By Craig Wilson, Deirdre Donahue and Carol Memmott, USA TODAY
These memoirs range from the absurdly funny to the over-the-top thrilling to the deeply sorrowful.
A Box of Darkness
By Sally Ryder Brady
St. Martin's, 240 pp., $23.99
When Sally Ryder shared her first kiss with Upton Brady, it was like "a starting gun going off." More than 50 years later, after she scattered his ashes in the Atlantic Ocean, her fond memories take on darker, more painful tones. She finds gay pornography in his bedside table and uses this discovery to write about what she had known for years. Upton was charming and sweet. He was also an alcoholic who slept with men. Her memoir is a form of therapy, but she never gets to the heart of the matter ? why her love for him allowed her to accept his infidelities. There's much to admire in this tenderly told story, but there are some things readers will have to intuit on their own. ? Carol Memmott
History of a Suicide: Jill Bialosky needed to know what drove her younger sister to kill herself at age 21.
History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life
By Jill Bialosky
Atria, 240 pp., $24
With her son on the cusp of adolesence, Jill Bialosky decided she once and for all needed to come to terms with her sister Kim's suicide ? and why at the age of 21 she couldn't go on living. Kim, suffering from depression, killed herself in 1990. Jill was 31 at the time. History of aSuicide is her attempt to understand and honor her beloved sister. Much of Bialosky's search is through the written word ? papers and books by psychiatrists and psychologists, the works of novelists who dwelled on suicide (including William Styron and Virginia Woolf) and Kim's school papers and suicide note. This memoir is illuminating, even if you don't know anyone who has taken her own life. ? Memmott
Stuntman! Hal Needham's career path: treetopper, para- trooper, Hollywood stuntman.
Stuntman! My Car-Crashing, Plane-Jumping,
Bone-Breaking, Death-Defying Hollywood Life
By Hal Needham
Little, Brown, 296 pp., $25.99
The man shouldn't even be alive, so the fact you can hold Hal Needham's Stuntman! in your hands is a bit of a miracle in itself. Needham is the premier Hollywood stuntman, someone who has broken 56 bones and his back, twice. All in the line of work. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Clint Eastwood sing his praises and so will you as you read this memoir about a life on the edge. Needham not only jumped between galloping horses and taught John Wayne how to fight, he was the first human to test the car airbag and went on to direct 10 movies. Talk about brave. A rollicking romp. Literally. ? Craig Wilson
Big in China: Alan Paul moved to China with his family when his wife became Beijing bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal.
Big in China
By Alan Paul
Harper, 262 pp., $25.99
Alan Paul's big-hearted memoir about living in China opens with his wife's driver thinking he's a male tai tai (lady of the house) and ends with Paul touring the country with three Chinese rockers singing Allman Brothers classics. In 2005, Paul's wife became TheWall Street Journal's China bureau chief in Beijing, with Paul and their three young kids coming along. He was already the work-from-home parent while his wife was the career heavy-hitter. The book follows the family as they settle into expat life, which is equal parts luxury, adventure and weirdness. Finding Chinese blues lovers to jam with turns Paul from visitor to friend and gives his story an emotional depth. ? Deirdre Donahue
Thora Birch Marika Dominczyk Zhang Ziyi Carmen Electra Aubrey ODay
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