Beautiful, bold, and bad, Grier burst onto the movie scene in the 1970s, setting the screen on fire and forever changing the country's view of African-American actresses. Revealing, thoroughly candid, and audacious, this no-holds-barred autobiography offers a tantalizing look at this screen icon.

 

 

Some may know her as hot, gutsy, gun-totin' Foxy Brown, Friday Foster, Coffy, and Jackie Brown. Others may know her from her role as Kit Porter on The L Word. But that only defines one part of the legend that is Pam Grier. 

Beautiful, bold, and bad, Pam Grier burst onto the movie scene in the 1970s, setting the screen on fire and forever changing the country's view of African American actresses. With a killer attitude and body to match, Grier became the ultimate fantasy of men everywhere. But she quickly proved that she was more than just a desirable film goddess. She had the brains, courage, and tenacity to sustain a career that would span more than 30 years. 

In Foxy, she chronicles the good, bad, and steamy highlights in her life and career. From her early beginnings as a star in Foxy Brown to her Golden-Globe nominated role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, Grier reveals her hard-won battles against racism and sexism, her victories in Hollywood, and her relationships with Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul Jabar. Here, we see Pam in all of her incredible roles-from army brat and movie star to cancer survivor and dedicated activist. Revealing, thoroughly candid, and audacious, this is a no-holds-barred look at one of our most enduring screen idols.

This book is broken down into Three Parts: The Early Years, 'Fros and Freaks, and Finding the Balance.

To read an excerpt from Foxy: My Life in Three Acts, click HERE. 

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She came to fame in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison films and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film Jackie Brown. She is one of a few African American actresses to have received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Ever Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history. Director Quentin Tarantino, in an interview promoting Jackie Brown on Charlie Rose, remarked that she may well have been cinema's first female action star.

 

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In 2004, at the age of forty-eight, Dr. Dave Hnida, a family physician from Littleton, Colorado, volunteered to be deployed to Iraq and spent a tour of duty as a battalion surgeon with a combat unit. In 2007, he went back—this time as a trauma chief at one of the busiest Combat Support Hospitals (CSH) during the Surge. In an environment that was nothing less than a modern-day M*A*S*H, the doctors’ main objective was simple: Get ’em in, get ’em out. The only CSH staffed by reservists— who tended to be older, more-experienced doctors disdainful of authority—the 399th soon became a medevac destination of choice because of its high survival rate, an astounding 98 percent. 

 

This was fast-food medicine at its best: working in a series of tents connected to the occasional run-down building, Dr. Hnida and his fellow doctors raced to keep the wounded alive until they could be airlifted out of Iraq for more extensive repairs. Here the Hippocratic Oath superseded that of the pledge to Uncle Sam; if you got the red-carpet helicopter ride, his team took care of you, no questions asked. On one stretcher there might be a critically injured American soldier while three feet away lay the insurgent, shot in the head, who planted the IED that inflicted those wounds. 

 

But there was levity amid the chaos. On call round-the-clock with an unrelenting caseload, the doctors’ prescription for sanity included jokes, pranks, and misbehavior. Dr. Hnida’s deployment was filled with colorful characters and gifted surgeons, a diverse group who became trusted friends as together they dealt with the psychological toll of seeing the casualties of war firsthand. 

In a conflict with no easy answers and even less good news, Paradise General gives us something that we can all believe in—the story of an ordinary citizen turned volunteer soldier trying to make a difference. With honesty and candor, and an off-the-wall, self-deprecating humor that sustained him and his battle buddies through their darkest hours, Dr. Hnida delivers a devastating and inspiring account of his CSH tour and an unparalleled look at medical care during an unscripted war. 

To read an excerpt from Chapter One of Paradise General, click HERE.

Dr. Dave Hnida is a busy practicing physician and an award-broadcasting journalist. As the Medical Editor, of CBS4 Dr. Dave brings a family doctor to television, answering viewer questions and putting medical headlines and complicated issues into easy-to-understand, usable information. He joined the CBS4 team in September of 1991 covering medicine not only for Denver viewers but also across the country for NBC and CBS News. Hnida was educated at the University of Pennsylvania and completed his internship and residencies at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center and Denver General Hospital. He has been working in the Denver area as a family and emergency physician for 25 years. Hnida is a combat-decorated Major in the U.S. Army Medical Corp. He has served two tours of duty in Iraq since the war began in 2003. His first tour he served as a combat surgeon with the 160th Airborne MP Battalion. His second tour took to a Combat Support Hospital as a trauma surgeon. Hnida is also a medical officer with the National Medical Response Team for Weapons of Mass Destruction, a counter-terrorism medical group. Hnida's CBS4 health reports can be seen daily on CBS4 News.

