Memoirs Biographys Celebrity

Academy Award-winning director Michael Curtiz—whose best-known films include Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce, and White Christmas—was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his 27-year tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, Westerns, musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. In the first biography of this colorful, instinctual artist, Alan K. Rode illuminates the life and work of one of the film industry's most complex figures.

Laura Jane Grace doesn’t defy rock ‘n’ roll. She defines it. In an inspiring examination of identity and creativity, the founder and frontwoman of notorious punk band Against Me! recounts the story of her extraordinary life, her rise to fame, and the painful but powerful moments that have led her to where she is now. Black Me Out invites listeners to not only hear Grace’s complicated journey through gender dysphoria, addiction, mental health, and artistic integrity, but recognize the universal pursuit of our authentic selves. Track the common journey with a modern icon.

In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. That lack of direction lead him on a 55,000 mile journey by motorcycle across much of North America, down through Mexico to Belize, and back again.

Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System of a Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever existed in modern music history: a band of Armenian-Americans playing a practically unclassifiable clash of wildly aggressive metal riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian folk melodies, with me alternately growling, screaming, and crooning lyrics that could pivot from avant-garde silliness to raging socio-political rants in the space of a single line.” After all, as Serj concedes, “it’s not easy listening.”

On a lazy Sunday in 1954, 12-year-old Jerry Schilling wandered into a Memphis touch-football game, only to discover that his team was quarterbacked by a 19-year-old Elvis Presley, the local teen whose first record, That's All Right, had just debuted on Memphis radio. The two became fast friends, even as Elvis turned into the world's biggest star.

Fame can be addictive. From his early days videotaping crazy skateboard stunts to starring in the blockbuster Jackass franchise, there was little that Stephen “Steve-O” Glover wouldn’t do for attention. Whether it was stapling his nutsack to his leg, diving into a pool full of elephant crap, or routinely risking death invading the private lives of sharks, lions, tigers, and bears, almost nothing was out of bounds. And as the stunts got crazier, his life kept pace.

When Anthony Bourdain died in June 2018, fans around the globe came together to celebrate the life of an inimitable man who had dedicated his life to traveling nearly everywhere (and eating nearly everything), shedding light on the lives and stories of others. His impact was outsized and his legacy has only grown since his death.

New York Times best-selling poet and multiplatinum singer-songwriter Jewel explores her unconventional upbringing and extraordinary life in an inspirational memoir that covers her childhood, rise to fame, marriage, and motherhood. She writes beautifully about growing up amid the natural wonders of Alaska, about pain and childhood trauma, and about discovering her own identity years after the entire world had discovered the beauty of her songs.

A fast-paced, tender-hearted rock ’n’ roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbell’s Heartbreaker is part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, recounting Campbell’s life and times as lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

When his father was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer, Winnipeg broadcaster and musician Wab Kinew decided to spend a year reconnecting with the accomplished but distant aboriginal man who'd raised him. The Reason You Walk spans the year 2012, chronicling painful moments in the past and celebrating renewed hopes and dreams for the future. As Kinew revisits his own childhood in Winnipeg and on a reserve in Northern Ontario, he learns more about his father's traumatic childhood at residential school.

No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise.

The long-awaited memoir from one of daytime television's most celebrated and beloved actresses.

Three or four days a week, Jeanne Cooper drives from her Hollywood Hills home to the job she's held for more than three decades: bringing life to the character of Katherine Chancellor, the outspoken, powerful, and insanely wealthy force of nature who, along with Jeanne herself, has become a legend in the world of daytime television and its number-one show, The Young and the Restless. Now, for the first time, her fans will get to know the woman behind the iconic character.

Tomson Highway was born in a snowbank on an island in the sub-Arctic, the 11th of 12 children in a nomadic, caribou-hunting Cree family who traversed the tundra by dogsled and lived off the land. In Permanent Astonishment, one of the greatest writers of our time animates the magical world of his northern childhood, paying tribute to a way of life that few have experienced and fewer still have chronicled.

Frank Sinatra. Dean Martin. Sammy Davis, Jr. Peter Lawford. Joey Bishop. They call themselves The Clan. But to an awed world, they are known as The Rat Pack. They had it all. Fame. Gorgeous women. A fabulous playground of a city and all the money in the world. The backing of fearsome crime lords and the blessing of the President of the United States. But the dark side - over the thin line between pleasure and debauchery, between swinging self-confidence and brutal arrogance - took its toll. In four years, their great ride was over, and showbiz was never the same.

The Great Peace is a harrowing, heartbreaking coming-of-age story set in Hollywood, in which young teenage model-turned-actor Mena Suvari lost herself to sex, drugs, and bad, often abusive relationships even as blockbuster movies made her famous. It's about growing up in the '90s, with a soundtrack ranging from The Doors to Deee-Lite, fashion from denim to Day-Glo, and a woman dealing with the lasting psychological scars of abuse, yet knowing deep inside she desires so much more from life.

Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman - who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking - he runs his own woodshop - Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman's childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois, to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally.

Salah Bachir, who immigrated to Canada from Lebanon in the 1960s, has been a gay activist who has worked in the film world for over four decades. While this has given him undeniable front-row access to Hollywood’s biggest stars, it is Salah’s personal charm and kindness, his philanthropy, his overall style (think hats, scarves, brooches, pearls, diamonds) and deep involvement in the art world that has made him a friend, companion, confidante, and/or lover to so many.

In 1984, at the age of 20, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle - partly to pursue music, but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then-decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In LA only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as "Slash." Soon after, the most dangerous band in the world was born. Guns N' Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.

In Why Not Me?, Kaling shares insightful, deeply personal stories about falling in love at work, seeking new friendships in lonely places, attempting to be the first person in history to lose weight without any behavior modification whatsoever, and believing that you have a place in Hollywood when you’re constantly reminded that no one looks like you.

Michael J. Fox abandoned high school to pursue an acting career, but went on to receive honorary degrees from several universities and garner the highest accolades for his acting, as well as for his writing. In his new book, he inspires and motivates graduates to recognize opportunities, maximize their abilities, and roll with the punches -- all with his trademark optimism, warmth, and humor.