Art Biography

He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter." Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented eighty percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today." Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts - including Scarface, Twentieth Century, and Notorious - Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and the most quick-witted of provocateurs. During World War II, he also emerged as an outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of Europe.

Across nearly nine eventful decades, Woody Allen’s life has been full of surprises. Writing jokes got him a gig as the youngest writer of Sid Caesar’s television dream team. As a rising comic, he boxed a kangaroo on TV. He made a blank-check deal with a major studio for terms unmatched in Hollywood apart from early titans like Chaplin and Welles. All before Annie Hall. Yet despite once being one of the most consequen­tial American cultural figures, Allen is now persona non grata.

In the best-selling tradition of Truman, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Herbert Donald offers a new classic in American history and biography - a masterly account of how one man's extraordinary political acumen steered the Union to victory in the Civil War, and of how his soaring rhetoric gave meaning to that agonizing struggle for nationhood and equality.

Part history, part true-crime, and entirely entertaining, listen to the story of how the behemoth Oxford English Dictionary was made. You'll hang on every word as you discover that the dictionary's greatest contributor was also an insane murderer working from the confines of an asylum.

If it can happen in show business, it’s happened to Jon Cryer. Now he’s opening up for the first time and sharing his behind-the-scenes stories in a warmly endearing, sharply observed, and frankly funny look at life in Hollywood. In 1986, Jon Cryer won over America as Molly Ringwald’s loyal and lovable best friend, Duckie, in the cult classic Pretty in Pink in a role that set the tone for his three-decade-long career in Hollywood. He went on to establish himself as one of the most talented comedic actors in the business.

As one of America's preeminent comedic voices, George Carlin saw it all throughout his extraordinary 50-year career and made fun of most of it. Last Words is the story of the man behind some of the most seminal comedy of the last half century, blending his signature acer-bic humor with never-before-told stories from his own life.

Music journalist Chris Payne experienced emo's mainstream takeover from sweaty crowds and mosh pits growing up in New Jersey. In Where Are Your Boys Tonight? he offers an authoritative, impassioned, and occasionally absurd account told through interviews with more than 150 people, from the scene's biggest bands, producers, and managers to the teenage fans who helped redefine American music culture.

Get a look into the mind of Cheech Marin - one half of the renowned Cheech and Chong comedic duo - and follow through the highs and lows of his personal and professional lives. An unborn baby with a fatal heart defect...a skier submerged for an hour in a frozen Norwegian lake...a comatose brain surgery patient whom doctors have declared a "vegetable". The long-awaited memoir from a counterculture legend. Cheech Marin came of age at an interesting time in America and became a self-made counterculture legend with his other half, Tommy Chong.

For decades, wrestling was shrouded in secrecy. It had larger-than-life personalities, bone-crunching physicality and jaw-dropping theatrics, but backstage, it was an industry devoid of outsiders. Then in 1999, after working together on a special for MTV, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson turned to 26-year-old television writer Brian Gewirtz and asked, “You ever consider writing for WWE?” That question, and its answer, would have a profound effect on both of their lives for years to come. There's Just One Problem is a story about perseverance, tenacity, and steel chairs.

Louis Vuitton a tout juste 14 ans lorsqu’il quitte son Jura natal. À Paris, il trouve à s’employer auprès du layetier-coffretier-emballeur le plus en vue du faubourg Saint-Honoré. D’une plume alerte, Caroline Bongrand retrace l’ascension de ce jeune audacieux, artisan virtuose et visionnaire. Lorsqu’Eugénie de Montijo devient impératrice des Français, elle garde auprès d’elle son emballeur préféré auquel la lie une amitié aussi vraie que durable.

The fullest, most textural, most accurate - most human - account of Oscar Wilde's unique and dazzling life - based on extensive new research and newly discovered materials, from Wilde's personal letters and transcripts of his first trial to newly uncovered papers of his early romantic (and dangerous) escapades and the two-year prison term that shattered his soul and his life.

From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.

From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly three thousand interviews, involving four hundred voices from the industry, Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a listener “listen in” on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera—Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd—to the biggest behind it—Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele, as well as the lesser known individuals that shaped what was heard and seen on screen.

In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction.

Every writer's origin story is different. In How I Became a Writer, Gloria Steinem charts her unlikely journey from restless teen in Toledo, Ohio, to professional magazine writer in Manhattan - with sage advice and "random directives" for getting started.

The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple best-selling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence - a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life.

From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.

By the acclaimed journalist and New York Times best-selling author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, this day-by-day eyewitness account of the momentous events leading up to World War II in Europe is the private, personal, utterly revealing journal of a great foreign correspondent.

Since 1984, Nicholas Kristof has worked almost continuously for The New York Times as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and now columnist, becoming one of the foremost reporters of his generation. Here, he recounts his event-filled path from a small-town farm in Oregon to every corner of the world. This is a candid memoir of vulnerability and courage, humility and purpose, mistakes and learning—a singular tale of the trials, tribulations, and hope to be found in a life dedicated to the pursuit of truth.

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era.