Celebrity Health

Perhaps the most unconventional and literally breathtaking father-son story you'll ever read, My Friend Leonard pulls you immediately and deeply into a relationship as unusual as it is inspiring. The father figure is Leonard, the high-living, recovering coke addict, "West Coast Director of a large Italian-American finance firm" (read: mobster) who helped to keep James Frey clean in A Million Little Pieces.

As a woman used to traveling and living the high life in Bangkok, Leanne Shirtliffe recognized the constant fodder for humor while pregnant with twins in Asia's sin city. But in spite of deep-fried bug cuisine and nurses who cover newborn bassinets with plastic wrap, Shirtliffe manages to keep her babies alive for a year with help from a Coca-Cola deliveryman, several waitresses, and a bra factory. Then she and her husband return home to the isolation of North American suburbia.

Nice women never wore makeup. Even the word was taboo in polite society—until Max Factor entered the scene. Born in Poland in 1877, Factor worked as a beautician for the Russian royal family, the Romanovs. In 1904, he fled to America, where he opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles. Creating makeup originally for silent films, then the talkies, and, ultimately, color motion pictures, Factor designed looks for Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, and countless other beauties of the day. Soon women everywhere wanted to look like their favorite glamorous stars, and Factor was there to help, bringing his innovative cosmetics to the general public.

Rob Paulsen is one of Hollywood's busiest and most passionate performers. If you don't know him by name, you will know him by the many characters he has brought to life: Pinky from Pinky and the Brain and Yakko from Animaniacs, Raphael from the original animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and many more. So, you can imagine how terrifying it must have been when Rob was diagnosed with throat cancer, putting his entire livelihood in jeopardy and threatening to rob the world of all his loveable characters that filled our youth and adulthood with humor and delight.

Back in January 1995 in Los Angeles, California, a Singaporean pornstar named Annabel Chong took cultural rebellion to an extreme, on terms that had never been negotiated before. She was filmed having sex with a long receiving line of men, servicing them 251 times over a ten-hour period to set a new world record: The World’s Biggest Gangbang.

She grew up in front of the world on the beloved sitcom Full House, but then actress Andrea Barber abruptly left Hollywood. Why did she leave and what did she do for 20 years out of the spotlight before returning to television? This is her funny and inspiring memoir of fame, heartache, resilience - and the reboot of a lifetime....

In his The Dark Side series, Andy Thompson gives us a taste of the dark sense of humor paramedics use as a coping mechanism; here he packs laugh-out-loud moments into every word as he recalls health care professionals' encounters with the weirdest of behavior, hilarious misunderstandings, and cringingly embarrassing episodes.

In March 2020, Kate Garraway's husband, Derek Draper, contracted COVID-19 and was placed in a medically induced coma. Initially, Kate was told that he would not survive. Still in hospital and in a critical condition, he is thought to be the UK's longest-fighting COVID-19 patient. In this intimate book, Kate shares her deeply personal story.

Through roles in cherished films such as Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Aladdin and Hook, he became the genial face of family comedy. His childlike enthusiasm was infectious, sweeping viewers away. Allied to his lightning-quick improvisation and ability to riff lewdly off any cue thrown at him, Robin was that rare thing - a true comic genius who appealed to adults and children equally. He could also play it straight, and empathetic depth came to him naturally.

Growing up the good girl in an Irish American family full of drinkers and terrible sleepers, Kathleen Frazier was 12 when her seemingly innocent sleepwalking turned dangerous. Over the next few years, she was a popular A+ student by day, the star of her high school musical. At night she both longed for and dreaded sleep. Frazier moved to Manhattan in the 1980s, hoping for a life in the theater but getting a run of sleepwalking performances instead.

In The Strength of Love, Kate explores issues that resonate with so many of us. She looks at the impact of trauma as well as the importance of resilience, adaptability, curiosity and positivity when recovering from it. She talks about identity, purpose, how to embrace uncertainty and take back control of our lives. Through her and Derek's story, she provides comfort and wisdom that will help anyone who has ever felt desperate, lonely or experienced profound loss, or who is fearful about the uncertainty of all our futures.

In 1997, Daniel Trush, a bright, active, outgoing twelve-year-old, collapsed on the basketball court and fell into a deep coma. Rushed to the hospital, he was found to have five previously undetected aneurysms in his brain. One had burst, causing a massive cerebral hemorrhage. While Daniel remained comatose, the uncontrolled pressure inside his skull caused him to suffer multiple strokes.

Steve-O is best known for his wildly dangerous, foolish, painful, embarrassing, and sometimes death-defying stunts. At age 48, however, he faces his greatest challenge yet: getting older. A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions is a captivating exploration of life and how to live it by an individual who has already lived way more than a lifetime’s worth of extreme experiences. Steve-O grapples with the right balance between maturity and staying true to yourself, avoiding selfishness, and finding the right partner for life.

In Happy Fat, comedian Sofie Hagen describes how she conquered a negative relationship with her body and provides practical tips for readers to do the same. She exposes how fatphobia is embedded in society at every level - in our relationships, our public spaces, and the TV shows we watch - powered by the toxic mix of capitalism and the media.

In March 2017 Linda Nolan was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer and was given the terrible news that it was not curable, though it was treatable. Her first thought was to worry about her family, still grieving the loss of their sister Bernie just a few years earlier. Her second was to think, But I'm alive, and I'm going to fight it.

Mike Majlak was a 17-year-old from a loving middle-class family in Milford, Connecticut, when he got caught up in the opioid epidemic that swept the nation. For close to a decade thereafter, his life was a wasteland of darkness and despair. While his peers were graduating from college, buying homes, getting married, having kids, and leading normal lives, Mike was snorting Oxycontin, climbing out of cars at gunpoint, and burying his childhood friends.

Presenter. Fashion icon. Wife. Mother. Holly Willoughby lights up the nation's TV screens every day but, like all of us, she has struggled with moments of self-doubt, feelings of guilt, anger and detachment. Here she shares how she faces these head on and has learned to reconnect with herself to find inner beauty. With her trademark warmth, Holly shows how listening to her inner voice and celebrating life's little moments of joy - like looking up at the moon or finding the perfect red lipstick - helped her feel whole again.

In 2013, actress, television personality, and Sunday Times best-selling author Lynda Bellingham was diagnosed with cancer. Until now, Lynda hasn't spoken publicly about her illness - she has felt strongly that everyone's experience of cancer is so different, and she wanted to keep what she has been going through personal to her while she came to terms with her life now. But in this memoir, Lynda talks with beautiful poignancy about her life since her diagnosis, her family, and how together they came to terms with a future they hadn't planned.

A social commentary, comedy, memoir, and practical, info-packed journey into beauty treatments including plastic surgery, Men Are Stupid... is for every woman who wants to improve herself, giving the average woman a step-by-step guide on how to look and feel gorgeous, delivered with Joan's signature sense of humor.

Many know Kimberly Williams-Paisley as the bride in the popular Steve Martin remakes of the Father of the Bride movies, the calculating Peggy Kenter on Nashville, or the wife of country megastar Brad Paisley. But in 2014, Williams-Paisley revealed a tragic secret: Her mother had been diagnosed with a rare form of dementia called primary progressive aphasia at the age of 61.