Family Biography

They called him "pale faced or mixed race" or "light, bright, almost White". But most of the time his family called him "high yella". Steve Majors was the White-passing youngest son of an all-Black family that struggled with poverty, abuse, and generational trauma. High Yella is the poignant account of how he tried to leave his troubled childhood and family behind to create a new identity, only to discover he ultimately needed to return home to truly find himself and help his two adopted Black daughters find their own place in the world.

Twenty-one years after Cheryl Strayed set off on the Pacific Crest Trail to heal from the death of her beloved mother, Cheryl’s mother-in-law, Joan, is given weeks to live. As she and her husband help see Joan through her final days, Cheryl reckons with their complicated relationship, determined to connect with a woman who both showed her love and (sometimes hilariously) held her at a distance. Cheryl reflects on their two decades together as she comes to a deeper understanding of the secrets and sorrows in Joan’s complicated past.

The much-anticipated and inspiring memoir by Indra Nooyi, the trailblazing former CEO of PepsiCo, offering clear-eyed insight and a call to action for how our society can really blend work and family - and advance women - in the 21st century. For more than a dozen years as one of the world's most admired CEOs, Indra Nooyi redefined what it means to be an exceptional leader. The first woman, person of colour and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company, Nooyi transformed PepsiCo with a unique vision, a vigorous pursuit of excellence and a deep sense of purpose.

The provocative best seller She's Not There is the winning, utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan's fresh voice, She's Not There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret.

For all the roads we choose to travel, and even those we don't, Fred Rogers has an observation, a story, some insights to share. Whether you're facing graduation, a new job, a new baby, marriage, any change in your life, expected or not, the wisdom that Mister Rogers offers can contribute mightily to the grace with which you handle the change. It all comes down to knowing we're valuable, and that we're worthy of that value. As Fred would say, "You don't have to be anything more than who you are right now."

Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, family, and lovers over a thirty-year period—as well as previously unreleased material from the JFK Library—Kennedy historian J. Randy Taraborrelli paints an unforgettable new portrait of a woman whose flaws and contradictions only serve to make her even more iconic. “I have three lives,” Jackie told a former lover, “public, private and secret.” In this revealing biography, listeners will become intimately familiar with all three.

After the unexpected death of her husband, Joanne Huist Smith had no idea how she would keep herself together and be strong for her three children - especially with the holiday season approaching. But 12 days before Christmas, presents begin appearing on her doorstep with notes from their "True Friends." As the Smiths came together to solve the mystery of who the gifts were from, they began to thaw out from their grief and come together again as a family.

Raised for vastly different futures, one burdened with the responsibility of becoming the future king and the other destined to live in his shadow, Charles and Andrew have spent their lives on different sides of the same coin. War of the Windsors tells, for the first time, the complete story of Charles and Andrew from their diverging childhoods to their current struggles.

When Nathan Carman, a young man with a complicated past, is miraculously rescued from a lifeboat bobbing in the unforgiving North Atlantic, questions swirl about the fate of his mother, who is presumed to have drowned when their fishing boat sank. Nathan is in remarkably good shape for being lost at sea for a week, and his account of what exactly happened out there on the waves raises questions from family members and law enforcement.

Though Michelle Miller was an award-winning broadcast journalist for CBS News, few people in her life knew the painful secret she carried: her mother had abandoned her at birth. Los Angeles in 1967 was deeply segregated, and her mother—a Chicana hospital administrator who presented as white, had kept her affair with Michelle’s father, Dr. Ross Miller, a married trauma surgeon and Compton’s first Black city councilman—hidden, along with the unplanned pregnancy. Raised largely by her father and her paternal grandmother, Michelle had no knowledge of the woman whose genes she shared. Then, fate intervened when Michelle was twenty-two. As her father lay stricken with cancer, he told her, “Go and find your mother.”

Step into the intriguing world of the Lucchese crime family, one of the most formidable and enigmatic factions in the American Mafia. From their humble beginnings in the early 1920s to their rise as one of the "Five Families" that dominated organized crime in New York City, the Lucchese family's captivating story is filled with ambition, power struggles, and ruthless tactics that kept them at the top of the criminal underworld.

Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma, and his struggle to manhood.

In the late 1960s, riding the crest of the counterculture movement, Cea's family left a comfortable existence in California to live off the land in the Canadian wilderness. But unlike most commune dwellers of the time, the Persons weren't trying to build a new society - they wanted to escape civilization altogether. Led by Cea's grandfather Dick, they lived a pot-smoking, free-loving, clothing-optional life under a canvas tipi without running water, electricity, or heat for the bitter winters.

"If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person." ( The World According to Mister Rogers)

Fans of MTV’s critically acclaimed hit series, Teen Mom, have followed Farrah Abraham’s tumultuous life as a single teen mother. Her fiery, relentless spirit, and her unwavering commitment to getting the best out of life for herself and her daughter, Sophia, in spite of all the drama constantly surrounding her have made her a beloved star and media sensation. Now, in this unflinching, at times heartbreaking, memoir, Farrah reveals the difficult truth about the life that hasn’t been seen on television.

Back in the days before Vegas was big, when the Mob was at its peak and neon lights were but a glimmer on the horizon, a little Southern town styled itself as a premier destination for the American leisure class. Hot Springs, Arkansas was home to healing waters, Art Deco splendor, and America's original national park - as well as horse racing, nearly a dozen illegal casinos, countless backrooms and brothels, and some of the country’s most bald-faced criminals.

Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation. Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come.

Karen Gravano is the daughter of Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, once one of the mafia's most feared hit men. With 19 confessed murders, the former Gambino Crime Family underboss - and John Gotti’s right-hand man - is the highest ranking gangster ever to turn State’s evidence and testify against members of his high-profile crime family. But to Karen, Sammy Gravano was a sometimes elusive but always loving father figure. He was ever-present at the head of the dinner table.

The most famous man in South Carolina lives jailed in the state capital. He stands accused of a staggering amount of wrongdoing—ninety-nine crimes and counting. Once a high-flying, smooth-talking, pedigreed Southern lawyer, Alex Murdaugh is now disbarred and disgraced. For more than a decade, prosecutors claim, Alex was secretly a fraud, a thief, a drug dealer and an all-around phony. On the night of June 7, 2021, they claim, he also became a killer.

In 1994, Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were brutally murdered at her home in Brentwood, California. O. J. Simpson was tried for the crime, but was ultimately found not guilty of criminal charges. The victims' families brought civil cases against Simpson, in which he was found liable for willfully and wrongfully causing the deaths of Ron and Nicole by committing battery with malice and oppression. The Goldman family views this book as Simpson's confession.