Biographies & Memoirs - Books

Vita di Lucrezio

Biographies & Memoirs

l più grande enigma della letteratura latina: Luciano Canfora indaga la vita oscura di Lucrezio, poeta straordinario, scomodo, ostinatamente moderno, quasi ignoto però nella società del suo tempo.

“Superb . . . [The] final, splendid, most personal work of [Janet Malcolm’s] long career.” —Charles Finch, The New York Times Book ReviewFor decades, Janet Malcolm’s books and dispatches for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books poked and prodded at reportorial and biographical convention, gesturing toward the artifice that underpins both public and private selves. In Still Pictures, she turns her gimlet eye on her own life—a task demanding a writer just as peerlessly skillful as she was widely known to be.Still Pictures, then, is not the story of a life but an event on its own terms, an encounter with identity and family photographs as poignant and original as anything since Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida. Malcolm looks beyond the content of the image and the easy seductions of self-recognition, constructing a memoir from memories that pose questions of their own. Still Pictures begins with the image of a morose young girl on a train, leaving Prague for New York at the age of five in 1939. From her fitful early loves, to evenings at the old Metropolitan Opera House, to her fascination with what it might mean to be a “bad girl,” Malcolm assembles a composite portrait of a New York childhood, one that never escapes the tug of Europe and the mysteries of fate and family. Later, Still Pictures delves into her marriage to Gardner Botsford, the world of William Shawn’s New Yorker, and the libel trial that led Malcolm to become a character in her own drama. Displaying the sharp wit and astute commentary that are Malcolmian trademarks, this brief volume develops into a memoir like few others in our literature.

Noites insones

Biographies & Memoirs

Publicado em 1979, quando Elizabeth Hardwick tinha sessenta e três anos e uma carreira consolidada como ensaísta, Noites insones traz uma sensível e literariamente brilhante reflexão sobre a própria memória, além de ser precursor da autoficção. Nas lembranças que povoam as noites insones da narradora — uma idosa chamada Elizabeth, internada em uma clínica geriátrica —, figuras reais, como a cantora Billie Holiday, dividem espaço com fictícias, as quais por vezes se misturam à vida de Hardwick, como o personagem sem nome que alude a Robert Lowell, prestigiado poeta com quem viveu um tumultuado casamento. O romance inclui vislumbres das corridas de cavalo no Kentucky, dos clubes de jazz de Nova York, do bairro mais elegante de Boston, Beacon Hill, dos canais de Amsterdã, além de encontros com comunistas, poetas e a intelligentsia literária nova-iorquina. Ainda lança luz sobre questões que já afligiam Hardwick na época, como racismo, sexismo e pobreza. Apesar da tristeza incrustada nas memórias, a obra se dá ao luxo de acreditar que no futuro tudo será diferente.

Pinkerton's War

Biographies & Memoirs

A thrilling historical account of Allan Pinkerton’s pivotal role in the Civil War and the birth of the Secret Service Scottish immigrant Allan Pinkerton is best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which gained renown for solving train robberies in the 1850s and battling the labor movement in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. But the central drama of his career, and the focus of this book, was his work as protector of President Abraham Lincoln and head of a network of Union spies (including himself!) who posed as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers in a deadly cat-and-mouse game. As here told in riveting prose by author Jay Bonansinga, Pinkerton’s politics and abolitionist sympathies drew the attention of supporters of presidential incumbent Abraham Lincoln—and Pinkerton was hired to act as his bodyguard. Pinkerton was asked to organize the U.S. government’s first “Secret Service,” and during the Civil War he managed a network of spies who worked behind confederate lines and tackled espionage at the highest levels in Washington. By war’s end, the agency’s reputation was so well established that it was often hired by the government to perform many of the same duties today assigned to the Secret Service, the FBI, the CIA, and, most recently, the Department of Homeland Security. -- Bonansigna is also the author of the novelization of the huge hit television series The Walking Dead, a book titled The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor.

