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Born for This: My Story in Music
by BeBe WinansBeBe Winans, six-time Grammy Award-winning singer and member of Gospel music's royal family, shares the candid and close-up journey of pursuing his dreams while holding on to his faith. Benjamin "BeBe" Winans always knew he was born to be a Gospel singer. Growing up watching his four older brothers perform fueled his dream to be on stage, and as teenagers, he and his younger sister CeCe were offered the opportunity to move from Detroit to North Carolina and join the Praise the Lord Singers for The PTL Club, hosted by the eccentric Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.Under the Bakkers' wings, BeBe and CeCe became the most popular televangical stars in America and soon found themselves choosing between their family values and the temptations of fame and fortune.Like a conversation with a lifelong friend, BeBe invites readers and loyal fans alike to share in never-before-revealed details about life in the crossfires between church, Gospel music, and the mainstream recording industry. He shares personal stories about his mentor Andraé Crouch and close friend Whitney Houston, who both had a major impact on his life.As he reflects on the obstacles, the disappointments, the victories, the surprises, the racism, and the love he has encountered, he realizes that when we understand our value before God, we can participate in a daily glory and peace for which we were all born.
Born for the Road: My Story So Far
by Nathan CarterNathan Carter has become Ireland's biggest country music star. He is heralded by many as reviving the country music genre and bringing it into the mainstream. He has sold out venues across the UK and Ireland, has landed his own primetime show, and is loved and respected by legions of fans across Ireland.But how did a lad from Liverpool accomplish all this before the age of 27?In his revealing and inspirational autobiography, Nathan reminisces about his music filled childhood, and growing up in Merseyside with his Liverpool-Irish family. From his first taste of showbiz at the tender age of four, to his success on the north of England club circuit and his subsequent relocation to Donegal, Nathan explores the twists of fate that took him to chart success and to become Ireland's adopted poster boy for country music.
Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, And The Making Of The Modern World, 1471 To The Second World War
by Howard W. FrenchRevealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history. Traditional accounts of the making of the modern world afford a place of primacy to European history. Some credit the fifteenth-century Age of Discovery and the maritime connection it established between West and East; others the accidental unearthing of the “New World.” Still others point to the development of the scientific method, or the spread of Judeo-Christian beliefs; and so on, ad infinitum. The history of Africa, by contrast, has long been relegated to the remote outskirts of our global story. What if, instead, we put Africa and Africans at the very center of our thinking about the origins of modernity? In a sweeping narrative spanning more than six centuries, Howard W. French does just that, for Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanizing engagement with the “dark” continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe’s yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies sequestered away in the heart of West Africa. Creating a historical narrative that begins with the commencement of commercial relations between Portugal and Africa in the fifteenth century and ends with the onset of World War II, Born in Blackness interweaves precise historical detail with poignant, personal reportage. In so doing, it dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures, from the unimaginably rich medieval emperors who traded with the Near East and beyond, to the Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers, to the ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage and profoundly altered the course of American history. While French cogently demonstrates the centrality of Africa to the rise of the modern world, Born in Blackness becomes, at the same time, a far more significant narrative, one that reveals a long-concealed history of trivialization and, more often, elision in depictions of African history throughout the last five hundred years. As French shows, the achievements of sovereign African nations and their now-far-flung peoples have time and again been etiolated and deliberately erased from modern history. As the West ascended, their stories—siloed and piecemeal—were swept into secluded corners, thus setting the stage for the hagiographic “rise of the West” theories that have endured to this day. “Capacious and compelling” (Laurent Dubois), Born in Blackness is epic history on the grand scale. In the lofty tradition of bold, revisionist narratives, it reframes the story of gold and tobacco, sugar and cotton—and of the greatest “commodity” of them all, the twelve million people who were brought in chains from Africa to the “New World,” whose reclaimed lives shed a harsh light on our present world.
