Biography For Boys

By all accounts, Thomas Gilbert Jr. led a charmed life. The son of a wealthy hedge fund manager and a financier, he grew up surrounded by a loving family and all the luxury an Upper East Side childhood could provide: education at the elite Buckley School and Deerfield Academy, summers in a sprawling seaside mansion in the Hamptons. He was strikingly handsome, moving with ease through glittering social circles and following in his father's footsteps to Princeton. But Tommy always felt different, and the cracks in his façade began to show.

In the late 2000s, Molly Bloom, a 20-something petite brunette from Loveland, Colorado, ran the highest stakes, most exclusive poker game in existence. Hundreds of millions of dollars were won and lost at her table. Molly's game became the game for those in the know - celebrities, business moguls and millionaires. Molly staged her games in palatial suites with beautiful views and exquisite amenities. She flew privately, dined at exquisite restaurants, hobnobbed with the heads of Hollywood studios, was courted by handsome leading men....

In November 2021, an obscure email from the California Department of Education landed in New York Times reporter, Thomas Fuller’s, inbox. The football team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, a state-run school with only 168 high school students, was having an undefeated season. After years of covering war, wildfires, pandemic, and mass shootings, Fuller was captivated by the story of this group of high school boys. It was uplifting. During the pandemic’s gloom, it was a happy story. It was a sports story but not an ordinary one.

This book essentially launched the memoir craze that has been going strong ever since. The story is pretty grim: teen-aged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed.

Clint Emerson is the only SEAL ever inducted into the International Spy Museum. Operating from the shadows, with an instinct for running towards trouble, his unique skill set made him the perfect hybrid of elite and modern day counterintelligence agent. Emerson spent his career on the bleeding edge of intelligence and operations, often specializing in solo missions that took advantage of subterfuge, improvisation, the best in recon and surveillance tech, and even elements of Hollywood disguise to combat the changing global battlefield.

Ivan Coyote is a celebrated storyteller and the author of 10 previous books, including Gender Failure (with Rae Spoon) and One in Every Crowd, a collection for LGBT youth. Tomboy Survival Guide is a funny and moving memoir told in stories, in which Ivan recounts the pleasures and difficulties of growing up a tomboy in Canada's Yukon, and how they learned to embrace their tomboy past while carving out a space for those of us who don't fit neatly into boxes or identities or labels.

The tragic death of 13-year-old Danny Croteau in 1972 faded from headlines and memories for 20 years until the Boston abuse scandal - a string of assaults taking place within the Catholic Church - exploded in the early 2000s. Despite numerous indications, including 40 claims of sexual misconduct with minors, pointing to him as Croteau's killer, Reverend Richard R. Lavigne remains "innocent." Drawing on more than ten thousand pages of police and court findings and interviews with Danny's friends and family, fellow abuse victims, and church officials, the author uncovers the truth.

Mohsin grew up in a deprived pocket of East London; his family was close-knit but very religiously conservative. From a young age Mohsin felt different, but in a home where being gay was inconceivable, he also felt very alone. Outside of home Mohsin went to a failing inner city school where gang violence was a fact of life. As he grew up, life didn’t seem to offer teenage Mohsin any choices: he was disenfranchised as a poor brown boy, and he was isolated from his family as a closet gay Muslim.

This is the true story of Carmine Imbriale—a gambler, a brawler, a bandit, a bookie, an enforcer. For two decades, Imbriale was a street-level operative in one of the most violent crews in the Colombo Family. Now in hiding, Imbriale teams up with true-crime veteran writer Craig McGuire to take you inside the Thirteenth Avenue rackets at the height of their violence. This is the jarring account of his lawless lifestyle culminating in a gang war in South Brooklyn, from which he emerges a survivor.

A surfer kid from Redondo Beach, California, Owen Hanson was still in his twenties when he found himself the leader of a multi-million-dollar criminal empire. What began as an attempt to fit in with the rich kids at the University of Southern California soon grew into gambling and loan sharking, which then opened the door to drug trafficking and money laundering. Hanson wasn't just involved in this stuff—he excelled at it. Living the fast-paced lifestyle of the rich and famous, Hanson felt he was finally making his father proud, never mind the questionable ethics and obvious danger of it all.

Arguably the most influential force in Jamaican music, Lee Perry brought Bob Marley to international stardom and collaborated with artists such as Sir Paul McCartney, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. The book delves behind the myth of Perry to give a fuller examination of his life and work through extensive interviews with family members, fellow artists, friends, lovers, enemies, as well as the man himself to present a complex portrait of a unique soul driven by unseen spiritual forces.

Without the Sex Pistols there would be no punk. And without Steve Jones there would be no Sex Pistols. It was Steve who, with his schoolmate Paul Cook, formed the band that eventually went on to become the Sex Pistols and who was its original leader. As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of punk - the influence and cultural significance of which is felt in music, fashion, and the visual arts to this day - Steve tells his story for the very first time.

Running for My Life is not a story about Africa or track and field athletics. It is about outrunning the devil and achieving the impossible: faith, diligence, and the desire to give back. It is the American dream come true and a reminder that saving one can help to save thousands more. Lopez Lomong chronicles his inspiring ascent from a barefoot lost boy of the Sudanese Civil War to a Nike sponsored athlete on the US Olympic Team. Though most of us fall somewhere between the catastrophic lows and dizzying highs of Lomong's incredible life, every reader will find in his story the human spark to pursue dreams that might seem unthinkable.

Denham (Denny) Fouts, the 20th century's most famous male prostitute, was a socialite and literary muse whose extraordinary life started off humbly in Jacksonville, Florida. But in short order he befriended (and bedded) the rich and celebrated and in the process conquered the world.

In 2006, after the end of her marriage to the first man she ever loved, Jessica Simpson wonders who she really is. Exploring what she truly wants in a relationship, Jessica begins dating again. This time her only vow is not to leap for the fairy tale. Don’t overthink. Just enjoy the moment. But when an A-list childhood crush invites her on a romantic getaway, it’s impossible for Jessica not to swoon.

In unforgettable tales of innocence lost under African skies, we follow Godwin's awakening to the often savage struggle between Whites and Blacks, his horror when he is forced to fight in a civil war he detests, and his experiences as a journalist covering the country's violent transition to Black rule as Rhodesia's colonial era comes to an end and the new state of Zimbabwe is born from its bloody ashes. Mukiwa is a poignant, compelling memoir and an invaluable addition to the literature of southern Africa.

This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler's List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Most notable is the lack of rancour, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr Leyson's telling. The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you've ever read.

Learn about the birth of the Z-Boys skateboarding team and how they influenced modern skateboarding.

Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.

In a typical school year, every kid has one or two things go wrong. But for Jordan, there’s a lot going wrong all the time. By keeping his cool (some of the time), banging on the drums (a lot), and keeping his sense of humor (all the time), Jordan’s going to try to make it through the year...and grow up to write a book about it!