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Biographies & Memoirs

«Gli avvenimenti della mia vita non sono successi mai casualmente, ma favoriti da incontri con persone straordinarie, ognuna delle quali ha contribuito a ciò che ho vissuto: un’avventura esistenziale irripetibile.» La memoria percorre il filo della vita di Paolo Crepet alla ricerca dell’essenziale: le radici artistiche della sua famiglia, le esperienze molteplici e cosmopolite nella formazione, la meraviglia della scoperta della psichiatria, la nascita della passione per la scrittura. In queste pagine dense di aneddoti e di eventi inconsueti, affiorano innumerevoli incontri singolari, ciascuno dei quali ha contribuito ad aggiungere un tassello al cantiere di un’identità personale e professionale in continuo rinnovamento; su tutti svetta la figura di Franco Basaglia, amico e maestro, l’uomo capace di trasformare la concezione della follia e di riconoscere diritti fondamentali ai più fragili e indifesi. Le grandi tappe della vita vengono così raccontate alla luce di un costante comun denominatore: gli affetti, le emozioni, la capacità di creare fra sé e gli altri un legame che oltrepassi la distanza e il tempo. Ai lettori viene affidato questo insegnamento che affiora da ricordi ironici e benevoli, simili a scogli a cui aggrapparsi saldamente mentre si avanza nell’ampio mare aperto.

Goethe & Schiller - Eine ergiebige literarische Allianz

Biographies & Memoirs

Die Anthologie 'Goethe & Schiller – Eine ergiebige literarische Allianz' taucht tief in die meisterhaften Werke zweier der bedeutendsten deutschen Dichter ein, ergänzt durch bedeutende literarische Analysen und Essays von anerkannten Gelehrten wie Friedrich Gundolf, Emil Ludwig und Otto Harnack. Diese Sammlung vereint unterschiedlichste Stile – von dramatischen Erzählungen über philosophische Schriften bis hin zu klassischer Poesie. Sie bietet dem Leser eine faszinierende Vielfalt an literarischen Exzellenzen, die nicht nur das Erbe von Goethe und Schiller feiern, sondern auch deren fortwährende Bedeutung in der Literaturgeschichte veranschaulichen. Die herausragenden Beiträge dieser Anthologie sind von Literaten und Gelehrten verfasst, die sich intensiv mit der Zeit und dem Einfluss der Weimarer Klassik auseinandergesetzt haben. Friedrich Gundolf und Emil Ludwig bieten tiefgehende Einblicke in die Wirkung von Goethe und Schiller auf die deutsche Kultur, während Otto Harnack eine kritische Perspektive auf die gesellschaftlichen und philosophischen Implikationen ihrer Werke eröffnet. Die Sammlung zeugt von einem reichen intellektuellen Austausch und kollektiver Erkundung zwischen den Autoren, die die Spannweite und Tiefe der Weimarer Klassik auslotet. Diese Anthologie ist ein Muss für Literaturliebhaber, die daran interessiert sind, die Sprachgewalt und das intellektuelle Vermächtnis von Goethe und Schiller zu erkunden. Sie bietet eine einzigartige Gelegenheit, eine Vielzahl von Perspektiven und literarischen Ansätzen in einem einzigen Band zu entdecken und einen fruchtbaren Dialog zwischen den verschiedenen Stimmen zu genießen. Tauchen Sie ein in diese reiche Sammlung, die gleichzeitig den Bildungshorizont erweitert und den Zugang zu einem prächtigen Kapitel der Literaturgeschichte eröffnet.

The Ballad of Speedball Baby

Biographies & Memoirs

The Ballad of Speedball Baby is the thrilling, extremely funny, and heart-wrenchingly vulnerable story of Ali Smith—coming of age in ’90s New York—who commits to the messy, exhilarating life of a musician and must survive the slings and arrows society reserves for women who refuse to comply. As an only child reeling from the demolition of her parents’ toxic marriage, the New York City underground music scene offers a young Ali a different family of misfits and talented outsiders to belong to. She becomes the bass player for edgy band Speedball Baby, a decision that will take her around the world—from onstage at the legendary CBGBs to the red-light district of Amsterdam. She’s often the only girl in a broken-down tour van, being strip-searched at the Croatian border, chased by lunatics, and navigating the seedy underbelly of a male-dominated music scene full of addiction, violence, and misogyny—all while keeping her sharp wit and dark humor intact. Rimmed with heavy black eyeliner and smelling faintly of cheap booze, The Ballad of Speedball Baby is a pulse-quickening, unpredictable ride through the ’90s music scene—alternately terrifying, hilarious, and painfully evocative—as well as a love letter to the power of female solidarity.

