Biographies & Memoirs - Books

Paris

Biographies & Memoirs

***An Instant New York Times Bestseller***From the woman who is credited for launching what we know as the celebrity focused, “brand” driven, social media obsessed popular culture of today, comes an honest and surprising memoir that reckons with that truth, and shows that there is so much more to Paris Hilton than you might believe.I was born in New York City on February 17, 1981, three days after Valentine’s Day. From the time I was a toddler, my brain skipped and flickered with the chemical imbalance of ADHD. Sometimes it was too much.I’m not bragging or complaining about it, just telling you: This is my brain. It has a lot to do with how this whole book thing is going to play out, because I love run-on sentences—and dashes. And sentence fragments. I’m probably going to jump around a lot while I tell the story.I came of age during the most turbulent pop culture period ever.The character I played—part Lucy, part Marilyn—was my steel-plated armor.People loved her. Or they loved to hate her, which was just as marketable. I leaned into that character, my ticket to financial freedom and a safe place to hide. I made sure I never had a quiet moment to figure out who I was without her. I was afraid of that moment because I didn’t know what I’d find.I wrote this book in an effort to understand my place in a watershed moment: the technology renaissance, the age of influencers. I also wrote this book so that the world could know who I am today. I focused on key aspects of my life that led to what I am most proud of--how my power was taken away from me and how I took it back, how I built a thriving business, a marriage and a family.There are so many young women who need to hear this story. I don’t want them to learn from my mistakes; I want them to stop hating themselves for their own mistakes. I want them to laugh and cry and embrace every aspect of who they are with fearlessness and pride. We all have our own brand of intelligence, and, girl, f**k fitting in.

Life of George Washington

Biographies & Memoirs

The first volume in The Life of George Washington explores his early, character building years before the Revolutionary War. Irving uses Washington’s letters and “The Washington Papers” as the basis for his research.

Burn Book

Biographies & Memoirs

In parte memoir, in parte cronaca, Burn Book racconta dall'interno la Silicon Valley e la più incredibile costruzione di ricchezza mai vista nella storia. Kara Swisher, famosissima e temutissima giornalista statunitense in tema di tecnologia e digitale, svela i protagonisti del boom che ha plasmato il mondo negli ultimi trent'anni, ripercorrendone l'evoluzione da sognatori idealisti a potenti magnati. Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Larry Page e Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman e Mark Zuckerberg sono solo alcuni dei personaggi che Swisher ha fatto sudare, in senso figurato e, nel caso di Zuckerberg, anche letterale. Con un tono spesso irriverente, il libro sottolinea la necessità che i leader tecnologici si assumano la responsabilità dell'impatto sociale delle loro innovazioni e auspica un intervento legislativo per affrontare il potere incontrollato delle Big Tech. Nonostante i pericoli che denuncia, l'autrice rimane ottimista e invita l'industria a compiere scelte più lungimiranti, sebbene una nuova serie di potenti strumenti di intelligenza artificiale sia pronta a cambiare il mondo ancora una volta. Burn Book è una storia d'amore con, per e sulla tecnologia, scritta da chi la conosce meglio di chiunque altro.

The Patient Assassin

Biographies & Memoirs

The “compelling [and] vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) true story of a man who claimed to be a survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, his elaborate twenty-year plan for revenge, and the mix of truth and legend that made him a hero to hundreds of millions.When Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted Dyer to bring the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second Indian revolt. What happened next shocked the world. An unauthorized gathering in the Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919 became the focal point for Sir Michael’s law enforcers. Dyer marched his soldiers into the walled public park, blocking the only exit. Then, without issuing any order to disperse, he instructed his men to open fire, turning their guns on the crowd, which numbered in the thousands and included women and children. The soldiers continued firing for ten minutes, stopping only when they ran out of ammunition.According to legend, nineteen-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh was injured in the attack, and remained surrounded by the dead and dying until he was able to move the next morning. Then, he supposedly picked up a handful of blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead, and vowed to kill the men responsible.The truth, as the author has discovered, is more complex—but no less dramatic. Award-winning journalist Anita Anand traced Singh’s journey through Africa, the United States, and across Europe until, in March 1940, the young man finally arrived in front of O’Dwyer himself in a London hall ready to shoot him down. The Patient Assassin “mixes Tom Ripley’s con-man-for-all-seasons versatility with Edmond Dantès’s persistence” (The Wall Street Journal) and reveals the incredible but true story behind a legend that still endures today.

