Collection: Biography & Memoir

Growing up in London's East End, Alexander McQueen left school at fifteen to become a tailor's apprentice on Mayfair's Savile Row. At twenty-two, he attended the prestigious art and design college Central Saint Martins and, after presenting his 1992 graduate collection that was bought on the spot by influential fashion stylist Isabella Blow, went on to change the course of fashion history.

Celebrated for his uniquely radical aesthetic, McQueen has captured the public's imagination as few other fashion designers have before or since. Like his designs, McQueen was de ant in his opinions. His quotes on creativity, "You've got to know the rules to break them. That's what I'm here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition"; and women, "I design clothes because I don't want women to look all innocent and naive. . . . I want people to be afraid of the women I dress"; make this a thoroughly thought-provoking book. Featuring specially commissioned illustrations, this is the perfect gift for fans of fashion and of McQueen, capturing the sharp wit and unbridled spirit of a true visionary.

A must-have for every New Kids fan, this beautifully designed volume traces 40 years of the groundbreaking boy band through photos, interviews, and all the fascinating facts.

Donnie, Danny, Jonathan, Jordan, and Joey: they are Boston's own New Kids on the Block, an iconic boy band that sprang to the top of the charts (and into the hearts of millions of global fans) in the 1980s. Though each of the "kids" and the band itself has faced their ups and downs in the four decades since they came together, they continue to release new music and maintain a loyal fanbase lovingly known as "Blockheads."

In New Kids on the Block 40th Anniversary Celebration, music journalist and proud Blockhead Selena Fragassi delves into the band's origins--from their manager Maurice Starr bringing them together and their earliest influences--to their biggest successes in the 1980s and '90s, to their continued achievements today and the lasting legacy they've left in the boy-band canon. Along the way, readers will also explore:

• The creation of NKOTB's biggest hits, such as "Please Don't Go Girl" and "You Got It (The Right Stuff)"
• The fan culture that built up around the band, from the small gigs and mall tours of their earliest years to their inaugural fan convention in 2023
• NKOTB's influences, from R&B to pop, and their place in a boy-band history that begins with the Jackson 5 and continues in the modern day with bands like One Direction and BTS
• The lasting legacy of a band proudly celebrating their fortieth anniversary

Step by step, through interviews, photos, and sidebars full of fun facts and trivia, you'll learn something new about the band on every page. This book is the perfect companion to your everlasting love for NKOTB!

"Just to warn you, he swears. A lot." I prepped my high school class for tomorrow's speaker. "He had a crack addiction, was living on the streets, and ended up buying the same laundromat he used to rest in. He turned it into a million-dollar business." "What?!! No way! How'd he do that?""You'll have to wait for his answer."

After seventeen years of chasing after crack cocaine, Rory Londer was crushed by failure. He had loving parents and was on honor roll lists, but addiction is a switch that can flip inside anyone. He had eaten food from the trash bin and starved in ten-degree weather, trying to collect quarters for one more hit. Now he's a millionaire, but this story is not a rags-to-riches tale. It's about emerging from the shadows of guilt and shame.

This collection of twelve lessons from Rory's life is a guide to feeling like a disappointment, finding yourself, and then fighting for the life you want. High school teacher, Sweta Patel, interviewed Rory over two years to capture how building connections with others saved him. And when she brought his techniques to the classroom to connect with the hard-to-reach student, it was clear, his lessons aren't for the addict alone.

The amazing story of Saint Pio for children. It tells of his childhood, his priesthood, and the miraculous and perplexing stigmata he endured. A man beloved by all, a saint for the modern world.

From the first sentence to the last, this life of Padre Pio holds your

attention and draws you into a deeper love for God, just as Padre

Pio would have desired. Much research, thought and prayer went

into compelling a story so comprehensive - it is a book to read and

re-read for it lifts your heart and spirit to God.

-Sister Mary Alfred, Monastery of St. Clare

The remarkable autobiography of a Holocaust escapee.

"Go on, my son. Maybe you will survive..."

Aron Goldfarb was fifteen years old when he was ripped from his bed in Poland and forced to enter a Jewish work camp. Watching helplessly as Nazis murdered his friends and family, he and his brother, Abe, made their courageous escape after hearing rumours of fellow prisoners being executed in gas chambers. With astonishing bravery and an unshakeable will to survive, the brothers hid together in underground holes on an estate controlled by the Gestapo. In this moving testament to the strength of human endurance and the power of relationships, co-written with acclaimed author Graham Diamond, Goldfarb tells his unbelievable true tale at long last.

Vivid, compelling and frequently harrowing, Maybe You Will Survive is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the human condition.

Marking seventy-five years since the end of the Holocaust and Aron's liberation, this edition includes a foreword his from sons, Morris & Ira.

Arguably one of the most mainstream music styles today, rap was in fact born centuries ago in West Africa with historians or 'griots' who used to tell stories of the past over the beat of a drum. But it wasn't until the 1970s in New York that rapping as we know it was born and began to flourish.

