Just months after the death of her beloved son, Danielle Steel found herself venturing out onto the streets with a small team of trusted friends to help the homeless of San Francisco, transforming the pain of loss into a campaign of service that enriched her life beyond anything she could have imagined. For eleven years, they worked under cover of darkness, distributing food, clothing, bedding, tools and toiletries to the city's most vulnerable citizens, seeking no publicity and remaining anonymous throughout. In this unflinchingly honest and deeply moving memoir, the author speaks publicly for the first time about their work among the most desperate members of society, and issues a heartfelt call for more effective action to aid this vast, deprived population.

"If we allow the pieces of our culture to lie scattered in the dust of history, trampled on by racism and grief, then yes, we are irreparably damaged. But if we pick up the pieces and use them in new ways that honor their integrity, their colors, textures, stories, then we do those pieces justice, no matter how sharp they are, no matter how much handling them slices our fingers and makes us bleed." This book, part tribal history, part lyric and intimate memoir, teaches us about California Indian history, past and present. In it, the author tells stories of her Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family as well as the experience of California Indians as a whole through oral histories, newspaper clippings, anthropological recordings, personal reflections, and poems.

In this “gripping story of resistance and the triumph of human will” (Senator Elizabeth Warren), activist and subject of the documentary Not Going Quietly Ady Barkan explores his life with ALS and how his diagnosis gave him a profound new understanding of his commitment to social justice for all. Ady Barkan loved taking afternoon runs on the California coast and holding his newborn son, Carl. But one day, he noticed a troubling weakness in his hand. At first, he brushed it off as carpal tunnel syndrome, but after a week of neurological exams and two MRIs, he learned the cause of the problem: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. At age thirty-two, Ady was given just three to four years to live. Yet despite the devastating diagnosis, he refused to let his remaining days go to waste. Eyes to the Wind is a rousing memoir featuring intertwining storylines about determination, perseverance, and how to live a life filled with purpose and intention. The first traces Ady’s battle with ALS: how he turned the initial shock and panic from his diagnosis into a renewed commitment to social justice—not despite his disability but because of it. The second, told in flashbacks, illustrates Ady’s journey from a goofy political nerd to a prominent figure in the enduring fight for equity and justice whose “selfless activism fighting to make health care a right should be an inspiration to us all” (Senator Bernie Sanders). From one of the most vocal advocates for social justice, Eyes to the Wind ’s “primary question is existential: how to live when you are dying? Barkan’s answer is to share, open up, act, and capital-R Resist, and his memoir, clearly and candidly written, establishes a legacy” ( Booklist ).

In a stunningly candid and courageous memoir, the notorious Hollywood Madam tells her own story for the first time. Featuring original text, wiretap transcripts, court documents, news clippings, diary excerpts, interviews with hookers, and fantastic original artwork, Heidi tells her story with a fierce regard for the truth. Color illustrations throughout.

An actor treads the line between reality and fiction every time he plays a part, and for James Franco, that exploration isn’t limited to the screen—he’s also a visual artist with several exhibitions under his belt as well as the author of the widely praised story collection Palo Alto. In A California Childhood he plays with the concept of memoir through personal snapshots, sketches, paintings, poems, and stories. “I was born in 1978 at Stanford Hospital and spent my first eighteen years in a single house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Palo Alto,” Franco writes in his introduction. Steve Jobs’s daughter and the grandson of one of the Hewlett-Packard founders may have both been in his graduating class, but just across the freeway from his home turf lay East Palo Alto, which in 1992 had the highest murder rate per capita in the country. For Franco, the terrain of his upbringing is fraught with the complication of a city divided. But within that diversity, universal aspects of adolescence rise to the surface, and those are the subjects at the heart of Franco’s work. Ultimately this is a portrait of a childhood brightened by California sunshine, but with trouble waiting in the shadows. At turns funny, dark, and emotional, the journey of this book delivers an undeniable immediacy. And at the end, the reader is left wondering just where the boundary lies between Franco’s art and his true life.

An inspiring and powerful memoir of surviving the Jonestown massacre and becoming a fearless voice against injustice and inequality by California congresswoman Jackie Speier. Jackie Speier was twenty-eight when she joined Congressman Leo Ryan's delegation to rescue defectors from cult leader Jim Jones's Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed on the airstrip tarmac. Jackie was shot five times at point-blank range. While recovering from what would become one of the most harrowing tragedies in recent history, Jackie had to choose: Would she become a victim or a fighter? The choice to survive against unfathomable odds empowered her with a resolve to become a vocal proponent for human rights. From the formative nightmare that radically molded her perspective and instincts to the devastating personal and professional challenges that would follow, Undaunted reveals the perseverance of a determined force in American politics. Deeply rooted in Jackie's experiences as a widow, a mother, a congresswoman, and a fighter, hers is a story of true resilience, one that will inspire other women to draw strength from adversity in order to do what is right--no matter the challenges ahead.

