English Biography

Cornelius Vanderbilt parlayed a $100.00 investment into the largest private transportation company in the world while creating an American Dynasty in New York, Newport, Vermont, and Asheville, North Carolina. This history of his family and their lush, opulent lifestyle is filled with juicy stories and fun tidbits about their lives in the Gilded Era.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST OVER TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question, What makes a life worth living?...

In the gripping Never Panic Early, Fred Haise, Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 13, offers a detailed firsthand account of when disaster struck three days into his mission to the moon. An oxygen tank exploded, a crewmate uttered the now iconic words, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and the world anxiously watched as one of history’s most incredible rescue missions unfolded. Haise brings listeners into the heart of his experience on the challenging mission—considered NASA’s finest hour—and reflects on his life and career as an Apollo astronaut.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the former prime minister of New Zealand, then the world’s youngest female head of government and just the second to give birth in office, comes a deeply personal memoir chronicling her extraordinary rise and offering inspiration to a new generation of...

An engrossing oral history of a band that came to define a generation, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run tells the madcap story of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band, from their humble beginnings in the early 1970s to their dissolution barely a decade later. Drawn from over 500,000 words of interviews with McCartney, family and band members, and other key participants, Wings recounts―now with a half-century’s wisdom―the musical odyssey taken by a man searching for his identity in the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup.

The Savannah Bananas have peeled back the game of baseball and made it fun again. This is their story. For his entire childhood, Jesse Cole dreamed of pitching in the Majors. Now, he has a life in baseball that he could have only imagined: he met the love of his life in the industry; they shaped...

The Tangled Web tells the dramatic story of detective Richard Cain's criminal career as revealed by his half-brother, Michael. Cain led a double-life—one as a well-known cop who led raids that landed on the front pages, and the other as a "made man" in one of Chicago's most notorious mob families.

Since he was a small boy, Mosab Hassan Yousef has had an inside view of the deadly terrorist group Hamas. The oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a founding member of Hamas and its most popular leader, young Mosab assisted his father for years in his political activities while being groomed to assume his legacy, politics, status...and power. But everything changed when Mosab turned away from terror and violence and embraced instead the teachings of another famous Middle East leader.

Steven A. Sund, one of only ten men in history to hold the title of Chief of the US Capitol Police, has coordinated dozens of National Special Security Events, responded to numerous critical incidents and active shooter events, and has protected every living US president. But nothing could have prepared him for the violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

“BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE 20TH CENTURY.” —Time “It is impossible to name a book that had a greater effect on the political and moral consciousness of the late twentieth century.” —David Remnick, The New Yorker The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature...

Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of Annapolis graduates John McCain, James Webb, Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and John Poindexter to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. Casting all five men as metaphors for a legion of well-meaning if ill-starred warriors, Timberg probes the fault line between those who fought the war and those who used money, wit, and connections to avoid battle.

Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.

Daisy is a black baby adopted into a white family in rural 1970’s England. Alienation and loss of identity dominate her childhood. After discovering she was conceived through child rape, she begins a lifelong mission to find and prosecute her birth father using the only irrefutable evidence left. Her own DNA. But justice isn’t just for her birth mother. She too, is a victim, and when the world around her doesn’t agree, she is forced to reckon with external and internal powers out of her control.

*Read by the authors and celebrated podcasters, Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan!* From the beloved hosts of the hit podcast I've Had It, an honest, irreverent and inspiring guide to overcoming life's unexpected challenges and finding joy, stability and humor in today's chaotic world, for fans...

In 1949, Ron Losee, a young Yale Medical School graduate, headed west with his wife and small daughter to begin the practice of medicine. They settled in Ennis, Montana, in a log cabin that also became their office and lab. Patients made themselves at home in the living room. One small bag held all their medical equipment. It was a proud moment when a patient first called Losee "Doc." His fee on that occasion was three dollars.

Focusing for the first time on why attorney general Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 instead of on why President John F. Kennedy was, Mark Shaw offers a stunning and provocative assassination theory that leads directly to the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy. Mining fresh information and more than 40 new interviews, Shaw weaves a spellbinding narrative involving Mafia don Carlos Marcello; Jack Ruby (Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer); Ruby’s attorney, Melvin Belli; and, ultimately, the Kennedy brothers and their father.

Opera is the fastest growing of all the performing arts, attracting audiences of all ages who are enthralled by the gorgeous music, vivid drama, and magnificent production values. If you've decided that the time has finally come to learn about opera and discover for yourself what it is about opera that sends your normally reserved friends into states of ecstatic abandon, this is the book for you.

In clear and entertaining prose, Plotkin explores a thousand years of music, introduces listeners to more than 100 great works, and profiles in depth many significant composers, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, Dvoxak, and Mahler. He describes all the musical instruments in the orchestra, defines major musical terms, and makes music theory comprehensible for the uninitiated. There are also conversations with important musicians who offer fascinating insights about their art.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An Amazon “Best Book of 2019” A Washington Post “10 Books To Read in July” A Los Angeles Times “Seven Highly Anticipated Books for Summer Reading” A USA Today “20 of the Season’s Hottest New Books” A New York Post “25 Best Beach...

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NOMINEE A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by...