Biographies & Memoirs - Books

El ladrón de orquídeas

Biographies & Memoirs

La fascinación por las orquídeas viene de muy lejos. En la Inglaterra victoriana, llamaron «orquidelirio» a la locura por estas flores, una pasión equivalente a la «fiebre del oro». Los ricos coleccionistas de la época enviaban expediciones armadas a explorar territorios ignotos en busca de nuevos ejemplares, y la rivalidad entre ellas era tan feroz que terminaba en violentas batallas.La fascinación por las orquídeas viene de muy lejos. En la Inglaterra victoriana, llamaron «orquidelirio» a la locura por estas flores, una pasión equivalente a la «fiebre del oro». Los ricos coleccionistas de la época enviaban expediciones armadas a explorar territorios ignotos en busca de nuevos ejemplares, y la rivalidad entre ellas era tan feroz que terminaba en violentas batallas.En esta hipnótica historia real sobre la obsesión y la belleza, el bucanero a la caza, el ladrón de orquídeas de nuestros días, es John Laroche, un sujeto al borde de la legalidad, que está acusado, junto con tres indios seminolas, de robar especies protegidas en los pantanos de la reserva india de Fakahatchee (Florida).Pero este libro es mucho más que la historia de Laroche y sus hazañas. Su autora se ha sumergido en un mundo pantanoso, lleno de personajes ambiguos y complejos. Quizá porque la orquídea es también la más enigmática de las flores: es considerada el símbolo de las mujeres fatales, de la feminidad, pero su nombre viene del griego «orchid», «testículos»...

Susie

Biographies & Memoirs

«Esta es, sin duda, la descripción más detallada, históricamente precisa y concluyente de la vida de mi tatarabuela Susie. Este libro te animará a vivir la vida mirando a Cristo en espera de que Él te supla y sea todo lo que necesitas mientras tú buscas servirlo para Su gloria».Susannah Spurgeon Cochrane,tataranieta de Charles y Susannah Spurgeon.La mayoría de nosotros conoce el nombre de Charles Spurgeon, el predicador más famoso de Londres, pero pocos conocen el nombre (o historia) de su esposa, Susie. Sin embargo, ella merece ser conocida. En esta biografía definitiva, Ray Rhodes nos presenta a esta extraordinaria mujer. Fue amada en su época, pero ahora, gracias a su notable trabajo, Susie será amada por toda una nueva generación de cristianos.

Bob Marley: Visual Music

Biographies & Memoirs

As a young photography student in 1980, David 'Jamaica' Brooks struck gold and was personally invited to tour the US with Bob Marley and the Wailers. Marley had to cut the tour short, due to illness, and, tragically, the performances were his last. This is the amazing story of how a student found himself on tour with Bob Marley and the Wailers and the memorable road trip, alongside David Brooks' iconic backstage photographs of the reggae star's final gigs.

Erasmus of Rotterdam

Biographies & Memoirs

This Plunkett Lake Press eBook is produced by arrangement with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Hailed as a parable for modern times, Erasmus of Rotterdam is the biography of a great humanist who, when pressed for a confession of faith, said, “I love freedom, and I will not and cannot serve any party.” At no time does Zweig mention Hitler by name, but it is obvious that his biography of a man who tried to remain above the battle, and who was torn to pieces by both Lutherans and Catholics, was aimed to illustrate the predicament of a man who refrains from activism and prefers to focus on his work. Erasmus believed in a united Europe, and thought that Luther was splitting it in two. He first tried to reconcile the Pope to Luther’s Wittenberg theses, then to bring the German Protestants together with the representatives of Rome. Zweig portrays a steadfast Erasmus, unwilling to let emotion betray the lucidity of his thought, who knew he was the most famous intellect of his age, and evaded any commitment that would bring a host of enemies down upon his head. In Erasmus, Zweig may have seen parts of himself. (adapted from “Book of the Times” by John Chamberlain, The New York Times, November 2, 1934) “Under Zweig’s magic pen Erasmus leaps into vital existence... The books is a quietly astounding bit of biographical and historical achievement.” — Percy Hutchison, The New York Times

