Human Biography

The 19th daughter of a local village leader in rural Afghanistan, Fawzia Koofi was left to die in the sun after birth by her mother. But she survived, and perseverance in the face of extreme hardship has defined her life ever since. Despite the abuse of her family, the exploitative Russian and Taliban regimes, the murders of her father, brother, and husband, and numerous attempts on her life, she rose to become the first Afghani woman Parliament speaker.

When Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 to cover Iran's presidential election, he assured his pregnant fiancée, Paola, that he'd be back in just a few days, a week at most. Little did he know, as he kissed her good-bye, that he would spend the next three months in Iran’s most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogation sessions at the hands of a man he knew only by his smell: Rosewater.

Called “the best kind of nonfiction” by Michael Connelly, this riveting new book combines true crime, brain science, and courtroom drama. In 1991, the police were called to East 72nd St. in Manhattan, where a woman's body had fallen from a twelfth-story window. The woman’s husband, Herbert...

Named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post “Tangled Up in Blue is a wonderfully insightful book that provides a lens to critically analyze urban policing and a road map for how our most dispossessed citizens may better relate to those sworn to protect and serve...

This raw, untold memoir reveals the real story not covered in Netflix's Orgasm Inc. The story shows how intelligent people get trapped in high-control groups. How the same methods used to help people can be weaponized to control them. How trauma and transformation can be impossible to separate.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Comedian Ian Karmel, with help from his sister, Dr. Alisa Karmel, opens up about the daily humiliations of being fat and why it’s so hard to talk about something so visible. “As charming and funny as it is poignant and thoughtful.”—Roxane Gay, author of Hunger: A...

Who Shot Ahmed? recounts the murder of a 22-year-old videographer, killed in cold blood in the dead of night at the height of Bahrain’s Arab Spring revolution. On a small island Kingdom swirling with political, economic, and sectarian tensions, Ahmed’s murder epitomized everything that had gone wrong since 2011, when pro-democracy protesters took to the streets in droves. Drawing on dozens of testimonies, journalist Elizabeth Dickinson traces the tale of Ahmed’s death and his family’s fearless quest for justice.

A resilient Turkish writer's inspiring account of his imprisonment that provides crucial insight into political censorship amidst the global rise of authoritarianism. The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision...

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST In this magisterial study of the relationship between illness and art, the best-selling author of An Unquiet Mind, Kay Redfield Jamison, brings an entirely fresh understanding to the work and life of Robert Lowell (1917-1977), whose intense, complex, and personal...

A United Nations insider exposes how anti-American and antidemocratic forces have hijacked the UN and put America and its allies at risk Politicians and pundits are imploring the United States to give the UN a major role in American foreign policy. But as bestselling author Dore Gold reveals in...

In 1949, Dorothy Vaughan became the first African American woman to lead a team at NASA's Langley Research Center. Her work as a mathematician was an important part of helping the United States explore space. Learn more about Vaughan's life as a famous mathematician!

These compelling case histories meld science and storytelling to illuminate the complex relationship between the mind of someone with dementia and the mind of the person caring for them. “This book will forever change the way we see people with dementia disorders—and the people who care for...

"Simply brilliant, both in its granular storytelling and its enormous compassion" --The New York Times Book Review The story of two refugee families and their hope and resilience as they fight to survive and belong in America The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been...

The definitive biography of the most important, popular, and confounding player of the post-Tiger era, masterfully chronicled by Alan Shipnuck, the bestselling author of Phil and LIV and Let Die. Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. He can overwhelm a golf course with his transcendent talent and...

Lynn Schooler had recently lost a dear friend and was feeling his marriage slipping away from him when he set out on a daring journey - first by boat, then on foot - into the Alaskan wilderness to clear his head. His solo expedition, recounted in Walking Home, is filled with the awe and danger of being on one's own in the wild, being battered by the elements and even, for two harrowing days, becoming the terrified quarry of a grizzly bear. But the formidable, lonely landscape is also rich with human stories....

An instant New York Times bestseller, in a sweeping narrative the author of the esteemed 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. Grand Pursuit is the epic story of the making of modern...

Searing essays from International Booker Prize-winning Israeli author and long-time peace activist David Grossman carry us up to and through the cataclysm of Oct 7th and what followed We know David Grossman's voice of ringing moral clarity from way back: since the late 1980s and The Yellow Wind...

In a world run amuck with seemingly irreparable differences and conflicts, Gail Straub’s memoir offers an antidote. As a seeker on pilgrimage across the Sahara with indigenous Tuaregs, trekking off the beaten trail high in the Himalayas, the intrepid Straub seeks out all that is different so that she can become whole.

A psychologist who evaluates the fitness of parents when their children have been removed from their custody finds herself reassessing her own mothering when her son falls victim to the opioid crisis. Psychologist and expert witness Dr. Sharon Lamb evaluates parents, particularly in high-stakes...

Is there a secret to happiness? Beloved comedian Paula Poundstone conducts a series of "thoroughly unscientific" experiments to find out, offering herself up as a guinea pig and recording her data for the benefit of all humankind. Armed with her unique brand of self-deprecating wit and the scientific method, in each chapter Paula tries out a different get-happy hypothesis.