The Beat of My Own Drum

Biographies & Memoirs

From the Grammy-nominated singer, drummer, and percussionist who is world renowned for her contributions throughout the music industry, a moving memoir about the healing power of music and spiritual growth inspired by five decades of life and love on the stage.She was born Sheila Escovedo in 1957, but the world knows her as Sheila E. She first picked up the drumsticks and started making music at the precocious age of three, taught by her legendary father, percussionist Pete Escovedo. As the goddaughter of Tito Puente, music was the heartbeat of her family, and despite Sheila's impoverished childhood in Oakland, California, her family stayed strong, inspired by the music they played nightly in their living room. When she was only five, Sheila delivered her first solo performance to a live audience. By nineteen, she had fallen in love with Carlos Santana. By twenty-one, she met Prince at one of her concerts. Sheila E. and Prince would eventually join forces and collaborate for more than two decades, creating hits that catapulted Sheila to her own pop superstardom.The Beat of My Own Drum is both a walk through four decades of Latin and pop music—from her tours with Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie, Prince, and Ringo Starr to her own solo career. At the same time, it’s also a heartbreaking, ultimately redemptive look at how the sanctity of music can save a person’s life. Having repeatedly endured sexual abuse as a child, Sheila credits her parents, music, and God with giving her the will to carry on and to build a lasting legacy.Rich in musical detail, pop, and Latin music history, this is a fascinating walk through some of the biggest moments in music from the ’70s and ’80s. But as Sheila’s personal story, this memoir is a unique glimpse into a world-famous drummer’s singular life—a treat for both new and longtime fans of Sheila E. And above all, The Beat of My Own Drum is a testament to how the positive power of music has fueled Sheila’s heart and soul—and how it can transform your life as well.

Wavewalker

Biographies & Memoirs

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERA TIMES BEST MEMOIR OF 2023‘Grippingly vivid and pacey’ THE TIMES‘A seven-year old girl on a seventy-foot yacht, for ten years, over fifty thousand miles of sailing’ SIMON WINCHESTER‘A seven-year old girl on a seventy-foot yacht, for ten years, over fifty thousand miles of sailing … a fantastic story of a truly Odyssean journey across all the world’s great oceans – but is also the inspiring story of the developing of a restless and inquiring mind’ SIMON WINCHESTER'An astonishing almost day-by-day account of [a] hazardous journey and its legacy’ TELEGRAPH‘This is a story of an epic childhood journey, so exciting and so shocking it is hard to know whether you’re reading about a dream or a nightmare… Wavewalker is thrilling, horrifying, beautifully written – I couldn’t put it down’ ED BALLSAged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children.Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child deprived of safety, friendships, schooling and occasionally drinking water… At seventeen Suzanne earned an interview at Oxford University and returned to the UK.From the bestselling author of What Does Jeremy Think?, Wavewalker is the incredible true story of how the adventure of a lifetime became one child’s worst nightmare – and how her determination to educate herself enabled her to escape‘A classic memoir of childhood. This is a book that every parent should read to consider the consequences of their midlife crises, and every child should read to learn how to deal with impossible mums and dads, as well as boils and barnacles’ Mail on Sunday 5*‘An electrifying story about an extraordinary childhood, and Heywood tells it with remarkable clarity and assurance . . . an engrossing book that pitches the reader into the highs and lows of a young life spent in the “Wavewalker School of the Sea”’TLSAbout the authorSuzanne Heywood was born in the UK but for most of her childhood sailed around the world with her family, with limited access to formal education. She came back to the UK aged 17 and won a place to study at Oxford University. After her PhD at Cambridge University, she joined McKinsey and Company where she became a senior partner. She is now a managing director of Exor and chair of CNH Industrial. She married the late civil servant Jeremy Heywood in 1997 and they have three children.

The Barefoot Woman

Biographies & Memoirs

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATUREA moving, unforgettable tribute to a Tutsi woman who did everything to protect her children from the Rwandan genocide, by the daughter who refuses to let her family's story be forgotten.The story of the author's mother, a fierce, loving woman who for years protected her family from the violence encroaching upon them in pre-genocide Rwanda. Recording her memories of their life together in spare, wrenching prose, Mukasonga preserves her mother's voice in a haunting work of art.

