Biographies & Memoirs - Books

Human in Khaki

Biographies & Memoirs

'Human in Khaki' strings together real life incidents and anecdotes of an Indian Police Service officer, who having been born and bred in a rural landscape emerges from IIT Delhi with an intention to serve, finding his true calling as a cop. Written in a 'short stories' mode, the gripping narrative brings to the fore the essence of proactive, people-oriented and effective policing. With the background of real life incidents, the stories bring out different facets of how outcomes could have been much worse, had the police not been sensitive and perceptive to the needs of the ordinary individuals, who do not have the backing of wealthy or influential people. The book addresses contemporary issues that plague modern India such as terror, the widening gap between the haves and have-nots, crime against women, the changing value system and most significantly basic police procedure that is designed to serve the powerless and yet mostly ends up serving a powerful few. It is a very bold and honest book from a serving Police Officer, which depicts stark realities of policing at district level, including the tout culture in Police Stations that keeps common man away from the Police. While the book should serve as a mirror to men in uniform and the public services about their own functioning, it will also allow the public at large a 'peep' into the working of the police and thus encourage and empower the man-on-the street to ensure that he is served with greater efficiency.

Cuentos de Amor de Locura y de Muerte

Biographies & Memoirs

Aquí ha comenzado mi sorpresa. No se invita a nadie, que yo sepa, a las siete de la mañana para una presunta conversación en la noche, sin un motivo serio. ¿Qué me puede querer Funes? Mi amistad con él es bastante vaga, y en cuanto a su casa, he estado allí una sola vez. Por cierto que tiene dos hermanas bastante monas. Así, pues, he quedado intrigado. Esto en cuanto a Funes. Y he aquí que una hora después, en el momento en que salía de casa, llega el doctor Ayestarain, otro sujeto de quien he sido condiscípulo en el colegio nacional, y con quien tengo en suma la misma relación a lo lejos que con Funes.

American Gangsters: The Life and Legacy of Al Capone

Biographies & Memoirs

*Explains the legends and separates fact from fiction regarding Capone's most famous hits, including the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. *Includes pictures of Capone and important people, places, and events in his life. *Includes a Table of Contents On February 14, 1929, members of Bugs Moran’s North Side gang arrived at a warehouse on North Clark Street in Chicago, only to be approached by several police officers. The officers then marched them outside up against a wall, pulled out submachine guns and shotguns, and gunned them all down on the spot. A famous legend is that one of the shot men, Frank Gusenberg, dying from 14 gunshot wounds, told police that nobody shot him. Though Gusenberg’s statement is probably apocryphal, nobody opened their mouths. Nobody was ever convicted for the “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre,” the most famous gangland hit in American history, but it’s an open secret that it was the work of America’s most famous gangster, Al Capone. Indeed, “Scarface” has captured the nation’s popular imagination since Prohibition, managing to be the most notorious gangster in America while living a very visible and high profile life in Chicago. Born a Brooklyn tough, Capone engaged in a life of crime even as a teenager and had come to Chicago as a young man to smuggle liquor during Prohibition. Allying himself with Johnny Torrio, Capone began to accumulate power almost as quickly as he accumulated a reputation for being merciless, and after an attempted hit severely injured Torrio, the gang’s operations were turned over to Capone. Despite his organized crime spree during the ‘20s, Capone was a popular figure in Chicago, viewed by many as a Robin Hood because he took pains to make charitable donations to the city. At the same time, he bribed government officials and cops, ensuring they looked the other way despite his violent ways of doing business. Throughout the decade, Capone was often out in public, despite several attempts on his life, and the gang war between Al Capone and Bugs Moran was well known and even celebrated to an extent. In the end, it wasn’t the bodies or the violence that landed Capone in the slammer; it was taxes. After being convicted, Capone managed to continue running his business rackets from behind bars, forcing authorities to move America’s most notorious gangster to America’s most notorious prison on Alcatraz Island. Capone and Alcatraz only added to each other’s lore. Capone died in 1947, but his life and legacy continue to be the stuff of legends. Even to this day, Chicago’s gangster past is viewed as part of the city’s lore, and tours of the most famous spots in Chicago’s gang history are available across the city. American Gansters: The Life and Legacy of Al Capone looks at the life and crime of Scarface, and the manner in which he has become and remain a staple of American pop culture. Along with pictures of Capone and important people, places, and events in his life, you will learn about America’s most infamous gangster like you never have before, in no time at all.

