Collection: Biography & Memoir

This original biography of Edgar Cayce tells the complete story of America's most well-documented psychic. Explores Cayce's life, work, psychic readings, and phenomenal medical cures. Photos. Index.

Meet the Tres Hermanas: Evelina Antonetty, Lillian López, and Elba Cabrera. They moved from Puerto Rico to New York City as children and grew up to become leaders in their Bronx community. Evelina, an activist for social causes, founded United Bronx Parents. Lillian became a librarian and administrator who fought for Spanish and bilingual books and Spanish-speaking library staff. Elba worked closely with Evelina and became an ambassador and advocate for the arts.

Rhythmic verse by NoNieqa Ramos and vibrant illustrations by Nicole Medina provide a stirring look at three dynamic changemakers.

In Epic Athletes: Stephen Curry, acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Dan Wetzel tells the inspiring, electrifying story of the NBA superstar, beginning a new series of sports biographies for young readers!

Featuring comic-style illustrations by Zeke Peña!

When you think of Stephen Curry, one word comes to mind: greatness. From shooting three-pointers with laser precision to his clutch ability to hit buzzer-beaters time and again, he has established himself as one of the best players in pro basketball.

But greatness was never a guarantee for Steph. The son of a talented NBA player, he dreamed of one day playing professionally just like his dad. Yet Steph, who was always smaller and weaker than the competition, was told over and over that he would never be talented enough to be a college star or NBA player--let alone the MVP of the entire league. Through tenacity and hard work, he proved them all wrong and went on to dismantle the record books.

With the high energy of a TV commentator, and featuring dynamic comic-style illustrations, this engaging biography tells the story of an NBA All-Star and the path he took to achieve his dreams.

* "Wetzel knows how to organize the facts and tell a good story. . . an unusually informative and enjoyable sports biography for young readers." --Booklist (starred review)

A Junior Library Guild selection!

In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillion-copy best-selling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of Elvis, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

Elvis was born into poverty in North Mississippi, a place where opportunities were a rare thing to see. Still, he felt that someday, somehow, something amazing would happen. When he sang in a school talent show, he realized that singing was all he wanted to do with his life.

He had just finished high school when he plucked up the courage and walked through the doors of Sun Studios, ready to record his first song. After this came hit after hit, and he popularized a new genre of music that mixed all kinds of different styles. That genre was Rock 'n' Roll, and it would take the world by storm!

All the great artists that came after him still look up to little Elvis, the King of Rock 'n' Roll, the unique and irreplaceable artist who changed the course of music history. This inspiring book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the music legend's life.

Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

This empowering series of books offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardcover and paperback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. With rewritten text for older children, the treasuries each bring together a multitude of dreamers in a single volume. You can also collect a selection of the books by theme in boxed gift sets. Activity books and a journal provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children.

Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS!

"Humorous, endearing, and intimate." --TIME

"Mother and daughter relationships are always tricky but this peripatetic pair has outdone all of us with this most excellent adventure written by my namesake, author Connie Wang." --Connie Chung

A dazzling mother-daughter adventure around the world in pursuit of self-discovery, a family reckoning, and Asian American defiance

In Chinese, the closest expression to oh my god is wo de ma ya. It's an interjection, a polite expletive, something to say when you're out of words. Translated literally, it means oh my mother--the instinctual first person you think of when you're on the cusp of losing it, or putting it all together.

In each essay of this hilarious, heartfelt, and pitch-perfectly honest memoir, journalist Connie Wang explores her complicated relationship to her stubborn and charismatic mother, Qing Li, through the "oh my god" moments in their travels together. From attending a Magic Mike strip show in Vegas to experimenting with edibles in Amsterdam to flip-flopping through Versailles, this iconic mother-daughter duo venture into the world to find their place in it, and sometimes rail against it--as well as against each other.

There are hijinks, capers, and adventures. There is also tenderness, growth, and discovery. In telling these stories about the places they've gone and the things they've done, Wang reveals another story: the true story of two women who finally learned that once we are comfortable with the feeling of not belonging--once we can reject the need to belong to any place, community, census, designation, or nation--we can experience something almost like freedom.

A beautifully illustrated collection of profiles of more than 80 goddesses and other powerful women retold for children aged 7-9.

Delve into a world of key female figures from all over the world in this thrilling compendium of goddesses and heroines. With more than 30 stories about goddesses and powerful women, this is a must-have introduction for young readers interested in female figures from different cultures.

This collection of tales for children aged 7-9 includes stories like how Japanese goddess of the dawn Ame-no-Uzume saved the day by dancing and how ancient Greek witch Medea helped to defeat a dragon.The enthralling stories introduce famous figures from around the world, while a handy reference section is packed with information about the goddesses and heroines themselves. Perfect for children aged 7 to 9, this collection contains more than 30 beloved stories retold by award-winning author Dr Jean Menzies, with striking illustrations bringing the tales to life.