Trotsky on Lenin

Biographies & Memoirs

“Fascinating . . . full of insight and a perceptive portrait of Lenin’s single-mindedness and his relentless, all-consuming drive towards revolution in Russia.” —The Guardian Combining Young Lenin and On Lenin in one volume, this is a fascinating political biography by Lenin’s fellow revolutionary, Leon Trotsky. Trotsky on Lenin brings together two long-out-of-print works in a single volume for the first time, providing an intimate and illuminating portrait of the Bolshevik leader by another of the twentieth century’s greatest revolutionaries. Written shortly after its subject’s death, On Lenin covers the period of revolutionary struggle leading up to 1917 as well as the early years of Bolshevik power. We see a man totally committed to the revolutionary cause, whose legacy was later corrupted under the Soviet Union’s Stalinist degeneration. Young Lenin, meanwhile, describes his early years and conversion to Marxism, dispelling many of the myths later created by Soviet hagiography in the process. This is the essential guide for anyone wanting to understand Lenin as a thinker, active revolutionary, and personality.

Colonel Roosevelt

Biographies & Memoirs

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “Colonel Roosevelt is compelling reading, and [Edmund] Morris is a brilliant biographer who practices his art at the highest level. . . . A moving, beautifully rendered account.”—Fred Kaplan, The Washington Post This biography by Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex, marks the completion of a trilogy sure to stand as definitive. Of all our great presidents, Theodore Roosevelt is the only one whose greatness increased out of office. What other president has written forty books, hunted lions, founded a third political party, survived an assassin’s bullet, and explored an unknown river longer than the Rhine? Packed with more adventure, variety, drama, humor, and tragedy than a big novel, yet documented down to the smallest fact, this masterwork recounts the last decade of perhaps the most amazing life in American history. “Hair-raising . . . awe-inspiring . . . a worthy close to a trilogy sure to be regarded as one of the best studies not just of any president, but of any American.”—San Francisco Chronicle

The eNotated Voyage of the Liberdade

Biographies & Memoirs

Though most eBooks are simple conversions of paper books, “The eNotated Voyage of the Liberdade” is a completely new approach that takes advantage of the potential eBook technology offers to extend and enrich Slocum’s writing in a way that’s convenient to use while still unobtrusive to the reader. Joshua Slocum, intrepid solo sailor of the “Spray” (see “The eNotated Sailing Alone Around the World”) had earlier lost his ship, “Aquidneck,” in Brazil and built a small craft, the “Liberdade” to return with his family home. It’s a remarkable story but filled with 19th century sailing terms, geographical references, and idioms that may be lost to the modern reader. Chris Thomerson, lifelong sailor and student of maritime history, provides the background and explanations so today’s readers can thoroughly understand, appreciate, and enjoy Slocum’s tale by adding expert electronic annotations linked to words and phrases in Slocum’s original text. Based on the 1890 edition of “The Voyage of the Liberdade” this eNotated edition extends Slocum’s writing by providing a new layer of information behind the text the reader can access before, during, and after each chapter. For instance, when Slocum writes “weather-bitted,” Thomerson explains it means, “Tie to the post or bitt on the bow in a secure way that will withstand extreme weather for a long time.” If you are going to read Slocum for the first time - or reread him after some years - you will best enjoy and most throughly understand him with this unique eNotated edition.

The Three Good Fridays

Biographies & Memoirs

The book recounts the events and memories of eight decades of the author’s life from the late 1930s - a mere fifteen years after independence - to the current year of the pandemic, 2020.It describes the simple village life of an ordinary middle class family growing up in the suburban village of Blackrock County Dublin. It is as much a social history of the times as a description of a personal childhood. The story of the early working life and subsequent business career reflects the changes the country went through during those same exciting times with Ireland’s international growth in diplomacy, politics; commerce, and cultural influence both domestically and internationally. The author is proud of his modest contribution to this aspect of the nation’s proud progress in those times. It describes life before computers, when communications were conducted in person; by land line telephones and business letters and the latest manifestation of sophisticated business technology was the electric typewriter. In line with the author’s working life the many interesting encounters he had with entertainers and writers are covered in anecdotes about Tony Bennett, Al Martino, Stéphane Grappelli, Bill Cosby, Maeve Binchy, Nuala O Faolain, and playwright and film producer Jim Sheridan .From the world of sport there are references to Niall Brophy, a classmate, Paul O’Connell through his friendship to Donal Walsh,Eddie Heron the diver and the Kavanagh brothers Paddy, Ronnie, and Gene and finally Muhammud Ali.in Dublin and New York. After reading this wee set of memories, think what the next eighty years may have in store for us all.

