Southern Memoirs

Anyone living in Rhodesia during the 1960s and 1970s would have had a father, husband, brother, or son called up in the defense of the war-torn, landlocked little country. A few of these brave men would have been members of the elite and secretive unit that struck terror into the hearts of the ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas infiltrating the country at that time - the Selous Scouts.

In unforgettable tales of innocence lost under African skies, we follow Godwin's awakening to the often savage struggle between Whites and Blacks, his horror when he is forced to fight in a civil war he detests, and his experiences as a journalist covering the country's violent transition to Black rule as Rhodesia's colonial era comes to an end and the new state of Zimbabwe is born from its bloody ashes. Mukiwa is a poignant, compelling memoir and an invaluable addition to the literature of southern Africa.

After years of gigging everywhere from suburban backyards to dive bars, Van Halen - led by frontman extraordinaire David Lee Roth and guitar virtuoso Edward Van Halen - had the songs, the swagger, and the talent to turn the rock world on its ear. The quartet's classic 1978 debut, Van Halen, sold more than a million copies within months of release and rocketed the band to the stratosphere of rock success.

Levon is the dazzling, epic biography of Levon Helm - the beloved, legendary drummer and singer of The Band.

Scarface is the celebrated rapper whose hits include "On My Block," "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" and "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" (made famous in the cult film Office Space). The former president of Def Jam South, he's collaborated with everyone from Kanye West, Ice Cube and Nas, and had many solo hits such as "Guess Who's Back" feat. Jay-Z and "Smile" feat. Tupac. But before that, he was a kid from Houston in love with rock-and-roll, listening to AC/DC and KISS.

For a long time, no one pulling the strings in the comedy world thought that a woman over fifty from rural Tennessee could make it in the industry. But Leanne Morgan has defied the odds, reaching millions with her musings on hormones, low-rise britches, Weight Watchers, and her opposites-attract relationship with her husband, Chuck. In her charming southern accent, Morgan brings listeners inside her quest to find her voice after spending many years trying to figure out what that meant.

Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina - a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else" - has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, listeners meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity".

Fan-favorite Bravolebrity Patricia Altschul from the primetime show Southern Charm finally brings fans her eagerly anticipated opus on etiquette and living a glamorous Southern lifestyle. Patricia provides advice on every situation, from hosting a memorable cocktail party, to decoding the dress code for any event, to handling a drunken boor at the dinner table, to delivering the perfectly phrased insult - like her now iconic "shameless strumpet".

For a long time, Edie thought she had escaped. It started in an Appalachian trailer park, where a young girl dreamed of becoming a doctor. But every day Edie woke up to her reality: a poverty-stricken world full of alcohol and violence, where getting out seemed impossible. She taught herself to drive a stick shift truck at 12 years old so she could get her drunk daddy home from the bar. She spent Saturdays at Brushy Mountain prison visiting her incarcerated cousin. She watched adults eat while her stomach gnawed.

In Elvis Presley: A Southern Life, one of the most admired Southern historians of our time takes on one of the greatest cultural icons of all time. The result is a masterpiece: a vivid, gripping biography, set against the rich backdrop of Southern society - indeed, American society - in the second half of the 20th century.

Steve Hoffman is a perfectly comfortable middle-aged Minnesotan man who has always been desperately, pretentiously in love with France, more specifically with the idea of France. To follow that love, he and his family move, nearly at random, to the small, rural, scratchy-hot village of Autignac in the south of the country, and he immediately thinks he’s made a terrible mistake.

Mistress Vixen is intelligent, sophisticated, and charming, with a wicked sense of humor, which She loves to indulge at Her slaves expense. Naturally Dominant, She exudes sensuality and eroticism that you sense as soon as you enter Her presence: spellbound, you'll leave the everyday world behind you're in Hers now. A soft smile to lull you into a false sense of security, then the single word Strip to remind you of your place naked at Her feet and you'll hurry to obey.

In this unrelenting real-life drama of three wealthy families connected by marriage and murder, Bledsoe recounts the shocking events, obsessive love, and bitter custody battles that led toward the bloody climax that took nine lives.

Former tour manager and plane crash survivor Ron Eckerman reveals the rigors of life on the road as Lynyrd Skynyrd takes the world by storm in 1976, and the ironic turn of events preceding the tragic plane crash in 1977.

Caliph Washington's life was never supposed to matter. As a Black teenager from the vice-ridden city of Bessemer, Alabama, Washington was wrongfully convicted of killing an Alabama policeman in 1957. Sentenced to death, he came within minutes of the electric chair - nearly a dozen times. A Kafka-esque legal odyssey in which Washington's original conviction was overturned three times before he was finally released in 1972, his story is the kind that pervades the history of American justice.

Throughout Maya Angelou’s life, from her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, to her world travels as a bestselling writer, good food has played a central role. Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection. Now in Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant—and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.

In Tallulah, first published in 1952 and a New York Times bestseller for twenty-six weeks, Bankhead's literary voice is as lively and forthright as her public persona. She details her childhood and adolescence, discusses her dedication to the theater, and presents amusing anecdotes about her life in Hollywood, New York, and London. Along with a searing defense of her lifestyle and rambunctious habits, she provides a fiercely opinionated, wildly funny account of American stage at a time when the movies were beginning to cast theater into eclipse.

Krista Doyle grew up in a small town in Louisiana where everyone was a gossip and a devout church goer. She attended church every Sunday where she listened to her grandfather preach from the stage, where she sang hymns from the audience as her mother led the choir, and where she was strictly taught that everything was black and white, right and wrong. So - how was Krista to cope with being a lesbian?

When he died suddenly at the age of 26, Otis Redding (1941-1967) had already become the conscience of a new kind of music. Sure, Berry Gordy might have built the first black-owned music empire at Motown, but Redding was doing something as historic: mainstreaming black music within the whitest bastions of the post-Confederate south. As a result, the Redding story - still largely untold - is one of great conquest but, sadly, grand tragedy.

A Prophet with Honor is the biography Billy Graham himself invited and appreciated for its sympathetic but frank approach. Carefully documented, eminently fair, and gracefully written, it raises and answers key questions about Graham's character, contributions, and influence on the world religious scene. In this engaging and comprehensive book, William Martin gives readers a better understanding of the most successful evangelist in modern history, and the movement he led for over fifty years.