Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis

by Robert F. Kennedy

The unique, gripping account of the perilous showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the thirteen days in October 1962 when the United States confronted the Soviet Union over its installation of missiles in Cuba, few people shared the behind-the-scenes story as it is told here by the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. In a clear and simple record, he describes the personalities involved in the... (more)

John Ransom's Andersonville Diary/Life Inside the Civil War's Most Infamous Prison

John Ransom's Andersonville Diary/Life Inside the Civil War's Most Infamous Prison

by John Ransom

John Ransom was a 20-year-old Union soldier when he became a prisoner of war in 1863. In his unforgettable diary, Ransom reveals the true story of his day-to-day struggle in the worst of Confederate prison camps--where hundreds of prisoners died daily. Ransom's story of survival is, according to Publishers Weekly, "a great adventure . . . observant, eloquent, and moving."

The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

The Bridge: The Building of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

by Gay Talese

With a new preface and afterword by the author and drawings by Lili Rethi. Towards the end of 1964, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge—linking the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island with New Jersey—was completed. It remains an engineering marvel almost forty years later—at 13,700 feet (more than two and a half miles), it is still the longest suspension bridge in the United States and the sixth longest... (more)

Unto the Sons

by Gay Talese

"An Italian ROOTS." The Washington Post Book World At long last, Gay Talese, one of America's greatest living authors, employs his prodigious storytelling gifts to tell the saga of his own family's emigration to America from Italy in the years preceding World War II. Ultimately it is the story of all immigrant families and the hope and sacrifice that took them from the familiarity of the old world into the... (more)

Washington Goes to War

by David Brinkley

"Astonishing. . . Told with endearing detail . . . He knows his Washington well." --The New York Times Book Review "HILARIOUS AND INSTRUCTIVE . . . Brinkley has written an impressionist history, comparable to a pointillist painting composed of small points of color that, seen whole, comprise a remarkably truthful record of reality." --George F. Will The Washington Post Today the hub of international affairs and... (more)

A Life in Our Times

by John Kenneth Galbraith

"In the decades since World War II, no American writer has done more to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable than John Kenneth Galbraith." ( USA Today )

Seven Years in Tibet

by Heinrich Harrer

This real-life adventure is the story of Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian who, during World War II, escaped from a British internment camp in India and walked across the Himalayas. Harrer eventually arrived in Tibet, where he spent seven years with the Dalai Lama. This fascinating audiobook coincides with the release of the feature film starring Brad Pitt. October publication date. 2 cassettes.

Broken Music

by Sting

Having been a songwriter most of my life, condensing my ideas and emotions into short rhyming couplets and setting them to music, I had never really considered writing a book. But upon arriving at the reflective age of fifty, I found myself drawn, for the first time, to write long passages that were as stimulating and intriguing to me as any songwriting I had ever done. And so Broken Music began to take shape.... (more)

The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping

by Nasdijj

Nasdijj’s critically acclaimed, award-winning memoir, The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams , took the literary world by storm. “An authentic, important book,” raved Esquire . “Unfailingly honest and very nearly perfect.” Now, this celebrated Native American writer has given readers a powerful, brave, and deeply moving memoir of the unconditional love between a father and a son. Eleven-year-old Awee... (more)

One Train Later: A Memoir

by Andy Summers

“The train jerks to a halt, and as I get out at Oxford Circus, Stewart gets out with me. We look at each other, laugh, and make the standard remark about it being a small world. But this is the brilliant collision, one train later and it might all have turned out differently.” In this extraordinary memoir, world-renowned guitarist Andy Summers provides a revealing and passionate account of a life dedicated... (more)

All too Human

by George Stephanopoulos

"So this is it. This is how the big guys talk to each other. I'd been behind my share of closed doors on Capitol Hill, but this was different -- more self-conscious, almost cinematic, as if everyone was aware of playing a part in a drama that was being written as they spoke. This was the classic smoke-filled room, minus the smoke. I watched and listened and tried to look cool, too dumbstruck to say a sensible word... (more)