Moses the Servant of God

Biographies & Memoirs

F. B. Meyer (1847 – 1929) was a famous pastor and evangelist in England. He was a frequent speaker at Keswick and a friend of Hudson Taylor, D. L. Moody and Spurgeon. He was loved for his many writings, devotionals and Scriptural biographies which helped countless thousands grow in their love for the Lord and his Word. It is our prayer that Meyer's writings will similarly challenge and encourage you in your Christian walk. MOSES THE SERVANT OF GOD is one of his classic Biblical Biographies. With great skill and insight, Meyer looks at the life lessons from this man of God and gives practical application for our lives today!

Sailing Alone Around the World

Biographies & Memoirs

"Sailing Alone Around The World" is the memoir of Joshua Slocum narrating his fabulous circumnavigation adventure around the world, undertaken at the end of the 19th century. Slocum was the first person to achieve this feat by sailing alone. The book, released in 1900, was an immediate success and influenced many other adventurers to also attempt similar feats. The highlights of the journey, as narrated by Joshua, include the perils of the ocean such as fog, storms, collision, loneliness, crisis, navigation, fatigue... It also includes the risks of coastal navigation with pirates, attacks from 'savages', coves, shoals, and coral reefs, grounding, and shipwreck. "Sailing Alone Around The World" is a delightful adventure book, one of those that we hate to interrupt and that, in the end, leaves us longing to also sail around the world.

Broken Pieces

Biographies & Memoirs

Too many days of darkness and despair, yet you keep whispering words of hope reminding me you are there. Too many nights of crying and praying with so little sleep, I feel you gently wiping my tears as I silently weep. The enemy raging, my home, my health at risk; Spiritual warfare is needed, can’t quit, I must persist. As I continue to pray he tries to rage and resist, but he quivers and weakens as God’s words leave my lips. Pat Parker

Idiocy

Biographies & Memoirs

An audacious, unabashedly transgressive memoir about two acts of escape by the author: breaking from his family to seek a freer life in Paris and then, later, from the French military during the Algerian War.Pierre Guyotat was one of the most radical and uncompromising writers of the twentieth century, a literary successor to Sade, Bataille, and Genet whose visceral fictions and bold experiments with language have earned him cult status in France and abroad. Idiocy is his searing memoir of coming of age between 1958 and 1962, when he discovered his burgeoning sexuality and aptitude for rebellion—first against his father, whom he escaped to become a writer in Paris, then against the French military authorities as a conscript in the Algerian War.Guyotat recounts the atrocities he witnessed first-hand in Algeria, as well as his own harrowing experience of being arrested for inciting desertion and imprisoned in a hole in the ground for three months. Guyotat wields his language like a scalpel, merciless in his exploration of human brutality in all its horrible, granular detail. Yet his generous depictions of camaraderie and friendship are just as unflinching.The winner of the 2018 Prix Médicis, Idiocy is an incisive condemnation of violence and colonialism, and a bracing, hallucinatory late masterpiece from a writer hailed by Edmund White as "one of the few geniuses of our day."

Histoire des salons de Paris – Tome III

Biographies & Memoirs

Histoire des salons de Paris – Tome III Laure Junot d'Abrantès, mémorialiste française (1784-1838) Ce livre numérique présente «Histoire des salons de Paris – Tome III», de Laure Junot d'Abrantès, édité en texte intégral. Une table des matières dynamique permet d'accéder directement aux différentes sections. Table des Matières -01- Présentation -02- UNE LECTURE CHEZ ROBESPIERRE -03- SALON DE ROBESPIERRE -04- SALON DE MME DE SAINTE-AMARANTHE -05- BAL DES VICTIMES -06- SALON DE BARRAS À PARIS ET À GROSBOIS -07- SALON DE FRANÇOIS DE NEUFCHÂTEAU -08- SALON DE MADAME DE STAËL SOUS LE DIRECTOIRE -09- SALON DE SEGUIN -10- SALON DE LUCIEN BONAPARTE, COMME DÉPUTÉ ET MINISTRE DE L'INTÉRIEUR -11- NOTES

Mémoires du géant

Biographies & Memoirs

Extrait : "Il est trois pages – deux à la plume, une au crayon – qui me rappellent singulièrement les souvenirs de mon extrême enfance. L'une est cette merveilleuse description du Palais-Royal et des Galerie de Bois, – la Galerie d'Orléans, au Palais-Royal d'aujourd'hui – que Balzac a daguerréotypés dans son Grand homme de province à Paris."

