Best Selling Memoir Draws Scrutiny (2024 Updated)

In this New York Times bestselling memoir, the incredibly talented breakout star of Dance Moms and judge on So You Think You Can Dance brings her uplifting coming-of-age story about following her dreams and working hard to achieve success in both the dance world and in life.

Maddie Ziegler knew one day she’d be a star—she just didn’t know how soon that day would come. At just eight years old, she was cast on Lifetime’s hit reality show Dance Moms and quickly won the hearts of fans everywhere with her natural talent and determination.

Soon, she was capturing attention from all over—including pop superstar Sia, who cast her as her dance double in the incredibly popular music video for her hit song “Chandelier. ” The rest, as they say, was history.

In this inspirational memoir, Maddie explains the hard work she put into her rise to stardom and how she keeps her balance along the way—starring in music videos, going on tour, and becoming an actress in The Book of Henry with Naomi Watts and Jacob Tremblay.

She also answers her fans’ burning questions with wise advice she’s learned on her journey. With honesty, charm, and humor, Maddie offers her unique perspective on making her way in the entertainment world as a young teenager, reflecting on the lessons she’s learned—and preparing for the exciting road ahead.

The #1 New York Times Bestseller – An Entertainment Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year – Now a Major Motion Picture Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus.

So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor’s bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock- therapy machine could provide entertainment.

The funny, harrowing and bestselling account of an ordinary boy’s survival under the most extraordinary circumstances. – Gratitude doesn’t begin to describe it: Jennifer Enderlin, Christopher Schelling, John Murphy, Gregg Sullivan, Kim Cardascia, Michael Storrings, and everyone at St.

Martin’s Press. – Pretis, and Sheila Cobb. I would also like to express my appreciation to my mother and father for, no matter how inadvertently, giving me such a memorable childhood. Additionally, I would like to thank the real-life members of the family portrayed in this book for taking me into their home and accepting me as one of their own.

I recognize that their memories of the events described in this book are different than my own. They are each fine, decent, and hard-working people. The book was not intended to hurt the family. Both my publisher and I regret any unintentional harm resulting from the publishing and marketing of Running with Scissors.

Most of all, I would like to thank my brother for demonstrating, by example, the importance of being wholly unique.

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *USA TODAY BESTSELLER* Iconic actress Hayley Mills shares personal memories from her storied childhood, growing up in a famous acting family and becoming a Disney child star, trying to grow up in a world that wanted her to stay forever young.

The daughter of acclaimed British actor Sir John Mills was still a preteen when she began her acting career and was quickly thrust into the spotlight. Under the wing of Walt Disney himself, Hayley Mills was transformed into one of the biggest child starlets of the 1960s through her iconic roles in Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and many more.

She became one of only twelve actors in history to be bestowed with the Academy Juvenile Award, presented at the Oscars by its first recipient, Shirley Temple, and went on to win a number of awards including a Golden Globe, multiple BAFTAs, and a Disney Legacy Award.

Now, in her charming and forthright memoir, she provides a unique window into when Hollywood was still ‘Tinseltown’ and the great Walt Disney was at his zenith, ruling over what was (at least in his own head) still a family business.

This behind-the-scenes look at the drama of having a sky-rocketing career as a young teen in an esteemed acting family will offer both her childhood impressions of the wild and glamorous world she was swept into, and the wisdom and broader knowledge that time has given her.

Hayley will delve intimately into her relationship with Walt Disney, as well as the emotional challenges of being bound to a wholesome, youthful public image as she grew into her later teen years, and how that impacted her and her choices–including marrying a producer over 30 years her senior when she was 20! With her regrets, her joys, her difficulties, and her triumphs, this is a compelling read for any fan of classic Disney films and an inside look at a piece of real Hollywood history.

*NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* *USA TODAY BESTSELLER* Iconic actress Hayley Mills shares personal memories from her storied childhood, growing up in a famous acting family and becoming a Disney child star, trying to grow up in a world that wanted her to stay forever young.

