Love is complicated, and we all know that those sometimes sappy endings we see in the movies are, well, not real life. These nonfiction love stories on the other hand, have something in common—they share unlikely beginnings, and some unlikely pairings, if you buy into what society believes a couple should be. Several couples in these listens might have never met under so-called normal circumstances. But their love was determined, and they were faithful to it and each other. A young woman meets the love of her life while on a death march with other prisoners in Germany. A white woman falls in love with her late husband's servant, an enslaved Black man. And a love between two American women openly blooms in Paris in the 1900s.
A good love story is undeniably unforgettable. It finds a place in our memories to recall in an instant, even if it left behind a broken heart. (Which I know for a fact won't kill you.) On Valentine's Day, couples will sit in restaurants with decorative hearts dangling from the ceilings, vases stuffed with roses, and they'll raise and clink glasses as they toast their love. The observers will wonder, "What's their story?" There's always a story; enjoy these.
This New York Times bestseller reveals the intimate story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, told by the woman who lived it. Here in her own words, Priscilla Presley tells the story of their love, revealing the details of their first meeting, their marriage, their affairs, their divorce, and the unbreakable bond that has remained long after his tragic death. A tribute to both the man and the legend, Elvis and Me gives Elvis fans the world over an unprecedented look into the true life of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, told by the woman who loved him. Sadly, their only daughter passed away in January 2023.
After eight years on the air, Desi Arnaz did not love Lucy any more. On screen, they were dynamite, a comedy pairing more successful than any Hollywood had ever produced. But when the cameras stopped rolling, they fought, screamed, and threatened each other more each season. Finally, an argument in Desi's production office turned violent. Lucy hurled a cocktail glass past his head, and Desi demanded a divorce. He moved out that night. After nearly 20 years, America's favorite couple was finished.
When they first married, no one in Hollywood thought it would last six months. But together, their irresistible chemistry produced one of the greatest television empires of all time, and a love story as passionate as it was explosive.
When Annette Gordon-Reed's groundbreaking study was first published, rumors of Thomas Jefferson's sexual involvement with the enslaved Sally Hemings had circulated for two centuries. Among all aspects of Jefferson's renowned life, it was perhaps the most hotly contested topic. Friends of Jefferson, historians, and biographers sought to debunk the Hemings story as early as 1800. Gordon-Reed pointed out numerous errors and prejudices in their writings, ranging from inaccurate citations to impossible time lines and exclusions of evidence—especially evidence concerning the Hemings family. She demonstrates how these scholars may have been misguided by their own biases and may even have tailored evidence to serve and preserve their opinions of Jefferson as they fervently believed that a relationship between a white man and a Black woman could never be anything other than master and slave, and that she had no agency.
Passionate, freethinking existentialist philosopher-writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre are one of the world's legendary couples. Their committed but notoriously open union generated no end of controversy in their day. Biographer Hazel Rowley offers the first dual portrait of these two colossal figures and their intense, often embattled relationship. Through original interviews and access to new primary sources, Rowley portrays Sartre and Beauvoir up close.
Tête-à-Tête magnificently details the passion, daring, humor, and contradictions of a remarkably unorthodox relationship.
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This is a collection of fascinating, largely untold tales of ordinary men and women who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to be together. Meet 16 couples who fought for love—love between slaves, between slaves and masters, and between slaves and free black folks. There is the fugitive slave from Virginia who spends 17 years searching for his wife. A white woman who falls in love with her deceased husband's slave. Acclaimed journalist Betty DeRamus gleaned these anecdotes from descendants of runaway enslaved couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, census data, and untapped sources. Though not all of the stories in Forbidden Fruit end in triumph, they all celebrate hope, passion, courage, and the many faces of true love.
Before I met Miles, I’d only seen him on album covers. One cover in particular stood out. He’s pictured with his wife, Frances, and he's staring intensely at her. I stared at them both. I was a teenager at the time. After a while, I put the album down and went on about my life. Years later I was having dinner with my sister and a friend. I was feeling blue because I had fractured my wrist and sported a big white cast. “You might meet the man of your dreams because of that,” a neighbor said. “What happened to your arm?” a very hoarse voice asked. It was Miles standing at the head of our table. Quite the Contrary is how I juggled life, work, plus a legend, and thrived.
A true and deeply moving narrative of forbidden love during World War II and a shocking, hidden history of race on the home front. Elinor Powell was an African American nurse in the US military during World War II; Frederick Albert was a soldier in Hitler’s army, captured by the Allies and shipped to a prisoner-of-war camp in the Arizona desert, a second-class assignment that Black nurses usually pulled. Brought together by unlikely circumstances and racist assumptions, Elinor and Frederick should have been bitter enemies; but at the height of World War II, they fell in love. Their story was unearthed by journalist Alexis Clark, who through years of interviews and historical research has pieced together an astounding narrative of race and true love in the cauldron of war. Enemies in Love paints a tableau of dreams deferred and of love struggling to survive, 25 years before the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing mixed-race marriage.
Gerda Weissmann Klein's memoir tells the moving story of a young woman's experience as a slave laborer for the Nazis and her miraculous liberation. Gerda was 18 years old when she was taken from her home in Poland and imprisoned for three years in a series of German work camps. Her parents died in Auschwitz and her brother perished in the interior of Poland. She and others were on a death march when American soldiers stormed the area and rescued them. Little did she know that one of the American soldiers, Kurt Klein, would become the love of her life. They were together for more than 50 years. Her husband died in 2002 and she in 2022. Their story inspired the Academy Award-winning documentary One Survivor Remembers.
It was love at first sight when Tembi met professional chef Saro on a street in Florence. There was just one problem: Saro’s traditional Sicilian family did not approve of him marrying a Black American woman, an actress no less. The couple, heartbroken but undeterred, forged on. They built a happy life in Los Angeles, with fulfilling careers, deep friendships, and the love of their lives: a baby girl they adopted at birth. Eventually, they reconciled with Saro’s family just as he faced a formidable cancer that consumed all their dreams. From Scratch chronicles three summers Tembi spends in Sicily with her daughter, Zoela. Now she finds solace and nourishment—literally and spiritually—at her mother-in-law’s table. Tembi, along with her sister Attica, created a limited series based on this poignant story of love, loss, and healing.
For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of 30 or 40— sometimes as many as 50—years. They loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife. In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture. Among the high-profile couples whose lives and loves are illuminated are literary icon Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, author James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger, and artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.