Citizen

Biographies & Memoirs

Ein Leben im Zentrum der MachtBill Clintons eindrucksvolle Memoiren über sein Leben nach dem Weißen Haus – und ein Gegenentwurf zu dem von Kulturkämpfen geprägten Amerika der Gegenwart.Bill Clinton ist eine politische Ikone. Die dramatischen Entwicklungen in den USA und auf der Welt hat er aus nächster Nähe erlebt: als Ex-Präsident und Stiftungsgründer, als Ehemann der Trump-Gegnerin Hillary Clinton, als Privatmann und Großvater. Seine Memoiren liefern einen detailreichen Insiderblick auf die Ereignisse nach seiner Amtszeit: von 9/11 über den Aufstieg von Trump und die Anschläge vom 7. Oktober in Israel.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Biographies & Memoirs

Benjamin Franklin is a man who needs little introduction. He wore many hats over the course of his fascinating life, from that of a printer, to an inventor, to a scientist, to a politician, a founding father and statesman, and even a postmaster-general. He was famous for all of these things in his day, but he was also famed for his keen insight into people and human nature, and his sparkling talent as a conversationalist.Despite his accomplishments, Franklin seemed to keep a down-to-earth demeanor, favoring home-spun sayings and simple, direct, honest prose—the kind of prose that shines in this autobiography.The autobiography itself has a long and complex publication history. Franklin composed it in fits and spurts between 1771 and 1790, and never had a chance to complete it, let alone publish it, in his lifetime. It was first published as a poor French translation of an unrevised edition of the manuscript, and then as a heavily-editorialized and inaccurate English edition by Franklin’s son, William Temple Franklin. In 1868 John Bigelow purchased the original copy of the autobiography and published the first accurate edition, which is what subsequent publications, including this one, are based on.Though incomplete, this autobiography is a highly readable and fascinating insight into the legendary life of the man some people call the “First American.”

CHER. Die Autobiografie, Teil eins

Biographies & Memoirs

Das außergewöhnliche Leben von CHER kann nur von einer Person erzählt werden ... Von Cher selbstCHER – DIE ERSTE UND EINZIGE AUTOBIOGRAFIE DER IKONE DER POPKULTURSeit über siebzig Jahren kämpft Cher dafür, ihr Leben nach ihren eigenen Vorstellungen zu leben. In ihrer zweiteiligen Autobiografie enthüllt sie nun endlich die wahre Geschichte ihres Lebens.Ihre Karriere ist einzigartig und unvergleichlich: Cher ist die einzige Frau, die in sieben aufeinanderfolgenden Jahrzehnten die Billboard-Charts anführte. Sie hat einen Academy Award, einen Emmy, einen Grammy und einen Cannes Film Festival Award gewonnen, sie wurde in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen und vom Kennedy Center geehrt.Sie ist langjährige Aktivistin und Philanthropin, Vorbild und Ikone.Als legasthenisches Kind träumte sie davon, berühmt zu werden. Sie wuchs in oft instabilen Verhältnissen auf, umgeben von Sängern und Schauspielerinnen und einer Mutter, die sie trotz des schwierigen Verhältnisses, das sie miteiander hatten, inspirierte und beeinflusste. Mit der ihr eigenen Komik und Ehrlichkeit erzählt Cher in CHER. Die Autobiografie, wie ein ungeschliffener Rohdiamant ohne Plan und großes Selbstvertrauen zu dem bahnbrechenden Superstar werden konnte, an dem für Welt seit mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert kein Weg vorbei führt.Der erste Teil handelt von ihren ungewöhnlichen Anfängen: von ihrer Kindheit und Jugend bis zur Begegnung und Heirat mit Sonny Bono – und von ihrer ziemlich komplizierten Beziehung, die die beiden weltberühmt machte, sie aber schließlich auseinandertrieb.CHER. Die Autobiografie zeigt uns Cher als die Tochter, die Schwester, die Ehefrau, die Geliebte, die Mutter und den Superstar.

Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1768-1800

Biographies & Memoirs

Written over the course of four decades, Francois-ReneÅL de Chateaubriand’s epic autobiography has drawn the admiration of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Proust, Roland Barthes, Paul Auster, and W. G. Sebald. In this unabridged section of the Memoirs, spanning the years 1768 to 1800, Chateaubriand looks back on the already bygone world of his youth. He recounts the history of his aristocratic family and the first rumblings of the French Revolution. He recalls playing games on the beaches of Saint-Malo, wandering in the woods near his father’s castle in Combourg, hunting with King Louis XVI at Versailles, witnessing the first heads carried on pikes through the streets of Paris, meeting with George Washington in Philadelphia, and falling hopelessly in love with a young woman named Charlotte in the small Suffolk town of Bungay. The volume ends with Chateaubriand’s return to France after eight years of exile in England. In this new edition (the first unabridged translation of any portion of the Memoirs to be published in more than a century), Chateaubriand emerges as a writer of great wit and clarity, a self-deprecating egoist whose meditations on the meaning of history, memory, and morality are leavened with a mixture of high whimsy and memorable gloom.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Biographies & Memoirs

Harriet Ann Jacob’s autobiography, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” documents her life as a slave and how she attained freedom for herself and her children. Harrowing in its descriptions of sexual abuse, Jacob’s slave narrative is notable for its appeal to abolitionist women to open their eyes to the realities of slavery. Deemed too shocking for reading audiences at the time, the book was shelved for a time before it was published in 1861 near the start of the Civil War.

Palæstinas Røde Rose. Laila Atshan

Biographies & Memoirs

Palæstinas Røde Rose. Laila Atshan er en nutidsdokumentar, der fortæller historien om den seende blinde kvinde fra Palæstina. Hun blev født blind og er seende som få. Lad os møde kvinden, der hellere tænder et lys end forbander mørket. Lad os se hende som hun træder os i møde gennem sine mails til en dansk ven. Lad os følge hendes tanker om liv, død og eksistens. Lad os høre hende fortælle om, hvordan det er som familie at miste sin rodfæstelse og genvinde sin eksistens. En kvindeskæbne indlejret i Palæstinas aktuelle historie.

Plutarch’s Lives: Life of Crassus

Biographies & Memoirs

*Illustrated *Includes Table of Contents Plutarch's best-known work is the Parallel Lives, a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving Lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek Life and one Roman Life, as well as four unpaired single Lives. Some of the Lives, such as those of Heracles, Philip II of Macedon and Scipio Africanus, no longer exist; many of the remaining Lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae or have been tampered with by later writers. Extant Lives include those on Aristides, Pericles, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Cato the Younger, Mark Antony, and Marcus Junius Brutus. Plutarch also wrote a series of biographies, including the biographies of Demetrius, Pyrrhus, Agis and Cleomenes, Aratus and Artaxerxes, Philopoemen, Camillus, Marcellus, Flamininus, Aemilius Paulus, Galba and Otho. This edition of Plutarch’s biography on the famous Roman general and triumvir, Life of Crassus, is specially formatted with a Table of Contents and is illustrated with over a dozen illustrations.

Seven Men and Seven Women

Biographies & Memoirs

Two beloved Metaxas classics in a single, compact edition.In this new, one-volume edition that brings together two of his most popular works, #1 New York Times bestselling author Eric Metaxas explores the question of what makes a great person great? Seven Men and Seven Women tells the captivating stories of fourteen heroic individuals who changed the course of history and shaped the world in astonishing ways. George Washington led his country to independence yet resisted the temptation to become America's king. William Wilberforce led the fight to end the slave trade, giving up his chance to be England's prime minister. Susanna Wesley, the mother of nineteen children, gave the world its most significant evangelist and its greatest hymn-writer, her sons John and Charles. Jackie Robison endured the threats and abuse of racists with unimaginable dignity and strength. Corrie ten Boom risked her life to hide Dutch Jews from the Nazis in World War II and survived the horrors of a concentration camp--and forgave her tormentors years later. And Rosa Parks's God-given sense of justice and unshakable dignity helped launch the twentieth century’s greatest social movement. These and other lives profiled in Seven Men and Seven Women reveal how reveal the secret to a life of greatness--by responding to call to live for something greater than oneself.

Letters of Mrs. Adams, the Wife of John Adams, Fourth Ed.

Biographies & Memoirs

The letters between Founding Father John Adams and his wife Abigail Smith Adams hold a special place in American history. This 1848 volume collects some of their most important correspondence. Also included are letters by John Quincy Adams, their son and the sixth U.S. president. John Quincy Adams at one point considered editing such a collection himself, but died before he could complete the project.