Born in Jerusalem, Born Palestinian: A Memoir
by Jacob NammarA poignant memoir of an eye witness of a major historical event in JerusalemWhen Jacob Nammar was a young boy growing up in Harret al-Nammareh, his family, his friends, and the streets of his West Jerusalem neighborhood were the center of his life. It wasn't long, however, before his existence was turned upside down when his family was forced out of their home during al-nakba, the catastrophe that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of nearly 750,000 natives and the destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages and towns.In this heartwarming memoir, Jacob paints a vivid portrait of Palestinian life-from his childhood days in pre-1948 Jerusalem, the struggles of the Palestinian community under Israeli rule, to his ultimate decision to leave for America at age 23. It is a relevant and deeply personal tale of a man struggling to hold his world together as his beloved homeland is torn apart before his eyes and a chronicle of a love story with a city and a Palestinian family's resilience and determination to survive even in their weakest moments.Readers will laugh, cry, and be inspired by this charming coming of age story set amid the backdrop of one of the most tragic historical events that engulfed the region.
Born in Tibet
by Chogyam TrungpaChögyam Trungpa--meditation master, scholar, and artist--was identified at the age of only thirteen months as a major tulku, or reincarnation of an enlightened teacher. As the eleventh in the teaching lineage known as the Trungpa tulkus, he underwent a period of intensive training in mediation, philosophy, and fine arts, receiving full ordination as a monk in 1958 at the age of eighteen. The following year, the Chinese Communists invaded Tibet, and the young Trungpa spent many harrowing months trekking over the Himalayas, narrowly escaping capture. Trungpa's account of his experiences as a young monk, his duties as the abbot and spiritual head of a great monastery, and his moving relationships with his teachers offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the life of a Tibetan lama. The memoir concludes with his daring escape from Tibet to India. In an epilogue, he describes his emigration to the West, where he encountered many people eager to learn about the ancient wisdom of Tibetan Buddhism.
Born in the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival
by Tobe Levin Sabine Eichhorst Fadumo KornFrom the book: Hailed in the German press as an author of "astonishing courage and sense of humor," anti-FGM (female genital mutilation) activist Fadumo Korn forthrightly describes her brutal circumcision at age seven and her long and agonizing path to physical and psychological recovery. As a child, Fadumo freely roams the steppes of Somalia until her mother delivers her into the hands of an excisor to undergo a horrific "ritual" cutting to make her a woman in the eyes of her tribe. When complications ensue-and escalate-Fadumo travels to the sprawling capital of Mogadishu and the household of a relative who is close to the incoming Somali president. The girl then experiences firsthand a world of incongruous luxury amid political instability in a country on the edge of civil war. Fadumo's condition later becomes so life threatening that she is sent for treatment to Germany, where she recovers. Eventually, Fadumo marries and, following corrective surgery, she bears a child. Fadumo Korn weaves together a sensitive understanding of traditional practices with revelations about their disturbing effects. This deftly crafted memoir, suffused with sorrow and surprising humor, is an unblinkered history of a life replete with trauma and pain as well as recovery and activism. Today Korn campaigns against FGM while remaining sensitive to the fact that many young African women value it as a passage to womanhood.
Born in the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival (Women Writing Africa Ser.)
by Fadumo KornThis “impassioned, beautifully written memoir” by a survivor of female circumcision is a “brutally honest” story of tragedy and triumph (Publishers Weekly). As a nomad, Fadumo Korn freely roamed the wild steppes of her native Somalia until her mother delivered her into the hands of an “excisor” to become a woman in the eyes of her tribe by undergoing female genital cutting. But serious complications brought on by the circumcision would force her to leave her home on a journey of survival and self-discovery. Fadumo first traveled to the bustling city of Mogadishu and the household of a wealthy uncle, a brother of the Somali president. There, she entered a world of luxury underpinned by political instability and cruelty in a country eager for rebellion. As her symptoms worsened, she journeyed to Germany, where she received not only therapy but love and acceptance in the most unlikely of places. With this “courageous . . . indispensable testament,” Fadumo Korn weaves together a sensitive understanding of traditional practices with revelations about their disturbing effects. Full of sorrow and surprising humor, Born in the Big Rains provides a candid history of a life sculpted by crippling rheumatism and an unexpected path to recovery (Elfriede Jelinek, 2004 Nobel Laureate in Literature).
