5053 results for "Biography"

Stories from Candyland

Spelling, Candy
Carole Gene Marer spent her girlhood dreaming of meeting Rock Hudson, but when she finally had the chance—on her second date with her future husband, television mogul Aaron Spelling—she was so shy she hid all night in the powder room. How Candy morphed from that quiet girl into a seemingly-confident, stylish trophy wife, mistress of the largest house in Los Angeles (70,000 square feet when you count the attic) is at the heart of Stories from Candyland . The life Candy created for her family—her husband and children Tori and Randy—was fabulous, over-the-top, and often magical. So what if California Christmases don’t come with snow? Let’s make some on the tennis court! How do we take a cross-country family vacation with a dad who doesn’t fly? By private train car, of course (with an extra for the fifty-two pieces of luggage). The kids want to dress up for Halloween? No problem, why not call in Nolan Miller to design their costumes? Candy had a hand in some of the most beloved television shows of all time (she once stopped production on “Dynasty” because Krystle Carrington’s engagement ring was not spectacular enough), has entertained half of Hollywood in epic fashion, and lives an enviable life. But under all the fun and showmanship lies a more interesting character, still wrestling with some of the insecurities of her ingénue self. Oprah threw her into a major panic with a discussion of hoarding. A lifelong humming habit evolved as a unique coping mechanism. And there’s nothing like being defined as, “well, you know, complicated” by your daughter on television and in her own book. Stories from Candyland sparkles with glamour and grand gestures. But it also satisfies with some more intimate Candy concerns: why being a perfect wife and mother was so important to her, how cooking and cleaning can keep the home fires burning, why collections matter, and whether dogs are better judges of people than people are. Visit Candyland in these pages and get a glimpse of a generous, glittering world revealing many of its surprising and funny secrets for the first time.
St. Martin's Press 2009-03-31 248 pages

After Jackie: pride, prejudice, and baseball's forgotten heroes : an oral history

Fussman, Cal
To commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the breaking of baseball's color barrier, an exploration of Jackie Robinson's impact and legacy by the people whose lives were transformed by his courage. When Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, he forever changed the game of baseball--and America itself. Sportswriter Fussman traces Robinson's enormous legacy in sports, politics, and the civil rights movement through the men (and women) who came after him. With moving and intimate interviews of more than one hundred former major league players of African-American descent, as well as such luminaries as Jimmy Carter, Muhammad Ali, and Walter Cronkite, among others, this book recalls the day one man altered history for so many, and the history that followed.--From publisher description.
ESPN Books 2007-04-03 243 pages

Good for the money: my fight to pay back America

Benmosche, Bob
"In 2009, at the peak of the financial crisis, AIG - the American insurance behemoth - was sinking fast. It was the peg upon which the nation hung its ire and resentment during the financial crisis: the pinnacle of Wall Street arrogance and greed. When Bob Benmosche climbed aboard as CEO, it was widely assumed that he would go down with his ship. In mere months, he turned things around, pulling AIG from the brink of financial collapse and restoring its profitability. Before three years were up, AIG had fully repaid its staggering debt to the U.S. government - with interest.Good for the Money is an unyielding leader's memoir of a career spent fixing companies through thoughtful, unconventional strategy. With his brash, no-holds-barred approach to the job, Benmosche restored AIG's employee morale and good name. His is a story of perseverance, told with refreshing irreverence in unpretentious terms.Called "an American hero" by Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of Too Big to Fail, Benmosche was a self-made man who never forgot what life is like for the nation's 99-percent; again and again, he pushed back against obstinate colleagues to salvage American jobs and industry. Good for the Money affords you a front-row seat for Benmosche's heated battles with major players from Geithner to Obama to Cuomo, and offers incomparable lessons in leadership from the legendary CEO who changed the way Wall Street does business"--
St. Martin's Press 2016-04-12 271 pages

