Biography Girls

Through compelling new research and interviews, Sunday Times best-selling biographer Sean Smith reveals what life was really like for five fiercely independent and ambitious young women who were propelled to international fame in the '90s with unstoppable momentum. Quickly establishing themselves as the biggest success in British pop music since The Beatles, they were adored and admired in equal measure: the Spice Girls made a connection with millions of young women across the globe who were inspired by their enthusiasm for life and their famous Girl Power philosophy.

The life story of Jeanie Buss could only have been written in Hollywood. Her father, Jerry Buss, emerged from a childhood of financial struggle to improbably become one of California’s most successful real estate developers. Though her life was not without turmoil - l her parents divorced when she was still a child - Jeanie’s world was forever changed for the better when her father bought the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979. By the time Jeanie was 19, she was already a high-ranking executive with World Team Tennis.

Polish Catholics believed she was one of them. A devoted Nazi family took her in as if she was their own daughter. She fell in love with a German engineer who built aeroplanes for the Luftwaffe. What none of these people knew was that Mala Rivka Kizel had been born into a large Orthodox Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland, in 1926. By using her charm, intelligence, blonde hair, and blue eyes to assume different identities, she was the only member of her family to survive World War II.

What They Meant for Evil is the account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and purity of a child, Rebecca recalls how she endured fleeing from gunfire, suffering through hunger and strength-sapping illnesses, dodging life-threatening predators - lions, snakes, crocodiles, and soldiers alike - that dogged her footsteps, and grappling with a war that stole her childhood. Her story is a lyrical, captivating portrait of a child hurled into wartime, and how through divine intervention, she came to America and found a new life full of joy, hope, and redemption.

With a number-one album in multiple countries and more than 53 million Instagram followers, Billie Eilish is a global star. She has collaborated with Justin Bieber and Khalid, headlined at Glastonbury and Coachella, and has appeared in Calvin Klein ad campaigns. In a short career, she has become an icon to Generation Z. Billie grew up in a close-knit family - her brother, Finneas, still writes and produces her songs - in Highland Park, a suburb of LA.

Amid the excitement of the early twentieth century, hundreds of young women spend their days hard at work painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark radium paint. The painters consider themselves lucky—until they start suffering from a mysterious illness. As the corporations try to cover up a shocking secret, these shining girls suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly scandal. The Radium Girls: Young Readers Edition tells the unbelievable true story of these incredible women, whose determination to fight back saved countless lives.

Roaring Girls tells the game-changing life stories of eight formidable women whose grit, determination and radical unconventionality saw them defy the odds to forge their own paths. From the notorious cross-dressing thief Mary Frith in the 17th century to rebel slave Mary Prince and adventurer, industrialist and LGBT trailblazer Anne Lister in the 19th, these diverse characters redefined what a woman could be and what she could do in pre-20th-century Britain.

Moments of stress and pressure reveal a person's true potential. Most of us unlock talents we never knew lay dormant within us. Those nail-biting matches in the sports fields are more than a display of the athletes' physical prowess. They reflect how one overcomes adversity with unwavering dedication, confronting personal challenges. From Michael Jordan's pursuit of greatness to Mia Hamm's trajectory from rejection to international acclaim, each story tells us something about the invincible human spirit.

Picking up where he left off at the end of his widely praised debut memoir, One of These Things First, Gaines recounts his hilarious, sometimes poignant attempt to forge a writing career and a successful love life in the gay world of the 1970s. He has limited success until he falls in love with an older woman dying of cancer.

Malala's memoir of a remarkable teenage girl who risked her life for the right to go to school is now abridged and adapted for chapter book listeners. Raised in a changing Pakistan by an enlightened father from a poor background and a beautiful, illiterate mother, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. Her story of bravery and determination in the face of extremism is more timely than ever.

After Zaila Avant-garde became the first African American student to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee in 2021, she turned into an overnight sensation. People wanted to know who she was and how she'd achieved so much while so young. Zaila shares about her family, her accomplishments, her experience of being homeschooled, and so much more in order to motivate and uplift other kids who have small-, medium-, and even big-sized dreams.

A father kills his three young children and his wife and impersonates a disgraced journalist. Oregon's most famous murderer explains how her jail breaks show she's ready for parole.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History comes the highly anticipated follow-up, a beautifully illustrated collectible detailing the lives of women creators around the world.

Before Amy Thielen frantically plated rings of truffled potatoes in some of New York City's finest kitchens - for chefs David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten - she grew up in a northern Minnesota town home to the nation's largest French fry factory, the headwaters of the fast food nation, with a mother whose generous cooking dripped with tenderness, drama, and an overabundance of butter.

My name is Hazel Lamb…Lindsey, but my momma called me Fireball. I am 84 years old. I only got one year of schooling, but I am self-taught. I worked hard all my life.

The shocking true story of a serial killer in 1930s Melbourne. November, 1930. One sunny Saturday afternoon, 12-year-old Mena Griffiths was playing in the park when she was lured away by an unknown man. Hours later, her strangled body was found, mouth gagged and hands crossed over her chest, in an abandoned house. Only months later, another girl was murdered, the similarities between the cases undeniable. Crime in Melbourne had taken a shocking new turn: this was the work of a serial killer, a homicidal maniac.

When he turned 13 in 1980, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music and himself, and in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran we get a glimpse into his transformation from pasty, geeky "hermit boy" into a young man with his first girlfriend, his first apartment, and a sense of the world.

For a long time, Edie thought she had escaped. It started in an Appalachian trailer park, where a young girl dreamed of becoming a doctor. But every day Edie woke up to her reality: a poverty-stricken world full of alcohol and violence, where getting out seemed impossible. She taught herself to drive a stick shift truck at 12 years old so she could get her drunk daddy home from the bar. She spent Saturdays at Brushy Mountain prison visiting her incarcerated cousin. She watched adults eat while her stomach gnawed.

Despite being rejected by the Marines in 1972, Effin G kept his ambition and discipline. He was ultimately recruited by a private army in 1975 and participated in his first mission in 1976. This is a riveting story of how a young man uses the power of music, especially the music of The Grateful Dead, to help him through an amazing military adventure. The real characters show how a diverse group of Vietnam Era soldiers come together for an important cause: The War on Drugs.

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming follows Rod Dreher, a Philadelphia journalist, back to his hometown of St. Francisville, Louisiana (pop. 1,700) in the wake of his younger sister Ruthie's death. When she was diagnosed at age 40 with a virulent form of cancer in 2010, Dreher was moved by the way the community he had left behind rallied around his dying sister, a schoolteacher. He was also struck by the grace and courage with which his sister dealt with the disease that eventually took her life.