Biography For Boys

Happy Days, The Andy Griffith Show, Gentle Ben - these shows captivated millions of TV viewers in the ’60s and ’70s. Join award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard and audience-favorite actor Clint Howard as they frankly and fondly share their unusual family story of navigating and surviving life as sibling child actors.

Chicago Heights was long the seat of one of the major street crews of the Chicago Outfit, but its importance has often been overlooked and misunderstood. The crew's origins predate Prohibition, when Chicago Heights was a developing manufacturing center with a large Italian immigrant population. Its earliest bosses struggled for control until a violent gang war left the crew solidified under the auspices of Al Capone. For the first time, the history of the Chicago Heights street crew is traced from its inception through its last known boss.

Who could forget the sexy "Cherry Pie" girl from hair metal band Warrant's infamous music video? Bobbie Brown became a bona fide vixen for her playful role as the object of lead singer Jani Lane's desires. With her windblown peroxide mane, seductive scarlet lips, and flirtatious curves, she epitomized every man's fantasy. But the wide-eyed Louisiana beauty queen's own dreams of making it big in Los Angeles were about to be derailed by her rock-and-roll lifestyle.

This book essentially launched the memoir craze that has been going strong ever since. The story is pretty grim: teen-aged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed.

To the wider world, Al Pacino exploded onto the scene like a supernova. He landed his first leading role, in The Panic in Needle Park, in 1971, and by 1975, he had starred in four movies—The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon—that were not just successes but landmarks in the history of film. Those performances became legendary and changed his life forever. Not since Marlon Brando and James Dean in the late 1950s had an actor landed in the culture with such force.

Reflecting on the Beach Boys’ long, fascinating history, this book tells the story behind 50 of the band’s greatest songs from the perspective of group members, collaborators, fellow musicians, and notable fans. The band's music is as influential now as it was 50 years ago, and this retelling of how the iconic rock group found itself in the annals of pop culture couldn't come at a better time.

A panoramic experience that tells the story of Beastie Boys, a book as unique as the band itself - by band members ADROCK and Mike D, with contributions from Amy Poehler, Colson Whitehead, Wes Anderson, Luc Sante, and more.

Where did Roald Dahl get all of his wonderful ideas for stories? From his own life, of course! As full of excitement and the unexpected as his world-famous, best-selling books, Roald Dahl's tales of his own childhood are completely fascinating and fiendishly funny. Did you know that Roald Dahl nearly lost his nose in a car accident? Or that he was once a chocolate candy tester for Cadbury's? Have you heard about his involvement in the Great Mouse Plot of 1924? If not, you don’t yet know all there is to know about Roald Dahl.

As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called “sex murderers” who had begun gaining notoriety in the random brutality of the 1970s.

I'm Staying with My Boys is a firsthand look inside the life of one of the greatest heroes of the Greatest Generation. Sgt. John Basilone held off 3000 Japanese troops at Guadalcanal after his 15-member unit was reduced to three men. At Iwo Jima he single-handedly destroyed an enemy blockhouse, allowing his unit to capture an airfield. Minutes later he was killed by an enemy artillery round. He was the only Marine in World War II to have received the Medal of Honor, the Navy Cross, and a Purple Heart.

When his picture appeared on the cover of Texas Monthly, Joaquin Jackson became the icon of the modern Texas Rangers. Nick Nolte modeled his character on him in the movie Extreme Prejudice. Jackson even had a speaking part of his own in The Good Old Boys with Tommy Lee Jones. But the role that Jackson has always played the best is that of the man who wears the silver badge cut from a Mexican cinco peso coin, a working Texas Ranger.

The Boys in the Light follows the parallel journeys of Company D and Eddie Willner, the author’s father, as they experience two sides of World War II. This is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the strength of the bonds forged during war; a must-listen for fans of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand and Erik Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile.

The tragic and inspiring story of the leaders of Outlaw country and their influence on today’s Alt-Country and Americana superstars, tracing a path from Waylon Jennings’ survival on the Day the Music Died through to the Highwaymen and on to the current creative and commercial explosion of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, Zach Bryan, Jason Isbell, and the Highwomen.

In Catch a Wave, Peter Ames Carlin pulls back the curtain on Brian Wilson, one of popular music's most revered luminaries, as well as its biggest mystery. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and never-before heard studio recordings, Carlin follows the Beach Boys from their earliest days through Brian's deepening emotional problems to his triumphant re-emergence with the release of Smile, the legendarily unreleased album he had originally shelved.

A childhood in a privileged household in 1950s Havana was joyous and cruel, like any other - but with certain differences. The neighbor's monkey was liable to escape and run across your roof. Surfing was conducted by driving cars across the breakwater. Lizards and firecrackers made frequent contact. Carlos Eire's childhood was a little different from most. His father was convinced he had been Louis XVI in a past life. At school, classmates were attended by chauffeurs and bodyguards. Then, in January 1959, the world changed....

You are about to go back in time to the Wild West of the 1800s. These true, real-life adventures were told first-hand by Elijah Nicholas Wilson. He was a cavalry spy, hired to track down murdering bands of Indians. Before that he was a stagecoach driver on roads filled with outlaws. Before that he was one of the first Pony Express riders and was chased by Indians who nearly killed him with arrows. And before that he was a bronc buster who accepted a bet to ride the meanest bucking horse in the west.

Even if you’re an inveterate landlubber, you’ll appreciate his water-borne humility as he absorbs lessons about what not to do before embarking on his own entrepreneurial adventure. Part memoir, part business primer, part hero’s journey, Boat Boy will have you alternately shaking your head, laughing, and taking notes.

Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 US Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest sports moment of the 20th century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to play hockey happily ever after.

Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, The Reason I Jumpis a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.

Richard Wright's powerful and eloquent memoir of his journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. At once an unashamed confession and a profound indictment, Black Boy is a poignant record of struggle and endurance - a seminal literary work that illuminates our own time. The once controversial, now classic American autobiography measures the brutality and rawness of the Jim Crow South against the sheer desperate will it took to survive as a Black boy. Seventy-five years later, his words continue to reverberate.