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Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience
by Lee Woodruff David Levy Allison PatakiA deeply moving memoir about a young couple whose lives were changed in the blink of an eye, and the love that helped them rewrite their future Five months pregnant, on a flight to their “babymoon,” Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave—a healthy thirty-year-old athlete and surgical resident—had suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. Next thing Allison knew, she was sitting alone in the ER in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to hear if her husband would survive the night. When Dave woke up, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. Allison had lost the Dave she knew and loved when he lost consciousness on the plane. Within a few months, she found herself caring for both a newborn and a sick husband, struggling with the fear of what was to come. As a way to make sense of the pain and chaos of their new reality, Allison started to write daily letters to Dave. Not only would she work to make sense of the unfathomable experiences unfolding around her, but her letters would provide Dave with the memories he could not make on his own. She was writing to preserve their past, protect their present, and fight for their future. Those letters became the foundation of this beautiful, intimate memoir. And in the process, she fell in love with her husband all over again. This is a manifesto for living, an ultimately uplifting story about the transformative power of faith and resilience. It’s a tale of a man’s turbulent road to recovery, the shifting nature of marriage, and the struggle of loving through pain and finding joy in the broken places.Advance praise for Beauty in the Broken Places“A beautifully woven, suspenseful love story with a stunning victory, reminding us of the resilience of the human spirit, and that anything is possible with a loving tribe.”—Marcia Gay Harden, Academy Award–winning actress and author of The Seasons of My Mother “A bestselling historical novelist’s account of how she survived the harrowing year following her young husband’s unexpected stroke . . . The strength of this end-of-innocence book lies in its demystification of the idea that strokes only occur in older people. . . . [A] heartfelt account of dedication and devotion.”—Kirkus Reviews
Beauty is Convulsive: The Passion of Frida Kahlo
by Carole Maso"Maso's incantatory description of her conjured–up subject's embrace takes on extraordinary power . . . Like Frida Kahlo's painting—impossible to look away from." —Kai Maristed, Los Angeles TimesAt the age of eighteen, Frida Kahlo’s life was transformed when the bus in which she was riding was hit by a trolley car. Pierced through by a steel handrail and broken in many places, she entered a long period of convalescence during which she began to paint self–portraits.A vibrant series of prose poems, Beauty Is Convulsive is a passionate meditation on Frida Kahlo, one of the twentieth century’s most compelling artists. Carole Maso brings together pieces from Kahlo’s biography, her letters, medical documents, and her diaries to assemble a text that is as erotic, mysterious, and colorful as one of Kahlo’s paintings.
Beauty, Disrupted: A Memoir
by Hugo Schwyzer Carré OtisThe actress, model and former wife of Mickey Rourke tells of her rise from homeless teen to supermodel and her recovery from anorexia and abuse. Teen runaway, supermodel, and actress Carré Otis found herself in the public eye from a very tender age. By the time she was twenty, millions of people had already gazed at provocative images of her in magazine and billboard ads from Guess and Calvin Klein, on the pages of Playboy and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and on posters for the controversial film Wild Orchid, with her soon-to-be husband Mickey Rourke. Their troubled marriage was widely reported in the media, as were Carré’s struggles with drugs and a particularly brutal eating disorder. But simply because we’ve seen someone naked on the page or exposed on the screen or in the tabloids doesn’t mean we know who that person really is.In Beauty, Disrupted, Carré Otis confronts her complex past fearlessly and with unrelenting candor. The result is a narrative of success, despair, and ultimate triumph over sexual exploitation and our cultural obsession with appearance—a narrative of beauty disrupted, reclaimed, and made more radiant through self-acceptance, inner peace, and the love of family.
