Biographies & Memoirs - Books

The Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave

Biographies & Memoirs

Thirteen years ago, I came to your door, a weary fugitive from chains and stripes. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was hungry, and you fed me. Naked was I, and you clothed me. Even a name by which to be known among men, slavery had denied me. You bestowed upon me your own. Base indeed should I be, if I ever forget what I owe to you, or do anything to disgrace that honored name!

The Last Folk Hero

Biographies & Memoirs

A New York Times BestsellerBy the author of Showtime—the source for HBO’s Winning Time—the definitive biography of mythic multi-sport star Bo Jackson.“A legendary tome on a legendary athlete." —Chris Herring, author of Blood in the GardenFrom the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat. He became the first person to simultaneously star in two major professional sports, and overtook Michael Jordan as America’s most recognizable pitchman. He was on our televisions, in our magazines, plastered across billboards. He was half man, half myth.Then, almost overnight, he was gone.He was Bo Jackson.Drawing on an astonishing 720 original interviews, New York Times bestselling sportswriter Jeff Pearlman captures as never before the elusive truth about Jackson, Auburn University’s transcendent Heisman Trophy winner, superstar of both the NFL and Major League Baseball and ubiquitous “Bo Knows” Nike pitchman. Did Bo really jump over a parked Volkswagen? (Yes.) Did he actually run a 4.13 40? (Yes.) During the 1991 flight that nearly killed every member of the Chicago White Sox, was he in the cockpit trying to help? (Oddly, yes. Or no. Or … maybe.)Bo Jackson isn’t Jim Thorpe.He’s not Deion Sanders, either. No, Bo Jackson is Paul Bunyan. The Last Folk Hero is the true tale of Bo Jackson that only “master storyteller” (NPR.org) Jeff Pearlman could tell.

Confessions of a Male Nurse

Biographies & Memoirs

From the people who brought you the bestselling Confessions of a GP.From stampeding nudes to inebriated teenagers, young nurse Michael Alexander never really knew what he was getting himself into. But now, sixteen years since he was first launched into his nursing career – as the only man in a gynaecology ward – he’s pretty much dealt with everything: Body parts that come off in his hands; Teenagers with phantom pregnancies; Doctors unable to tell the difference between their left and right; Violent drunks; Singing relatives; Sexism; . . . and a whole lot of nudity.Confessions of a Male Nurse is a touching, shocking and frequently hilarious account of one man’s life in nursing.Reviews‘A fantastic read. Everything I had always suspected about nurses and so much more!’ – Dr Benjamin Daniels, author of bestselling ‘Confessions of a GP’‘An incredibly emotional journey’ – Star MagazineAbout the authorMichael Alexander is the pseudonym of a nurse who has previously worked in the UK and New Zealand.

Being Ram Dass

Biographies & Memoirs

“Ram Dass lived a full life and then some. His final statement is thorough and, yes, enlightening.” —Kirkus Reviews Perhaps no other teacher has sparked the fires of as many spiritual seekers in the West as Ram Dass. If you’ve ever embraced the phrase “be here now,” practiced meditation or yoga, tried psychedelics, or supported anyone in a hospice, prison, or homeless center—then the story of Ram Dass is also part of your story. From his birth in 1931 to his luminous later years, Ram Dass saw his life as just one incarnation of many. This memoir puts us in the passenger seat with the one-time Harvard psychologist and lifelong risk-taker Richard Alpert, who loved to take friends on wild rides on his Harley and test nearly every boundary—inner or outer—that came his way. Being Ram Dass shares his life’s odyssey in intimate detail: how he struggled with issues of self-identity and sexuality in his youth, pioneered psychedelic research, and opened the doorways to Eastern spiritual practices. In 1967 he trekked to India and met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba. He returned with a perspective on spirituality and psychology that changed millions. Featuring 64 pages of color photographs, this intimate memoir chronicles the cultural and spiritual transformations Ram Dass experienced that resonate with us to this day, a journey from the mind to the heart, from the ego to the soul. Before, after, and along these waypoints, readers will encounter many other adventures and revelations—each ringing with the potential to awaken the universal, loving divine that links us to this beloved teacher and all of us to each other.