This book on goddesses for children offers:

- Over 80 profiles of women in mythology, covering famous classics and lesser-known stories.
- Striking illustrations by multi-award-winning artist Katie Ponder.
- A handy pronunciation guide listing all difficult-to-pronounce names for the reader's convenience.
- Stunning gold foil on the cover, making it a wonderful gift for children into mythology.
- More than 30 stories, combining the appeal of a story collection with key reference information.

It's time to dive into the underworld of powerful women from religion and myth, from famous figures such as the warrior Mulan, to lesser-known characters like the ancient Greek queen Alcestis. Goddesses and Heriones brings the world of legendary women to life and is the perfect gift for children who love history and mythology.

At DK, we believe in the power of discovery.

So why not complete the collection!

Discover the secrets of the pharohs tombs with Egyptian Myths, read extraordinary stories from Ancient Greece with Greek Myths, and uncover action-packed tales of extraordinary creatures and compelling gods, goddesses and more with Norse Myths.

The #1 New York Times bestseller by Time's 2019 Person of the Year

"Greta Thunberg is already one of our planet's greatest advocates." --Barack Obama

The groundbreaking speeches of Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist who has become the voice of a generation, including her historic address to the United Nations

In August 2018 a fifteen-year-old Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, decided not to go to school one day in order to protest the climate crisis. Her actions sparked a global movement, inspiring millions of students to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference brings you Greta in her own words, for the first time. Collecting her speeches that have made history across the globe, from the United Nations to Capitol Hill and mass street protests, her book is a rallying cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the living planet, no matter how powerless we feel. Our future depends upon it.

"Fast-paced and highly absorbing." --Wall Street Journal

A magisterial new history of the fierce final chapter of the "Indian Wars," told through the lives of the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders, who led Sioux resistance and triumphed at the Battle of Little Bighorn

True West magazine's "Best Nonfiction Book of the Year"

Winner of the Colorado Book Award

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull: Their names are iconic, their significance in American history undeniable. Together, these two Lakota chiefs, one a fabled warrior and the other a revered holy man, crushed George Armstrong Custer's vaunted Seventh Cavalry. Yet their legendary victory at the Little Big Horn has overshadowed the rest of their rich and complex lives. Now, based on years of research and drawing on a wealth of previously ignored primary sources, award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner delivers the definitive chronicle, thrillingly told, of these extraordinary Indigenous leaders.

Both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were born and grew to manhood on the High Plains of the American West, in an era when vast herds of buffalo covered the earth, and when their nomadic people could move freely, following the buffalo and lording their fighting prowess over rival Indian nations. But as idyllic as this life seemed to be, neither man had known a time without whites. Fur traders and government explorers were the first to penetrate Sioux lands, but they were soon followed by a flood of white intruders: Oregon-California Trail travelers, gold seekers, railroad men, settlers, town builders--and Bluecoats. The buffalo population plummeted, disease spread by the white man decimated villages, and conflicts with the interlopers increased.

On June 25, 1876, in the valley of the Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and the warriors who were inspired to follow them, fought the last stand of the Sioux, a fierce and proud nation that had ruled the Great Plains for decades. It was their greatest victory, but it was also the beginning of the end for their treasured and sacred way of life. And in the years to come, both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, defiant to the end, would meet violent--and eerily similar--fates.

An essential new addition to the canon of Indigenous American history and literature of the West, The Earth Is All That Lasts is a grand saga, both triumphant and tragic, of two fascinating and heroic leaders struggling to maintain the freedom of their people against impossible odds.

A Denver Post Bestseller

A Spur Award Finalist, Best Western Historical Nonfiction

Winner of the John M. Carroll Literary Award

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE The celebrated first memoir from arguably the most influential singer-songwriter in the country, Bob Dylan."I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities--smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota, and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times. By turns revealing, poetical, passionate, and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences. Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful, and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.

Carol Ruckdeschel is the wildest woman in America. She wrestles alligators, eats roadkill, rides horses bareback, and lives in a ramshackle cabin that she built by hand in an island wilderness. A combination of Henry David Thoreau and Jane Goodall, Carol is a self-taught scientist who has become a tireless defender of sea turtles on Cumberland Island, a national park off the coast of Georgia.

Cumberland, the country's largest and most biologically diverse barrier island, is celebrated for its windswept dunes and feral horses. Steel magnate Thomas Carnegie once owned much of the island, and in recent years, Carnegie heirs and the National Park Service have clashed with Carol over the island's future. What happens when a dirt-poor naturalist with only a high school diploma becomes an outspoken advocate on a celebrated but divisive island? Untamed is the story of an American original standing her ground and fighting for what she believes in, no matter the cost.

Untold until now, here is the story of Black sprinter and long-jumper Willye B. White, who went from picking cotton as a child in Mississippi to competing and winning in the 1956 and 1964 Olympics.

Future Olympian Willye B. White was born in 1939 in Money, Mississippi--but money was exactly what she didn't have. Abandoned by both her parents, she worked alongside her grandparents in the cotton fields. Willye had big dreams, though. So when her cousin noticed she was the fastest runner around, Willye jumped at the chance to put on her traveling shoes and run her way to better opportunities. And run Willye did, first for the Tennessee State Tigerbelles and then for the US Olympic team. Her struggles weren't over though--time and again, Willye had to remind herself, "I believe in me," whether she was running and jumping or witnessing the turmoil of the Civil Rights Movement.