The daughter of acclaimed British actor Sir John Mills was still a preteen when she began her acting career and was quickly thrust into the spotlight. Under the wing of Walt Disney himself, Hayley Mills was transformed into one of the biggest child starlets of the 1960s through her iconic roles in Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and many more.

She became one of only twelve actors in history to be bestowed with the Academy Juvenile Award, presented at the Oscars by its first recipient, Shirley Temple, and went on to win a number of awards including a Golden Globe, multiple BAFTAs, and a Disney Legacy Award.

Now, in her charming and forthright memoir, she provides a unique window into when Hollywood was still ‘Tinseltown’ and the great Walt Disney was at his zenith, ruling over what was (at least in his own head) still a family business.

This behind-the-scenes look at the drama of having a sky-rocketing career as a young teen in an esteemed acting family will offer both her childhood impressions of the wild and glamorous world she was swept into, and the wisdom and broader knowledge that time has given her.

Hayley will delve intimately into her relationship with Walt Disney, as well as the emotional challenges of being bound to a wholesome, youthful public image as she grew into her later teen years, and how that impacted her and her choices–including marrying a producer over 30 years her senior when she was 20! With her regrets, her joys, her difficulties, and her triumphs, this is a compelling read for any fan of classic Disney films and an inside look at a piece of real Hollywood history.

The son of an Alabama sharecropper, and now a sixth-term United States Congressman, John Lewis has led an extraordinary life, one that found him at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late ’50s and ’60s.

As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis was present at all the major battlefields of the movement. Arrested more than forty times and severely beaten on several occasions, he was one of the youngest yet most courageous leaders.

Written with charm, warmth, and honesty, Walking with the Wind offers rare insight into the movement and the personalities of all the civil rights leaders-what was happening behind the scenes, the infighting, struggles, and triumphs.

Lewis takes us from the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he led more than five hundred marchers on what became known as “Bloody Sunday. ” While there have been exceptional books on the movement, there has never been a front-line account by a man like John Lewis.

A true American hero, his story is “destined to become a classic in civil rights literature. ” (Los Angeles Times).

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, Good Morning America, She Reads Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.

For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight–or the headlines. Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood.

Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years–all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception.

As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress–and, always, if she was simply good enough. As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience.

In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life–laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness.

Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender–a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLERThe most important woman in the history of television journalism gives us her inspiring and riveting memoir. After more than fifty years of interviewing heads of state, world leaders, movie stars, criminals, murderers, inspirational figures, and celebrities of all kinds, Barbara Walters has turned her gift for examination onto herself to reveal the forces that shaped her extraordinary life.

Barbara Walters’s perception of the world was formed at a very early age. Her father, Lou Walters, was the owner and creative mind behind the legendary Latin Quarter nightclub, and it was his risk-taking lifestyle that gave Barbara her first taste of glamour.

It also made her aware of the ups and downs, the insecurities, and even the tragedies that can occur when someone is willing to take great risks, for Lou Walters didn’t just make several fortunes—he also lost them.

Barbara learned early about the damage that such an existence can do to relationships—between husband and wife as well as between parent and child. Through her roller-coaster ride of a childhood, Barbara had a close companion, her mentally challenged sister, Jackie.

True, Jackie taught her younger sister much about patience and compassion, but Barbara also writes honestly about the resentment she often felt having a sister who was so “different” and the guilt that still haunts her.

All of this—the financial responsibility for her family, the fear, the love—played a large part in the choices she made as she grew up: the friendships she developed, the relationships she had, the marriages she tried to make work.

Ultimately, thanks to her drive, combined with a decent amount of luck, she began a career in television. And what a career it has been! Against great odds, Barbara has made it to the top of a male-dominated industry.

She was the first woman cohost of the Today show, the first female network news coanchor, the host and producer of countless top-rated Specials, the star of 20/20, and the creator and cohost of The View.