First, you cry

Rollin, Betty
NBC News correspondent Betty Rollin, glamorous, successful, and happily married, had it all -- and then she learned that she had a malignant tumor in her breast. Written with wit, warmth, and soul searching honesty, First, You Cry is the inspiring, true story about how one woman transformed the most terrifying ordeal of her life into a new beginning. Now with a new introduction and epilogue, this unique memoir serves as a fascinating retrospective of the twenty-five years since Rollin's first mastectomy and, given the continuing threat of breast cancer, tells a story that will inform all women as it touches them with its honesty and even, humor.
Quill 2000-09-19 222 pages

W-3

Howland, Bette
W-3 is a small psychiatric ward in a large university hospital, a world of pills and passes dispensed by an all-powerful staff, a world of veteran patients with grab-bags of tricks, a world of dishevelled, moment-to-moment existence on the edge of permanence. Bette Howland was one of those patients. In 1968, Howland was thirty-one, a single mother of two young sons, struggling to support her family on the part-time salary of a librarian; and labouring day and night at her typewriter to be a writer. One afternoon, while staying at her friend Saul Bellow’s apartment, she swallowed a bottle of pills. W-3 is a vivid -- and often surprisingly funny -- portrait of the extraordinary community of Ward 3 and a record of a defining moment in a writer’s life. The book itself would be her salvation: she wrote herself out of the grave.
Viking Press 1974 206 pages

Friends and enemies: a memoir

Amiel, Barbara
Barbara Amiel's long-awaited memoir is shockingly honest, richly detailed and pulls few punches. An instinctive feminist and now a foe of feminism's political correctness, her own memoirs cover a formidable array of experiences - political, sexual, marital and material. Born in London during the Blitz, the only consistent strain in her early life was a fierce belief in her identity as a Jew even as the Jewish community disowned her and an unquestioned view that women were free to do anything in any arena they chose without any need to win society's approval. Which she very often did not. Her rise to the senior rungs of journalism began in Canada after the emigration of her family and continued in the United Kingdom on her return. With four marriages and an assorted number of beaus, some famous, some infamous (some rather young, some rather elderly), she moved through different worlds encountering problems made more intractable on occasion by her own faulty choices. It is a measure of her writing skill that she held down plum jobs for many decades in Canadian and British journalism as well as appearances in U.S. publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to Vogue. As a writer of unabashedly libertarian views, she was derided as much for her wardrobe as for her ideas. Pilloried for years in books and television and called every conceivable name by the media, she is philosophical. 'I love fashion, sex and opera, ' she once told an interviewer, 'but life would have been easier if my passions had been for train-spotting and stamp collecting. 'Her life has an operatic quality with a wildly diverse cast including Elton John, Henry Kissinger, Anna Wintour, Oscar de la Renta, Princess Diana, Tom Stoppard, Brooke Astor, Ghislaine Maxwell, Ronald Harwood, David Frost and an array of the aristocrats of Manhattan and the stately homes of England. All handled, she writes 'with my fatal combination of naivete and self-absorption'. The epic battle with the U.S. justice system leading to the trial and imprisonment of her husband Conrad Black (eventually substantially vindicated) became a litmus paper for sorting out friends from those who were quick to judge and brutal in their dismissal.
Constable 2020 592 pages

Bad mother: a chronicle of maternal crimes, minor calamities, and occasional moments of grace

Waldman, Ayelet
Covering topics as diverse as the hysteria of competitive parenting (Whose toddler can recite the planets in order from the sun?), the relentless pursuits of the Bad Mother police, balancing the work-family dynamic, and the bane of every mother's existence (homework, that is), Bad Mother illuminates the anxieties that riddle motherhood today, while providing women with the encouragement they need to give themselves a break.
Doubleday 2009 213 pages

