Biographies & Memoirs - Books

Inside a Pearl

Biographies & Memoirs

When Edmund White moved to Paris in 1983, leaving New York City in the midst of the AIDS crisis, he was forty-three years old, couldn't speak French, and only knew two people in the entire city. But in middle age, he discovered the new anxieties and pleasures of mastering a new culture. When he left fifteen years later to take a teaching position in the U.S., he was fluent enough to broadcast on French radio and TV, and in his work as a journalist, he'd made the acquaintance of everyone from Yves Saint Laurent to Catherine Deneuve to Michel Foucault. He'd also developed a close friendship with an older woman, Marie-Claude, through which he'd come to understand French life and culture in a deeper way. The book's title evokes the Parisian landscape in the eternal mists and the half-light, the serenity of the city compared to the New York White had known (and vividly recalled in City Boy). White fell headily in love with the city and its culture: both intoxicated and intellectually stimulated. He became the definitive biographer of Jean Genet; he wrote lives of Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud; and he became a recipient of the French Order of Arts and Letters. Inside a Pearl recalls those fertile years for White. It's a memoir which gossips and ruminates, and offers a brilliant examination of a city and a culture eternally imbued with an aura of enchantment.

BTK

Biographies & Memoirs

En 1974, un tueur sème la terreur dans la paisible ville de Wichita au Kansas. Il sévit pendant trente ans où il assassine hommes, femmes et enfants par strangulation, pendaison, revolver ou à l'arme blanche. Il frappe à toute heure de la journée dans des quartiers résidentiels et il positionne ses victimes avec des mises en scène macabres. Friand de publicité, il se plaint lorsque les médias ne parlent plus de lui par des courriers, colis, poèmes ou envois qu'il adresse aux enquêteurs, journaux et chaînes de télévision qu'il signe des initiales B. T. K. (Bind, Torture and Kill pour ligoter, torturer et tuer) ou du pseudonyme « Bill Thomas Killman » .Après des années de silence, BTK se manifeste à nouveau en 2004 lorsque le quotidien local sort un dossier sur les trente années du premier crime du mystérieux assassin avec le massacre des quatre membres de la famille Otero. Piégé par les policiers, Dennis Rader est identifié et arrêté. Mari attentionné et bon père de famille, il se préparait à repasser à l'acte après treize années d'abstinence.Pour retracer cette enquête hors normes, Stéphane Bourgoin a eu accès aux interrogatoires de Dennis Rader, à ses courriers et aux selfies où BTK « revit » ses crimes, revêtu d'une perruque avec les vêtements et objets volés à ses victimes, afin d'alimenter ses fantasmes pendant les périodes de temps où il ne tue pas.

City Boy

Biographies & Memoirs

In the New Y ork of the 1970s, in the wake of Stonewall and in the midst of economic collapse, you might find the likes of Jasper Johns and William Burroughs at the next cocktail party, and you were as likely to be caught arguing Marx at the New York City Ballet as cruising for sex in the warehouses and parked trucks along the Hudson. This is the New York that Edmund White portrays in City Boy: a place of enormous intrigue and artistic tumult. Combining the no-holds-barred confession and yearning of A Boy's Own Story with the easy erudition and sense of place of The Flaneur, this is the story of White's years in 1970s New York, bouncing from intellectual encounters with Susan Sontag and Harold Brodkey to erotic entanglements downtown to the burgeoning gay scene of artists and writers. I t's a moving, candid, brilliant portrait of a time and place, full of encounters with famous names and cultural icons.

The Unpunished Vice

Biographies & Memoirs

A new memoir from acclaimed author Edmund White about his life as a reader. Literary icon Edmund White made his name through his writing but remembers his life through the books he has read. For White, each momentous occasion came with a book to match: Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, which opened up the seemingly closed world of homosexuality while he was at boarding school in Michigan; the Ezra Pound poems adored by a lover he followed to New York; the biography of Stephen Crane that inspired one of White's novels. But it wasn't until heart surgery in 2014, when he temporarily lost his desire to read, that White realized the key role that reading played in his life: forming his tastes, shaping his memories, and amusing him through the best and worst life had to offer. Blending memoir and literary criticism, The Unpunished Vice is a compendium of all the ways reading has shaped White's life and work. His larger-than-life presence on the literary scene lends itself to fascinating, intimate insights into the lives of some of the world's best-loved cultural figures. With characteristic wit and candor, he recalls reading Henry James to Peggy Guggenheim in her private gondola in Venice and phone calls at eight o'clock in the morning to Vladimir Nabokov--who once said that White was his favorite American writer. Featuring writing that has appeared in the New York Review of Books and the Paris Review, among others, The Unpunished Vice is a wickedly smart and insightful account of a life in literature.

Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson

Biographies & Memoirs

Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson is a collection of thoughts and self-reflection by the author of the Declaration of Independence and the former President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. This edition also includes Jefferson’s Inaugural Addresses and the Declaration of Independence.

Dahmer

Biographies & Memoirs

« J'ai tué mes victimes pour les garder auprès de moi, car je ne voulais pas rester seul. J'avais alors un sentiment intense de la fragilité de la vie. Quelques instants auparavant, c'était des hommes, et maintenant, ce n'était plus qu'un tas d'os. J'ai éprouvé des remords après chacun de mes crimes, mais cela ne durait jamais longtemps. » Le rêve de Jeffrey Dahmer est de créer des esclaves sexuels, d'authentiques zombies, par l'injection d'acide dans le crâne de ses victimes encore vivantes. Son appartement de Milwaukee est transformé en abattoir, avec des restes démembrés, des crânes peints, un squelette accroché dans la douche, des têtes coupées dans le Frigidaire et des morceaux de cadavres dans le congélateur. Le cauchemar de toute une communauté se termine le 24 juillet 1991, après une longue série de dix-sept victimes masculines assassinées, puis violées et démembrées sur une période de treize ans.Dans cette affaire médiatisée par le succès planétaire de la série Netflix de Ryan Murphy, les meurtres de Dahmer ont mis en lumière la faillite des autorités vis-à-vis des multiples disparitions au sein des communautés noire et gay dans ce quartier défavorisé de Milwaukee. Car le procès de Dahmer est aussi celui de tout un système.Cette nouvelle édition revue et augmentée par rapport aux versions parues en 1993 et 1999 est enrichie par de nombreux témoignages inédits de protagonistes de l'affaire et la retranscription des interrogatoires du « Cannibale de Milwaukee ».

Lire, c'est amusant ! No 4

Biographies & Memoirs

Découvrez ce qui fait que l’on trouve un livre intéressant et surtout qu’on tient à vouloir lire la suite. Voyez comment certains auteurs en sont arrivés à écrire. Apprenez à mieux les connaître et découvrez leurs oeuvres. Cela vous donnera peut-être l’idée de le faire, vous aussi, ou du moins de les lire. Voici leur histoire unique !

Paul Verlaine

Biographies & Memoirs

Verlaine was always only a human being, a weak human being, who did not even know how “to count the transgressions of his own heart. ” It was this very lack of individuality, however, which produced something much rarer—the purely and entirely human. Verlaine was soft clay without the power of producing impresses and without resistance. Thus every line of life crossing his destiny has left a pure relief, a clear and faithful reproduction, even to the fragrance-like sorrows of lonely seconds which in others fade away or thicken into dull grief.

Pour se raconter IV

Biographies & Memoirs

Les premières fois jalonnent notre vie… du début à la fin. Et c’est ainsi que ce recueil vous emmènera, des joies de la naissance ou des tristesses d’espoirs déçues aux deuils qui forgent et aux chagrins qui guérissent. Vous passerez au fil des chapitres par les souvenirs d’écoliers, les histoires familiales, les découvertes qui font grandir, les voyages marquants, les amours ou les absences. Les auteurs se racontent dans des récits parfois comiques parfois dramatiques, mais toujours intimes. Vous pourrez, en lisant leurs histoires, faire un tour à moto, rencontrer l’amour de votre vie, fumer un joint, mentir à la maîtresse, émigrer au Canada, perdre un proche ou encore assister à une naissance. Vivre d’autres vies en somme… Une première fois n’a de sens que dans le regard de celui qui la vit et c’est cette expérience que ce recueil propose, porter son regard plus loin grâce aux autres, grâce à ceux et celles qui ont accepté de partager ici, avec un certain courage, les moments qui les ont marqués.