Great Heart: The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt

Biographies & Memoirs

In the following pages Daniel Henderson has presented in condensed form the life story of Theodore Roosevelt. The writer has made no serious effort to go into the details of his official and political career or to deal with the great questions of foreign and home policy which came up during his public career. Theodore Roosevelt’s activities were so varied and the field he covered so wide, that no work of this kind can give more than the barest outline. Nevertheless, the book is so written as to give those who may read it a general idea of his boyhood, his youth, and many of the things he did, his high ideals, his purity of purpose, his intense patriotism, his love of the outdoor life, and his understanding not only of towns and cities, but of the wild places of the world and the people, animals, and birds who dwell in them. The story brings out his intense Americanism, his love of fair play, and his fearless and straightforward character. He stands out as a man whose life was characterized not only by devotion to country and truth, as he saw it, but to the best interests of mankind. While his spirit was one of intense Americanism, his sympathies were as wide as the world...

Czerwony cesarz

Biographies & Memoirs

Przełomowa biografia najbardziej wpływowego człowieka na świecie!Xi Jinping rządzi ponad 1 miliardem i 400 milionami ludzi i drugą największą gospodarką na ziemi.Chce stworzyć z Chin najsilniejsze mocarstwo i zmienić porządek świata. Dowodzi wielką armią i przewodzi programom technologicznym, które mają pomóc zdominować świat. Współczesne Chiny to Xi Jinping. Despota. Czerwony cesarz.Chińska elita starała się zrobić z Xi sprawnego menadżera, który będzie administrował według wytycznych z góry. On jednak zerwał się ze smyczy i sięgnął po największą od czasu Mao Zedonga władzę w Chinach. I nie zamierza jej oddać. Jego życie jest wzorcowe według kryteriów komunistycznej propagandy, ale tak naprawdę pełne spisków, zaginięć i morderstw. Oraz faktów, które trzeba było wymazać z jego biografii.Michael Sheridan, wieloletni korespondent zachodnich mediów z Chin i Hongkongu, pokazuje Xi Jinpinga na tle zmieniającego się kraju: od początków komunizmu w latach pięćdziesiątych, przez reżim Mao Zedonga, politykę Wielkiego Skoku i niewyobrażalny głód, aż do jednej z największych i najsprawniejszych gospodarek XXI wieku.

If You’d Just Let Me Finish

Biographies & Memoirs

Clarkson is back with a brand new book of hilarious stories and observations about our gone-wrong world. ___________In November 2016 we woke up to the news that the forthright presenter of a popular television programme had become the most powerful man on the planet. His name, sadly, was not Jeremy Clarkson, but we might not have been any more surprised if it had been.Because the world seems to have taken a decidedly odd turn since Jeremy last reflected on the state of things between the covers of a book. But who better than JC to help us navigate our way through the mess?And while he's being trying to make sense of it all he's discovered one or two things along the way, including- The disabling effects of being vegan- How Blackpool might be improved by drilling a hole through it- The problem with meditation- A perfect location for rebuilding Palmyra- Why Tom Cruise can worship lizards if he wants toIt's all been a bit unsettling.But don't worry. If You'd Just Let Me Finish is Clarkson at his best. He may be as bemused, exasperated, amused and surprised as the rest of us, but in a world gone crazy, thank God someone has still got his head screwed on ...Praise for Clarkson:'Brilliant...laugh-out-loud' - Daily Telegraph'Outrageously funny...will have you in stiches' - Time Out'Very funny...I cracked up laughing on the tube' - Evening Standard

SABRINA CARPENTER

Biographies & Memoirs

Explore the fascinating life of multi-talented musician Sabrina Carpenter, whose rise from Disney stardom to international music sensation is both fascinating and motivating. "Sabrina Carpenter Story" provides an unmatched glimpse into the life, professional trajectory, and personal development of one of the most captivating characters in contemporary culture. This book delves into Sabrina's incredible career, showcasing her early years, breakthrough roles, musical milestones, and the lasting influence she has on fans and the industry through rare insights and in-depth analysis. Explore the person beneath the spotlight: her goals, her commitment to charitable giving, and her unwavering quest for authenticity. This story explores her struggles as well as her accomplishments, giving readers a thorough understanding of her artistic development and the legacy she is leaving behind. Regardless of your level of familiarity with her work, Sabrina's tale is sure to enthrall and inspire. Don't pass on this gripping story of tenacity, originality, and influence.