False papers

Aciman, André
From the highly acclaimed author of Out of Egypt and Call Me by Your Name , a series of linked essays on memory by "the poet of disappointed love--and of the city" ( New York Times Book Review ). In these fourteen essays Andre Aciman, one of the most poignant stylists of his generation, dissects the experience of loss, moving from his forced departure from Alexandria as a teenager, though his brief stay in Europe and finally to the home he's made (and half invented) on Manhattan's Upper West Side. From False Papers : We remember not because we have something we wish to go back to, nor because memories are all we have. We remember because memory is our most intimate, most familiar gesture. Most people are convinced I love Alexandria. In truth, I love remembering Alexandria. For it is not Alexandria that is beautiful. Remembering is beautiful.
Picador 2001-09-08 182 pages

I know nothing! the autobiography

Sachs, Andrew
'IsaluteyouAndy.Youcreatedoneofthegreatcomiccharacters.'JohnCleese AfewweeksbeforeKristallnachtinNovember1938,AndrewSachslookedonasNaziofficersarrestedhisfatherwhilethefamilywaseatinginarestaurant.ThesonofaJewishfatherandalapsedCatholicmother,afewdayslaterhewatchedastheNazisburnedandlootedJewishshopsonthestreetsofBerlin.TheboywhowitnessedtheseeventsbeforeheandhisfamilyescapedtoLondonwouldlaterbecomefamousforbeingthebuttofcomiccrueltiesinFawltyTowers.However,thejourneytoTorquay,wheretheiconicserieswasset,wasalongandunexpectedone. IKnowNothing recountsanecdotesofSachs'bizarreadolescence,hisearlydaysinrep,andlaterworkingwithagalaxyofstarsincludingRexHarrison,NormanWisdom,NoelCoward,AlecGuinness,RichardBurton,PeterSellersandDameEdithEvans.IttellsofhowheeventuallycametoteamupwithJohnCleeseontheshowthatwouldmakehimfamousasthehaplesswaiterfromBarcelona.Charming,laugh-out‐loudfunnyandutterlycompelling, IKnowNothing istherichlifestoryofoneofBritain'sbest‐lovedcharacteractors.
The Robson Press 2015 317 pages

How (not) to be strong

Scott, Alex
'An inspiration' - Taylor Swift 'I was incredibly moved by Alex's story and her bravery is second to none' - Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur and host of 'The Diary of a CEO' LIONESS. BROADCASTER. SURVIVOR. An inspirational memoir of finding strength and resilience from the former Arsenal captain and England Lioness. From the football cages of East London to broadcasting to millions, the engine powering Alex Scott's remarkable journey has always been her resilience. But thanks to a 'push-through mentality' the world has only ever seen the 'strong' side of Alex Scott. Now the former Lioness is ready to lower the shield. In How (Not) to Be Strong, Alex shares the inspiring lessons that have shaped her, from finally confronting the legacy of a tumultuous childhood to the tarnished truth behind the gleaming football trophies. With raw honesty, Alex shows how she's tackled life's challenges and that sometimes the strongest thing you can do is show your most vulnerable side to the world. 'A real story of growth' HOLLY WILLOUGHBY 'An amazing read. What a book' ALEX JONES
Penguin Books 2023-06-13 320 pages

Stars of David: Prominent Jews talk about being Jewish

Pogrebin, Abigail
Sixty-two of the most accomplished Jews in America speak intimately—most for the first time—about how they feel about being Jewish. In unusually candid interviews conducted by former 60 Minutes producer Abigail Pogrebin, celebrities ranging from Sarah Jessica Parker to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from Larry King to Mike Nichols, reveal how resonant, crucial or incidental being Jewish is in their lives. The connections they have to their Jewish heritage range from hours in synagogue to bagels and lox; but every person speaks to the weight and pride of their Jewish history, the burdens and pleasures of observance, the moments they’ve felt most Jewish (or not). This book of vivid, personal conversations uncovers how being Jewish fits into a public life, and also how the author’s evolving religious identity was changed by what she heard.
Broadway books 2005 385 pages