 

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

From the outrageously filthy and oddly innocent comedienne Sarah Silverman comes a memoir—her first book—that is at once shockingly personal, surprisingly poignant, and still pee-in-your-pants funny. If you like Sarah’s television show The Sarah Silverman Program, or memoirs such as Chelsea Handler’s Are You There Vodka? It’s Me Chelsea and Artie Lange’s Too Fat to Fish, you’ll love The Bedwetter.

 

To read an excerpt from Chapter One, click HERE. 

Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician. Although usually credited as Sarah Silverman, she is sometimes credited by her nickname, Big S. Her satirical comedy addresses social taboos and controversial topics such as racism, sexism, and religion. Silverman first gained notice as a writer and occasional performer on Saturday Night Live. She currently stars in and produces The Sarah Silverman Program, which debuted February 1, 2007, on Comedy Central. She often performs her act by playing a caricature of a Jewish-American princess, mocking bigotry and stereotypes of ethnic groups and religious denominations, by having her comic character endorsing them in an ironic fashion.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE. 

From the prominent New York Times food writer, a memoir recounting the tough life lessons she learned from a generation of female cooks-including Marion Cunningham, Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, Rachael Ray, and Marcella Hazan.

Somewhere between the lessons her mother taught her as a child and the ones she is now trying to teach her own daughter, Kim Severson stumbled. She lost sight of what mattered, of who she was and who she wanted to be, and of how she wanted to live her life. It took a series of women cooks to reteach her the life lessons she forgot-and some she had never learned in the first place. Some as small as a spoonful, and others so big they saved her life, the best lessons she found were delivered in the kitchen.

Told in Severson's frank, often funny, always perceptive style, Spoon Fed weaves together the stories of eight important cooks with the lessons they taught her-lessons that seemed to come right when she needed them most. We follow Kim's journey from an awkward adolescent to an adult who channeled her passions into failing relationships, alcohol, and professional ambition, almost losing herself in the process. Finally as Severson finds sobriety and starts a family of her own, we see her mature into a strong, successful woman, as we learn alongside her.

An emotionally rich, multilayered memoir and an inspirational, illuminating series of profiles of the most influential women in the world of food, Spoon Fed is Severson's story and the story of the women who came before her-and ultimately, a testament to the wisdom that can be found in the kitchen. 

To view snapshots of the women in Spoon Fed and to visit links to the original articles in which Kim Severson wrote about them, click HERE.

Kim Severson has been a staff writer for The New York Times since 2004. Previously, she spent six years writing about cooking and the culture of food for the San Francisco Chronicle. Before that, she had a seven-year stint as an editor and reporter at The Anchorage Daily News in Alaska. She has also covered crime, education, social services and government for daily newspapers on the West Coast. She has won several regional and national awards for news and feature writing, including the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for her work on childhood obesity in 2002 and four James Beard awards for food writing. She has also written “The New Alaska Cookbook” and “The Trans Fat Solution: Cooking and Shopping to Eliminate the Deadliest Fat from Your Diet.” She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and her young daughter.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

But it was in Vietnam where the man became a legend. He arrived in 1966 to find a dejected group of pilots and motivated them by placing himself on the flight schedule under officers junior to himself, then challenging them to train him properly because he would soon be leading them. Proving he wasn’t a WWII retread, he led the wing with aggressiveness, scoring another four confirmed kills, becoming a rare triple ace. 

Olds (who retired a brigadier general and died in 2007) was a unique individual whose personal story is one of the most eagerly anticipated military books of the year. 

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Robin Olds (July 14, 1922 – June 14, 2007) was an American fighter pilot and general officer in the U.S. Air Force. He was a "triple ace", with a combined total of 16 victories in World War II and the Vietnam War. He retired in 1973 as a brigadier general. Olds had a highly-publicized career and life, including marriage to Hollywood actress Ella Raines. As a young man he was also recognized for his athletic prowess in both high school and college, being named an All American for his play as a lineman in American football. Olds expressed his philosophy regarding fighter pilots in the quote: "There are pilots and there are pilots; with the good ones, it is inborn. You can't teach it. If you are a fighter pilot, you have to be willing to take risks."

