Collection: Biography & Memoir

Here, you will delve into the compelling and deeply personal narrative of "I, Rob Graves," a remarkable journey that unveils the critical importance of accurate diagnosis and treatment compliance. In this introspective odyssey, you'll follow the life of Robert P. Graves, a resilient gay man who came of age in Buffalo, New York, during the height of the AIDS Epidemic.

As you navigate the pages of this story, Robert opens his heart and soul, laying bare the intimate details of his life's tapestry. You'll accompany him through the arduous process of self-discovery and acceptance of his homosexuality, while bearing witness to the monumental health challenges he encountered along the way. Robert bares it all-his years of therapy, the battle against a sex addiction, his journey of reconciling his sexuality, and the management of depression and Bipolar Disorder through meticulous medication oversight.

Within these words, you'll discover how Robert learned the profound art of forgiveness and acceptance, ultimately finding success and inner peace in a world that often met him with cruelty. By sharing his story, he passionately champions the cause of destigmatizing mental health and sexuality, dismantling the stereotypes that have been unfairly assigned.

The title, "I, Rob Graves," alludes to Robert's tumultuous past, where he grappled with an anonymous sex addiction as a way to self-medicate during one of the most perilous eras for gay men. Yet, he emerged from those dark days, triumphant and HIV-negative, having defied the odds during the AIDS Epidemic.

Penned by a gay man who weathered the storm of the AIDS Epidemic and wrestled with the complexities of mental health, "I, Rob Graves" stands as a beacon of hope. It encourages readers to forge their own paths when grappling with mental health, sexuality, and addiction, whether within the LGBTQ+ community or the broader society. Robert's story serves as an inspirational testament to resilience, extending a reassuring hand to those enduring trauma and mental health struggles, letting them know they are not alone, not "diseased" or tainted, but deserving of the same love, acceptance, and forgiveness that Robert has found within himself.

A visually stunning, award-winning photography book of transgender New Yorkers, complete with thought-provoking and revealing interviews that honor the transgender community and the courage it takes to find oneself and defy societal norms.

A growing portion of the LGBTQ+ community identifies as transgender; they are family members, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, and yet they are all-too-often stigmatized and misunderstood. This visual tour de force presents exquisite portraits of more than fifty New Yorkers who identify as trans, genderqueer, or gender nonbinary, and interviews with them in which they reveal who they are and what their transitions were like and combat common misconceptions and stereotypes.

The vibrant, honest photographs were taken on the streets of New York or in iconic places like Grand Central Station, and together the photos and interviews provoke questions on gender identity, the gender spectrum, and gender expectations. In total, this is an unparalleled articulation of the expressions of sexuality, gender, and self that New York, in all of its beauty, honesty, and compassion, welcomes, as well as a celebration of the power of finding oneself and a compelling call for respect and acceptance.

In addition to enlightening text from more than fifty members of New York's trans community and the author, award-winning documentary photographer Peter Bussian, there are inspiring longer essays and an extraordinary foreword by the celebrated trans activist Abby Chava Stein. Trans New York is the winner of a prestigious International Photography Award (IPA) for its superb images.

A fascinating investigation into the lucrative, minimally regulated, fast-growing industry of egg freezing, from a young reporter on a personal journey into the world of cutting-edge reproductive medicine

Ovaries. Most women have two; journalist Natalie Lampert has only one. Then, in her early twenties, she almost lost it, along with her ability to ever have biological children. Doctors urged her to freeze her eggs, and Lampert started asking questions.

The Big Freeze is the story of Lampert's personal quest to investigate egg freezing, as well as the multibillion-dollar femtech industry, in order to decide the best way to preserve her own fertility. She attended flashy egg-freezing parties, visited high-priced fertility clinics, talked to dozens of women who froze their eggs, toured the facility in Italy where the technology was developed, and even attended a memorial service for thousands of accidentally destroyed embryos.

