Biographies & Memoirs - Books

Simply Darwin

Biographies & Memoirs

“An excellent sprint through the highlights of Darwin’s life and work. Ruse is a masterful writer who presents a clear account of who Darwin was and why he was important. It’s the connection to larger questions of our lives that makes this book a success. Well done, Ruse!”—Joe Cain, Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology, University College LondonSimply Darwin tells the story of Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) and his theory of evolution through natural selection. On one level, the book portrays a dedicated scientist who, through careful observation and brilliant insight, became convinced that organisms were the end product of a long, slow, and natural process of development. On another level, it is an account of a cataclysmic change in our ideas about ourselves—a conceptual upheaval that continues to generate aftershocks—and heated debates—to this day. In Simply Darwin, author Michael Ruse puts Darwin and his ideas in their proper context, clearly showing that, while the father of evolutionary biology was a true trailblazer, he was no rebel. He was simply following an evidentiary trail that led to an inevitable conclusion about the origin of species and natural selection. Eventually, as Darwin and his fellow scientists began to apply his ideas to humans, long-held notions about the nature and origins of religion, morality, race, sexuality, and much more, were called into question. Then, as now, some of us embraced these provocative ideas, while others reacted with horror and disbelief. In recounting this fascinating and inspiring story, Ruse doesn’t neglect the visual component that has always been an inherent part of evolutionary thought. Simply Darwin features copious illustrations, which provide an informative and captivating element to this riveting account.

Cento miracoli

Biographies & Memoirs

«La musica di Bach brilla come un faro di speranza su Auschwitz e sulle brutalità del comunismo sovietico»The Financial Times«Uno straordinario memoir… Il commovente racconto di una donna che ha superato ogni ostacolo.»The Sunday TimesHa quindici anni Zuzana Růžičková, ebrea cecoslovacca, quando viene deportata nel ghetto di Terezín con la famiglia. La ragazza, che ha trascorso un’infanzia felice nonostante la salute cagionevole, amatissima dai genitori e con una grande passione per la musica, non ha idea dell’orrore che sta per affrontare. Ma la sua forza interiore, l’intenso legame con la madre e la musica di Johann Sebastian Bach le permetteranno di sopravvivere a Terezín, ad Auschwitz, ai campi di lavoro e a Bergen-Belsen. Non solo, riuscirà anche a partecipare a quel poco di umano che era tollerato, come la coraggiosa scuola organizzata da Fredy Hirsch per i bambini internati. Zuzana alterna il racconto dell’esperienza nei campi a quello degli anni successivi in cui, grazie all’affetto della madre e del marito, il compositore Viktor Kalabis, riesce a intraprendere con successo la carriera di clavicembalista, malgrado le mani rovinate dalla fatica e dagli stenti. Il suo amore per Bach la porterà a diventare una musicista di fama mondiale. Neppure quelli però sono anni facili: il regime comunista impone alla coppia una serie di limiti, ostacolandone la carriera e la vita. In sottofondo scorre infatti la storia della Cecoslovacchia, poi Repubblica Ceca, dalla Primavera di Praga alle repressioni, alla perestrojka, al ritorno della democrazia.Vibra in queste pagine l’appassionato racconto di una donna che ha vissuto l’orrore, ma che ha conservato sempre dentro di sé il senso del miracolo e la speranza di riportare un po’ di bellezza nel mondo attraverso la musica.

A Nike-sztori

Biographies & Memoirs

A Nike alapítójának izgalmas élettörténetéből megtudhatjuk, hogyan valósította meg Phil Knight kezdetben „őrültnek” tűnő ötletét, és hogyan vált a Nike a világ egyik leginnovatívabb és legnépszerűbb márkájává napjainkra. Pedig nem volt könnyű a kezdet: az önmagát kereső fiatalember az apjától kapott 50 dollárból indította el cégét, és az első évben még maga árusította a Japánból importált futócipőket egy furgonból.Fordulatokkal teli, őszinte önéletrajzában Knight mesél a kegyetlen versenytársakról, kudarcairól, szenzációs sikereiről. Külön fejezetben tíz jótanáccsal szolgál fiatal olvasói számára, arra buzdítva őket, hogy higgyenek az álmaikban, küzdjenek céljaik megvalósításáért, közben pedig maradjanak hűek önmagukhoz.MERÉSZ ÚJÍTÓK, IZGALMAS ÉS MOTIVÁLÓ MÓDSZEREKINSPIRÁCIÓ FIATALOKNAK