50 Rappers Who Changed the World profiles some of the genre's biggest influencers, from the 1970s until the present day. From Bronx-based legends Afrikaa Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash in the 70s, to Run-DMC and Public Enemy in the 80s, Biggie, Tupac and Snoop in the 90s, and Eminem and Jay-Z in the 00s, this is a history of music for anyone who loves rap. Featuring MCs like Melle Mel, West Coast legends including N.W.A. and Ice-T, and countless women who changed the game, like Salt-n-Pepa, MC Lyte and Missy Elliot. And today, we have a new breed of artists who are dominating the charts, from J. Cole to Kendrick Lamar, Logic and Cardi B.

Filled with a stylish illustrations and short biography of each artist, this book is a celebration of the musicians who shaped the genre and changed the world.

Discover the life of Ruby Bridges--a story about bravery and breaking down barriers for kids ages 6 to 9

Ruby Bridges was the first Black student to attend an all-white public school in the southern United States. Before she helped desegregate schools and change the course of history, she was a happy girl who helped take care of her younger siblings and loved to play outside. Her life changed when she was chosen to attend William Frantz Elementary, where she became a civil rights leader at a very young age. Explore how Ruby went from being a thoughtful girl growing up in Mississippi to a national leader in the fight for equality.

• Independent reading--This Ruby Bridges biography is broken down into short chapters and simple language so kids 6 to 9 can read and learn on their own.
• Critical thinking--Kids will learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Ruby's life, find definitions of new words, discussion questions, and more.
• A lasting legacy--This Black History Month, find out how Ruby Bridges made an impact on African American history, and helped make the world a better place for future generations, including you!

How will Ruby's courage inspire you?

Discover activists, artists, and athletes, and more from all across history with the rest of The Story Of series, including famous figures like: Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Jackie Robinson, and Barack Obama.

This title introduces readers to the life and music of Taylor Swift. Colorful photos, fun facts, and a timeline of key dates in her life make this book an exciting read for young music lovers.

Trophies and Scars is the profoundly personal, sincere, and remarkably revealing story of the life and times of NASCAR Hall of Famer Ray Evernham. A son of the Jersey Shore, Evernham dedicated his life to fulfilling his boyhood dream of becoming a professional race car driver.

By age eighteen, he was banging fenders with good success on the Northeast short track circuit. When his dreams of becoming an Indy car sensation literally crashed and burned, he turned to Roger Penske's International Race of Champions (IROC), before another brutal crash forced him to give up his Indy dream for good.

It was time to change careers.

As a leader of a race team on the technical rather than the driving side, he discovered new skills critical to building successful racing organizations. A brief, ill-fated, and downright volatile stint on Alan Kulwicki's crew, turned into a "right place at the right time" scenario, sparking a seminal partnership with racing phenom Jeff Gordon. They would prove to be one of the most potent racing duos in history.

Evernham shares previously untold tales of how the duo led the No. 24 team to three championships in four seasons (1995, 1997, 1998) and a series-leading forty-nine wins, revealing in candid detail how and why their storied relationship came to an end.

The book also details Evernham's time spearheading the return of Dodge to NASCAR, building Evernham Motorsports into one of the most successful NASCAR teams, as well as his transformation into a TV personality with roles as a NASCAR analyst for SPEED, ESPN, ABC, FOX, and NBC and as host to his own TV series, AmeriCarna, on the Velocity channel.

Woven throughout all these stories recounting the many twists and turns of his life, he reveals how he buried himself in work to cope with his personal challenges: his son Ray J.'s battle with leukemia and later autism diagnosis, his controversial legal clash with Jeremy Mayfield, his divorce, and the scandal surrounding his relationship with second wife Erin Crocker. Many of these painful challenges ultimately brought rich rewards, such as the formation of the Evernham Family Racing for a Reason Foundation, funding for IGNITE, education and training programs for young adults with high-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome, his loving marriage to Erin, and the birth of their daughter Caite.

You needn't be a racing fan to appreciate Evernham's inspiring journey of tireless persistence, radical determination, steadfast leadership, and fearless reinvention. For as he believes, a life lived to the fullest is packed with trophies--and scars.

PARIS, 1976: Twenty-year-old American student Julie Scolnik had just arrived in the City of Light to study the flute when, from across a sea of faces in the chorus of the Orchestre de Paris, she is drawn to Luc, a striking (married) French lawyer in the bass section. This moving tale of an ebullient young American and a reserved Frenchman will transport readers to the cafés, streets, and concert halls of Paris in the late seventies, and, spanning three decades, evolves from deep romance to sudden heartbreak, and finally to a lifelong quest for answers to release hidden, immutable grief.

Against a magical backdrop of Paris and classical music, Paris Blue is true fairy-tale memoir (with a dark underbelly) about the tenacious grip of first love.

When Business Is Love tells the story of Jan Ryde's mission to create the world's finest beds and to operate his fifth-generation business, Hästens, on the basis of love.

Love.

It isn't everything. It's the only thing.

Despite the world being such a rich and abundant place, love is one thing that all the world is longing for, yet (as the old song goes) just can't seem to get enough of.