What was once science fiction is now simply science: Fertility can be frozen in time. Between 2009 and 2021, nearly 100,000 women in the United States opted to freeze their eggs. Along with in vitro fertilization, egg freezing is touted as a way for women to "have it all" by conquering their biological clocks, in line with the global trend of delaying childbirth. A generation after the Pill, this revolutionary technology offers a new kind of freedom for women. But does egg freezing give women real agency or just the illusion of it?

A personal and deeply researched guide to the pros, cons, and many facets of this wildly popular technology, The Big Freeze is a page-turning exploration of the quest to control fertility, with invaluable information that answers the questions women have been afraid to ask--or didn't know they should ask in the first place.

Johnny Mize was one of the greatest hitters in baseball's golden age of great hitters. Born and raised in tiny Demorest, Georgia, in the northeast Georgia mountains, Mize emerged from the heart of Dixie as a Bunyonesque slugger, a quiet but sharp-witted man from a broken home who became a professional player at seventeen, embarking on an extended tour of the expansive St. Louis Cardinals Minor League system.

Mize then spent fifteen seasons terrorizing Major League pitchers as a member of those Cardinals, the New York Giants of Mel Ott and Leo Durocher, and finally with the New York Yankees, who won a record five straight World Series with Mize as their ace in the hole--the best pinch hitter in the American League. Few hitters have combined such meticulous bat control with brute power the way Mize did. Mize was a line-drive hitter who rarely struck out and also hit for distance, to all fields, and usually for a high average. Nicknamed the Big Cat, "nobody had a better, smoother, easier swing than John," said Cardinals teammate Don Gutteridge. "It was picture perfect."

Tabbed as a can't-miss Hall of Famer, then all but forgotten, Mize spent twenty-eight years waiting for the call from Cooperstown before he was finally inducted in 1981, delighting fans with his straightforward commentary and sly sense of humor during a memorable induction speech.

From the backroads of the Minor Leagues to the sunny Caribbean, where he played alongside the best Black and Latin players as a twenty-one-year-old, and to the Major Leagues, where he became a ten-time All-Star, home run champion, and World Series hero, Mize forged a memorable trail along baseball's landscape. This is the first complete biography of the Big Cat.

By turns harrowing and hopeful, MAKE IT COUNT is the inspiring story of the first openly transgender woman to win a NCAA title, following her traditional upbringing in Jamaica, her fight to become a US citizen, and her efforts to achieve her Olympic dreams.

CeCé Telfer is a warrior. The first openly transgender woman to win an NCAA championship, she has contended with transphobia on and off the track since childhood. Now, she stands at the crossroads of a national and international conversation about equity in sports, forced to advocate for her personhood and rights at every turn. After spending years training for the 2024 Olympics, Telfer has been sidelined and silenced more times than she can count. But she's never been good at taking no for an answer.

MAKE IT COUNT is Telfer's raw and inspiring story. From coming of age in Jamaica, where she grew up hearing a constant barrage of slurs, to beginning her new life in Toronto and then New Hampshire, where she realized what running could offer her, to living in the backseat of her car while searching for a coach, to Mexico, where she trained for the US Trials, this book follows the arc of Telfer's Olympic dream.

This is the story of running on what feels like the edge of a knife, of what it means to compete when you're not just an athlete but treated like a walking controversy. But it's also the story of resilience and athleticism, of a runner who found a clarity in her sport that otherwise eluded her--a sense of being simply alive on this earth, a human moving through space. Finally, herself.

Read about Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny and his incredible career in this book from Who HQ Now, the series featuring the trending topics and news makers of today.

Bad Bunny, born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, is one of today's most popular artists. He made his start posting his music on Soundcloud, and in 2016, his song "Diles" got him signed to a major record label. Since then, Bad Bunny has performed at Coachella and collaborated with superstars like Cardi B, J Balvin, and Drake. Breaking language barriers, Bad Bunny is now one of the top streamed artists internationally on Spotify. Bad Bunny is just getting started with his music takeover, having won 3 Grammys and 10 Billboard Music Awards. Not only that, Bad Bunny is heavily involved in activism spaces and even wrestles professionally! Learn more about Bad Bunny and his diverse career in this illustrated biography for young readers.