Through Alice Faye Duncan's signature combination of poetry and prose and Keith Mallett's lifelike illustrations, readers will be inspired by Willye White's persistence and will learn how she contributed to Black progress with muscle and grit.

A former NPR correspondent takes you into his own ghost-filled life as he reports on a region in turmoil. Gerry Hadden was training to become a Buddhist monk when opportunity came knocking: the offer of a dream job as NPR's correspondent for Latin America. Arriving in Mexico in 2000 during the nation's first democratic transition of power, he witnesses both hope and uncertainty. But after 9/11, he finds himself documenting overlooked yet extraordinary events in a forgotten political landscape. As he reports on Colombia's drug wars, Guatemala's deleterious emigration, and Haiti's bloody rebellion, Hadden must also make a home for himself in Mexico City, coming to terms with its ghosts and chasing down the love of his life, in a riveting narrative that reveals the human heart at the center of international affairs.

Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time.

Praise for Decoded

"Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author's own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own."--The New Yorker

"Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps."--Los Angeles Times

"A riveting exploration of Jay-Z's journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism."--The Boston Globe

"Shawn Carter's most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating."--Entertainment Weekly

"Hip-hop's renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The power of George Jackson's personal story remains painfully relevant to our nation today, with its persistent racism, its hellish prisons, its unjust judicial system, and the poles of wealth and poverty that are at the root of all that. I hope the younger generation, black and white, will read Soledad Brother." --Howard Zinn, author, A People's History of the United States

A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, Soledad Brother is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life.
Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.

The vivid, behind-the-scenes story of perhaps the most consequential political moment in American history--Abraham Lincoln's history-changing nomination to lead the Republican Party in the 1860 presidential electionIllinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln had a record of political failure. In 1858, he had lost a celebrated Senate bid against incumbent Stephen Douglas, his second failed Senate run, and had not held public office since one term in Congress a decade earlier. As the Republican National Convention opened in mid-May 1860 in Chicago, powerful New York Senator William Seward was the overwhelming favorite for the presidential nomination, with notables like Salmon Chase and Edward Bates in the running. Few thought Lincoln stood a chance--though stubborn Illinois circuit Judge David Davis had come to fight for his friend anyway.Such was the political landscape as Edward Achorn's The Lincoln Miracle opens on Saturday, May 12, 1860. Chronicling the tense political drama as it unfolded over the next six days, Achorn explores the genius of Lincoln's quiet strategy, the vicious partisanship tearing apart America, the fierce battles raging over racism and slavery, and booming Chicago as a symbol of the modernization transforming the nation. Closely following the shrewd insiders on hand, from Seward power broker Thurlow Weed to editor Horace Greeley -- bent on stopping his former friend, Seward--Achorn brings alive arguably the most consequential political story in America's history.From smoky hotel rooms to night marches by the Wide Awakes, the new Republican youth organization, to fiery speeches on the floor of the giant convention center called The Wigwam, Achorn portrays a political climate even more contentious than our own today, out of which the seemingly impossible long shot prevailed, to the nation's everlasting benefit. As atmospheric and original as Achorn's previous Every Drop of Blood, The Lincoln Miracle is essential reading for any Lincoln aficionado as it is for anyone who cares about our nation's history.

Selma Blair has played many roles: Ingenue in Cruel Intentions. Preppy ice queen in Legally Blonde. Muse to Karl Lagerfeld. Advocate for the multiple sclerosis community. But before all of that, Selma was known best as ... a mean baby. In a memoir that is as wildly funny as it is emotionally shattering, Blair tells the captivating story of growing up and finding her truth.

"Blair is a rebel, an artist, and it turns out: a writer."--Glennon Doyle, Author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Untamed and Founder of Together Rising

The first story Selma Blair Beitner ever heard about herself is that she was a mean, mean baby. With her mouth pulled in a perpetual snarl and a head so furry it had to be rubbed to make way for her forehead, Selma spent years living up to her terrible reputation: biting her sisters, lying spontaneously, getting drunk from Passover wine at the age of seven, and behaving dramatically so that she would be the center of attention.

Although Selma went on to become a celebrated Hollywood actress and model, she could never quite shake the periods of darkness that overtook her, the certainty that there was a great mystery at the heart of her life. She often felt like her arms might be on fire, a sensation not unlike electric shocks, and she secretly drank to escape.

Over the course of this beautiful and, at times, devasting memoir, Selma lays bare her addiction to alcohol, her devotion to her brilliant and complicated mother, and the moments she flirted with death. There is brutal violence, passionate love, true friendship, the gift of motherhood, and, finally, the surprising salvation of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis.

In a voice that is powerfully original, fiercely intelligent, and full of hard-won wisdom, Selma Blair's Mean Baby is a deeply human memoir and a true literary achievement.