Biography Girls

Finally, a self-help book for the millennial party girl who hates bullshit advice from "experts" who know nothing about the trauma of drinking and sex, the acute pressure of keeping up with the rest of the Adderall poppin' world, and the insecurity that comes along with feeling like you have to be thin and gorgeous and sparkly in order to be seen.

Women have bravely served in the US Navy for nearly a century, but they have been allowed to serve in combat roles for only the last 25 years. When the combat exclusion law was lifted in 1993, women in the navy soon had a new range of opportunities available to them. The repeal of the law finally gave women the chance to serve on combatant ships for the first time. Among the first women to step onto these warships as a new crewmember was Joanna Sprtel Walters.

Best-selling author Jeffrey Zaslow is a Will Rogers Humanitarian Award winner and was the replacement advice columnist for Ann Landers in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here he turns his eye to a group of 11 friends who grew up in Ames, Iowa, during the 1960s, a period of unprecedented opportunity for women. What emerges is an inspiring look at the power of friendship to overcome challenges.

Maria Konner takes you on her journey from living a frustrated and bored straight-dude life to becoming a fabulous trans entertainer in San Francisco. She also begins to discover herself sexually after a Halloween costume feels better than she ever imagined. What starts as a lark, quickly becomes a lifestyle. Told in a frank and entertaining manner, Maria details her experiences at Diva's, the legendary trans bar. There, she enters into a world of alternative lifestyles, sexual experimentation, crossdressing, and hardcore kink as she tests the boundaries of her sexuality.

In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut.

Before Kamala Harris was elected to the vice presidency, she was a little girl who loved superheroes. And when she looked around, she was amazed to find them everywhere! In her family, among her friends, even down the street - there were superheroes wherever she looked. And those superheroes showed her that all you need to do to be a superhero is to be the best you can be.

When ABC News' Good Morning America asked its viewers to write essays describing true-life experiences, the network never imagined receiving more than 20,000 pages of inspiring stories. After a panel of best-selling authors and editors chose three finalists, America was given the opportunity to vote on which aspiring author's story would be published. This audiobook is the result of the most ambitious search ever conducted to publish an extraordinary life story.

Growing up, Miranda often looked for faces like hers on our screens. There weren't many. And too often there was a negative narrative around Indigenous lives, and Aboriginal women especially. Now an award-winning actor, she decided to change things herself. Combining her love of romantic comedies with her love of Darwin, the Tiwi Islands and the Top End, Miranda wrote, produced and starred in the box office hit Top End Wedding. But who the hell co-writes, produces and acts in a film about a wedding in the same year they're having their own? Miranda Tapsell does!

Jackie Moggridge was just nineteen when World War Two broke out. Determined to do her bit, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. Ferrying aircraft from factory to frontline was dangerous work, but there was also fun, friendship and even love in the air. At last the world was opening up to women... or at least it seemed to be.

From Pulitzer Prize winner Teresa Carpenter comes the captivating true-crime story of a Mafia moll - “the female counterpart of the pseudonymous Henry Hill, the star of Wiseguy.... An insider’s view of mob life that is by turns comic and chilling” (Los Angeles Times).

She was beautiful, talented, irascible, ruthless, vulnerable, and a true Hollywood legend. From abused child to dance-hall entertainer to silent-film actress, she went on to become one of Hollywood's screen goddesses with films such as Possessed opposite Clark Gable, with whom she began a torrid off-screen affair, Grand Hotel, and Mildred Pierce, her Academy Award-winning film.

Danielle has a safe, happy childhood growing up in West London, but her bright future fades as she turns her back on school for gang life and crime. Betrayed by the police after a brutal gang rape, she finds protection under the wing of organised criminals and falls in love with the local ‘top boy’. However, her allegiances bring terror to her doorstep when gun-toting rivals target her flat – and the authorities answer by taking away her baby. Heartbroken, Danielle spirals deeper into gang life and becomes a key player in a sprawling county lines operation.

A raw and bold memoir about abuse and addiction, and the power of expression and community that helped Stephanie Kuehnert, the author of Ballads of Suburbia and regular Rookie contributor, survive and thrive. Told in varied narrative styles, including journal entries and pages torn from her actual diaries and zines, this is the memoir of Stephanie's life as a struggling outsider who survived substance and relationship abuse to become a strong young woman after years and years trapped in a cycle that sometimes seemed to have no escape.

When 16-year-old Mytrae Meliana and her family emigrate from India to the US, she is determined to avoid the arranged marriage her family expects her to have, and to create her own destiny. But when she falls in love with an American man, her family drags the talented graduate student back to India and keeps her hostage.

In late 2019, Sylvia Patterson was a celebrated pop journalist, still merrily writing about the musical greats. But with the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, a global pandemic and the collapse of her industry, life was about to take a drastic turn. It was a misadventure that would teach her many things. The power of friendship, the shock of mortality and what happens when love is tested. How a walk in the park, a spontaneous dance and a TV hero can save your life. How your perspective can shift on everything, from work, family and music, to what truly makes you happy.

For Leslie Absher, secrecy is just another member of the family. Throughout childhood, her father's shadowy government job was ill-defined, her mother's mental health stayed off limits—even her queer identity remained hidden from her family and unacknowledged by Leslie herself.

Growing up on welfare, food stamps, and Greyhound buses, Holly Thompson Rehder quit school at fifteen to help take care of her mother and younger sister after a devastating car accident. Getting married and pregnant soon thereafter, Holly decided that the life she had been born into was not what she intended to give her child. Two decades later she was a successful businesswoman. And today, she is a rising political star who serves as an inspiration to young women across the state of Missouri—and indeed, the entire nation—all while never forgetting where she came from.

When 16-year-old Jessica Wragg applied for a job at her local farm shop in Derbyshire, England, she never expected to land a position behind the butchery counter. Wragg was younger than many of her colleagues by decades, and she was one of the few women on staff, struggling to earn her keep among colleagues who were reluctant to share the tricks of their trade with a novice. Breaking down carcasses by day, and studying animal anatomy by night, Wragg was soon hooked and determined to establish herself in an industry that is steeped in tradition, and often resistant to change.

When her father, Robert the Bruce, becomes King of Scotland, Marjorie Bruce becomes a princess. But Edward Longshanks, the ruthless King of England, has set his sights on Robert and his family. Marjorie is captured and imprisoned in a wooden cage in the center of a town square, exposed to wind, rain, the taunts of the townspeople, and the scorn of Longshanks himself. Marjorie knows that despite her suffering and pain, she is the daughter of noble Robert the Bruce and she will make her father, and her country, proud. For a true princess is a princess, whether in a castle or in a cage.

Perfect for aspiring coders everywhere, Girl Code is the story of two teenage tech phenoms who met at Girls Who Code summer camp, teamed up to create a viral video game, and ended up becoming world famous. The book also includes bonus content to help you start coding! Fans of funny and inspiring books like Maya Van Wagenen’s Popular and Caroline Paul’s Gutsy Girl will love hearing about Andrea “Andy” Gonzales and Sophie Houser’s journey from average teens to powerhouses. Through the success of their video game, Andy and Sophie got unprecedented access to some of the biggest start-ups and tech companies, and now they’re sharing what they’ve seen. Their video game and their commitment to inspiring young women have been covered by the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, CNN, Teen Vogue, Jezebel, the Today show, and many more.