This "hilarious and honest" bestselling memoir from a rising comedy star tackles issues of gender, sexuality, feminism, and the Catholic childhood that prepared her for a career as an outspoken lesbian comedian (Abby Wambach).
Cameron Esposito wanted to be a priest and ended up a stand-up comic. Now she would like to tell the whole queer as hell story. Her story. Not the sidebar to a straight person's rebirth-she doesn't give a makeover or plan a wedding or get a couple back together. This isn't a queer tragedy. She doesn't die at the end of this book, having finally decided to kiss the girl. It's the sexy, honest, bumpy, and triumphant dyke's tale her younger, wasn't-allowed-to-watch-Ellen self needed to read. Because there was a long time when she thought she wouldn't make it. Not as a comic, but as a human.

SAVE YOURSELF is full of funny and insightful recollections about everything from coming out (at a Catholic college where sexual orientation wasn't in the nondiscrimination policy) to how joining the circus can help you become a better comic (so much nudity) to accepting yourself for who you are-even if you're, say, a bowl cut-sporting, bespectacled, gender-nonconforming child with an eye patch (which Cameron was). Packed with heart, humor, and cringeworthy stories anyone who has gone through puberty, fallen in love, started a career, or had period sex in Rome can relate to, Cameron's memoir is for that timid, fenced-in kid in all of us-and the fearless stand-up yearning to break free.

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ONE OF BUSTLE'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF MARCH

Instant New York Times bestseller

"Standing up to bullies is my kind of thing."

How did Stormy Daniels become the woman willing to take on a president?

In this book, Stormy Daniels tells her whole story for the first time: what it's like to be a leading actress and director in the adult film business, the full truth about her journey from a rough childhood in Louisiana onto the national stage, and everything about her interaction with Donald Trump that led to the nondisclosure agreement and the behind-the-scenes attempts to intimidate her.

Stormy is funny, sharp, warm, and impassioned by turns. Her story is a thoroughly American one, of a girl who loved reading and horses and who understood from a very young age what she wanted?and who also knew she'd have to get every step of the way there on her own.

People can't stop talking about Stormy Daniels. And they won't be able to stop talking about her fresh, surprising, completely candid, nothing-held-back book.

A glittering portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them, from the award-winning author of The Plaza.

The twentieth century American department store: a palace of consumption where every wish could be met under one roof - afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. In the 1930s, Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller came to her husband's department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor championed American designers during World War II--before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies--becoming the first businesswoman to earn a $1 million salary. And in the 1960s Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel re-invented the look of the modern department store. With a preternatural sense for trends, she inspired a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.

From the author of the beloved bestseller The Emerald Mile comes a rollicking and poignant account of the epic misadventure of two friends, zero preparation, and one dream: a 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of America's most magnificent national park and the grandest wilderness on earth.

A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, the National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be "a walk in the park." Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed to the scheme, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as "the toughest hike in the world."

The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined--and came within a hair's breadth of killing them both. They struggled to make their way through the all but impenetrable reaches of its truest wilderness, a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with peril--and where, even today, there is still no trail along the length of the country's best-known and most iconic park.

Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, where only a handful of humans have ever laid eyes. Members of the canyon's eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the center of our national parks--and exposed them to the impinging threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarko's dying father, who had first pointed him toward the canyon more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape.

And always, there was the great gorge itself: austere and unforgiving but suffused with magic, drenched in wonder, and redeemed by its own transcendent beauty.

A Walk in the Park is a singular portrait of a sublime place, and a deeply moving plea for the preservation of America's greatest natural treasure.

A brilliant debut memoir about a young writer--struggling with depression, family issues, and addiction--and his life-changing decade working for Joan Didion

As an aspiring novelist in his early twenties, Cory Leadbeater was presented with an opportunity to work for a well-known writer whose identity was kept confidential. Since the tumultuous days of childhood, Cory had sought refuge from the rougher parts of life in the pages of books. Suddenly, he found himself the personal assistant to a titan of literature: Joan Didion.