Born in the Delta: Reflections on the Making of a Southern White Sensibility
by Margaret Jones BolsterliIn this gracefully written memoir, Margaret Jones Bolsterli recounts her experiences as a lively, observant girl coming of age on an Arkansas cotton farm during the 1930s and 1940s. The Mississippi River's broad, flat floodplain provides the setting for her vivid strokes of memory and history each portraying key elements of the "southern sensibility. " Bolsterli's themes include the southerner's strong sense of place, the penchant for stories rather than true dialog, a caste system based on formality and race, the underlying current of violence, and the repressive function of evangelical religion. She also examines manners, the patriarchal family structure, the "southern belle" concept, and the persistence of the memory of the Civil War. A fascinating chapter on food indicates how African and European customs are melded in southern cuisine to include chicken, pork, "cracklin' bread," gravy and biscuits, field peas, turnip greens, butter beans, devil's food cake, and dill pickles. Comparable to Shirley Abbott's Womenfolks, Born in the Delta is a valuable resource for those interested in southern history and culture, as well as readers who just enjoy a good story, well-told.
Born in the U.S.A.: Bruce Springsteen in American Life, 3rd edition, Revised and Expanded (Music / Culture Ser.)
by Jim CullenPioneering the field of Springsteen scholarship when it first appeared in 1997, Born in the U.S.A. remains one of the definitive studies of Springsteen’s work and its impact on American culture. Moving beyond journalistic and biographical approaches, Jim Cullen situates the artist in a wider historical canvas that stretches from the Puritans to Barack Obama, showing how he has absorbed, refracted, and revitalized American mythology, including the American Dream, the work ethic, and the long quest for racial justice. Exploring difficult questions about Springsteen’s politics, he finds a man committed to both democratic and republican principles, as well as a patriot dedicated to revealing the lapses of a country he loves. This third edition of Born in the U.S.A. is fully revised and updated, incorporating discussion of Springsteen’s wide output in the 21st century. While addressing Springsteen’s responses to events like 9/11, it also considers the evolution of his attitudes towards religion, masculinity, and his relationship with his audience. Whether a serious Springsteen fan or simply an observer of American popular culture, Born in the U.S.A. will give you a new appreciation for The Boss.
Born in the Year of Courage
by Emily CroffordIt is the mid-1800s and Manjiro, a young fisherman, is shipwrecked far off the coast of his native Japan. <p><p> At this time in history, Japan is an isolated country that allows its citizens no contact with the rest of the world. Foreigners are called "barbarians"—and none are more despised than Americans. But when Manjiro and his fishing companions are rescued by an American ship, Manjiro makes some startling discoveries about the world of the barbarians—and about his own country. <p><p> His dramatic rescue leads to a series of amazing escapades, and in the end Manjiro travels farther than he ever dreamed he would. Born in the Year of Courage is based on the true story of Manjiro's remarkable life. It is both an exciting adventure tale and a fascinating look at a bygone world.
Born into It: A Fan's Life
by Jay BaruchelIn Fever Pitch meets Anchor Boy, Montreal Canadiens superfan Jay Baruchel tells us why he loves the Habs no matter whatIt’s no secret that Jay Baruchel is a die-hard fan of the Montreal Canadiens. He talks about the team at every opportunity, wears their gear proudly in interviews and on the street, appeared in a series of videos promoting the team, and was once named honorary captain by owner Geoff Molson and Habs tough guy Chris Nilan. As he has said publicly, “I was raised both Catholic and Jewish, but really more than anything just a Habs fan.”In Born Into It, Baruchel’s lifelong memories as a Canadiens’ fan explode on the page in a collection of hilarious, heartfelt and nostalgic stories that draw on his childhood experiences as a homer living in Montreal and the enemy living in the Maple Leaf stronghold of Oshawa, Ontario. Knuckles drawn, and with the rouge, bleu et blanc emblazoned on just about every piece of clothing he owns, Baruchel shares all in the same spirit with which he laid his soul bare in his hugely popular Goon movies. Born Into It is a memoir unlike any other, and a book not to be missed.
