HPL 2024 Biographies

During her twenties, Francine Prose lived in San Francisco, where she began an intense and strange relationship with Tony Russo, who had been indicted and tried for working with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon papers. The narrative is framed around the nights she spent with Russo driving manically around San Francisco, listening to his stories--and the disturbing and dramatic end of that relationship in New York. What happens to them mirrors...

Nancy Pelosi describes for the first time what it takes to make history, not only as the first woman to ascend to the most powerful legislative role in our nation, but to pass laws that would save lives and livelihoods, from the emergency rescue of the economy in 2008 to transforming health care. She describes the perseverance, persuasion, and respect for her members that it took to succeed, but also the joy of seeing America change for the better....

"From the finance editor of The New York Times, an examination of Bill Gates-one of the most powerful, fascinating, and contradictory figures of the past four decades-and an eye-opening exploration of our national fixation on billionaires"-- "From the finance editor of The New York Times, an examination of Bill Gates-one of the most powerful, fascinating, and contradictory figures of the past four decades-and an eye-opening exploration of our national...

If it weren't for her mother Emma, Caryn Johnson would have never become Whoopi Goldberg. When Whoopi lost her mother in 2010--and then her older brother, Clyde, five years later--she felt deeply alone. In this memoir, Whoopi shares many deeply personal stories of their lives together for the first time.

V. S. Pritchett called her "a genius." Gore Vidal described her as a "beloved novelist of singular brilliance... Of all the Southern writers, she is the most apt to endure..." And Tennessee Williams said, "The only real writer the South ever turned out, was Carson." She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia. Her dream was to become a concert pianist, though she'd been writing since she was sixteen and the influence of music was evident throughout...

"From acclaimed novelist and short story writer, a deft, somewhat shocking, memoir-a 21st-century Lolita turned upside down, told from the point of view of the girl, the author, seen in the context of the current discourse on sexual harassment and abuse in the era of #MeToo. A close-up look at the ardent, willed love affair between the author and her art teacher that began when she was 17 and he, 47, married with two children, and the contortions...

"Actor. Artist. Cultural icon. A bold memoir of an extraordinary, singular life lived by one of the world's most beloved and acclaimed figures: Russ Tamblyn"--Front jacket flap.

Genevieve (Gwen) Kingston's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer when Gwen was just three years old. Defying the odds, she lived another eight years, during which time she filled a chest with gifts and letters to Gwen and her brother, Jamie, for every major milestone and birthday through age thirty. The day Gwen got her driver's license. The day she graduated from high school. Gwen is now in her thirties and, when Did I Ever Tell You? begins,...

"A memoir and coming-of-age story chronicling the successes and disappointments, wit and wildness of Dunne and his multigenerational family of larger-than-life characters"-- At eight, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin, he attended his aunt Joan Didion and uncle John Gregory Dunne's legendary LA launch party for Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At sixteen, he got kicked out of boarding...

"During childhood summers in Louisiana, Andre Dubus III's grandfather taught him that men's work is hard. As an adult, whether tracking down a drug lord in Mexico as a bounty hunter or grappling with privilege while living with a rich girlfriend in New York City, Dubus worked--at being a better worker and a better human being. In Ghost Dogs, Dubus's nonfiction prowess is on full display in his retelling of his own successes, failures, triumphs, and...