Il signor Bozzetto

Biographies & Memoirs

Le collaborazioni con Piero Angela e Enzo Jannacci, gli incontri con Mina e Matt Groening, il successo del Signor Rossi e quella notte degli Oscar in compagnia di Kim Basinger e un pirata... Con la complicità di Tempia, Bozzetto ripercorre le sue esperienze di creativo e regista - dai filmini adolescenziali sulle formiche del giardino di casa alla genesi di West and Soda e Vip, da Allegro non troppo fino a oggi -, intrecciandole ai momenti più formativi, divertenti e toccanti della sua vita, come quella volta che la stampa lo definì "meglio della Loren" o il giorno in cui ha scelto una pecora per amica.

Traveling with Pomegranates

Biographies & Memoirs

An introspective and beautiful dual memoir by the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist and her daughter. Look out for Ann Kidd Taylor's new novel, The Shark Club, which will be published in June 2017. Sue Monk Kidd has touched millions of readers with her novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair and with her acclaimed nonfiction. In this intimate dual memoir, she and her daughter, Ann, offer distinct perspectives as a fifty-something and a twenty-something, each on a quest to redefine herself and to rediscover each other. Between 1998 and 2000, Sue and Ann travel throughout Greece and France. Sue, coming to grips with aging, caught in a creative vacuum, longing to reconnect with her grown daughter, struggles to enlarge a vision of swarming bees into a novel. Ann, just graduated from college, heartbroken and benumbed by the classic question about what to do with her life, grapples with a painful depression. As this modern-day Demeter and Persephone chronicle the richly symbolic and personal meaning of an array of inspiring figures and sites, they also each give voice to that most protean of connections: the bond of mother and daughter. A wise and involving book about feminine thresholds, spiritual growth, and renewal, Traveling with Pomegranates is both a revealing self-portrait by a beloved author and her daughter, a writer in the making, and a momentous story that will resonate with women everywhere.

Shots from the Edge

Biographies & Memoirs

Award-winning photojournalist Greg Marinovich has covered war and conflict throughout Africa and the world. In Shots from the Edge he recounts his experiences in these hotspots, and recalls his encounters with rebels, child soldiers, illegal immigrants, militia members, peacekeepers, aid workers, genocide survivors and orphans, each with a remarkable story to tell. With compassion and care, Marinovich documents more than two decades’ worth of turbulent history and reveals the human side of the conflicts. Some of the moments are deeply moving and profound; others so surreal as to blur into insanity. Covering South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Chechnya, India, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Trump’s America, this book exposes the reader to extraordinary people, places and experience. The accounts in Shots from the Edge are insightful, tragic, shocking and occasionally humorous, but above all they are a poignant reminder of the brutality and indignity of war, and of people’s resilience under the most hostile circumstances.

Myself and Other Animals

Biographies & Memoirs

A posthumous work from the beloved conservationist and naturalist Gerald Durrell, to celebrate the centenary of his birth, with a new foreword by HRH Princess Anne.‘Gerald Durrell was magic’ SIR DAVID ATTENBOROUGH ‘A wise, genial and world-encompassing book’ SUNDAY TIMES ‘Fills important gaps in the biographical narrative . . . Truly, there is magic here’ GUARDIAN Myself and Other Animals is a new book mosaicked from unpublished autobiographies, uncollected pieces and previously published extracts from Durrell’s work and archives. The result is an extraordinary journey through Durrell’s life in his own words, edited and introduced by his widow Lee Durrell.Drawing on a memoir that Durrell started writing before he became too ill to continue it, and an unfinished book from a trip to Australia in 1969 to the Great Barrier Reef, Northern Territory and Queensland, here is the unvarnished story of Durrell’s life, from touching family tributes to golden bats and pink pigeons.Moving from India to England and then to the always sun-lit Corfu, told with dry wit and insight into our fellow animals, here is the vivid finale of one of Britain’s most beloved conservationists and prose stylists.'Funny and readable and hugely charming' i ‘One of the finest and most lyrical nature writers in English’ OBSERVER'A moving tribute to Gerald's endeavours and achievements as a conservationist' SPECTATOR

