Tag Archives: Autobiography

In My Hands Today…

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The Choice: Embrace the Possible – Edith Eger and Esmé Schwall Weigand

It’s 1944 and sixteen-year-old ballerina and gymnast Edith Eger is sent to Auschwitz. Separated from her parents on arrival, she endures unimaginable experiences, including being made to dance for the infamous Josef Mengele. When the camp is finally liberated, she is pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive.

The horrors of the Holocaust didn’t break Edith. In fact, they helped her learn to live again with a life-affirming strength and a truly remarkable resilience. The Choice is her unforgettable story.

In My Hands Today…

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The Final Curtsey – Margaret Rhodes

This is the intimate and revealing autobiography of Margaret Rhodes, the first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II and the niece of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

Margaret Rhodes was born into the Scottish aristocracy, into a now almost vanished world of privilege. Royalty often came to stay and her house was run in the style of Downton Abbey. Her aunt was Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth is her first cousin.

In the Second World War years, she ‘lodged’ at Buckingham Palace while she worked for MI5. She was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her cousin Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip. Three years later the King and Queen attended her own wedding; Princess Margaret was a bridesmaid. In 1990, she was appointed as a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Mother, acting also as her companion, which she describes in touching detail.

In the early months of 2002, she spent as much time as possible with her frail and ailing aunt, and was at her bedside when she died at Easter that year. This is a fascinating account of a special life, with the author’s family relationships to nobility and royalty, her long and special marriage, her children and grandchildren and a life lived to the full.

In My Hands Today…

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My Homage to All – Kanan Devi, translated by Indranee Ghosh

One of the most powerful women in the movies was thousands of miles from Hollywood.

Kanan Devi, one of the early singing stars, came into the film world in the silent era and, unlike many others, survived the transition to talkies. The product of a troubled childhood, her life took a dramatic turn when she was offered a film role and, encouraged by her uncle, took it.

In this lively and candid account of her experiences, originally published in 1973, Kanan Devi recalls the early days of cinema in Bengal, comparing conditions of film acting in the early 1930s with what she experienced two or three decades later when she herself was a producer and director, with her own film company, Shrimati Pictures.

Her fascinating and unusual story offers not only a different perspective on the growth of the film industry in Bengal but also a first-hand account of the position of women in the early decades of the last century.

In My Hands Today…

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Cheaper by the Dozen – Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Adapted into two classic motion pictures, this bestselling memoir is the unforgettable story of two parents, twelve kids, and a world of laughter and love.

Cheaper by the Dozen is the unforgettable story of the Gilbreth clan as told by two of its members. In this endearing, amusing memoir, siblings Frank Jr. and Ernestine capture the hilarity and heart of growing up in an oversized family.

Mother and Dad are world-renowned efficiency experts, helping factories fine-tune their assembly lines for maximum output at minimum cost. At home, the Gilbreths themselves have cranked out twelve kids, and Dad is out to prove that efficiency principles can apply to family as well as the workplace.

The heartwarming and comic stories of the jumbo-size Gilbreth clan have delighted generations of readers, and will keep you and yours laughing for years.

In My Hands Today…

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Survival in Auschwitz – Primo Levi, translated by Stuart J. Woolf

The true and harrowing account of Primo Levi’s experience at the German concentration camp of Auschwitz and his miraculous survival; hailed by The Times Literary Supplement as a “true work of art, this edition includes an exclusive conversation between the author and Philip Roth.

In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and “Italian citizen of Jewish race,” was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi’s classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit.