Holly Madison

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New Jersey

Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny

A former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner describes how her years inside the Playboy Mansion went from a fairytale of A-list celebrity parties to an oppressive regime of strict rules, scheduled sex, and a total loss of identity, so much so that she even contemplated suicide.

Down the Rabbit Hole

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Ingrid Betancourt

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Utah

My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle

The Colombian presidential candidate and long-time hostage of the FARC terrorist guerrilla organization shares the story of her captivity in the jungle, describing the conditions of her imprisonment, her near-escapes before her 2008 rescue and her views on resilience, resistance and faith.

Even Silence Has an End

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Constance Wu

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Florida

Named a Most Anticipated Book by Time and The Associated Press!

From actor Constance Wu, a powerful and poignant memoir-in-essays.

Growing up in the friendly suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, Constance Wu was often scolded for having big feelings or strong reactions. "Good girls don't make scenes," people warned her. And while she spent most of her childhood suppressing her bold, emotional nature, she found an early outlet in local community theater--it was the one place where big feelings were okay--were good, even. Acting became her refuge, her touchstone, and eventually her vocation. At eighteen she moved to New York, where she'd spend the next ten years of her life auditioning, waiting tables, and struggling to make rent before her two big breaks: the TV sitcom Fresh Off the Boat and the hit film Crazy Rich Asians.

Through raw and relatable essays, Constance shares private memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, sexual assault and harassment, and how she "made it" in Hollywood. Her stories offer a behind-the-scenes look at being Asian American in the entertainment industry and the continuing evolution of her identity and influence in the public eye. Making a Scene is an intimate portrait of pressures and pleasures of existing in today's world.

Making a Scene

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Ann Patchett

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Essays

The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays. "Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At the center of These Precious Days is the title essay, a surprising and moving meditation on an unexpected friendship that explores "what it means to be seen, to find someone with whom you can be your best and most complete self." When Patchett chose an early galley of actor and producer Tom Hanks' short story collection to read one night before bed, she had no idea that this single choice would be life changing. It would introduce her to a remarkable woman--Tom's brilliant assistant Sooki--with whom she would form a profound bond that held monumental consequences for them both. A literary alchemist, Patchett plumbs the depths of her experiences to create gold: engaging and moving pieces that are both self-portrait and landscape, each vibrant with emotion and rich in insight. Turning her writer's eye on her own experiences, she transforms the private into the universal, providing us all a way to look at our own worlds anew, and reminds how fleeting and enigmatic life can be. From the enchantments of Kate DiCamillo's children's books (author of the upcoming The Beatryce Prophecy) to youthful memories of Paris; the cherished life gifts given by her three fathers to the unexpected influence of Charles Schultz's Snoopy; the expansive vision of Eudora Welty to the importance of knitting, Patchett connects life and art as she illuminates what matters most. Infused with the author's grace, wit, and warmth, the pieces in These Precious Days resonate deep in the soul, leaving an indelible mark--and demonstrate why Ann Patchett is one of the most celebrated writers of our time.

These Precious Days

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Alan Cumming

New York

A Memoir

Not My Father's Son

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Salman Rushdie

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
San Francisco Chronicle * Newsweek/The Daily Beast * The Seattle Times * The Economist * Kansas City Star * BookPage

On February 14, 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran."
 
So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov--Joseph Anton.
 
How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. He talks about the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and of the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom.
 
It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative, moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.

Praise for Joseph Anton
 
"A harrowing, deeply felt and revealing document: an autobiographical mirror of the big, philosophical preoccupations that have animated Mr. Rushdie's work throughout his career."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
 
"A splendid book, the finest . . . memoir to cross my desk in many a year."--Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
 
"Thoughtful and astute . . . an important book."--USA Today
 
"Compelling, affecting . . . demonstrates Mr. Rushdie's ability as a stylist and storytelle. . . . [He] reacted with great bravery and even heroism."--The Wall Street Journal
 
"Gripping, moving and entertaining . . . nothing like it has ever been written."--The Independent (UK)
 
"A thriller, an epic, a political essay, a love story, an ode to liberty."--Le Point (France)
 