La mia storia ti appartiene

Biographies & Memoirs

Una testimonianza delle condizioni sia sociali sia pratiche nelle quali le persone con disabilità vivono.Racconti forti, drammatici, umani, ma anche gioiosi ed appassionati, che spiegano le ragioni di quello che potrebbe essere definito un piccolo Stato europeo se si sommassero tutte le persone con disabilità. E così, come esistono i diritti dei popoli, il popolo dei disabili parla di sé e così facendo parla di tutti i sistemi sociali, dai quali però le persone con disabilità sono escluse.Un popolo che condivide i valori che le società creano senza poterne, però, godere dei diritti.Sono solo 50 questi racconti ma sembrano tantissimi perché chi ha avuto il coraggio, la forza e la voglia di raccontare di sé lo ha fatto superando la difficile barriera “architettonica” della comunicazione, permettendo a tutti di poter leggere queste storie di una umanità condivisa.Con cura e partecipazione, Silvia Cutrera e Vittorio Pavoncello ne hanno fatto un libro il cui merito principale è, come per la vita, quello di esistere.

Vierzig werden à la parisienne

Biographies & Memoirs

Wie fühlt es sich an, über vierzig zu sein? Was haben wir gelernt, wenn wir so alt sind? Sind wir jetzt endgültig erwachsen? Und warum hat uns niemand davor gewarnt, dass man auch an den Armen Cellulitis haben kann? In einer Mischung aus humorvoller Autobiografie und klugen Alltagsbetrachtungen widmet sich Pamela Druckerman dem entspannten Älterwerden. Die Autorin des internationalen Bestsellers »Warum französische Kinder keine Nervensägen sind« erforscht das Leben in den Vierzigern und fragt sich, ob ihr Kopf je mit ihrem Gesicht mithalten wird.

Early Kings of Norway

Biographies & Memoirs

The Icelanders, in their long winter, had a great habit of writing; and were, and still are, excellent in penmanship. It is to this fact, that any little history there is of the Norse Kings and their old tragedies, crimes and heroisms, is almost all due. The Icelanders, it seems, not only made beautiful letters on their paper or parchment, but were laudably observant and desirous of accuracy; and have left us such a collection of narratives (Sagas, literally "Says") as, for quantity and quality, is unexampled among rude nations. Snorro Sturleson's History of the Norse Kings is built out of these old Sagas

The Great Shark Hunt

Biographies & Memoirs

The first volume in Hunter S. Thompson’s bestselling Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in his signature style.Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling “Gonzo Papers” is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, Carter to cocaine. These essays offer brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, in signature Thompson style.Ranging in date from the National Observer days to the era of Rolling Stone, The Great Shark Hunt offers myriad, highly charged entries, including the first Hunter S. Thompson piece to be dubbed “gonzo”—“The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” which appeared in Scanlan's Monthly in 1970. From this essay, a new journalistic movement sprang which would change the shape of American letters. Thompson's razor-sharp insight and crystal clarity capture the crazy, hypocritical, degenerate, and redeeming aspects of the explosive and colorful ‘60s and ‘70s.

Action by Night

Biographies & Memoirs

ACTION SPEAKS LOUDER... "Maybe I didn't make myself plain to you," Tracy Coleman said slowly. He flung the table aside and sent it crashing to the floor. George Pairvent rose and kicked away the chair; his hand went to his gun. Coleman came at him. He twisted Pairvent's arm, pinning it back until he yelled and the gun dropped. Coleman knocked it aside with his foot, and dealt Pairvent a blow that sent him reeling against the bunks. He stepped back. "Have I made myself plain this time?" HORSEHEAD RANCH It was a lush valley surrounded by mountains. And now it had been placed in the hands of Tracy Coleman, by an old man preparing to die. But others denied his claim, declaring Horsehead free range Cattle rustlers were in command when Tracy tried to take over, with fists and bullets matched in the deadly struggle for control. ERNEST HAYCOX, called "the supreme Western writer of all time" has masterfully recreated in this powerful novel the hair-trigger days of the Old West, as one man fights for justice and right. The famed Western novelist was the author of over forty books which have sold millions of copies in paperback, with many turned into highly popular films and adapted for TV.