In the nine years that followed, Cory shared Joan's rarefied world, transformed not only by her blazing intellect but by her generous friendship and mentorship. Together they recited poetry in the mornings, dined with Supreme Court justices, attended art openings, smoked a single cigarette before bed.

But secretly, Cory was spiraling. He reeled from the death of a close friend. He spent his weekends at a federal prison, visiting his father as he served time for fraud. He struggled day after day to write the novel that would validate him as a real writer. And meanwhile, the forces of addiction and depression loomed large.

In hypnotic prose that pulses with life and longing, The Uptown Local explores the fault lines of class, family, loss, and creativity. It is a love letter to a cultural icon--and a moving testament to the relationships that sustain us in the eternal pursuit of a life worth living.

The behind-the-scenes story of the quintessential film noir and cult classic, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity--its true crime origins and crucial impact on film history--is told for the first time in this riveting narrative published for the film's 80th anniversary.

From actual murder to magazine fiction to movie, the history of Double Indemnity is as complex as anything that hit the screen during film noir's classic period. Born of a 1927 tabloid-sensation "crime of the century" that inspired journalist and would-be mystery writer James M. Cain, Hollywood quickly bid on the film rights to Double Indemnity, but throughout the 1930s a strict code of censorship made certain that no studio could green-light a murder melodrama based on real events. Then in 1943, writer and newly minted director Billy Wilder hired hard-boiled novelist Raymond Chandler to help him write a script that would be acceptable to industry censors.

Wilder then cajoled a star cast into coming aboard: the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck in her unforgettable turn as the ultimate femme fatale; Fred MacMurray, cast against type as her partner in crime; and Edward G. Robinson as a dogged claims investigator. Besides Chandler, other key collaborators were veteran cinematographer John Seitz, costume designer Edith Head, and composer Miklós Rózsa. The final film became one of the earliest studio noirs to gain critical and commercial success, including being nominated for seven Oscars. It powerfully influenced the burgeoning noir movement, spawned many imitators, and affected the later careers of all its cast and crew. Double Indemnity's impact on filmmakers and audiences is still felt eight decades after its release.

Renowned naturalist Kenn Kaufman examines the scientific discoveries of John James Audubon and his artistic and ornithologist peers to show how what they saw (and what they missed) reflects how we perceive and understand the natural world.

Raging ambition. Towering egos. Competition under a veneer of courtesy. Heroic effort combined with plagiarism, theft, exaggeration, and fraud. This was the state of bird study in eastern North America during the early 1800s, as a handful of intrepid men raced to find the last few birds that were still unknown to science.

The most famous name in the bird world was John James Audubon, who painted spectacular portraits of birds. But although his images were beautiful, creating great art was not his main goal. Instead, he aimed to illustrate (and write about) as many different species as possible, obsessed with trying to outdo his rival, Alexander Wilson. George Ord, a fan and protégé of Wilson, held a bitter grudge against Audubon for years, claiming he had faked much of his information and his scientific claims. A few of Audubon's birds were pure fiction, and some of his writing was invented or plagiarized. Other naturalists of the era, including Charles Bonaparte (nephew of Napoleon), John Townsend, and Thomas Nuttall, also became entangled in the scientific derby, as they stumbled toward an understanding of the natural world--an endeavor that continues to this day.

Despite this intense competition, a few species--including some surprisingly common songbirds, hawks, sandpipers, and more--managed to evade discovery for years. Here, renowned bird expert and artist Kenn Kaufman explores this period in history from a new angle, by considering the birds these people discovered and, especially, the ones they missed. Kaufman has created portraits of the birds that Audubon never saw, attempting to paint them in that artist's own stunning style, as a way of examining the history of natural sciences and nature art. He shows how our understanding of birds continues to gain clarity, even as some mysteries persist from Audubon's time until ours.