De moto pela América do Sul

Biographies & Memoirs

O Livro Que Inspirou o Filme - Diários de Motocicleta Este diário - reelaborado por Ernesto Che Guevara, em forma narrativa, graças às suas anotações detalhadas - é o relato da viagem feita por Che e seu amigo Alberto Granado, desde a Argentina até a Venezuela, em 1952. Aventura e emoção entremeadas de reflexões sobre múltiplos aspectos da América - a miséria dos índios, o espanto de conhecer o mar-, o mundo percebido pelos olhos de um jovem de 23 anos, disposto à surpresa e à compaixão, mas também querendo descobrir sua verdadeira vocação, aproveitar a vida, enamorar-se verdadeiramente. Tudo isso enquanto a moto segue pelas estradas poeirentas e arriscadas, perdendo peças pelo caminho, provocando tombos e episódios tragicômicos. O livro serviu de base para o filme "Diários de Motocicleta", dirigido por Walter Salles.

The Wisdom of Compassion

Biographies & Memoirs

This is the Dalai Lama at his most human, and most humane, offering rare insight and behind-the-scenes stories about his interactions with remarkable people from all walks of life. Don't miss the Dalai Lama's classic book, The Art of Happiness, or his newest, The Book of Joy, named one of Oprah's Favorite Things. The Wisdom of Compassion shows how His Holiness the Dalai Lama approaches the world with playfulness, optimism, and a profound empathy for the suffering of others. Through his own conduct, he shows us the tangible benefits of practicing kindness, forgiveness and compassion. And he demonstrates that opening our hearts and minds to others is the surest path to true happiness.The Wisdom of Compassion is an intensely personal portrait of the Dalai Lama. It recounts the story of his friendship with a blind Irishman, how they first met and how in later meetings the Dalai Lama comes to call him his one and only hero. It explores the Dalai Lama’s collaboration with a neuroscientist and how it results in significant discoveries about the human brain. It also brings to life poignant accounts of his uncommon encounters with a little beggar girl, a disabled boy in a critical care ward, a man who trains grandmothers to become solar engineers, and many others.The Dalai Lama’s wisdom principles revolve around the practical application of compassion. Enhanced by his seven decades of practice and elucidated through captivating anecdotes of his own experiences, they will help readers lead more fulfilling lives. As the Dalai Lama has written many years ago: if you want others to be happy, practice compassion; if you want yourself to be happy, practice compassion.

Spock und ich

Biographies & Memoirs

Eine intergalaktische Freundschaft: Captain Kirk über Mr. SpockLeonard Nimoy wurde durch seine Rolle als Mr. Spock in der Serie Star Trek berühmt. Mit dem stets auf Logik bedachten Vulkanier schuf er einen Charakter, der wie kaum ein zweiter die Popkultur bis heute prägt. Am Set lernte Nimoy William Shatner alias Captain Kirk kennen, mit dem ihn 50 Jahre lang eine enge Freundschaft verband. Gemeinsam gingen die beiden Männer durch Höhen und Tiefen, beruflich wie privat. Anhand zahlreicher Anekdoten zeichnet William Shatner nun das faszinierende Leben seines besten Freundes nach und zeigt uns den Mann hinter dem unemotionalen Vulkanier: den feinfühligen Poeten, Fotografen, gläubigen Juden und trockenen Alkoholiker. Eine berührende Biografie und die Geschichte einer großen Freundschaft – nicht nur für Star-Trek-Fans!

Small Memories

Biographies & Memoirs

The Nobel Prize–winning author of Blindness recalls the days of his youth in Lisbon and the Portuguese countryside in this charming memoir.José Saramago was eighteen months old when he moved from the village of Azinhaga with his father and mother to live in Lisbon. But he would return to the village throughout his childhood and adolescence to stay with his maternal grandparents, illiterate peasants in the eyes of the outside world, but a fount of knowledge, affection, and authority to young José. Small Memories traces the formation of a man who emerged, against all odds, as one of the world’s most respected writers.Shifting between childhood and his teenage years, between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this mosaic of memories looks back into the author’s boyhood: the tragic death of his older brother at the age of four; his mother pawning the family’s blankets every spring and buying them back in time for winter; his grandparents bringing the weaker piglets into their bed on cold nights; and Saramago’s early encounters with literature, from teaching himself to read to poring over a Portuguese-French conversation guide, not realizing that he was in fact reading a play by Molière.

