Life Biography

When Michael K. Williams died on September 6, 2021, he left behind a career as one of the most electrifying actors of his generation. From his star turn as Omar Little in The Wire to Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire to Emmy-nominated roles in HBO’s The Night Of and Lovecraft Country, Williams inhabited a slew of indelible roles that he portrayed with a rawness and vulnerability that leapt off the screen.

In Gandolfini, critic and historian Jason Bailey traces the twinned stories of the man and the unforgettable roles he played. Gandolfini’s roots were working class, raised in northern New Jersey as the son of Italian immigrants, and acting was something he loved for a long time before he could see it as a career. It wasn’t until he was well into his bohemian twenties that he dedicated himself to a life on the stage and screen.

What happens when one of America’s most beloved biographers writes his own biography? For five-time New York Times best-selling author Eric Metaxas, the answer is Fish Out of Water: A Search for the Meaning of Life - a soaring, lyrical, and often mischievous account of his early years, in which the astute Queens-born son of Greek and German immigrants struggles to make sense of a world in which he never quite seems to fit.

"विवेकानंद की आत्मकथा" संकर द्वारा लिखित एक प्रेरणादायक पुस्तक है जो स्वामी विवेकानंद के जीवन और विचारों को आत्मकथात्मक शैली में प्रस्तुत करती है। इस पुस्तक में विवेकानंद की जीवन यात्रा, उनके प्रेरणादायक उपदेश और उनके द्वारा अनुभव किए गए विभिन्न घटनाओं का वर्णन है। यह पुस्तक आत्म-सुधार, आध्यात्मिकता और जीवन के उद्देश्य को समझने में सहायक है।

In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, he finally tells her story.

Beyond the rehashed clichés, this book inspires us to rediscover Diogenes' philosophical legacy—whether it be the challenge to the established order, the detachment from materialism, the choice of a return to nature, or the formulation of a cosmopolitan ideal strongly rooted in the belief that virtue is better revealed in action than in theory.

For a time, Nelson Algren was America's most famous author, lauded by the likes of Richard Wright and Ernest Hemingway. Millions bought his books. Algren's third novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, won the first National Book Award, and Frank Sinatra starred in the movie. But despite Algren's talent, he abandoned fiction and fell into obscurity. The cause of his decline was never clear. Some said he drank his talent away; others cited writer's block. The truth, hidden in the pages of his books, is far more complicated and tragic.

Amy Bruni, co-star of Kindred Spirits and one of the world's leading paranormal investigators, has learned a lot about ghosts over her years of research and first-hand experience. Now, in Life with the Afterlife, she shares the insight she has gleaned and how it has shaped her unique approach to interacting with the spirits of the dead and those who encounter them.

In 2007 chef Grant Achatz seemingly had it made. He had been named one of the best new chefs in America by Food & Wine in 2002, received the James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year Award in 2003, and in 2005 he and Nick Kokonas opened the conceptually radical restaurant Alinea, which was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine. Then, Achatz was diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma - tongue cancer.

In 2008 veteran journalist Evan Wright, acclaimed for his New York Times best-selling book Generation Kill and co-writer of the Emmy-winning HBO series it spawned, began a series of conversations with super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the fabulously successful documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Those conversations would last three years, during which time Wright came to realize that Roberts was much more than the de-facto “transportation chief” of the Medellin Cartel during the 1980s, much more than a facilitator of a national drug epidemic.

From the mid-1980s into the early 1990s, the greatest athlete of all time streaked across American sports and popular culture. Stadiums struggled to contain him. Clocks failed to capture his speed. His strength was legendary. His power unmatched. Video game makers turned him into an invincible character—and they were dead-on. He climbed (and walked across) walls, splintered baseball bats over his knee, turned oncoming tacklers into ground meat.

In six weeks in 1940, France was overrun by German troops and surrendered. One junior French general, refusing to accept defeat, made his way to England. On 18 June he spoke to his compatriots over the BBC, urging them to rally to him in London. At that moment, Charles de Gaulle entered into history. For the rest of the war, de Gaulle frequently bit the hand that fed him. He insisted on being treated as the true embodiment of France, and quarrelled violently with Churchill and Roosevelt. But he managed to have France recognised as one of the victorious Allies.

Steve-O is best known for his wildly dangerous, foolish, painful, embarrassing, and sometimes death-defying stunts. At age 48, however, he faces his greatest challenge yet: getting older. A Hard Kick in the Nuts: What I’ve Learned from a Lifetime of Terrible Decisions is a captivating exploration of life and how to live it by an individual who has already lived way more than a lifetime’s worth of extreme experiences. Steve-O grapples with the right balance between maturity and staying true to yourself, avoiding selfishness, and finding the right partner for life.

Academy Award-winning director Michael Curtiz—whose best-known films include Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Mildred Pierce, and White Christmas—was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his 27-year tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, Westerns, musicals, war epics, romances, historical dramas, horror films, tearjerkers, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. In the first biography of this colorful, instinctual artist, Alan K. Rode illuminates the life and work of one of the film industry's most complex figures.

A hugely affecting memoir by the world's leading coral reef scientist, revealing the thrill of diving and the vital science and story of these majestic reefs.

A unique biography of a homeless man and a complete portrait of the hidden underclass. ‘So here it is, my attempt at the story of Stuart Shorter, thief, hostage taker, psycho and sociopath street raconteur, my spy on how the British chaotic underclass spend their troubled days at the beginning of this century: a man with an important life. I wish I could have presented it to Stuart before he stepped in front of the 11.15 train from London to Kings Lynn.’ Stuart Shorter’s brief life was one of turmoil and chaos.

Proud and talented, history now remembers this conflicted man solely through the lens of his last desperate act of treason. Yet the fall of Benedict Arnold remains one of the Revolutionary period's great puzzles. Why did a brilliant military commander, who repeatedly risked his life fighting the British, who was grievously injured in the line of duty, and fell into debt personally funding his own troops, ultimately became a traitor to the patriot cause?

Terrific advice, insightful stories, and powerful life lessons curated by Dana Perino the #1 New York Times bestselling author of And the Good News Is . . . and beloved co-host of Fox News' The Five and America’s Newsroom, inspired by her friends and colleagues. I Wish Someone Had Told Me . . . is a blueprint for success in your life and career. An all-star line-up of Dana’s lifelong friends and Fox News personalities with wide-ranging talents and accomplishments share amazing stories about their own experiences, offering invaluable guidance and wisdom on a range of subjects.

John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough (1644-1722), was one of the greatest military commanders and statesmen in the history of England. Victorious in the Battles of Blenheim (1704) and Ramillies (1706) and countless other campaigns, Marlborough, whose political intrigues were almost as legendary as his military skill, never fought a battle he didn't win. Marlborough also bequeathed the world another great British military strategist and diplomat, his descendant, Winston S. Churchill.

From the author of the international best seller A Higher Call comes the riveting World War II story of an American tank gunner’s journey into the heart of the Third Reich, where he will meet destiny in an iconic armor duel - and forge an enduring bond with his enemy.