Christina Olds is the daughter of Robin Olds. She holds a Vassar College BA in English & creative writing and compiled her father’s writings to help complete this book with Ed Rasimus, a retired USAF fighter pilot who has written two books on the Vietnam air war, When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra. They both live in Colorado. 

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THIS TIME TOGETHER is 100 percent Carol Burnett -- funny, irreverent, and irresistible.

Carol Burnett is one of the most beloved and revered actresses and performers in America. The Carol Burnett Show was seen each week by millions of adoring fans and won twenty-five Emmys in its remarkable eleven-year run. Now, in This Time Together, Carol really lets her hair down and tells one funny or touching or memorable story after another -- reading it feels like sitting down with an old friend who has wonderful tales to tell.

In engaging anecdotes, Carol discusses her remarkable friendships with stars such at Jimmy Stewart, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, and Julie Andrews; the background behind famous scenes, like the moment she swept down the stairs in her curtain-rod dress in the legendary “Went With the Wild” skit; and things that would happen only to Carol – the prank with Julie Andrews that went wrong in front of the First Lady; the famous Tarzan Yell that saved her during a mugging; and the time she faked a wooden leg to get served in a famous ice cream emporium. This poignant look back allows us to cry with the actress during her sorrows, rejoice in her successes, and finally, always, to laugh.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Carol Creighton Burnett (born April 26, 1933) is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she debuted on television. After successful appearances on The Garry Moore Show, Carol moved to Los Angeles and began an eleven-year run on the The Carol Burnett Show which was aired on CBS television from 1967 to 1978. With roots in vaudeville, The Carol Burnett Show was a variety show combining comedy sketches, song, and dance. The comedy sketches ranged from movie parodies to character pieces which featured the many talents of Burnett herself who created and played several well-known and distinctive characters.

Would you like to read this book? You can buy it on Amazon by clicking HERE.

"If you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves.  To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself.  And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that.  I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do it.  I know that sounds a little pious."

In David Lipsky’s view, David Foster Wallace was the best young writer in America. Wallace’s pieces for Harper’s magazine in the ’90s were, according to Lipsky, “like hearing for the first time the brain voice of everybody I knew: Here was how we all talked, experienced, thought. It was like smelling the damp in the air, seeing the first flash from a storm a mile away. You knew something gigantic was coming.”

Then Rolling Stone sent Lipsky to join Wallace on the last leg of his book tour for Infinite Jest, the novel that made him internationally famous. They lose to each other at chess. They get iced-in at an airport. They dash to Chicago to catch a make-up flight. They endure a terrible reader’s escort in Minneapolis. Wallace does a reading, a signing, an NPR appearance. Wallace gives in and imbibes titanic amounts of hotel television (what he calls an “orgy of spectation”). They fly back to Illinois, drive home, walk Wallace’s dogs. Amid these everyday events, Wallace tells Lipsky remarkable things—everything he can about his life, how he feels, what he thinks, what terrifies and fascinates and confounds him—in the writing voice Lipsky had come to love. Lipsky took notes, stopped envying him, and came to feel about him—that grateful, awake feeling—the same way he felt about Infinite Jest. Then Lipsky heads to the airport, and Wallace goes to a dance at a Baptist church.

A biography in five days, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is David Foster Wallace as few experienced this great American writer. Told in his own words, here is Wallace’s own story, and his astonishing, humane, alert way of looking at the world; here are stories of being a young writer—of being young generally—trying to knit together your ideas of who you should be and who other people expect you to be, and of being young in March of 1996. And of what it was like to be with and—as he tells it—what it was like to become David Foster Wallace.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

David Lipsky is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine.  His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Magazine Writing, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, and many other publications. He contributes as an essayist to NPR's All Things Considered, and is the recipient of a Lambert Fellowship, a Media Award from GLAAD, and a National Magazine Award.  He's the author of the novel The Art Fair, a collection of stories, Three Thousand Dollars, and the bestselling nonfiction book Absolutely American, which was a Time magazine Best Book of the Year.

Michael J. Fox abandoned high school to pursue an acting career, but went on to receive honorary degrees from several universities and garner the highest accolades for his acting, as well as for his writing. In his new book, he inspires and motivates graduates to recognize opportunities, maximize their abilities, and roll with the punches—all with his trademark optimism, warmth, and humor.

