Art Biography

Gordy Racette, renowned Canadian professional boxer, kickboxer, and martial arts champion, delves into the hard-won wisdom of his years of competing to be the best, while overcoming challenges that would leave most people out of the game for good. Born with grit and tenacity, Gordy grew up in a small town with only TV and movie heroes inspiring him to reach peak performance. Leaving home at fifteen, he developed a fierce independence, determined to become champion. However, after a severe accident, the doctors said what he wished to achieve was impossible.

From two-time Academy Award winner and screen icon Geena Davis, the surprising tale of her “journey to badassery”—from her epically polite childhood to roles that loaned her the strength to become a powerhouse in Hollywood. At three years old, Geena Davis announced she was going to be in...

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.

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Lucy Worsley's biography is not just of a massively, internationally successful writer. It's also the story of a person who, despite the obstacles of class and gender, became an astonishingly successful working woman. With access to rarely seen personal letters and papers, Lucy Worsley's biography is both authoritative and entertaining and makes us realize what an extraordinary pioneer Agatha Christie was—truly a woman who wrote the twentieth century.

Yeats is widely regarded as one of the most important English-language writers of the 20th century. A hero of the pen rather than the sword. A Nobel Prize winner for Literature and a two-term senator of the Irish Free State, Yeats lived a full, active life that combined poetry and politics.

In A Grand Theory of Everything, McGirk takes us from the winding backstreets of New Delhi to his cramped apartment in New York City, and then on to his eventual relocation with his wife to the empty plains of Oklahoma. And, most importantly, he takes us inside his own head, where his weird theories take shape to help him understand his alienation from his family, his struggles to find a career, his wife's failing health, and all of life's hardships.

Shout It Out Loud is a serious examination of the circumstance and serendipity that fused the creation of the band's seminal work, Destroyer - including the band's arduous ascent to the unexpected smash hit Alive!, the ensuing lawsuits between its management and its label, the pursuit of the hot, young producer, a grueling musical "boot camp", the wildly creative studio abandon, the origins behind an iconic cover, the era's most outlandish tour, and the unlikely string of hit singles.

Just what was it about the Grateful Dead that made them rock and roll's most beloved band? In Deadheads, those with the real story, who were there and are still listening to the music, explain it all. Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow talks about his lifelong friendship with Dead guitarist Bob Weir. Cajun chef Rick Begneaud shares his memories of feeding the Dead. John Popper of Blues Traveler recalls playing with the Dead at Bill Graham's memorial tribute .

New York Times Notable Book “A smart, crackling chronicle of fast game, the ’80s art market, [and] the attraction of destruction.”— Village Voice A bold and vivid biography that chronicles the dazzling rise and tragic death of Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In less than...

Primorosa biografia de uma das personalidades mais contraditórias da literatura brasileira. Escrito no estilo cinematográfico de Lira Neto e amparado em farto acervo documental, este livro apresenta Oswald de Andrade em sua verve sarcástica, lírica e demolidora. Neste mergulho radical na trajetória de Oswald de Andrade, Lira Neto explora as muitas contradições da personalidade do polêmico biografado: blasfemo e temente a Deus, burguês e comunista, apaixonado e adúltero.

" Je rêvais d'être ma propre cause et ma propre fin ; je pensais à présent que la littérature me permettrait de réaliser ce vœu. Elle m'assurerait une immortalité qui compenserait l'éternité perdue ; il n'y avait plus de Dieu pour m'aimer, mais je brûlerais dans des millions de cœurs. En écrivant une œuvre nourrie de mon histoire, je me créerais moi-même à neuf et je justifierais mon existence. En même temps, je servirais l'humanité : quel plus beau cadeau lui faire que des livres? Je m'intéressais à la fois à moi et aux autres"

In this inspiring and moving book, Ronda Rousey, Olympic medalist in judo, reigning UFC women's bantamweight champion, and Hollywood star, describes her difficult path to glory. Marked by her signature charm, barbed wit, and undeniable power, Rousey's account of the toughest fights of her life - in and outside the Octagon - reveals the painful loss of her father when she was eight years old, the intensity of her judo training, her battles with love, her meteoric rise to fame, and the secret behind her undefeated UFC record.

Penned by one of Nichol’s numerous literary collaborators, this account reveals the close connections among the writer’s various activities, particularly how the autobiographical inquiries and Freudian dream theory linked with the young poet’s biographical self-awareness. The audiobook demonstrates how the subject’s main psychoanalytic client was his own writing, following Nichol as he explored its slips, accidental puns, and "unintended" meanings and implications for the communal future of the human species - both in high literature and comical prime time television.

Are you a big fan of Harry Potter? You’ve probably read the books and seen the films many times over. But how much of the detail behind the series do you really know? This special audiobook collection contains three individual audiobooks: 101 Amazing Facts About Harry Potter, 101 More Amazing Books About Harry Potter and 101 Amazing Facts About J.K. Rowling. Separated into sections for easy listening, there is a huge amount of information that will surprise and amaze you in equal measure!

Read by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey with exclusive bonus material contributed by Rainn Wilson, Creed Bratton, Oscar Nunez, Brian Baumgartner, Steve Carell, Ed Helms, Ellie Kemper, Kate Flannery and Jennifer Garner. An intimate, behind-the-scenes celebration of beloved The Office co-stars...

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.

The follow-up to The McCartney Legacy, Volume 1, the most complete work on the life and work of Paul McCartney ever published. Volume 2 continues to paint the portrait of one of the world’s greatest musicians, his work post-Beatles, and his life from 1974 to 1980. By 1974 the Beatles were a...

Although we have heard the music of J. S. Bach in countless performances and recordings, the composer himself still comes across only as an enigmatic figure in a single familiar portrait. As we mark the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, author Christoph Wolff presents a new picture that brings to life this towering figure of the Baroque era. This engaging new biography portrays Bach as the living, breathing, and sometimes imperfect human being that he was, while bringing to bear all the advances of the last half-century of Bach scholarship.

Dans Ma véritable identité, la journaliste Jocelyne Cazin évoque avec une sincérité surprenante des événements et des épreuves qui ont marqué son existence et sur lesquels elle porte une touchante réflexion.

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.