L'idiota della famiglia

Biographies & Memoirs

Jean-Paul Sartre manifestò fin da bambino la sua ossessione per Gustave Flaubert imparando a memoria le pagine finali di Madame Bovary. La sua ammirazione divenne astio quando, ormai adulto, riconobbe nel romanziere di Salammbô un esteta borghese, connivente con la classe cui apparteneva e che pure disprezzava. Volle vedere in Flaubert un avversario, il suo opposto intellettuale e politico; quell’opposto che, come è noto, tanto somiglia all’immagine restituita dallo specchio. Forse per questo Sartre accettò di inseguire l’ombra dell’altro scrittore in una magistrale biografia, di trattare il proprio contrario con l’empatia necessaria a comporre un ritratto che fosse anche un riflesso traviato di sé.Chi era dunque Gustave Flaubert? L’idiota della famiglia, un bambino preda di lunghi stati d’assenza stuporosa, lo sguardo perso a inseguire miraggi? Oppure, per chi lo conobbe adolescente, l’istrionico attore mancato, il guitto maldestro gravato dalla dannazione di suscitare il riso? O forse l’incurabile nevrotico dell’epistolario, che accarezzava con la mente la corolla di tenebre delle sue malinconie, senza mai lasciarne sfiorire i petali? E come ha potuto divenire un genio quel bambino che i genitori e il fratello avevano destinato a una vita da ebete?Libro eretico e inclassificabile, ridefinizione dell’etica sartriana della libertà, cruciale incontro tra due giganti della letteratura francese, L’idiota della famiglia – cui si aggiunge oggi la penetrante prefazione di Massimo Recalcati – è un viaggio nel dedalo della psiche flaubertiana, nell’arte come via di fuga e rieducazione sentimentale, nell’anomalia claustrofobica della scrittura; ed è insieme un tentativo di chiarire in che modo la storia, la società, il contesto familiare – in una parola, l’Altro – diano forma alla vacillante sintesi di un individuo. Al fondo di tutto, un’unica, enorme domanda: che cosa si può sapere davvero di un uomo?

Churchill

Biographies & Memoirs

Dai difficili inizi della carriera politica agli anni della Seconda guerra mondiale e oltre, la vita politica e privata dell'uomo che ha portato l'Inghilterra alla vittoria contro il nazismo. La straordinaria avventura di un instancabile uomo d'azione narrata da un celebre storico.

