Life Biography

Alongside the Renaissance, the Enlightenment is credited with the transition to an adherence to reason, secularism, and promotion of values such as the value of the individual, collective freedom, and liberty. At the heart of the movement in France was François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, whose writings advocated for greater liberalism, including freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a biting polemic whose satirical attacks on the Catholic Church were among the fiercest of his day.

One of the first personal narratives written by an ex-slave, this is also one of the few written by a woman. Harriet Jacobs (1813-97) was enslaved, along with her family, in North Carolina under a ruthless master who sexually harassed her. After several failed escape attempts, and several years of hiding, she finally made her way North to freedom, where she was eventually reunited with her children. The book was published in 1861.

Outsider. Misfit. Criminal. Convict. . . . Movie star. Family man. Comedy legend. Joey Diaz has been called every name in the book (and then some). Now, for the first time, he shares the story of his unlikely rise to fame in his own words—with no punches pulled.

The fullest, most textural, most accurate—most human—account of Oscar Wilde's unique and dazzling life—based on extensive new research and newly discovered materials, from Wilde's personal letters and transcripts of his first trial to newly uncovered papers of his early romantic (and...

A New York Times bestseller. “My life was a complete mess, and God bless all of it. Because it’s in the messes where we learn the most—as long as we slow down enough to realize what God is trying to show us.” Suddenly in the spotlight, twenty-four-year-old Hannah Brown realized that she...

John Lennon 1980 traces the powerful, life-affirming story of the former Beatle’s remarkable comeback after five years of self-imposed retirement. Lennon’s final pivotal year would climax in several moments of creative triumph as he rediscovered his artistic self in dramatic fashion. With the bravura release of the Double Fantasy album with wife, Yoko Ono, he was poised and ready for an even brighter future only to be wrenched from the world by an assassin’s bullets.

From a critically acclaimed biographer, an engrossing narrative of Robert Louis Stevenson’s life, a story as romantic and adventurous as his fiction.

Zen monk Santoka Taneda (1882 - 1940) is one of Japan's most beloved modern poets, famous for his "free-verse" haiku, the dominant style today. This book tells the fascinating story of his life, liberally sprinkled with more than 300 of his poems and extracts from his essays and journals - compiled by his best friend and biographer Sumita Oyama and elegantly translated by William Scott Wilson.

It began as rumors. Whispers at dinner parties. Warnings about bad dates with a Canadian celebrity. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, superstar CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi revealed his interest in "rough sex" in a long Facebook post, and a scandal of unprecedented scale descended on the radio host. What the public did not know was that months before Ghomeshi's emotional post, Canadaland podcaster Jesse Brown and Toronto Star journalist Kevin Donovan were quietly pursuing serious allegations against him.

Robert Oppenheimer was among the most brilliant and divisive of men. As head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, he oversaw the successful effort to beat the Nazis in the race to develop the first atomic bomb—a breakthrough that was to have eternal ramifications for mankind and that made Oppenheimer...

More Confessions shares the raw and honest feelings of emergency service professionals through true "story behind the story" revelations. Disclosing experiences from both sides of the gurney, Sherry and other EMS, ER, paramilitary, and firefighter responders walk you along their fragile line of sanity. Using humor as a life raft during perfect storms, workers reflect upon how they endure and survive personal and professional tragedy while trying not to care too much, and what happens when they fail in that attempt.

James Boswell forever changed the genre of biography when he painstakingly transformed a scholarly profusion of detail into a perceptive, lifelike portrait of Dr. Samuel Johnson. James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson reveals a man of outsized appetites and private vulnerabilities and is the source of much of what we know about one of the towering figures of English literature.

Charles Fletcher Lummis began his spectacular career in 1884 by walking from Ohio to start a new job at the three-year old Los Angeles Times. By the time of his death in 1928, the 3,500 mile "tramp across the continent" was just a footnote in his astonishingly varied career: crusading journalist, author of nearly two dozen books, editor of the influential political and literary magazine Out West, Los Angeles city librarian, preserver of Spanish missions, and Indian rights gadfly.

The New York Times Bestseller Fear. Grief. Loss. Betrayal. Rachel Hollis has felt all those things, and she knows you have too. Now, she takes you to the other side. With her signature humor, heartfelt honesty, and intimate true-life stories, #1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel...

In the darkest years of Nazi occupation and genocide, Etty Hillesum remained a celebrant of life whose lucid intelligence, sympathy, and almost impossible gallantry were themselves a form of inner resistance. The adult counterpart to Anne Frank, Hillesum testifies to the possibility of awareness and compassion in the face of the most devastating challenge to one's humanity. She died at Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of twenty-nine.

Life with Picasso, written with Carlton Lake, is about Picasso the artist and Picasso the man. We hear him talking about painting and sculpture, his life, his career, as well as other artists, both contemporaries and old masters. We glimpse Picasso in his many and volatile moods, dismissing his work, exultant over his work, entertaining his various superstitions, being an anxious father. But Life with Picasso is not only a portrait of a great artist; it is also a picture of a talented young woman of exacting intelligence at the outset of her own notable career.

Discover the remarkable journey of one of India's most iconic business leaders in Ratan Tata: A Complete Biography by A.K. Gandhi. This comprehensive biography chronicles the life of Ratan Tata, from his early days to his transformative leadership at Tata Group. Learn about his visionary strategies, philanthropic efforts and the challenges he overcame to build a global empire. This inspiring account offers valuable lessons in leadership, innovation and resilience.

What do you do when you discover information that is before its time? What do you do when your curiosity takes you on an adventure that is so bizarre that there is nothing normal to relate to? This is what happened to Dolores Cannon in 1968, long before she began her career as a past-life hypnotherapist and regressionist. Travel back with us to that time when the words reincarnation, past-lives, regression, walk-ins, New Age were unknown to the general population.

She grew up in front of the world on the beloved sitcom Full House, but then actress Andrea Barber abruptly left Hollywood. Why did she leave and what did she do for 20 years out of the spotlight before returning to television? This is her funny and inspiring memoir of fame, heartache, resilience - and the reboot of a lifetime....

NATIONAL BESTSELLER A hockey life like no other. A hockey book like no other. Scotty Bowman is recognized as the best coach in hockey history, and one of the greatest coaches in all of sports. He won more games and more Stanley Cups than anyone else. Despite all the changes in hockey, he coached...