Biographies & Memoirs - Books

La vita immortale di Henrietta Lacks

Biographies & Memoirs

HeLa: una sigla che indica una linea cellulare di vitale importanza nelle ricerche sul cancro e su molte altre malattie. Una sigla che si riferisce a Henrietta Lacks, morta di tumore nel 1951, e da cui quelle cellule miracolose furono prelevate. Rebecca Skloot ricostruisce la vita, la morte, e il lascito di una donna, ponendo domande ineludibili in cui etica e medicina si intrecciano indissolubilmente: chi dispone del materiale biologico di cui siamo fatti? Chi custodisce la memoria di ciò che siamo stati?

My Effin' Life

Biographies & Memoirs

"As someone who has spent his life telling made-up stories that are obliged to sound somewhat plausible, I am deeply envious of Geddy Lee. And it’s not only the improbable, absurd, wondrous and at times heartbreaking true story that life has gifted him that envy, but also the warmth, care, artfulness, hard-earned wisdom and—always—the gently skewed humor with which he tells it. He’s one of my musical heroes, for reasons that are there on record, but with this book everyone can see why for so long he has also been one of my heroes as a man."—Michael ChabonThe long-awaited memoir, generously illustrated with never-before-seen photos, from the iconic Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Rush bassist, and bestselling author of Geddy Lee's Big Beautiful Book of Bass.Geddy Lee is one of rock and roll's most respected bassists. For nearly five decades, his playing and work as co-writer, vocalist and keyboardist has been an essential part of the success story of Canadian progressive rock trio Rush. Here for the first time is his account of life inside and outside the band.Long before Rush accumulated more consecutive gold and platinum records than any rock band after the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, before the seven Grammy nominations or the countless electrifying live performances across the globe, Geddy Lee was Gershon Eliezer Weinrib, after his grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust.As he recounts the transformation, Lee looks back on his family, in particular his loving parents and their horrific experiences as teenagers during World War II.He talks candidly about his childhood and the pursuit of music that led him to drop out of high school.He tracks the history of Rush which, after early struggles, exploded into one of the most beloved bands of all time.He shares intimate stories of his lifelong friendships with bandmates Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart—deeply mourning Peart’s recent passing—and reveals his obsessions in music and beyond.This rich brew of honesty, humor, and loss makes for a uniquely poignant memoir.

The Pigeon Tunnel

Biographies & Memoirs

DON’T MISS THE PIGEON TUNNEL DOCUMENTARY—NOW PLAYING IN SELECT THEATERS AND STREAMING ON AppleTV+The New York Times bestselling memoir from John le Carré, the legendary author of A Legacy of Spies.“Recounted with the storytelling élan of a master raconteur—by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy.” –Michiko Kakutani, The New York TimesFrom his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carré has always written from the heart of modern times. In this, his first memoir, le Carré is as funny as he is incisive, reading into the events he witnesses the same moral ambiguity with which he imbues his novels. Whether he's writing about the parrot at a Beirut hotel that could perfectly mimic machine gun fire or the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth; visiting Rwanda’s museums of the unburied dead in the aftermath of the genocide; celebrating New Year’s Eve 1982 with Yasser Arafat and his high command; interviewing a German woman terrorist in her desert prison in the Negev; listening to the wisdoms of the great physicist, dissident, and Nobel Prize winner Andrei Sakharov; meeting with two former heads of the KGB; watching Alec Guinness prepare for his role as George Smiley in the legendary BBC TV adaptations of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People; or describing the female aid worker who inspired the main character in The Constant Gardener, le Carré endows each happening with vividness and humor, now making us laugh out loud, now inviting us to think anew about events and people we believed we understood. Best of all, le Carré gives us a glimpse of a writer’s journey over more than six decades, and his own hunt for the human spark that has given so much life and heart to his fictional characters.

Miley Cyrus. 100 Seiten

Biographies & Memoirs

Die Pop-Queen der Zukunft – leidenschaftlich in allen Facetten beleuchtet»Country-Rock, Club, Pop, Prunk, Schweinkram, Schönheit und Schmutz: Diese Frau übertrifft in allem alle, sogar dauernd sich selbst.«Vom Disney-Kinderstar zur Clubhit-Gigantin und Göttin der hochwertigen provokanten Fotografie: Miley Cyrus hätte schon als Teenie-Idol in einem Meer von Fans ertrinken können. Stattdessen hat sie mit Pracht-Arien wie »Wrecking Ball« und Pop-Zaubertricks wie »Flowers« ein Werk geschaffen, das ihr von Pharrell Williams über Dua Lipa bis Metallica die tollsten Partnerschaften zutreibt. Dietmar Dath gräbt sich tief in den Rausch des Ganzen und vergisst auch die Schauspielkunst der Unvergleichlichen nicht.