Les souvenirs viennent à ma rencontre

Biographies & Memoirs

Ces souvenirs ne sont pas venus selon un ordre chronologique comme le sont habituellement les Mémoires. Ils sont venus à ma rencontre selon l’inspiration, les circonstances. S’interpellant les uns les autres, certains en ont fait émerger d’autres de l’oubli.Ils témoignent que j’ai pu admirer inconditionnellement des hommes ou femmes qui furent à la fois mes héros et mes amis.Ils témoignent des dérives et des dégradations, mais aussi des grandeurs et des noblesses que les violents remous de l’Histoire ont entraînées chez tant de proches.Ils témoignent des illuminations qui m’ont révélé mes vérités ; de mes émotions, de mes ferveurs, de mes douleurs, de mes bonheurs.Ils témoignent que je suis devenu tout ce que j’ai rencontré.Ils témoignent que le fils unique, orphelin de mère que j’étais, a trouvé dans sa vie des frères et des sœurs.Ils témoignent de mes résistances : sous l’Occupation, puis au cours des guerres d’Algérie, de Yougoslavie, du Moyen-Orient, et contre la montée de deux barbaries, l’une venue du fond des âges, de la haine, du mépris, du fanatisme, l’autre froide, voire glacée, du calcul et du profit, toutes deux désormais sans freins.Ces souvenirs témoignent enfin d’une extrême diversité de curiosités et d’intérêts, mais aussi d’une obsession essentielle, celle qu’exprimait Kant et qui n’a cessé de m’animer : Que puis-je savoir ? Que puis-je croire ? Que puis-je espérer ? Inséparable de la triple question : qu’est-ce que l’homme, la vie, l’univers ?Cette interrogation, je me suis donné le droit de la poursuivre toute ma vie. Edgar Morin Né en 1921, ancien résistant, sociologue et philosophe, penseur transdisciplinaire et indiscipliné, Edgar Morin a conçu la « pensée complexe » dans son œuvre maîtresse, La Méthode. Il est l’un des derniers intellectuels à avoir observé et vécu une grande partie du XXe siècle et les premières décennies du XXIe. Il est docteur honoris causa de trente-quatre universités à travers le monde.

Let My People Go

Biographies & Memoirs

Next to the Holy Scriptures the greatest aid to the life of faith may be Christian biography. It is indeed notable that a large part of the Bible itself is given over to the life and labors of prophets, patriarchs and kings—who they were, what they did and said, how they prayed and toiled and suffered and how they triumphed at last. Sometimes this is given in brief outline—a quick candid shot and no more—but often there is much fullness of detail covering page after page of the Sacred Word.These favored ones whose names appear on the roll of the spiritually great have been adopted by succeeding generations of pilgrims as guides and teachers in the holy way. We have all felt their presence. We have stood with Abraham as he shielded his eyes and peered down the centuries to see by faith the fulfillment of the promise. We have sat with David under the pale light of the stars as, accompanied by his homemade lyre, he tried out some verses that were later to become immortal. Who among us has not been made wiser and better by knowing Elijah or Daniel or Paul? And who has not thanked God that their story was written down for us to read?

Amos Walker

Biographies & Memoirs

The four-time Shamus Award–winning author takes his readers behind-the-scenes of his long running detective series. In 1980, readers first encountered hard-boiled private detective Amos Walker as he searches for an ex-mobster’s missing daughter in Motor City Blue. Many mysteries and decades later, the investigator is still scuffling with bad guys on the streets of Detroit. But when and where did award-winning author Loren D. Estleman conceive the idea of Walker and his adventures? In this essay, Estleman tells the story of how Walker and his world transpired. From the 1975 film that inspired the character to Walker’s weapons and cars, Estleman offers fans a look into his process of fleshing out Walker as a complex character with friends and enemies. Learn how television influenced him as a writer and how he chose Walker’s name, hometown, and background. Fans looking to get to know their favorite tough-guy detective better won’t want to miss this . . . Praise for Loren D. Estleman and the Amos Walker series “A touchstone for fans of hard-boiled crime fiction: irrepressible tough-guy dialogue, great plotting, a vibrant Detroit milieu, and a hero who has whiskey on his breath and nicotine stains on his fingers.” —Booklist “For readers who can’t get enough of Elmore Leonard and Ross Thomas, try Estleman. He’s that good.” —People “Estleman’s latest intricate and wholly enjoyable yarn is peppered with mob lore, Detroit history, and the ever-present one-liners. It’s sure to please fans of urban mysteries as well as classic detective genre devotees. Strongly recommended.” ―Library Journal “Amos Walker, the throwback private eye who operates out of Detroit in Loren D. Estleman’s hard-boiled mysteries, is a lot like the old Cutlass he drives. The guy may look beat up, but under the hood he's a clean machine.” ―The New York Times Book Review

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Biographies & Memoirs

Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, written under the pseudonym Linda Brent, details her experiences as a slave in North Carolina, her escape to freedom in the north, and her ensuing struggles to free her children. The narrative was partly serialized in the New York Tribune, but was discontinued because Jacobs’ depictions of the sexual abuse of female slaves were considered too shocking. It was published in book form in 1861.