The Masters of Sitcom

Biographies & Memoirs

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson are two of the most influential and celebrated television scriptwriters of our time. Praised for inventing the sitcom, their own seminal creations are still standing the test of time with modern audiences - "Hancock's Half Hour" and "Steptoe and Son" are two of the most successful sitcoms ever made. This book is a charming tribute to their career in comedy, written in collaboration with Galton and Simpson themselves and with exclusive access to their personal archive of scripts. Readers will discover the fascinating story of their progress from variety shows to television, and how they came to create characters and programmes that have captured the nation's heart for generations. Their insightful comments on their own writing, along with their first-class understanding of the television writers' craft, make this anthology unique, informative and incredibly entertaining.

Tell Mother I'm in Paradise

Biographies & Memoirs

The life and times of Ana Margarita Gasteazoro: political activist, clandestine operative, and prisoner of conscienceAna Margarita Gasteazoro (1950–1993) was a Salvadoran opposition activist and renowned Amnesty International prisoner of conscience. Tell Mother I’m in Paradise:Memoirs of a Political Prisoner in El Salvador recounts her extraordinary life story. From a privileged Catholic upbringing, with time spent studying and working abroad, Ana Margarita first became a member of the legal political opposition in the late 1970s and later a clandestine operative at work against the brutal military junta.Gasteazoro recounts her early rebellion against the strictures of conservative upper-class Salvadoran society. She spoke perfect English and discovered a talent for organizing in administrative jobs abroad and at home. As the civil war progressed, she quickly became a valued figure in the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR), a social democratic party, often representing it at international meetings. Against the backdrop of massive social oppression and the “disappearances” of thousands of opposition members, Gasteazoro began a double life as an operative in a faction of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). Multitalented and energetic, she organized safe houses for fellow activists, transported weapons and equipment, wrote scripts for an underground radio station, and produced an award-winning documentary film. But the toll on her family life and personal relationships was heavy.Ana Margarita was disappeared in May 1981 by the infamous National Guard and endured a nightmare 11 days of interrogations, beatings, and abuse. Through international pressure and the connections of her family, her arrest was finally made public, and she was transferred to the women’s prison at Ilopango. There, she and other activists continued the political struggle through the Committee of Political Prisoners of El Salvador (COPPES). During her two years in prison, tested by hunger strikes, violence, and factional divisions, she became one of Amnesty International’s best-known prisoners of conscience. Tell Mother I’m in Paradise is a gripping story of a self-aware activist and a vital young woman’s struggle to find her own way within a deeply conservative society.

Fantastic

Biographies & Memoirs

The life of Arnold Schwarzenegger is one of the most remarkable success stories in the U.S. Here is a young man from an Austrian village who became the greatest bodybuilder in history, a behemoth who even today in retirement is the dominating figure in the sport. Here is an immigrant with a heavy accent and a four syllable last name, who marries a Kennedy princess and becomes the number one movie star in the world, an icon known and celebrated everywhere. Here is a political novice with no administrative experience who becomes governor of California in one of the most unusual and controversial elections in American history, and confounds his critics by proving an effective, popular leader. In Fantastic, Leamer shows how and why this man of willful ambition and limitless drive achieved his unprecedented accomplishments. As the author of a celebrated trilogy on the Kennedy family, Leamer has access to a unique array of sources. Leamer traveled with candidate Schwarzenegger during the gubernatorial campaign. He has interviewed Governor Schwarzenegger and his wife Maria Shriver, and their closest friends and associates, most of whom had never talked to an author before. The result is a startlingly intimate book, the pages studded with news making revelations. This book of passionate intensity captures a Schwarzenegger unlike any other public figure of our time, a unique political/cultural figure, his time in Sacramento only a way station on a journey where no one has traveled before. The book captures the personal Schwarzenegger, too, and the story of his single days, marriage, and family life. No one who reads this book will ever see Schwarzenegger in the same way again.

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