Soon to featured in the Ken Burns documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust, airing on PBS in fall 2022

A New York Times Notable Book - Winner of the National Jewish Book Award - Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award - A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist

"A gripping detective story, a stirring epic, a tale of ghosts and dark marvels, a thrilling display of scholarship, a meditation on the unfathomable mystery of good and evil, a testimony to the enduring power of the ancient archetypes that haunt one Jewish family and the greater human family, The Lost is as complex and rich with meaning and story as the past it seeks to illuminate. A beautiful book, beautifully written."--Michael Chabon

In this rich and riveting narrative, a writer's search for the truth behind his family's tragic past in World War II becomes a remarkably original epic--part memoir, part reportage, part mystery, and part scholarly detective work--that brilliantly explores the nature of time and memory, family and history.

The Lost begins as the story of a boy who grew up in a family haunted by the disappearance of six relatives during the Holocaust--an unmentionable subject that gripped his imagination from earliest childhood. Decades later, spurred by the discovery of a cache of desperate letters written to his grandfather in 1939 and tantalized by fragmentary tales of a terrible betrayal, Daniel Mendelsohn sets out to find the remaining eyewitnesses to his relatives' fates. That quest eventually takes him to a dozen countries on four continents and forces him to confront the wrenching discrepancies between the histories we live and the stories we tell. And it leads him, finally, back to the small Ukrainian town where his family's story began, and where the solution to a decades-old mystery awaits him.

Deftly moving between past and present, interweaving a world-wandering odyssey with childhood memories of a now-lost generation of immigrant Jews and provocative ruminations on biblical texts and Jewish history, The Lost transforms the story of one family into a profound, morally searching meditation on our fragile hold on the past. Deeply personal, grippingly suspenseful, and beautifully written, this literary tour de force illuminates all that is lost, and found, in the passage of time.

Baldwin's life and legacy as remembered by a pantheon of artists and writers: from Jamaica Kincaid and Barry Jenkins to Richard Avedon and Alice Neel

When author James Baldwin died in 1987, he left behind an extraordinary body of work: novels, poems, film scripts and, perhaps most indelibly, essays. A friend and supporter of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, Baldwin was a critical voice in the civil rights movement. After reaching acclaim in his early career as a writer, he struggled to retain the author's "I," while taking on the "we" of the people.
Edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hilton Als and growing out of his landmark exhibition at David Zwirner in 2019, God Made My Face brings together an impressive assembly of contributors, ranging from Baldwin biographer David Leeming to novelist Jamaica Kincaid and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, to create a memorial mosaic: one that not only mirrors Baldwin's various tones but also closely examines his singular contributions to cinema, theater, the essay and Black American critical studies. These essays are illustrated by artwork from modern and contemporary artists who were either personal contemporaries of Baldwin or directly inspired by his work. In each piece assembled here, the authors speak from a personal, informed perspective, illuminating Baldwin's deeply anguished and enlightened voice and his belief that, ultimately--because we are human--we share the potential to love, connect and live together in all our glory.
Artists include: Diane Arbus, Eugène Atget, Richard Avedon, Don Bachardy, Alvin Baltrop, Anthony Barboza, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Beauford Delaney, Marlene Dumas, Glenn Ligon, George McCalman, Alice Neel, Elle Pérez, Cameron Rowland, Kara Walker, James Welling, Larry Wolhandler.
Authors include: Stephen Best, Daphne A. Brooks, Teju Cole, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Barry Jenkins, Jamaica Kincaid, David Leeming, Darryl Pinckney.

Born in 1955, Lydia R. Otero knew they were queer the moment their consciousness had evolved enough to formulate thoughts. Nicknamed La Butch by their family, Otero shares a unique perspective: displaced by their queerness, but rooted in place through their relationship with Tucson, Arizona. In this book, which combines personal memoir and the historical archive, Otero takes readers to a world that existed on the physical and social margins and describes how a new freeway created a barrier that greatly influenced formative aspects of Otero's childhood. The author examines the multiple effects of environmental racism, while the lack of services and low expectations of the schools Otero attended are further examples of the discrimination directed at brown people. This book offers more self-disclosure than Otero's previous works, as the author's memories and experiences of childhood take center stage. Otero reveals the day-to-day survival mechanisms they depended upon, the exhilaration of first love, and the support they received from key family members