Somebody to Love?

Biographies & Memoirs

“Candid, unpretentious . . . [Slick’s] refreshingly irreverent . . . caustic candor makes her book miles more appealing than the standard rocker’s autobiography.” —Entertainment WeeklyShe has been called rock and roll's original female outlaw, as famous for her bad behavior as for her haunting singing voice. In her twenty-five-year career as a musician, Grace Slick charted dozens of hits and sold millions of albums. From “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” to “Sarah” and “Miracles”, the songs she performed became the anthems of a generation.Whether describing her antics at the White House with Abbie Hoffman or the unforgettable experience that was Woodstock, Slick's recollections have the same rich imagery found in her lyrics. In this provocative narrative, readers will discover the many sides of Grace Slick: as artistic pioneer; she records songs with Jerry Garcia and David Crosby; as practitioner of freedom and rebellion; she sleeps with Jim Morrison and gets arrested for DUI on three separate occasions (without actually being in a car); and as a loving mother to actress China Kantner.Slick offers a revealing self-portrait of the woman behind the rock star image, and delivers a behind-the-scenes view of the people and spirit that defined a quarter-century of American pop culture. Wildly funny, candid, and evocative, Somebody to Love? tells what it was really like during, and after, the Summer of Love—and how one remarkable woman survived it all to remain today as vibrant and rebellious as ever.“The appealingly wry good humor [Slick] brings to her own life story makes this an engaging trip through two turbulent decades of rock 'n' roll.” —Publishers Weekly

L'estate del '78

Biographies & Memoirs

Un pomeriggio d’estate Roberto Alajmo incontra la madre in una strada di Mondello. Non può immaginarlo, ma quello è un addio. «Cos’abbia fatto lei, nei tre mesi successivi, ancora oggi non lo so. È oggetto della presente indagine».

A Life Impossible

Biographies & Memoirs

From NFL player Steve Gleason, a powerful, inspiring memoir of love, heartbreak, resilience, family, and remarkable triumph in the face of ALS"Gleason is a symbol of resilience, hope and optimism.” —The New York Times • "Steve Gleason has changed the world." –Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner • "An extraordinary book...A Life Impossible will change the way people cope, think, and live." –Mike Lupica, co-author with James Patterson of 12 Months to LiveIn 2011, three years after leaving the NFL, Steve Gleason was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that takes away the ability to move, talk, and breathe. Doctors gave him three years to live. He was thirty-three years old. As Steve says, he is now ten years past his expiration date.His memoir is the chronicle of a remarkable life, one filled with optimism and joy, despite the trauma and pain and despair he has experienced. Writing using eye-tracking technology, Gleason covers his pre-ALS life through the highs and lows of his NFL career with the New Orleans Saints, where he made one of the most memorable plays in Saints history, leading to a victory in the first post-Katrina home game, uplifting the city, making him a hero, and reflected in a nine-foot bronze statue outside the Superdome. Then came his heartbreaking diagnosis. Gleason lost all muscle function, he now uses Stephen Hawking-like technology to communicate, and breathes with the help of a ventilator. This book captures Gleason and his wife Michel’s unmatched resilience as they reinvent their lives, refuse to succumb to despair, and face his disease realistically and existentially.This unsparing portrait argues that a person's true strength does not reside solely in one’s body but also in the ability to face unfathomable adversity and still be able to love and treasure life.

The Prisoner and the Kings

Biographies & Memoirs

The Prisoner and the Kings is a riveting historical account of a prisoner in a Turkish penal colony and the letters he sent to religious and secular leaders that changed the world. Between 1867 and 1873 a solitary prisoner in a Turkish penal colony wrote a series of letters to the kings and emperors of the day, predicting with amazing accuracy the course of modern history: the fall of several nations, the overthrow of certain individual monarchs, the decline of specific religious institutions, the rise of communism, and the threat of nuclear weapons. The prisoner was Bahaullah, Prophet and Founder of the Bahai Faith, one of the most remarkable figures in this or any age.