The Friday Afternoon Club

Biographies & Memoirs

The instant New York Times bestseller! “Warm and perceptive.” —New York Times“Griffin Dunne knows how to tell a story." —Washington Post"Dunne is a prospector for the incandescent detail.” —Los Angeles Times“What a remarkable and moving story filled with twists and turns, the most famous of faces, and a complex family revealed with loving candor. I was blown away by Griffin Dunne’s life and his ability to capture so much of it in these beautifully written pages.” —Anderson CooperGriffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstancesAt eight, Sean Connery saved him from drowning. At thirteen, desperate to hook up with Janis Joplin, he attended his aunt Joan Didion and uncle John Gregory Dunne’s legendary LA launch party for Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. At sixteen, he got kicked out of boarding school, ending his institutional education for good. In his early twenties, he shared an apartment in Manhattan’s Hotel Des Artistes with his best friend and soulmate Carrie Fisher while she was filming some sci-fi movie called Star Wars and he was a struggling actor working as a popcorn concessionaire at Radio City Music Hall. A few years later, he produced and starred in the now-iconic film After Hours, directed by Martin Scorsese. In the midst of it all, Griffin’s twenty-two-year-old sister, Dominique, a rising star in Hollywood, was brutally strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend, leading to one of the most infamous public trials of the 1980s. The outcome was a travesty of justice that marked the beginning of their father Dominick Dunne’s career as a crime reporter for Vanity Fair and a victims' rights activist.And yet, for all its boldface cast of characters and jaw-dropping scenes, The Friday Afternoon Club is no mere celebrity memoir. It is, down to its bones, a family story that embraces the poignant absurdities and best and worst efforts of its loveable, infuriating, funny, and moving characters—its author most of all.

The World’s Greatest Thinkers

Biographies & Memoirs

The fascinating histories of our most beloved icons and the indelible marks they made on the world. Including the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death, the book also presents highlights of various aspects of their lives. THE WORLD’S GREATEST THINKERS ARE SELECTED BASED ON THEIR STANDOUT CONTRIBUTIONS AND THEIR ABILITY TO TRANSLATE IDEAS INTO ACTION THAT CHANGE AND SHAPE THE WORLD.

The Woodward Trilogy

Biographies & Memoirs

Discover the inside story of life inside President Trump’s White House as only #1 internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward can tell it with this collection of Woodward’s most revealing and unprecedented works including Fear, Rage, and Peril.With authoritative reporting, internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward offers an exposing and riveting account of President Trump’s term in office—from the beginning to the final transfer of power to President Biden’s administration. In vivid detail, Woodward paints the most intimate portrait of a sitting president ever published in this complete trilogy following the Trump presidency.This collection includes:Fear: An “explosive” (The Washington Post) and “devastating” (The New Yorker) look at the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump’s White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Fear is the inside story on President Trump as only Bob Woodward can tell it, drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files, and documents.Rage: An unprecedented and intimate tour de force of reporting on the Trump presidency facing a global pandemic, economic disaster, and racial unrest. In dramatic detail, Woodward has uncovered the precise moment the president was warned that the Covid-19 epidemic would be the biggest national security threat to his presidency.Peril: The book covers the end of the Trump presidency and the early months of the Biden presidency.

The British Royal Family: The Lives of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales

Biographies & Memoirs

*Includes pictures of Charles, Diana and important people, places, and events in their lives. *Discusses the controversies surrounding the royal marriage and conspiracy theories about Diana and her death. *Includes a Table of Contents “Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.” – Diana. “I think it's something that dawns on you with the most ghastly, inexorable sense. I didn't suddenly wake up in my pram one day and say 'Yippee, I —', you know. But I think it just dawns on you, you know, slowly, that people are interested in one, and slowly you get the idea that you have a certain duty and responsibility.” Charles about being heir to the throne. The British Royal Family is held in awe across Britain, and they have captured the interest of people around the globe. Queen Elizabeth II is respected for her stately demeanor, Prince William and his new wife, Kate Middleton, are deemed trendsetters and attract attention from media starved for gossip, and nobody has held as unique a place in pop culture as the late Diana, Princess of Wales. While Charles had all eyes on him from birth, the woman who would become Princess of Wales and one of the most famous people in the world was literally nameless for a week. Expecting a boy, the parents finally came to grips with the fact that she was a girl and eventually named her Diana. Fittingly, even though Diana had been born into one of Britain’s most historic and prominent families, the world came to know her better for her first name than her last name, Spencer. Diana’s first brush with Prince Charles came when the prince was dating her older sister, but the world met Lady Diana after Charles began courting her from 1980-1981. The two were married in the most famous and watched wedding of the 20th century, with nearly 750,000 tuning and over half a million standing outside to see the Royal Wedding. From then on, Diana became one of the most famous people in the world, with every step she took and every decision she made heavily scrutinized across the world. Though she stayed busy with international charities, human rights work, being a mother, and all of the necessities being part of the Royal Family required, Diana remained a tabloid fixture all the while. Considered a saint by some and a traitor to the established order by others, Diana nevertheless remains one of the most famous and popular Britons in history. And with Diana's death, the man who may one day be King has often been cast as the villain in the central narrative. Charles has never helped his cause by admittedly attempting to steer clear of the media’s feeding frenzy, going so far as to describe the media in 2002 “awkward, cantankerous, cynical, bloody-minded, at times intrusive, at times inaccurate and at times deeply unfair and harmful to individuals and to institutions.” The British Royal Family: The Lives of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales chronicles the lives of the famous couple, as well as the ins and outs of their fairytale wedding and troubled marriage. But it also presents a comprehensive, objective analysis of the beloved princess and oft scorned prince. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in their lives, you will learn about Charles and Diana like you never have before, in no time at all.

The Color of Water

Biographies & Memoirs

The New York Times bestselling story from the author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction.Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve black children. James McBride, journalist, musician, and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut, The Color Of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother.The son of a black minister and a woman who would not admit she was white, James McBride grew up in "orchestrated chaos" with his eleven siblings in the poor, all-black projects of Red Hook, Brooklyn. "Mommy," a fiercely protective woman with "dark eyes full of pep and fire," herded her brood to Manhattan's free cultural events, sent them off on buses to the best (and mainly Jewish) schools, demanded good grades, and commanded respect. As a young man, McBride saw his mother as a source of embarrassment, worry, and confusion—and reached thirty before he began to discover the truth about her early life and long-buried pain.In The Color of Water, McBride retraces his mother's footsteps and, through her searing and spirited voice, recreates her remarkable story. The daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, she was born Rachel Shilsky (actually Ruchel Dwara Zylska) in Poland on April 1, 1921. Fleeing pogroms, her family emigrated to America and ultimately settled in Suffolk, Virginia, a small town where anti-Semitism and racial tensions ran high. With candor and immediacy, Ruth describes her parents' loveless marriage; her fragile, handicapped mother; her cruel, sexually-abusive father; and the rest of the family and life she abandoned.At seventeen, after fleeing Virginia and settling in New York City, Ruth married a black minister and founded the all- black New Brown Memorial Baptist Church in her Red Hook living room. "God is the color of water," Ruth McBride taught her children, firmly convinced that life's blessings and life's values transcend race. Twice widowed, and continually confronting overwhelming adversity and racism, Ruth's determination, drive and discipline saw her dozen children through college—and most through graduate school. At age 65, she herself received a degree in social work from Temple University.Interspersed throughout his mother's compelling narrative, McBride shares candid recollections of his own experiences as a mixed-race child of poverty, his flirtations with drugs and violence, and his eventual self- realization and professional success. The Color of Water touches readers of all colors as a vivid portrait of growing up, a haunting meditation on race and identity, and a lyrical valentine to a mother from her son.

