Biography

The first-ever collection of interviews with the tortured but groundbreaking singer Billie Holiday, part of Melville House's beloved Last Interview series Legendary singer Billie Holiday comes alive in this first-ever collection of interviews from...

From the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and The Body comes a travel diary documenting a visit to Kenya. All royalties and profits go to CARE International. In the early fall of 2002, famed travel writer Bill Bryson journeyed to Kenya at...

Perhaps the greatest all-around player in basketball history, Oscar Robertson revolutionized basketball as a member of the Cincinnati Royals and won a championship with the Milwaukee Bucks. When he was twenty-three, in 1962, he accomplished one of...

From age four in 1937 to his death in 1998, Donald Harrison Sr. embraced the tradition of New Orleans' Mardi Gras Indians. As Big Chief of the Guardian of the Flames, he led with both wisdom and passion. This biography of this remarkable man is based on...

Curious about how ordinary people in the Soviet Union lived, L. Arlene Hink and her husband went on a fifty-two day trip in 1968. Traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railroad across Russia and continuing into European Russia and the Ukraine made them want to...

Beyond the River brings to brilliant life the dramatic story of the forgotten heroes of the Ripley, Ohio, line of the Underground Railroad. From the highest hill above the town of Ripley, Ohio, you can see five bends in the Ohio River. You can see the...

Auntie, why don't people love our black men? A 15 year-old heartbroken teenager asks her aunt. A simple but poignant question births Beyond The Hashtag into the heart of Jenjii Faith. Beyond The Hashtag breathes life into the complex relationships...

The analyses of both Ellington's music and his enigmatic personality are delineated with rare insight.--Leonard Feather, author of The Encyclopedia of JazzOne of the twentieth century's greatest composers, Duke Ellington (1899-1974) led a fascinating...

Arthur Briggs's life was Homeric in scope. Born on the tiny island of Grenada, he set sail for Harlem during the Renaissance, then to Europe in the aftermath of World War I, where he was among the first pioneers to introduce jazz music to the world...

A beautiful genre-bending tribute to the larger-than-life blues singer Bessie Smith. Scotland's National Poet blends poetry, prose, fiction, and nonfiction to create an entirely unique biography of the Empress of the Blues. There has never been anyone...

Jennifer Jones is a native of Houston, Texas who now resides in Arlington, TX with her family. She is a loving, caring, outspoken, mother of 3 beautiful children who she absolutely adores. Upon entering the workforce, she began her career in security...

Bass player extraordinaire Charles Mingus, who died in 1979, is one of the essential composers in the history of jazz, and Beneath the Underdog, his celebrated, wild, funny, demonic, anguished, shocking, and profoundly moving memoir, is the greatest...