Showing results for "Fathers and Sons" in Biographies & Memoirs

On 11 June 2011, three days short of his sixth-ninth birthday, Jonathan Raban suffered a stroke which left him unable to use the right side of his body, wheelchair-bound in a rehab facility and endlessly frustrated by his newfound physical limitations. As he resisted the overbearing ministrations of the nurses helping him along the road to recovery, Raban began to reflect not only on the measure of his own life but the extraordinary story of his parents’ early marriage, conducted for three years by letter while his father fought in the Second World War.

Alan Cumming grew up in the grip of a man who held his family hostage, someone who meted out violence with a frightening ease, who waged a silent war with himself that sometimes spilled over onto everyone around him. That man was Alan's father, Alex Cumming. Alex was the dark, enigmatic heart of Cumming family life. But he was not the only mystery. Alan's maternal grandfather, Tommy Darling, had disappeared to the Far East after the Second World War.

He is one of the most talented footballers of the modern era and a dual international in rugby league and rugby union. But for a long time, Mat Rogers lived in both the shadow and the thrall of his famous father, and their complex relationship shaped him in ways he couldn’t fathom. Craving paternal acceptance while determined to carve out his own identity and, later, to avoid repeating the sins of the father, he veered between periods of jubilation and depression. Now, in his majestic, evocative autobiography, Rogers tells the story of a life framed by triumph and tragedy.

Starting with his own childhood in the Sussex beachlands, Howard tells the story of the years of self-destruction that defined his young adulthood and the escape he found in reading and the natural world. Still he felt compelled to destroy the relationships that mattered to him. Saved by love and responsibility, Cunnell charts his journey from anger to compassion as his daughter, Jay, realizes he is a boy and a son. Most of all, this is a story about love - its necessity and fragility and its capacity to enable us to be who we are.

Born into a family of five, Frank Bello grew up in difficult circumstances. His father abandoned his wife and children. Left with no male role model, Frank found inspiration in heavy metal bass players, following their example and forging a career with Anthrax from his early teens - first as a roadie, and then as the group's bass player.

"This story is the record of a struggle between two temperaments, two consciences and almost two epochs. It ended, as was inevitable, in disruption. Of the two human beings here described, one was born to fly backward, the other could not help being carried forward. The affection of these two persons was assailed by forces in comparison with which the changes that health or fortune or place introduce are as nothing.

In this remarkable dual memoir, film legend Martin Sheen and accomplished actor/filmmaker Emilio Estevez recount their lives as father and son. In alternating chapters—and in voices that are as eloquent as they are different—they narrate stories spanning more than 50 years of family history, and reflect on their journeys into two different kinds of faith.

Hisham Matar was 19 when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, after the fall of Gaddafi, Hisham was finally able to return to his homeland for the first time. In this heartbreaking, illuminating memoir, he describes his return to a country and a family he thought he would never see again. The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale of loss. It is an exquisite meditation on history, politics and art.

The families behind America’s astronaut heroes are just like yours...sort of. This is the hilarious true story of one of those families. While many children grow up wanting to become an astronaut, Patrick Mullane grew up the child of one. In his memoir, The Father, Son, and Holy Shuttle: Growing Up an Astronaut’s Kid in the Glorious 80s, Mullane shares his hilarious coming-of-age story. It’s a story about his quirky and death-defying father, a mother with a secret, and a cast of characters from his extended family who showed their love for him in often bizarre ways.

The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is one of the strangest creatures nature ever created. Remarkably little is known about the eel, even today. What we do know is that it’s born as a tiny willow-leaf-shaped larva in the Sargasso Sea, travels on the ocean currents toward the coasts of Europe - a journey of about 4,000 miles that takes at least two years. Upon arrival, it transforms itself into a glass eel and then into a yellow eel before it wanders up into fresh water.

More than half a century after the Vietnam War, a riveting, true story emerges. The author embarks on a journey to bridge the silent gap between himself and his estranged father, whose memories of the war are deeply buried. This quest for understanding leads him to a close-knit brotherhood of Marine combat veterans who become the voice for the untold stories, filling the void left by his father's unspoken past.

Chris and Chrissy Rouse, an experienced father-and-son scuba diving team, hoped to achieve widespread recognition for their outstanding but controversial diving skills. Obsessed and ambitious, they sought to solve the secrets of a mysterious, undocumented World War II German U-boat that lay under 230 feet of water, only a half day's mission from New York Harbor. In doing so they paid the ultimate price in their quest for fame.

In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.

What’s it take to overcome the odds and change the game? That’s at the heart of the warm and revealing conversations between epic NBA sharpshooters—and father and son—Dell and Stephen Curry in their Audible Original Heat Check. While Dell laid the groundwork, Stephen later delivered a whole new era of jaw-dropping three-pointers from a time previously dominated by flying dunks. In these episodes, we hear how Stephen experienced his life’s journey and how Dell saw it play out.

Michael Parkinson's relationship with his late father, John William, was, and remains, a family love story overflowing with tenderness and tall tales of sporting valour, usually involving Yorkshire cricket or Barnsley FC. However, it was the overwhelming grief which poured out of Michael when Piers Morgan pressed him about John William in a television interview that convinced one of the outstanding broadcasters and journalists of our time to delve deeper into the dynamics of their lives together.

Writing with the same descriptive flair that has won his novels so much praise, W. D. Wetherell tells the true story of his high-school-age son's winning soccer season. Soccer Dad is simultaneously the candid reflections of a devoted father and the enthusiastic observations of a diehard soccer fan. When Matt enters his senior year of high school, it is not without myriad parenting concerns on the part of his father, author W. D. Wetherell. What is his role in shaping his son's future? What will life be like when Matt is away at college? And what of Matt's soccer season?

At the pinnacle of a soaring career in the U.S. Army, Lt. Col. Mark M. Weber was tapped to serve in a high-profile job within the Afghan Parliament as a military advisor. Weeks later, a routine physical revealed stage IV intestinal cancer in the 38-year-old father of three. Over the next two years he would fight a desperate battle he wasn’t trained for, with his wife and boys as his reluctant but willing fighting force....

Harvard has a reputation for turning out notable lawyers, doctors, politicians, and scientists - but not exactly for producing professional ballplayers. However, in the mid-1970s Rick Wolff transferred from this major leaguer of academia to baseball’s minors, playing for the Detroit Tigers organization. Thirty years later, his son followed in his footsteps: Harvard diploma in hand, he now plays for a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets.

Before meth, Sheff's son, Nic, was a varsity athlete, honor student, and award-winning journalist. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who stole money from his eight-year-old brother and lived on the streets. With haunting candor, Sheff traces the first warning signs, the attempts at rehabilitation, and, at last, the way past addiction. He shows us that, whatever an addict's fate, the rest of the family must care for one another, too, lest they become addicted to addiction.

La nuova serie di Bigiotteria allarga lo sguardo sulle giovani generazioni: insieme a Gianluca Nicoletti ci sarà anche suo figlio Filippo. Ogni settimana parleranno di studi, sogni e aspirazioni, disegneranno scenari utopici e si scambieranno opinioni su come è cambiato il mondo. E alla fine verrà da chiedersi: chi dei due è l'adulto?