Showing results for "Youth" in Biographies & Memoirs

Following one woman's journey from a troubled girlhood in working-class Copenhagen through her struggle to live on her own terms, The Copenhagen Trilogy is a searingly honest, utterly immersive portrayal of love, friendship, art, ambition and the terrible lure of addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated 20th-century writers.

As boys growing up in a small country town, Arthur and his brother befriend an eccentric poet, whom they dub Vicky Bird—in fact a fairly well-known literary figure called Victor Neuberg. He is haunted by some romantic tragedy in his past, in which Crowley may be implicated. When Arthur goes up to Oxford, Vicky Bird connects him with circles who dabble in the supernatural. In London, Arthur graduates towards the epicenter of Bohemian literary life in the pubs of Fitzrovia.

The author could be described as a veteran in every sense of the word, even though he was only age 21 when the war ended. Armin Scheiderbauer served as an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German army, and saw four years of bitter combat on the Eastern Front, being wounded six times. This is an outstanding personal memoir, written with great thoughtfulness and honesty.

A music-obsessed retrospective, beginning with Thurston Moore's childhood epiphany of rock 'n' roll in the early 1960s into an infatuation with the subversive world of 1970s punk and no wave blasting forth from New York City - where he eventually runs off to join a band in 1978. By 1981 Moore would form the legendary and notorious experimental rock group Sonic Youth, who proceeded to record and tour relentlessly for almost 30 years, always progressing, always exploring. Along the way we meet a constellation of artists and musicians who colluded and collided with Sonic Youth.

Gang-fighters! Drug addicts. Teenage runaways and prostitutes! The toughest and most hopeless kids that New York's ghettos had to offer. Then a young preacher from the Pennsylvania hills arrived on their turf and began preaching a message of renewal, miracles, and God's love. This is one of the century's great true stories. Over 14 million copies in print!

In The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, John Muir takes listeners on a journey through his early years, from his childhood in Scotland to his formative days in the United States. This memoir reflects on the wonders of nature that sparked Muir’s deep love for the outdoors. With vivid descriptions, he shares the experiences and adventures that shaped his passion for wild landscapes and his future as a naturalist.

This classic memoir of the First World War is now a major motion picture starring Alicia Vikander and Kit Harington. In 1914 Vera Brittain was 20, and as war was declared she was preparing to study at Oxford. Four years later her life - and the lives of her whole generation - had changed in a way that would have been unimaginable in the tranquil prewar era.

Born the son of Scotland's last telescope-maker, Stuart Braithwaite was perhaps always destined for a life of psychedelic adventuring on the furthest frontiers of noise in MOGWAI, one of the best loved and most ground-breaking post-rock bands of the past three decades. Modestly delinquent at school, Stuart developed an early appetite for 'alternative' music in what might arguably be described as its halcyon days, the late '80s.

Sometimes the best way to understand what’s deep inside requires looking outward. Sometimes the best way to understand the world outside requires a deep dive within. And sometimes, those two things are so intertwined it’s difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends. The Forest of My Youth is a collection of poems and perspectives that probe some of the deepest, most profound and sometimes achingly painful thoughts and questions I’ve had since my spinal cord injury in 1993.

Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.

In Youth, the first of two volumes, Feaver conjures Freud’s early childhood: Sigmund Freud’s grandson, born into a middle-class Jewish family in Weimar Berlin, escaping Nazi Germany in 1934 before being dropped into successive English public schools. Following Freud through art school, his time in the navy during the war, his post-war adventures in Paris and Greece, and his return to Soho - consorting with duchesses and violent criminals, out on the town with Greta Garbo and Princess Margaret - Feaver traces a brilliant, difficult young man’s coming of age.

Bert Trautmann is famed as the goalkeeper who broke his neck in an FA Cup final and played on. But his early life is no less extraordinary: he grew up in Nazi Germany and fought for the Germans in World War Two. In 1945 he was captured and sent to a British POW camp where, for the first time, he saw a better way of life. He embraced England as his new home and before long became an England football hero. This is his extraordinary story.

When it comes to Skinheads, I see a lot of people these days re-writing history, whitewashing the youth cult or bending the truth to suit their political narrative. I spent over ten years of my young life as a London Bootboy and became one of the most famous Skinheads in the world. Being a Skinhead had a profound effect on me. Even though I walked away from that life, and left it in the last century, I still feel the shockwaves of my experience and still find people with nefarious agendas trying to tell their version of my story.

Youth work is a sacred opportunity to make a significant difference in the lives of children and youth. In a new publication from Information Age Publishing (IAP), curated and edited by the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST), personal narratives written by youth workers shine a light on the intricate connections between research and practice, touching upon both the vulnerability and triumph of youth development work. In this podcast series, youth workers read excerpts from their essays, and share how youth workers’ lived experiences inspire the ability to build the ...

Rebellion always starts somewhere, and in the music world of the transgressive teen whether it be the 1960s of the 2020s, The Velvet Underground represent ground zero. Crystallizing the idea of the bohemian, urban, narcissistic art school gang, around a psychedelic rock and roll band - a stylistic idea that evolved in the rarefied environs of Andy Warhol's Factory - The Velvet Underground were the first major American rock group with a mixed gender line-up; they never smiled in photographs, wore sunglasses indoors, and in the process invented the archetype that would be copied by everyone.

As he stumbled through high school, struggling to find a community among other fans of punk rock music, Christian Picciolini was recruited by a now notorious white power skinhead leader and encouraged to fight with the movement to "protect the white race from extinction." Soon, he had become an expert in racist philosophies, a terror who roamed the neighborhood, quick to throw fists. When his mentor was arrested and sentenced to 11 years in prison, 16-year-old Picciolini took over the man's role as the leader of an infamous neo-Nazi skinhead group.

A charming, quirky memoir from British author Arthur Calder-Marshall, recalling his youth in 1920s England. The title needs to be taken quite literally as much of the narrative revolves around the shadowy figure of occultist Aleister Crowley, at the height of his dubious powers during this era. As boys growing up in a small country town, Arthur and his brother befriend an eccentric poet, whom they dub Vicky Bird—in fact a fairly well-known literary figure called Victor Neuberg. He is haunted by some romantic tragedy in his past, in which Crowley may be implicated.

John Muir has left a mark on history in a way that is quite unique. There are very few people whose powerful love for nature has caused such a truly lasting impact as his. While his early childhood was largely what one would consider normal in Scotland, a life changing event while working in a factory, which nearly blinded him, caused John to totally change the direction of his life. He suddenly found great beauty in every moment, and especially nature and the outdoors.

Benedict XVI: A Life offers insight into the young life and rise through the Church’s ranks of a man who would become a hero and a lightning rod for Catholics the world over. Based on countless hours of interviews in Rome with Benedict himself, this two-volume biography is the definitive record of the life of Joseph Ratzinger and the legacy of Pope Benedict XVI. This first volume follows his early life, from his days growing up in Germany and his conscription into the Hitler Youth during WWII to his career as an academic theologian and eventual archbishop of Munich.

Led by incredible faith, Wilkerson left his country pulpit in 1958 for the streets of New York City, where a murder trial of seven teenaged boys churned society's antipathy toward them. Even Wilkerson was bewildered by his sense of compassion, but in spite of doubt, he followed the Spirit's prompting to help the boys. This is the amazing story of his journey, and of the mighty power of God to accomplish the impossible.