Stephen Stills: Change Partners

Biographies & Memoirs

Stephen Stills is one of the last remaining music legends from the rock era without a biography. During his six-decade career, he has played with all the greats. His career sky-rocketed when Crosby, Stills & Nash played only their second gig together at Woodstock in 1969. With the addition of Neil Young, the band would go on to play the first rock stadium tour in 1974. Stephen Stills is the only person to have been inducted twice in one night into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Life of Cicero

Biographies & Memoirs

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) was an orator, statesman, philosopher and prolific correspondent, who rose as a ‘new man’ in Rome in the turbulent last years of its republican government. Anthony Trollope, best known as a novelist, admired Cicero greatly and wrote this biography late in life in order to argue his virtues against authors who had granted him literary greatness but questioned his strength as a politician and as a man. He takes a personal approach, affording us an insight into his own mind and times as well as those of his subject.

My Dearest Friend

Biographies & Memoirs

“A wonderfully vivid account of the momentous era they lived through, underscoring the chaotic, often improvisatory circumstances that attended the birth of the fledgling nation and the hardships of daily life.”—Michiko Kakutani, New York TimesIn 1762, John Adams penned a flirtatious note to “Miss Adorable,” the 17-year-old Abigail Smith. In 1801, Abigail wrote to wish her husband John a safe journey as he headed home to Quincy after serving as president of the nation he helped create. The letters that span these nearly forty years form the most significant correspondence—and reveal one of the most intriguing and inspiring partnerships—in American history.As a pivotal player in the American Revolution and the early republic, John had a front-row seat at critical moments in the creation of the United States, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence to negotiating peace with Great Britain to serving as the first vice president and second president under the U.S. Constitution. Separated more often than they were together during this founding era, John and Abigail shared their lives through letters that each addressed to “My Dearest Friend,” debating ideas and commenting on current events while attending to the concerns of raising their children (including a future president).Full of keen observations and articulate commentary on world events, these letters are also remarkably intimate. This new collection—including some letters never before published—invites readers to experience the founding of a nation and the partnership of two strong individuals, in their own words. This is history at its most authentic and most engaging.

Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo?

Biographies & Memoirs

Despite her forty years and a successful career as a rock journalist, Jancee Dunn still feels like a teenager, especially around her parents and sisters. Looking around, Dunn realizes that she’s not alone in this regression: Her friends, all with successful jobs, marriages, and families of their own, still feel like kids around their moms and dads, too. That gets Dunn to thinking: Do we ever really grow up?Why Is My Mother Getting a Tattoo? explores this phenomenon–through both Dunn’s coming to grips with getting older and her folks’ attempts to turn back the clock. In a series of hilarious and heartwarming essays, Dunn conspires with her sisters to finagle their way into the old family homestead, dissects the whys and wherefores of her parents’ obsession with newspaper clippings, confronts the seamy side of the JC Penney catalogs she paged through as a kid, and accompanies her sixtysomething mother to a New Jersey tattoo parlor, where Mom is giddy to get a raven inked onto her wrist. And Dunn does it all with humor and insight.

Poetische Lebenswege: Hinter den Kulissen der Verse

Biographies & Memoirs

Diese Ausgabe präsentiert eine Sammlung von Biographien herausragender Dichter. Ihre Lebensgeschichten offenbaren, wie diese außergewöhnlichen Schriftsteller ihre persönlichen Tragödien, besonderen Umstände, intensiven Freuden und alltäglichen Vergnügen in Kunst umgewandelt haben, die bis heute die Herzen vieler berührt. Diese Ausgabe enthält Biographien von: Goethe (Gundolf Friedrich) Friedrich Schiller (Otto Harnack) Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (Thekla Schneider) Lord Byron (Emil Ludwig) Friedrich Hölderlin (Stefan Zweig) Edgar Allan Poe (Hanns Heinz Ewers) Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (Stefan Zweig) Scheffel (Johannes Proelß) Joachim Ringelnatz (Memoiren)

Autumn Leaves

Biographies & Memoirs

This collection of reflective essays forms a “spiritual autobiography” of André Gide, a key figure of French letters André Gide, a literary and intellectual giant of twentieth-century France, mines his memories and personal observations in this collection of essays. Gide’s reflections and commentary masterfully showcase his delicate writing style and evocative sensibility, yielding new insights on writers such as Goethe and contemporaries Joseph Conrad, Nicolas Poussin, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul-Marie Verlaine. Through it all, Gide skillfully investigates humanity’s contradictory nature and struggles to resolve the moral, political, and religious conflicts inherent in daily life. This ebook features a new introduction by Jeanine Parisier Plottel, selected quotes, and an image gallery.

Muhammad

Biographies & Memoirs

A classic secular history of the prophet Muhammad that vividly recreates the fascinating time in which Islam was born.Maxime Rodinson, both a maverick Marxist and a distinguished professor at the Sorbonne, first published his biography of Muhammad in 1960. The book, a classic in its field, has been widely read ever since. Rodinson, though deeply versed in scholarly studies of the Prophet, does not seek to add to it here but to introduce Muhammad, first of all, as “a man of flesh and blood” who led a life of extraordinary drama and shaped history as few others have. Equally, he seeks to lay out an understanding of Muhammad’s legacy and Islam as what he called an ideological movement, similar to the universalist religions of Christianity and Buddhism as well as the secular movement of Marxism, but possessing a singular commitment to “the deeply ingrained idea that Islam offers not only a path to salvation but (for many, above all) the ideal of a just society to be realized on earth.” Rodinson’s book begins by introducing the specific land and the larger world into which Muhammad was born and the development of his prophetic calling. It then follows the steps of his career and the way his leadership gave birth to a religion and a state. A final chapter considers the world as Islam has transformed it.

Mi Londres

Biographies & Memoirs

Cuando Simonetta Agnello Hornby llegó por primera vez a Londres, en septiembre de 1963, tenía dieciocho años. Y desde entonces no ha abandonado la ciudad, salvo para pasar los veranos en su Sicilia natal. Este libro es un homenaje a su ciudad: es el Londres de Simonetta Agnello Hornby, el Londres tolerante y democrático que recibe a la gente de todas las etnias y le da la posibilidad de trabajar, el Londres que no para de crecer y está en constante movimiento, el Londres que palpita y sorprende, y siempre está dispuesto a ofrecer algo nuevo al visitante. La autora acompaña al lector a los pequeños museos, a pasear por los parques, a sus librerías preferidas, a visitar determinados barrios de la ciudad como Brixton, donde ejerció de abogada durante unos años. Y no sólo eso, también describe cómo son los ingleses, cómo viven, qué comen y qué piensan, un retrato muy particular de la vida de los londinenses. Mi Londres es además, en palabras de la autora, un homenaje a la figura de Samuel Johnson, uno de los intelectuales más distinguidos de la historia inglesa que, en 1757, procedente de Lichfield, llegó a Londres a pie en busca de trabajo, y cuya vida conocemos por la espléndida biografía que escribió de él su amigo James Boswell. Johnson dijo: «Cuando un hombre está cansado de Londres, también está cansado de vivir, porque Londres ofrece todo aquello que la vida puede dar». Mi Londres es un libro imprescindible para conocer el otro Londres, el que no aparece en las guías, ni es típico ni tópico; aquel que se halla detrás de la mirada inteligente de Simonetta Agnello Hornby.

Juan Carlos I (edición actualizada)

Biographies & Memoirs

Lanuevaediciónactualizada de la granbiografía de Juan Carlos I.Hay dos misterios centrales en la vida de Juan Carlos de Borbón: uno personal y otro político, ambos estrechamente entrelazados. El primero es consecuencia de que su padre entregara al niño y después adolescente atado de pies y manos al régimen de Franco. En una familia normal, este acto de casi trata infantil se habría considerado una terrible crueldad. Pero una familia real no es «normal», y la decisión de enviar a Juan Carlos a España respondía a una lógica dinástica «superior». De hecho, en este libro el autor explora cómo esta experiencia le causó al joven Juan Carlos una sensación de abandono familiar que podría haber sido la semilla del afán de conquistas sexuales y financieras que propiciaron su declive.El segundo misterio estriba en cómo un príncipe procedente de una familia con tradiciones autoritarias, obligado a actuar dentro de unas «normas» franquistas y educado para ser la piedra angular de un complejo plan para la continuidad de la dictadura, acabó firmemente comprometido con la democracia. Paul Preston, uno de los historiadores que más luz ha arrojado sobre la historia de España en el siglo xx, ha actualizado de nuevo, a raíz de los últimos acontecimientos, su gran obra sobre el rey Juan Carlos, en la que aborda las conflictivas relaciones de este con su padre, su educación encaminada a perpetuar el régimen de Franco, su apuesta por la democracia y su actuación frente al golpismo que le convirtió en un héroe nacional. En este volumen, se examina en profundidad su papel en la convulsa transición española culminada por el golpe militar del 23-F y la evolución de su vida desde entonces, explicando cómo este héroe nacional ha terminado vilipendiado y obligado a exiliarse. El resultado es un libro tan accesible como riguroso, escrito con una prosa vibrante que nos ofrece un retrato humano y político del hombre que pudo ganar, y luego perder, el título de «Rey de todos los españoles».Lacrítica hadicho... «Se lee, como suele suceder con sus libros, como se bebe agua. Una obra generosa en perspectivas y torrencial en anécdotas. […] El libro no ahorra detalles». Quico Alsedo, El Mundo«Una obra espléndida, que a modo de biografía no autorizada, nos ofrece una visión de la España contemporánea.» Marius Carol, LaVanguardia«De lectura obligada para todos cuantos se interesen por nuestra historia más reciente.» Charles Powell, El cultural«Un libro formidable.» Luis María Anson«Una biografía excelente.»Sunday Times«Una obra rigurosa que además es una historia fascinante. Su gran mérito es recordarnos que en medio de todas las batallas dinásticas, las conspiraciones políticas y la especulación de los medios hay un ser humano que a menudo ha estado muy solo.»The Economist

Klaus Mann: Der Wendepunkt – Autobiographie

Biographies & Memoirs

Klaus Mann: Der Wendepunkt Autobiographie | Neu editierte Ausgabe 2020 | Mit 95 erklärenden Fußnoten | Klaus Manns Rückschau gehört zu den bedeutenden Autobiographien des 20. Jahrhunderts und ist eines der spannendsten Zeitdokumente über die Literatur- und Kunstszene im Deutschland der 1920er Jahre und über das Leben der deutschen Intellektuellen während des Exils in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. | Klaus Mann hatte schon alleine durch seine Herkunft aus der berühmten Literatenfamilie Zugang zu unzähligen prominenten Kunstschaffenden. Das unerschöpfliche Tableau an Persönlichkeiten, denen er in Europa und den USA begegnete und Manns präzise Schilderungen der Episoden machen das Buch zu einem Juwel. Gründgens, Jannings, Greta Garbo, Alma Mahler, Albert Einstein haben ihre Auftritte; ebenso wie die großen internationalen Namen André Gide, Jean Cocteau, Marc Chagall, Billy Wilder, Thomas Wolfe, H. G. Wells und Dutzende andere mehr. Auch die unmenschlichen Machthaber und Repräsentanten des Schreckens, Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, fehlen nicht. Im Unterschied zu vielen Zeitgenossen erkannte Klaus Mann mit größter Klarheit von Beginn an die menschenverachtenden und mörderischen Elemente der nationalsozialistischen Ideologie.

Experience

Biographies & Memoirs

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • One of the most gifted and innovative writers of our time discloses a private life every bit as unique and fascinating as his bestselling novels.“Superb memoir...a moving account of [Amis’s] coming of age as an artist and a man.” —San Francisco Chronicle The son of the great comic novelist Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis explores his relationship with this father and writes about the various crises of Kingsley's life. He also examines the life and legacy of his cousin, Lucy Partington, who was abducted and murdered by one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. Experience also deconstructs the changing literary scene, including Amis' portraits of Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie, Allan Bloom, Philip Larkin, and Robert Graves, among others. Not since Nabokov's Speak, Memory has such an implausible life been recorded by such an inimitable talent. Profound, witty, and ruthlessly honest, Experience is a literary event.

Memoria violenta

Biographies & Memoirs

Un libro di appunti e nuove riflessioni sulla violenza del regime fascista.Con molta fatica in Italia si inizia a riconoscere e ad ammettere proprie responsabilità non attribuibili al solo nazismoAll’interno il diario inedito di Pacifico Franco Di Segni, diciottenne clandestino sui tetti di piazza Farnese a Roma dal 10 luglio 1943 al 25 aprile 1944

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