Biography For Boys

In A Good Bad Boy, Margaret Wappler attempts to understand who Perry was and why he was unique among his Hollywood peers. To do so, she uses an inventive hybrid narrative. She speaks with dozens who knew Perry personally and professionally. They share insightful anecdotes: how he kept connected to his Ohio upbringing; nearly blew his 90210 audition; tried to shed his heartthrob image by joining the HBO prison drama Oz; and in the last year of his life, sought to set up two of his newly divorced friends.

In this uniquely American memoir, Homer "Sonny" Hickam beautifully captures a moment when a dying town, a divided family, and a band of teenage dreamers dared to set their sights on the stars. Looking back after a distinguished NASA career that fulfilled his boyhood ambition, Hickam shares the story of his youth, taking listeners into the life of the little mining town and the boys who came to embody both its tensions and its dreams.

Through the firsthand experiences of pilots and ground crew, the author of Javelin Boys chronicles the history of the RAF’s first jet-engine aircraft. As Britain’s first jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor has had a remarkably varied and lengthy life. But while many books have focused on its development and service history, the time has come to hear the personal experiences of its air and ground crews.

His name was Kevin but his keepers called him Zoo Boy. He didn't talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn't been out of the building in the four years since he'd come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn't take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16. Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin's adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked.

Before The Voice and American Idol, there was Star Search with Ed McMahon. In the first season, an eclectic and charismatic country-rock band called Sawyer Brown appeared on the show, taking America by storm. From ignored underdogs in Nashville to overnight rock stars from LA to New York, they swept the competition and won. Since 1984, “the boys"' legendary live shows, along with their relentless drive to stay true to themselves, have captivated faithful fans around the world.

This book essentially launched the memoir craze that has been going strong ever since. The story is pretty grim: teen-aged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed.

In 1975, Viv Albertine was obsessed with music, but it never occurred to her she could be in a band, as she couldn't play an instrument, and she'd never seen a girl play electric guitar. A year later, she was the guitarist in the hugely influential all-girl band the Slits, who fearlessly took on the male-dominated music scene and became part of a movement that changed music. A raw, thrilling story of life on the frontiers and a candid account of Viv's life post-punk - taking in a career in film, the pain of IVF, illness and divorce and the triumph of making music again - Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. is a remarkable memoir.

Boy George's compelling storytelling shines a light on his encounters with legendary figures like David Bowie, Prince, and Madonna, providing an intimate peek into the music industry's glittering world. Humor, sarcasm, and signature style are brought to this explosive and honest account of Boy George's life as a child growing up in sixties London and coming out to his Irish Catholic family. Hear his account of his exploration of his sexuality through the hedonism of the seventies (the glam rock and punk rock revolution that birthed Culture Club) and his ultimately embracing who he is today.

As a founding member of The Beach Boys, Mike Love has spent an extraordinary 55 years, and counting, as the group's lead singer and one of its principal lyricists. The Beach Boys, from their California roots to their international fame, are a unique American story - one of overnight success and age-defying longevity; of musical genius and reckless self-destruction; of spirituality, betrayal, and forgiveness - and Love is the only band member to be part of it each and every step.

The mysterious boy king Tutankhamun came to the U.S. in 2008, bringing rare treasures, never before seen outside Egypt. For the millions of fans wanting a keepsake and chronicle of this magnificent new exhibition, this audiobook will delight. Created by world-renowned art historians under the guidance of Zahi Hawass - director of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and a well-known media personality - it surveys 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history by focusing on the lives and lifestyles of great pharaohs.

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents - both devout Catholics - had felt so 'shamed' by their son's illegitimate birth that they hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for 13 years. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.

From a young age, Ed Gamble's immaculate bibs and extremely dirty nappies hinted at his capacious appetite. Before he could walk, Ed already knew that he preferred poached salmon to puree, that celery was a calorie-sapping waste of time, and that mashed potatoes should be made with lashings of butter. Whilst he might ordinarily have been upset by the calls of 'precocious little s--t' coming from his family, he was too busy stuffing his gob and staging rebellions against the patronising list of misery that is a children's menu.

Before he became the nation's favourite Mammy, Brendan O'Carroll was known, simply as Brendan. He's the youngest of eleven children from a poor family in Dublin, he's a boy whose father died when he was just nine years old; he's someone whose hope and determination meant he never gave up. Throughout the tough moments, Brendan always had humour and a good story to tell alongside the ever-guiding inspiration of his own Mammy, a formidable figure who became Ireland's first female Labour MP, all whilst raising eleven children by herself.

One night in 1967, 26-year-old John Donohue - known as Chick - was out with friends, drinking in a New York City bar. The friends gathered there had lost loved ones in Vietnam. Now, they watched as anti-war protesters turned on the troops themselves. One neighborhood patriot came up with an inspired - some would call it insane - idea. Someone should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies there, give them messages of support from back home, and share a few laughs over a can of beer. It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.

After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King​, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them.

Blow is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller-coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel - the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly-born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine.

Here, in his own words, is the true story of America's wildest flying hero, of his extraordinary heroism, and of his greatest battle of all-the fight to survive. The World War II air war in the Pacific needed tough men like Colonel Pappy Boyington and his Black Sheep Squadron. The legendary Marine Corps officer and his bunch of misfits, outcasts, and daredevils gave a new definition to "hell-raising" - on the ground and in the skies.

Early on a May morning in 1979, six-year-old Etan Patz set off for school on his own for the first time. He vanished, and for three decades his case both frustrated and exhausted police, the FBI, and a public heartbroken by the tragedy. Then, suddenly, the police in 2012 announced that a former bodega clerk from the Manhattan neighborhood where Etan lived had confessed to killing the boy. Detectives were convinced they had the boy’s murderer, and prosecutors soon indicted the man, Pedro Hernandez.

In the 1600s, a boy from colonial Jamestown named Thomas Savage was traded to the Powhatans in exchange for a boy named Namontack. The English hoped this gift would prove their friendship to Chief Powhatan and allow them to teach Namontack about England. While staying with the tribe, Thomas learned their language and culture, and served as an interpreter between the Native Americans and Europeans.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had amazing talent at a very young age, forever changing the idea of what a child prodigy was.