Search Results: Memoir/Biography from The Vespiary Book Restoration & Bindery

Best friends Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg had spent many lonely nights looking for a way to stand out among Harvard University s elite, competitive, and accomplished student body. Then, in 2003, Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard s computers, crashed the campus network, almost got himself expelled, and was inspired to create Facebook, the social networking site that has since revolutionized communication around the world.With Saverin s funding their tiny start-up went from dorm room to Silicon Valley. But conflicting ideas about Facebook s future transformed the friends into enemies. Soon, the undergraduate exuberance that marked their collaboration turned into out-and-out warfare as it fell prey to the adult world of venture capitalists, big money, and lawyers.

In 1921, four men and one woman ventured deep into the Arctic. Two years later, only one returned.
When 23-year-old Inuit Ada Blackjack signed on as a seamstress for a top-secret Arctic expedition, her goal was simple: earn money and find a husband. But her terrifying experiences--both in the wild and back in civilization--comprise one of the most amazing untold adventures of the 20th century. Based on a wealth of unpublished materials, including Ada's never-before-seen diaries, bestselling author Jennifer Niven narrates this true story of an unheralded woman who became an unlikely hero.

Eugene Bullard lived one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century. The son of a former slave and an indigenous Creek woman, Bullard fled home at the age of eleven to escape the racial hostility of his Georgia community. When his journey led him to Europe, he garnered worldwide fame as a boxer, and later as the first African American fighter pilot in history.

Anne Sexton began writing poetry at the age of twenty-nine to keep from killing herself. She held on to language for dear life and somehow -- in spite of alcoholism and the mental illness that ultimately led her to suicide -- managed to create a body of work that won a Pulitzer Prize and that still sings to thousands of readers. This exemplary biography, which was nominated for the National Book Award, provoked controversy for its revelations of infidelity and incest and its use of tapes from Sexton's psychiatric sessions. It reconciles the many Anne Sextons: the 1950s housewife; the abused child who became an abusive mother; the seductress; the suicide who carried "kill-me pills" in her handbag the way other women carry lipstick; and the poet who transmuted confession into lasting art.

Stein's most famous work; one of the richest and most irreverent biographies ever written.

n a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America — the first African American to serve in that role — she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare.In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers 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… Read More

William Blake was a poet, painter, engraver and visionary. The author traces Blake's life through his childhood, apprenticeship and studies, to his full maturity when he produced his masterpieces. We see Blake in the context of his period, caught up in the Gordon riots, tried for sedition, remaining true to his own vision of the world. This biography reveals the true affinities between Blake's art and his poetry.

Edwin Williamsons major new biography is the first in any language to encompass the entire span of Jorge Luis Borgess life and work. Drawing upon previously unknown or unavailable sources, it brings out the human side of Borges: his roots in Argentina, the evolution of his political ideas, his relations with family and friends, the conflicts, desires, and obsessions that drove the man and shaped his work. Williamsons definitive biography finally unlocks the mysteries that still surround the life of Borges, resulting in a compelling and poignant portrait that will radically transform established views of this modern master.

Noah was born a crime, the son of a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Born a Crime tells the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. These interwoven stories are equally the story of Trevor's fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother — a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life.Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with wit and honesty. His stories weave together to depict a lovable delinquent making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional,… Read More

Before there was Liz Lemon, before there was "Sarah Palin," before there was Weekend Update — there was a woman with a dream. A dream that one day she would write a book about how she got here. But she had to get there first.
On her way to becoming an award-winning superstar, Tina Fey struggled through some questionable haircuts, some after-school jobs, the rise of nachos as a cultural phenomenon, a normal childhood, a happy marriage and joyful motherhood. Her story must be told! Fey's pursuit of the perfect beauty routine may actually give you laugh lines, and her depiction of her whirlwind tour of duty as the Other Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live takes you behind the scenes of a comedy event that transfixed the nation. Now, Fey can reflect on what she's learned: You're no one until someone calls you bossy.