Vadászat Pablo Escobarra

Biographies & Memoirs

A Narcos , a Netflix kultikus sorozatának főszereplői, a legendás DEA ügynökök, Steve Murphy es Javier F. Pena szenzációs visszemlékezése a Pablo Escobar elleni hajtóvadászatról.Több évtizedes pályafutásuk legnagyobb kihívása a Pablo Escobar elleni harc volt Kolumbiában. A Netflix Narcos sorozata révén halhatatlanná vált két egykori kisvárosi zsaru most először meséli el az igaz történetét, hogyan vadászták le a világ elsőszámú narkoterroristáját, a kihívásokat, amelyekkel szembe kellett nézniük, és azokat a vadonatúj módszereket, melyekkel sikeresen megdöntötték a világ legkeresettebb bűnözőjének terror uralmát.Az olvasók megismerhetik a Search Bloc, a Pablo Escobar felkutatására létrehozott különítmény működésének belső titkait, és a közös kolumbiai - amerikai munkacsoportét, melyek 18 hónapos intenzív munkája vezetett el végül Escobarhoz.1992 júliusától 1993 decemberéig Steve és Javier állandó készültségben éltek, a medellini katonai akadémián felütve főhadiszállásukat.Itt éltek, és itt dolgoztak,a kolumbiai hatóságokkal karöltve, hogy levadásszák azt az embert, aki sokak szerint érinthetetlen volt.Az ő személyes élményeik, a most először nyilvánosságra kerülő, a DEA korábban titkosított belső információival együtt adják a gerincét ennek a lenyűgöző történetnek, két amerikai ügynökről, akik mindent kockára tettek,hogy elkapják a világ legkeresettebb bűnözőjét, Pablo Escobart.

The Memoirs Of Jacques Casanova Vol.4

Biographies & Memoirs

In this book, the fourth of twelve volumes of an 1894 English translation of the memoirs of eighteenth-century writer Giacomo Casanova, the Italian adventurer gives up military life and returns to Venice.

24 tvárí Billyho Milligana

Biographies & Memoirs

Skutočný príbeh muža bojujúceho s viacnásobnou poruchou osobnosti. Billyho Milligana zatkli za únos a znásilnenie troch žien. V prelomovom súdnom procese ho napokon zbavili obvinenia z dôvodu nepríčetnosti, ktorej príčinou bola disociatívna porucha osobnosti. Bolo to prvé súdne rozhodnutie tohto druhu v histórii. Billyho príbeh sa tým však nekončí. Ak chce jedného dňa viesť normálny život, musí sa s pomocou psychiatrov pokúsiť zjednotiť všetky svoje identity do jednej.

The Underground Railroad

Biographies & Memoirs

The Underground Railroad was a secret network of routes used by Southern slaves in escaping to the North. In their attempts they were often guided and helped by former fugitive slaves and abolitionist who were known as the conductors. Read about these incredible and unforgettable life journeys and the people who took these treacherous routes to freedom. This edition includes the narratives of Harriet Tubman and Laura S. Haviland, the female conductors, along with a meticulous record of the lucky few slaves who managed to cross-over to North and escape the clutches of the dreadful slavery.