My Life

Biographies & Memoirs

The only Bolshevik leader to write his memoirs, Leon Trotsky published this remarkable book in 1930, the first year of a perilous, decade-long exile that ended with his assassination in Mexico. Expelled from the Communist party and deported from the Soviet Union, the former People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs recalled his lifelong struggle in the world of revolutionary politics. In addition to his firsthand accounts of the early intrigues within the Communist government, Trotsky also delivered chilling glimpses into the rise of the new Soviet bureaucracy and prescient warnings of the Stalinist regime's horrors.My Life recounts the rise of the revolutionary wave in Russia in 1905 and 1917, the devastating effects of World War I, and the degeneration of the Russian Revolution from Lenin's internationalist course to Stalin's increasingly counterrevolutionary policies. Trotsky's exile placed him beyond the pale of both the official Communist party and the rest of the political world; yet in this fascinating historical document, he remains true to a philosophy of permanent world revolution, offering a highly informed perspective on the struggle toward a socialist future.

Fifty Acres and a Poodle

Biographies & Memoirs

Jeanne Marie Laskas had dreams of life on a farm that she couldn't get out of her head. A dream of fleeing her otherwise happy urban life for fresh air and open space. A dream she would discover was about something more profound than that. A dream she never ever expected to come true. Until a hot summer afternoon led to a drive in the country, where a place that had existed only in her fantasies turned out to be real--and for sale.Fifty Acres And A PoodleThe place is almost too perfect to be believed, but there it is: a pretty-as-a-picture-postcard farm, with an Amish barn, a chestnut grove, and vistas so beautiful, they take her breath away. And in that moment she knows that this is the spot where her future begins. So she drags her boyfriend Alex, a committed urban dweller with zero agricultural awareness who owns a poodle, into her scheme, hoping that love will somehow conquer all. But buying a postcard--fifty acres of scenery--and living on it are two entirely different matters. The questions seem endless: How long before the barn roof collapses? Should they buy sheep? Will the place be good for her writing, and for her relationship with Alex? And is there any way to keep Betty the mutt and Marley the poodle from rolling in mud, leaves, and unidentified smelly remains?In this funny yet tender tale, Laskas shares what happens when you follow your dream--and what happens when it's almost snatched away.Fifty Acres and a Poodle is a charming and surprisingly poignant memoir of Jeanne Marie Laskas's first year on Sweetwater Farm. It is a journey peopled by unforgettable characters: Billy, the local contractor who bulldozes her briars, takes her shopping for tractors, and advises her on buying a mule; Tim, the FedEx driver whose truck becomes Marley's obsession and nearly his downfall; the local hunters who present her with an entire wardrobe of blaze-orange hats; and Bob the cat, whose valiant fight for life gives her the courage to love. Jeanne Marie Laskas writes with exhilarating wit and extraordinary wisdom about life, love, and finding your true self on a farm.It's hard to say how a dream forms. Especially one like mine, which at first seemed so utterly random. It could have been a sailing-a-boat-to-Tahiti dream, a quit-your-job-and-hitchhike-to-Alaska dream. It was a fill-in-the-blank dream, born of an urge, not content. An urge for something new.I was thirty-seven years old. I lived on Eleventh Street, the last house on the right,in South Side, a gentrified old mill town on the banks of the Monongahela River. I rented an office in downtown Pittsburgh, a fifteen-minute bike ride away, which is where I spent my days writing stories and magazine articles. I had a garden. I had a cat. I had a dog.And I had a farm dream, a fantasy swirling around in my head about moving to the country. Where in the world was this coming from? That's what I wondered. It might have made sense if I was a miserable person, sick of my life. But I was not.I had a good life; it had taken me a long time to get it that way.A farm dream would have made sense, I supposed, if I was at least the farm dream type. A person with some deep personal longing to churn butter. A person who had had city life forced upon her and now was determined to go be true to herself and live among the haystacks. A person who wore her hair in long braids, used Ivory soap, and liked to stencil her walls with pictures of little chickens and cows. A person who, at minimum, had a compost pile in her yard where she diligently threw lawn clippings and coffee grounds and eggshells and earned the right to use the word organic a lot.But I was not that person. I was not even sure what hay was, or why anyone would stack it. And if I composted anything, it was only by mistake.

Dance While You Can

Biographies & Memoirs

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this stunning memoir, Shirely Maclaine shares deeply personal stories about her family: her parents, her brother, and her only daughter—and about her life in the movies over four decades.“On the deepest, most personal level, I needed to work out who my parents were and what they had been to me. I knew that I couldn’t get on with my work and the rest of my life until I had.”—Shirley MacLaine An extraordinary woman whose energy, drive, and talent are legendary, Shirley MacLaine still moves audiences to laughter and tears. Recalling the powerful family influences that propelled both her and her brother, Warren Beatty, to stardom, she considers the effect of her own career on her relationship with her daughter, Sachi. And writing about her friendships with such Hollywood stars as Robert Mitchum, Ava Gardner, Dean Martin, Elizabeth Taylor, and Debbie Reynolds, she contrasts the golden days of the film business with the different world of moviemaking today. But Dance While You Can is more than a memoir—it is an unforgettable glimpse into a woman’s soul. Writing with candor and emotion, Shirley explores her complex feelings about success and failure, love and loneliness, the constant pressure to re-create herself in her work, and the challenge of balancing her search for self-awareness with the difficulties of sustaining her closest relationships. Illustrated with thirty-two pages of personal photos—many never before published—here is a rich, revealing look at a remarkable woman in the prime of her life. Frank, often funny, and always entertaining, this is Shirley at her best.

La muerte de Sócrates

Biographies & Memoirs

EL RELATO DE UNO DE LOS GRANDES ESCÁNDALOS FILOSÓFICOS DE LA HISTORIA El juicio y la muerte de Sócrates constituyen un momento emblemático de la civilización occidental. La imagen que tenemos de aquellos acontecimientos (creada por sus seguidores inmediatos y perpetuada a partir de entonces por un sinnúmero de obras de literatura y arte) es la de un hombre noble condenado a muerte por un acceso de locura de la antigua democracia ateniense. Sin embargo, la acusación se centraba en la impiedad y la corrupción de la juventud, y también se sugería que Sócrates era un elitista que se rodeaba de personajes políticamente indeseables, lo cual tenía cierto fundamento desde un punto de vista ateniense. Con notable pulso narrativo, Robin Waterfield expone todos los elementos que rodearon a uno de los juicios más famosos de la historia y nos ofrece una nueva perspectiva desde la cual puede explorarse toda una época.

Driving Southern

Biographies & Memoirs

Corvettes and Thunderbirds are parked next to Studebakers, Beetles, and, in some cases, cars that may defy description of any kind in this collection of twenty-six original essays and stories about first cars, family cars, and even dream cars that traveled the highways and backroads of the authors' lives. Often hilarious, sometimes bittersweet, the stories are about growing up--although for some of us, where cars and trucks are concerned, we never quite do.

Kelly Tough

Biographies & Memoirs

Do not let the title Kelly Tough fool you. This is not a “be all you can be, no pain–no gain” story. Toughness is overrated. And being Kelly Tough, well, you are about to find out what that really means and why it just might matter to you. Kelly Tough is a story of love and hope: a love between a father and a daughter—Buffalo Bill’s former quarterback, Jim Kelly, and his oldest daughter Erin. Erin shares a deeply personal account of the love a family can have for each other during the darkest times, and a greater love that a heavenly Father has for you. Whatever circumstance or heartbreak you find yourself overwhelmed by right now, it is not the end of the story. In fact, it just might be one of the greatest chapters as you, like the Kelly’s, find strength in weakness, hope in the midst of heartache, and joy in spite of suffering.