In When Business Is Love: The Spirit of Hästens -- At Work, At Play, and Everywhere In Your Life, Jan Ryde, the fifth generation CEO of family-owned Swedish bed manufacturer Hästens, reveals the secrets to running a business and living a life rooted in love.

When Business Is Love is a book about what can happen when one approaches business and life with the single intention to give everyone involved the opportunity to experience their best life.

When Business Is Love shares Jan Ryde's mission to make the world a better place by putting people first and leading with values of humility, honesty, integrity, mastery, gratitude, forgiveness, encouragement, joy, peacefulness, and -- above all else: LOVE.

Readers will follow Jan's personal journey from business school professor to CEO of a modest family business that he built into a global company, and learn from his successful leadership philosophy:

* Why you must embrace your whole story -- even the dark times.

* The importance of a clearly-defined mission.

* The magic of imagination and retaining one's child-like creativity.

* How to step into and live in abundance through connection to the Source.

* The myth of competition and how you only have to create to succeed.

* The power of modeling and acting on the clues that success freely leaves for you.

* The miracles that show up in your life when you invest in helping people to have their best life ever.

Under Jan Ryde's management, Hästens, founded in Sweden in 1852 as a one-man saddlery, has grown into one of the world's most beloved brands with stores from Los Angeles to London, from Istanbul to Singapore. Hästens enjoys an outstanding international reputation for creating the finest beds in the world, as evidenced by a client list that includes everyone from Hollywood royalty to actual crowned heads of state. Its luxurious, handcrafted, top-of-the-line Grand Vividus sells for as much as a million dollars.

Readers following Jan Ryde's example of business as love will find themselves asking the transformative question that motivates the entire Hästens team: how good do you want to have it?

Unofficial and unauthorized

In 1962, Andy Warhol displayed 32 canvases of Campbell's soup cans in a New York art gallery. The art world - and what we consider to be art - would never be the same again.

Follow Warhol through his upbringing in Pittsburgh, moving to New York City, finding inspiration and conquering the creative world, in this unique graphic biography.

Discover what made Warhol tick - his delights, drives and frustrations. Immerse yourself in his fascinating lifestyle within the New York scene and the incredible way that he continually evolved as an artist.

For those looking for an entertaining introduction to this giant of modern art, or for existing fans after a fresh visual take, this graphic biography reveals the real Warhol.

An elegant and absorbing tour of Tokyo and its residents

From 1632 until 1854, Japan's rulers restricted contact with foreign countries, a near isolation that fostered a remarkable and unique culture that endures to this day. In hypnotic prose and sensual detail, Anna Sherman describes searching for the great bells by which the inhabitants of Edo, later called Tokyo, kept the hours in the shoguns' city.

An exploration of Tokyo becomes a meditation not just on time, but on history, memory, and impermanence. Through Sherman's journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo follows haunting voices through the labyrinth that is the Japanese capital: an old woman remembers escaping from the American firebombs of World War II. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. The head of the Tokugawa shogunal house reflects on the destruction of his grandfathers' city: "A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness."

The Bells of Old Tokyo marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer who presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life in the guise of a tour through a city and its people.

How did Valentine's Day, one of our most popular holidays, begin?
It started in ancient Rome when a kind physician named Valentine took an interest in a young blind girl. With his healing skill and his deep faith he restored her sight. What we now call Valentine's Day began when he sent the little girl a secret message, which she received after the Christian martyr was executed. For this tale rich in sentiment, master illustrator Robert Sabuda has created exquisite paper mosaics to suggest early Christian art that resonates with both subtlety and power.

Young children will be excited to learn about the first Black, South Asian, female Vice President, Kamala Harris, and her inspiring journey in this Step 2 Biography Reader!

Learn how Kamala's childhood as a biracial child of immigrant parents, her education, and inspiration from her mother helped shape who she is--someone who fights injustice and empowers the powerless. She is an inspiration herself--for boys and girls everywhere who can now see someone in the White House who looks like them.

Step 2 readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. They are perfect for children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

Ten years ago, Kate Braestrup and her husband Drew were enjoying the life they shared together. They had four young children, and Drew, a Maine state trooper, would soon begin training to become a minister as well. Then early one morning Drew left for work and everything changed. On the very roads that he protected every day, an oncoming driver lost control, and Kate lost her husband.

Stunned and grieving, Kate decided to continue her husband's dream and became a minister herself. And in that capacity she found a most unusual mission: serving as the minister on search and rescue missions in the Maine woods, giving comfort to people whose loved ones are missing, and to the wardens who sometimes have to deal with awful outcomes. Whether she is with the parents of a 6-year-old girl who had wandered into the woods, with wardens as they search for a snowmobile rider trapped under the ice, or assisting a man whose sister left an infant seat and a suicide note in her car by the side of the road, Braestrup provides solace, understanding, and spiritual guidance when it's needed most.

Here if You Need Me is the story of Kate Braestrup's remarkable journey from grief to faith to happiness. It is dramatic, funny, deeply moving, and simply unforgettable, an uplifting account about finding God through helping others, and the tale of the small miracles that occur every day when life and love are restored.