Memoirs

The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography

Sidney Poitier
HarperCollins Publishers; January 2007

Sidney Poitier's is perhaps as influential and groundbreaking a career as any in Hollywood history. He came to New York from his boyhood home in the Bahamas and, after a rocky start, went on to star in such memorable classics as Blackboard Jungle, A Raisin in the Sun, Lillies of the Field (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar, the first ever awarded to an African American man), and To Sir, with Love, among dozens of others. In his spiritual memoir, The Measure of a Man, Poitier looks back at his pioneering life and career and the lessons learned along the way.

Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins: The Autobiography

Rupert Everett
Warner Books, Incorporated; January 2007

In this autobiography, actor Rupert Everett displays the quick wit and wisdom that he exhibited as Julia Roberts's gay buddy in My Best Friend's Wedding. But, of course, Everett isn't just a fine actor and a great raconteur; he's also a published novelist and serves as a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. He also has an almost uncanny ability to "be there": He was in Moscow when communism collapsed; in Berlin, when the Wall came down; and in downtown Manhattan, on the morning of the World Trade Center attacks. His autobiography bubbles with delightful stories, many of them deliciously wicked, and candid observations about England, Hollywood, and the entire world between.

Chris Gardner
HarperCollins Publishers; October 2006

The astounding yet true rags-to-riches saga of a homeless father who raised and cared for his son on the mean streets of San Francisco and went on to become a crown prince of Wall Street. At the age of twenty, Chris Gardner arrived in San Francisco to pursue a promising career in medicine. However, he surprised everyone and himself by setting his sights on the competitive world of high finance. Yet no sooner had he landed an entry level position at a prestigious firm, Gardner found himself caught in a web of incredibly challenging circumstances that left him part of the city's working homeless with his toddler son. Motivated by the promise he made to himself as a fatherless child to never abandon his own children, the two spent almost a year moving from shelters, "HO-tels", and soup-lines. Never giving in to despair, Gardner makes an astonishing transformation from being part of the city's invisible to being a powerful player in its financial district. Here is the story of a man who breaks his own family's cycle of men abandoning their children, a story that appeals to the very essence of the American Dream.

Compiled by Sanyat Sattar

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2007