More than four decades after her death, Billie Holiday remainsone of the most gifted artists of our time–and also one of the mostelusive. Because of who she was and how she chose to live her life,Lady Day has been the subject of both intense adoration and wildlydistorted legends. Now at last, Farah Jasmine Griffin, a writer ofintellectual authority and superb literary gifts, liberates BillieHoliday from the mythology that has obscured both her life and herart. An intimate meditation on Holiday’s place in American culture andhistory, If You Can’t Be Free, Be A Mystery reveals Lady Day in allher complexity, humor and pain–a true jazz virtuoso whose passionand originality made every song she sang hers forever. Celebratedby poets, revered by recording artists from Frank Sinatra to MacyGray, Billie Holiday is more popular and influential today thanever before. Now, thanks to this marvelous book, Holiday’s manyfans can finally understand the singer and the woman they love.

During the hard and bitter years of his youth in England,Harry Bernstein’s selfless mother never stops dreaming of a betterlife in America, no matter how unlikely. Then, one miraculous daywhen Harry is twelve years old, steamship tickets arrive in themail, sent by an anonymous benefactor. Suddenly, a new life full ofthe promise of prosperity seems possible–and the family sets sailfor America, meeting relatives in Chicago. For a time, they get ataste of the good life: electric lights, a bathtub, a telephone.But soon the harsh realities of the Great Depression envelop them.Skeletons in the family closet come to light, mafiosi darken theirdoorstep, family members are lost, and dreams are shattered. In theface of so much loss, Harry and his mother must make a fatefuldecision–one that will change their lives forever. And though hehas struggled for so long, there is an incredible bounty waitingfor Harry in New York: his future wife, Ruby. It is their romancethat will finally bring the peace and happiness tha

From the moment of its publication in 1977, Haywire was anational sensation and a #1 bestseller, a celebrated Hollywoodmemoir of a glittering family and the stunning darkness that lurkedjust beneath the surface. Brooke Hayward was born into the most enviable of circumstances.The daughter of a famous actress and a successful Hollywood agent,she was beautiful, wealthy, and living at the very center of themost privileged life America had to offer. Yet at twenty-three herfamily was ripped apart. Who could have imagined that this magicallife could shatter, so conclusively, so destructively? BrookeHayward tells the riveting story of how her family wenthaywire.

Deborah Santana is best known for her marriage to music iconCarlos Santana–a thirty-year bond that endures to this day. But asa girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of awhite mother and a black father–the legendary blues guitaristSaunders King–her life was charged with its own drama long beforeshe married. In this beautiful, haunting memoir, Deborah Santana shares forthe first time her early experiences with racial intolerance, herromantic involvement with musician Sly Stone and the suffering sheendured in that relationship, and her adventures in thefreewheeling 1960s. Yet it is her spiritual awakening that is thecore of this story. The civil rights movement was the foundation ofher growth, the Woodstock era the backdrop of her love with Carlos.The couple was drawn indelibly together by a search for truth andspirituality, but while yearning to be filled with God’s light,they were pulled dangerously toward a manipulative cult. Theyeventually disengage themselves from th

Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in the vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999 - and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. There is a reason why Stephen King is one of the bestselling writers in the world, ever. Described in the Guardian as 'the most remarkable storyteller in modern American literature', Stephen King writes books that draw you in and are impossible to put down.