She has not just interviewed the world’s most fascinating figures, she has become a part of their world. These are just a few of the names that play a key role in Barbara’s life, career, and book: Yasir Arafat, Warren Beatty, Menachem Begin, George H.

W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Roy Cohn, the Dalai Lama, Princess Diana, Katharine Hepburn, King Hussein, Angelina Jolie, Henry Kissinger, Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, Rosie O’Donnell, Christopher Reeve, Anwar Sadat, John Wayne.

the list goes on and on. Barbara Walters has spent a lifetime auditioning: for her bosses at the TV networks, for millions of viewers, for the most famous people in the world, and even for her own daughter, with whom she has had a difficult but ultimately quite wonderful and moving relationship.

This book, in some ways, is her final audition, as she fully opens up both her private and public lives. In doing so, she has given us a story that is heartbreaking and honest, surprising and fun, sometimes startling, and always fascinating.

In this riveting follow-up to her #1 New York Times bestselling memoir, Coal Miner’s Daughter, Loretta Lynn continues her captivating story about triumph over the odds. Loretta Lynn’s first memoir, Coal Miner’s Daughter, was a #1 national bestseller that sparked an Oscar-winning movie and left fans hungry for more.

Now Loretta finishes that story, and the second half of her life is every bit as remarkable and inspiring as the first. In a friendly, down-home style that belies her stature as country music’s most celebrated performer, Loretta writes candidly about the price of fame and the stresses of stardom; tells of friends and family she’s loved and lost along the way; and shares secrets not included in her first book.

But at the heart of this memoir is her stormy relationship with Doo, the man she married at thirteen and stayed with until he died, through his drinking, their violent arguments, and their passionate reconciliations.

Loretta reveals the devotion behind “one of the hardest love stories in the world. ” Filled with intimate portraits of country legends, and brimming with folksy humor, this personal tale of grit, determination, and loyalty will enthrall Loretta’s countless fans and anyone who adores a good old-fashioned love story.

Loretta Lynn, the most celebrated entertainer in the history of country music has a lot to sing about: 9 gold albums A national bestselling book and film, Coal Miner’s Daughter First female artist to win the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year First country artist to win the prestigious Golden Plate award given to those who excel in all fields of achievement worldwide First female recording artist to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame Longtime member of the Country Music Hall of Fame One of Entertainment Weekly’s 100 Entertainers for 1950-2000 One of Ladies Home Journal’s 10 Most Admired Women of the World.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTIONA brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East.

In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant—the postwar optimism seemed assured.

Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah’s father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah’s birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae’s thirteenth and most unruly child.

A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother’s struggle against a house’s entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina.

The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives of clan, pride, and familial love resist and defy erasure.

Located in the gap between the “Big Easy” of tourist guides and the New Orleans in which Broom was raised, The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir of place, class, race, the seeping rot of inequality, and the internalized shame that often follows.

It is a transformative, deeply moving story from an unparalleled new voice of startling clarity, authority, and power.

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A Best Book of the Year: The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Daily Mail, Good Morning America, She Reads Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.

For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight–or the headlines. Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood.

Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years–all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception.

As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress–and, always, if she was simply good enough. As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience.

In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life–laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness.

Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender–a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.

The son of an Alabama sharecropper, and now a sixth-term United States Congressman, John Lewis has led an extraordinary life, one that found him at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late ’50s and ’60s.

As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis was present at all the major battlefields of the movement. Arrested more than forty times and severely beaten on several occasions, he was one of the youngest yet most courageous leaders.

Written with charm, warmth, and honesty, Walking with the Wind offers rare insight into the movement and the personalities of all the civil rights leaders-what was happening behind the scenes, the infighting, struggles, and triumphs.

Lewis takes us from the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he led more than five hundred marchers on what became known as “Bloody Sunday. ” While there have been exceptional books on the movement, there has never been a front-line account by a man like John Lewis.

A true American hero, his story is “destined to become a classic in civil rights literature. ” (Los Angeles Times).