Biographies & Memoirs - Books

A Rebel in Gaza

Biographies & Memoirs

“Gaza has always been rebellious... stubborn, addictive. I’m her daughter, and I look like her.”Born in Rafah, raised in Gaza, subjected both to Israeli bombs and to Islamist tyranny, and in the face of prison, death threats, abuse, misogyny, violence, and repression, Asmaa al-Ghoul has continued to speak her truth. She has continued to live and to love, to laugh and to protest. In this moving memoir of growing up Gaza with a hunger for freedom and a passionate attachment to the places she calls home, journalist, writer, and activist, al-Ghoul recounts her lifelong resistance to religious fanaticism, state sponsored violence, and all forms of repression and subjugation. Al-Ghoul has been called “too strong minded,” criticized for not covering her hair, derided for ignoring warnings and speaking out against injustice. Her pure, clarion voice is raised wholly in support of dialogue, peace, love, and honesty. Nothing, it seems, can stop her.Offering an intimate look into life, politics, and survival in Gaza in recent years, al-Ghoul’s A Rebel in Gaza offers readers a nuanced and singular perspective on the current conflict.

Charles Baudelaire, His Life

Biographies & Memoirs

The first time that we met Baudelaire was towards the middle of the year 1849, at the Hôtel Pimodan, where we occupied, near Fernand Boissard, a strange apartment which communicated with his by a private staircase hidden in the thickness of the wall, and which was haunted by the spirits of beautiful women loved long since by Lauzun. The superb Maryx was to be found there who, in her youth, had posed for "La Mignon" of Scheffer, and later, for "La Gloire distribuant des couronnes" of Paul Delaroche; and that other beauty, then in all her splendour, from whom Clesinger modelled "La Femme au serpent," that statue where grief resembles a paroxysm of pleasure, and which throbs with an intensity of life that the chisel has never before attained and which can never be surpassed. Charles Baudelaire was then an almost unknown genius, preparing himself in the shadow for the light to come, with that tenacity of purpose which, in him, doubled inspiration; but his name was already becoming known amongst poets and artists, who heard it with a quivering of expectation, the younger generation almost venerating him. In the mysterious upper chamber where the reputations of the future are in the making he passed as the strongest. We had often heard him spoken of, but none of his works were known to us.

Ma vie revue et corrigée par l'auteur

Biographies & Memoirs

Cet ouvrage est le fruit d'entretiens à bâtons rompus entre le journaliste et écrivain Maurice Chavardès et l'écrivaine varoise Christiane Rochefort (1917-1998), lauréate du Prix de la Nouvelle Vague en 1958 et du Prix Médicis.

The Pretty Lady

Biographies & Memoirs

‘The Pretty Lady’ is considered to be one of Bennett's most revealing and under-rated works. It is the story of a French prostitute, Christine, who has escaped from wartime Ostend, and set herself up in business in London. Though a refugee, she demands no.

A Hundred and One Days

Biographies & Memoirs

From January until April 2003 -- for one hundred and one days -- Ã?ne Seierstad worked as a reporter in Bagdad for Scandinavian, German, and Dutch media. Through her articles and live television coverage she reported on the events in Iraq before, during, and after the attacks by the American and British forces. But Seierstad was after a story far less obvious than the military invasion. From the moment she arrived in Baghdad Seierstad was determined to understand the modern secrets of an ancient place and to find out how the Iraqi people really live. In A Hundred and One Days , she introduces us to daily life under the constant threat of attack -- first from the Iraqi government and later from American bombs. Moving from the deafening silence of life under Hussein to the explosions that destroyed the power supply, the water supply, and security, Seierstad sets out to discover: What happens to people when the dam bursts? What do they choose to say when they can suddenly say what they like? What do they miss most when their world changes overnight? Displaying the novelist's eye and lyrical storytelling that have won her awards around the world, Seierstad here brings to life an unforgettable cast of characters to tell the stories we never see on the evening news. The only woman in the world to cover both the fall of Kabul in 2001 and the bombings of Baghdad in 2003, Ã?ne Seierstad has redefined war reporting with her mesmerizing book.

È durata poco la bellezza

Biographies & Memoirs

È durata poco la bellezza raccoglie per la prima volta tutte le lettere di Truman Capote, offrendoci il ritratto intimo e più nascosto del grande scrittore. Dalle lettere inviate in oltre quarant’anni ad amici, nemici, editori, amanti, famigliari, emerge un Capote in larga parte inedito: scopriamo il ragazzo ingenuo che fa il suo improvviso ingresso nella scena letteraria della New York del dopoguerra; leggiamo lo scrittore maturo degli anni Cinquanta, al centro del jet-set e amato dalla critica; scrutiamo il dietro le quinte della stesura del suo capolavoro A sangue freddo nella corrispondenza con il detective Alvin Dewey e con uno dei killer, Perry Smith; ci commuoviamo nel leggerlo, disilluso e ormai isolato, nel corso degli ultimi giorni della sua vita. Capote scriveva lettere con spontaneità, enfasi, passione. Oggi, grazie alla cura attenta di Gerald Clarke, È durata poco la bellezza getta luce su una vita senza eguali, e su un intero mondo che nessuno è stato in grado di descrivere con la stessa forza e sincerità.

