi, Eudora Welty shares details of her upbringing that show us how her family and her surroundings contributed to the shaping not only of her personality but of her writing as well. Everyday sights, sounds, and objects resonate with the emotions of recollection.

Poor Man Always Dreams a Better Tomorrow...but Is the Life Worth the Cost? The oldest daughter who failed to weigh the cost of pleasing her much-loved father… The oldest son burdened with his father's expectations… The story of ego, pride, anger, revenge, guilt… With the powerful and raw memoir, The Guilt is Alive, author Hemalatha Gnanasekar gives an unconventional and unique examination of her life in an impoverished Indian family and explores her family's fateful decision to send the oldest son to Jamaica to work. Strap yourself in for a gripping, suspenseful, and bittersweet ...