Personal Memoirs

Karen Grassle, the beloved actress who played Ma on Little House on the Prairie, grew up at the edge of the Pacific Ocean in a family where love was plentiful but alcohol wreaked havoc.

On the morning of May 11, 2015, Erin Davis, one of Canada’s most beloved radio personalities, suffered a devastating blow when her daughter, Lauren, who had marked a joyous Mother’s Day with her husband and young son only hours before, failed to awaken to her baby’s cries. Thus began Erin’s journey of grieving out loud with her family, friends, and listeners and of demonstrating by example how to pick up and keep going after suffering the worst loss a parent can endure.

Film and television director Barry Sonnenfeld's outrageous and hilarious memoir traces his idiosyncratic upbringing in New York City, his breaking into film as a cinematographer with the Coen brothers, and his unexpected career as the director behind such huge film franchises as The Addams Family and Men in Black, and beloved work like Get Shorty, Pushing Daises, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The Unbreakable Child, a story about forgiving the unforgivable, is a riveting journey inside the secretive underbelly of the St. Thomas / St. Vincent Orphan Asylum in rural Kentucky. It is the first book in the United States to confront the institutionalized physical and emotional abuse suffered by countless orphans at the hands of Catholic clergy over these last decades.

In The Rule, legendary trader and hedge fund pioneer Larry Hite recounts his working-class upbringing in Brooklyn as a dyslexic, partially blind kid who was anything but a model student - and how he went on to found and run Mint Investment Management Company, one of the most profitable and largest quantitative hedge funds in the world.

Superman. Diesel. The Big Aristotle. Shaq Fu. The Big Daddy. The Big Shaqtus. Wilt Chamberneezy. The Real Deal. The Big Shamrock. Shaq....From growing up in difficult circumstances and getting cut from his high-school basketball team to his larger-than-life basketball career, Shaquille O'Neal lays it all out in Shaq Uncut: My Story.

When we’re moving at 115 MPH, we rarely see the wall coming. But it comes for all of us and when it does, we grasp for lessons, for meaning, for purpose. Each moment (good or bad) and each win or loss, provides us an opportunity to learn, and if we choose to take it, that opportunity can change our lives - and the world - for the better. The human spirit craves connection. Authenticity. Belonging. Touch. Gratitude. Purpose. We need to make our interactions count.

One of five children, Pat watched as her alcoholic mother struggled to get by on charity, cons, and petty crimes. At age seven, Pat was taught to roll drunks for money. At 12, she was targeted for sex by a man eight years her senior; by 13, she was pregnant. By 15, Pat was a mother of two. Alone at 16, Pat was determined to make a better life for her children. But with no job skills and an eighth-grade education, her options were limited. She learned quickly that hustling and humor were the only tools she had to survive.

For seventy years, Queen Elizabeth ruled over an institution and a family. During her lifetime she was constant in her desire to provide a steady presence and to be a trustworthy steward of the British people and the Commonwealth. But times change. Recent years have brought grief and turmoil to the House of Windsor. In The New Royals, journalist Katie Nicholl provides a nuanced look at Elizabeth’s remarkable and unrivalled reign, with new stories from Palace courtiers and aides, documentarians, and family members.

Fred and Rose West are virtually unique in British criminal history: a husband and wife who loved and killed together. During their long relationship, the Wests murdered a series of young women, burying the remains of nine victims under their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, including those of their daughter. What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country.

Real estate titan, best-selling author, and TV impresario Donald J. Trump reveals the secrets of his success. Over the years, everyone has urged Trump to write on this subject, but it wasn't until NBC and executive producer Mark Burnett asked him to star in The Apprentice that he realized just how hungry people are to learn how great personal wealth is created and first-class businesses are run.

When Carol Loomis first mentioned a little-known Omaha hedge-fund manager in a 1966 Fortune article, she didn’t dream that Warren Buffett would one day be considered the world’s greatest investor - nor that she and Buffett would become close personal friends. Now Loomis has collected and updated the best Buffett articles Fortune published between 1966 and 2012, including thirteen cover stories and a dozen pieces authored by Buffett himself. Loomis has provided commentary about each major arti­cle that supplies context and her own informed point of view.

In After the Rain, celebrated self-care storyteller Alexandra Elle delivers 15 lessons on how to overcome obstacles, build confidence, and cultivate abundance. Part memoir and part guide, Elle shares stirring stories from her own remarkable journey from self-doubt to self-love. This soulful collection is filled with illuminating reflections on loss, fear, bravery, healing, love, acceptance, and more.

Natalie Goldberg has been writing for the past fifty years. But at the beginning of the pandemic, she suddenly wasn’t able to write anymore. Her imaginative wellspring had dried up, and she was forced to ask herself: what do I do when what has always worked for me doesn’t work anymore? In this beautifully written, inspiring personal account, Natalie shares her harrowing journey out of creative paralysis and back onto the page.

When four-year-old Colton Burpo emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven, his family doesn’t know what to believe. Heaven Is for Real details what Colton saw and his family’s journey towards accepting their young son had visited the afterlife.

In this entrepreneur's memoir, Alli Webb invites you into her world as a businesswoman, a mother, and a partner, untangling her complicated journey with the wit and humor of a talented storyteller and the authentic wisdom of a woman who's been through it all—all the success and all the chaos. When Drybar and its world-famous blowouts took off seemingly overnight, she found herself surrounded by celebrity clients like Zooey Deschanel, Jennifer Garner, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Julia Roberts.

Six-year-old Amelie lives with her mother, Kelly, who suffers from bipolar disorder. After Kelly attempts to burn down their family house, it becomes clear that her daughter is in grave danger. Amelie is quickly taken into care. When she arrives with foster carer Casey Watson, Amelie acts much younger than her age. Casey must get to the root of Amelie’s behaviour, while doing what she can to keep the family together. Will Amelie ever find the safety of home?

Before Alex Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, they think their position is clear. The child of two lawyers, Alex is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as Alex reviews old tapes—the moment they hear him speak of his crimes—they are overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by their reaction, Alex digs deeper and deeper into the case.

At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy.

Stephen Smith is the boy who did not exist. Born out of wedlock in the early 1960s, Steve's parents - both devout Catholics - had felt so 'shamed' by their son's illegitimate birth that they hid him away from the world by locking him in the cellar...for 13 years. Apart from a few admissions to hospital as a result of his 'imprisonment', Steve remained in the coal cellar of the family home where he was deprived of daylight, his childhood, school and human contact until he'd reached his teenage years.