Before there was Liz Lemon, before there was "Sarah Palin," before there was Weekend Update — there was a woman with a dream. A dream that one day she would write a book about how she got here. But she had to get there first.
On her way to becoming an award-winning superstar, Tina Fey struggled through some questionable haircuts, some after-school jobs, the rise of nachos as a cultural phenomenon, a normal childhood, a happy marriage and joyful motherhood. Her story must be told! Fey's pursuit of the perfect beauty routine may actually give you laugh lines, and her depiction of her whirlwind tour of duty as the Other Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live takes you behind the scenes of a comedy event that transfixed the nation. Now, Fey can reflect on what she's learned: You're no one until someone calls you bossy.

A fascinating biography of Professor Goodwin who grew up in New England, traveled extensively, taught at Connecticut College, and played a significant role in the development of The Nature Conservancy.

hardback. acceptable.

Part memoir, part travelogue, and part reflection on the deep truths of fly fishing, this original and free-wheeling book brings a philosophers (actually a philosophy professors) mind to bear on an avocation that turns ordinary men into philosophers. As he relates the progress of his yearly fishing trip to British Columbia with his father and brothers, Mark Kingwell considers everything from work, procrastination, and the way of manhood to the wet vs. dry fly debate and the best ways of fooling a fish. Sly in its humor, unassuming in its erudition, Catch and Release is a perfect book for anyone who loves fishingor anyone whos perplexed by it.

You've heard the stories about the dark side of the internet — hackers, #gamergate, anonymous mobs attacking an unlucky victim, and revenge porn — but they remain just that: stories. Surely these things would never happen to you.Zoe Quinn used to feel the same way. She is a video game developer whose ex-boyfriend published a crazed blog post cobbled together from private information, half-truths, and outright fictions, along with a rallying cry to the online hordes to go after her. They answered in the form of a so-called movement known as #gamergate — they hacked her accounts; stole nude photos of her; harassed her family, friends, and colleagues; and threatened to rape and murder her. But instead of shrinking into silence as the online mobs wanted her to, she raised her voice and spoke out against this vicious online culture and for making the internet a safer place for everyone.In the years since #gamergate, Quinn has helped thousands of people with her advocacy and online-abuse crisis… Read More

After learning to play guitar at the age of ten, Shawn Colvin was determined to make a life in music—a decision that would send a small-town girl out on the open road for good. In 1997, two decades after she started, she got her big break. Like the troubled would-be arsonist and survivor of her smash hit "Sunny Came Home," Colvin knows a thing or two about heartache—and setting fires. Diamond in the Rough recounts this passionate musician's coming-of-age, from the prairies of South Dakota to the dark smoky bars in Austin, Texas, to the world stage at the Grammys.

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl is among the most enduring documents of the twentieth century. Since its publication in 1947, it has been read by tens of millions of people all over the world. It remains a beloved and deeply admired testament to the indestructible nature of the human spirit. Anne was first and foremost a teenage girl, not a remote and flawless symbol. She fretted about and tried to cope with her own sexuality. Like many young girls, she often found herself in disagreements with her mother. And like any teenager, she veered between the carefree nature of a child and the full-fledged sorrow of an adult. Anne emerges more human, more vulnerable and more vital than ever. Anne Frank and her family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation, hid in the back of an Amsterdam warehouse for two years. She was thirteen when she went into the Secret Annex with her family.

Based upon an examination of original sources, this is a biography in which the figure of Charles Dickens and the moving spirit of his age are combined. Dickens the novelist, Dickens the radical and the actor, Dickens the prematurely exhausted middle-aged man whose own unquiet fictions seem to shape his life itself, Dickens the performer, Dickens the writer who stamped his image upon 19-century England. All these aspects are embodied in the book which is as much a study of a culture, and of a period, as it is of one extraordinary man.

Traces the life of well-known sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, from her early childhood in Nazi Germany through her life in America to her success as a radio and television personality.

P. N. Furbank's 1978 two-volume portrait, combined here into one edition, is generally considered the definitive biography of novelist E. M. Forster.