Life Biography

Widely hailed as a spiritual classic, this inspirational and unfailingly powerful story reveals the life and visions of the Lakota healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) and the tragic history of his Sioux people during the epic closing decades of the Old West. In 1930, the aging Black Elk met a kindred spirit, the famed poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt (1881–1973) on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

In 1938, 29-year-old 'Nicky' cancelled a ski holiday and instead spent nine months masterminding a seemingly impossible plan to rescue hundreds of Jewish children and find them homes in the UK. Over 6,000 people are alive today because of his efforts. What motivated an ordinary man to do something so extraordinary? This book, written by his daughter, Barbara, explores the 106-year life of an incredible humanitarian, a man whose legacy only came to public light decades later.

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

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.

As revelatory as Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson’s Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, 'old' has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we’ve made old age into a disease.

Based, in part, on Rabbi Sacks’s collection of columns in the UK's Times newspaper, Celebrating Life is a series of reflections on subjects such as morality, friendship, listening to others and giving thanks. It also talks about topics such as being a parent, finding and losing one’s faith and most of all, finding happiness. In Celebrating Life, Rabbi Sacks discovers where happiness lives, often in unexpected places, through family, community, friendship and responsibilities. He also finds it through a renewed relationship with God who spoke to his deepest needs.

By the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back comes a magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges - some of the worst largely unknown until now. Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion.

Priscilla Presley’s divorce from Elvis left his fans incredulous. How could she leave the man every woman wanted? From the outside, life in Elvis’s mansion looked glamorous and enviable, and in many respects, it was. But inside the mansion, her husband was constantly surrounded by a male entourage while at the gates, lines of beautiful women waited hopefully for an audience with the King. From the time she was seventeen years old, that life was all Priscilla had known.

In The Rulebreaker, Susan Page conducts 150 interviews and extensive archival research to discover that Walters was driven to keep herself and her family afloat after her mercurial and famous impresario father attempted suicide. But she never lost the fear of an impending catastrophe, which is what led her to ask for things no woman had ever asked for before, to ignore the rules of misogynistic culture, to outcompete her most ferocious competitors, and to protect her complicated marriages and love life from scrutiny.

Maye Musk is a fashionable, charming, jet-setting supermodel with a fascinating and tight-knit circle of family and friends - and is 71 years old. But things were not always so easy or glamorous. As everyone who follows her obsessively on social media knows, Maye is a fount of frank and practical advice on how the choices you make in every decade can pay off in surprising, exciting ways throughout your life. In A Woman Makes a Plan, Maye shares experiences from her life conveying hard-earned wisdom on career, family, health, and adventure.

Loud rock, fast cars, and Cabo. This is the life of Sammy Hagar. For almost 40 years, Sammy Hagar has been a fixture in rock music. From breaking into the industry with the band Montrose to his multiplatinum solo career to his ride as the front man of Van Halen, Sammy's powerful and unforgettable voice has set the tone for some of the greatest rock anthems ever written - songs like "I Can't Drive 55", "Right Now", and "Why Can't This Be Love".

Martín Prechtel continues the narrative of his unique life in Santiago, Atitlan in Long Life, Honey in the Heart, an eloquent memoir replete with the subtle intelligence and sophistication of Mayan culture. Set against the dramatic backdrop of Guatemala's political upheaval in the 1980s, this heady mix of magic, humor, and spirituality immerses the listeners in the experiences of Mayan birth, courting, marriage, child-rearing, old age, death, and beyond, using the true story of Prechtel's own family and friends.

Written with an exciting combination of narrative flair and historical authority, this interpretation of the tragic life of Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII, breaks new ground in our understanding of the very young woman who became queen at a time of unprecedented social and political tension and whose terrible errors in judgment quickly led her to the executioner's block.

A glimpse into a life less ordinary from one of the world's most prolific BASE jumpers and infamous party animals, Chris 'Douggs' McDougall. This riotous and often touching life story gives an insight into the world of hyper extreme sports where death lurks at every corner. Douggs faces the challenge armed with a case of beer, a wry sense of humour and an attitude that catches the authorities flat-footed.

Buck O'Neil once described him as "Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, and Tris Speaker rolled into one". Among experts, he is regarded as the best player in Negro Leagues history. During his prime, he became a legend in Cuba and one of Black America's most popular figures. Yet even among serious sports fans, Oscar Charleston is virtually unknown today.

American Sniper meets Make Your Bed in these life lessons from decorated United States service members and New York Times bestselling authors Robert O’Neill and Dakota Meyer—an in-depth, fearless, and ultimately redemptive account of what it takes to survive and thrive on battlefields from Afghanistan and Iraq to our daily lives, and how the perils of war help us hold onto our humanity.

A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet - then spends the rest of his life trying to atone for the violence by hand printing the best prayer flags in India. A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her best friend ritually starve herself to death. Nine people, nine lives; each one taking a different religious path, each one an unforgettable story. William Dalrymple delves deep into the heart of a nation torn between the relentless onslaught of modernity and the ancient traditions that endure to this day.

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.

In this eye-opening book, angelologist Father Marcello Stanzione tells the fascinating story of Father Amorth and his life as an exorcist. You'll learn of his daily schedule and how he managed to perform dozens of exorcisms each week. You'll find out what his exorcism room looked like, and how various devils responded to his bold practice. Best of all, you'll hear Father Amorth's own startling explanations of many truths about the Devil that our culture has forgotten and about the canny methods the Deceiver has adopted in recent years to corrupt believers and unbelievers alike.

Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later to become the mother of Winston Churchill) refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents. Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons is a captivating dual biography of two famous women whose sons would change the course of the 20th century.