Genius Biographies

No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.

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.

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....

Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper delves deeply into Michael Jackson's music and talent. From the artist's early days with the Jackson 5, to his stratospheric success as a solo artist, to "Beat It" and "Thriller", "Bad", and "The Man in the Mirror", to his volatile final years, his attempted comeback, and his untimely death, Knopper explores the beguiling and often contradictory forces that fueled Michael Jackson's genius.

True Genius is the definitive family-backed account of his remarkable career published to coincide with what would have been his 75th birthday. The games, the goals, the glory. This is the untold story. Written by celebrated Manchester United author Wayne Barton, this biography goes into unparalleled depth to tell the complete story for the first time of how the lad from Cregagh, Northern Ireland, became the game's first superstar. Barton has trawled the archives and spoken to a host of former team-mates, managers, friends and close family to tell his story.

Protagonizada pelo brasileiro Eduardo Saverin, estudante de economia, e pelo norte-americano Mark Zuckerberg, gênio da informática–amigos que sobreviviam num ambiente repleto de alunos brilhantes de famílias supertradicionais–este audiolivro mostra a trajetória da criação da rede social que se tornou uma das mais poderosas empresas do mundo e que revolucionou a maneira como milhões de pessoas se relacionam.

Following up on the meticulously-detailed research of Hunted: The Zodiac Murders, Profiled: The Zodiac Examined goes beyond the case files to develop a comprehensive criminal profile that examines the personality, psychology, physical characteristics, and motives of the Zodiac. Based in the same detailed research of Hunted, Profiled sticks to the facts and articulates at every step how the conclusions of the profile were reached.

Goethe was the inventor of the psychological novel, a pioneer scientist, great man of the theatre and a leading politician. As A. N. Wilson argues in this groundbreaking biography, it was his genius and insatiable curiosity that helped catapult the Western world into the modern era. A N. Wilson tackles the life of Goethe with characteristic wit and verve. From his youth as a wild literary prodigy to his later years as Germany’s most respected elder statesman, Wilson hones in on Goethe’s undying obsession with the work he would spend his entire life writing – Faust.

Genius or Lunatic goes deeper into the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic. There is so much confusion in there. So much contradiction. So much religiosity. And there is much desire to know, understand, and find the truth. Along the ride you will find yourself saying, "But in this poem didn't he just say this"? It will bring out emotions that you won't expect. This brings you into his pain and lets you experience it firsthand.

Every so often, a pairing comes along that seems completely unlikely—until it’s not. Peanut butter and jelly, Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un, ducks and puppies, and now: Dickens and Prince. Equipped with a fan’s admiration and his trademark humor and wit, Nick Hornby invites us into his latest obsession: the cosmic link between two unlikely artists, geniuses in their own rights, spanning race, class, and centuries—each of whom electrified their different disciplines and whose legacy resounded far beyond their own time.

Ludwig van Beethoven, a genius composer, one of the most recognized and influential of all composers. Ludwig van Beethoven is a crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Classical music. Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe.

Leaving school and starting his career at Decca Records in 1958 at the age of sixteen, Tony King would soon find himself becoming close friends with Elton John, rekindling John Lennon and Yoko Ono's relationship, mediating a quarrelsome Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and spending time with Freddie Mercury in his final days - a far cry from his childhood days in Eastbourne. Living in an era of seismic social, technological and cultural transformation, King experienced these defining moments as a stalwart in London and New York's gay scenes.

Lauren Samples never planned to become a true crime investigator. But when a podcast she co-hosted led her deep into the world of unsolved cases, she found herself drawn to the voices often overlooked—the families still searching for answers, the victims whose stories had faded from the headlines. In this compelling blend of memoir and investigative journalism, Samples shares the cases that changed her, from missing persons and cold cases to the complex realities of grief, justice, and advocacy.

Don’t Miss the Apple TV+ Docuseries Streaming Now! “This book is as engrossing as anything by Agatha Christie, as unsettling as a novel by Stephen King, and reported with a vigorous empathy that leaves Truman Capote in the dust. Scott Johnson’s courage, his relentless quest for the truth...

The captivating biography of the French aristocrat who balanced the demands of her society with passionate affairs of the heart and a brilliant life of the mind. Although today she is best known for her fifteen-year liaison with Voltaire, Gabrielle Emilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet (1706-1749) was more than a great man's mistress. After marrying a marquis at the age of eighteen, she proceeded to fulfill the prescribed-and delightfully frivolous-role of a French noblewoman of her time.

Over the course of his life, James Madison changed the United States three times: First, he designed the Constitution, led the struggle for its adoption and ratification, then drafted the Bill of Rights. As an older, cannier politician, he cofounded the original Republican party, setting the course of American political partisanship. Finally, having pioneered a foreign policy based on economic sanctions, he took the United States into a high-risk conflict, becoming the first wartime president and, despite the odds, winning.

A musical prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began playing the piano and composing when he was just three years old. Able to play multiple instruments, among them the piano and violin, Mozart spent much of his youth touring European courts with his family. From the time he was three until his death just thirty-two years later, he produced a huge volume of musical works. Among them the famed operas The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Don Giovanni.

Step into the disturbing real-life story of the Unabomber and the 20-year manhunt to catch him. As a fascinating and deeply chilling example of what happens when genius goes wrong, the life of Ted Kaczynski stands as a disturbing testament to madness, murder, and a mind pushed to the brink. Now, this eye-opening biography retraces the nearly 20-year manhunt that bewildered the FBI’s greatest investigators, along with the series of life-changing events that motivated the Unabomber’s war against society.

This collection of essays and stories spans a wide variety of topics. There's the open letter to Charles Manson, the report of a brave archeologist's journey into a suburban man cave, and a long overdue missive from Leif Erikson to Christopher Columbus. Walt Whitman even teaches a spin class. Nate Dern's razor-sharp eye examines modern society and technology, man buns, dating apps, and juicing crazes.

Arriving at the port of New York in 1882, a 27-year-old Oscar Wilde quipped he had "nothing to declare but my genius." But as this sparkling narrative reveals, Wilde was, rarely for him, underselling himself. A chronicle of his sensational eleven-month speaking tour of America, Declaring His Genius offers an indelible portrait of both Oscar Wilde and the Gilded Age. Neither Wilde nor America would ever be the same.