My Experiments with Truth

Biographies & Memoirs

The Story of My Experiments with Truth, the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi, is a very popular and influential book. It covers the period from his birth (1869) to the year 1921, describing his childhood, his school days, his early marriage, his journeys abroad, his legal studies and practise. The book is more about the experiments of Gandhi with truth and his Satyagraha movement, which literally means demanding the truth and nothing else. This is the very idea that helped him to fight against racism, violence and colonialism. All of this eventually helped him to achieve his dream of an independent India. Gandhi mentions his numerous experiments, starting from his elocution training to putting an end to his fear and shyness towards public speaking. His instances of attending singing classes and shaking a leg on the dance floor are well-described. He was a staunch vegetarian, fasted regularly and walked 10 miles daily. He studied comparative religion greatly and was a devote Hindu, but showed great respect for all religions. Gandhi didn't shy away from accepting his own mistakes and displayed commendable patience and fortitude in his personal life.About the Author: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was the prominent figure in the freedom struggle in India from the British rule. He is also known as the 'The Father of the Nation', in India. The author has written a number of books and some of them include Character & Nation Building, India of My Dreams, and All Men are Brothers. The author was born on the 2nd of October, 1869, in Porbandar, Gujarat. In the year 1942, he played a key role in launching the Quit India movement, which was intended at forcing the British to leave the nation. As a result of launching this movement, he was thrown in prison and remained there for several years, due to other political offenses allegedly committed by him. At all times, he practised satyagraha, which is the teaching of non-violence. As the British rule ended, he was saddened by India's partition, and tried his best to bring peace among the Sikhs and Muslims. On the 30th of January, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu nationalist, for allegedly being highly concerned about the nation's Muslim population.

Erlöse mich von dem Bösen

Biographies & Memoirs

Alloma Gilbert kam aus schwierigen Verhältnissen. Dennoch war ihre frühe Kindheit von Liebe geprägt. Doch als das kleine Mädchen in die Fänge von Eunice Spry geriet, wurde ihr Leben zur Hölle. Essensentzug, brutale Prügelstrafen, Würgen bis zur Bewusstlosigkeit - Englands vielleicht grausamste Pflegemutter quälte und misshandelte Alloma und ihre Geschwister vom ersten bis zum letzten Tag. Erst Jahre später, nachdem sie schon lange ausgezogen war, sollte Alloma die Kraft finden, sich gegen ihre tyrannische Pflegemutter zur Wehr zu setzen. In diesem erschütternden Buch schreibt sie ihre dramatische Geschichte auf.

Dismas Hardy

Biographies & Memoirs

The New York Times–bestselling author tells the story of how he created his popular San Francisco sleuth.In 1989, everyman Dismas Hardy debuted in John Lescroart’s mystery, Dead Irish. It’s a story millions of readers have enjoyed, along with other entries in the New York Times–bestselling series. But a tale they may not know is how Lescroat invented the ex-Marine, ex-cop, and ex-lawyer turned sleuth.In this brief autobiographical essay, Lescroart details the development of Dismas Hardy, as well as his own career. He discusses his attempt to be a “serious” novelist, his stint as the lead singer of a band, and his struggle to get published. He also talks about how he realized he was meant to be a writer (and not working a “regular” nine-to-five) and how Dismas’s adventures almost didn’t become the series readers love.Praise for the Dismas Hardy Novels“Compulsively readable . . . a dense and involving saga of big-city crime and punishment.” —San Francisco Chronicle“A beautifully written San Francisco murder story with perfect-pitch dialogue.” —Playboy on Dead Irish “The killer proves to be as fascinating a personality as Hardy himself.” —Publishers Weekly on Dead Irish“The narrative flows effortlessly and includes a Perry Mason–worthy moment when Hardy manifests a bit of courtroom magic. Lescroart is a perfect choice for readers who enjoy great ensemble casts.” —Booklist on Poison

