In this memoir, Ben Stern tells his own, unforgettable story as a Holocaust camp survivor who by the age of 24 impossibly survived two ghettos, nine concentration camps, and two death marches. In story after story of near impossible survival, he lives with singular courage and unshakable kindness and hope - his only weapons against the Nazis' determination to destroy everyone and everything Jewish in Europe. Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1921, Ben is seventeen years old when the Nazis invade his town of Mogielnica. His parents and grandmother beg him to flee: Whatever you do, you save yourself! We hold our breaths and our hearts as we watch Ben's on-the-fly decisions that in a mix of resourcefulness, canniness, and plain luck manage to save him from the brink of annihilation via slavery, starvation, beatings, shootings, whippings, and a certain death sentence from Dr. Mengele himself. Liberated on May 8, 1945, Ben finds he can be free only when he chooses to let go of hatred. Thirty years later, he sparks and leads the resistance when Nazis in America plan to rally in his adopted hometown of Skokie, Illinois. Standing up against tremendous opposition, Ben builds national support, prompting the Nazis to cancel at the last minute. Then, again for a third time, Nazis arrive in Berkeley, California, after the notorious 2017 hate march in Charlottesville, Virginia. Ben refuses to follow city officials' orders to stay home and defies them with a rally of thousands against hatred, once more. As a fierce defender of human rights, Ben inspires students and adults everywhere. His story inspires us to stand up and speak out to change our world for the better.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE RANDY SHILTS AWARD “I [once] said [to Frank] I was sorry I would never be able to vote for him as the first gay president of the United States. After reading this book, I am sorrier than ever.”—Garry Wills, The New York Review of Books Growing up in Bayonne, New Jersey, Barney Frank made two vital discoveries about himself: he was attracted to government, and to men. He resolved to make a career out of the first and to keep the second a secret. Now, his sexual orientation is widely accepted, while his belief in government is embattled. Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage is his account of America’s transformation—and the tale of a truly momentous career. From the battle over AIDS funding in the 1980s to the 2008 financial crisis, Barney Frank played a key role, and in this feisty and often moving memoir, he candidly discusses the satisfactions, fears, and grudges that come with elected office. He recalls the emotional toll of living in the closet while publicly crusading against homophobia. He discusses painful quarrels with allies; friendships with public figures, from Tip O’Neill to Sonny Bono; and how he found love with his husband, Jim Ready, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage. The result is the story of an extraordinary political life, an original argument for rebuilding trust in government, and a guide to how change really happens—composed by a master of the art.

Stalin, like Hitler, remains the very personification of evil but also one of the creators of today’s world. Now in an enthralling biography that reads like a thriller, Simon Sebag Montefiore unveils the shadowy, adventurous journey of the Georgian cobbler’s son who became the Red Tsar.What makes a Stalin? Was he illegitimate? Was his mother whore or saint? Was Stalin a Tsarist agent or Lenin’s chief gangster? Was his most notorious heist planned during his stay in London? Was he to blame for his wife’s death? If he really missed the 1917 Revolution, how did he emerge so powerful?Born in poverty, scarred by his upbringing, exceptional in his studies, this charismatic but dangerous boy was hailed as a romantic poet and trained as a priest but found his mission as fanatical revolutionary. He became the mastermind of bank robberies, protection-rackets, arson, piracy, and murder yet he was, uniquely part-intellectual, part-brigand. Surprisingly, he is also revealed as a scandalously prolific lover, leaving a trail of mistresses (varying from schoolgirls to noblewomen) and illegitimate children. Her is the arch-conspirator and escape-artist whose brutal ingenuity so impressed Lenin that he made Stalin (with Trotsky) his top henchman. The paranoid underworld of Joseph Conrad-style terrorism was Stalin’s natural habitat. Montefiore shows how murderous Caucasian banditry and political gangsterism, combined with pitiless ideology, qualified Stalin to demonstrate the Kremlin – and create the USSR in his flawed image. Based on massive research and astonishing new evidence in archives from Moscow to Georgia, YOUNG STALIN, companion and prequel to bestselling, prizewinning STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR, is a chronicle of the Revolution, a pre-history of the USSR – and an intimate biography: this is how Stalin became Stalin.