"Action-packed . . . in a literary class by itself . . . Like Isherwood, Rushdie's eye is a camera lens --firmly placed in one perspective and never out of focus."--Los Angeles Review of Books
 
"Unflinchingly honest . . . an engrossing, exciting, revealing and often shocking book."--de Volkskrant (The Netherlands)
 
"One of the best memoirs you may ever read."--DNA (India)
 
"Extraordinary . . . Joseph Anton beautifully modulates between . . . moments of accidental hilarity, and the higher purpose Rushdie saw in opposing--at all costs--any curtailment on a writer's freedom."--The Boston Globe

Joseph Anton

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Sophia Amoruso

In the New York Times bestseller that the Washington Post called “Lean In for misfits,” Sophia Amoruso shares how she went from dumpster diving to founding one of the fastest-growing retailers in the world. Amoruso spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and scrounging in dumpsters for leftover bagels. By age twenty-two she had dropped out of school, and was broke, directionless, and checking IDs in the lobby of an art school—a job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was in that lobby that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay. Flash forward to today, and she’s the founder of Nasty Gal and the founder and CEO of Girlboss. Sophia was never a typical CEO, or a typical anything, and she’s written #GIRLBOSS for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as all hell and lined with naysayers. #GIRLBOSS proves that being successful isn’t about where you went to college or how popular you were in high school. It’s about trusting your instincts and following your gut; knowing which rules to follow and which to break; when to button up and when to let your freak flag fly. “A witty and cleverly told account . . . It’s this kind of honest advice, plus the humorous ups and downs of her rise in online retail, that make the book so appealing.” —Los Angeles Times “Amoruso teaches the innovative and entrepreneurial among us to play to our strengths, learn from our mistakes, and know when to break a few of the traditional rules.” —Vanity Fair “#GIRLBOSS is more than a book . . . #GIRLBOSS is a movement.” —Lena Dunham

#girlboss

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Maggie Smith

Arizona

"[Smith]...reminds you that you can...survive deep loss, sink into life's deep beauty, and constantly, constantly make yourself new." --Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author

The bestselling poet and author of the "powerful" (People) and "luminous" (Newsweek) Keep Moving offers a lush and heartrending memoir exploring coming of age in your middle age.

"Life, like a poem, is a series of choices."

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman's personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she's known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother's fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman's love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet's attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

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Oversized Hardcover (4 to 6 lbs)

A photographic chronicle of Marilyn's life and career.

Marilyn Monroe

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Laura Hillenbrand

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

Relates the story of a U.S. airman who survived when his bomber crashed into the sea during World War II, spent forty-seven days adrift in the ocean before being rescued by the Japanese Navy, and was held as a prisoner until the end of the war.

Unbroken (Movie Tie-In Edition)

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Elizabeth Gilpin

Minnesota

An Adolescence Lost to the Troubled Teen Industry

A gripping chronicle of psychological manipulation and abuse at a "therapeutic" boarding school for troubled teens, and how one young woman fought to heal in the aftermath.

At fifteen, Elizabeth Gilpin was an honor student, a state-ranked swimmer and a rising soccer star, but behind closed doors her undiagnosed depression was wreaking havoc on her life. Growing angrier by the day, she began skipping practices and drinking to excess. At a loss, her parents turned to an educational consultant who suggested Elizabeth be enrolled in a behavioral modification program. That recommendation would change her life forever.

The nightmare began when she was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night by hired professionals and dropped off deep in the woods of Appalachia. Living with no real shelter was only the beginning of her ordeal: she was strip-searched, force-fed, her name was changed to a number and every moment was a test of physical survival.

After three brutal months, Elizabeth was transferred to a boarding school in Southern Virginia that in reality functioned more like a prison. Its curriculum revolved around a perverse form of group therapy where students were psychologically abused and humiliated. Finally, at seventeen, Elizabeth convinced them she was rehabilitated enough to "graduate" and was released.

In this eye-opening and unflinching book, Elizabeth recalls the horrors she endured, the friends she lost to suicide and addiction, and-years later-how she was finally able to pick up the pieces of her life and reclaim her identity.