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall

Biographies & Memoirs

Plunkitt of Tammany HallA Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical PoliticsWilliam L. Riordan “Nobody thinks of drawin’ the distinction between honest graft and dishonest graft.” This classic work offers the unblushing, unvarnished wit and wisdom of one of the most fascinating figures ever to play the American political game and win. George Washington Plunkitt rose from impoverished beginnings to become ward boss of the Fifteenth Assembly District in New York, a key player in the powerhouse political team of Tammany Hall, and, not incidentally, a millionaire. In a series of utterly frank talks given at his headquarters (Graziano’s bootblack stand outside the New York County Court House), he revealed to a sharp-eared and sympathetic reporter named William L. Riordan the secrets of political success as practiced and perfected by him and fellow Tammany Hall titans. The result is not only a volume that reveals more about our political system than does a shelfful of civics textbooks, but also an irresistible portrait of a man who would feel happily at home playing ball with today’s lobbyists and king makers, trading votes for political and financial favors. Doing for twentieth-century America what Machiavelli did for Renaissance Italy, and as entertaining as it is instructive, Plunkitt of Tammany Hall is essential reading for those who prefer twenty-twenty vision to rose-colored glasses in viewing how our government works and why. With an Introduction by Peter Quinnand a New Afterword

"Good-Bye, Mr Patel"

Biographies & Memoirs

A story of self discovery and quest for flawless vision. The author believes the modern day malaise is caused by the increasing spiritual void in us and warped thinking that has put man on the treadmill of unprincipled living and search for elusive happiness. He says 'when we clear our minds of the clutter of useless baggage, worthless information and second-hand knowledge stored to bolster our ego that is allowed to weigh upon us for no discernible reason other than to gain sense of ascendancy over others and to justify our otherwise meaningless existence, then clear spiritual highways to blissful reality open up'. Experiences of early life of poverty forced the author to look at himself. He realized how scripted he was by the social environment in which he grew up. He craved freedom from the shackles of his social and psychological order. He chose to move away from calling himself a Patel to look at himself objectively. This introspective journey enabled him to break with his past and dismantle the shackles of unquestioned customs and beliefs to pave the way for an open mind to flourish. This fragmentary autobiography reveals how positive interpretations of his experiences have shaped the transformation of his life and taken him to living a stress-free life. The book title suggests that there is a Patel lurking inside each one of us who needs to be banished. This is the ego that imprisons us in an illusory world that diverts the mind from venturing into the world within where the real person resides. The book finishes with the author's barrier-shattering principles such as "no-one owes you a favour", "the real enemy is within", and more, which have crystallized from the crucible of daily living and paved the way for joyful living on a unique path!

Leonora

Biographies & Memoirs

The character of Leonora is, how ever cleverly drawn, but it is impossible and for this reason the book is rather less intolerable to believe that a woman of this Sort would fall a victim to the particular form of passion which is two people of good principle, both on the borders of middle age, do not suddenly fall head over sass in love, almost at first sight. Judged by this perverse and gratuitous study of modern manners, Mr. Bennett is not to be congratulated on abandoning the realm of irresponsible sensationalism in which he has already achieved considerable access.

The Dragons of Decagon

Biographies & Memoirs

Once long ago, on a distant mountain called "Dec-Agon", life was very different from what we humans know now. This mountain had ten huge sides. Each side had forests, large valleys, rivers, and lakes. Each mountainside was beautiful in its own way, different, but beautiful. All except one side. It was grey and murky and always referred to as "The Dark Side". Not much was known about this place, except it had a huge black castle on it and was guarded by fearsome beasts. This could possibly be why no one ever came out there. Rainbow, the Leader of the Dragons, along with his brother Sabre, the leader of the sea dragons, join forces to rescue the captured dragon Queen and the clutch of eggs she was guarding.The dragon clan which consists of guardians, teachers, warriors, and other clever dragons battles with the invasion of the Wolfcrabs whilst bringing together a plan to recover Pearl and the stolen eggs from the castle on the Dark Side where they are held captive by the Weld the Ogre.The battle of the Wolfcrabs was won by using special dragon powers and eating lots of "Fire Chillies" which gave them their "scorch". This battle took place in Sea Valley which was not far from the Dark side. Battling Weld and the Ogres by land, sea, and air, the Dragons overcame the dark powers and finally "scorched" the Ogres into submission, resulting in a joyful reunion of Rainbow and this mate, Pearl, along with rescuing all younglings and hatchlings.