12 Years a Slave: Now a Major Movie (Illustrated)

Biographies & Memoirs

Solomon Northup was born a free man in New York State. At the age of 33 he was kidnapped in Washington D.C. and placed in an underground slave pen. Northup was transported by ship to New Orleans where he was sold into slavery. He spent the next 12 years working as a carpenter, driver, and cotton picker. This narrative reveals how Northup survived the harsh conditions of slavery, including smallpox, lashings, and an attempted hanging. Solomon Northup was among a select few who were freed from slavery. His account describes the daily life of slaves in Louisiana, their diet and living conditions, the relationship between master and slave, and how slave catchers used to recapture runaways. Northup's first person account published in 1853, was a dramatic story in the national debate over slavery that took place in the nine years leading up to the start of the American Civil War

Die Bewegung von Licht in Wasser

Biographies & Memoirs

New York, Anfang der sechziger Jahre: Bob Dylan tingelt durch Greenwich Village und revolutioniert die Folkmusik, in der Reuben Gallery findet das erste Happening statt, und der Grafikdesigner Andy Warhol beschließt, sich der Kunst zu widmen. New York ist der aufregendste Ort der Welt. Im Sommer 1961 zieht der achtzehnjährige Samuel Delany mit der Dichterin Marilyn Hacker in ein Vierzimmerapartment auf der Lower East Side. Vier Jahre später beendet er seinen siebten Science-Fiction-Roman, Babel-17, der ihm den Nebula Award und eine Nominierung für den Hugo Award einbringt - ein schwarzer Schriftsteller revolutioniert die Literatur. In seiner Autobiographie erzählt Delany von Hipstern und Junkies, schwulen Truckern und berühmten Dichtern, von der Entdeckung seiner Homosexualität und der Berufung als Autor. Dabei erkundet er in seinen Erinnerungen nicht nur eine Stadt und eine Zeit, in denen sich unser heutiges Welt- und Kunstverständnis entwickelt haben, sondern auch die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des autobiographischen Schreibens selbst. Ein unwahrscheinliches Leben und ein großes Buch! »Ich würde gerne in Samuel Delanys Bart wohnen. Dieser prächtige Bart hat viel gesehen, viel Leben absorbiert. Und sein Träger hat viel bewirkt, viel verändert, nicht zuletzt die Welt, in seinen genialen Romanen und Essays - und in seiner Autobiographie, die das Mysterium eines vollständigen, wachen und verantwortungsvollen Menschen untersucht: der Weg seines Bewusstseins durch die Welt, das Netzwerk seiner Begierden und seine stille, innere Poesie.« Clemens J. Setz »Samuel R. Delany ist nicht nur einer der wichtigsten Science-Fiction-Autoren seiner Generation, sondern überhaupt ein faszinierender Schriftsteller, der einen neuen Stil geschaffen hat.« Umberto Eco

Infamy

Biographies & Memoirs

In 2005, after publishing her book The Demons of Eden—where she denounced the very powerful men behind the a Mexican child pornography ring—Lydia Cacho became a target. Exactly eight months after the publication of the book, one morning as she was making her way to work, Lydia was apprehended by the police from the neighboring state of Puebla, and taken into custody during a nightmarish 24 hours during which she was tortured, intimidated and abused.In this chilling memoir, comparable to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel, Lydia tells her story and exposes the horrific ways in which women—and young girls in particular—are abused then disposed of, while an oftentimes corrupt government simply sits and watches.

Elon Musk

Biographies & Memoirs

Ο Μασκ είναι το κάτι άλλο. Δεν υπάρχει άλλος σαν κι αυτόν. Αφού κάποιος διαβάσει και τις τελευταίες σελίδες, θα καταλάβει ότι δεν υπάρχει λόγος σύγκρισης με τον Στιβ Τζομπς. […] Αυτή η βιογραφία θα μείνει στην Ιστορία ως μια ξεκάθαρη ερμηνεία ενός ανθρώπου για τον οποίο μέχρι στιγμής έχουμε πληροφορίες κυρίως από το Ίντερνετ. New York Times Μια εκπληκτική σκιαγράφηση της πορείας τού –αναμφισβήτητα– σημαντικότερου επιχειρηματία παγκοσμίως. Ο Βανς παρουσιάζει με τρόπο αξεπέραστο τη μοναδική προσωπικότητα, την άσβεστη αποφασιστικότητα και την ικανότητα του Μασκ να μεγαλουργεί μέσα από τις δυσκολίες. Washington Post Μια βιογραφία που προκαλεί στον αναγνώστη έμπνευση και ενθουσιασμό για το μέλλον που έρχεται. Ο βετεράνος δημοσιογράφος σε επιστημονικά και τεχνολογικά θέματα Άσλι Βανς ξεδιπλώνει σε όλο το εύρος της τη ζωή και το έργο μιας ιδιοφυΐας, από τα ταραχώδη παιδικά του χρόνια στη Νότια Αφρική και τη φυγή του στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες μέχρι τις τρομερές τεχνολογικές καινοτομίες και τις επιχειρηματικές του επιδιώξεις. Στο βιβλίο αυτό αποκαλύπτεται το όραμα του Ίλον Μασκ, ενός ιδιαίτερου ανθρώπου ο οποίος έχει επαναπροσδιορίσει την παγκόσμια βιομηχανία και έχει προκαλέσει νέα επίπεδα εφευρέσεων –από τη SpaceX και την Tesla μέχρι τη SolarCity–, ξεπερνώντας τις όποιες δυσκολίες και δημιουργώντας πολλούς εχθρούς στην πορεία του.