In A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future, Michael draws on his own life experiences to make a case that real learning happens when "life goes skidding sideways." He writes of coming to Los Angeles from Canada at age eighteen and attempting to make his way as an actor. Fox offers up a comically skewed take on how, in his own way, he fulfilled the requirements of a college syllabus. He learned Economics as a starving artist; an unexpected turn as a neophyte activist schooled him in Political Science; and his approach to Comparative Literature involved stacking books up against their movie versions.

Replete with personal stories and hilarious anecdotes, Michael J. Fox's new book is the perfect gift for graduates.

To read an excerpt, click HERE.

Michael J. Fox first gained attention as Alex P. Keaton, on the hit sitcom Family Ties. Since then, his career has been a nonstop success story, with blockbuster movies like Back to the Future, The Secret of My Success, Doc Hollywood, and the popular Stuart Little films, for which he voiced the title character. Michael has won numerous awards, including five Emmys, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a People's Choice Award. He retired from his award-winning role on Spin City to establish the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, which has become the leading private funder of PD research in the world. Michael is the author of two New York Times bestselling books, Lucky Man and Always Looking Up. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, the actress Tracy Pollan, their four children, and their two dogs.

Seized throws open the hatch on the shadowy world of maritime shipping, where third-world governments place exorbitant liens against ships, pirates seize commercial vessels with impunity, crooks and con artists reign supreme on the docks and in the shipyards—and hapless owners have to rely on sea captain Max Hardberger to recapture their ships and win justice on the high seas.

A ship captain, airplane pilot, lawyer, teacher, writer, adventurer, and raconteur, Max Hardberger recovers stolen freighters for a living.  In Seized, he takes us on a real-life journey into the mysterious world of freighters and shipping, where fortunes are made and lost by the whims of the waves.  Desperate owners hire Max Hardberger to “extract” or steal back ships that have been illegitimately seized by putting together a mission-impossible team to sail them into international waters under cover of darkness.  It’s a high stakes assignment—if Max or his crew are caught, they risk imprisonment or death.

Seized takes readers behind the scenes of the multibillion dollar maritime industry, as he recounts his efforts to retrieve freighters and other vessels from New Orleans to the Caribbean, from East Germany to Vladivostak, Russia, and from Greece to Guatemala.  He resorts to everything from disco dancing to women of the night to distract the shipyard guards, from bribes to voodoo doctors to divert attention and buy the time he needs to sail a ship out of a foreign port without clearance.  Seized is adventure nonfiction at its best. 

To read an excerpt from Chapter One, click HERE.

MAX HARDBERGER has been an airplane pilot, a lawyer, a high school teacher, a writer, an adventurer, and a ship captain on commercial freighters. Unique in his area of expertise, he has been repossessing illegitimately seized freighters for the last eighteen years.  His adventures have been featured by NPR, the Learning Channel, and the L.A. Times, among other publications.  When not on the high seas, he lives in Louisiana.

"In this pleasant memoir about learning to live and eat "à la française," an American journalist married to a Frenchman inspires lessons in culinary détente.... [Bard's] memoir is really a celebration of the culinary season as it unfolded in their young lives together.... both sensuous and informative." (Publishers Weekly )

In Paris for a weekend visit, Elizabeth Bard sat down to lunch with a handsome Frenchman—and never went home again.

Was it love at first sight? Or was it the way her knife slid effortlessly through her pavé au poivre, the steak'spink juices puddling into the buttery pepper sauce? LUNCH IN PARIS is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs—one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Packing her bags for a new life in the world's most romantic city, Elizabeth is plunged into a world of bustling open-air markets, hipster bistros, and size 2 femmes fatales. She learns to gut her first fish (with a little help from Jane Austen), soothe pangs of homesickness (with the rise of a chocolate soufflé) and develops a crush on her local butcher (who bears a striking resemblance to Matt Dillon). Elizabeth finds that the deeper she immerses herself in the world of French cuisine, the more Paris itself begins to translate. French culture, she discovers, is not unlike a well-ripened cheese-there may be a crusty exterior, until you cut through to the melting, piquant heart.

Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home. In the delicious tradition of memoirs like A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, this book is the perfect treat for anyone who has dreamed that lunch in Paris could change their life. 

Elizabeth Bard is an American journalist and art historian based in Paris. She has written about art, travel, fashion, design, and digital culture for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Contemporary (Media Editor since 2002), Wired, ARTnews, Time Out and Fodor’s, among others. This is her first book.