What My Mother Gave Me

Biographies & Memoirs

In What My Mother Gave Me, women look at the relationships between mothers and daughters through a new lens: a daughter’s story of a gift from her mother that has touched her to the bone and served as a model, a metaphor, or a touchstone in her own life. The contributors of these thirty-one original pieces include Pulitzer Prize winners, perennial bestselling novelists, and celebrated broadcast journalists.Whether a gift was meant to keep a daughter warm, put a roof over her head, instruct her in the ways of womanhood, encourage her talents, or just remind her of a mother’s love, each story gets to the heart of a relationship. Rita Dove remembers the box of nail polish that inspired her to paint her nails in the wild stripes and polka dots she wears to this day. Lisa See writes about the gift of writing from her mother, Carolyn See. Cecilia Muñoz remembers both the wok her mother gave her and a lifetime of home-cooked family meals. Judith Hillman Paterson revisits the year of sobriety her mother bequeathed to her when Paterson was nine, the year before her mother died of alcoholism. Abigail Pogrebin writes about her middle-aged bat mitzvah, for which her mother provided flowers after a lifetime of guilt for skipping her daughter’s religious education. Margo Jefferson writes about her mother’s gold dress from the posh department store where they could finally shop as black women. Collectively, the pieces have a force that feels as elemental as the tides: outpourings of lightness and darkness; joy and grief; mother love and daughter love; mother love and daughter rage. In these stirring words we find that every gift, ?no matter how modest, tells the story of a powerful bond. As Elizabeth Benedict points out in her introduction, “whether we are mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, or cherished friends, we may not know for quite some time which presents will matter the most."

Six Months in Mexico

Biographies & Memoirs

From the famous stunt girl reporter who wrote the well-known exposé, Ten Days in a Mad-House, this 1888 travelogue details Nellie Bly’s experience of living in Mexico in the late nineteenth century.Under the pseudonym of Nellie Bly, Six Months in Mexico chronicles her time spent living in Mexico in 1885. The American journalist provides a fascinating window into the country’s culture and the every day lives of those living there. Bly describes wedding ceremonies and the people’s smoking habits, as well as commenting on the horror of life living under a dictator.This classic travel book includes engaging chapters such as:- In the Streets of Mexico - How Sunday is Celebrated - A Horseback Ride Over Historic Grounds - A Mexican Bull-Fight - The Museum and its Curiosities - Historic Tombs and Lonely Graves Republished by Read & Co. Travel, this captivating edition of Six Months in Mexico is accompanied by several of Bly’s other journalism articles and is completed by an introductory biography by Frances E. Willard and Mary A. Livermore. The ideal gift for fans of travel writing and a must read for those who have, or wish to visit Mexico.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Biographies & Memoirs

The unflinching nineteenth-century autobiography that broke the silence on the psychosexual exploitation of Black women—with an introduction by Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried and National Book Award finalist“[A] crowning achievement . . . [Jacobs] remodeled the forms of the black slave narrative and the white female sentimental novel to create a new literary form—a narrative at once black and female.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The New York Times In clear and unshrinking prose, Harriet Jacobs—writing under the pseudonym Linda Brent—relates the story of her girlhood and adolescence as a slave in North Carolina and her eventual escape: a bildungsroman set in the complex terrain of a chauvinist, white supremacist society. Resolutely addressing women readers, rather than men, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl seeks to make white women understand how the threat of sexual violence shapes the lives of enslaved Black women and children. Equal parts brave and searing, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is a triumph of American literature.The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES • THE AWAKENING • THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY • THE HEADS OF CERBERUS • LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET • LOVE, ANGER, MADNESS • PASSING • THE RETURN OF THE SOLDIER • THERE IS CONFUSION • THE TRANSFORMATION OF PHILIP JETTAN • VILLETTE

Marguerite Duras

Biographies & Memoirs

¿Quién era Marguerite Duras? Una escritora experta en autobiografía, profesional de la confesión inexacta, que ha adoptado tantas máscaras y se ha complacido tanto en borrar sus huellas que es casi imposible distinguir la verdad de la ficción.Esta extraordinaria biografía, que fue galardonada con el premio Fémina de ensayo, es el fruto de las relaciones amistosas que Laure Adler tuvo con ella durante una docena de años, y de pacientes investigaciones, explorando archivos inéditos. En ella, la autora intenta descifrar las zonas oscuras de una difícil personalidad: la relación con su famoso amante al final de la infancia, su compleja actitud durante la guerra y la Liberación, sus pasiones amorosas, literarias y políticas.