FDR & Eleanor: The Lives and Legacies of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt

Biographies & Memoirs

*Includes pictures of FDR, Eleanor and important people, places, and events in their lives. *Includes a Table of Contents. Franklin Delano Roosevelt might be America’s greatest 20th century president, but there’s no question that he was the most unique. A well-connected relative of Theodore Roosevelt, FDR was groomed for greatness until he was struck down by what was widely believed to be polio at the time. Nevertheless, he persevered, rising through New York politics to reach the White House just as the country faced its greatest challenge since the Civil War, beginning his presidency with one of the most iconic lines ever spoken during an inaugural address. For over a decade, President Roosevelt threw everything he had at the Great Depression, and then threw everything the country had at the Axis powers during World War II. Ultimately, he succumbed to illness in the middle of his fourth term, just before the Allies won the war. If Dolley Madison was instrumental in molding the role of First Lady in the 19th century, credit can be given to Eleanor Roosevelt for revolutionizing the political nature of the role in the 20th and 21st centuries and making it possible for presidents like Bill Clinton to enlist their wives to handle political duties. At the same time, history might remember Eleanor more for what she did outside of the White House, as she became a critically acclaimed and world famous international author and advocate of civil rights, women’s rights. By the time she had finished working for the United Nations, working on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, President Truman rightly called her “The First Lady of the World.” Eleanor is one of her country’s most famous and admired First Ladies, an ironic fact considering she was worried being the wife of a successful politician would force her to take on what she considered to be irrelevant ceremonial roles. But Franklin’s offices and illnesses made it possible for her to run in the social and political circles that interested her, and she began wielding substantial influence both for herself and on behalf of her husband. Much like Hillary and Bill Clinton, the Roosevelts’ marriage evolved into one of friendship and political convenience as Eleanor became a political power player herself. By the end of the 1940s, Eleanor’s name was being bandied about for positions like governorships, the U.S. Senate, and even the Vice Presidency, which was still completely unprecedented for a woman in those times. FDR & Eleanor chronicles the amazing lives and careers of one of America's greatest presidents and one of America's greatest First Ladies, while humanizing the couple and looking at the evolving nature of their marriage. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events in their lives, you will learn about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt like you never have before, in no time at all.

AMERIGO VESPUCCI – Discover the Man Behind the Legend

Biographies & Memoirs

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, navigator and cartographer who first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus' voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass hitherto unknown to Europeans. Colloquially named the New World, this second super continent came to be known as "Americas", deriving its name from Americus, the Latin transcription of Vespucci's first name. Learn more about the man who gave his name to the new continent, read his personal letters, diaries and what his contemporaries wrote about him. Table of Contents: Biography of Amerigo Vespucci by Frederick A. Ober Life of Vespucci by Clements R. Markham Letter of Amerigo Vespucci to a "Magnificent Lord" Letter of Amerigo Vespucci to Lorenzo Pietro F. di Medici Evidence of Alonso de Hojeda respecting his Voyage of 1499 Account of the Voyage of Hojeda, 1499-1500, by Navarrete Letter of the Admiral Christopher Columbus to his Son Letter of Vianelo to the Seigneury of Venice Letter of Naturalization in Favour of Vespucci Appointment of Amerigo Vespucci as Chief Pilot Chapters from Las Casas, which discuss the Statements of Vespucci: Evidence respecting the Voyage of Pinzon and Solis Las Casas on the Voyage of Pinzon and Solis

No Finish Line

Biographies & Memoirs

The courageous autobiography of the first legally blind athlete to compete in the Olympic Games. Millions watched in awe as Marla Runyan ran the 1500 meter event in Sydney. But few know the real story of the woman who was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease at nine years old—and became compelled to achieve what was thought beyond her reach, in the world of athletics as well as in life. With endearing self-deprecation and surprising wit, Marla Runyan reveals what it’s like to see the world through her eyes, and what it means to compete at the world-class level, despite the fact that—quite literally for her—there is no finish line. “[Runyan] presents her story with acuity and grace, rising above expectations and prejudice . . . [her] story is well-paced and finishes strong; readers will hope she keeps going and going.”—Publishers Weekly “An amazingly personal account of how she has dealt with the various highs and lows in her life.”—Ventura County Star

