Art Biography

Deborah Levy revient sur sa vie. Elle fuit à Majorque pour réfléchir et se retrouver, et pense à l'Afrique du Sud, ce pays qu'elle a quitté, à son enfance, à l'apartheid, à son père – militant de l'ANC emprisonné –, aux oiseaux en cage, et à l'Angleterre, son pays d'adoption. Telle la marquise Cabrera se délectant du 'chocolat magique', elle est devenue écrivaine en lisant Marguerite Duras et Virginia Woolf.

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.

In this dazzling memoir, the acclaimed writer behind Babylon 5, Sense8, Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, and Marvel’s Thor reveals how the power of creativity and imagination enabled him to overcome the horrors of his youth and a dysfunctional family haunted by madness, murder, and a terrible secret.

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau, one of the principal New England Transcendentalists, left the small town of Concord for the country. Beside the lake of Walden he built himself a log cabin and returned to nature, to observe and reflect – while surviving on eight dollars a year. From this experience emerged Walden, one of the great classics of American literature.

In 1971, Go Ask Alice reinvented the young adult genre with a blistering portrayal of sex, psychosis, and teenage self-destruction. The supposed diary of a middle-class addict, Go Ask Alice terrified adults and cemented LSD's fearsome reputation, fueling support for the War on Drugs. Five million copies later, Go Ask Alice remains a divisive bestseller, outraging censors and earning new fans, all of them drawn by the book's mythic premise: A Real Diary, by Anonymous.

One of the most influential, admired, and innovative women of our time: fashion designer, philanthropist, wife, mother, and grandmother, Diane von Furstenberg shares stories about becoming the woman she wanted to be. Diane von Furstenberg started out with a suitcase full of jersey dresses and an idea of who she wanted to be - in her words, "the kind of woman who is independent and who doesn’t rely on a man to pay her bills."

They were the last great band of the '60s and the first great band of the '70s. They rose, somewhat unpromisingly, from the ashes of the Yardbirds to become one of the biggest-selling rock bands of all time - and eventually paid the price for it, with disaster, drug addiction, and death.

From 1965 to 1995, the Grateful Dead flourished as one of the most beloved, unusual, and accomplished musical entities to ever grace American culture. The creative synchronicity among Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan exploded out of the early 60s roots and folk scene, providing the soundtrack for the Dionysian revels of the counterculture. Dennis McNally, the band's historian and publicist for more than 20 years, takes listeners back through the Dead's history.

The autobiography of a cycling legend that will become a much-loved classic. The much-anticipated autobiography of the greatest Australian cyclist of all time. Famous in the sport for his meticulous preparation and an athlete who prided himself on his ability to leave it all on the road, Evans writes about the triumphs, the frustrations, the training, the preparation, the psychology of the sport, his contemporaries, the legends and his enduring love of cycling. A riveting and forensic account of his life on the bike....

More of Mason Currey's irresistible Daily Rituals, this time exploring the daily obstacles and rituals of women who are artists - painters, composers, sculptors, scientists, filmmakers, and performers. We see how these brilliant minds get to work, the choices they have to make: rebuffing convention, stealing (or secreting away) time from the pull of husbands, wives, children, and obligations in order to create their creations.

Film historian and acclaimed New York Times best-selling biographer Scott Eyman has written the definitive, “captivating” (Associated Press) biography of Hollywood legend Cary Grant, one of the most accomplished — and beloved — actors of his generation, who remains as popular as ever today.

Learn about the story of Merlin the Magician with iMindsJNR audio-learning series for younger minds. As the advisor who helps King Arthur through the early years of his reign, Merlin has become the most famous wizard of all time.The stories of Merlin may have been based on a real person. But the character we know as Merlin today has come down to us through the “History of the Kings of Britain”, a book by the 12th-century English writer Geoffrey of Monmouth.

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.

Hollywood was built on beautiful and complicated matinee idols: James Dean and Marlon Brando are classic examples, but in the 1990s, the actor who embodied that archetype was River Phoenix. As the brightly colored 1980s wound down, a new crew of leading men began to appear on movie screens. Hailed for their acting prowess and admired for choosing meaty roles, actors such as Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, Keanu Reeves, and Brad Pitt were soon rocketing toward stardom while an unknown Leonardo DiCaprio prepared to make his acting debut. River Phoenix, however, stood in front of the pack.

Richard Ellmann has revised and expanded his definitive work on Joyce's life to include newly discovered primary material, including details of a failed love affair, a limerick about Samuel Beckett, a dream notebook, previously unknown letters, and much more.

From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens is a violent and introspective memoir that reveals not only 50 Cent's story but the story of a generation of youth faced with hard choices and very little options. It is a tale of sacrifice, transformation, and redemption, but it is also one of hope, determination, and the power of self. Told in 50's own unique voice, the narrative drips with the raw insight, street wisdom, and his struggle to survive at all costs.

An expertly crafted work of reportage, memoir, and biography on the subject of loneliness told through the lives of six iconic artists, by the acclaimed author of The Trip to Echo Spring. You can be lonely anywhere, but there is a particular flavor to the loneliness that comes from living in a city, surrounded by thousands of strangers. The Lonely City is a roving cultural history of urban loneliness, centered on the ultimate city: Manhattan, that teeming island of gneiss, concrete, and glass.

Over a quarter of a century after its first publication, the great and simple wisdom in this book continues to influence women's lives.

Nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero met Tommy Wiseau at an acting school in San Francisco. Wiseau's scenes were rivetingly wrong, yet Sestero, hypnotized by such uninhibited acting, thought, "I have to do a scene with this guy." That impulse changed both of their lives. The Disaster Artist is Greg Sestero's laugh-out-loud funny account of how Tommy Wiseau defied every law of artistry, business, and friendship to make "the Citizen Kane of bad movies" ( Entertainment Weekly), which is now an international phenomenon.

" Alors que j’achevais la rédaction de ce livre, la cérémonie d’ouverture des Jeux olympiques est venue raviver le feu de ma plume : la France est la victime d’un mémoricide. Une ablation de sa mémoire. Une spoliation, une péremption de ses souvenirs. L’Esprit français a été immolé. Toute ma vie, je me suis battu. Contre un progressisme en quête incessante des figures nouvelles de l’insolite et du fantasque.