Art Biography

Nick has been fantastically involved throughout the production of this download, so that it has become something far more than simply an author reading his work. For once, we can genuinely say this audiobook comes complete with bells and whistles, not to mention some Arctic winds, Venetian canals, telephones, aeroplanes, and a squealing pig or two!

Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting - not as muses but as artists.

The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.

In this widely acclaimed memoir ("Riveting, moving...a wonderful book" The New York Times Book Review), Katharine Graham tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling.

On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

This is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan '80s - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations, and other subversives reenergized American rock with punk rock's do-it-yourself credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging, and immensely influential. This sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing, and faith has been recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right.

Goodwin describes the broken friendship between Teddy Roosevelt and his chosen successor, William Howard Taft. With the help of the "muckraking" press, Roosevelt had wielded the Bully Pulpit to challenge and triumph over abusive monopolies, political bosses, and corrupting money brokers. Roosevelt led a revolution that he bequeathed to Taft only to see it compromised as Taft surrendered to money men and big business. The rupture led Roosevelt to run against Taft for president, an ultimately futile race that gave power away to the Democrats.

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.

Beginning with the story of a simple burglary at Democratic headquarters and then continuing with headline after headline, Bernstein and Woodward kept the tale of conspiracy and the trail of dirty tricks coming - delivering the stunning revelations and pieces in the Watergate puzzle that brought about Nixon's scandalous downfall. Their explosive reports won a Pulitzer Prize for The Washington Post and toppled the president. This is the book that changed America.

He prepared therefore for the meditative journey that proves most excruciating in Limbo, a rounding through the past, a trip back! It is a venture full of perils. To meditate on TV might prove equal to writing a recollection of an enemy one has never met and cannot quite believe in. Indeed, how to conceive of an enemy who is without personal animosity? It was like writing a memoir of an oxymoron. Limbo set its tasks.

Who is Elmyr? Simply put, Elmyr de Hory is known by many as the most notorious art forger of all time. He believed that if a forgery hangs in a museum for long enough - as he claimed many of his works did - it eventually becomes real. Yet, as with many fraudsters, much of the myth is exaggeration or invention.

How to Make It in the New Music Business, since its first publication in 2016, has become the go-to resource for musicians eager to make a living in a turbulent industry. Widely adopted by ambitious individuals and music schools across the world and considered "the best how-to book of its kind" (Music Connection), this essential work has inspired tens of thousands of aspiring artists to stop waiting around for that "big break" and take matters into their own hands.

The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables explores L. M. Montgomery's deep connection to the landscapes of Prince Edward Island that inspired her to write the beloved Anne of Green Gables series. From the Lake of Shining Waters and the Haunted Wood to Lover's Lane, you'll be immersed in the real places immortalized in the novels. Using Montgomery's journals, archives, and scrapbooks, Catherine Reid also explores the many similarities between Montgomery and her unforgettable heroine, Anne Shirley.

As the world’s most popular UFC fighter, Georges "Rush" St-Pierre seems almost impossibly tough and dominant. But long before he was "GSP", as his millions of fans know him, he was just a kid harassed by bullies. But he was also a kid who, thanks to years of practicing martial arts, invented his own way of life. He became a black belt in karate at the age of 12. In his later teens, working as a garbage collector to finance his unique and innovative training methods, GSP learned from repeated losses and ultimately found a way to triumph in a highly competitive field.

Charlamagne Tha God - the self-proclaimed "Prince of Pissing People Off", co-host of Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club, and "hip-hop's Howard Stern" - shares his unlikely success story as well as how embracing one's truths is a fundamental key to success and happiness.

Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars. Zweig's passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the brink of extinction. It is an unusually humane account of Europe from the closing years of the 19th century through to World War II, seen through the eyes of one of the most famous writers of his era.

DisneyWar is an enthralling tale of one of America's most powerful media and entertainment companies, the people who control it, and those trying to overthrow them. It tells a story that - in its sudden twists, vivid, larger-than-life characters, and thrilling climax - might itself have been the subject of a Disney classic - except that it's all true.

Peter Wolf grew up in the Bronx, a child of “fellow travelers” whose artistic inclinations influenced both his love of music and his initial desire to become a painter. Stories of his loving and sometimes eccentric parents complement scenes depicting a very young Bob Dylan as he arrived on the Greenwich Village folk scene. Reflections on Wolf’s studies in Boston—where he shared an apartment with David Lynch—are braided with accounts of first love, an untraditional literary education, and early musical influences such as Muddy Waters.

Le récit de sa propre vie est peut-être le plus beau texte qu'ait jamais écrit Gabrielle Roy (1909-1983). Vibrant, lumineux et émouvant, il porte l'empreinte de cette grande écrivaine à la personnalité forte, attachante, sensible, pleine de vitalité. L'auteure de Bonheur d'occasion y retrace ce qu'on pourrait appeler ses années de formation: sa jeunesse dans la petite communauté francophone de Saint-Boniface au Manitoba, son métier d'institutrice, ses longs séjours en Europe, puis son établissement à Montréal.

What Remains begins with loss and returns to loss. A small plane plunges into the ocean, carrying John Kennedy, Anthony's cousin, and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, Carole's closest friend. Three weeks later Anthony dies of cancer. The summer of the plane crash, the four friends were meant to be cherishing Anthony's last days. Instead, Carole and Anthony mourned John and Carolyn, even as Carole planned her husband's memorial.