Alder Gulch

Biographies & Memoirs

BLAZIN' JUSTICE Virginia City, Montana. Gold fever struck hard in 1863, with miners pannin' for nuggets up and down the length of nearby Alder Gulch. But a gang of guntoughs was ridin' them roughshod. With the law lookin' the other way, the sidewinders dealt out hot lead for a man shippin' his poke or even carryin' gold dust for his grubstake. Jeff Pierce had been on the hard dodge since Portland, until he staked his claim at Alder Gulch. As a favor, he carried another miner's poke through the forty miles of danger to Bannack, only to find that the scummy gunhawks had filled the old-timer with buckshot. Now the varmints had Pierce as a marked man. The gang was fixin' for a showdown, but they'd be a mite less cocky if they knew the charge he was up for—murder! "Ernest Haycox is a master and ALDER GULCH is one of his best."—Dallas Times Herald

A Short Life of Marie Antoinette

Biographies & Memoirs

“Let them eat cake!” Did she really say it? After a two-day trial begun on 14 October 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason, and she was executed by guillotine on Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793. Long after her death, she remains a major historical figure, the subject of books, films and other forms of media. Politically engaged authors have deemed her the quintessential representative of class conflict, western aristocracy and absolutism. Some of her contemporaries, such as Jefferson, attributed to her the start of the French Revolution. For others, Marie Antoinette was a victim of her family ambition and the general situation in France. However, even her critics have recognized her qualities as a mother and her courage in dying. In A Short Life of Marie Antoinette historian John Abbott takes the reader from Antoinette’s marriage in mere girlhood to the royal stage and her ultimate role as a central figure in European history. Digital edition includes Marie Antoinette image gallery.

Cleopatra

Biographies & Memoirs

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and -- after his murder -- three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Biographies & Memoirs

Napoleon, finding his proffers of peace rejected by England with contumely and scorn, and declined by Austria, now prepared, with his wonted energy, to repel the assaults of the allies. As he sat in his cabinet at the Tuileries, the thunders of their unrelenting onset came rolling in upon his ear from all the frontiers of France. The hostile fleets of England swept the channel, utterly annihilating the commerce of the Republic, landing regiments of armed emigrants upon her coast, furnishing money and munitions of war to rouse the partisans of the Bourbons to civil conflict, and throwing balls and shells into every unprotected town. On the northern frontier, Marshal Kray, came thundering down, through the black Forest, to the banks of the Rhine, with a mighty host of 150,000 men, like locust legions, to pour into all the northern provinces of France. Artillery of the heaviest calibre and a magnificent array of cavalry accompanied this apparently invincible army. In Italy, Melas, another Austrian marshal, with 140,000 men, aided by the whole force of the British navy, was rushing upon the eastern and southern borders of the Republic. The French troops, disheartened by defeat, had fled before their foes over the Alps, or were eating their horses and their boots in the cities where they were besieged. From almost every promontory on the coast of the Republic, washed by the Channel, or the Mediterranean, the eye could discern English frigates, black and threatening, holding all France in a state of blockade.

Happening

Biographies & Memoirs

WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE"Happening recounts what it was like to be a young woman whose life changed — and world ominously narrowed — in 1963 with an unwanted pregnancy. . . . It feels urgently of the moment."--The New York TimesIn 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep that child.This is the story, written forty years later, of a trauma Ernaux never overcame. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist, and ends up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly dies.In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days. Clearly, cleanly, she gleans the meanings of her experience.Now an award-winning film by Audrey DiwanWinner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film FestivalOfficial Selection of the Sundance Film Festival

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