Lezioni di leadership creativa

Biographies & Memoirs

Le idee e i valori per reiventare il futuro, ispirare le persone e trasformare la magia in realtà. Robert Iger è diventato CEO di Walt Disney Company nel 2005, in un periodo molto difficile in cui la concorrenza era più forte che mai e la tecnologia stava cambiando più rapidamente che in qualsiasi altro momento della storia dell'azienda. Iger sapeva che l'unica cosa che contava era reinventare il futuro. Il suo piano si fondava su tre semplici idee: tornare al principio che la qualità è importante; sfruttare la tecnologia invece di combatterla; pensare più in grande e rafforzare il marchio Disney sui mercati internazionali. Quindici anni dopo, Disney è il più grande e rispettato gruppo mediatico al mondo, proprietario di Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm e 21st Century Fox. La multinazionale ha quasi quintuplicato il suo valore da quando Iger ne ha assunto la guida, cosa che ha reso quest'ultimo uno dei CEO più innovativi e di successo dei nostri tempi. In questo libro, Robert Iger condivide le lezioni apprese durante la sua carriera in Disney, delineando i principi fondamentali di una vera leadership fondata non solo sulle capacità manageriali ma anche sulla fiducia nell'essere umano e nella sua insostituibile forza creativa. Coraggio, curiosità, decisione, imparzialità e soprattutto un approccio che sappia privilegiare onestà e correttezza rispetto al profitto, tutte qualità cui Iger ha ispirato ogni suo progetto o rapporto professionale e personale, dalla profonda amicizia che lo ha legato a Steve Jobs negli ultimi anni di vita alla sua incrollabile passione per la mitologia di Star Wars. «Spero che le idee e le storie che racconto in questo libro vi aiuteranno a essere più concreti e intuitivi e ad avere più sicurezza in voi stessi. Sono le lezioni che hanno plasmato la mia vita professionale e personale, e mi auguro possano essere utili anche per la vostra.» Robert Iger

Bad Mormon

Biographies & Memoirs

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNamed one of Entertainment Tonight’s Best Celebrity Memoirs of 2023 As seen in The New York Times, People, The Cut, Vulture, The Daily Beast, Today, Bustle, Us Weekly, Life & Style, and Interview “No stone goes unturned” (People) in this memoir about The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Heather Gay’s departure from the Mormon Church, and her unforeseen success in business, television, and single motherhood.Straight off the slopes and into the spotlight, Heather Gay is famous for speaking the gospel truth. Whether as a businesswoman, mother, or television personality, she is unafraid to blaze a new trail, even if it means losing family, friends, and her community.Born and bred to be devout, Heather based her life around her faith. She attended Brigham Young University, served a mission in France, and married into Mormon royalty in the temple. But her life as a good Mormon abruptly ended when she lost the marriage and faith that she had once believed would last forever.With writing that is beautiful, sad, funny, and true, Heather recounts the difficult discovery of the darkness and damage that often exists behind a picture-perfect life, while examining the nuanced relationship between duty to self and duty to God. “An eye-opening firsthand account of religious indoctrination told with candor and sincerity” (Interview magazine), Bad Mormon is an unfiltered look at the religion that broke her heart.

