Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Kid Stays in the Picture

  Robert Evans

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Robert Evans' The Kid Stays in the Picture is universally recognized as the greatest, most outrageous, and most unforgettable show business memoir ever written. The basis of an award-winning documentary film, it remains the gold standard of Hollywood storytelling. With black-and-white photographs from the author's archive and a new introduction by the legendary actor, producer, and Hollywood studio chief Robert Evans, The Kid Stays in the Picture is driven by a voice as charming and irresistible as any great novel. An extraordinary raconteur, Evans spares no one, least of all himself. Filled with starring roles for everyone from Ava Gardner to Marlon Brando to Sharon Stone, The Kid Stays in the Picture: A Notorious Life is sharp, witty, and self-aggrandizing, and self-lacerating in equal measure.This is a must-read for fans of American cinema and classics of the canon, including The Odd Couple, Rosemary’s Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, and Chinatown.

  Show book

• 

  Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a...

  Eddie Ndopu

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A memoir penned with one good finger, Ndopu writes about being profoundly disabled and profoundly successful    Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn’t live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music, lip syncing the latest hits, and watching The Bold and the Beautiful for the haute couture, and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished academically. By his late teens, he had become a sought after speaker, travelling the world to address audiences about disability justice.  Ndopu was ecstatic when he was later accepted on a full scholarship into one of the world's most prestigious schools, Oxford University. But he soon learns that it's not just the medical community he must thwart— it's the educational one too.  In Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw, we follow Ndopu, sporting his oversized, bejewelled sunglasses, as he scales the mountain of success, only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect waiting for him on the other side. Like every other student, Ndopu tries to keep up appearances—dashing to and from his public policy lectures before meeting for cocktails with his squad, all while campaigning to become student body president. Privately, however, Ndopu faces obstacles that are all too familiar to people with disabilities, yet remain unnoticed by most people. With the revolving door of care aides, hefty bills, and a lack of support from the university, Ndopu feels alienated by his environment. As he soars professionally, sipping champagne with world leaders, he continues to feel the loneliness and pressure of being the only one in the room. Determined to carve out his place in the world, he must challenge bias at the highest echelons of power and prestige. But as the pressure mounts, Ndopu must find his stride or collapse under the crushing weight of ableism. Written with his one good finger, this evocative, searing, and vulnerable prose will leave you spellbound by Ndopu’s remarkable journey to reach beyond ableism, reminding us of our own capacity for resilience.   

  Show book

• 

  My Body Is A Big Fat Temple - An...

  Alena Dillon

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  My Body Is A Big Fat Temple, a memoir of pregnancy and early motherhood, follows a writer as she debates having children, miscarries, faces morning sickness, uncertainty, physical impairments, labor, breastfeeding, the "baby blues," the heartache of not loving her son as she thinks she should, parenting through a plague, until finally (basically, mostly) blossoming into her new identity.Creating life is a primal phenomenon. It requires grit, resilience, and a lot of bathroom breaks. There are dry heaves and darkened nipples, crotch lightning and brain fuzz, milk stains, sleep regressions, and equal amounts of despair and joy. It's a complicated magic. The undertaking is airbrushed to preserve the ideal of motherhood, and exacerbated by a culture that dictates what women can do and how they should feel. We don't get the full story, so mothers with unromantic experiences feel like aberrations, and worse, alone. This is why the voices of women matter. The voices of mothers matter. Here's one to remind you of the important things.

  Show book

• 

  Wild Heart - Natalie Clifford...

  Suzanne Rodriguez

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Born in 1876, Natalie Barney-beautiful, charismatic, brilliant and wealthy-was expected to marry well and lead the conventional life of a privileged society woman. But Natalie had no interest in marriage and made no secret of the fact that she was attracted to women. Brought up by a talented and rebellious mother-the painter Alice Barney-Natalie cultivated an interest in poetry and the arts. When she moved to Paris in the early 1900s, she plunged into the city's literary scene, opening a famed Left Bank literary salon and engaging in a string of scandalous affairs with courtesan Liane de Pougy, poet Renee Vivien, and painter Romaine Brooks, among others. For the rest of her long and controversial life Natalie Barney was revered by writers for her generous, eccentric spirit and reviled by high society for her sexual appetite. In the end, she served as an inspiration and came to know many of the greatest names of 20th century arts and letters-including Proust, Colette, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Isadora Duncan, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Truman Capote.A dazzling literary biography, Wild Heart: A Life is a story of a woman who has been an icon to many. Set against the backdrop of two different societies-Victorian America and Belle Epoque Europe—Wild Heart: A Life beautifully captures the richness of their lore.

  Show book

• 

  My Father's List - How Living My...

  Laura Carney

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  On the cusp of middle age, a newlywed journalist discovers and finishes the bucket list of her late free-spirited father.Fifty-four adventures in six years. That’s what thirty-eight-year-old journalist Laura Carney embarked on when she discovered her late father Mick’s bucket list.Killed in a car crash when Laura was twenty-five, Mick seemed lost forever. My Father’s List is the story of how one woman—with the help of family, friends, and even strangers—found the courage to go after her own dreams after realizing those of a beloved yet mysterious man. This is a story about secrets—and the freedom we feel when we learn to trust again: in life, in love, and in a father’s lessons on how to fully live.

  Show book

• 

  Thirty-Eight Witnesses - The...

  A.M. Rosenthal

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  On March 13, 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally beaten and murdered in the street near her apartment, in full view of more than three dozen friends and neighbors-and no one did a thing to stop it. More than thirty-five years after its first publication,  Thirty-Eight Witnesses , the true account of what transpired that night in Queens, New York, continues to disturb us. We would like to think that we would step in and do what we could to stop the carnage. But not much has changed in the ensuing years, as crime goes on all around us and we do nothing to help.  
  Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter A. M. Rosenthal covered the case for the paper as its city editor, and his chronicle of the events became this book. Part memoir, part investigative journalism, part sociological study, a disturbing story of urban apathy,  Thirty-Eight Witnesses  puts readers on the gritty sidewalk of the murder scene and speaks of the need for change. In the ensuing years, the case has become famous, and today in criminology classes, students learn about witnesses and the Genovese Effect. A new foreword discusses the historical legacy of the case and how little has changed in fifty-plus years.

  Show book