Showing results by narrator "Jeremy Arthur" in Biographies & Memoirs

Macmillan Audio presents In My Own Way, Alan Watts' acclaimed autobiography, published for the first time in audio.  

This intimate story of Lynyrd Skynyrd tells how a band of lost souls and self-destructive misfits, with uncertain artistic objectives, clawed their way to the top of the rock 'n' roll world. It also offers a greater appreciation for a band whose legacy, in the aftermath of their last plane ride, has since descended into self-caricature.

He’s been a fixture in professional wrestling for five decades. He helped introduce a hardcore wrestling style that you see in the WWE and Japan today. He’s made his mark in Hollywood. He’s Terry Funk, and this is his story. In this captivating look at the life of a living legend, Funk opens up about growing up in a wrestling family, working with various entertainment companies (including the ECW, WWE, and WWF), and so much more.

In My Parents, Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his parents' immigration from Bosnia to Canada - of the lives that were upended in the Siege of Sarajevo and the new lives his parents were forced to build. As ever with his work, Hemon portrays both the perfect, intimate details (his mother's lonely upbringing, his father's fanatical beekeeping), and a sweeping, heartbreaking history of his native country, from the rule of Otto von Bismarck to the massacres that shocked the world. It is a story full of many Hemons, of course.

For ten years, Calvin and Hobbes was one the world's most beloved comic strips. And then, on the last day of 1995, the strip ended. Its mercurial and reclusive creator, Bill Watterson, not only finished the strip but withdrew entirely from public life. In Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, Nevin Martell sets out on a very personal odyssey to understand the life and career of the intensely private man behind Calvin and Hobbes.

For more than 30 years, Fred Rogers was a beloved fixture in American homes. Warm and welcoming, he spoke directly to children - and their parents - about the marvels of the world, the things that worried them, and above all, the importance of being themselves. Dressed in his cardigan and sneakers, Fred Rogers offered a wholesome message of generosity and love that changed the landscape of television and shaped a generation of children. Kindness and Wonder pays tribute to this cultural icon: the unique, gentle man who embodied the best of what we could be.

The definitive biography of the deeply complex and widely misunderstood matinee idol of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Devastatingly handsome, broad-shouldered, and clean-cut, Rock Hudson was the ultimate movie star. The embodiment of romantic masculinity in American film throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, Hudson reigned supreme as the king of Hollywood. But in a more conservative era, Hudson’s wholesome, straight-arrow screen image was at odds with his closeted homosexuality. 

In 1969, Sam Massell was elected the first Jewish mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. Since leaving office, he has been inducted into numerous "Halls of Fame" for service in fields of business, government, civil rights, hospitality, and influence. While a young boy and self-described "dead-end kid", Massell searched for identity between the mischief of his only two friends (one who ended up in juvenile detention) and operating his own oversized Coca-Cola stand. Later, he pioneered professionally as a specialist in building medical offices.

An extraordinary journey behind the scenes of Arlington National Cemetery, Senator Tom Cotton’s Sacred Duty offers an intimate and inspiring portrait of “The Old Guard”, the revered US Army unit whose mission is to honor our country’s fallen heroes on the most hallowed ground in America.

Amsterdam Exposed tells the true one-of-a-kind story of an innocent exchange student who moves to Amsterdam hoping to write a book about the red light district and everything that follows. It's an American abroad story, and also a love story; it's an uplifting tragedy, full of humor from beginning to end; it's an Amsterdam survival guide; a sympathetic look at a societal problem; a little piece of policy; a sweet farewell to a world just about gone; and, ultimately, as close as you can come to a free trip to Amsterdam without leaving your couch.  

Dave Baranek (callsign "Bio") was one of 451 young men to receive his Wings of Gold in 1980 as a naval flight officer. Four years later, seasoned by intense training and deployments in the tense confrontations of the Cold War, he became the only one of that initial group to rise to become an instructor at the navy's elite Fighter Weapons School. As a Topgun instructor, Bio was responsible for teaching the navy's and Marine Corps' best fighter pilots how to be even better. He schooled them in the classroom and then went head-to-head with them in the skies.