Genre, nouvelle division internationale du travail et migrations

Biographies & Memoirs

Le nouvel ordre économique néolibéral modifie la division internationale du travail, ce qui entraîne un accroissement des populations migrantes de travailleurs et de travailleuses. Actuellement, une personne sur dix dans les régions développées est migrante, et les femmes représentent la moitié de ce nombre. Longtemps, pourtant, la figure du migrant a été représentée comme masculine, en raison des représentations stéréotypées ou erronées du rôle et de la place des femmes et des hommes dans les sociétés, et les recherches ou programmes relatifs aux migrants ont ignoré la composante féminine des migrations. Or, les femmes migrent bien, elles aussi. Une grande partie des femmes migrantes – même qualifiées – travaillent dans le secteur des soins ou des emplois domestiques. Le transfert international des soins et de l’attention aux autres (care) – sorte de nouvelle matière première extraite des pays du Sud pour être consommée dans les pays riches – est un nouvel échange inégal. Les espaces où se réalise le travail des migrantes restent souvent invisibles, lieus de peu de droits. Si les discriminations et les abus sont à dénoncer, l’image de victime accolée aux migrantes et cependant loin de convenir. La trajectoire migratoire demande pugnacité et courage. Et nous pouvons nous demander s’il ne s’agit pas du départ des personnes les plus combatives de la société... Les identités se transforment dans l’expérience de la migration : comme le dit l’une d’elles, « je ne suis plus celle que j’ai laissée derrière moi ». Des réseaux transnationaux se construisent, accompagnés d’une circulation d’idées, de nouvelles représentations, de projets, de flux financiers. En 2002, les revenus du travail des migrants atteignaient 73 milliards de dollars, un montant plus élevé que celui de l’aide internationale au développement. Un nouvel ordre colonial s’instaure avec la nouvelle division internationale du travail. Mais les migrations des femmes et des hommes à travers les pratiques sociales nouvelles, les transformations des identités, les renégociations des rapports de genre et la constitution de réseaux transnationaux, contribuent peut-être aussi à la recherche d’alternatives pour toutes et pour tous.

The Letters of Martin Buber

Biographies & Memoirs

Edited by Profesor Nahum N. Glatzer and Paul Mendes-Flohr“No matter how brilliant it may be, the human intellect that wishes to keep to a plane above the events of the day is not really alive,” wrote Martin Buber in 1932. The correspondence of Martin Buber reveals a personality passionately involved in all the cultural and political events of his day. Drawn from the three-volume German edition of his correspondence, this collection includes letters both to and from the leading personalities of his day—Albert Einstein and Albert Schweitzer, Hemann Hesse, Franz Kafka, and Stefan Zweig, Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, S.Y. Agnon, Gershom Scholem, and Franz Rosenzweig. These exchanges capture the dynamics of seven decades of lived history, reflected through the eyes of a man who was the conscience of his generation. One of the leading spiritual thinkers of the twentieth century, Buber is best known for his work of religious existentialism, I and Thou. A prime mover in the German-Jewish renaissance of the 1920s, he taught comparative religion and Jewish ethics at the University of Frankfurt. Fleeing the Nazis in 1938, Buber made his home in Jerusalem, where he taught social philosophy at the Hebrew University. As resident sage of Jerusalem, he developed an international reputation and following, and carried on a vigorous correspondence on social, political, and religious issues until the end of his life. Included in this collection are Buber’s exchanges with many Americans in the latter part of his life: Will Herberg, Walter Kaufmann, Maurice Friedman, Malcolm Diamond, and other individuals who sought his advice and guidance. In the voices of these letters, a full-blooded portrait emerges of a towering intellect ever striving to live up to philosophy of social engagement.

Pożegnanie z Marią i inne opowiadania

Biographies & Memoirs

Jedno z najwybitniejszych dzieł powojennej prozy, będące źródłem głębokiej refleksji nad największą tragedią ludzkiej historii: obozami śmierci. Borowski ukazał w opowiadaniach nie tylko sam system niszczenia ludzi, ale również jego skutki dla psychiki i wartości etycznych człowieka: wytwarzanie się w człowieku mechanizmów przystosowawczych, swoistej filozofii przetrwania, zacierającej granice między katem a ofiarą.Niniejszy zbiór zawiera najsłynniejsze opowiadania autora, m.in. Dzień na Harmenzach, Pożegnanie z Marią, Proszę państwa do gazu, U nas w Auschwitzu.