Bestselling author Ruth Reichl embarks on a clear-eyed and openhearted investigation of her mother's life, piecing together the journey of a woman she comes to realize she never really knew. Looking to her mother's letters and diaries, Reichl confronts the painful transition her mother made from a hopeful young woman to an increasingly unhappy older one and realizes the tremendous sacrifices she made to make sure her daughter's life would not be as disappointing as her own. Book jacket.

A quick search on the net reveals some 2,400,000 sites about the 23-year-old socialite who is famous for doing little and baring little. But what is it about Paris Hilton that continues to fascinate everyone worldwide and why do or should we care? (oh, but we do). Paris has teamed up with entertainment/fashion/beauty/celebrity writer Merle Ginsberg and Jeff Vespa, Paris's fave photographer, to write her autobiography CONFESSIONS OF AN HEIRESS: A TONGUE-IN-CHIC PEEK AT LIFE BEHIND THE POSE. There are chapters on sister Nicky, the jet/set life, and Paris's cavalcade of paramours including Rick Salomon and the notorious sex tape that "has made me change my life. I used to have fun and dress up and that was my life. But now I'm moving on, I've grown up a lot." Wow. CONFESSIONS OF AN HEIRESS also include a section on how to tell if a guy is only interested in your money. "If they offer to pay for dinner, that's a good sign," Paris advises. "But if they talk about how 'you're so rich,' if they do stuff like that, I can tell they like money more than they like me. But I think girls are more gold-diggers than guys." Ouch. CONFESSIONS OF AN HEIRESS doesn't just include Paris's thoughts on men and money. She also weighs in on nutrition ("Never drink Diet Coke. Diet Coke is for fat people.") and the hardships of travel ("Having a stewardess spill something on you can totally ruin your flight. I hate rude stewardesses. It's like, 'Hello, I'm paying, be nice to me.'"). Like, hello, we think they're called flight attendants now.

"I wonder if Judy Blume really knows how many girls' lives she affected. I wonder if she knows that at least one of her books made a grown woman finally feel like she'd been a normal girl all along..." —from Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume Whether laughing to tears reading Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great or clamoring for more unmistakable "me too!" moments in Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret , girls all over the world have been touched by Judy Blume's poignant coming-of-age stories. Now, in this anthology of essays, twenty-four notable female authors write straight from the heart about the unforgettable novels that left an indelible mark on their childhoods and still influence them today. After growing up from Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing into Smart Women , these writers pay tribute, through their reflections and most cherished memories, to one of the most beloved authors of all time.

Finance expert, bestselling author, and host of CNBC’s Mad Money Jim Cramer takes readers on a wild Wall Street ride—revealing how to play the game, who breaks the rules, and who gets hurt. Everyone on Wall Street knows Jim Cramer, and Cramer knows Wall Street better than anyone. Candid and outrageous, Confessions of a Street Addict takes readers on the wild ride that is Wall Street. Cramer details his life, from the middle-class Philadelphia suburbs to Harvard, where he began managing money, and then to Goldman Sachs. He brilliantly describes the life of a money manager: the frenetic pace, the constant pressure to outperform the market and other fund managers, and the sharklike attacks fund managers make as they circle a fund perceived to be in trouble. Throughout the book Cramer is characteristically outspoken, offering his hard-won insights about the market and everyone in it, himself included. There has never been a more eloquent market insider than Cramer, nor a more high-octane book about Wall Street.

At once a loving legacy and an unsparing depiction of a devastating illness, Danielle Steel’s tribute to her lost son is a gift of life, hope, healing, and understanding to us all. “This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold, and a tortured soul. It is the story of an illness, a fight to live, and a race against death. I want to share the story, and the pain, the courage, the love, and what I learned in living through it. I want Nick's life to be not only a tender memory for us, but a gift to others. . . . I would like to offer people hope and the realities we lived with. I want to make a difference. My hope is that someone will be able to use what we learned, and save a life with it.” —Danielle Steel From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother's joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel's powerful, personal story of the son she lost and the lessons she learned during his courageous battle against darkness. Sharing tender, painful memories and Nick's remarkable journals, Steel brings us a haunting duet between a singular young man and the mother who loved him—and a harrowing portrait of a masked killer called manic depression, which afflicts between two and three million Americans.

"One day there is life . . . and then, suddenly, it happens there is death". So begins THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE, Paul Auster's moving and personal meditation on fatherhood. After the death of his own father, Auster discovers a 60-year-old family murder mystery that could account for the old man's elusive character. Later the book shifts from Auster's identity as son to his own role as father.