Stolen

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Jenna Glatzer

The Marilyn Monroe of Treasures

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Alison Bechdel

A Family Tragicomic

A memoir done in the form of a graphic novel by a cult favorite comic artist offers a darkly funny family portrait that details her relationship with her father--a funeral home director, high school English teacher, and closeted homosexual.

Fun Home

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Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson's National Book Award and Newbery Honor winner, now available in paperback with 7 all-new poems. Jacqueline Woodson is the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature A President Obama "O" Book Club pick Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become. Includes 7 new poems, including "Brown Girl Dreaming". Praise for Jacqueline Woodson: A 2016 National Book Award finalist for her adult novel, ANOTHER BROOKLYN "Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story . . . but a mature exploration of grown-up issues and self-discovery."--The New York Times Book Review

Brown Girl Dreaming

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Ta-Nehisi Coates

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Between the World and Me

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Frank McCourt

"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse y

Angela's Ashes

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Elie Wiesel

Stella Rodway

François Mauriac

Robert McAfee Brown

Its in perfect condition, its just old. Printed in 1960.

Night

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Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A Long Way Home

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Pennsylvania

Jeannie Vanasco

Colorado

Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. She startles awake, saying his name. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her. When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides--after fourteen years of silence--to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person. "It's the least I can do," he says. Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and after the assault, asking the brave and urgent question: Is it possible for a good person to commit a terrible act? Jeannie interviews Mark, exploring how rape has impacted his life as well as her own. She examines the language surrounding sexual assault and pushes against its confines, contributing to and deepening the #MeToo discussion. Exacting and courageous, Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl is part memoir, part true crime record, and part testament to the strength of female friendships--a recounting and reckoning that will inspire us to ask harder questions and interrogate our biases. Jeannie Vanasco examines and dismantles long-held myths of victimhood, discovering grace and power in this genre-bending investigation into the trauma of sexual violence.

Things We Didn't Talk about When I Was a Girl

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Jane Blasio

Tennessee

Stolen Babies, Hidden Lies, and My Journey to Finding Home

From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these weren't adoptions--they were transactions. And one unethical doctor was exploiting other people's tragedies. Jane Blasio was one of those babies. At six, she learned she was adopted. At fourteen, she first saw her birth certificate, which led her to begin piecing together details of her past. Jane undertook a decades-long personal investigation to not only discover her own origins but identify and reunite other victims of the Hicks Clinic human trafficking scheme. Along the way she became an expert in illicit adoptions, serving as an investigator and telling her story on every major news network. Taken at Birth is the remarkable account of her tireless quest for truth, justice, and resolution. Perfect for book clubs, as well as those interested in inspirational stories of adoption, human trafficking, and true crime.

Taken at Birth

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Jen Waite

A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal

Jen Waite was faced with so many questions when she began to realize that her loving husband fits the textbook definition of a psychopath. In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

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Michele Harper

Maine

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book “Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring.” —The New York Times Book Review “An incredibly moving memoir about what it means to be a doctor.” —Ellen Pompeo As seen/heard on Fresh Air, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Weekend Edition, and more An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself. Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn’t move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman. In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken—physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process. The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper’s journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky: How to tell the truth when it’s simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn’t the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

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Holly Madison

Down the Rabbit Hole

Ingrid Betancourt

Even Silence Has an End

Constance Wu

Making a Scene

Ann Patchett

These Precious Days

Alan Cumming

Not My Father's Son

Salman Rushdie

Joseph Anton

Sophia Amoruso

#girlboss

Maggie Smith

You Could Make This Place Beautiful

Marie Clayton

Marilyn Monroe

Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken (Movie Tie-In Edition)

Elizabeth Gilpin

Stolen

Jenna Glatzer

The Marilyn Monroe of Treasures

Alison Bechdel

Fun Home

Jacqueline Woodson

Brown Girl Dreaming

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me

Frank McCourt

Angela's Ashes

Elie Wiesel; Stella Rodway; François Mauriac; Robert McAfee Brown

Night

Saroo Brierley

A Long Way Home

Elie Wiesel

Night

Jeannie Vanasco

Things We Didn't Talk about When I Was a Girl

Jane Blasio

Taken at Birth

Jen Waite

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing

Michele Harper

The Beauty in Breaking

Sarah Gristwood

The Story of Beatrix Potter