biography & autobiography / women

"No one does glamour, severity, girlish charm or tight-lipped witticism better than Dame Maggie Smith. Michael Coveney's biography shines a light on the life and career of a truly remarkable performer, one whose stage and screen career spans six decades. From her days as a West End star of comedy and revue, Dame Maggie's path would cross with those of the greatest actors, playwrights and directors of the era. Whether stealing scenes from Richard Burton, answering back to Laurence Olivier, or playing opposite Judi Dench in Breath of Life, her career can be seen as a 'Who's Who' of British theatre. Her film and television career are just as starry. From the title character in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the meddling chaperone in A Room With a View to the Harry Potter films in which she played Minerva McGonagall (as she put it 'Miss Jean Brodie in a wizard's hat') and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films in which she played the wise Muriel Donnelly, Smith has thrilled, engaged and made audiences laugh. As Violet Crawley, the formidable Dowager Countess of Downton Abbey she conquered millions more. Paradoxically she remains an enigmatic figure, rarely appearing in public. Michael Coveney's absorbing biography, written with the actress's blessing and drawing on personal archives, as well as interviews with immediate family and close friends, is a portrait of one of the greatest actors of our time"--.

Gerda Hartwich Robinson narrates her story as a German survivor of World War II. She tells how her life's journey included hunger, fear, neglect, and physical and emotional abuse, and how she carried these injustices in her mind and body for many years, leading to debilitating back pain, headaches, panic attacks, depression, and feelings of inadequacy. Robinson shows that the tragedies of war don't end when the last bomb is dropped or the last prisoner freed; they continue in subtle but devastating ways. Like many German citizens during and after the war, Robinson was simply trying to survive a terrifying situation.

On the morning of September 12, 2013, a fugitive task force broke down the door of Arthur Fryar's apartment in Brooklyn. His DNA, entered in the FBI's criminal database after a drug conviction, had been matched to evidence from a rape in Pennsylvania years earlier. Over the next year, Fryar and his lawyer fought his extradition and prosecution for the rape--and another like it--which occurred in 1992. The names of the victims, one from January, the other from November, were suppressed; the prosecution and the media referred to them as Jane Doe. Now, Jane Doe January tells her story. Emily Winslow was a young drama student at Carnegie Mellon University's elite conservatory in Pittsburgh when a man brutally attacked and raped her in January 1992. While the police search for her rapist proved futile, Emily reclaimed her life. Over the course of the next two decades, she fell in love, married, had two children, and began writing mystery novels set in her new hometown of Cambridge, England. Then, in fall 2013, she received shocking news--the police had found her rapist. This is her memoir--the story of a woman's traumatic past catching up with her, in a country far from home, surrounded by people who have no idea what she's endured.

A collection of sexual-assault survivor stories that will connect with students. Every day more survivors come forward and others choose not to. More than 30 experiences of trauma, healing, and everyday activism, representing a diversity of races, economic and family backgrounds, gender identities, immigration statuses, interests, capacities and loves are revealed in this book. More than 1 in 5 women and 5 percent of men are sexually assaulted at college, a shocking status quo that might have stayed largely hidden and unaddressed but for the two authors. In 2013, Annie E. Clark and Andrea L. Pino, then 23 and 20, building on the work of earlier activists, outed themselves as assault survivors and filed a federal complaint against the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) for mishandling such crimes. Within a month, the U.S. government began to investigate UNC. Within a year, dozens of colleges were under federal investigation. But Clark and Pino rightly see themselves as two among many. Students from every kind of college and university--large and small, public and private, highly selective and less so--are sounding alarms and staking claims to justice by filing complaints, by pressing charges, and by simply living beyond the effects of assault and the betrayals of their schools.

A reflection on what it is to be a Muslim in America today. It is also the story of many journeys: from Pakistan to the United States in an arranged marriage that becomes a love match lasting forty years; from secular Muslim in an Islamic society to devout Muslim in a society ignorant of Islam, and from liberal to conservative to American Muslim; from master's candidate to bride and mother; and from an immigrant intending to stay only two years to an American citizen, business executive, grandmother, and tireless advocate for interfaith understanding. The author undercuts stereotypes and offers the refreshing view of an American life through Muslim eyes. She recounts an immigrant's daily struggles balancing assimilation with preserving heritage, overcoming religious barriers from within and distortions of Islam from without, and confronting issues of raising her children as Muslims--while they lobby for a Christmas tree.

Born Betsy Bowen into grinding poverty, the woman who became Eliza Jumel was raised in a brothel, indentured as a servant, and confined to a workhouse when her mother was in jail. Yet by the end of her life, "Madame Jumel" was one of America's richest women, with servants of her own, a New York mansion, a Saratoga Springs summer home, a major art collection, and several hundred acres of land. During her remarkable rise, she acquired a fortune from her first husband---a French merchant---and almost lost it to her second---notorious vice president Aaron Burr. Divorcing Burr amid charges of adultery, Jumel lived on to the age of 90, astutely managing her property and public persona. After her death, the battle over her estate went all the way to the United States Supreme Court---twice. Family members told of a woman who earned the gratitude of Napoleon I and shone at the courts of Louis XVIII and Charles X. Claimants to her estate painted a different picture of a prostitute, the mother of George Washington's illegitimate son, a wife who defrauded her husband and perhaps even plotted his death. Eliza Jumel's real story---so unique that it surpasses any invention---has yet to be told, until now.

The four Romanov sisters were the Princess Dianas of their day. They were the most photographed and the most talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. Over the years their tragic end has overshadowed their true selves. The contents of this book, taken from diaries and letters written to their friends and family, show that the girls were intelligent, sensitive, and perceptive witnesses to the dark turmoil within their immediate family and the ominous approach of the Russian Revolution.

"A...first-hand account of the terror and torture inflicted by ISIS on young Iraqi Yazidi women, and an inspiring personal story of bravery and resilience in theface of unspeakable horrors..."--Provided by publisher.

"Meditations on loss, poverty, and becoming a woman in late 1980s America, and what it means to be human"--.

"At age twenty-eight, Mira Ptacin discovered she was pregnant. Though it was unplanned, she soon embraced the pregnancy and became engaged to Andrew, the father. Five months later, an ultrasound revealed birth defects that would give the child no chance of survival outside the womb. Mira was given three options: terminate her pregnancy, induce early delivery, or wait and inevitably miscarry. Mira's story is woven together with the story of her mother, who emigrated from Poland, also at the age of twenty-eight, and adopted a son, Julian. Julian would die tragically, bringing her an unimaginable grief. A memoir about loss and self-preservation, grief and recovery, and mothers and daughters, Poor Your Soul is a beautiful examination of free will, love, and the fierce bonds of family"--.