English Biography

Tolstoy’s autobiographical essay is a dissection of his soul, a study of his life’s movement away from the religious certainties of youth, and a vital piece of reading which contextualizes the great works he is best known for. Marking the point at which his life moved from the worldly to the spiritual, Tolstoy’s philosophical reassessment of the Orthodox faith is a work that holds vital spiritual and intellectual importance to this very day.

This classic of spycraft is based on Allen Dulles's incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America's premier intelligence officer. Dulles was a high-ranking officer of the CIA's predecessor - the Office of Strategic Services - and was present at the inception of the CIA, where he served eight of his 10 years there as director. Here he sums up what he learned about intelligence from nearly a half-century of experience in foreign affairs.

Prominent military historian Victor Davis Hanson explores the nature of leadership with his usual depth and vivid prose in The Savior Generals, a set of brilliantly executed pocket biographies of five generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway, and David Petraeus) who single-handedly saved their nations from defeat in war. War is rarely a predictable enterprise - it is a mess of luck, chance, and incalculable variables. Today's sure winner can easily become tomorrow's doomed loser.

Gold Dust Woman gives "the gold standard of rock biographers" (the Boston Globe) his ideal topic: Nicks' work and life are equally sexy and interesting, and Davis delves deeply into each, unearthing fresh details from new, intimate interviews and interpreting them to present a rich new portrait of the star. Just as Nicks (and Lindsay Buckingham) gave Fleetwood Mac the "shot of adrenaline" they needed to become real rock stars - according to Christine McVie - Gold Dust Woman is vibrant with stories and with a life lived large and hard.

Richard Freiherr von Rosen was a highly decorated Wehrmacht soldier and outstanding panzer commander. After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, he led a company of Tigers at Kursk. Later he led a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank). Only 489 of these King Tiger tanks were ever built.

For decades, Sandra Brown’s life has been intertwined with someone she has never met: an eleven year-old girl named Moira Anderson – who disappeared from their hometown of Coatbridge, Scotland, in 1957. It became one of the oldest cold cases in Scottish history. Sandra lived just around the corner from Moira. She grew up hearing about the missing girl, whose memory haunted the town. But she never imagined that, one day, she would be the one trying to uncover what happened. Or that her search for answers would reveal secrets and lies so close to home.

From renowned translators Richard Pevear and Lindsay Volokhonsky comes a new translation - certain to become the definitive version - of the first great prison memoir, a fictionalized account of Fyodor Dostoevsky's life-changing penal servitude in Siberia.

Many indeed are the biographies of Winston Churchill, one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. But what was that influence, and how did he use it in the furtherance of his and his country's ambitions? For the first time, Professor William Nestor has delved into the life and actions of Churchill to examine just how skillfully he manipulated events to place him in positions of power.

Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.

When Peter Canning started work as a paramedic on the streets of Hartford, Connecticut, 25 years ago, he believed drug users were victims only of their own character flaws. Although he took care of them, he did not care for them. But as the overdoses escalated, Canning began asking his patients how they had gotten started on their perilous journeys. And while no two tales were the same, their heartrending similarities changed Canning's view and moved him to educate himself about the science of addiction.

Twenty-five years after her passing, Audrey Hepburn remains the most beloved of all Hollywood stars, known as much for her role as UNICEF ambassador as for films like Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Several biographies have chronicled her stardom, but none has covered her intense experiences through five years of Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. According to her son, Luca Dotti, "The war made my mother who she was."

The Brothers York is the story of three remarkable brothers, two of whom were crowned kings of England and the other an heir presumptive, whose antagonism was fueled by the mistrust and vendettas of the age that brought their family to power. The house of York should have been the dynasty that the Tudors became. Its tragedy was that it devoured itself.

Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore had a lot in common: They sang together in the Methodist church choir, their daughters were best friends, and their husbands had good jobs working for technology companies in the North Dallas suburbs known as Silicon Prairie. But beneath the placid surface of their seemingly perfect lives, both women simmered with unspoken frustrations and unanswered desires. On a hot summer day in 1980, the secret passions and jealousies that linked Candy and Betty exploded into murderous rage.

Kenneth Macksey's highly regarded biography of Generaloberst Heinz Guderian gives clear insight into the mind and motives of the father of modern tank warfare. Panzer General shows Guderian as a man of ideas equipped with the ability to turn inspiration into reality. A master of strategy and tactics, he was the officer most responsible for creating blitzkrieg in World War II.

Mark Galeotti is the go-to expert on organized crime in Russia, consulted by governments and police around the world. Now, Western listeners can explore the fascinating history of the vory v zakone, a group that has survived and thrived amid the changes brought on by Stalinism, the Cold War, the Afghan War, and the end of the Soviet experiment.

If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir is an honest and straightforward account of Om Swami's life, one of the foremost spiritual leaders of India.

Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him, are severe against the disbelievers, and merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and falling down prostrate (in prayer), seeking bounty from Allah and (His) Good Pleasure. The mark of them (i.e. of their Faith) is on their faces (fore heads) from the traces of prostration (during prayers). This is their description in the Taurah (Torah).

Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship of two towering Enlightenment thinkers that had great consequences for modern thought. David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime, he was attacked as "the Great Infidel" for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism.

Nate Bargatze used to be a genius. That is, until the summer after seventh grade when he slipped, fell off a cliff, hit his head on a rock, and “my skull got, like, dented or something.” Before this accident, he dreamed of being “an electric engineer, or a doctor that does brain stuff, or a math teacher who teaches the hardest math on earth.” Afterwards, all he could do was stand-up comedy.* But the “brain stuff” industry’s loss is everyone else’s gain because Nate went on to become one of today’s top-grossing comedians, breaking both attendance and streaming records.

Boaz Manor was a finance wunderkind. He started a hedge-fund company in Canada and later burst onto Wall Street with a product that could transform the crypto market. By all accounts, he was incredibly hard-working. Possibly brilliant. And...a shameless con man who ended up wanted in multiple countries. Chasing Boaz Manor explores Boaz’s schemes through the perspective of those he left in his wake.