A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O'Donnell

A Common Good: The Friendship of Robert F. Kennedy and Kenneth P. O'Donnell

by Helen O'Donnell

Kenneth O'Donnell was JFK's chief-of-staff and the co-author of Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye. In this intimate, revealing memoir of his long friendship with Bobby Kennedy, his daughter, Helen, honors his wish that RFK be remembered as the man Ken O'Donnell knew him to be. Kenny and Bobby met at Harvard in 1947, where they were both members of the football and debate teams. It was the beginning of a relationship... (more)

Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'N' Roll Band

Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock 'N' Roll Band

by Bill Wyman

During the height of the Rolling Stones' success, Bill Wyman kept a diary, recoding the churning chaos of the band's creative evolution, power plays, recording sessions, tours, romances, drug busts, and financial disarray. Stone Alone is a meticulous, shrewd and humorous look at the complex personalities of the Stones and the role they played in the startling cultural revolution of the times. 63 photos.

My Twelve Years with John F. Kennedy

by Evelyn Lincoln

An up-close-and-personal biography of John F. Kennedy, the president who still captures the hearts of many Americans, as well as people around the world. Written by the woman who was his personal secretary for twelve years, it was the first biography of President Kennedy to come out of the White House after his death, and has been used as source material by many other biographers who followed. The 400-page... (more)

Journal, 1955 - 1962: Reflections on the French-Algerian War

Journal, 1955 - 1962: Reflections on the French-Algerian War

by Mouloud Feraoun

“This honest man, this good man, this man who never did wrong to anyone, who devoted his life to the public good, and who was one of the greatest writers in Algeria, has been murdered. . . . Not by accident, not by mistake, but called by his name and killed with preference.” So wrote Germaine Tillion in Le Monde shortly after Mouloud Feraoun’s assassination by a right wing French terrorist group, the... (more)

Dancing on My Grave

by Gelsey Kirkland, Greg Lawrence

The shattering story of a dream which became a heartbreaking nightmare for one of America's most famous ballerinas, Gelsey Kirkland, who chronicles her brilliant start as a dancer with George Balanchine, her legendary partnership with Mikhail Baryshnikov, her agonizing descent into drugs, and her struggles to rise again.

Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics)

Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (New York Review Books Classics)

by J. R. Ackerley

In the 1920s, the young J.R. Ackerley spent several months in India as the personal secretary to the maharajah of a small Indian principality. In his journals, Ackerley recorded the Maharajah's fantastically eccentric habits and riddling conversations, and the odd shambling day-to-day life of his court. Hindoo Holiday is an intimate and very funny account of an exceedingly strange place, and one of the... (more)

The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology

The Snoring Bird: My Family's Journey Through a Century of Biology

by Bernd Heinrich

Although Gerd Heinrich, a devoted naturalist, specialized in wasps, Bernd Heinrich tried to distance himself from his "old-fashioned" father, becoming a hybrid: a modern, experimental biologist with a naturalist's sensibilities. In this extraordinary memoir, the award-winning author shares the ways in which his relationship with his father, combined with his unique childhood, molded him into the scientist, and... (more)

My Autobiography

by Charles Chaplin

Born into a theatrical family, Chaplin's father died of drink while his mother, unable to bear the poverty, suffered from bouts of insanity, Chaplin embarked on a film-making career which won him immeasurable success, as well as intense controversy. His extraordinary autobiography was first published in 1964 and was written almost entirely without reference to documentation - simply as an astonishing feat of... (more)

Loretta Lynn: Coal Miner's Daughter

by Loretta Lynn

Tying in with the publication of Loretta Lynn's long-awaited autobiographical sequel, Still Woman Enough, later this year. "Few subjects are too difficult to deal with here, yet there is nothing sensationalistic...Those reading this can be assured they have met the real Loretta Lynn."-Billboard "Engaging reading even for many to whom country music is an alien world."-New York Times Book Review "This... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: memoirs-journals-autobios

by Robert F. Kennedy

by John Ransom

by Gay Talese

by Gay Talese

by David Brinkley

by John Kenneth Galbraith

by Heinrich Harrer

by Sting

by Nasdijj

by Andy Summers

by George Stephanopoulos

by Helen O'Donnell

by Bill Wyman

by Evelyn Lincoln

by Mouloud Feraoun

by Gelsey Kirkland, Greg Lawrence

by J. R. Ackerley

by Bernd Heinrich

by Charles Chaplin

by Loretta Lynn