English Biography

On December 11th, 1978, a daring armed robbery rocked Kennedy Airport, resulting in the largest unrecovered cash haul in world history, totaling six million dollars. The perpetrators were never apprehended and thirteen people connected to the crime were murdered in homicides that, like the crime itself, remain unsolved to this day. The burglary has fascinated the public for years, dominating headlines around the globe due to the story's unending ravel of mysteries that baffled the authorities.

In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.

Thirty years ago, award-winning journalist Jon Ronson stumbled on the mystery of Carol Howe—a charismatic, wealthy former debutante turned white supremacist spokeswoman turned undercover informant. In 1995, Carol was spying on Oklahoma’s neo-Nazis for the government just when Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.

Among the most widely admired Hollywood stars of his generation, Redford has appeared onstage and on-screen, in front of and behind the camera, earning Academy, Golden Globe, and a multitude of other awards and nominations for acting, directing, and producing, and for his contributions to the arts.

Pigeonholed in popular memory as a Jazz Age epicurean, a playboy, and an emblem of the Lost Generation, F. Scott Fitzgerald was at heart a moralist struck by the nation's shifting mood and manners after World War I. In Paradise Lost, David Brown contends that Fitzgerald's deepest allegiances were to a fading antebellum world he associated with his father's Chesapeake Bay roots. Yet as a midwesterner, an Irish Catholic, and a perpetually in-debt author, he felt like an outsider in the haute bourgeoisie haunts.

Eighteen-year-old Eva Yin is admitted into an ER in the San Francisco Bay Area for a serious blood infection - the souvenir of a missed shot of heroin. Barely recovered and against medical advice, she leaves the hospital for New York City only to end up homeless and facing prostitution and violence. Being a heroin addict is like running in circles. You run, and you run, and you end up exactly where you started.

The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".

Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family making.

In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. During the four extraordinary years that Michelangelo spent laboring over the ceiling, power politics and personal rivalries swirled around him. He battled ill health, financial and family difficulties, inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, and the Pope's impatience - a history that is more compelling than most novels.

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's greatest alpinists, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most recognizable structures to define a modern city. Yet, for author Kevin Hines the bridge is not merely a marker of a place or a time. Instead, the bridge marks the beginning of his remarkable story. At 19-years-old, Kevin attempted to take his own life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge - a distance which took four seconds to fall. Recently diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, Kevin had begun to hear voices telling him he had to die, and days before his attempt, he began to believe them. The fall would break his body, but not his spirit.

The author was drawn into the United States Army through ROTC, and he went through training to fly helicopters in combat over Vietnam. His experiences are notable because he flew both Huey “Slicks” and Huey “Gunships”: the former on defense as he flew troops into battle, and the latter on offense as he took the battle to the enemy. Through this book, the author relives his experiences flying and fighting, with special attention given to his and other pilots’ day-to-day lives.

As acclaimed psychological researcher and author David Buss writes, "People are mesmerized by murder. It commands our attention like no other human phenomenon, and those touched by its ugly tendrils never forget." Though we may like to believe that murderers are pathological misfits and hardened criminals, the vast majority of murders are committed by people who, until the day they kill, would seem to be perfectly normal.

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.

“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.

How do I give myself to God completely? What happens when I do? I Dared to Call Him Father is the fascinating true story of Bilquis Sheikh, a prominent Muslim woman in Pakistan who faced these questions at the crossroads of her life and found the astonishing answers. Her unusual journey to a personal relationship with God turned her world upside down - and put her life in danger - as a series of strange dreams launched her on a quest that would forever consume her heart, mind, and soul.

Love Life serves up another delicious selection of intimate stories and observations from Rob Lowe's life, told with humor, warmth, and brutal honesty. After writing his acclaimed debut effort, Lowe felt he had more stories to share and many more friends to introduce. The result is a touching memoir about the business and craft of acting, the pitfalls of success, family, love, and much more.

Millions of people–looking to cheat on their partners–signed up for Ashley Madison in the early 2000s, seeking a private space to share their public desires. The promise of discretion was shattered in the summer of 2015, when anonymous hackers stole the company’s cache of user information and published it worldwide. The result? One of the most shocking data breaches of the internet age. Overnight, millions of unfaithful spouses had their real names, addresses and sexual preferences published online in a searchable database that anyone could browse.

John F. Kennedy’s assassination launched a frantic search to find his killers. It also launched a flurry of covert actions by Lyndon Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, and other top officials to hide the fact that in November 1963 the United States was on the brink of invading Cuba, as part of a JFK-authorized coup. The plan’s exposure could have led to a nuclear confrontation with Russia, but the cover-up prevented a full investigation into Kennedy’s assassination, a legacy of secrecy that would impact American politics and foreign policy for the next 45 years.