Showing results by publisher "Brilliance Audio" in Biographies & Memoirs

In this frank and gritty memoir, Peter Gatien charts the seismic changes in his personal and professional life and the targeted destruction of his nightclub empire. From Peter’s childhood in a Canadian mill town to the freedom of the 1970s, through the excesses of the 1980s and the ensuing crackdown in the 1990s, The Club King chronicles the birth and death of a cultural movement--and the life of the man who was in control of every beat.

Marine Sgt. John Peck survived an IED during the War on Terror that left him with a traumatic brain injury, amnesia, and cost him his marriage. He survived another three years later, one that left him with three and a half limbs missing. He’s one of only two living people to survive the flesh-eating fungus he contracted in recovery at Walter Reed, one that left him as a quadruple amputee. And that’s only the beginning of his story. What followed was a recovery nothing short of miraculous.

In September 2011, Erik Weissman and two friends were murdered in a brutal triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts. The case went unsolved for months and then years, with no discernible leads. Erik’s friend Susan Zalkind, an investigative journalist, needed closure and knew that finding it would be up to her. As Susan began digging, and as the Boston Marathon bombing exposed startling new leads, the case led her down a tangled and sometimes dangerous path to the truth.

Born into bondage in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley was able to purchase her freedom only after years of saving. She then went on to build a thriving business as a seamstress, eventually becoming modiste to Mary Todd Lincoln herself. In this dressmaking role, Keckley was a close confidante of Mary Todd, and her 1868 memoir recounted her incredible rise while also providing revelatory insights into everyday life among the Lincolns.

In January 2017, Donald Trump signed an executive order stopping entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries and dramatically cutting the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the United States each year. The American people spoke up, with protests, marches, donations, and lawsuits that quickly overturned the order. But the refugee caps remained. In The Displaced, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, himself a refugee, brings together a host of prominent refugee writers to explore and illuminate the refugee experience.

The doctor is in! America's best-loved therapist, Dr. Ruth, is known for her wise counsel on all matters of the heart. Here she shares private stories from her past and her present and her insights into living life to the fullest at any age.

From the self-proclaimed Queen of the Stunted Late Bloomers and one of the most exciting emerging voices in comedy comes an honestly funny memoir about the awkward, cringeworthy, hilarious, and longest possible journey of coming of age and into her own.

Faithful Catholics are beginning to realize it’s not their imagination. Pope Francis has led them on a journey from joy to unease to alarm and even a sense of betrayal. They can no longer pretend that he represents merely a change of emphasis in papal teaching. Assessing the confusion sown by this pontificate, Lost Shepherd explains what’s at stake, what’s not at stake, and how loyal believers should respond.

In full and intricate detail, featuring an amazing cast of characters from the worlds of politics, athletics, entertainment and more, this is the story of how President Theodore Roosevelt helped shepherd in a sports and fitness revolution that forever changed the complexion of the United States.

Suzy and Demi were carefree twenty-somethings. They had fun! They didn’t have responsibilities! And then they decided to have a baby. Goodbye lazy weekends, hello sleepless nights, arguments and an addiction to industrial-strength hot chocolate. Follow Suzy on the ultimate make-over - from nervous-wreck new mother to happy families. In this hilarious and refreshingly honest account for parents who prefer the realistic to the utopian, Suzy debunks the myths and takes us all along for the (bumpy) ride.

Mother, mother-in-law, grandmother - the Pulitzer-winning columnist and #1 bestselling author reflects on the roles we play throughout our lives, sharing personal stories and advice on the special joys and complexities of middle age. Before blogs even existed, Anna Quindlen became a go-to writer on the joys and challenges of family, motherhood, and modern life, in her nationally syndicated column. Now she’s taking the next step and going full Nana in this lively, beautiful, and moving book about being a grandmother, and much more.

In 2023, Cinelle Barnes is writing a travelogue about journeying home to the Philippines after a twenty-year separation when she suffers a traumatic brain injury. Cinelle’s story of her adoption and immigration to America as a child is not an easy one to tell to begin with. Suddenly, it seems impossible. Her memories and her connection to her husband and daughter in the Carolinas, to her own sense of self, and to her past are all erased in the blink of an eye. Cinelle has to not only piece together who she used to be but struggle to learn who she is here and now.

Aspen’s and Justin’s paths serendipitously aligned on the Pacific Crest Trail when both were walking from Mexico to Canada, separately and alone - both using thru-hiking in hopes of escaping their pasts. Both sought to redefine themselves beneath the stars. By the time they made it to the snowy Cascade Range of British Columbia - the trail’s end - Aspen and Justin were in love.

Meet Michael D. Blutrich, founder of Scores, the hottest strip club in New York history. A resourceful lawyer at one of the city's most respected firms, Blutrich fell into the skin trade almost by accident, but it was his legal savvy that made Scores the first club in Manhattan to feature lap dances and enabled him to neatly sidestep a law requiring dancers to wear pasties by instead covering their nipples with latex paint. Soon Scores was a home away from home for everyone from sports superstars and Oscar-winning actors to pop singers and political notables alike.

Growing up in rural Oregon, Brandon Wolf grappled with the devastating loss of his supportive mother and with the embedded racism and homophobia of a community that made him feel like an unwelcome stranger. After the lack of connection and role models led him down a spiral of risky behavior, Wolf escaped to survive. In Orlando, he found what he’d been searching for: belonging—in a community that was a safe space with people he’d come to call his chosen family.

Faleeha Hassan became intimately acquainted with loss and fear while growing up in Najaf, Iraq. Now, in a deeply personal account of her life, she remembers those she has loved and lost.

After growing up in a dysfunctional and emotionally abusive home, Tanya Marquardt runs away on her sixteenth birthday. Her departure is an act of rebellion and survival - whatever she is heading toward has to be better than what she is leaving behind. Struggling with her inner demons, Tanya must learn to take care of herself during two chaotic years in the working-class mill town of Port Alberni, followed by the early-nineties underground goth scene in Vancouver, British Columbia. She finds a chosen family in her fellow misfits, and the bond they form is fierce and unflinching.

In November 1943, Marine 1st Lt. Alexander Bonnyman Jr. was mortally wounded while leading a successful assault on critical Japanese fortifications on the Pacific atoll of Tarawa. But it was not until August 2015 that he was finally laid to rest. Bonnyman Jr. was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart for his heroic actions during the bloody battle, which would ultimately claim the lives of almost 2,000 Marines and 5,000 Japanese soldiers. But the lieutenant, along with hundreds of other Marines, was buried in an unmarked grave.

Born into “the blessings of liberty in a free State,” Solomon Northup was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Bayou Boeuf region of Louisiana’s Red River Valley. Twelve Years a Slave is the chronicle of his captivity at the mercy of sadistic plantation owner Edwin Epps, who tested Northup’s tenacity and self-control under the most brutal conditions. Until fate brought a Canadian abolitionist to Epps’s farm, Northup thought he would never draw another free breath.

When Nancy Balbirer learns her beloved eleven-year-old beagle has kidney failure, she’s devastated. She and her husband had gotten Ira as a puppy - a wedding gift to each other, and their first foray into “parenthood.” Now, her dog is terminal, her marriage is on life support, and Nancy is desperate to save them both (whether they want it or not). In a single year, she loses her two best friends, but Nancy’s life is about to take yet another unexpected turn. With humor and heart, Nancy Balbirer shares her story of relationships, loss, and canine friendship in this illuminating memoir.