Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Biographies & Memoirs

For anyone who feels like their life is one disaster after another: good news–you’re not alone. Jameela Jamil (The Good Place, She-Hulk) gathers her funny friends and they share their most mortifying and embarrassing stories. Crucially, there are no morals and no silver linings. They are simply here to revel in each others’ misfortune. Wrong Turns: where dignity goes to die.Please share your own Wrong Turns with us for possible inclusion in the show, just email a voice memo to PersonalDisasterStories@gmail.com. Wrong Turns takes over from iWeigh and Bad Dates as Jameela’s home in ...

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. George Michael: A Life explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world.

Best-selling author Evan McHugh gets behind the wheel of his four-wheel drive to find out what life is like in outback stations. Given special access to these properties, Evan goes behind the scenes at Adria Downs in the dead heart of Central Australia, helps drove cattle from the air at Wave Hill, and gets a lesson in trapping dingoes at the remote Commonwealth Hill station. Following in the footsteps of the pioneering greats, Evan reveals the fascinating history of these outback stations, and what it takes to work on one today.

From his acclaimed stage triumphs to his legendary onscreen work in the Star Trek and X-Men franchises, Sir Patrick Stewart has captivated audiences around the world and across multiple generations with his indelible command of stage and screen. Now, he presents his long-awaited memoir, MAKING IT SO, a revealing portrait of an artist whose astonishing life—from his humble beginnings in Yorkshire, England to the heights of Hollywood and worldwide acclaim—proves a story as exuberant, definitive, and enduring as the author himself.

In this highly accessible discussion, Bart Ehrman examines the most recent textual and archaeological sources for the life of Jesus, along with the history of first-century Palestine, drawing a fascinating portrait of the man and his teachings. Ehrman shows us what historians have long known about the Gospels and the man who stands behind them. Through a careful evaluation of the New Testament (and other surviving sources, including the more recently discovered Gospels of Thomas and Peter), Ehrman proposes that Jesus can be best understood as an apocalyptic prophet.

In a career that has spanned six decades, Sir Tom Jones has performed with almost every major recording artist, from Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis and Sinatra to Robbie Williams, Van Morrison and Jessie J, across every imaginable genre, from rock and pop to country, blues and soul. The one constant throughout has been his unique musical gift and unmistakable voice.

Cameron Smith, AM, is the most decorated rugby league player of all time. This autobiography maps his unique journey in the game: an extraordinary look into the biggest matches and biggest moments, Smith describes his career with great colour and candour, outlining what it takes to climb to the highest level in sport. Talent aside, it is Smith's intelligence and poise that set him apart, coupled with consistency, durability and longevity that are unlikely to ever be matched.

Sir Michael Caine is loved not just for his many films, but for his warmth, honesty, and humour in describing every aspect of his life from his humble South London beginnings to performing alongside the greatest Hollywood actors of the day.

No one does glamour, severity, girlish charm or tight-lipped witticism better than Dame Maggie Smith, one of Britain's best-loved actors. This new biography shines the stage lights on the life and career of a truly remarkable performer, one whose stage and screen career spans six decades. From her days as a West End star of comedy and revue, Dame Maggie's path would cross with those of the greatest actors, playwrights and directors of the era.

Born to an American myth and raised in the wilds of Graceland, Lisa Marie Presley was never truly understood...until now. Before her death in 2023, she'd been working on a raw, riveting, one-of-a-kind memoir for years, recording countless hours of breathtakingly vulnerable tape, which has finally been revealed by her daughter, Riley Keough.

Christina O'Connor is the main prosecution witness from the Huddersfield Grooming scandal. In 2017, 11 men were convicted of a staggering 43 offences against her. In this memoir, Christina will describe how, from being a happy child with a loving family, she fell into the clutches of a grooming gang whose abuse of children earned them a total of 221 years in prison.

Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his roles in movies like Pretty in Pink and St Elmo's Fire, and as a charter member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. That iconic group of ingenues and heart throbs, including Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore, has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture.

Johnathan Thurston is widely regarded as rugby league's greatest player. This autobiography will follow Thurston's journey from a Brisbane kid who was written off as too skinny, too slow, and too wild to play professionally, to his debut with the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2003, to State of Origin star, to Dally M and Clive Churchill Medal winner, and the fairytale premierships.

Melbourne's gangland war was an era dominated by murders, stings, hits, drug busts, corruption and greed - inspiring best-selling books and even a popular TV series, Underbelly. It took the police a decade to curtail the violence and bring down criminal kingpins Carl Williams, Tony Mokbel, and their accomplices.

Born into the Waorani tribe of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, Nemonte Nenquimo was taught about plant medicines, foraging, oral storytelling, and shamanism by her elders. Age 14, she left the forest for the first time to study with an evangelical missionary group in the city. Eventually, her ancestors began appearing in her dreams, pleading with her to return and embrace her own culture. She listened. Two decades later, Nemonte has emerged as one of the most forceful voices in climate-change activism.

Known for her glamorous beauty, soap-opera personal life and magnetic screen presence, Elizabeth Taylor was the twentieth century’s most famous film star. Including unseen photographs and unread private reflections, this authorised biography is a fascinating and complete portrait worthy of the legend and her legacy. Elizabeth Taylor captures this intelligent, empathetic, tenacious, volatile and complex woman as never before. Kate Andersen Brower tells the full, unvarnished story of the classic Hollywood star who continues to captivate audiences the world over.

Growing up was tough for Daniel. When he was 11, his father showed up in his life, for the first time, with a gunshot wound to the stomach. He relocated his son, daughter and their mother 400 kilometres away from their loving grandparents and a coastal home to a shack with a dirt floor in outback Queensland. From then on, Daniel fought to maintain a sense of order and purpose amid the chaos of family violence and criminal activity. Inspired by his much-loved grandfather, a WWII veteran, Daniel joined the army.

One of seven children of a high-ranking government official, Loung Ung lived a privileged life in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh until the age of five. Then, in April 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into the city, forcing Ung's family to flee and, eventually, to disperse. Loung was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and those who survived the horrors would not be reunited until the Khmer Rouge was destroyed.

A guy walks into a bar.From here, the story could take many turns. A guy walks into a bar and meets the love of his life. A guy walks into a bar and finds no one else is there. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humour and intelligence and leave you deeply moved. In Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites listeners into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her - from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it - in her own words and on her own terms.