New Biographies Memoirs

Maybe the youngest son of a violent criminal named Hoggy Thompson was born a beast. Maybe rage was beaten into him. One thing was certain, by the time he reached manhood, Jerry Thompson was a savage killer. He had no conscience about rape, child molestation, or thrashing a dozen men in a prison fight. Once he got his hands on a gun, any target would do. He didn't leave witnesses. When he terrorized an entire courtroom and offered to rip deputy prosecutor Larry Sells apart, people wondered if there would ever be a way to stop his viciousness.

Lester R. Brown, whom the Washington Post praised as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers,” built his understanding of global environmental issues from the ground up. Brown spent his childhood working on the family’s small farm. His entrepreneurial skills surfaced early. Even while excelling in school, he launched with his younger brother a tomato-growing operation that by 1958 was producing 1.5 million pounds of tomatoes.

Journalist Sarah Dingle was 27 when she learned that her identity was a lie. Over dinner one night, her mother casually mentioned Sarah had been conceived using a sperm donor. The man who’d raised her wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was. As the shock receded, Sarah began to investigate her own existence. Thus began a 10-year journey - digging through hospital files, chasing leads and taking a DNA test - that finally led to her biological origins.

Old New Worlds intertwines the immigrant stories of the author and her great-great grandmother. Sarah Barker and her new husband sail from England in 1815 to minister to the indigenous Khoihoi in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. In the midst of conflict, illness, and natural disasters, Sarah bears 16 children. Two hundred years later, Judith leaves post-apartheid South Africa with her new American husband to immigrate to the United States. She is drawn to Sarah’s immigrant story in the context of her own experience, and she sets out to try and trace her.

John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age follows the spiritual sojourn of John E. Fetzer, a Michigan business tycoon. Fetzer parlayed his first radio station into extensive holdings in broadcasting and other enterprises.... By the time he died in 1991, Fetzer had been listed in Forbes magazine as one of the 400 wealthiest people in America. And yet, business success was never enough for Fetzer - his deep spiritual yearnings led him from the Christianity of his youth to a restless exploration of metaphysical religions and movements.

George Washington had Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson had Albert Gallatin. From internationally known tax expert and former Supreme Court law clerk Gregory May comes this long overdue biography of the remarkable immigrant who launched the fiscal policies that shaped the early republic and the future of American politics. Not Alexander Hamilton - Albert Gallatin. To this day, the fight over fiscal policy lies at the center of American politics.

Arthur Herzog's account is no mere chronicle, and his vivid writing captures all the color and spirit which imbued the "Children's Crusade" from its first startling success in New Hampshire to the chaos and agony of the Chicago anticlimax. Much of what seemed destined to remain unknown about this unprecedented and erratic campaign is brought to life in McCarthy for President, the first authoritative account of a movement that began, in McCarthy's own words, "to give the system a test".

Known to generations of Americans for his stirring call to arms, “Give me liberty or give me death,” Patrick Henry is all but forgotten today as the first of the Founding Fathers to call for independence, the first to call for revolution, and the first to call for a bill of rights. If Washington was the “Sword of the Revolution” and Jefferson, “the Pen,” Patrick Henry more than earned his epithet as “the Trumpet” of the Revolution for rousing Americans to arms in the Revolutionary War.

During the harshest year of the Great Depression, Lorena Hickok, a top woman news reporter of the day and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, was hired by FDR’s right-hand man Harry Hopkins to embark upon a grueling journey to the hardest-hit areas of the country to report back on the degree of devastation. Distinguished historian Michael Golay draws on a trove of original sources - including the moving, remarkably intimate, almost daily letters between Hickok and Eleanor Roosevelt - as he re-creates that extraordinary journey.

Since as early as the 1700s, New Orleans has been a city filled with sin and vice. Those first pioneering citizens of the Big Easy were thieves, vagabonds, and criminals of all kinds. By the time Louisiana fell under American control, New Orleans had become a city of debauchery and corruption camouflaged by decadence. Tales in this volume include that of the notorious axman who plagued the streets of the Crescent City in the early 1900s and Kate Townsend, a prostitute who was murdered by her own lover, a man who later was awarded her inheritance.

Con New Wave si definisce un movimento musicale e artistico incredibilmente eterogeneo, sviluppatosi tra la seconda metà degli anni Settanta e i primi Ottanta: difficile immaginare qualcosa in comune tra i Duran Duran di Rio e i Joy Division di Love Will Tear Us Apart, eppure c’è: sfruttando l’energia, gli stimoli e il dinamismo ancora in circolazione del punk, numerose band hanno scelto di reinventare estetiche e suoni, creando così un’onda musicale nuova e multiforme.

In 1722, Mark Catesby stepped ashore in Charles Town in the Carolina colony. Over the next four years, this young naturalist made history as he explored deep into America’s natural wonders, collecting and drawing plants and animals which had never been seen back in the Old World. Nine years later Catesby produced his magnificent and groundbreaking book, The Natural History of Carolina, the first-ever illustrated account of American flora and fauna.

Fifty years after John F. Kennedy's death, we find ourselves enmeshed in an era of political division and cynicism, where politicians talk past one another and the spirit of "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country" is less visible than it should be. We seem to have forgotten that we're all on the same team. Fortunately, Scott D. Reich has given us The Power of Citizenship, a timely book to bring us back on track.

Nicolas Nabokov, a Russian-born composer and cultural diplomat, befriended many of the 20th century’s greatest musicians and artists. With delightful anecdotes and personal reflections, his memoir is a truly unique historical document that enriches our understanding of the Cold War’s impact on culture.

Daniel Asa Rose was a successful novelist, memoirist, book critic, and columnist for the New York Times magazine, Esquire, and others, when the top blew off his domestic life. His wife of sixteen years wanted out. Before he could slip into depression, doubt, and self-loathing, Dan's lifelong friend Tony made an irresistible proposition: go back to the place where, forty years earlier, their college road trip had come to a crashing halt, T-boned by a woman in the decidedly oddball little town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

Buckle up and get ready for a raw, unfiltered ride as Josh Goodman goes from being a guy who couldn't get a drink in a busy bar to building a multimillion-dollar technology company that lets guests pour their own beer, wine, and cocktails and pay by the ounce. Travel with Goodman to Ireland, where he spent a week driving around the entire country to secure his first business partners—who eventually tried to put him out of business. Then, visit northern Austria and discover how he landed the deal that brought his business back to life.

There is a need for a new generation of politicians to change the world, and Emmanuel Macron could very well be a prototype. Macron Unveiled examines Macron's first four years as France's president, scrutinizing Macron's personality, his way of solving problems, his sources of inspiration, his mistakes, his difficulties, as well as the impact he may already have had in his country, Europe, and the world.

The shocking murders carried out by an unknown serial killer in London's East End during the autumn of 1888, haunted the public imagination at the time and have continued to exert a baleful influence ever since. But what was it like to live through those terrifying weeks? This audiobook looks at the crimes of Jack the Ripper through the eyes of Londoners, including the rumors that swept through the capital city, the alarms, the riots, the persecutions, the suspicions, and the sheer naked terror of the awful autumn when a killer stalked the streets.

We Took the Risk dives into the personal journeys of 25 executives who, through their own combination of traits, took on the challenges of an early US renewable energy industry. Far from being a self-improvement book or a glorified “who’s who” run down, this book provides a backdrop by which to juxtaposition your own career journey. Author Tom Weirich lets you view the beginnings of the industry as if you were there, lock in step with these entrepreneurial leaders, as they sift through decisions that would forever impact the trajectory of renewables in the US.

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos.