New Biographies Memoirs

Buried for decades, the Up Stairs Lounge tragedy has only recently emerged as a catalyzing event of the gay liberation movement. In revelatory detail, Robert W. Fieseler chronicles the tragic event that claimed the lives of 31 men and one woman on June 24, 1973, at a New Orleans bar, the largest mass murder of gays until 2016. Relying on unprecedented access to survivors and archives, Fieseler creates an indelible portrait of a closeted, blue-collar gay world that flourished before an arsonist ignited an inferno that destroyed an entire community.

Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empire's worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison recreates Tchaikovsky's complex world.

Whether you’re facing your own hip replacement surgery or want to train for something like a triathlon, or you simply find yourself facing extreme challenges in your own life, this book is your guide to putting steel in your bones and doing what you may never have thought was possible.

In 1975, seven-year-old Doina Cornell left England with her father Jimmy Cornell, mother and brother to spend the next six years sailing around the world on a small yacht. The author has drawn on her memories, diaries and stories, to re-create the perfect life led by a sailing child: swimming, diving and playing the days away in deserted anchorages; visiting some of the most beautiful islands in the world; falling in love with the sea in all its ever-changing moods, from balmy trade wind ocean passages to the treacherous breakers that crash onto tropical reefs.

Luis Tiant is one of the most charismatic and accomplished players in Boston Red Sox history - a cigar-chomping maestro who was the heart and soul of Boston's teams in the 1970s. Nobody was a tougher competitor on the diamond, and few were as successful. There may be no more qualified pitcher not yet enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. In Son of Havana, Tiant puts his huge heart on his sleeve and describes his road from fields strewn with rocks and rubbish in Havana to the pristine lawns of Major League ballparks.

Senator Reverend Raphael G. Warnock occupies a singular place in American life. As senior pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, and now as a senator from Georgia, he is the rare voice who can call out the uncomfortable truths that shape contemporary American life and, at a time of division, summon us all to a higher moral ground.

For fans of ME ME ME, this is the next chapter in Charlotte Crosby's life - Celebrity Big Brother winner, MTV presenter, fitness DVD and book best seller and one of the UK's best loved and funniest reality stars.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the great American literary icons of the 20th century, a protégé of Langston Hughes and mentor to a generation of poets, including Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and Elizabeth Alexander. Her poetry took inspiration from the complex portraits of Black American life she observed growing up on Chicago's South Side - a world of kitchenette apartments and vibrant streets.

In 1895, a 22-year-old Italian seamstress named Maria Barbella was accused of murdering her lover, Domenico Cataldo, after he seduced her and broke his promise to marry her. Following a sensational trial filled with inept lawyers, dishonest reporters and editors, and a crooked judge repaying political favors, the illiterate immigrant became the first woman sentenced to the newly invented electric chair at Sing Sing, where she was also the first female prisoner. Enter Cora Slocomb, who launched the first campaign against the death penalty to save Maria.

For the first time, Nicole Curtis, the star of the megahit HGTV and DIY Network show Rehab Addict, reveals her private struggles, her personal victories, and the inspiring lessons we can all learn from them. Nicole Curtis is the tough, soulful, charismatic dynamo who, for the past 20 years, has worked tirelessly to restore historical houses, often revitalizing neighborhoods in the process.

David Limbaugh has examined Jesus Christ's life, his divinity, and the prophecies that preceded him in the Old Testament. Now, the best-selling author picks up after the Gospels in a captivating study of Jesus Christ's legacy in the early church and the work of Saint Paul.

When the British fought the young United States during the War of 1812, they knew that taking the mouth of the Mississippi River was the key to crippling their former colony. Capturing the city of New Orleans and stopping trade up the river sounded like a simple task - New Orleans was far away from Washington, out of sight and out of mind for the politicians. What the British didn't count on was the power of General Andrew Jackson.

Funny, charismatic and generous; angry, vicious and hurt; in pub lounges all over Cork City, Noelle McCarthy’s mother Carol rages against her life and everything she’s lost. As soon as she can, Noelle runs away. All the way to New Zealand, to make a new, different kind of life. But then Mammy gets sick, and it’s time to face everything that’s waiting back home.

When Lanfranco ‘Frankie’ Dettori arrived on British shores in 1985, aged just 14, he couldn’t speak a word of English. Having left school just a year earlier, he was eager to become a stable boy and apprentice jockey, following in the footsteps of his father. This was his first, but certainly not his last, leap of faith. Despite his slight size, Frankie’s impact upon the British racing scene was immediate and significant.

In 2001, Paul Bacon was a typical young New Yorker: hip, liberal, overeducated, a little aimless. But then 9/11 happened. Hearing a call to duty and lacking any better employment options, he joined the NYPD, with the earnest hope of making his hometown a safer place. Silly him.

A talented daughter of Holocaust survivors, Lily Isaacs is a woman who has felt pain and loss, and found the incomparable joy of a life with Jesus Christ. As a new Christian believer, she became estranged from her Jewish parents because of her faith, yet she never walked alone, always clinging to the hope she found in Christ. Throughout her music and that of her children, who together form the beloved and multi-award winning group The Isaacs, you hear the resonating inspirational legacy of this family's faith journey.

Youth and frailty, ambition and anxiety, the limitations of the body and the challenges of personal transformation: these are the undercurrents that animate acclaimed poet Ashleigh Young's first collection of essays. In Can You Tolerate This? - the title comes from the question chiropractors ask to test a patient's pain threshold - Young ushers us into her early years in the faraway yet familiar landscape of New Zealand: fantasizing about Paul McCartney, cheering on her older brother's fledging music career, and yearning for a larger and more creative life.

E. M. Forster’s homosexuality was the central fact of his life. Between Wilde’s imprisonment and the Stonewall riots, Forster led a long, strange, and imaginative life as a gay man. He preserved a vast archive of his private life - a history of gay experience he believed would find its audience in a happier time. Seeing Forster’s life through the lens of his sexuality, Wendy Moffat’s biography offers us a dramatic new view - revealing his astuteness as a social critic, his political bravery, and his prophetic vision of gay intimacy.

The publication in 1992 of Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story shook the British Royal family to its very foundations. Initially greeted with disbelief, as time passed, it became clear that the book was, as its title claimed, Diana's true story.

In Twenty-One Years Young: Essays, author Amy Dong examines the uncertainty, absurdity, and beauty in growing up. This poignant collection of essays is unabashedly intimate, drawing the listener into Dong’s life as if they were a close friend. She masterfully evokes humor, nostalgia, melancholy, and euphoria to create scenes that are as vivid as they are profound.