Cinema Speculation

Biographies & Memoirs

Cinema speculation è la storia di un bambino innamorato del cinema che passa le serate con i genitori nelle sale di Los Angeles. Quello spettatore vorace, che preferisce ai giochi l’incanto del grande schermo, cresce affascinato da una nuova generazione di attori e registi – come Steve McQueen, Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese – che dalla fine degli anni Sessanta spazza via la vecchia Hollywood. Sono pellicole rivoluzionarie che ispirano l’immaginario di quel ragazzo, un incontro che si rivelerà decisivo per la sua carriera dietro la macchina da presa. Quentin Tarantino è uno straordinario appassionato di cinema, in tutte le sue forme: Cinema speculation è il racconto di come è nato questo amore e al tempo stesso una entusiasmante, sovversiva, dirompente storia del cinema secondo Tarantino. Raccontato in prima persona raccogliendo recensioni, ricordi, aneddoti, tra autobiografia, critica e reportage, questo libro offre uno sguardo unico sulla settima arte, nella versione senza filtri di un suo eccezionale interprete. “Da esperto narratore, Tarantino intreccia immagini, racconti e scene, inventa storie che ci incantano e spingono a riflettere, come accade con i suoi film.” Richard Brody, The New Yorker “Tarantino celebra sfacciatamente il vizio del cinema.” Tom Shone, The New York Times Book Review

Um Milagre chamado Chika

Biographies & Memoirs

Uma história de entrega, coragem e amor sem limites. Um hino à transcendência do ser humano. Chika nasceu em 2010, poucos dias antes do sismo que devastou o Haiti. Conviveu desde cedo com a miséria e o abandono. Mas aos três anos, após a morte da mãe, a menina conheceu um novo lar: o orfanato gerido por Mitch Albom e a mulher, Janine. Graças à sua inesgotável alegria de viver, Chika fez de imediato as delícias das outras crianças e das professoras. Mas o Destino reservava-lhe mais um golpe cruel.

The World of Yesterday

Biographies & Memoirs

This Plunkett Lake Press eBook is produced by arrangement with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. The World of Yesterday, mailed to his publisher a few days before Stefan Zweig took his life in 1942, has become a classic of the memoir genre. Originally titled "Three Lives," the memoir describes Vienna of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, the world between the two world wars and the Hitler years. "The best single memoir of Old Vienna by any of the city's native artists." — Clive James "A book that should be read by anyone who is even slightly interested in the creative imagination and the intellectual life, the brute force of history upon individual lives, the possibility of culture and, quite simply, what it meant to be alive between 1881 and 1942." — The Guardian "It is not so much a memoir of a life as it is the memento of an age." — The New Republic

The Complete Collection of Parallel Lives (Illustrated Edition)

Biographies & Memoirs

*Illustrated *Includes Table of Contents *Includes all 18 surviving comparisons of Parallel Lives Plutarch, later named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. Plutarch lived most of his life at Chaeronea, and his duties as the senior of the two priests of Apollo at the Oracle of Delphi (where he was responsible for interpreting the auguries of the Pythia) apparently occupied little of his time. He led an active social and civic life while producing an extensive body of writing, much of which survived. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire. At his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the 78 essays and other works which have survived are now known collectively as the Moralia. 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 18 pairs or comparisons, each with one Greek Life and one Roman Life. 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 Complete Collection of Parallel Lives is specially formatted with a Table of Contents and is illustrated with hundreds of illustrations depicting the individuals that were the subject of Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, including: Mark Antony and Demetrius Demosthenes and Cicero Brutus and Dion The Gracchus Brothers and Agis and Cleomenes Pompey the Great and Agesilaus Sertorius and Eumenes Crassus and Nicias Lucullus and Cimon Lysander and Sulla Philipoemen and Flamininius Cato the Elder and Aristides Timoleon and Aemilius Paulus Alcibiades and Coriolanus Pericles and Fabius Maximus Solon and Publicola Theseus and Romulus Numa and Lycurgus

The Personal Memoirs of General U. S.