Zelda Fitzgerald

Biographies & Memoirs

Zelda Fitzgerald was the mythical American Dream Girl of the Roaring Twenties who became, in the words of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald, “the first American flapper.” Their romance transformed a symbol of glamour and spectacle of the Jazz Age. When Zelda cracked up, not long after the stock market crash of 1929, Scott remained loyal to her through a nightmare of later breakdowns and final madness.Sally Cline brings us a trenchantly authentic voice through Zelda’s own highly autobiographical writings and hundreds of letters she wrote to friends and family, publishers and others. New medical evidence and interviews with Zelda’s last psychiatrist suggest that her “insanity” may have been less a specific clinical condition than the product of the treatment she endured for schizophrenia and her husband’s devastating alcoholism. In narrating Zelda’s tumultuous life, Cline vividly evokes the circle of Jazz Age friends that included Edmund Wilson, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, and H. L. Mencken. Her exhaustive research and incisive analysis animate a profoundlymoving portrait of Zelda and provide a convincing context to the legacy of her tragedy.

12 YEARS A SLAVE (Voices From The Past Series)

Biographies & Memoirs

This carefully crafted ebook: "12 YEARS A SLAVE (Voices From The Past Series)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Excerpt: "Having been born a freeman, and for more than thirty years enjoyed the blessings of liberty in a free State—and having at the end of that time been kidnapped and sold into Slavery, where I remained, until happily rescued in the month of January, 1853, after a bondage of twelve years—it has been suggested that an account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public. Since my return to liberty, I have not failed to perceive the increasing interest throughout the Northern States, in regard to the subject of Slavery." Twelve Years a Slave is a slave narrative of Solomon Northup, a New York State-born free African-American man who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and sold into slavery. Northup worked on plantations in the state of Louisiana for 12 years before his release. Director Steve McQueen, who adapted this memoir into his critically acclaimed film of the same name, compared Northrup's memoir at par with Anne Frank's diary in terms of national hero status and in giving the first-hand account of brutality of slavery. A MUST READ FOR ALL! Solomon Northup (1807–1863?) was the son of a freed slave and free woman of color and a farmer, professional violin and landowner in New York before his kidnapping by the slave catchers. After his freedom he became an active abolitionist and gave more than two dozen speehes about his experiences as a slave, to build momentum against slavery.

Comment je suis devenu moi-même

Biographies & Memoirs

Après avoir passé sa vie à explorer celle des autres, Irvin Yalom, le psychiatre américain auteur de Et Nietszche a pleuré et Le problème Spinoza (prix des lecteurs du Livre de Poche), se penche sur son propre parcours. Son récit s'ouvre sur un l'évocation d'un rêve : âgé d'une dizaine d'années, il passe à vélo devant la maison d'une fille qu'il trouve séduisante malgré son acné, et lui adresse un tonitruant « salut Rougeole ! ». Le père de celle-ci, l'obligeant à s'arrêter, l'interpelle : « Qu'est-ce que tu crois que ça lui a fait ? ». Pour le futur thérapeute, c'est la rencontre avec l'empathie : il n'oubliera jamais la leçon.Pour la première fois, en tissant des liens entre sa formation, les histoires de ses patients, les héros de ses romans, ses amours et ses regrets personnels, Irvin Yalom nous révèle le cheminement de sa pensée. Comment je suis devenu moi-même n'est pas seulement l'histoire d'un homme, c'est aussi une invitation au lecteur à voyager au plus près de ce qu'il est, et à songer au sens de sa propre vie.

Alles ist möglich

Biographies & Memoirs

Der beste Moment ist jetztZweimal in einer Woche auf den Mount Everest – ohne zusätzlichen Sauerstoff. Kilian Jornet hat scheinbar spielend das Unmögliche geschafft. Ein Rekord, der ihn weit über die Grenzen des Bergsteigens hinaus bekannt gemacht hat. Seit seiner Geburt in einer Berghütte auf 2000 Meter Höhe sind die Berge Jornets Abenteuerspielplatz: Mit fünf Jahren hat er seinen ersten 4000er bestiegen und mit zehn die Pyrenäen überquert. Mit zahlreichen Erfolgen bei den berüchtigtsten Ultrabergläufen tastet er sich an die Grenzen des (Un-)Möglichen heran und hat sich dabei physisch und psychisch seit Jahren auf Erfolg und Niederlage vorbereitet. Die doppelte Besteigung des Mount Everest im Jahr 2017, die der Extremsportler in diesem Buch beschreibt, ist der Höhepunkt seines »Summits of my life«-Projektes, für das Jornet einige der höchsten Berge der Welt in Rekordzeit bestiegen hat.»Alles ist möglich« ermutigt uns, unsere Träume wahr werden zu lassen, mit Leidenschaft und Freude zu laufen und die Berge über alles zu genießen.