Me and Paul

Biographies & Memoirs

Discover the untold stories and unbreakable bond between country music icon Willie Nelson and his longtime drummer, Paul English.Immortalized in Willie Nelson’s road song "Me and Paul," Paul English was the towering figure who for 70 years acted as Willie’s drummer, bodyguard, accountant, partner in crime, and right-hand man.Together, the two men roamed the country by:putting on shows, getting into a few scrapes,raising money for good causes,and bringing the joy of their music to fans worldwide.Stories of Willie and Paul’s misadventures became legendary, but many have gone untold--until now.Set against the backdrop of the exploding Americana music scene and told in Willie’s inimitable, colorful style, Me and Paul follows the two performers through their decades-long careers.

Brathwaite

Biographies & Memoirs

« L’élève Normand Brathwaite n’a aucune chance dans le métier. » C’est du moins la mention inscrite au dossier du finissant en théâtre du Cégep Lionel-Groulx, en 1978. La suite de l’histoire est éloquente… Trente ans de carrière plus tard, le petit gars de la rue Saint-André, à Montréal, brille au firmament du star-system québécois. Acteur, improvisateur, comédien, humoriste, animateur et musicien, Normand Brathwaite a incontestablement marqué notre histoire télévisuelle et radiophonique. On est bien loin du nègre de service… Dans cette biographie, la journaliste Isabelle Massé livre tout un pan de notre patrimoine artistique à travers les souvenirs et les anecdotes de Normand lui-même, mais aussi des nombreuses personnes qui l’ont côtoyé au fil des années, de Chez Denise au Match des étoiles, de CKOI aux Gémeaux, de Beau et chaud à Juste pour rire, de Pied de Poule à Piment fort. Mais qu’en est-il de l’individu derrière l’homme-orchestre ? Contre toute attente, on découvre un homme plutôt réservé et jaloux de son intimité, qui se livre ici sans pudeur dans un portrait d’une étonnante proximité.

Leader of the Banned

Biographies & Memoirs

"I fear this story will end soon..." Thus begins the final volume in Brian Keene's Hail Saten series, collecting non-fiction and essays that chronicle the horror genre's turbulent 2006 to 2008 period. As message boards gave way to social media, politics gave way to partisanship, and protest gave way to violence, LEADER OF THE BANNED offers an uncanny look at the world which would soon follow -- global recession, wars and rumors of wars, celebrity-driven news cycles, and great sweeping changes to how people would consume books and entertainment. Featuring fan-favorites such as "The Year of Scorched Earth", "Just Like Stephen King", Silver Bullets" and the controversial "If I Were President" (which landed Keene under investigation from the government), this fourth and final volume -- in paperback for the first time anywhere -- brings the Hail Saten series to an incendiary conclusion.

It Gets Better . . . Except When It Gets Worse

Biographies & Memoirs

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The irreverent and candid coming-of-age memoir of Nicole Maines, trailblazing trans actress, activist—and sometimes someone who’s just existing, which is actually pretty hard!Nicole Maines knows a little something about “happily ever after”—not just because she’s a self-professed expert in the Disney princess canon, but because she’s lived it. After coming out at an early age, her family had not only to educate themselves, but also those around them as they fought and won a landmark court case in the state of Maine before she graduated high school. She made it into college, got the guy, and finally had The Surgery™. She achieved her lifelong goal of becoming an actress when she landed a major role in the CW’s Supergirl, playing television’s very first live-action transgender superhero.Cue sappy music and sunsets, because we’ve got ourselves a happy ending, right?Ha! As if.For the first time, in her own words, Nicole tells the story of her journey from childhood in rural Maine to the spotlights of Hollywood, sharing the lessons she’s learned along the way. With clever wit and unflinching honesty, she tackles some of the most insidious messaging absorbed by queer kids and all young women, from the idea that any one thing can (or should) ever really “fix” you, to wondering what’s wrong with you when things don’t always feel better, and reminding us that, sometimes, a happy ending is only the beginning of the story.

Me acuerdo...