A charming and funny memoir about experiences Gina Gershon has had with cats throughout her life that are analogous to her relationships with men and her ongoing search for true love. Film and television icon Gina Gershon may be best known for her movie roles in "Bound "and "Showgirls" and television appearances on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and "How to Make" "It in America," but deep down she is a self-described cat lady. "In Search of Cleo "follows Gina s desperation and despair when her assistant loses her beloved cat, Cleo. Gina spends two months roaming the back streets of Los Angeles at all hours of the night, searching for Cleo and meeting several quirky and outrageous characters who help or hinder her in different ways, including Ellen DeGeneres, who searches with Gina and recommends her pet psychic, Sonia; Arthur, the newspaper delivery man who gives her advice; and the mysterious fortune-teller, who appears from the shadows to give her a statue of Saint Gertrude, the protector of cats everywhere. Gina soon finds herself enmeshed in L.A. s strangest subcultures, doing everything she can to bring Cleo home, including chanting with a bunch of crystal-wielding hippies and being slapped with a chicken by a Santeria priest. Along the way, she reflects on the various cats that have been a part of her life and shares her travails as a single girl in search of both her cat and some sanity. "In Search of Cleo "will delight pet lovers and singletons alike as it introduces Cleo to the celebrated pantheon of literary cats that includes Dewey, Homer, and Oscar."

An Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and a mystery novelist, Roger L. Simon is the only American writer to pull off the amazing trick of being profiled positively in both Mother Jones and National Review in one lifetime. The stunning story of his political odyssey is told in this memoir, where Simon recounts his migration from financier of the Black Panther Breakfast Program to pioneer blogosphere mogul beloved by the right as a 9/11 Democrat. But Simon is beholden to neither right nor left in this tale of Hollywood chic run amuck, as he talks out of school about his adventures with, among many others, Richard Pryor, Warren Beatty, Timothy Leary, Richard Dreyfuss, Woody Allen, and Julian Semyonov, the Soviet Union's version of Robert Ludlum and also a KGB colonel who tempted Simon to join the KGB himself. Among the topics covered along the way: Is there a new blacklist in Hollywood, this one targeting conservatives? Simon's red-carpet tours of the People's Republic of China, Cuba, and the Soviet Union with Hollywood screenwriters and famous mystery novelists. Why Al Gore's documentary on global warming didn't deserve the Oscar on artistic grounds alone; and why the Academy's voting system is so corrupt. And, as they say, there is much, much more besides.

"It was 1993, Suzanne Roberts had just finished college, and when her friend suggested they hike California's John Muir Trail, the adventure sounded like the perfect distraction from a difficult home life and thoughts about the future. But she never imagined that the twenty-eight-day hike would change her life. Part memoir, part nature writing, part travelogue, Almost Somewhere is Roberts's account of that hike. John Muir wrote of the Sierra Nevada as a "vast range of light," and that was exactly what Roberts was looking for. But traveling with two girlfriends, one experienced and unflappable and the other inexperienced and bulimic, she quickly discovered that she needed a new frame of reference. Her story of a month in the backcountry--confronting bears, snowy passes, broken equipment, injuries, and strange men--is as much about finding a woman's way into outdoor experience as it is about the natural world Roberts so eloquently describes. Candid and funny, and finally, wise, Almost Somewhere not only tells the whimsical coming-of-age story of a young woman ill-prepared for a month in the mountains but also reflects a distinctly feminine view of nature. This new edition includes an afterword by the author looking back on the ways both she and the John Muir Trail have changed over the past thirty years, as well as book club and classroom discussion questions and photographs from the trip" --

"A memoir of news reporter Matt Gutman's experience with panic attacks and his quest to seek out treatment"--

Imagine that the most severe physical pain and sorrow of your life was caused by the people you trusted most. In the spring of 2007, Belo Cipriani was beaten and robbed of his sight at the hands of his childhood friends. Blind: A Memoir chronicles the two years immediately following the assault. At the age of 26, Belo found himself learning to walk, cook, and date in the dark. Armed with visual memory and his newly developed senses, Belo shows readers what the blind see. He narrates the little known world of the blind, where microwaves, watches, and computers talk, and where guide dogs guard as well as lead.

Yom Kippur A Go-Go is a mind-blowing meeting of pop culture, Orthodox faith, and hipster poetics. Matthue Roth is an American original: an Orthodox Jew who cites Outkast and Michelle Tea among his influences, who won’t touch a light switch on Shabbos but mimics a screaming orgasm onstage while reading his paean to Orthodox girls. From the World Bank riots (what can you do when the revolution starts on Shabbos?) to Thursday night tranny basketball in San Francisco’s Dolores Park, Matthue takes readers on a journey among the queer and hip streets of urban America in his exuberant memoir, Yom Kippur a Go-Go. With humor and insight, Roth describes the tension between contemporary life and the demands of faith. He falls in love and in lust with a panoply of girls, both strictly kosher and determinedly secular, to the accompaniment of MP3 rabbinical lectures on modesty ("Boys are nothing but perverts and filthy animals!”).

Memoirs of a Jew who was born in 1922 in Zhetel (in Polish, Zdzięcioł). Pp. 73-137 deal with the Holocaust period, and Shelub's experiences as a partisan in the forests of Belarus.

Berend's memoir offers an interesting case study, a subjective addition to the "objective" historical works on Central and Eastern European state socialism. It describes the hard choices of intellectuals in a dictatorial state: 1. remain in isolation, concentrate on scholarly works, and exclude politics in your personal life; 2. be in opposition, criticize and unveil the regime, accept discrimination and exclusion; 3. remain within the establishment and work for reforming the country using legal possibilities to criticize the regime and to achieve changes from within. Ivan T. Berend, is Distinguished Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, Director of the European Studies Program. He was one of the masterminds of regime change in Hungary. He made a career in Hungary as a university professor, Rector of the University of Economics (1973-79), and President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1985-90). He was President of the International Committee of Historical Sciences (1995-2000), and Vice-President of the International Economic History Association (1986-1994). His research interests are the complex economic, social, ideological, and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 19th-20th century; economic modernization; problems of European backwardness; transition from state socialism to capitalism. He published 26 books and more than 120 studies.--Publisher's description