Genius Biographies

The death of Steve Jobs left a gaping void at one of the most innovative companies of all time. Jobs wasn't merely Apple's iconic founder and CEO; he was the living embodiment of a global megabrand. It was hard to imagine that anyone could fill his shoes - especially not Tim Cook, the intensely private executive who many thought of as Apple's "operations drone". But seven years later, as journalist Leander Kahney reveals in this definitive audiobook, things at Apple couldn't be better.

Through family interviews, diaries, letters, and workbooks that had been sealed for over 60 years, Barbara Goldsmith reveals the Marie Curie behind the myth - an all-too-human woman struggling to balance a spectacular scientific career, a demanding family, the prejudice of society, and her own passionate nature. Obsessive Genius is a dazzling portrait of Curie, her amazing scientific success, and the price she paid for fame.

At the age of four, Joshua Miele was blinded and badly burned when a delusional neighbor poured sulfuric acid over his head in a crime that shocked New York. It could have ended his life, but instead, Miele—naturally curious, and a born problem solver—not only recovered, but thrived. Throughout his life, Miele has found increasingly inventive ways to succeed in a world built for the sighted, and to help others to do the same. At first reluctant to even think of himself as blind, he eventually embraced his blindness and became a committed advocate for disability and accessibility

Kristine Barnett’s son Jacob has an IQ higher than Einstein’s, a photographic memory, and he taught himself calculus in two weeks. At 9 he started working on an original theory in astrophysics that experts believe may someday put him in line for a Nobel Prize, and at age 12 he became a paid researcher in quantum physics. But the story of Kristine’s journey with Jake is all the more remarkable because his extraordinary mind was almost lost to autism. At age 2, when Jake was diagnosed, Kristine was told he might never be able to tie his own shoes.

At the dawn of the 20th century, humanity was facing global disaster. Mass starvation, long predicted for the fast-growing population, was about to become a reality. A call went out to the worlds scientists to find a solution. This is the story of the two enormously gifted, fatally flawed men who found it: the brilliant, self-important Fritz Haber and the reclusive, alcoholic Carl Bosch. Together they discovered a way to make bread out of air, built city-sized factories, controlled world markets, and saved millions of lives.

Divorce Court star Judge Lynn Toler shares her mother's wisdom for learning to conquer anger and become immune to insult. Toler credits her mother's "rules" for life - a life that saw her grow up the daughter of a poor teen mother and endure a husband who suffered mental illness and alcoholism - with providing the grounding for her own success and happiness. Toler shows how the mindset of "a black woman who knew how to make things work" taught her the power of knowing how to manage one's emotional business - lessons that this book offers in wrenching stories....

In 2006, an oddball group of bankers, traders and brokers from some of the world's largest financial institutions made a startling realization: Libor - the London interbank offered rate, which determines the interest rates on trillions in loans worldwide - was set daily by a small group of easily manipulated functionaries, and that they could reap huge profits by nudging it to suit their trading portfolios.

Michael Landon was an actor, writer, director, and producer. For over three decades, Michael Landon's creative gifts touched millions of viewers around the world on Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, Highway to Heaven, and in several other productions. This is the first detailed examination of his work both in front of and behind the camera, including information about every Landon script.

For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe—and extend their colonial empires.

As part of the legendary comedy team known as Nichols and May, May revolutionized sketch comedy before striking out on her own to make history as the third woman to be admitted into the Directors Guild of America when she wrote, directed, and starred in 1971’s A New Leaf. Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, May was one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters and script doctors and one of the only women directing within the studio system. After a box-office bomb, May never directed a feature again, though she continued to write films.

In a sweeping narrative, the author of the mega-bestseller A Beautiful Mind takes us on a journey through modern history with the men and women who changed the lives of every single person on the planet. It’s the epic story of the making of modern economics, and of how it rescued mankind from squalor and deprivation by placing its material fate in its own hands rather than in Fate. Nasar’s account begins with Charles Dickens and Henry Mayhew observing and publishing the condition of the poor majority in mid nineteenth-century London, the richest and most glittering place in the world.

A biography examining the life of Benjamin Franklin and his leadership as a statesman, scientist, inventor, and printer.

From Leonardo Da Vinci to John Dee and Comenius, from George Eliot to Oliver Sacks and Susan Sontag, polymaths have moved the frontiers of knowledge in countless ways. But history can be unkind to scholars with such encyclopaedic interests. All too often these individuals are remembered for just one part of their valuable achievements. In this engaging, erudite account, renowned cultural historian Peter Burke argues for a more rounded view.

The high-energy tale of how two socially awkward Ivy Leaguers, trying to increase their chances with the opposite sex, ended up creating Facebook. Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends - outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and long-time legacies. They shared both academic brilliance in math and a geeky awkwardness with women. The Accidental Billionaires is a compulsively listenable story of innocence lost - and of the unusual creation of a company that has revolutionized the way people relate to one another.

Arguably the most influential force in Jamaican music, Lee Perry brought Bob Marley to international stardom and collaborated with artists such as Sir Paul McCartney, The Clash and The Beastie Boys. The book delves behind the myth of Perry to give a fuller examination of his life and work through extensive interviews with family members, fellow artists, friends, lovers, enemies, as well as the man himself to present a complex portrait of a unique soul driven by unseen spiritual forces.

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the 20th century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.

Elon Musk is undeniably a business titan. He controls massive companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and has cemented himself in history forever - but how much do you really know about the man behind it all? Inside this detailed account of Elon Musk’s life and career, you’ll learn about his childhood and schooling in South Africa, his humble beginnings on the American continent, and his first endeavors into business.

In this compelling portrait of Paul the man, his message, and his world, Robin Griffith-Jones reveals the apostle as a brilliantly entrepreneurial witness to the transforming presence of Jesus himself. This groundbreaking book unlocks Paul′s letters, revealing their purpose and power as never before.

We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through. This brilliant multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history.

For decades, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a fundamental matter: How did the people he was writing about learn their outlandish skill, whether it was drawing a nude or baking a sourdough loaf? In The Real Work, Gopnik apprentices himself to an artist, a dancer, a boxer, and even a driving instructor (from the DMV), among others, trying his late-middle-age hand at things he assumed were beyond him.