Beber
by Pere AznarUn honesto relato en primera persona sobre el alcoholismo escrito por el guionista y humorista Pere Aznar. «Lección de honestidad, lección de vida, lección de comedia... Este no es un libro cualquiera, es de los que recuerdas».Quique Peinado «La fórmula de Pere Aznar: valentía, verdad, autoparodia, amor por el oficio y la vida. Imbatible. Molt bé nen».Andreu Buenafuente El 13 de julio de 2021 decidí dejar de BEBER. Lo decidí en serio. Había tenido esa conversación interna cientos de veces pero nunca antes había ganado yo, siempre había ganado la bestia. La bestia me acompaña desde que tengo 13 años. La bestia tiene muchos nombres, nombres que conoces y seguramente de cerca, nombres que te evocan a noches, celebraciones y aperitivos, nombres que has dicho a gritos en un bar. BEBER no solo es un verbo para mí, es un catálogo de recuerdos muy buenos y también muy malos. BEBER es una historia, como muchas otras, en la que todo está empapado de licores, pero también es un relato de cómo deja de estarlo, y de cómo cambia la vida cuando ya no tienes el codo en 90 grados casi todo el rato.BEBER es la historia de mi vida, de los 27 años en que el alcohol ha sido mi fiel amigo y mi peor enemigo, de mi relación con la adicción, que ha marcado y marcará mi existencia para siempre. Y también de la vida de mi hija, de la vida de mi padre, de la vida de todos los que estuvieron cuando yo no estaba. Y de la vida de los que están ahora que empiezo a estar. Y, quién sabe, tal vez es un poco la historia de tu vida.Bébete este libro con moderación y ríete a gusto. Yo ya puedo hacerlo. Soy un cómico de 41 años, el de la portada concretamente. Seguramente no te sueno de nada, pero he escrito chistes y los he dicho, desde hace ya unos cuantos años, en lugares dispares. Sitios tan distintos como Los 40, Antena 3, Cuatro, la SER, Radio 3, Telecinco, el teatro Principal de Valencia o un escenario hecho con cajas de refresco en una pizzería de Segovia. Todos estos lugares tienen una cosa en un común y nadie en ellos lo sabía: cuando estuve allí o estaba borracho o quería estarlo. Este es mi primer libro. Habla de todo lo que me ha pasado a mí y a mi alrededor. Habla de reírse cuando las cosas duelen. Habla de que ahora mismo no estoy borracho y ya no quiero estarlo. Bueno, esto último no te lo puedo asegurar. Sigue leyendo y lo comprobarás.
Because Claudette
by Tracey BaptisteFrom NYT bestselling author Tracey Baptiste comes a singular picture book that is both a biography about Claudette Colvin, the teen whose activism launched the Montgomery bus boycott, and a celebration of collective action.When fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin boarded a segregated bus on March 2, 1955, she had no idea she was about to make history. At school she was learning about abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, which helped inspire her decision to refuse to give up her seat to a white woman, which led to her arrest, which began a crucial chain of events: Rosa Park's sit-in nine months later, the organization of the Montgomery bus boycott by activists like Professor Jo Ann Robinson and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and the Supreme Court decision that Alabama's bus segregation was unconstitutional—a major triumph for the civil rights movement. Because of Claudette's brave stand against injustice, history was transformed. Now it's time for young readers to learn about this living legend, her pivotal role in the civil rights movement, and the power of one person reaching out to another in the fight for change.
Because He Could
by Dick Morris Eileen McGannWho is Bill Clinton?A man whose presidency was disgraced by impeachment -- yet who remains one of the most popular presidents of our time.A man whose autobiography, My Life, was panned by critics as a self-indulgent daily diary -- but rode the bestseller lists for months.A man whose policies changed America at the close of the twentieth century -- yet whose weakness left us vulnerable to terror at the dawn of the twenty-first.No one better understands the inner Bill Clinton, that creature of endless and vexing contradiction, than Dick Morris. From the Arkansas governor's races through the planning of the triumphant 1996 reelection, Morris was Clinton's most valued political adviser. Now, in the wake of Clinton's million-selling memoir My Life, Morris and his wife, Eileen McGann, set the record straight with Because He Could, a frank and perceptive deconstruction of the story Clinton tells -- and the many more revealing stories he leaves untold.With the same keen insight they brought to Hillary Clinton's life in their recent bestseller Rewriting History, Morris and McGann uncover the hidden sides of the complicated and sometimes dysfunctional former president. Whereas Hillary is anxious to mask who she really is, they show, Bill Clinton inadvertently reveals himself at every turn -- as both brilliant and undisciplined, charming yet often filled with rage, willing to take wild risks in his personal life but deeply reluctant to use the military to protect our national security. The Bill Clinton who emerges is familiar -- reflexively blaming every problem on right-wing persecutors or naïve advisers -- but also surprising: passive, reactive, working desperately to solve a laundry list of social problems yet never truly grasping the real thrust of his own presidency. And while he courted danger in his personal life, the authors argue that Clinton's downfall has far less to do with his private demons than with his fear of the one person who controlled his future: his own first lady.Sharp and stylishly written, full of revealing insider anecdotes, Because He Could is a fresh and probing portrait of one of the most fascinating, and polarizing, figures of our time.
Because He's Jeff Goldblum: The Movies, Memes and Meaning of Hollywood's Most Enigmatic Actor
by Travis M. AndrewsAn irreverent yet deeply researched biography about the always offbeat, suddenly meme-able, and wildly popular actor When did you first encounter Jeff Goldblum? Maybe as a deranged killer in his 1974 screen debut in Death Wish? Maybe as a cynical journalist in 1983s The Big Chill? Or a brilliant if egotistical scientist-turned-fly in 1986s The Fly? Perhaps as the wise-cracking skeptical mathematician in 1993s Jurassic Park? Or maybe you&’re not a film buff but noticed his face as part of one of the Internet&’s earliest memes. Who knows? Whenever it was, you&’ve probably noticed that Goldblum has become one of Hollywood&’s most enduring actors, someone who only seems to grow more famous, more heralded, more beloved through the decades, even though he&’s always followed his own, strange muse. The guy primarily plays jazz music these days, but is more famous than ever. Actor, pianist, husband, father, style icon, meme. Goldblum contains multitudes, but why? What does he mean? The Washington Post&’s Travis M. Andrews decided to find out. And so he set out on a journey through Goldblum's career, talking to directors like Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, colleagues like Harry Shearer and Billy Crudup, and pop culture experts like Chuck Klosterman and Sean Fennessey, to get to the bottom of this whole Goldblum thing. And then he took what he learned and he wrote this book, which is titled Because He&’s Jeff Goldblum and is the best thing written since The Brothers Karamazov and slightly easier to follow. But you should already know that. In this new semi-biography, semi-rumination, and semi-ridiculous look at the career of Goldblum, Andrews takes you behind the scenes of his iconic movies, explores the shifting nature of fame in the twenty-first century, and spends far too much time converting Goldblum&’s name into various forms of speech. Want to hear how Goldblum saved a script supervisor from an amorous baboon? Or what he would write on the mirror after taking showers when he was a teenager? How about his feelings on various brands of throat lozenges? (That one could be an entire book unto itself.) Then this is the book for you!
Because I Was Flesh: The Autobiography Of Edward Dahlberg
by Edward DahlbergBecause I Was Flesh is the story of Edward Dahlberg’s life as a child and young man, and a portrait in depth of the remarkable woman, his mother Lizzie, who shaped it. Because I Was Flesh is an authentic record from the inferno of modern city life, and a testament of American experience. Lizzie Dahlberg, separated from a worthless husband, works as a lady barber to keep herself and her son in shabby respectability amid the vice and brutality of Kansas City in the early 1900’s. Her constant objective: to acquire a new husband who can give her security and help educate the child. She is attractive to men, but fate never brings her a good one. One suitor makes her put the boy in an orphanage––years of torment that are brilliantly described––and then betrays her. Another does marry her––and disappears with her savings. Lizzie is in despair, but soon begins to laugh at life again and arches her bosom for the next prospect. As he grows through a sensitive, painful adolescence, Edward is both fascinated and appalled by his mother. He adores her but is ashamed of her. He tries to escape, bumming his way to Los Angeles and later going to college in Berkeley, but is always drawn back. Even her death, with which the book ends, cannot release him. Seldom has there been so ruthless, and yes so tender a dissection of the mother-son relationship. And from it Lizzie Dahlberg emerges as one of the unforgettable characters of modern literature.
Because Of You
by Rebekah GibbsThis could be any woman?s story. And it is every mother?s worst nightmare.Ex-Casualty actress, Rebekah was just 34 years old and 7 months pregnant when she found a lump in her breast. After twice being examined by doctors and having been told that it was nothing to worry about, Rebekah pushed it from her mind and concentrated on the birth of her beautiful daughter, Gigi. But one night, whilst nursing her baby, Rebekah realised she could still feel the lump. And it was bigger.Finally, her worst fears were confirmed: just 10 weeks after giving birth, Rebekah was told that she had a fast-growing grade-three cancer and it had spread to her lymph glands. It was the beginning of a journey to hell and back and Rebekah embarked on the fight of her life.This isn?t just a book about the horror of cancer.It is about facing illness with humour and courageIt?s a celebration of the special, unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. It?s about survival.
Because Our Fathers Lied: A Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today
by Craig McNamaraThis unforgettable father and son story confronts the legacy of the Vietnam War across two generations: &“an important book that should be read by every American&” (Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran and author of Born on the Fourth of July). Craig McNamara came of age in the political tumult and upheaval of the late 60s. While Craig McNamara would grow up to take part in anti-war demonstrations, his father, Robert McNamara, served as John F. Kennedy's Secretary of Defense and the architect of the Vietnam War. This searching and revealing memoir offers an intimate picture of one father and son at pivotal periods in American history. Because Our Fathers Lied is more than a family story—it is a story about America. Before Robert McNamara joined Kennedy's cabinet, he was an executive who helped turn around Ford Motor Company. Known for his tremendous competence and professionalism, McNamara came to symbolize "the best and the brightest." Craig, his youngest child and only son, struggled in his father's shadow. When he ultimately fails his draft board physical, Craig decides to travel by motorcycle across Central and South America, learning more about the art of agriculture and making what he defines as an honest living. By the book's conclusion, Craig McNamara is farming walnuts in Northern California and coming to terms with his father's legacy. Because Our Fathers Lied tells the story of the war from the perspective of a single, unforgettable American family.
Because Our Fathers Lied: from The Living and the Dead
by Paul HendricksonRobert S. McNamara was the official face of Vietnam, the technocrat with steel-rimmed glasses and an ironclad faith in numbers who kept insisting that the war was winnable long after he had ceased to believe it was. In his insightful, morally devastating book, The Living and the Dead, Paul Hendrickson juxtaposes Robert S. McNamara's story with those of a wounded Marine, an Army nurse, a Vietnamese refugee, a Quaker who burned himself to death to protest the war, and an enraged artist who tried to kill the man he saw as the war's architect. This is the brilliant, emotional coda where, in meticulous yet compassionate prose, Hendrickson captures his chase after the story of the man and the haunted years of McNamara’s life after Vietnam. A Vintage Shorts Vietnam Selection. An ebook short.
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America
by Brigitte GabrielBrigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was ten years old and living in Southern Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was the only Christian influenced country in the Middle East, and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam against non-Muslim peoples. For seven years, Brigitte and her parents lived in an underground bomb shelter. They had no running water or electricity and very little food; at times they were reduced to boiling grass to survive.Because They Hate is a political wake-up call told through a very personal memoir frame. Brigitte warns that the US is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was— radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries. Gabriel saw this mission start in Lebanon, and she refuses to stand silently by while it happens here. Gabriel sees in the West a lack of understanding and a blatant ignorance of the ways and thinking of the Middle East. She also points out mistakes the West has made in consistently underestimating the single-mindedness with which fundamentalist Islam has pursued its goals over the past thirty years. Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Gabriel tells her own story as well as outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to this critical historical conflict.
Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought
by Lily BaileyJournalist Lily Bailey’s memoir Because We Are Bad reveals her childhood battle with obsessive compulsive disorder, and her hard-won journey to recovery.A Washington Post Best Book of the YearBy the age of thirteen, Lily Bailey was convinced she was bad. She had killed someone with a thought, spread untold disease, and ogled the bodies of other children. Only by performing an exhausting series of secret routines could she make up for what she’d done. But no matter how intricate or repetitive, no act of penance was ever enough.Beautifully written and astonishingly intimate, Because We Are Bad recounts a childhood consumed by obsessive compulsive disorder. As a child, Bailey created a second personality inside herself—“I” became “we”—to help manifest compulsions that drove every minute of every day of her young life. Now she writes about the forces beneath her skin, and how they ordered, organized, and urged her forward. Lily charts her journey, from checking on her younger sister dozens of times a night, to “normalizing” herself at school among new friends as she grew older, and finally to her young adult years, learning—indeed, breaking through—to make a way for herself in a big, wide world that refuses to stay in check.Charming and raw, harrowing and redemptive, Because We Are Bad is an illuminating and uplifting look into the mind and soul of an extraordinary young woman, and a startling portrait of OCD that allows us to see and understand this condition as never before.“One of the best [books] I have read on the phenomenology of OCD.” —Washington Post
Because of Romek: A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir
by David Faber Anna Vaisman David KitchenBecause of Romek: A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir is a nonfiction personal narrative of a young boy who survives Nazi atrocities during WWII in Poland. David Faber survived concentration camps, murders, and torture, yet lived to keep his promise to his mother: to survive and tell the world what happened. This is the paperback version of the book.
Because of You
by Rebekah GibbsThis could be any woman’s story. And it is every mother’s worst nightmare.Ex-Casualty actress, Rebekah was just 34 years old and 7 months pregnant when she found a lump in her breast. After twice being examined by doctors and having been told that it was nothing to worry about, Rebekah pushed it from her mind and concentrated on the birth of her beautiful daughter, Gigi. But one night, whilst nursing her baby, Rebekah realised she could still feel the lump. And it was bigger.Finally, her worst fears were confirmed: just 10 weeks after giving birth, Rebekah was told that she had a fast-growing grade-three cancer and it had spread to her lymph glands. It was the beginning of a journey to hell and back and Rebekah embarked on the fight of her life.This isn’t just a book about the horror of cancer.It is about facing illness with humour and courageIt’s a celebration of the special, unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. It’s about survival.
Because of You, John Lewis
by Andrea Davis PinkneyAn inspiring story of a friendship between Congressman John Lewis and ten-year-old activist Tybre Faw by New York Times bestselling and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Andrea Davis Pinkney!When young Tybre Faw discovers John Lewis and his heroic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the fight for voting rights, Tybre is determined to meet him. Tybre's two grandmothers take him on the seven-hour drive to Selma, Alabama, where Lewis invites Tybre to join him in the annual memorial walk across the Bridge. And so begins a most amazing friendship! In rich, poetic language, Andrea Davis Pinkney weaves the true story of a boy with a dream-together with the story of a real-life hero (who himself had a life-altering friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was young!). Keith Henry Brown's deeply affecting paintings bring this inspiring bond between a young activist and an elder congressman vividly to life. Who will be next to rise up and turn the page on history?
Because of You, John Lewis
by Andrea Davis PinkneyAn inspiring story of a friendship between Congressman John Lewis and ten-year-old activist Tybre Faw by New York Times bestselling and Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Andrea Davis Pinkney!When young Tybre Faw discovers John Lewis and his heroic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the fight for voting rights, Tybre is determined to meet him. Tybre's two grandmothers take him on the seven-hour drive to Selma, Alabama, where Lewis invites Tybre to join him in the annual memorial walk across the Bridge. And so begins a most amazing friendship! In rich, poetic language, Andrea Davis Pinkney weaves the true story of a boy with a dream-together with the story of a real-life hero (who himself had a life-altering friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was young!). Keith Henry Brown's deeply affecting paintings bring this inspiring bond between a young activist and an elder congressman vividly to life. Who will be next to rise up and turn the page on history?
Because: A Lyric Memoir
by Joshua MenschA gripping verse memoir that offers a compassionate and wrenching account of the author’s experience of childhood sexual abuse. <P><P> Joshua Mensch’s devastating lyric memoir, Because, explores with extraordinary literary power and sophistication the toxic power of adults who prey on the children in their care. Its story begins when Mensch is ten years old and first meets Don, the charming director of a youth wilderness camp and a lifelong friend of his parents. What follows is a harrowing account of sexual and psychological abuse, told from the evolving perspective of a child entering adolescence. Because unfolds through a series of precise, jewel-like scenes that render the shifting and uncertain landscapes of childhood memory with vividness and precision. Its swift, convincing music, propelled by the powerful litany of the word "because," builds a heartbreaking tale of genuine power whose characters are as complex and fully realized as those in a novel. An unflinching take on the vulnerabilities and dangers of childhood, Because succumbs neither to self-pity nor platitudes, but instead finds consolation in the healing power of its own narrative act.
Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett
by Samuel Beckett James Knowlson Elizabeth KnowlsonIn life, Beckett was notoriously reticent, preferring to let his work speak for itself. In the first half of this collection, he reveals many of his inner thoughts and honest opinions about his life, writing, friends, and colleagues in candid interviews published for the first time in this book. He discusses his friendship with James Joyce and his role in the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France. Also included are newly discovered photographs of Beckett--as a young boy, as a teacher, as best man at a friend's wedding, and with painter Henri Hayden.In the second half, friends and colleagues share their memories of Beckett as a schoolboy, a teacher, a struggling young writer, and a sudden success in 1953 with the appearance of Waiting for Godot. Readers will be enchanted by the poignant remembrances by those who knew him best, worked with him most closely, or admired him for his enduring influence: including actors Hume Cronyn, Jean Martin, Jessica Tandy, and Billie Whitelaw and fellow playwrights and authors Edward Albee, Paul Auster, E. M. Cioran, J. M. Coetzee, Eugène Ionesco, Edna O'Brien, and Tom Stoppard.
Beckett Remembering/Remembering Beckett: A Celebration
by Samuel Beckett James Knowlson Elizabeth KnowlsonIn life, Beckett was notoriously reticent, preferring to let his work speak for itself. In the first half of this collection, he reveals many of his inner thoughts and honest opinions about his life, writing, friends, and colleagues in candid interviews published for the first time in this book. He discusses his friendship with James Joyce and his role in the Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France. Also included are newly discovered photographs of Beckett-as a young boy, as a teacher, as best man at a friend’s wedding, and with painter Henri Hayden.In the second half, friends and colleagues share their memories of Beckett as a schoolboy, a teacher, a struggling young writer, and a sudden success in 1953 with the appearance of Waiting for Godot. Readers will be enchanted by the poignant remembrances by those who knew him best, worked with him most closely, or admired him for his enduring influence: including actors Hume Cronyn, Jean Martin, Jessica Tandy, and Billie Whitelaw and fellow playwrights and authors Edward Albee, Paul Auster, E. M. Cioran, J. M. Coetzee, Eugène Ionesco, Edna O’Brien, and Tom Stoppard.
Beckham
by David Beckham Tom WattIn England, where he spent ten seasons leading his storied club Manchester United and his nation to soccer glory, he is so wildly popular that his countrymen voted him the face they'd most want to see imprinted on their money. (Winston Churchill finished second.) In Japan, where he is worshiped as much for his headline-making fashion trends as for his ability to bend a ball around a wall of defenders, women styled their bikini waxes after the blond mohawk he sported during the 2002 World Cup. And in Spain, within days of his $41 million trade to Real Madrid, his new team received two million requests to buy his number 23 jersey. The legend of David Beckham -- soccer god, global sex symbol, style icon -- has been celebrated around the world, arguably more than Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan combined. Now, with the publication of his long-awaited autobiography, the man who inspired the surprise hit movie Bend It Like Beckham is set to conquer the last remaining outpost where soccer is not a national religion: the United States. Beckham is a classic rags-to-riches saga: a boy, David, is born to a poor East End London family. He develops prodigious soccer skills, and his parents nurture him until he becomes one of the most gifted athletes of his generation. He grows up to marry Victoria -- a Spice Girl, "Posh" -- and enters a celebrity whirlwind of Princess Diana -- esque proportions. Together, the Beckhams are Britain's new royal couple -- their 240-acre estate outside of London is known as Beckingham Palace -- and their presence at parties or charity events guarantees endless tabloid stories and photos as well as adoring mobs that must be restrained by police barricades. Their life is as much a study in managing fame as it is in sports and pop phenomena. In Beckham he talks candidly about the pressures of celebrity -- his wife and sons were the targets of a 2002 kidnapping plot; how he balances his roles as a devoted husband and besotted father with his globetrotting existence as an international soccer player; the behind-the-scenes stories of his most memorable career moments, such as the penalty kick against archrival Argentina in the World Cup that redeemed him to a nation who blamed him for their failure in the previous World Cup; the controversy surrounding his move to Real Madrid and the falling out with the man who shaped his career, Manchester United's famously combative manager Sir Alex Ferguson; and, finally, his love of America -- his first son was conceived in and named Brooklyn -- where, like the great PelÉ, David can imagine playing out his final seasons. So much has been written about David Beckham that it's easy to think we know everything about the world's most famous athlete, but only Beckham himself can set the record straight on his beliefs, his dreams, his loves, his fears, and, above all, his sense of who he is. Beckham is an intimate account of an extraordinary life, a life in which, against all odds, he has managed to keep both feet on the ground.
Beckoning Frontiers: The Memoir of a Wyoming Entrepreneur (The Papers of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody)
by George W. BeckGeorge W. T. Beck, an influential rancher and entrepreneur in the American West, collaborated with William F. &“Buffalo Bill&” Cody to establish the town of Cody, Wyoming, in the 1890s. He advanced his financial investments in Wyoming through his numerous personal and professional contacts with various eastern investors and politicians in Washington DC. Beck&’s family—his father a Kentucky senator and his mother a grandniece of George Washington—and his adventures in the American West resulted in personal associates who ranged from western legends Buffalo Bill, Jesse James, and Calamity Jane to wealthy American elites such as George and Phoebe Hearst and Theodore Roosevelt. This definitive edition of Beck&’s memoir provides a glimpse of early life in Wyoming, offering readers a rare perspective on how community boosters cooperated with political leaders and wealthy financiers. Beck&’s memoir, introduced and annotated by Lynn J. Houze and Jeremy M. Johnston, offers a unique and sometimes amusing view of financial dealings in eastern boardrooms, as well as stories of Beck&’s adventures with Buffalo Bill in Wyoming. Beck&’s memoir demonstrates not only his interest in developing the West but also his humor and his willingness to collaborate with a variety of people.
Becky Lynch: Not Your Average Average Girl
by Rebecca QuinBy age seven, Rebecca Quin, now known in the ring as Becky Lynch, was already defying what the world expected of her.Raised in Dublin, Ireland in a devoutly Catholic family, Rebecca constantly invented new ways to make her mother worry - roughhousing with the neighbourhood kids, getting older and hosting secret parties while her parents were away, enrolling in a warehouse wrestling school, nearly breaking her neck and almost kneecapping a WWE star before her own wrestling career even began - and she was always in search of a thrilling escape from the ordinary.Rebecca's deep love of wrestling as a child set her on an unlikely path. With few female athletes to look to for guidance, Rebecca pursued a wrestling career hoping to change the culture and move away from the antiquated disrespect so often shown directed at the elite female athletes that grace the ring. Even as a teenager, she knew that she would stop at nothing to earn a space among the greatest wrestlers of our time, and to pave a new path for female fighters.Culled from decades of journal entries, Rebecca's memoir offers a raw, personal, and honest depiction of the complex woman behind the character Rebecca Quin plays on TV, and a fascinating insight into the world of professional wrestling.
Becky Lynch: Not Your Average Average Girl
by Rebecca QuinA New York Times bestseller! This &“infectious and contagious&” (&“Stone Cold&” Steve Austin) memoir from WWE superstar Rebecca Quin—a.k.a. The Man, a.k.a. Becky Lynch—delves into her earliest wrestling days, her scrappy beginnings, and her meteoric rise to fame.Raised in Dublin, Ireland, in a devoutly Catholic family, Rebecca Quin constantly invented new ways to make her mother worry—roughhousing with the neighborhood kids, hosting secret parties while her parents were away, enrolling in a warehouse wrestling school, nearly breaking her neck and almost kneecapping a WWE star before her own wrestling career even began—and she was always in search of a thrilling escape from the ordinary. Rebecca&’s childhood love of wrestling set her on an unlikely path. With few female wrestlers to look to for guidance, Rebecca pursued a wrestling career hoping to change the culture and move it away from the antiquated disrespect so often directed at the elite female athletes who grace the ring. Even as a teenager, she knew that she would stop at nothing to earn a space among the greatest wrestlers of our time and to pave a new path for female fighters. Culled from decades of journal entries, this &“endearing debut memoir&” (Publishers Weekly) offers a candid depiction of the complex woman behind the character Rebecca Quin plays on TV.