Biographies & Memoirs

Nacido en una familia judía, Boris Cyrulnik sufrió la muerte de sus padres en un campo de concentración nazi del que él logró huir cuando sólo tenía 6 años. Tras la guerra, deambuló por centros de acogida hasta acabar en una granja de la Beneficencia. Por suerte, unos vecinos le inculcaron el amor a la vida y a la literatura y pudo educarse y crecer superando su pasado.En este libro, Boris Cyrulnik evoca su infancia, su arresto, su fuga y sobre todo la desobediencia hacia los hombres y las ideas. En búsqueda de su pasado, el autor confronta sus recuerdos con la realidad de los lugares, con las palabras de las personas que estuvieron junto a él en aquellos momentos. Dejando atrás las simples circunstancias de una vida particular, el autor nos adentra en la exploración de los recuerdos más recónditos. Frente al horror, el espíritu se protege, nos protege de la locura."Esta confesión le permite regresar y reflexionar sobre la naturaleza de la memoria traumática, un reflejo que pondrá a trabajar en su trabajo para superar el trauma y la resistencia después del "choque"".–Philippe Brenot, Le monde

World Within a Song

Biographies & Memoirs

An exciting and heartening mix of memories, music, and inspiration from Wilco front man and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Tweedy, sharing fifty songs that changed his life, the real-life experiences behind each one, as well as what he’s learned about how music and life intertwine and enhance each other, What makes us fall in love with a song? What makes us want to write our own songs? Do songs help? Do songs help us live better lives? And do the lives we live help us write better songs? After two New York Times bestsellers that cemented and expanded his legacy as one of America’s best-loved performers and songwriters, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) and How to Write One Song, Jeff Tweedy is back with another disarming, beautiful, and inspirational book about why we listen to music, why we love songs, and how music can connect us to each other and to ourselves. Featuring fifty songs that have both changed Jeff’s life and influenced his music—including songs by the Replacements, Mavis Staples, the Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Dolly Parton, and Billie Eilish—as well as Jeff’s “Rememories,” dream-like short pieces that related key moments from Jeff’s life, this book is a mix of the musical, the emotional, and the inspirational in the best possible way.

If You Would Have Told Me

Biographies & Memoirs

New York Times Bestseller“...I love him, and I respect him, and I need him. We all do.”—from the foreword by Jamie Lee CurtisIf you would have told a young John Stamos flipping burgers at his dad’s fast-food joint that one day he’d be a household name and that, at the height of his success, he’d be living alone, divorced, with no kids, high on a cocktail of forgetting, he might’ve asked, “You want fries with that?” John burst onto the scene in General Hospital, propelling him into the teen idol stratosphere, a place that’s often a point of no return. But Stamos beat the odds and over the past four decades has proved himself to be one of his generation’s most successful and beloved actors. Whether showing off his comedic chops on Full House or his dramatic skills on ER, pushing the boundaries on Broadway or living out his youthful dreams as an honorary Beach Boy, John has surprised everyone, most of all himself.A universal story about friendship, love, loss, and the courage to embrace love once more, John Stamos’s memoir is filled with some of the most memorable names in Hollywood, both old and new. Funny, deeply poignant, and brutally honest, If You Would Have Told Me is a portrait of a boy who went from believing in Disney magic to a man who learns that we have to create our own magical moments in life.

Life in Jesus: A Memoir of Mary Winslow

Biographies & Memoirs

Mary Forbes Winslow (1774–1854) was the wife of a British Army officer and the mother of 13 children, including the Victorian Baptist and Anglican minister Octavius Winslow, a contemporary of Charles Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle. Mary Winslow's journals entries sparkle with a love for Christ and evidence a deep work of God in her own soul.

Courage

Biographies & Memoirs

This book is intended to be my autobiography, as I wanted to present the story that I have lived for the last 7 years. It has a lot of drama and emotions. Hi, I am Nikhil and I intend to take the reader through a journey of my life, my formative years, college and my corporate life, to provide an account of how scores of individuals and incidents have shaped me into what I am today. While I do explain courage and take it miles away from (or nearer to) the dictionary definition, I hope the reader acknowledges the efforts and the people that shaped me and my path. It is a story of courage that every innovator needs to traverse the potholes of despair by providing a method to the madness.