Biographies & Memoirs

Among the autobiographies of generals and presidents, the Personal Memoirs of U.U. Grant ranks with the greatest. It is even more impressive in light of the circumstances in which it was created: Faced with terminal cancer, virtual bankruptcy, and a family he would leave without means of support, he took the advice of his publisher, mark Twain, and went to work. He completed the manuscript in eleven months-and died a week later, on July 23, 1885. Frank and unpretentious, Grant's memoirs tell the story of his boyhood in Ohio, his graduation from West Point, and the military campaigns in the West and Mexico that ended with his disgraceful resignation and a return to Illinois, where he ran the family store. Soon, however, began the rebellion that broke the Union and recast Grant's fortune, transforming him into the leader of the victorious Union armies in the War Between the States and giving him the perspective to describe intimately the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Vicksburg, the bloody Wilderness campaign, and Appomattox. Here is Grant the tactician, the alcoholic, the plain and tough professional soldier, the ideal commander-but most of all here is Grant the writer as he assesses himself and the events that forged his character, as well as that of the nation.

Joseph Fouché: Portrait of A Politician

Biographies & Memoirs

This Plunkett Lake Press eBook is produced by arrangement with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. This biography of the man Stefan Zweig viewed as "the most perfect Machiavelli of modern times" was written in 1929, before the full impact of Nazism and Stalinism was understood. In this gripping case study of ruthlessness, political opportunism, intrigue, and betrayal, Zweig portrays Minister of Police Joseph Fouché (1759-1820), a "thoroughly amoral personality" whose only goal was political survival and the exercise of power. Zweig traces Fouché's career, beginning with his stint as a math and physics teacher in provincial Catholic schools and evolving into a moderate and then radical legislator. Fouché cultivated every political movement du jour, holding no convictions of his own. After preaching clemency for Louis XVI, Fouché voted to send the King to the guillotine. After writing "the first communist manifesto of modern times" he became a multi-millionaire. He led the brutal repression of an anti-revolutionary movement, earning him the nickname "le mitrailleur (butcher) de Lyon". After serving Robespierre, Fouché engineered his overthrow and rose to Minister of Police under the Directory, which he then helped to overthrow before putting his network of informants in Napoleon’s service as his Minister of Police. After turning against the Emperor, Fouché served the new King Louis XVIII – whose brother he had helped send to the guillotine. Thus, Fouché served the Revolution, the Directory, the First Empire and the Restoration.

Three Masters: Balzac, Dickens, Dostoevsky

Biographies & Memoirs

In these early 20th century literary essays, Stefan Zweig offers a Central European view of the writers he believed to be the “three greatest novelists” of the 19th century: Balzac, Dickens, and Dostoevsky. In Zweig’s view, Balzac set out to emulate his childhood hero Napoleon. Writing 20 hours a day, Balzac’s literary ambition was “tantamount to monomania in its persistence, its intensity, and its concentration.” His characters, each similarly driven by one desperate urge, were more vital to Balzac than people in his daily life. In Zweig’s reading, Dickens embodied Victorian England and its “bourgeois smugness”. His characters aspire to “A few hundred pounds a year, an amiable wife, a dozen children, a well-appointed table and succulent meats to entertain their friends with, a cottage not too far from London, the windows giving a view over the green countryside, a pretty little garden, and a modicum of happiness.” The ideal of middle-class respectability suffuses Dickens’ fiction. Dostoevsky drew on the struggles of his own life to illuminate the contradictions of the human soul. In Zweig’s view, his heroes had no desire to be citizens or ordinary human beings. While Balzac’s heroes “would gladly have subjugated the world, Dostoevsky’s heroes wished to transcend it.”

Viaje a Nicaragua

Biographies & Memoirs

Tras quince años de ausencia, Rubén Darío regresó a Nicaragua a fines de 1907. Se trataba de una época de tensiones dentro y fuera de América Latina, en tanto se celebraba en Washington la Conferencia Centroamericana, se producía la guerra entre Nicaragua y Honduras, y el presidente Zelaya negaba la autorización para el asentamiento de una base naval norteamericana en el golfo de Fonseca. Entre agosto de 1908 y abril de 1909, La Nación publicó once crónicas autógrafas de Darío, tituladas "Viaje a Nicaragua".

Thrown Away Children: Sky's Story

Biographies & Memoirs

When Sky and her older sister Avril were taken into care, the social workers knew this was a case like no other. Raised by unhinged parents who hoarded compulsively, creating horrific conditions no child should live in, the two girls arrived at foster carer Louise's home, neglected, malnourished, and indoctrinated. Louise had to draw on all of her experience as one of Britain's leading foster carers to rehabilitate and change the course of their lives.But with constant attempts to thwart her work, Louise ends up under siege in her own home. Will she succeed or is their fate sealed forever?

Lire, c'est amusant ! No 5

Biographies & Memoirs

Comment s’assurer que le livre que l’on veut, va nous intéresser jusqu’au bout ? Découvrez-le ! Je vous présente deux nouveaux auteurs qui sont très intéressants à lire, et remplis d'imagination. Voyez comment ils en sont venus à écrire et lisez un aperçu de leurs oeuvres.

Biographies & Memoirs Books