Johannes Reuchlin und sein Kampf

Biographies & Memoirs

Max Brods Biographie eines streitbaren humanistischen Gelehrten. Max Brod, eigentlich mehr Erzähler als Historiker, widmete sich intensiv der Lebensgeschichte Johannes Reuchlins (1455-1522), dem mutigen Verteidiger des Talmud, und fügte diese zu einem intellektuellen Panoptikum zusammen. "Vom Wunder wirkenden Wort" – dieser Titel von Johannes Reuchlins erstem Buch über die Kabbala kann als Motto über seinem ganzen Leben stehen, und dies in seiner vielfältigen Bedeutung. Als Richter des schwäbischen Bundes glaubte er an das Recht schaffende Wort, als Diplomat im Dienste des Grafen Eberhard schmiedete er mit Worten Allianzen. Doch waren es die geheimnisvollen hebräischen Wörter, die Reuchlin faszinierten. Als Verfasser einer Grammatik und Deuter ihrer Wundermacht mit dem Wissen der Kabbala, aber auch als katholischer Christ und Begründer der christlichen Kabbala war er Verteidiger und Missionar der Juden zugleich. Max Brod beleuchtet in seiner Biographie Leben und Werk des bedeutenden Humanisten. 1965, unter dem Eindruck der Shoah im Exil in Palästina geschrieben, zeugt dieses Buch dennoch von einer Liebe zur deutschen Sprache, der Hochachtung vor einem den Juden beistehenden Deutschen. Deutlicher wird zudem der Stolz auf die neue hebräische und staatliche Gegenwart.

Clementine Churchill

Biographies & Memoirs

Foreword by Harriet Walter.Clementine Churchill: A Life in Pictures is a fully illustrated and abridged edition of Sonia Purnell’s acclaimed biography, First Lady, including over 100 stunning and rarely seen photographs. Without Winston Churchill’s inspiring leadership Britain could not have survived its darkest hour. Without his wife Clementine, however, he might never have become Prime Minister. By his own admission, his role in the Second World War would have been impossible but for ‘Clemmie’. That Clementine should have become Britain’s First Lady was by no means preordained. She may have been born an aristocrat but her childhood was far from gilded. Deprived of affection, a secure home and sometimes even food on the table, by the time she entered high society she had become the target of cruel snobbery. Yet in Winston she discovered a partner as emotionally insecure as herself; and in his career she found her mission. Theirs was a marriage that was to change the course of history.Clementine gave Winston confidence, conviction and counsel. Not only was she involved in some of the most crucial decisions of the war, she also exerted an influence over her husband and his governments that might be judged scandalous today. Her ability to manage this exceptional man, and to charm Britain’s allies, earned her the deep respect of world leaders, ministers, generals and critics alike. While her tireless work to alleviate suffering on the Home Front and abroad made her a champion to many in the population at large.From the personal and political upheavals of the Great War, through the Churchills’ ‘wilderness years’ in the 1930s, to Clementine’s desperate efforts to sustain Winston during the struggle against Hitler, Clementine Churchill: A Life in Pictures continues to uncover the memory of one of the most remarkable women of modern times.

The Lonely City

Biographies & Memoirs

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism#1 Book of the Year from Brain PickingsNamed a best book of the year by NPR, Newsweek, Slate, Pop Sugar, Marie Claire, Elle, Publishers Weekly, and Lit HubA dazzling work of biography, memoir, and cultural criticism on the subject of loneliness, told through the lives of iconic artists, by the acclaimed author of The Trip to Echo Spring.When Olivia Laing moved to New York City in her mid-thirties, she found herself inhabiting loneliness on a daily basis. Increasingly fascinated by the most shameful of experiences, she began to explore the lonely city by way of art. Moving from Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks to Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, from Henry Darger’s hoarding to David Wojnarowicz’s AIDS activism, Laing conducts an electric, dazzling investigation into what it means to be alone, illuminating not only the causes of loneliness but also how it might be resisted and redeemed.Humane, provocative, and moving, The Lonely City is a celebration of a strange and lovely state, adrift from the larger continent of human experience, but intrinsic to the very act of being alive.

The Diary & Letters of Madame D'Arblay

Biographies & Memoirs

The book represents the personal diary of Frances Burney, married D'Arblay, covering the period from 1779 to 1840. Spanning from her early adolescence, it gives away some intimate details, Fanny's reactions on the publication of her novels, and also how she came to the Queen's notice and hence into her service. The diary is a priceless resource for historians offering some insights into the life in royal service, and providing an eye-witness account of George III as seen from Fanny's position as second keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte. Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. She is best known for her novels Evelina, Cecilia, Camilla and The Wanderer. Burney's novels explore the lives of English aristocrats, and satirize their social pretensions and personal foibles, with an eye to larger questions such as the politics of female identity. She has gained critical respect in her own right, but she also foreshadowed such novelists of manners with a satirical bent as Jane Austen and Thackeray.

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