Category: Biography

By Peter Schilling Jr.

Mix the wild waters of the Mississippi River and wordsmith Mark Twain, and what have you ever acquired? probably the most well-known and favourite literary works in American heritage, together with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Gilded Age, and existence at the Mississippi. Twain spent the 1st 1/2 his existence on and round the river, from his boyhood domestic in Hannibal, Missouri, to his years as a steamboat pilot, within which he traveled up and down the river as a ways south as New Orleans.

Commemorating one among America's so much liked authors and the panorama he portrayed in his works, Mark Twain's Mississippi River comprises illustrations from numerous versions of his books, either fiction and nonfiction; maps; old pictures; panorama work of the river and its population; and sleek images of cities and nation-state, exhibiting how a lot the panorama has replaced (or hasn't) because the days of Huckleberry Finn.

Filled with excerpts, quotations, newspaper clippings, and commentaries, this ebook is filled with ancient information regarding the lifetime of Samuel Clemens, his literary creations, and the river that figured so prominently in either. With over two hundred appealing images and a educated narrative written via Twain pupil and writer R. Kent Rasmussen, Mark Twain's Mississippi River is just a pleasure to learn for an individual who likes to detect the truth at the back of the author.

By Alessandro Alciato, Andrea Pirlo

Andrea Pirlo is without doubt one of the best footballers of his iteration - a global Cup and Champions League profitable playmaker who has redefined his place on the base of midfield, and the most lethal free-kick takers the sport has recognized. this can be his tale, in his phrases. it truly is written with a degree of humour and perception which confound his snapshot as a dead-eyed murderer at the box of play. the entire titanic names are in there: Lippi, Ancelotti, Conte, Maldini, Shevchenko, Seedorf, Buffon, Kaka, Nesta, Balotelli, Costacurta, Gattuso, Berlusconi and Ronaldo ("the genuine one"). yet they're now not continuously of their paintings outfits. We pay attention Berlusconi enjoying the piano and telling "various varieties of jokes" at Milan's education flooring. We see Pirlo and Daniele De Rossi drawing Nesta's ire as they take him on a secret travel of the German nation-state in a lease vehicle days prior to an international Cup semi-final. And we scent the aftermath of Filippo Inzaghi's graphically-described pre-match regimen. With the 2014 international Cup being his final foreign match, this can be a well timed salute to a unique expertise who could but have one ultimate bankruptcy left to put in writing.

By Craig Harrison

By Michelle Morgan

This precious new biography, by way of the President of the united kingdom fan membership, comprises the fullest ever number of fundamental resource fabric on Marilyn Monroe, masking all phases of her existence. It comprises over 70 fine-reproduction infrequent and unpublished photos. the images convey Marilyn's genuine international, the area clear of the lovers, the studio heads and common public. They display a distinct part of Marilyn from the celluloid invention - stress-free at domestic, residing her way of life. They contain destinations from many of the phases of her lifestyles - the colleges she attended as Norma Jeane, the ballroom the place she danced with first husband Jim Dougherty; the road the place Marilyn claimed she used to be attacked by way of an outsider; and candid pictures of her at the units of flicks. Michelle Morgan has additionally interviewed each individual obtainable who knew or used to be regarding Marilyn in any respect, together with the most avid gamers in her lifestyles - friends and family, in addition to paintings colleagues, and extra informal associates. greater than 50 interviewees are featured, many by no means wear the checklist prior to, together with a multitude from her orphaned formative years and early years - info of which previously have remained mysterious and patchy. Documentary resources variety from the personal testimony of her gaenocologist, to the formerly undisclosed Laurence Olivier papers in relation to Marilyn's time in England. Following a chain of sensationalist biographies of the Marilyn Monroe lately, this accomplished, meticulously researched quantity brings a massive clean point of view to the numerous controversies in her lifestyles, and should function an important sourcebook of documentary and photographic facts.

By Mark Blake

Mark Blake attracts on his personal interviews with band individuals in addition to the group’s associates, highway workforce, musical contemporaries, former housemates, and college colleagues to supply a riveting historical past of 1 of the most important rock bands of all time. We keep on with crimson Floyd from the early psychedelic nights at alien craft, to the stadium-rock and concept-album zenith of the seventies, to the acrimonious schisms of the overdue ’80s and ’90s. alongside the way in which there are interesting new revelations approximately Syd Barrett’s chaotic existence on the time of Piper on the Gates of sunrise, the band’s painstaking and Byzantine recording periods at Abbey highway, and the fractious negotiations to lead to their fragile, tantalizing reunion in Hyde Park.

Meticulous, exacting, and impressive as any purple Floyd album, very easily Numb is the definitive account of this such a lot adventurous—and such a lot English—rock band.

By Frederic Morton

A countrywide ebook Award Finalist from the bestselling Frederic Morton

No kin some time past centuries has been as continually on the heart of Europe's nice occasions, has featured such diverse and striking personalities, has had something on the subject of the wealth of the Rothschilds. To today they continue to be the most strong and prosperous households on the earth.