The World Is My Home

Biographies & Memoirs

Literary legend James A. Michener was “a Renaissance man, adventurous, inquisitive, unpretentious and unassuming, with an encyclopedic mind and a generous heart” (The New York Times Book Review). In this exceptional memoir, the man himself tells the story of his remarkable life and describes the people, events, and ideas that shaped it. Moving backward and forward across time, he writes about the many strands of his experience: his passion for travel; his lifelong infatuation with literature, music, and painting; his adventures in politics; and the hard work, headaches, and rewards of the writing life. Here at last is the real James Michener: plainspoken, wise, and enormously sympathetic, a man who could truly say, “The world is my home.” BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii. Praise for The World Is My Home “Michener’s own life makes one of his most engaging tales—a classic American success story.”—Entertainment Weekly “The Michener saga is as full of twists as any of his monumental works. . . . His output, his political interests, his patriotic service, his diligence, and the breadth of his readership are matched only by the great nineteenth-century writers whose works he devoured as he grew up—Dickens, Balzac, Mark Twain.”—Chicago Tribune “There are splendid yarns about [Michener’s] wartime doings in the South Pacific. There are hilarious cautionary tales about his service on government commissions. There are wonderful inside stories from the publishing business. And always there is Michener himself—analyzing his own character, assessing himself as a writer, chronicling his intellectual life, giving advice to young writers.”—The Plain Dealer “A sweepingly interesting life . . . Whether he’s having an epiphany over a campout in New Guinea with head-hunting cannibals or getting politically charged by the melodrama of great opera, James A. Michener’s world is a place and a time worth reading about.”—The Christian Science Monitor

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends

Biographies & Memoirs

The letters is this 1920 collection written by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov were selected as representative of Chekhov’s life and opinions by the translator, British translator Constance Garnett. The work begins with a brief biography of Chekhov adapted from a biographical sketch by his brother Mihail.

The Confessions of Saint Augustine

Biographies & Memoirs

One of the earliest autobiographies, this work sheds light on the thoughts of medieval mind. Saint Augustine has elucidated his life before turning to Christianity. In complete earnestness, he asks for forgiveness from God and dedicates himself to religion. Awe-inspiring!

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Biographies & Memoirs

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER The BELOVED STAR OF FRIENDS takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this “CANDID, DARKLY FUNNY...POIGNANT” memoir (The New York Times) A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by Time, Associated Press, Goodreads, USA Today, and more!“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.

12 Years a Slave (Movie Tie-In)

Biographies & Memoirs

The official movie tie-in edition to the winner of the 2014 Academy Award for Best Picture, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong’o, and directed by Steve McQueen New York Times bestseller“I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. It felt as important as Anne Frank’s Diary, only published nearly a hundred years before. . . . The book blew [my] mind: the epic range, the details, the adventure, the horror, and the humanity. . . . I hope my film can play a part in drawing attention to this important book of courage. Solomon’s bravery and life deserve nothing less.” —Steve McQueen, director of 12 Years a Slave, from the Foreword Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave.

The Beautiful Struggle

Biographies & Memoirs

An exceptional father-son story from the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me about the reality that tests us, the myths that sustain us, and the love that saves us.Paul Coates was an enigmatic god to his sons: a Vietnam vet who rolled with the Black Panthers, an old-school disciplinarian and new-age believer in free love, an autodidact who launched a publishing company in his basement dedicated to telling the true history of African civilization. Most of all, he was a wily tactician whose mission was to carry his sons across the shoals of inner-city adolescence—and through the collapsing civilization of Baltimore in the Age of Crack—and into the safe arms of Howard University, where he worked so his children could attend for free. Among his brood of seven, his main challenges were Ta-Nehisi, spacey and sensitive and almost comically miscalibrated for his environment, and Big Bill, charismatic and all-too-ready for the challenges of the streets. The Beautiful Struggle follows their divergent paths through this turbulent period, and their father’s steadfast efforts—assisted by mothers, teachers, and a body of myths, histories, and rituals conjured from the past to meet the needs of a troubled present—to keep them whole in a world that seemed bent on their destruction. With a remarkable ability to reimagine both the lost world of his father’s generation and the terrors and wonders of his own youth, Coates offers readers a small and beautiful epic about boys trying to become men in black America and beyond. Praise for The Beautiful Struggle“I grew up in a Maryland that lay years, miles and worlds away from the one whose summers and sorrows Ta-Nehisi Coates evokes in this memoir with such tenderness and science; and the greatest proof of the power of this work is the way that, reading it, I felt that time, distance and barriers of race and class meant nothing. That in telling his story he was telling my own story, for me.”—Michael Chabon, bestselling author of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay“Ta-Nehisi Coates is the young James Joyce of the hip hop generation.”—Walter Mosley

