Childhood Biography

Childhood Lost in Poverty is an account of the author’s childhood experiences, from infancy to young adulthood. The process enabled him to recognise how the poor parenting skills of his father, as well as his mother’s struggle to raise him and his sister up in poverty, compromised his relationships with his parents and affected his adult life.

'I have just had one of those absolutely mad mornings when you go out to have a browse at tagines and end up coming home with a brand-new gas ring expander. I think I was probably as surprised as anybody. Sometimes life is just like that, isn't it?' Award-winning food writer Damien Trench takes you on a journey through his childhood and his early inspirations - culinary and otherwise - with occasional diversions to the present.

Growing up in Bexley, Ohio, population 13,000, Bob Greene and his four best friends, Allen, Chuck, Dan, and Jack, were inseparable. Of the four, Jack was Bob's very best friend, a bond forged from the moment they met on the first day of kindergarten. They grew up together, got into trouble together, learned about life together, and were ultimately separated by time and distance, as all adults are. But through the years Bob and Jack stayed close, holding on to the friendship that had formed years before.

Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.

As a five-year-old boy, Pao Lor joined thousands of Hmong who fled for their lives through the jungles of Laos in the aftermath of war. After a difficult and perilous journey that neither of his parents survived, he reached the safety of Thailand, but the young refugee boy’s challenges were only just beginning.

Born to a violently dysfunctional home in working-class Denmark, Lisbeth Zornig Andersen and her three older brothers were bounced between foster care and state-run institutions, then back again to their chemically dependent mother and sadistic stepfather. For Lisbeth, it was a childhood without perimeters. It was blighted by poverty, sexual abuse, neglect, betrayal, and further victimization by the broken Danish social services system that forced Lisbeth to live where and how it saw fit.

Bill Bryson's hilarious memoir of growing up in middle America in the Fifties, complete, unabridged and read by the author. Born in 1951 in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24 carat memoir gold.

Every president started out as a kid! Forget the legends, tall tales, and historic achievements - before they were presidents, the future leaders of the United States had regular-kid problems just like you. John F. Kennedy hated his big brother. Lyndon Johnson pulled pranks in class. Barack Obama was bothered by bullies. And Bill Clinton was crazy clumsy (he once broke his leg jumping rope). Kid Presidents tells all of their stories and more in these hilarious biographies. History has never been this much fun!

To Fred Archer, born in the village of Ashton-under-Hill in 1915 and growing up in the 1920s, nothing seemed to change except the seasons. This was the age of paraffin lamps, earth closets, and the last train from Evesham at 7 o’clock in the evening. The village was a self-sufficient community with its own hierarchy, strong Church and Chapel, fierce politics and home-made entertainment.

Memories of my childhood and the street I grew up on in Jacksonville, Illinois. A collection of fond memories of mine growing up in the 50's & 60's of my childhood adventures and memories to the best of my recollection. Enclosed I have inserted some photo's of my family along with photo's compliments of Google Search of Park Place street Jacksonville, Illinois my home town. Being a baby boomer I can recall many historic events as well some of which I will share within. This non-fiction book is a true work of love of my childhood memories then and now. I hope baby boomers will enjoy as well ...

Discover the untold story of Gene Hackman, Hollywood’s rugged everyman and cinematic icon. Dive into The Everyman’s Hero: The Life and Legacy of Gene Hackman, an in-depth biography that chronicles the extraordinary journey of one of the greatest actors of all time. From his nomadic childhood in Illinois to his Oscar-winning triumphs in The French Connection and Unforgiven, this book unveils the authentic details behind Gene Hackman’s rise to stardom, his versatile career, and his quiet retirement. Written by C.D.

Until he was 17, Brett Preiss lived in the dusty outback of Australia, where he was one of four siblings in a dysfunctional family. He learned how to survive under the most bizarre and extraordinary circumstances. In this book, he shares the trials and tribulations of his youth through anecdotes that will leave you in tears of joy or sorrow. Travel back to the ’60s and ’70s and watch Brett transform from a sperm to adolescence.

Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt's sad, funny, bittersweet memoir of growing up in New York in the late '30s and in Ireland in the '40s. It is a story of extreme hardship and suffering, in Brooklyn tenements and Limerick slums; too many children, too little money, his mother Angela barely coping as his father Malachy's drinking bouts constantly brought the family to the brink of disaster. It is a story of courage and survival against apparently overwhelming odds.

Growing up in Inner Mongolia, Jin Wang was rambunctious and boisterous and did not always listen to her Ma. Jin and her family were poor, but like kids everywhere, she still found a way to have fun and get into lots of mischief climbing trees, digging for mushrooms, and even looking for wolves.

In this memoir, Natasha takes on the therapist's role with her past selves to drag her social anxiety into the open. From feisty Miss 6, lonely Miss 14 reeling from a tumultuous childhood, and defiant Miss 18 pushing back against a world where she didn't fit, through to her present self, Natasha explores the way social anxiety colored her experiences and finds healing through self-acceptance.

Her Last Death begins as the phone rings early one morning in the Montana house where Susanna Sonnenberg lives with her husband and two young sons. Her aunt is calling to tell Susanna her mother is in a coma after a car accident. She might not live. Any daughter would rush the thousands of miles to her mother's bedside. But Susanna cannot bring herself to go. Her courageous memoir explains why.

Celebrated journalist Lauren St. John "bears witness to a remarkable story" ( Publishers Weekly) in this striking memoir of her African childhood. In the 1970s St. John lived on a Rhodesian farm that should have been paradise. But the specter of war hung over the land, filling every day with peril and uncertainty.

When Areli was just a baby, her mama and papa moved from Mexico to New York with her brother, Alex, to make a better life for the family - and when she was in kindergarten, they sent for her, too. Everything in New York was different. Gone were the Saturdays at Abuela's house, filled with cousins and sunshine. Instead, things were busy and fast and noisy. Areli's limited English came out wrong, and schoolmates accused her of being illegal. But with time, America became her home.

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.

Fans of Augusten Burroughs and Jo Ann Beard will enjoy this kaleidoscopic, universal memoir in which Elissa Altman explores the tradition, religion, family expectations, and the forbidden that were the fixed points in her Queens, New York, childhood. Spanning from 1940s wartime Brooklyn to 1970s Queens to present-day rural New England, Treyf captures the collision of youthful cravings and grown-up identities. It is a vivid tale of what it means to come to yourself both in spite and in honor to your past.