Biography Girls

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party rose to power in Germany. The Nazis terribly persecuted Jews and other groups of people. They murdered millions of Jews across Europe during World War II. A preteen girl named Anne Frank and her family managed to hide from the Nazis for two years. During this time, Anne wrote about her experiences almost every day in her diary. Discover the courage of Anne and her family during one of the most horrific times in history.

Poland, 1944. The train slowed and halted with a squeal of the breaks. It felt like we waited in the carriage for an eternity, but eventually, the heavy doors opened, directly into the chaos inside. Sara Leibovitz, a 16-year-old Jewish girl, was a passenger on the train with her family. They spent their final moments together on the platform in Auschwitz before their horrific fates were sealed. Sara’s mother and baby brothers were sent straight to their deaths.

In the fall of 1978, teenager Theresa Allore went missing near Sherbrooke, Quebec. She wasn't seen again until the spring thaw revealed her body in a creek only a few kilometers away. Shrugging off her death as a result of 1970s drug culture, police didn't investigate. Patricia Pearson started dating Theresa's brother, John, during the aftermath of Theresa's death. Though the two teens would go their separate ways, the family's grief, obsession with justice, and desire for the truth never left Patricia.

Jayne Mansfield was driven not just to be an actress but to be a star. One of the most influential sex symbols of her time, she was known for her platinum blonde hair, hourglass figure, outrageously low necklines, and flamboyant lifestyle. Mansfield proved early in her career that she was adept in both comic and dramatic roles, but her tenacious search for the spotlight and her risqué stunts caused her to be increasingly snubbed in Hollywood. In the first definitive biography of Mansfield, Eve Golden offers a joyful account of the star Andy Warhol called “the poet of publicity.”

As the creator of the breakout Instagram account @GirlWithNoJob, Claudia Oshry has turned not wanting an ordinary career into a thriving media company and pop culture-focused podcast and morning show. The origins of her pop culture obsessions can be traced back to household debates over boy bands and her flair for the dramatic to her young emulation of Blair Waldorf. When she started @GirlWithNoJob, Claudia entered that world as a social media influencer, sharing her unbelievable encounters with some of her favorite A-listers as she navigates her incredible access.

At just 21, the age when most people are starting to drink (well, legally at least), Victoria James became the country’s youngest sommelier at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Even as Victoria was selling bottles worth hundreds and thousands of dollars during the day, passing sommelier certification exams with flying colors, and receiving distinction from all kinds of press, there were still groping patrons, bosses who abused their role and status, and a trip to the hospital emergency room.

At 29, Kelsey Miller had done it all: crash diets, healthy diets, and nutritionist-prescribed "eating plans", which are diets that you pay more money for. She'd been fighting her un-thin body since early childhood and, after a lifetime of failure, finally hit bottom. No diet could transform her body or her life. There was no shortcut to skinny salvation. She'd dug herself into this hole, and now it was time to climb out of it.

Joan Rivers was more than a legendary comedian; she was an icon and a role model to millions, a fearless pioneer who left a legacy of expanded opportunity when she died in 2014. Her life was a dramatic roller coaster of triumphant highs and devastating lows: the suicide of her husband, her feud with Johnny Carson, her estrangement from her daughter, her many plastic surgeries, her ferocious ambition, and her massive insecurities.

Until five years ago, Alexandra Heminsley was decidedly not a runner. Nor was she athletic in any sense of the word. She was an ordinary, curvy woman who was convinced that sports of any kind, especially running, were beyond her. But she's made running part of her life, and gets to reap the rewards: not just the obvious things, like a touch of weight loss, health and glowing skin, but self-belief, and immeasurable daily pleasure.

On a spring morning, neighbors Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko wake up to an angry red sky. A reactor at the nuclear power plant where their fathers work—Chernobyl—has exploded. Before they know it, the two girls, who've always been enemies, find themselves on a train bound for Leningrad to stay with Valentina's estranged grandmother, Rita Grigorievna. In their new lives in Leningrad, they begin to learn what it means to trust another person.

Charlotte Stewart is known by millions of fans worldwide for her role as the beloved schoolteacher, Miss Beadle, on the iconic TV show, Little House on the Prairie, currently broadcast in syndication in more than 100 countries around the world. Here for the first time an adult cast member writes about the experience of making the show - the challenges, the joys, and the sometimes-turbulent behind-the-scenes relationships.

When you're born with a vagina and a set of boobs, life can be complicated. In this intoxicating collection of essays, writer and college senior Tatiana Pérez explores the complexities of womanhood. From struggling to love her body to putting up with bad sex - Tati writes about it all with shameless candor and a raunchy sense of humor that won't quit. Boys are welcome to listen along, but this one's #forthegirls.

From New York Times best-selling author Rachel Held Evans: a must-listen for anyone on the journey of doubt, deconstruction, and ultimately faith reborn. Eighty years after the Scopes Monkey Trial made a spectacle of Christian fundamentalism and brought national attention to her hometown, Rachel Held Evans faced a trial of her own when she began to have doubts about her faith. Rachel recounts growing up in a culture obsessed with apologetics, struggling as her own faith unraveled one unexpected question at a time.

Jill Gutowitz’s life—for better and worse—has always been on a collision course with pop culture. There’s the time the FBI showed up at her door because of something she tweeted about Game of Thrones. The pop songs that have been the soundtrack to the worst moments of her life.

Experienced foster carer Rosie Lewis is used to looking after children from difficult home situations, but she finds herself struggling when she agrees to take in Taylor and her younger brother, Reece, for a short while. Taylor tries desperately not to fit in, to be the tough young teen that she has had to become, making it clear that she cares about nothing and no one, while Reece is just desperate for someone to love him.

In a crazy, media distracted world the important questions often get lost like: What's your passion? What's your purpose? Who do you want to be? Alexis Jones has built a career listening to and helping girls around the world figure out those questions in order to inspire them to think for themselves, to speak their truth, to discover their purpose, and to dream HUGE! Alexis believes that you're not broken nor do you need to be fixed. You already are that girl who creates magic wherever she goes, who lives fearlessly, who inspires those around her to dream bigger.

When Anais Granofsky’s parents meet in the early 1970s, they are foreign and fascinating to each other. Stanley is the son of a very wealthy Toronto Jewish family; Jean is one of fifteen children from a poor Black Methodist family, direct descendants of the freed Randolph slaves. When Jean becomes pregnant at nineteen, Stanley doesn’t anticipate being cut off by his parents. Nor does the couple anticipate that Stanley, soon to rename himself Fakeer, will find his calling in the spiritual teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh on an ashram in India.

Sophie Jenkins is living a happy life in the idyllic Dorset countryside when she meets Martin Brett, the man who will go on to abuse her and haunt her dreams for years to come. A momentary act of neglect leads to a horrible series of events that leaves her changed forever. Badly let down by the adults entrusted to care for her, Sophie’s life begins to spiral downward. However, Sophie’s message is ultimately one of hope and empowerment. She is in the process of rebuilding her life when fate leads her to encounter her childhood attacker once again.

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.

Abigail Heringer made her television debut as an instant fan-favorite on season 25 of The Bachelor. Stepping out of the limousine, she approached her bachelor with a playful declaration: she would be staring at his lips all night for two compelling reasons—her profound deafness since birth, and because he had some nice lips! But Abigail’s journey wasn’t always marked by such confidence. Growing up deaf and introverted, she dreaded being the center of attention, fearing her disability would burden those around her.