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Biographies & Memoirs

In her first memoir, award-winning novelist Yiyun Li offers a journey of recovery through literature: a letter from a writer to like-minded readers. “A meditation on the fact that literature itself lives and gives life.”—Marilynne Robinson, author of Gilead“What a long way it is from one life to another, yet why write if not for that distance?”Startlingly original and shining with quiet wisdom, this is a luminous account of a life lived with books. Written over two years while the author battled suicidal depression, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life is a painful and yet richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living. Yiyun Li grew up in China and has spent her adult life as an immigrant in a country not her own. She has been a scientist, an author, a mother, a daughter—and through it all she has been sustained by a profound connection with the writers and books she loves. From William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield to Søren Kierkegaard and Philip Larkin, Dear Friend is a journey through the deepest themes that bind these writers together. Interweaving personal experiences with a wide-ranging homage to her most cherished literary influences, Yiyun Li confronts the two most essential questions of her identity: Why write? And why live?Praise for Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life “Li has stared in the face of much that is beautiful and ugly and treacherous and illuminating—and from her experience she has produced a nourishing exploration of the will to live willfully.”—The Washington Post “Li’s transformation into a writer . . . is nothing short of astonishing.’”—The New York Times Book Review“An arrestingly lucid, intellectually vital series of contemplations on art, identity, and depression.”—The Boston Globe “Li is an exemplary storyteller and this account of her journey back to equilibrium, assisted by her closest companion, literature, is as powerful as any of her award-winning fiction, with the dark fixture of her Beijing past at its centre.”—Financial Times “Every writer is a reader first, and Dear Friend is Li’s haunted, luminous love letter to the words that shaped her. . . . Her own prose is both lovely and opaque, fitfully illuminating a radiant landscape of the personal and profound.”—Entertainment Weekly “Yiyun Li’s prose is lean and intense, and her ideas about books and writing are wholly original.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Eine Autobiographie

Biographies & Memoirs

Dieses eBook wurde mit einem funktionalen Layout erstellt und sorgfältig formatiert. Die Ausgabe ist mit interaktiven Inhalt und Begleitinformationen versehen, einfach zu navigieren und gut gegliedert. Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895) war ein österreichischer Schriftsteller. Er war zu seiner Zeit ein vielgelesener, populärer Schriftsteller. Seine zahlreichen Romane und seine ebenso zahlreichen, meist folkloristischen Novellen waren - in betonter Nachfolge von Iwan Sergejewitsch Turgenew - teils als exotische, immer spannende, ja sogar als moralische Lektüre beliebt. Als einer der ersten zeichnete er ein realistisches Bild der Juden in Galizien; zeitlebens kämpfte er politisch gegen den Antisemitismus in Mitteleuropa. Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Henrik Ibsen gehörten zu seinen Bewunderern; König Ludwig II. von Bayern empfand zu dem Autor gar eine Seelenverwandtschaft. Sacher-Masochs Weltbild vereinigte in eigenartiger Weise Elemente des Minnedienstes, der Schopenhauerschen Metaphysik und vorausgreifend solche Strindbergscher Geschlechterpsychologie. Bekannt wurde Masoch durch seine Fantasie und Kunst, triebhaftes Schmerz- und Unterwerfungsverlangen ästhetisch zu formulieren. Aus dem Buch: "Ich wurde am 27. Jänner (dem Geburtstage Mozart's) des Jahres 1836 in Lemberg, der Hauptstadt des Königreiches Galizien, geboren. Die Familie meines Vaters ist spanischen Ursprungs. Einer meiner Ahnen, Don Mathias Sacher, kämpfte als Rittmeister unter Kaiser Karl V. in der siegreichen Schlacht bei Mühlberg gegen die deutschen Protestanten, wurde verwundert nach Böhmen gebracht, vermählte sich hier mit einer Marquise Elementi und blieb im Lande."

12 Years A Slave

Biographies & Memoirs

Twelve Years a Slave is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana. Published soon after Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Northup's book sold 30,000 copies and was considered a bestseller. It went through several editions in the nineteenth century. Supporting Stowe's fictional narrative in detail, Northup’s first-hand account of his twelve years of bondage proved another bombshell in the national political debate over slavery leading up to the Civil War, drawing endorsements from major Northern newspapers, anti-slavery organizations, and evangelical groups.

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