Born of the Desert: With the SAS in North Africa
by Malcolm JamesBorn of the Desert is a classic account of the early years of the SAS. The Special Air Service was formed in 1941 and quickly earned a reputation for stealth, daring and audacity in the Western Desert Campaign. This elite force utilised the endless expanse of the desert to carry out surprise attacks and hit and run raids behind the Afrika Korps' lines, sowing confusion, fear and consternation. Malcolm James served as Medical Officer with the SAS throughout 1942 and 1943, and Born of the Desert is his atmospheric account of his life in the North African desert, the bitter fighting against Italian and German targets and the forging of a remarkable elite unit. James captures the excitement of this dramatic mode of warfare and brings to life the deadly beauty of the desert, the harsh environment and the strong bonds of comradeship and interdependence which resulted. Born of the Desert was written soon after the events depicted and has an immediacy which places it above other Second World War memoirs. The original text has now been augmented by supplementary notes by David List, and appendices on SAS casualties and awards by David Buxton.
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
by Daniel TammetBorn on a Blue Day is a journey into one of the most fascinating minds alive today -- guided by its owner himself. Daniel Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man. Daniel has a compulsive need for order and routine -- he eats the same precise amount of cereal for breakfast every morning and cannot leave the house without counting the number of items of clothing he's wearing. When he gets stressed or is unhappy, he closes his eyes and counts. But in one crucial way Daniel is not at all like the Rain Man: he is virtually unique among people who have severe autistic disorders in that he is capable of living a fully independent life. He has emerged from the "other side" of autism with the ability to function successfully -- he is even able to explain what is happening inside his head. Born on a Blue Day is a triumphant and uplifting story, starting from early childhood, when Daniel was incapable of making friends and prone to tantrums, to young adulthood, when he learned how to control himself and to live independently, fell in love, experienced a religious conversion to Christianity, and most recently, emerged as a celebrity. The world's leading neuroscientists have been studying Daniel's ability to solve complicated math problems in one fell swoop by seeing shapes rather than making step-by-step calculations. Here he explains how he does it, and how he is able to learn new languages so quickly, simply by absorbing their patterns. Fascinating and inspiring, Born on a Blue Day explores what it's like to be special and gives us an insight into what makes us all human -- our minds.
Born on a Mountaintop
by Bob ThompsonCombining the stories of the real hero and his Disney-enhanced afterlife, Born on a Mountaintop delves deep into our love for an American icon. Pioneer. Congressman. Martyr of the Alamo. King of the Wild Frontier. As with all great legends, Davy Crockett's has been retold many times. Over the years, he has been repeatedly reinvented by historians and popular storytellers. In fact, one could argue that there are three distinct Crocketts: the real David as he was before he became famous; the celebrity politician whose backwoods image Crockett himself created, then lost control of; and the mythic Davy we know today. In the road-trip tradition of Sarah Vowell and Tony Horwitz, Bob Thompson follows Crockett's footsteps from the Tennessee river valley where he was born, to Washington, where he served three terms in Congress, and on to Texas and the gates of the Alamo, seeking out those who know, love and are still willing to fight over Davy's life and legacy. Born on a Mountaintop will be more than just a bold new biography of one of the great American heroes. Thompson's rich mix of scholarship, reportage, humor, and exploration of modern Crockett landscapes will bring Davy Crockett's impact on the American imagination vividly to life.From the Hardcover edition.
