Family Biography

While the world watched Donald Trump’s presidency in horror or delight, few noticed that his lifelong grifting quietly continued. Less than 40 minutes after taking the oath of office, Trump began turning the White House into a money machine for himself, his family, and his courtiers. The Big Cheat offers a guided tour of how money flowed in and out of Trump’s hundreds of enterprises, showing in simple terms how a corrupt president used our government for his benefit, even putting national security at risk.

From teaching consent to counteracting problematic messages from the media, well-meaning family, and the culture at large, we have big work to do when it comes to our boys. Informed by the author's work as a professor of journalism specializing in social justice movements and social media, as well as by conversations with psychologists, experts, and other parents and boys, this book follows one mother's journey to raise a feminist son as a single immigrant woman of color in America.

The Marshalls were the model family of Tom’s River, New Jersey, living the American dream and seemingly in possession of all that money could buy. Rob Marshall, a successful insurance broker, was the big breadwinner, king of the country-club set. Maria Marshall was his stunningly beautiful wife and the perfect mom to their three great kids.Then one night, while the couple drove home from Atlantic City, Rob, his head bloodied, reported Maria had been brutally slain. Sympathy poured in - until disquieting facts began to surface....

It’s not like she’s the only woman to ever have a baby. At 35. On her own. But Anne Lamott makes it all fresh in her now-classic account of how she and her son and numerous friends and neighbors and some strangers survived and thrived in that all-important first year. From finding out her baby is a boy (and getting used to the idea) to finding out her best friend and greatest supporter, Pam, will die of cancer (and not getting used to that idea), with a generous amount of wit and faith (but little piousness), Lamott narrates the great and small events making up a woman’s life.

In his instant New York Times best-selling book Do You Mind If I Cancel?, Gary Janetti had us all in stitches as he recounted the pains and indignities of everyday life in the way only he can. Now, in Start Without Me, Janetti returns with a hilarious collection about how sometimes the things we most want to get done and over with are the ones that define us for a lifetime. Gary turns his acid tongue (and secretly beating heart) to the moments and times that have defined him, no matter how embarrassing or annoying they might be to admit.

As the lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison's searing poetic vision and voracious appetite for sexual, spiritual, and psychedelic experience inflamed the spirit and psyche of a generation. Since his mysterious death in 1971, millions more fans from a new generation have embraced his legacy, as layers of myth have gathered to enshroud the life, career, and true character of the man who was James Douglas Morrison.

Once the poster girl for doing it all, after she had her first child, Tiffany Dufu struggled to accomplish everything she thought she needed to in order to succeed. Like so many driven and talented women who have been brought up to believe that to have it all, they must do it all, Dufu began to feel that achieving her career and personal goals was an impossibility. Eventually, she discovered the solution: letting go. In Drop the Ball, Dufu recounts how she learned to reevaluate expectations, shrink her to-do list, and meaningfully engage the assistance of others.

Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. But divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school.

Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family, and lovers over a thirty-year period—as well as previously unreleased material from the JFK Library—Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli paints an unforgettable new portrait of a woman whose flaws and contradictions only serve to make her even more iconic. “I have three lives,” Jackie told a former lover, “public, private and secret.” In this revealing biography, listeners will become intimately familiar with all three.

One phone call. That's all it took to change Stephanie Wittels Wachs's life forever.... Her younger brother Harris, a star in the comedy world known for his work on shows like Parks and Recreation, had died of a heroin overdose. How do you make sense of such a tragic end to a life of so much hilarious brilliance? In beautiful, unsentimental, and surprisingly funny prose, Stephanie Wittels Wachs alternates between her brother's struggle with addiction, which she learned about three days before her wedding, and the first year after his death, in all its emotional devastation.

We are only just beginning to reckon with our post-pandemic future. As political extremism intensifies, the great resignation affects businesses everywhere, and supply chain issues crush bottom lines, we’re faced with daunting questions—is our democracy under threat? How will Big Tech change our lives? What does job security look like for me? America is on the brink of massive change—change that will disrupt the workings of our economy and drastically impact the financial backbone of our nation: the middle class.

Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe. After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place.

A unique memoir that weaves together stories of personal triumph, love, loss, and lessons learned, Notes for the Children follows Patrick Priestner throughout his life as a son, a brother, a car salesman, an award-winning automotive entrepreneur—and his most rewarding roles, as a husband and a father.

When his mother, Barbara, turns seventy, Jedidiah Jenkins is reminded of a sobering truth: Our parents won’t live forever. For years, he and Barbara have talked about taking a trip together, just the two of them. They disagree about politics, about God, about the project of society—disagreements that hurt. But they love thrift stores, they love eating at diners, they love true crime, and they love each other. Jedidiah wants to step into Barbara’s world and get to know her in a way that occasional visits haven’t allowed.

That terrible belief spurs author Jeff Blackstock to investigate the circumstances of his mother Carol's death when he was a child. Carol Blackstock died at age 24 in 1959 - poisoned by arsenic - but the cause of her death remained shrouded in mystery for decades. Jeff's father George Blackstock was a career diplomat in Canada's foreign service, posted to glamorous Buenos Aires with his wife Carol and their three children.

Mafia Prince is the first-person account of one of the most violent eras in Mafia history - "Little" Nicky Scarfo’s reign as boss of the Philly family in the 1980s - written by Scarfo’s underboss and nephew, "Crazy" Phil Leonetti. The youngest-ever underboss at the age of 31, Leonetti was at the crux of the violent downfall of the traditional American Mafia in the 1980s when he infiltrated Atlantic City after gambling was legalized, and later turned state’s evidence against his own.

After years of treating patients, Dr. Michelle Choi had a moment of clarity that rocked her to her core: she wasn’t really helping anyone, and after all these years, she had lost sight of herself. The only way to reclaim some decency would be to demand a big change. After working her entire life to become a doctor, Michelle achieved her dream but realized it wasn’t what she expected. Instead of helping patients feel well, she answered corporate medicine’s unrealistic expectations and practiced assembly-line healthcare.

Baseball Dads is a heartwarming collection of notable major-league players’ favorite baseball-related memories about how their relationships with their fathers shaped them, not only as players, but as the men they are today. From superstars like David Wright, Josh Hamilton, C. C. Sabathia, Adrian Gonzalez, Chipper Jones, and Kevin Youkilis, to journeyman big leaguers like Adam LaRoche, J. D. Drew, Shelley Duncan, Barry Zito, and Jeff Francoeur, this inspiring book reveals, through its 15 vivid profiles, the profound impact fathers can have.

At first, the residents of Kauai Beach Resort took little notice of their new neighbors. The glamorous blonde and her tall husband fit the image of the ritzy gated community. The couple seemed to keep to themselves - until the police knocked on their door with a search warrant. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had fled to Hawaii in the midst of being investigated for the disappearance of Lori's children back in Idaho - Tylee and JJ - who hadn't been seen alive in five months.

In 1997, Daniel Trush, a bright, active, outgoing twelve-year-old, collapsed on the basketball court and fell into a deep coma. Rushed to the hospital, he was found to have five previously undetected aneurysms in his brain. One had burst, causing a massive cerebral hemorrhage. While Daniel remained comatose, the uncontrolled pressure inside his skull caused him to suffer multiple strokes.