In Frederic Morton's vintage story, the relations is finely painted at the web page and taken vividly to existence. right here you'll meet Mayer, long-time adviser to Germany's princes, who broke throughout the obstacles of a Frankfurt ghetto and put his relations at the street to wealth and tool; Lord Alfred, who maintained a personal educate, deepest orchestra (which he conducted), and personal circus (of which he was once ringmaster); Baron Philippe, whose rarefied vintages endure labels that have been created by means of nice artists, between them Picasso, Dali, and Haring; and Kathleen Nica Rothschild de Koenigswarter, the "jazz baroness," in whose palms Charlie Parker died.

The kin itself has been on the middle of a few of the main an important moments in historical past: the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the advance of the Suez Canal, the creation of Jews in the home of Lords. via all of it, the Rothschild identify has persevered to symbolize the family members excellent, and no writer has so nimbly captured the eccentric brilliance of blood as Frederic Morton.

By Alan Walker

The 1st quantity in Alan Walker's magisterial biography of Franz Liszt.

"You can't aid yet retain turning the pages, brooding about the way it will all end up: and Walker's accrued readings of Liszt's song must be taken heavily indeed."—D. Kern Holoman, New York evaluate of Books

"A conscientious student keen about his topic. Mr. Walker makes the fellow and his age come to lifestyles. those 3 volumes often is the definitive paintings to which all next Liszt biographies will aspire."—Harold C. Schonberg, Wall road Journal

"What distinguishes Walker from Liszt's dozens of prior biographers is that he's both robust at the track and the lifestyles. an impressive musicologist with a full of life polemical kind, he discusses the composer's works with larger realizing and readability than any prior biographer. And while many have recycled a similar misguided, frequently harmful details, Walker has trusted his personal prodigious, globe-trotting study, a undertaking spanning twenty-five years. the result's a textured portrait of Liszt and his occasions with no rival."—Elliot Ravetz, Time

"The prose is so vigorous that the reader is usually swept alongside by way of the narrative. . . . This three-part paintings . . . is now the definitive paintings on Liszt in English and belongs in all track collections."—Library Journal

By Carl Rollyson

In American pop culture, Marilyn Monroe(1926-1962) has advanced in stature from motion picture famous person to American icon. Monroe's personal figuring out of her position within the American mind's eye and her attempt to excellent her expertise as an actress are explored with nice sensitivity in Carl Rollyson's attractive narrative. He exhibits how videos turned an important occasions within the shaping of Monroe's id. He regards her enduring presents as an artistic artist, discussing how her smaller roles in The Asphalt Jungle and All approximately Eve verified the context for her occupation, whereas in-depth chapters on her extra vital roles in Bus cease, a few love it Hot, and The Misfits give you the centerpiece of his exam of her lifestyles and career.

Through broad interviews with lots of Monroe's colleagues, shut buddies, and different biographers, and a cautious rethinking of the literature written approximately her, Rollyson is ready to describe her use of approach appearing and her experiences with Michael Chekhov and Lee Strasberg, head of the Actors' Studio in big apple. the writer additionally analyzes numerous of Monroe's personal drawings, diary notes, and letters that experience lately develop into on hand. With over thirty black and white photos (some released for the 1st time), a brand new foreword, and a brand new afterword, this quantity brings Rollyson's 1986 publication as much as date.

From this complete, but seriously measured wealth of fabric, Rollyson deals a particular and insightful portrait of Marilyn Monroe, highlighted by way of new views that depict the vital significance of appearing to the actual elements of her being.

By Richard Stoneman

Xerxes, nice King of the Persian Empire from 486–465 B.C., has long gone down in heritage as an offended tyrant filled with insane ambition. The stand of Leonidas and the three hundred opposed to his military at Thermopylae is a byword for braveness, whereas the failure of Xerxes’ day trip has overshadowed the entire different achievements of his twenty-two-year reign.
 
during this full of life and finished new biography, Richard Stoneman exhibits how Xerxes, regardless of sympathetic therapy by way of the modern Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his popularity destroyed via later Greek writers and by way of the propaganda of Alexander the nice. Stoneman attracts at the most recent examine in Achaemenid experiences and archaeology to provide the ruler from the Persian point of view. This illuminating quantity doesn't whitewash Xerxes’ failings yet units opposed to them such triumphs because the architectural elegance of Persepolis and a attention of Xerxes’ spiritual commitments. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a guy who governed an enormous and multicultural empire which the Greek groups of the West observed because the antithesis in their personal values.

By Lisa Rogak

Probably the most prolific and well known authors on the earth at the present time, Stephen King has turn into a part of popular culture background. His best-selling novels equivalent to Carrie, It, Christine, and so on have captured the imaginations of hundreds of thousands of readers. yet who's the fellow at the back of these stories of horror, grief, and the supernatural? the place do those rules come from? And what drives him to maintain writing at a breakneck velocity after a thirty 12 months career?

In this unauthorized biography, Lisa Rogak unearths the heritage and lifetime fears that encourage one of many 20th century's such a lot influential authors. regardless of his darkish and aggravating paintings, Stephen King has develop into respected by way of critics and his numerous fanatics as an all-American voice extra comparable to Mark Twain than H. P. Lovecraft. Haunted middle chronicles his tale, revealing the nature of a guy who has created probably the most memorable---and frightening---stories present in literature this present day.