A frank, witty, and dazzlingly written memoir of one woman trying to keep it together while her body falls apart—from the “brilliant mind” (Michaela Coel, creator of I May Destroy You ) behind Shutterbabe “The most laugh-out-loud story of resilience you’ll ever read and an essential road map for the importance of narrative as a tool of healing.”—Lori Gottlieb, bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY REAL SIMPLE I’m crawling around on the bathroom floor, picking up pieces of myself. These pieces are not a metaphor. They are actual pieces. Twenty years after her iconic memoir Shutterbabe, Deborah Copaken is at her darkly comedic nadir: battered, broke, divorcing, dissected, and dying—literally—on sexism’s battlefield as she scoops up what she believes to be her internal organs into a glass container before heading off to the hospital . . . in an UberPool. Ladyparts is Copaken’s irreverent inventory of both the female body and the body politic of womanhood in America, the story of one woman brought to her knees by the one-two-twelve punch of divorce, solo motherhood, healthcare Frogger, unaffordable childcare, shady landlords, her father’s death, college tuitions, sexual harassment, corporate indifference, ageism, sexism, and plain old bad luck. Plus seven serious illnesses, one atop the other, which provide the book’s narrative skeleton: vagina, uterus, breast, heart, cervix, brain, and lungs. Copaken bounces back from each bum body part, finds workarounds for every setback—she transforms her home into a commune to pay rent, sells her soul for health insurance, turns FBI informant when her sexual harasser gets a presidential appointment—but in her slippery struggle to survive a steep plunge off the middle-class ladder, she is suddenly awoken to what it means to have no safety net. Side-splittingly funny one minute, a freak horror show the next, quintessentially American throughout, Ladyparts is an era-defining memoir.

A fascinating, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting tale of self-discovery from the beloved actress who earned a permanent place in the hears of millions for her role in Little House on the Prarie when she was just a child. To fans of the hugely successful television series Little House on the Prairie , Melissa Gilbert grew up in a fantasy world with a larger-than-life father, friends and family she could count on, and plenty of animals to play with. Children across the country dreamed of the Ingalls’ idyllic life—and so did Melissa. With candor and humor, the cherished actress traces her complicated journey from buck-toothed Laura "Halfpint" Ingalls to Hollywood starlet, wife, and mother. She partied with the Brat Pack, dated heartthrobs like Rob Lowe and bad boys like Billy Idol, and began a self-destructive pattern of addiction and codependence. She eventually realized that her career on television had earned her popularity, admiration, and love from everyone but herself. Through hard work, tenacity, sobriety, and the blessings of a solid marriage, Melissa has accepted her many different identities and learned to laugh, cry, and forgive in new ways. Women everywhere may have idolized her charming life on Little House on the Prairie , but Melissa’s own unexpectedly honest, imperfect, and down-to-earth story is an inspiration.

What makes a child decide to become a scientist? •For Robert Sapolsky–Stanford professor of biology–it was an argument with a rabbi over a passage in the Bible. •Physicist Lee Smolin traces his inspiration to a volume of Einstein’s work, picked up as a diversion from heartbreak. •Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and the author of Flow , found his calling through Descartes. Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson . . . 27 scientists in all write about what it was that sent them on the path to their life's work. Illuminating memoir meets superb science writing in stories that invite us to consider what it is–and what it isn’t–that sets the scientific mind apart.

Biography, autobiography, and memoir is among the best ways to teach students to appreciate nonfiction reading.

From Drescher, here's the funny and empowering New York Times bestseller about taking charge of health problems and finding humor in the face of adversity. Part inspirational cancer-survival story, part memoir-as-a-laugh riot, Cancer Schmancer picks up where Fran's last book, Enter Whining, left off.

From Andrew Dice Clay, the “Undisputed Heavyweight Comedy King,” comes the unapologetic and uncensored autobiography fans have been waiting for. Andrew Dice Clay’s raw and uncensored stand-up comedy has shocked and entertained audiences for decades and continues to do so to this day. When he released his debut album, Dice , in 1989, the parental advisory label simply read “Warning: This album is offensive.” His material stretched the boundaries of decency and good taste to their breaking point, and in turn he became the biggest stand-up comic in the world. But Dice’s meteoric rise and spectacular fame brought on a furious backlash from the media and critics. By the mid-nineties, though still playing to packed audiences, the turmoil in his personal life, plus attacks from every activist group imaginable, led him to make the decision to step out of the spotlight and put the focus on raising his boys. The Diceman was knocked down, but not out. Taking inspiration from what Frank Sinatra once told him—“You work for your fans, not the media. The media gets their tickets for free”—Dice has bounced back with critically acclaimed roles and is once again playing to sold-out audiences. Filled with no-holds-barred humor and honesty, The Filthy Truth sets the record straight and gives fans plenty of never-before-shared stories from his career and his friendships with Howard Stern, Sam Kinison, Mickey Rourke, Sylvester Stallone, Axl Rose, and countless others.

Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body 's betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer with various forms of cancer. Ovarian cancer remains an incurable disease for most of those diagnosed, even those lucky enough to find caring and skilled physicians. Memoir of a Debulked Woman is both a polemic against the ineffectual and injurious medical responses to which thousands of women are subjected and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art, and literature that sustain people in need.

A Special Memoir for a Special Moment in Hollywood History . . . Some Like It Hot occupies a unique place in American culture. This beloved classic showcases five comic geniuses: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, I. A. L. Diamond, Billy Wilder, and Marilyn Monroe. It has been honored by the American Film Institute as the ""Funniest Film of All Time"". It has contributed quotes, styles, and stories to film lore. Yet the full story of its making has never been told--until now.

Biography, autobiography, and memoir is among the best ways to teach students to appreciate nonfiction reading.

A “must read” (Joe Scarborough) by a New York Times – best- selling author, The Corrosion of Conservatism presents a necessary defense of American democracy. Praised on publication as “one of the most impressive and unfl inching diagnoses of the pathologies in Republican politics that led to Trump’s rise” (Jonathan Chait, New York ), The Corrosion of Conservatism documents a president who has traduced every norm and the rise of a nascent centrist movement to counter his assault on democracy. In this “admirably succinct and trenchant” (Charles Reichman, San Francisco Chronicle ) exhumation of conservatism, Max Boot tells the story of an ideological dislocation so shattering that it caused his courageous transformation from Republican foreign policy advisor to celebrated anti- Trump columnist. From recording his political coming- of- age as a young émigré from the Soviet Union to describing the vitriol he endured from his erstwhile conservative colleagues, Boot mixes “lively memoir with sharp analysis” (William Kristol) from its Reagan-era apogee to its corrosion under Donald Trump.

The multitalented writers, directors, producers, and actors (as seen on The League, Transparent, and The Mindy Project ) share the secrets of their lifelong partnership in this unique memoir. “A book that anyone will love . . . You can enjoy it even if you have no idea who the Duplass brothers are.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times Whether producing, writing, directing, or acting, the Duplass Brothers have made their mark in the world of independent film and television on the strength of their quirky and empathetic approach to storytelling. Now, for the first time, Mark and Jay take readers on a tour of their lifelong partnership in this unique memoir told in essays that share the secrets of their success, the joys and frustrations of intimate collaboration, and the lessons they’ve learned the hard way. From a childhood spent wielding an oversized home video camera in the suburbs of New Orleans to their shared years at the University of Texas in early-nineties Austin, and from the breakthrough short they made on a three-dollar budget to the night their feature film Baghead became the center of a Sundance bidding war, Mark and Jay tell the story of a bond that’s resilient, affectionate, mutually empowering, and only mildly dysfunctional. They are brutally honest about how their closeness sabotaged their youthful romantic relationships, about the jealousy each felt when the other stole the spotlight as an actor (Mark in The League, Jay in Transparent ), and about the challenges they faced on the set of their HBO series Togetherness —namely, too much togetherness. But Like Brothers is also a surprisingly practical road map to a rewarding creative partnership. Rather than split all their responsibilities fifty-fifty, the brothers learned to capitalize on each other’s strengths. They’re not afraid to call each other out, because they’re also not afraid to compromise. Most relationships aren’t—and frankly shouldn’t be—as intense as Mark and Jay’s, but their brand of trust, validation, and healthy disagreement has taken them far. Part coming-of-age memoir, part underdog story, and part insider account of succeeding in Hollywood on their own terms, Like Brothers is as openhearted and lovably offbeat as Mark and Jay themselves. “Wright. Ringling. Jonas. I’m sure you could name a bunch of famous brother teams. They’re all garbage compared to Mark and Jay. I can’t wait for you to read this book.”—from the foreword by Mindy Kaling