Du wartest jede Stunde mit mir

Biographies & Memoirs

"Es gibt hier in der Zelle keine größere Freude als Briefe" – Briefe waren für Dietrich Bonhoeffer im Gefängnis eine Art Lebenselexier. Durch die Briefe, veröffentlicht unter dem Titel "Widerstand und Ergebung", konnte Bonhoeffer weiterhin Anteil nehmen am Leben seiner Lieben – seiner Eltern Karl und Paula Bonhoeffer, seiner Verlobten Maria von Wedemeyer und seinem Freund Eberhard Bethge. Und in den Briefen, die Bonhoeffer aus dem Gefängnis heraus selber schrieb, konnte er sich der Außenwelt mitteilen. Persönliches und theologische Überlegungen sind daher in diesen Briefen untrennbar miteinander verwoben. Durch seine Briefen wird sich Dietrich Bonhoeffer im Gefängnis bewusst, dass es nicht um Religion als einen isolierten Bereich des Lebens geht, sondern darum, ganz Mensch zu sein, um ganzheitliche Nachfolge – darum, mit all seinen Bedürfnissen ganz diesseitig an Christi Leben, aber auch an seinem Leiden und Sterben teilzuhaben – und Verantwortung für diese Welt und auch für kommende Generationen zu tragen. Die Briefe an seine wichtigsten Bezugspersonen – seine Eltern, seine Verlobte und seinen besten Freund – sind in dieser Ausgabe erstmalig chronologisch zusammengestellt, denn in "Widerstand und Ergebung" sind seine Briefe an Maria von Wedemeyer nicht enthalten.

The Story Of My Experiments With Truth

Biographies & Memoirs

This unusual autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth, is a window to the workings of Mahatma Gandhi' s mind, a window to the emotions of his heart, a window to understanding what drove this seemingly ordinary man to the heights of being the father of a nation— India. Starting with his days as a boy, Gandhi takes one through his trials and turmoils and situations that moulded his philosophy of life: going through child marriage, his studies in England, practicing Law in South Africa— and his Satyagraha there— to the early beginnings of the Independence movement in India. He did not aim to write an autobiography but rather share the experience of his various experiments with truth to arrive at what he perceived as Absolute Truth— the ideal of his struggle against racism, violence and colonialism.

John Rebus

Biographies & Memoirs

The New York Times–bestselling author tells the story behind Inspector Rebus, the hard-edged Edinburgh cop and “superbly drawn character” (The Times, London). In this short work, Edgar and Diamond Dagger Award winner Ian Rankin delves into DI John Rebus’s origins as a character, as well as his own origins as a writer. While author and character share a love of literature and a deep affection for Scotland’s capital city, they differ in other ways, as Rankin entertainingly testifies, while revealing how this “compelling figure” has developed over the course of his long-running series of gritty crime novels (Kirkus Reviews). “[A] hard-drinking, chain-smoking, terminally melancholic hero . . . trapped in a world where mavericks are an endangered species.” —Booklist “Rebus is without doubt one of the funniest among the classical fictional detectives.” —The Guardian “With his stubborn insistence on tying up the frayed ends of every knotty clue, and iconoclastic refusal to be a team player . . . Rebus is a bane to his superiors but a blessing to readers.” —Publishers Weekly

Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria

Biographies & Memoirs

Clásico del pensamiento revolucionario del siglo XX, es un compendio de las notas de Ernesto Che Guevara durante la gesta liberadora de Cuba. Ernesto Che Guevara fue comandante del Ejército Rebelde y uno de sus líderes más importantes y carismáticos. Esta edición incluye las correcciones del propio autor "… por si algún día volvía a publicarse". Su hija, Aleida Guevara March, hace la presentación del libro, que está dividido en dos grandes bloques: la lucha armada contra la tiranía de Batista y las actividades después del triunfo revolucionario. Incluye un acápite con cartas todas de Che. En el apéndice aparece un incluye un informe de Che dirigido a Fidel Castro. Este material se publicó por primera vez en 1975 y ha tenido tres reimpresiones: en 1985, 1999 y 2002 y una segunda edición ampliada y corregida en 2009.

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