Biography Girls

Mit 13 Jahren wurde sie von Roman Polanski vergewaltigt. Vor vier Jahren hat die Staatsanwaltschaft von Los Angeles den Fall neu aufgerollt. Jetzt erzählt sie - so detailliert wie nie zuvor - was damals wirklich passiert ist und wie sie in die Mühlen von Presse und Justiz geriet, was für die heute 50jährige eher zum Trauma wurde als die eigentliche Tat.

Her first violin was tiny, harsh, factory-made; her first piece was "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star". But from the very beginning, Min Kym knew that music was the element in which she could swim and dive and soar. At seven years old, she was a prodigy, the youngest ever student at the famed Purcell School. At 11, she won her first international prize; at 18, violinist great Ruggiero Ricci called her "the most talented violinist I've ever taught". And at 21, she found "the one", the violin she would play as a soloist: a rare 1696 Stradivarius.

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.

If there's one thing the nation can agree on - we all love Betty White! This spirited homage to Betty captures her unique humor, timeless wisdom, and impish irreverence that's made her one of America's longest lasting and most beloved stars. How to Be Golden recounts her engaging life story while weaving in her words of wisdom and insight about love, friendship, work, family, sex, acting, aging, beauty, and more.

As World War II progressed, the Okma family took six Jewish refugees into their house, hiding them in a secret room behind their fireplace. The youngest daughter, Kieks, joined the Resistance, delivering illegal newspapers, guiding British parachutists around The Hague and preparing safe houses for Special Forces who were dropped in from England.

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.

Emotionally battered and neglected by her personality disordered parents—and manipulated by Mormon beliefs—16-year-old Sarah was convinced her boyfriend Michael would save her. When her parents discovered that they’d committed the sin of premarital sex, the aftermath left the teenagers irrevocably bonded.

In 1983, backstage at the Lyceum in London, Tracey Thorn and Lindy Morrison first met. Tracey's music career with the Marine Girls had just begun, while Lindy, drummer for The Go-Betweens, was ten years her senior. They became confidantes, comrades and best friends, a relationship cemented by activism and agitprop theatre, lesbian punk bands and rock 'n' roll love affairs. Morrison came to be a kind of mentor to Thorn, a strong female role model in a male dominated industry. They both faced a chauvinist music media wanting them to behave to type.

When pirates attacked her town and the captain took a liking to her, she saw a way out. Zheng Yi Sao agreed to marry him only if she got an equal share of his business. When her husband died six years later, she took command of the fleet. Over the next decade, the pirate queen built a fleet of over 1,800 ships and 70,000 men. On land and sea, Zheng Yi Sao's power rivaled the emperor himself. Time and again, her ships triumphed over the emperor's ships.

Marija's idyllic early childhood on the beautiful Croatian island of Korčula is brutally disrupted by the invasion of the Italians and then the Nazis in 1941, bringing death and destruction. The devastation has left families struggling to survive years after the war has ended. In 1950 an opportunity arrives for 17-year-old Marija to escape the hunger and despair all around her by committing herself to a complete stranger in faraway North Queensland, through a proxy marriage. Taking the plunge, she leaves her family and friends, her culture, and everything she has ever known.

At the tender age of five years old, Tola Grossman was sent to a Nazi labor camp. As World War II was breaking out around them, the only thing Tola and her parents were left with was the instinct to survive at all costs. Tola’s life became a series of miraculous close calls, from being saved from a gas chamber to successfully hiding from the Nazis as they were rounding people up.

In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just 16 years old, had recently moved to the city. White was 47. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity. She told no one that White raped her that night until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden.

Alyssa Azar is unstoppable. When she was just eight years old, she walked the gruelling Kokoda Track, the youngest person in the world to do so. At 12 she climbed the 10 highest peaks in Australia. Two years later she touched the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. Now, at the age of 19, she has reached the roof of the world: the summit of Mount Everest. The Girl Who Climbed Everest is the inspiring story of how an ordinary girl from country Queensland worked towards ascending the world's highest peak.

Growing up in British Guiana in the 1950s, Sharon Maas has everything a shy child with a vivid imagination could wish for. She spends her days studying bugs in the backyard, eating fresh mangos straight from the tree, and tucked up on her granny’s lap losing herself in books. But with her father campaigning for Guiana’s independence and her mother away for work, there’s a void in Sharon’s heart, and she craves rules and structure. The books she devours give her a glimpse of life in a faraway country: England.

Trying to navigate her Indian world at home and the British world outside her front door, Anita Rani was a girl who didn't ­fit in anywhere. She was always destined to stand out: from playing Mary in her otherwise all white nursery nativity to growing up in '80s Yorkshire with her Punjabi family, spending evenings in the factory her parents owned whilst trying to ­figure out how best to get rid of hair that seemed to be growing everywhere.

Caroline Johnson was an unlikely aviator candidate. A tall blonde debutante from Colorado, she could have just as easily gone into fashion or filmmaking, and yet she went on to become an F/A-18 Super Hornet Weapons System Operator. She was one of the first women to fly a combat mission over Iraq since 2011, and she was the first woman to drop bombs on ISIS. Jet Girl tells the remarkable story of the women fighting at the forefront in a military system that allows them to reach the highest peaks and yet is in many respects still a fraternity.

Growing up and living in Kibera, Kenya, Abdul Kassim was well aware of the disproportionate number of challenges faced by women due to the extreme gender inequalities that persist in the slums. After being raised by his aunts, his mother, and his grandmother, and having a daughter himself, he felt that he needed to make a difference. In 2002, Abdul started a soccer team for girls called Girls Soccer in Kibera (GSK), with the hope of fostering a supportive community and providing emotional and mental support for the young women in the town.

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.

This action-packed, and eye-opening book will take you on a wild ride and show you the dark side of human nature. You will also learn the 25 life lessons I learned from 15 years of being a cop, that you can implement into your own life today. Good Cop Girl Cop will bust myths and misconceptions about policing, challenging everything you’ve been told about it. It is not watered down; it is not sugar-coated - just the plain, simple, and shocking truth.

On July 28, 1841, the body of Mary Rogers, a twenty-year-old cigar girl, was found floating in the Hudson-and New York's unregulated police force proved incapable of solving the crime. One year later, a struggling writer named Edgar Allan Poe decided to take on the case-and sent his fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, to solve the baffling murder of Mary Rogers in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt."