Showing results for "it" in Biographical Fiction

Katherine Woodville's sister never gave her a choice. A happy girl of modest means, Kate hardly expected to become a maker of kings. But when her sister impulsively marries King Edward IV in secret, Katherine's life is no longer hers to control....

Drawing on James Baldwin's own boyhood in a religious community in 1930s Harlem, his first novel tells the story of young Johnny Grimes. Johnny is destined to become a preacher like his father, Gabriel, at the Temple of the Fire Baptized, where the church swells with song and it is as if 'the Holy Ghost were riding on the air'. But he feels only scalding hatred for Gabriel, whose fear and fanaticism lead him to abuse his family. Johnny vows that, for him, things will be different. This blazing tale is full of passion and guilt, of secret sinners and prayers singing on the wind.

Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband, never far from her side, explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumour growing in her brain. As Eve learns to walk, talk, and write again — and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children — she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights and always buying that dress when she sees it.

A River Runs Through It is a universal story of family love and a lyrical masterpiece, as beautiful as the great trout rivers of western Montana upon which it is set. Its beauty is especially evident through the "near-perfect match" of reader Ivan Doig and author Norman MacLean.

We all know someone like them: women whose lives revolve around their cats. Here Donald Davis paints verbal portraits of two very different women in his life who shared a fiercely unshakable sense of priorities. It was simply understood that the cats came first, and once you accepted that, everything else made perfect sense. Employing his trademark Carolina drawl, droll wit, and sharp observations, Davis is in top form here as he pays homage to these two remarkable women and their devotion to their feline families.

New York, 1900. At the dawn of a new century, the city’s streets teem with change: electricity, automobiles, a brash young President Teddy Roosevelt—and the It Girls. As artist’s muses and working models, these independent young women soar to stardom not because of their pedigrees or inherited wealth, but because of their talent, charisma, and irresistible beauty. Pop culture is born, and in a world alight with Mr. Edison’s new bulbs, no one shines brighter than America’s sweetheart, Evelyn Talbot.

While aiming for the bright lights of Broadway, Elise misses her target and is instead thrown into the chaos of Mumbai, dancing in Bollywood blockbusters. The richness of India ignites a deep desire for travel, but when the sudden death of a loved one draws her home, Elise is overcome with hopelessness. Her despair transforms into an eating disorder that consumes the next five years of her youth. Determined to discover her unrecognised potential, Elise makes radical changes and, amid these modifications, finds love.

In Roughing It, Mark Twain recounts his real-life journey across the American West with wit, grit, and wide-eyed wonder. Originally published in 1872, this semi-autobiographical travelogue follows Twain as he joins his brother—appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—on an epic overland stagecoach ride from Missouri to the frontier. Along the way, he encounters a colorful cast of characters, from outlaws and prospectors to pioneers and desperados, all set against the backdrop of dusty deserts, fledgling mining towns, and gold rush chaos.

Born and raised in San Francisco Author John Kiramis is a retired police lieutenant and detective sergeant who served for 31 years and upon retirement went on to became Mayor of Foster City, California, a community within the realm of the Silicon Valley. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife Kate and their cats Chalmers and Anthony. John was born, raised, and educated in San Francisco up until he graduated from the Jesuit University of San Francisco with a degree in rhetoric and sociology.

She called herself Silent Anna, because she couldn’t tell anyone about what happened between her and her stepfather. Many years later, Anna breaks the silence to reveal the sexual abuse she suffered, its impact on her life and how she has finally managed to overcome it. This is the story of a young girl’s determination to survive and to overcome her traumatic childhood.

In the summer of 1931, life was good for Junior Laemmle. Though only 23 years old, he was the head of all movie production for Universal Pictures, and under his reign, the studio flourished. So much so, he was about to be bestowed with the greatest honor a young executive can receive in Hollywood: a promotion to vice president of the entire company. What’s more, Carl Laemmle, his father and founder of the studio, was returning to California for the first time in years to personally present the honor to his son. Or so Junior thought.

Wells had a keen interest in the political and social issues of his day, one of the most significant of which was the outbreak of the First World War. This book, written in 1916, presents the story of Mr Britling, a political commentator, living in comfortable security in his country estate at Matchings Easy, in Essex. He entertains a varied assembly of guests, including Mr Direck, an American journalist, and Herr Heinrich, a German philology student who acts as a family tutor, and the general atmosphere is a hectic social whirl.

After escaping the mental and physical abuse of life under Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, Adam's dream of starting a new life in the land of opportunities has been realized. But his bloody past lives on as internalized scares of sadness, and Adam is held captive by them, unable to move on, ultimately attempting to take his own life. After Adam's near miss with death, Jon, Adam's best friend asks Adam to write a series of letters about the worst event that ever happened in his life-- a last-ditch effort by Jon to help his struggling friend.

This book is a true-to-life collection of 30 short stories from physicist and electrical engineer Roman Litovsky chronicling his family’s harrowing emigration journey in 1989 from Ukraine to the United States during the height of the impending collapse of the USSR. It details his life in Kyiv, traveling throughout Europe to gain freedom from the oppressive Soviet regime, settling in the U.S., and his life after that with a great engineering career at a prominent U.S. electro-acoustic company.

Easy Does It, the Story of Mac is a biographical novel written by the late Doctor William D. Silkworth MD about an alcoholic named Mac who recovers from alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous. Mac seeks help from a church pastor know throughout the text as the Padre. Together they learn all about Mac’s alcoholism and the Padre helps Mac along as Mac finds sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous. In the course of the novel the listener learns in depth about alcoholism and alcoholics anonymous in altogether human terms.

Down-and-out and deteriorating, Rosemary Candwell drifts from anonymous beds and bars in Providence to a homeless shelter hidden among the hedge-rowed avenues of Newport and through the revolving door of service jobs and quick-fix psychiatric care, always grasping for hope, for a solution. She’s desperate to readjust back into a family and a world that has deemed her a crazy bitch living a choice they believe she could simply un-choose at any time.

Few of us can claim to be the authors of our fate. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy knows no other choice. With the eyes of the world watching, Jackie uses her effortless charm and keen intelligence to carve a place for herself among the men of history and weave a fairy tale for the American people, embodying a senator’s wife, a devoted mother, a First Lady - a queen in her own right. But all reigns must come to an end.

Joseph is a Christian man with a phenomenal life. Paul is a tortured soul who succumbs to addiction, ultimately betraying his wife and family. After their lives fatefully collide, the challenge is to find redemption and salvage relationships with family and friends. Is that even possible? Based on a true story, Joseph and Paul navigate healing, hypocrisy, accountability, belief, and forgiveness. Written for the thousands who suffer silently, this story shows that there is always a way back.

It's Real Life: An Alternate History of the Beatles is a multi-cast radio play based on Paul Levinson's story, "It's Real Life," a story about the most popular band in the history of rock & roll music—The Beatles—and WFUV Radio, adapted for audio by Vincent Tese.

The author of this book captures the listener's attention from the start by weaving a tale of a son's grief over the loss of his mother, which is intensified by the coincidental alignment of his mother's burial with his birthday. The man's memories of his mother and the special ritual they shared on his birthday provide a lens through which the listener can explore the anthropological phenomenon of a woman's transition into motherhood.