A Stolen Life

Biographies & Memoirs

In the summer of 1991 I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother who loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen. For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim. I survived.A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.---The pine cone is a symbol that represents the seed of a new beginning for me. To help facilitate new beginnings, with the support of animal-assisted therapy, the J A Y C Foundation provides support and services for the timely treatment of families recovering from abduction and the aftermath of traumatic experiences—families like my own who need to learn how to heal. In addition, the J A Y C Foundation hopes to facilitate awareness in schools about the important need to care for one another.Our motto is “Just Ask Yourself to . . . Care!”A portion of my proceeds from this memoir will be donated to The J A Y C Foundation Inc.www.thejaycfoundation.org

The Makers of Rome

Biographies & Memoirs

These nine biographies illuminate the careers, personalities and military campaigns of some of Rome's greatest statesmen, whose lives span the earliest days of the Republic to the establishment of the Empire. Selected from Plutarch's Roman Lives, they include prominent figures who achieved fame for their pivotal roles in Roman history, such as soldierly Marcellus, eloquent Cato and cautious Fabius. Here too are vivid portraits of ambitious, hot-tempered Coriolanus; objective, principled Brutus and open-hearted Mark Anthony, who would later be brought to life by Shakespeare. In recounting the lives of these great leaders, Plutarch also explores the problems of statecraft and power and illustrates the Roman people's genius for political compromise, which led to their mastery of the ancient world.

Memoirs of Casanova — Volume 17: Return to Italy

Biographies & Memoirs

The Venetian lothario returns to Italy, where he continues romancing and discarding young woman, and stirring mischief among the well-bred classes.

Lucky Loser

Biographies & Memoirs

“A first-rate financial thriller . . . Lucky Loser is one of those rare Trump books that deserve, even demand, to be read.” –Alexander Nazaryan, The New York TimesFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters behind the 2018 bombshell New York Times exposé of then-President Trump’s finances, an explosive investigation into the history of Donald Trump’s wealth, revealing how one of the country’s biggest business failures lied his way into the White HouseSoon after announcing his first campaign for the US presidency, Donald J. Trump told a national television audience that life “has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me.” Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multi-billion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. Except: None of it was true. Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever.Drawing on over twenty years’ worth of Trump’s confidential tax information, including the tax returns he tried to conceal, alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump's financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. For decades, he squanders his fortunes on money losing businesses, only to be saved yet again by financial serendipity. He tacks his name above the door of every building, while taking out huge loans he’ll never repay. He obsesses over appearances, while ignoring threats to the bottom line and mounting costly lawsuits against city officials. He tarnishes the value of his name by allowing anyone with a big enough check to use it, and cheats the television producer who not only rescues him from bankruptcy but casts him as a business savant – the public image that will carry him to the White House. A masterpiece of narrative reporting, Lucky Loser is a meticulous examination spanning nearly a century, filled with scoops from Trump Tower, Mar-a-Lago, Atlantic City, and the set of The Apprentice. At a moment when Trump’s tether to success and power is more precarious than ever, here for the first time is the definitive true accounting of Trump and his money – what he had, what he lost, and what he has left – and the final word on the myth of Trump, the self-made billionaire.

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