Born on the Bayou
by Blaine LourdIn the tradition of the modern classics The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer and The Liars' Club by Mary Karr, Blaine Lourd's Born on the Bayou is a powerful gothic memoir set in the bayous and oil towns of 1970s Louisiana.Coonass: [koon-as] (noun, slang, from the French conasse) A term of endearment and an expression of cultural and ethnic pride. So echoes this all-important definition throughout this good-humored memoir of growing up in the South. A rollercoaster rags-to-riches story, Blaine Lourd's meaningful debut is both a nostalgic send-up of '60s and '70s Louisiana, and a heartfelt portrait of one family's coming of age. In honest, confessional prose, Born on the Bayou transports us to a pocket of the South where Lourd learns how to be a man from the two people he looks up to the most: his larger-than-life father, "Puffer," a prominent figure in the oil business (coonass translation: awl bidness), and his successful older brother, Bryan. With an eye turned perpetually toward the gruff and distant Puffer, Lourd illustrates how those closest to us can cause the most hurt, even as we seek their approval. Whether he's learning how to skin a duck at age ten, enjoying his first beer at thirteen, or detailing the finer points of ride-on lawn mowing, Lourd gets to the heart of being a Southerner with rawness and grace. From his early childhood through his eventual pilgrimage to the West Coast, he beautifully details what it means to have tangible roots to a place so ingrained it is a part of your own being. From barreling down the low country roads in a shiny Thunderbird to chasing women and learning to be a gentleman, Born on the Bayou is one man's struggle against the forces of family love, loyalty and obligation, and the ties that keep us tethered to our roots no matter how far we run. As the saying goes, "a coonass always goes his own way."
Born on the Fourth of July
by Ron KovicKovic's powerful and moving New York Times bestselling book, now with a new introduction that sets this classic antiwar story in a contemporary context This New York Times bestseller (more than one million copies sold) details the author's life story (portrayed by Tom Cruise in the Oliver Stone film version)--from a patriotic soldier in Vietnam, to his severe battlefield injury, to his role as the country's most outspoken anti-Vietnam War advocate, spreading his message from his wheelchair.
Born on the Fourth of July: 40th Anniversary Edition
by Ron KovicThis edition marks the 40th anniversary of the original publication of Kovic's American antiwar classic. “Classic and timeless!” —New York Times “As relevant as ever, this book is an education. Ron is a true American, and his great heart and hard-won wisdom shine through these pages.” —Oliver Stone, filmmaker This New York Times best seller (more than one million copies sold), presented here in a special fortieth-anniversary edition with a brand-new foreword by Bruce Springsteen, details the author’s life story (portrayed by Tom Cruise in the Oliver Stone film)—from a patriotic soldier in Vietnam, to his severe battlefield injury, to his role as the country’s most outspoken anti–Vietnam War advocate, spreading his message from his wheelchair.
Born to Bark
by Stanley Coren"For Christmas the woman who would become my wife bought me a dog--a little terrier. The next year her Christmas gift to me was a shotgun. Most of the people in my family believe that those two gifts were not unrelated." So begins Born to Bark, the charming new memoir by psychologist and beloved dog expert Stan Coren of his relationship with an irrepressible gray Cairn terrier named Flint. Stan immediately loved the pup for his friendly nature and indefatigable spirit, though his wife soon found the dog's unpredictable exuberance difficult to deal with, to say the least. Even though Flint drove Stan's wife up the wall, he became the joy of Stan's life. The key to unlocking this psychologist-author's way of looking at dog behavior, Flint also became the inspiration behind Coren's classic, The Intelligence of Dogs. Undeterred by Flint's irrepressible behavior (and by the breeder's warning that he might be untrainable), Coren set out to prove that his furry companion could pass muster with the best of them. He persevered in training the unruly dog and even ventured into the competitive circles of obedience trials in dog shows, where Flint eventually made canine history as the highest-scoring Cairn terrier in obedience competition up to that time. (Stan chose not to tell his wife that the highest-ranking obedience dog of that year, a border collie, earned a total score that was fifty times higher.) The longest-running popular expert on human-dog bonding, Coren has enlivened his respected books and theories about dogs with accounts of his own experiences in training, living with, loving, and trying to understand them. A consummate storyteller, Coren now tells the wry, poignant, goofy, and good-hearted tale of his life with the dog who (in the words of his own book titles) taught him How to Speak Dog and How Dogs Think and whose antics made him ask Why Does My Dog Act That Way? Illustrated with Coren's own delightful line drawings and photos, and interwoven with his heartfelt anecdotes of other beloved dogs from his earlier life, Born to Bark is an irresistible good dog/bad dog tale of this extraordinary, willful pooch and his profound impact on his master's insights into canine behavior as a research psychologist and on his outlook on life as a whole.
