Biography For Boys

Clint Emerson is the only SEAL ever inducted into the International Spy Museum. Operating from the shadows, with an instinct for running towards trouble, his unique skill set made him the perfect hybrid of elite and modern day counterintelligence agent. Emerson spent his career on the bleeding edge of intelligence and operations, often specializing in solo missions that took advantage of subterfuge, improvisation, the best in recon and surveillance tech, and even elements of Hollywood disguise to combat the changing global battlefield.

In the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), girls can become valuable property as plural wives, but boys are expendable, even a liability. In this powerful and heartbreaking account, former FLDS member Brent Jeffs reveals both the terror and the love he experienced growing up on his prophet's compound and the harsh exile existence that so many boys face once they have been expelled by the sect.

The New York Times best-selling memoir that inspired the film October Sky, Rocket Boys is a uniquely American memoir - a powerful, luminous story of coming of age at the dawn of the 1960s, of a mother's love and a father's fears, of a group of young men who dreamed of launching rockets into outer space... and who made those dreams come true. Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Homer Hickam's lush, lyrical memoir is a marvelously entertaining chronicle of triumph.

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.

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.

At age six, Sasha DiGiulian stepped into a climbing gym for the first time and was competing within a year. Decked out in all-pink gear and with her blonde hair tied into pigtails, Sasha knew from an early age what it was like to be a girl in a traditionally male-dominated sport, vowing to never sacrifice her femininity to fit in. With a fierce love for the climb and incredible natural talent, Sasha soon won her first National Sport Climbing Championship at only seventeen, and a year later took the title of World Champion.

One hot, humid day in July 1944, the Gestapo abducted 15-year-old Henry and his mother, forcing them onto cramped cattle cars in the Łódź Polish Ghetto. Like so many Jews before them, they had been selected to disappear–they were being sent to Auschwitz.

The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a 19-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to "cure" him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life.

In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.

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.

He was the friendly, baby-faced Canadian boy next door. He came from a loving, caring, and well-respected family. Blessed with good looks and back-woods charm, he was popular with his peers and he excelled in sports. A self-proclaimed "die hard" Calgary Flames fan, he played competitive junior hockey and competed on his high school's snowboarding team. And he enjoyed the typical pleasures of a boy growing up in the country: camping, hunting, and fishing with family and friends.

Simon's memoir reveals her remarkable life, beginning with her storied childhood as the third daughter of Richard L. Simon, the co-founder of publishing giant Simon & Schuster; her musical debut as half of The Simon Sisters, performing folk songs with her sister, Lucy, in Greenwich Village; to a meteoric solo career that would result in 13 top 40 hits, including the number-one song "You're So Vain".

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.

As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called “sex murderers” who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s.

In Every Good Boy Does Fine, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. His life is already a little tough as a precocious, temperamental six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey, and then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico.

Is any superhero cooler than Batman? He’s a crime-fighting vigilante with a tragic past, a lawless attitude, and a seemingly endless supply of high-tech gadgetry. In this memoir, author Michael E. Uslan recalls his journey from early childhood fandom through to the decades he spent on a caped crusade of his own: to bring Batman to the silver screen as the dark, serious character he was at heart.

At first glance Gabriel Cardona is the poster-boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn't long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His younger friend, Bart, as well as others from Gabriel's childhood join him in working for the Zetas, boosting cars and smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel's leadership.

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.

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.

Fritz Kleinmann was fourteen when the Nazis took over Vienna. Kurt, his little brother, was eight. Under Hitler’s brutal regime, their Austrian-Jewish family of six was cruelly torn apart. Taken to Buchenwald concentration camp, Fritz and his Papa, Gustav, underwent hard labor and starvation. Meanwhile, Kurt made the difficult voyage, all alone, to America, to escape the war.