English Biography

The incomparable Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut wrote that she had the luck “always to stumble in on the real show.” Married to a high-ranking member of the Confederate government, she was ideally placed to watch and to record the South’s headlong plunge to ruin, and she left in her journals an unsurpassed account of the old regime’s death throes, its moment of high drama in world history. With intelligence and passion she described the turbulent events of politics and war, as well as the complex society around her.

New York Times bestselling author Amy Odell takes listeners inside the world of one of the most influential and polarizing celebrities of the modern era—complete with exclusive new stories about her childhood, acting career, romances, and her lifestyle brand Goop.

In 1913, an unschooled young Indian clerk wrote a letter to G. H. Hardy, begging that preeminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Hardy, realizing the letter was the work of a genius, arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England. Thus began one of the most remarkable collaborations ever chronicled.

People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say. When I was growing up, if you'd have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of 60, with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and California, I wouldn't have put money on me, no f--king way. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time. A lot of it ain't gonna be pretty. I've done some bad things in my time. But I ain't the devil.

Born in England to socially ambitious parents, Elizabeth Taylor was catapulted into child stardom and molded by MGM into the great violet-eyed beauty of postwar America. Along the way, without training or counsel, she became an award-winning actress, dazzling audiences everywhere with spectacular performances.

Otto von Bismarck was more than a politician and a leader: He was the single driving force that turned the disparate states of Germany into one cohesive empire. He then went on to lead Germany and the rest of Europe into an age of political peace that lasted from 1871 until the outbreak of World War I. Under his influence, Germany thrived. Bismarck’s use of statesmanship to fight for the interests of his country was legendary. As one of the most influential and powerful individuals in his country’s history, Bismarck became a symbol of leadership and pride for German nationalists.

In this wild, genre-bending audio documentary, New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow dives deep into the strange and storied life of high-society socialite and former Miss Arizona Celia (Cece) Doane.

From dominating the karting tracks of East Anglia to the top of the podium in Formula 3 and Formula 2, George Russell has now fully established himself as a rising Formula 1 star. After cutting his teeth as a driver with Williams, in 2022 he signed a lucrative contract with Mercedes, highlighting the extent of his raw talent. Driving for Mercedes, Russell has been confirmed as the designated successor to none other than Lewis Hamilton. As Hamilton's heir-apparent, will this protégé manage to follow in the footsteps of the greatest F1 driver of all time?

Georgia O'Keeffe, one of the most original painters America has ever produced, left behind a remarkable legacy when she died at the age of 98. Her vivid visual vocabulary, sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth, had a stunning, profound, and lasting influence on American art in this century.

A few days before Thanksgiving 1994, Jeffrey Eugenides’s father, Gus, was piloting a small plane when it crashed in Daytona Beach, Florida. The circumstances surrounding his death added to the mystery of a life that defied expectations, but left many questions unanswered. Now, more than 30 years later, Eugenides tells the story of how his father, a first-generation American, rose from Detroit’s east side to find financial success as a mortgage banker and real estate developer–only to lose it all.

William L. Shirer was a CBS foreign correspondent and renowned author of New York Times best-selling nonfiction about World War II, and this is the first part of his three-part autobiography. A renowned journalist and author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer chronicles his own life story in a personal history that parallels the greater historical events for which he served as a witness.

Alexandra Kollontai was a key leader of the Russian Socialist movement, the only woman in the early Soviet government, and one of the most famous women in Russian history. She worked tirelessly all her life as a speaker, writer, and organizer for women's emancipation. This compelling biography recounts her life for an emerging generation of fighters for women's liberation.

For many, the name Jimi Hendrix conjures up a larger-than-life image of the man who set fire to guitars, women's hearts, and the status quo. In this groundbreaking account, music journalist Charles R. Cross takes a far deeper look. Beyond Hendrix's legendary onstage and offstage magnetism, and his excessive lifestyle, was a man who struggled to accept his role as an idol and privately craved the kind of normal family life he never had.

In 1960, she was a 17-year-old Brooklyn kid with plenty of talent but no connections and certainly no money; her mother brought her soup to make sure she stayed fed as she took acting classes and scraped out a living. Just four years later, Barbra Streisand was the top-selling female recording artist in America and the star of one of Broadway’s biggest hits. Now the acclaimed Hollywood biographer William Mann chronicles that dizzying ascent, telling the riveting behind-the-scenes story of how Streisand and her team transformed her from an unknown dreamer into a worldwide superstar.

Total F*cking Godhead is the complete story of the complex and enigmatic artist, Chris Cornell. It's the riveting account of a blue collar, high-school dropout emerging from Seattle, Washington, to become one of the greatest singer-songwriters and voices of his generation. With input from people who knew and worked with him - together with Cornell's own words - the book recounts in great detail the rise of his immortal band Soundgarden as they emerged from the 1980s post-punk underground to dominate popular culture in the '90s alongside other Seattle bands like Pearl Jam.

“Sam, could you do me a favor?” Thus begins a story that has now become part of America's true-crime hall of fame. It is a gory, grotesque tale befitting a Stephen King novel. It is also a David and Goliath saga - the story of a young lawyer fresh from the public defender's office whose first client in private practice turns out to be the worst serial killer in our nation's history. This is a gripping true crime narrative that reenacts the gruesome killings and the famous trial that shocked a nation.

It was a crime that shocked the nation: the brutal murder in Chicago in 1924 of a child by two wealthy college students who killed solely for the thrill of the experience. Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were intellectuals - too smart, they believed, for the police to catch them. When they were apprehended, state's attorney Robert Crowe was certain that no defense could save the ruthless killers from the gallows.

Eve Haas is the daughter of a German Jewish family that took refuge in London after Hitler came to power. Following a terrifying air raid in the blitz, her father revealed the family secret - that her great-great grandmother Emilie was married to a Prussian prince. He then showed her the treasured leather-bound notebook inscribed to Emilie by the prince.

When Molly Burke was four years old, she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare degenerative eye disease that leads to eventual blindness, forcing her to see the world through new eyes—literally. Growing up disabled didn’t stop her from playing sports, becoming a rock-climbing instructor, or winning a beauty pageant, but other people’s narrow perceptions of her held her back. Years of relentless bullying, toxic work environments, a rodent-infested apartment, and life’s lowest moments were juxtaposed with red carpets, first-class flights, and personal and professional achievements.

Join Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell as they bypass pleasantries and promotional banter to deliver raw, unfiltered conversations with some of today’s most influential figures. Featuring titans across a spectrum of professions (from Olympic gold medalists to trailblazing Fortune 500 CEOs and everything in between), The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell pulls back the curtain to offer listeners unprecedented access to the minds of the world’s most extraordinary individuals and their distinct paths to success.