Jerusalem!

Biographies & Memoirs

‘Truly astonishing in its detail … this must be one of the most illuminating and enlightening biographies to date.’ Michael Eavis cbe, Founder of the Glastonbury Festival A brilliant new biography of the mystic poet and artist William Blake – and the first to explore his startlingly original quest for spiritual truth, as well as the profound lessons he has for us all today.The hymn ‘Jerusalem’, with its famous words by William Blake, stirs our hearts with its evocation of a new holy city built in ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. However, until now, the spiritual essence of William Blake has been buried under myriad inadequate biographies, college dissertations and arts commentaries, written by people who have missed the luminescent keys to Blake’s symbolism and liberating spirit. Any attempt to uncover the ‘real’ Blake is thwarted by his status as a legend or ‘national treasure’.In Jerusalem! Tobias Churton expertly takes you beyond this superficial façade, showing you Blake the esoteric genius – a myth-maker, brilliantly using symbols and theology to express his unique insights into the nature of body, mind and spirit. Churton is not only deeply knowledgeable about Blake’s life and times, but also uses his shared values with Blake to enter into his labyrinth of thought and feeling.Challenging the conventional views of Blake as either a ‘romantic poet’ or a rebel with ideas about free sex, Tobias Churton’s startling new biography reveals, at last, the real William Blake in all his glory, so that anyone who sings ‘Jerusalem’ in future will see its beauty with renewed understanding. With access to a large body of never-before-published records – letters, diaries, pamphlets and books – Tobias Churton casts unprecedented light and perspective on William Blake’s life and times.Blake’s writing – heartfelt, vivid and profound – accounts for his status as one of the best-loved poets writing in English. Americans need no reminding that Blake inspired Ralph Waldo Emerson and American visionary Walt Whitman. Yet he spent the larger part of his creative career being ridiculed and suppressed. In Jerusalem! Churton conjures a superb portrait of Blake’s London, and in particular the rivalries of the cultural community in which the poet-artist was often misunderstood. He argues that Blake believed Man does not ‘belong’ to society; rather,we are all members of the Divine Body, co-existent with God. He was concerned with a total spiritual revival – what had gone wrong with Man, and how to put it right.Blake’s message has proved to be as challenging to today’s readers as it was to his contemporaries. Blake perceived, so far ahead of his time, that the philosophy of materialism would dominate the world – a culture from which we now yearn to break free. Jerusalem! is unashamedly ambitious in its scope and objective. Churton ends once and for all the persistent notion of Blake as a startling peculiarity, whilst emancipating him from the labels of ‘Romantic poet’ or ‘national treasure’. Even if it means sacrificing some cherished illusions or uncovering a few painful surprises, this compelling biography reveals, for the first time, the true spirit of William Blake.

Geoffrey Tristram

Biographies & Memoirs

For nearly thirty years, Geoffrey Oliver Tristram (GOT) was the celebrated Organist and Master of the Choristers at Christchurch Priory. He set a high standard for both organ performance and choral direction still widely revered and celebrated. This book charts GOT’s life from his birth in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, in 1917 to his sudden death at the age of just 61. It looks at his career as student, teacher, choirmaster, accompanist and, especially, celebrated recitalist, at home and abroad. Drawing heavily on primary source material, including family archives and photographs, the book is complemented and underpinned by the memories and reminiscences of relations, friends, colleagues, peers, and others. It includes many contemporary reviews of his performances, right from his early days as a teenage Fellow of the Royal College of Organists until his last masterly recitals. Appendices give details about Tristram’s recitals, broadcasts, and recordings, alongside specifications of the instruments at Christchurch Priory. The book also provides access to a selection of previously unreleased recordings made in the 1960s and early 1970s. Geoffrey Tristram: A Very British Organist, paints a rich picture of the man (husband, father, friend) and the musician, a player who had a significant influence on generations of organists and singers.

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