Valéry Giscard d’Estaing

Biographies & Memoirs

En juin 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, longtemps ministre des Finances du général de Gaulle et de Georges Pompidou, entrait à l’Élysée. Élu sur sa seule image, sans le soutien d’un parti fort, celui qui était alors, à 48 ans, le plus jeune président de l’Histoire de la République, n’allait pas tarder à surprendre. Le début de son septennat fut marqué par des réformes de société fondamentales : dépénalisation de l’avortement, abaissement de la majorité à 18 ans, assouplissement de la procédure de divorce, promotion des femmes. La France n’avait pas connu de tels changements depuis la Libération. Puis vint le temps des difficultés : second choc pétrolier, résistances d’une grande partie de la majorité. Autant de facteurs qui expliquent la victoire, en mai 1981, de François Mitterrand sur le représentant de la tradition libérale. Presque un demi-siècle après le scrutin de 1974, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing s’est longuement confié à Éric Roussel et lui a ouvert ses archives. D’où le caractère singulier de cet ouvrage qui, bénéficiant d’autres témoignages (dont celui de Henry Kissinger) et de l’accès à de nombreux documents en France et à l’étranger, cerne la personnalité complexe d’un traditionaliste réformiste, artisan d’une mutation profonde de la société française.

Nel mio paese straniero

Biographies & Memoirs

Nei mesi di reclusione nel manicomio criminale di una cittadina prussiana, Hans Fallada decise di stendere il diario della sua vita sotto il Nazismo. Un resoconto personale che racconta la complicata vita di un intellettuale nella Germania di Hitler.

De neîmblânzit

Biographies & Memoirs

De neîmblânzit e în același timp o biografie intimă și un însuflețit apel la trezire. Este povestea unei femei care a învățat că o mamă responsabilă nu e o mamă care moare încet pentru copiii ei, ci una care le arată cum să-și trăiască viața pe deplin. Glennon este precum o religie. Umorul, căldura și onestitatea ei ne aduc aminte că în toate caznele noastre e ceva frumos. – Brené Brown Glennon ne arată cel mai clar înțeles al îndemnului «Să fii sincer cu tine însuți». E ca și cum ar fi ajuns în cele din urmă în adâncul inimii ei, ar fi înhățat emoțiile localizate acolo în stare brută și le-ar fi tradus în cuvinte pe care să le poată înțelege oricine a cunoscut vreodată durerea sau rușinea – cu alte cuvinte, oricine de pe această planetă. – Oprah Winfrey De neîmblânzit le va descătușa pe femei – emoțional, spiritual și fizic. Cred că Glennon s-a născut pentru a scrie această carte, exact așa cum a făcut-o și exact la momentul potrivit. Este fenomenală. – Elizabeth Gilbert Inima fiecăreia dintre noi tânjește după ceva. Ne dăm peste cap să fim partenere, mame, angajate și prietene bune. Sperăm că toate aceste eforturi ne vor ajuta să simțim că trăim cu adevărat. Dar ele nu fac decât să ne obosească, să ne blocheze, să ne copleșească. Privim în urmă și ne întrebăm: nu cumva viața noastră ar fi trebuit să fie mai frumoasă? Entuziastă și gălăgioasă, puternică și firavă, De neîmblânzit este povestea trecerii printr-un divorț, a formării unei noi familii „amestecate“ și a descoperirii faptului că destrămarea sau întregirea unei familii depinde nu de structura acesteia, ci de capacitatea fiecărui membru de a-și pune sinele la bătaie cu totul.

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