New Biographies Memoirs

Taking the lessons Machiavelli recorded in his political masterpiece The Prince, Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, shows how they can still apply today. Illustrating each of Machiavelli's maxims with a description of events that occurred during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister, Powell provides a gripping account of life inside Number 10 and draws lessons from those experiences for anyone today who has access to the levers of power.

Youth and frailty, ambition and anxiety, the limitations of the body and the challenges of personal transformation: these are the undercurrents that animate acclaimed poet Ashleigh Young's first collection of essays. In Can You Tolerate This? - the title comes from the question chiropractors ask to test a patient's pain threshold - Young ushers us into her early years in the faraway yet familiar landscape of New Zealand: fantasizing about Paul McCartney, cheering on her older brother's fledging music career, and yearning for a larger and more creative life.

Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock occupies a singular place in American life. As senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and now as a senator from Georgia, he is the rare voice who can call out the uncomfortable truths that shape contemporary American life and, at a time of division, summon us all to a higher moral ground.

Burned-out after years of doing development work around the world, William Powers spent a season in a 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin off the grid in North Carolina, as recounted in his award-winning memoir Twelve by Twelve. Could he live a similarly minimalist life in the heart of New York City? To find out, Powers and his wife jettisoned 80 percent of their stuff, left their 2,000-square-foot Queens townhouse, and moved into a 350-square-foot "micro-apartment" in Greenwich Village.

George Washington may be the most famous American who ever lived and certainly is one of the most admired. But although he has been heavily mythologized, it is no myth that the man who led America's fight for independence and whose two terms in office largely defined the presidency was the most highly respected individual among a generation of formidable personalities. In First and Always, celebrated historian Peter Henriques illuminates Washington's life, more fully explicating his character and his achievements.

Once there was a wilderness: Australia's frontier, a dangerous and unforgiving place where outlaws ruled the roads and killers were hailed as heroes. It was here, in 1838, that one man's uncompromising sense of justice changed history and shocked the world. Denny Day was a vicar's son from Ireland. A member of the Anglo-Irish ruling class, as a young man Day joined the British army before resigning to seek his fortune in New South Wales. There he accepted the most challenging role in the young colony: keeping the peace on the frontier.

Journey to My Daughter is about becoming a mother. It details everything from author Jennifer Rose Asher’s decision to have a child, two miscarriages, a whirlwind trip to Vietnam, and how she eventually found her daughter. Along the way, Jennifer and her husband tried multiple approaches while looking for a child and would never have predicted how and where they would find her.

Mark Wayne Nelson details the efforts of one of America’s most underappreciated public servants. In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt invited Marriner S. Eccles, a Mormon from Utah, to join his administration. As a Republican businessman, Eccles seemed an unlikely candidate for the role of leading crusader for a fairer and more economically sound distribution of the nation’s wealth. From his first position in the Treasury Department, though, he emerged as the central mover in revolutionizing the mortgage structure of the private home market in the United States.

Seen through the eyes of a native son Maurice M. Martinez, PhD, in this firsthand account of survival on a deep-South landscape speaks to the elan vital of a multiethnic, multicultural American. Once upon a time, in the Land of Epidermis, in a place called the 7th Ward in New Orleans, there lived a group of marginalized Americans known as gens de couleur libres (free persons of color).

'We can give you a start. You will need a six foot by four foot piece of canvas and blanket. If you stay for three months we will refund your fare. You will need to fly TAA out of Cloncurry and advise me your date of arrival.' And so began the adventures and misadventures of young Roland Breckwoldt. It was 1960. He was not yet sixteen, and the unworldly Roland was leaving his home on the semi-agricultural fringes of Sydney to work as a stockman on the vast cattle stations of the Gulf Country of North Queensland.

In this scintillating, heart-wrenching, and tear-eliciting autobiography From New Mills to New Life, Joshua Spencer shares his extraordinary experiences from birth to his 50th year. It starts in Albion, Montego Bay, where the author was born, but where he spent the least of his life of half of a century. It then extends to several other areas of his native land, but finds as its pivot a small, impoverished district known as New Mills.

Molly McClain tells the remarkable story of Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932), an American newspaperwoman, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, and social reformer who used her fortune to support women’s education, the labor movement, and public access to science, the arts, and education.

Brad Blanton is at ease in this first volume of his autobiography. Some NEW Kind of Trailer Trash tells the tale of Brad Blanton, including the most intimate details, demonstrating the inner security and self-deprecating humor which it would seem support his international reputation as a gestalt therapist, seminar leader, and writer published all over the world. He owns his life in all aspects and finds in his weirdness his salvation, demonstrating the radical honesty he's made famous and rooting his self-understanding, which is considerable, in his childhood.

Like so many women in today's society, Valerie Frankel's world was dictated by her weight, from starvation and binge eating to her self-loathing and total preoccupation with her weight. Not wanting to pass this legacy on to her own daughters, Valerie set out to cleanse herself of these painful and damaging cycles.

For fans of ME ME ME, this is the next chapter in Charlotte Crosby's life - Celebrity Big Brother winner, MTV presenter, fitness DVD and book best seller and one of the UK's best loved and funniest reality stars.

Chriseline Beaubrun was 57-years-old when she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. A widowed mother of two, Chris has just completed her master's degree in nursing, and she felt that she had the skills to deal with life's challenges. But her biggest challenge hit her like a blow to the stomach when her cardiologist delivered the official diagnosis.

There are certain moments that simply transcend sports. They become larger than life and bigger than anyone ever thought possible, leaping off the field, the court, or the diamond and into the annals of not only history, but the very fabric of the American milieu. We all just witnessed such a moment on February 5th, 2017, when the New England Patriots battled back from the largest deficit in Super Bowl history to once again become world champions and secure Tom Brady’s legacy as the greatest quarterback of all time.

Sixteen-year-old Matthew McGough was a fairly typical teenager, obsessed with getting through high school, girls, and baseball, not necessarily in that order. His passion for the New York Yankees was absolute, complete with a poster of his hero, Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, hanging on his bedroom wall. Despite having no connections whatsoever with the ballclub, Matt dreamed of sitting in the dugout with the fabled Bronx Bombers.

Born in 1891, Dorothy Tiffany was the last child in the long line of the famous Tiffany dynasty of jewelers and artisans. As was expected of the young heiress, Dorothy married a wealthy member of the American plutocracy, Dr. Robert Burlingham. But the lackluster life of wealthy young women in early 20th century America held little appeal for Dorothy. Leaving behind her socially prominent husband, she took her children and moved to Europe, where she underwent psychoanalysis with Sigmund Freud.

Martin Luther King Jr. may be America's most revered political figure, commemorated in statues, celebrations, and street names around the world. But despite his stature, the significance of King's writings and political thought remains underappreciated. In To Shape a New World, Tommie Shelby and Brandon Terry state that the marginalization of King's ideas reflects a romantic consensus history that renders the civil rights movement inherently conservative - an effort not at radical reform but at "living up to" enduring ideals laid down by the nation's founders.