This is the story of legendary record producer Rick Hall and his historic role in the development of the world-famous "Muscle Shoals sound". Rick Hall made music history when he founded FAME Recording Studios, the first professional recording studio in the entire state of Alabama. After producing and engineering the area's first national hit on Arthur Alexander's Southern soul classic "You Better Move On", Rick went on to earn international fame and eventually a Grammy for a lifetime of achievements.

Revealing how an obscure young assistant coach, in less than a decade, progressed to become a head coach, general manager, league commissioner, and controlling partner of the Oakland Raiders franchise, this biography pays tribute to the late Al Davis. Contrary to Davis’s notoriously quirky and reclusive reputation, this account is based on the inside scoop he personally gave the author, lending his full cooperation to relate the account of his life and career.

In a memoir studded with delicious lines and unforgettable set pieces, Robert Leleux describes his East Texas boyhood and coming of age under the tutelage of his eccentric, bewigged, flamboyant, and knowing mother. Left high and dry by Daddy and living on their in-laws' horse ranch in a white-pillared house they can't afford, Robert and Mother find themselves chronically low on cash. Soon, they are forced into more modest quarters, and as a teenage Robert watches with hilarity and horror as Mother begins a desperate regimen to secure a new, wealthy husband.

Blood, gunfire, and whiskey: they are the three things that defined Civil War battlefields. In this fascinating, booze-drenched history of the war that almost tore America apart, historian Mark Will-Weber (author of Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt) weaves together lighthearted stories of drunken generals and out-of-control soldiers with the gritty reality of battlefields where whiskey was the only medicine - and sometimes the only food.

For almost half a century, Bob Dylan has been a primary catalyst in rock's shifting sensibilities. Few American artists are as important, beloved, and endlessly examined, yet he remains something of an enigma. Who, we ask, is the "real" Bob Dylan? Is he Bobby Zimmerman, yearning to escape Hibbing, Minnesota, or the Woody Guthrie wannabe playing Greenwich Village haunts? Folk Messiah, Born-Again Bob, Late-Elvis Dylan, Jack Fate, or Living National Treasure?

An intimate account of the Spitzer administration, one man's political downfall, and the enduring friendship between two complex men. The March 10, 2008, disclosure that Governor Eliot Spitzer had patronized prostitutes from the Emperor's Club VIP sex ring shocked New Yorkers and his admirers around the world, who had celebrated Spitzer as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and a likely future U.S. president. Ironically, one man's disillusionment with Spitzer had begun to disappear 15 hours earlier, when Spitzer confessed what the rest of the world would soon learn in a media storm of unprecedented intensity.

With 30 years of backcountry patrol experience in Florida, Bob Lee has lived through incidents of legend, including one of the biggest environmental busts in Florida history. His fascinating memoir reveals the danger and the humor in the unsung exploits of game wardens.

In 1990, the avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra arrived at Dartmouth to collaborate with the school's jazz band, where Michael Lowenthal - an anxious, 20-year-old senior - played trumpet. As rehearsals got underway and two musical worlds collided, Lowenthal struggled with the improvisation that Sun Ra's sparse, yet spiritual, melodies demanded. In this essay, Lowenthal recounts his "otherworldly" experience with the famous jazz star who claimed to be from Saturn.

When Steve Friedman was a child growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, the game of golf was, to him, mysterious and dark. His father’s passion for it caused friction in his marriage and eluded the interest of his youngest son, who was devoted instead to basketball. For that and many other reasons, the two failed to bond, ultimately leading to an awkward and unhappy relationship. But Friedman never forgot the love his father had for golf, and after many years, when he was in his 40s, he reached out and asked his dad to teach him the game.