Classic Biography

The Maria girls from Bastar practise sex as an institution before marriage, but with rules-one may not sleep with a partner more than three times; the Hallaki women from the Konkan coast sing throughout the day-in forests, fields, the market and at protests; the Kanjars have plundered, looted...

“Elegiac, funny, warm and wise, The Wisdom of Sheep will delight country folk and city dwellers alike.” —Katherine May A touching, wise and surprising chronicle of the rich inner lives of animals, drawn from Rosamund Young’s extraordinary lifetime as an organic farmer We talk a lot...

La viuda del Che Guevara recuerda el gran romance revolucionario trágicamente acortado por el asesinato del Che en Bolivia. Cuando Aleida March primero conoció al Che Guevara, ella era una combatiente de veinte años del interior de Cuba, él era un ya legendario revolucionario y un exuberante...

El diario del segundo viaje a lo largo de Latinoamérica de un joven argentino, revelando el afloramiento de un comprometido revolucionario conocido como "el Che." Esta secuela a Diarios de motocicleta incluye cartas, poesía y periodismo que documentan el segundo viaje latinoamericano del joven...

Una concisa y legible perspectiva de Cuba, revisada a fondo y escrita por cubanos para cualquier persona interesada en comprender rápidamente la turbulenta historia del país insular. Cuba: una breve historia abarca el período prehispánico, pasando por la lucha de Cuba por mantener la...

From 1941 to 1953, director John Huston and actor Humphrey Bogart made one classic film after another, from The Maltese Falcon to The African Queen. Here is the story of their close but combative friendship that produced some of the best movies ever made. Their friendship was as dramatic as any of their movies. It survived nine marriages, a world war, the blacklist, leeches, alcohol, and Jack L. Warner.

The superb classic memoir from a dazzlingly eccentric and endlessly fascinating author - a woman very much ahead of her time - including her time spent on the glorious island of Skiathos. Nancy Spain was one of the most celebrated - and notorious - writers and broadcasters of the '40s, '50s and '60s. Hilarious, controversial and brilliant, she lived openly as a lesbian (sharing a household with her two lovers and their various children) and was frequently litigated against for her newspaper columns - Evelyn Waugh successfully sued her for libel...twice.

Henry David Thoreau was a naturalist, essayist, poet, philosopher, and a leading transcendentalist. In Cape Cod (1865), Thoreau recounts his walking trips along a stretch of Massachusetts coastline, including Cape Cod, in the 1850s. The narrative is filled with his reflections on the elemental forces of the sea and the shore. Sleeping in lighthouses and fishing huts, and on isolated farms, Thoreau spent his days wandering the beaches to observe the drama of life and death unfolding on the coastline. Nature comes alive through Thoreau’s unique insights and descriptive prose.

Considered by many to be the first autobiography/memoir ever written, Confessions is a retrospective view of a life challenged by uncertainty, doubt, human frailty, and earthly desires. Augustine discovers and cherishes a deeply personal relationship with his God, all while describing the day-to-day dealings of his life in the fading, corrupt days of the Roman Empire.

From one of the world's most beloved and respected public intellectuals comes a sweeping work of musical criticism, examining the distance between the performer and their audience "Not since Virgil Thomson have we had a music critic with as wide ranging a view as Edward Said."—Studs Terkel...

“McDowell’s gorgeous book opens an ivy-covered door to new information about one of the world’s most famous authors.”—Angelica Shirley Carpenter, editor of In the GardenNew York Times bestselling author Marta McDowell has revealed the way that plants have stirred some of our most...

Discover delightfully ghostly locations in all 50 states and plan your next haunted holiday. Do you believe in ghosts? Do you love reading about hauntings? Have you ever wanted to experience a close encounter with the paranormal? Then Haunted Hotels in America is for you! You've watched...

Una selección que aúna tres textos clásicos sobre socialismo y liberación: El Manifiesto Comunista, de Marx y Engels; Reforma o Revolución, de Rosa Luxemburgo; y El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba, del Che Guevara, inspiradores para las nuevas generaciones que creen en una sociedad más...

Marking the 200th anniversary of his death, Napoleon is an unprecedented portrait of the emperor told through his engagement with the natural world. “How should one envisage this subject? With a great pomp of words, or with simplicity?” —Charlotte Brontë, “The Death of Napoleon” The...

A.K. Ramanujan (1929-1993), one of India's finest poets, translators, folklorists, essayists and scholars of the twentieth century, is a stalwart in India's literary history. His translations of ancient Tamil and medieval Kannada poetry, as well as of UR Ananthamurthy's novel Samskara, are...

Dismantles the Woody Guthrie we have been taught—the rough-and-ready rambling’ man—to reveal an artist who discovered how intimacy is crucial for political struggle Woody Guthrie is often mythologized as the classic American “rambling’ man,” a real-life Steinbeckian folk hero who...

Told in the unmistakable voice of America’s immortal storyteller, this chronicle of a vanishing past is a tale of two journeys. The first is that of Samuel Clemens, young antebellum-era steamboat pilot who navigates wide-eyed passengers on the Mississippi. And the second tells of a reflective Mark Twain. He’d return, years later, to observe the inevitable and dismaying post-Civil War developments along the currents of the ever-changing Great River.

Spanning politics and art, music and baseball, Cuba on the Verge is a timely look at a society’s profound transformation—from inside and out. Change looms in Cuba. Just ninety miles from United States shores yet inaccessible to most Americans until recently, Cuba fascinates as much as it...

"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?" These famous lines from The Graduate (1967) would forever link Anne Bancroft (1931-2005) to the groundbreaking film and confirm her status as a movie icon. Along with her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in the stage and film drama The Miracle Worker, this role was a highlight of a career that spanned a half-century and brought Bancroft an Oscar, two Tonys, and two Emmy awards. In the first biography to cover the entire scope of Bancroft's life and career, Douglass K. Daniel reveals how, from a young age, Bancroft was committed to challenging herself and strengthening her craft.

With an in-depth look at the two most empowering years in the life of Marilyn Monroe, The Girl details how The Seven Year Itch created an icon and sent the star on an adventure of self-discovery and transformation from a controlled wife and contract player into a businesswoman and unlikely...