Art Biography

With seven unpublished novels wasting away on his hard drive, Tony Vanderwarker is astonished when John Grisham offers to take him under his wing and teach him the secrets of thriller writing. The beginning and the end are easy,” Grisham tells him. It’s the three hundred pages in the middle that’s the hard part.” To ensure his plot doesn’t run out of gas, Grisham puts Tony though his outline process. Tony does one, and then Grisham asks for another and another and another.

From the king of “Gonzo” journalism and bestselling author who brought you Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas comes another astonishing volume of letters by Hunter S. Thompson.

In 81 brief chapters, Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao—the basic principle of the...

In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six of America's finest writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. All six of these men were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast.

The Dutch people are some of the happiest in the world. Their secret? They are masters of niksen, or the art of doing nothing. Niksen is not a form of meditation, nor is it a state of laziness or boredom. It’s not scrolling through social media, or wondering what you’re going to cook for...

​Diane von Furstenberg, entrepreneur and philanthropist, presents her words to live by. In an easy-to-navigate A-Z dictionary format, designed to be browsed or listened to as a whole, Own It offers listeners Diane’s well-earned wisdom for enjoying both personal and professional growth at any age.

See Through is a bold, emotionally honest memoir about what it really takes to heal—not just privately, but publicly. Stephanie M. Hutchins, PhD, spent decades performing strength for the world while silently drowning in the aftermath of trauma, misdiagnosis, and chronic invisibility. This book is the result of her decision to stop hiding.

Outsider. Misfit. Criminal. Convict. . . . Movie star. Family man. Comedy legend. Joey Diaz has been called every name in the book (and then some). Now, for the first time, he shares the story of his unlikely rise to fame in his own words—with no punches pulled.

Sara Daniel, a star European correspondent and one of the few women reporters covering Iraq, dares to venture where few have gone, in this gripping and fascinating memoir. In June of 2002, war looms and Saddam Hussein still has a brutal grip on a nation in disarray. Sara Daniel travels the length and breadth of Iraq, following the fast-evolving events and interviewing people from all walks of life and all religious and political affiliations: from the Kurds in the north to the rising new politicians in Baghdad and beyond....

Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.

How do you turn ranting about hockey into a career? Steve “Dangle” Glynn is a YouTuber, podcaster, and sports personality from Toronto who managed to turn a 16-second online rant about the Maple Leafs into a career in sports media. From video blogging in his parents’ house at 19 to yelling on televisions across Canada at 28, Dangle has been involved with some of the most important sports companies in the country.

Salvador Dalí, Jerome Robbins, Jackie Onassis. Gregory Peck, Mick Jagger, S. J. Perelman, I. M. Pei. Philip Johnson, Josephine Baker, John Lennon: They, and so many more who made New York City the center of the universe in the 1970s, all had one thing in common besides their adopted hometown - they shopped at a legendary palace of books, music, and art: Rizzoli Books at 712 Fifth Avenue. There, Kennedys and Rockefellers mingled with tourists and "regular" customers under the watchful gaze of sophisticated employees.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A radiant new memoir from artist and writer Patti Smith, author of the National Book Award winner Just Kids A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: TIME, NPR, THE NEW YORKER “God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper,” writes Patti Smith in this moving account of her life...

Six-time Emmy Award-winning funnyman Tim Conway, best known for his characters on The Carol Burnett Show, offers a straight-shooting and hilarious memoir about his life on stage and off as an actor and comedian. In television history, few entertainers have captured as many hearts and made as many people laugh as Tim Conway. There's nothing in the world that Tim Conway would rather do than entertain - and in his first-ever memoir, What's So Funny?, that's exactly what he does.

There are many miles from the business school and basketball court at the University of Southern California to 50 million viewers for the final episode of a TV show called Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck has lived every one of those miles in his own iconoclastic and joyful way. Frank, funny and...

A Recorded Books Audio Original production of songs and stories performed by Dolly herself, Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics goes beyond the glitz, glamour, and rhinestones to the warmth, heart, and soul of a treasured pop-culture icon.

The shocking, never-before-told story of the bizarre world inside the legendary Playboy Mansion—and, finally, the secret truth about the man who holds the key—from one of the few people who truly knows: Hef’s former #1 girlfriend and star of The Girls Next Door A spontaneous decision at...

The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history and “should be included in every history lesson”...

From breakout stand-up comedian Iliza Shlesinger comes a subversively funny collection of essays and observations on a confident woman's approach to friendship, singlehood, and relationships. "Girl Logic" is Iliza's term for the way women obsess over details and situations that men don't necessarily even notice. She describes it as a characteristically female way of thinking that appears to be contradictory and circuitous but is actually a complicated and highly evolved way of looking at the world.

This is Annie Ernaux’s account of her passionate love affair with A., a man some thirty years younger, when she was in her fifties. The relationship pulls her back to memories of her own youth and, at the same time, leaves her feeling ageless, outside of time—together with a sense that she is living her life backwards. Amidst talk of having a child together, she feels time running its course and menopause approaching. The Young Man recalls Ernaux as the “scandalous girl” she once was but is composed with the mastery and the self-assurance she has achieved across decades of writing.