Born to Battle: Grant and Forrest--Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga
by Jack HurstBorn to Battleexamines the Civil War’s complex and decisive western theater through the exploits of its greatest figures, Ulysses S. Grant and Nathan Bedford Forrest. These two opposing giants squared off in some of the most epic campaigns of the war, starting at Shiloh and continuing through Perryville, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga-battles in which the Union would slowly but surely divide the western Confederacy, setting the stage for the final showdowns of the bloody, protracted conflict. Grant is widely regarded as the man most responsible for winning the war for the Union, Forrest as the Confederacy’s most fearsome defender in the West. Both men had risen through their respective hierarchies thanks to their cunning and military brilliance, and despite their checkered pasts. Grant and Forrest were both "lower”-born officers who struggled to overcome particular, dubious reputations (Forrest’s as a semi-literate rustic and Grant’s as a doltish drunkard). In time, however each became renowned for his intelligence, resourcefulness, and grit. Indeed, as Hurst shows, their familiarity with hardship gave both men a back-against-the-wall mindset that would ultimately determine their success-both on the battlefield, and off it. Beginning with the Union victory at Tennessee’s Fort Donelson in February 1862 (when Grant handed the Union the largest force ever captured on American soil, refurbishing his reputation and earning himself the nickname "Unconditional Surrender Grant”), Hurst follows both men through the campaigns of the next twenty months, showing how this critical period-and these two unequaled leaders-would change the course of the war. Again and again, Grant’s hardscrabble tactics saved Federal forces from the disastrous decisions of his fellow commanders, who seemed unable to think outside of the West Point playbook. Just as often, Forrest’s hot temper and wily, frontier know-how would surprise his Federal adversaries and allow him to claim astonishing victories on behalf of the Confederacy. But as Grant pressed south and east over the course of these twenty months, routing Confederate forces at such critical strongholds as Corinth, Vicksburg ("Gibraltar of the Mississippi”), and Chattanooga, the systemic differences between the North and South began to tell. The more inclusive, meritocratic Union allowed Grant to enter into the military’s halls of decision, whereas the proudly aristocratic Confederate high command barred Forrest from contributing his input. As Hurst vividly demonstrates, that disparity affected, and possibly dictated, the war’s outcome. Thoroughly disgusted with his disdainful superiors and their failure to save his home state of Tennessee from the clutches of the Union, Forrest eventually requested a transfer to a backwater theater of the war. Grant, by contrast, won command of the entire Union army following his troops’ stunning performance at Chattanooga, and would go on to lead the North to victory over the forces of another exceptional Southern general: Robert E. Lee. An utterly American tale about class, merit, and their role in one of the most formative wars in the nation’s history,Born to Battleoffers an impassioned account of two visionary Civil War leaders and the clashing cultures they fought-in some cases, quite ironically-to protect. Hurst shows how Grant and Forrest brought to the battlefield the fabled virtues of the American working-class: hard work, ingenuity, and intense determination. Each man’s background contributed to his triumphs on the battlefield, but the open-mindedness of his fellow commanders proved just as important. When the North embraced Grant, it won a stalwart defender. When the South rejected Forrest, by contrast, it sealed its fate.
Born to Be Brad: My Life and Style, So Far
by Mickey Rapkin Brad GoreskiCelebrity stylist and fashion icon Brad Goreski takes readers inside his whirlwind life, from his small-town Canadian roots to his worldwide successes, sharing a wealth of style tips, tricks, and photos along the way to help every reader look and feel their absolute best. Fans of The Rachel Zoe Project and It’s a Brad, Brad World already know that there’s no one on reality TV more fearless or savvy when it comes to style. But Born to Be Brad gives the world its first behind-the-scenes look at how Brad became the stylist he is. This is not just a how-to style book. It’s a sublimely written, riveting life story with the power to take you to the top of your fashion game—right along with Brad.
Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey
by Mark DeryThe definitive biography of Edward Gorey, the eccentric master of macabre nonsense.From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth.But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known--in the late 1940s, no less--to traipse around in full-length fur coats, clanking bracelets, and an Edwardian beard? An eccentric, a gregarious recluse, an enigmatic auteur of whimsically morbid masterpieces, yes--but who was the real Edward Gorey behind the Oscar Wildean pose?He published over a hundred books and illustrated works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Edward Lear, John Updike, Charles Dickens, Hilaire Belloc, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker, Gilbert & Sullivan, and others. At the same time, he was a deeply complicated and conflicted individual, a man whose art reflected his obsessions with the disquieting and the darkly hilarious.Based on newly uncovered correspondence and interviews with personalities as diverse as John Ashbery, Donald Hall, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, and Anna Sui, BORN TO BE POSTHUMOUS draws back the curtain on the eccentric genius and mysterious life of Edward Gorey.
Born to Be Wild
by Barry BoweRecounts the criminal career of Bobby Nauss, a member of an infamous Pennsylvania motorcycle gang who was convicted of trafficking in drugs, killing a woman, and raping another, and who escaped from a maximum security prison.
Born to Dance: Michaela DePrince (Fountas & Pinnell Classroom, Guided Reading)
by Lara AndersonNIMAC-sourced textbook. From War Orphan to Ballet Star. Michaela DePrince was a starving orphan in a war-torn country. An unbreakable spirit and an image of a ballerina on a magazine cover set her on a path for a brighter future.
Born to Draw Comics: The Story of Charles Schulz and the Creation of Peanuts
by Ginger WadsworthBorn to Draw Comics, a mixed-panel format picture book biography of Charles "Sparky" Schulz, creator of the beloved comic strip Peanuts.As a child, Charles split his free time between adventures outdoors with his friends and dog Spike, and daydreams and doodles inspired by the comics he loved to read. He longed to become a professional cartoonist, but saw his dreams deferred by unexpected challenges that laid ahead: military deployment to the European front of World War II, and the heartbreak of a family tragedy back home. Even so, Charles never lost sight of the hopeful joy of his early years and his love for Spike, both of which inspired PEANUTS. The comic strip went on to become the most popular and influential in comics history.For fans of Brad Meltzer’s New York Times-bestselling picture book biography of the Muppets and Sesame Street creator, I Am Jim Henson.Christy Ottaviano Books
Born to Drum: The Truth About the World's Greatest Drummers—from John Bonham and Keith Moon to Sheila E. and Dave Grohl
by Tony Barrell“An engaging journey into the wild and wonderful world of drumming.”—CLEM BURKE, BlondieTo have a great band you need a great drummer. For the first time, Tony Barrell shines a long-overdue spotlight on these musicians, offering an exciting look into their world, their art, and their personalities. In Born to Drum, he interviews some of the most famous, revered, and influential drummers of our time—including Chad Smith, Ginger Baker, Clem Burke, Sheila E., Phil Collins, Nick Mason, Patty Schemel, Butch Vig, and Omar Hakim—who share astonishing truths about their work and lives. He investigates the stories of late, great drummers such as Keith Moon and John Bonham, analyzes many of the greatest drum tracks ever recorded, and introduces us to the world’s fastest and loudest drummers, as well as the first musician to pilot a “flying drum kit” onstage.Filled with fascinating insights into the trade and little-known details about the greats, Born to Drum elevates drummers and their achievements to their rightful place in music lore and pop culture.“As Born to Drum proves, there’s a lot more to be told about drums and drumming than the Rolls-Royce in the swimming pool and the pyro beneath the bass drum.”—NICK MASON, Pink Floyd“Everyone should read this book—especially if you’re not a drummer. A great insight into a great sport.”—Joey Kramer, Aerosmith