Bios Memoirs

Laura Jane Grace doesn’t defy rock ‘n’ roll. She defines it. In an inspiring examination of identity and creativity, the founder and frontwoman of notorious punk band Against Me! recounts the story of her extraordinary life, her rise to fame, and the painful but powerful moments that have led her to where she is now. Black Me Out invites listeners to not only hear Grace’s complicated journey through gender dysphoria, addiction, mental health, and artistic integrity, but recognize the universal pursuit of our authentic selves. Track the common journey with a modern icon.

On the day that Roswell K. Doughty graduated from Boston University, he also received a commission as a second lieutenant in the army of the United States of America. It was not until 1942 that he was called to active duty—to face some of the toughest fighting of the Second World War. He subsequently saw action in North Africa, then at the disastrous Salerno landings in Italy - where the Allied divisions involved suffered 4,000 casualties—about which the author reveals that suspected intelligence breaches led to the Allies' plans becoming known to the Germans.

Discover the captivating life of Vivien Leigh, the legendary actress best known for her iconic role as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind and her Academy Award-winning performance in A Streetcar Named Desire. This intimate biography explores her extraordinary career on stage and screen, her complex marriage to Laurence Olivier, and her struggles behind the curtain with love, fame, and illness. A portrait of brilliance and fragility, this book reveals the woman behind the star—an unforgettable story of beauty, talent, and resilience that continues to inspire generations.

Truly the voice of a generation, George Carlin gave the world some of the most hysterical and iconic comedy routines of the last 50 years. He perfected the art of making audiences double over with laughter while simultaneously making people wake up to the realities (and insanities) of life in the 20th century. Few people glimpsed the inner life of this beloved comedian, but his only child, Kelly, was there to see it all.

The Turkish Lover, the third installment of Puerto Rican writer Esmeralda Santiago’s memoirs, is the story of her love affair with Ulvi Dogan, a Turkish man 17 years older than her. Initially he provides an escape from her family home but soon winds up being even more demanding than her mother. The story begins in Brooklyn, passes through Miami, and finishes in Massachusetts, where Santiago graduated magna cum laude from Harvard.

There has never been an athlete like Serena Williams. She has dominated women’s tennis for two decades, changed the way the game is played, and - by inspiring Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and others - changed, too, the racial makeup of the pro game. But Williams’s influence has not been confined to the tennis court. As a powerful Black woman who struggled to achieve and sustain success, she has emerged as a cultural icon, figuring in conversations about body image, working mothers, and more.

Terence McKenna (1946-2000) has been studying the ontological foundations of shamanism and the ethnopharmacology of spiritual transformation for the past quarter century. An innovative theoretician and spellbinding orator, McKenna emerged as a powerful voice for the psychedelic movement and the emergent societal tendency he calls The Archaic Revival, one of his most popular books. In 1993, McKenna wrote in This World and Its Double. It’s clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning.

Primal desires of human beings drive us to imagine and create. Economic barriers are nonexistent with the creative process. Do not stifle the pioneer attitude. In all fields, it is important to express one's ideas as an individual. The healthy growth of a civilization depends on a society that supports unlimited free expression to explore all avenues of invention. Ideas blossom when a community encourages independent and collaborative research and education.