5053 results for "Biography"

City Room

Arthur Gelb
A New York Times Notable Book Arthur Gelb was hired by The New York Times in 1944 as a night copyboy—the paper’s lowliest position. Forty-five years later, he retired as its managing editor. Along the way, he exposed crooked cops and politicians, mentored a generation of our most-talented journalists, was the first to praise the as-yet-undiscovered Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand, and brought Joe Papp instant recognition. From D-Day to the liberation of the concentration camps, from the agony of Vietnam to the resignation of a President, from the fall of Joe McCarthy to the rise of the “Woodstock Nation,” Gelb gives an insider’s take on the great events of this nation's history—what he calls “the happiest days of my life.”
Penguin Group 2004-11-02 672 pages

One Soldier's War

Arkady Babchenko
An outstanding dispatch from the frontline of war - unsparing, unsentimental, blackly comic and brutally beautiful - by and ordinary soldier who tells it like it is. Arkady Babchenko was still a naove 18-year-old when he and his fellow teenage conscripts arrived in a camp just north of Chechnya. Fresh off the truck, the new recruit rapidly learned the meaning of savagery and fear, before he'd even been near the front line. By the time he started his active duty, he had developed a tough skin against the harsh treatments meted out by his seniors and grew hardened and cynical. With unblinking honesty, Arkady Babchenko traces his journey from innocence to experience, taking the raw and mundane reality of war and twists it into compelling, chilling - and eerily elegant - prose.
Portobello 2007 405 pages

A Dual Autobiography

Will Durant,Ariel Durant
In this readable autobiography by the authors of The Story of Civilization, Will & Ariel Durant celebrate & examine a lifetime of ideas, friendships, triumphs & love. The story of their life together, rich in anecdotes & with the countless famous people they knew, is a passionate record of their shared experience as lovers, as spouses, as world travelers & as the authors of one of the most famous successful works of scholarship in American literary history. Ariel & Will met & fell in love in 1912. He taught at New York's anarchist Ferrer Center, a young man already in love with the world of ideas, who had quit seminary to his family's chagrin in search of freedom. She was 14, so young that she roller-skated on her way to City Hall for her marriage, the daughter of penniless immigrants struggling to survive in the New World, inheritor of all the rebellious traditions & the determination to survive of the Russian ghetto from which her family came. Together they shared not only a burning love for each other but a hunger for ideas. Their book follows their intellectual journey, beginning with their interest in anarchism (which brought them close to Emma Goldman & Alexander Berkman) & going on thru a long, shared lifetime that brought them honors, fame & acquaintance with almost every major literary & intellectual personality in Europe & the USA. Their book is frank & moving, at once a star-studded history of the decades thru which they lived & worked & an intimate tribute to an enduring love.
Simon and Schuster 1977 420 pages

My Grandfather's Gallery

Anne Sinclair
On September 20, 1940, a famous European art dealer disembarked in New York, one of many Jewish refugees fleeing Vichy France. Leaving behind his beloved Paris gallery, Paul Rosenberg had managed to save his family, but his paintings—masterpieces by Cézanne, Monet, Sisley and others—were not so fortunate. As he fled, dozens of works were seized by Nazi forces and the art dealer’s own legacy obliterated. More than a half century later, Anne Sinclair found a box filled with letters and plunged into a journey of discovery about who her mother's father really was. Drawing on his intimate correspondences with Picasso, Matisse, Braque and others, she traces the life of a legendary member of the Parisian art scene. Paul Rosenberg’s story is emblematic of millions of twentieth-century Jews. In My Grandfather's Gallery, Sinclair both reframes twentieth century art history and reclaims her family history. ‘A deeply moving story.’Paris Match
Text Publishing Company 2014-08-27 219 pages

No Pretty Pictures

Anita Lobel
The beloved Caldecott Honor artist now recounts a tale of vastly different kind -- her own achingly potent memoir of a childhood of flight, imprisonment, and uncommon bravery in Nazi-occupied Poland. Anita Lobel was barely five when the war began and sixteen by the time she came to America from Sweden, where she had been sent to recover at the end of the war. This haunting book, illustrated with the author's archival photographs, is the remarkable account of her life during those years. Poised, forthright, and always ready to embrace life, Anita Lobel is the main character in the most personal story she will ever tell.Anita Lobel was barely five years old when World War II began and the Nazis burst into her home in Krakow, Poland, changing her life forever. She spent the days of her childhood in hiding with her brother--who was disguised as a girl--and their Catholic nanny in the countryside, the ghetto, and finally in a convent where the Nazis caught up with her. She was imprisoned in a succession of concentration camps until the end of the war. Sent by the Red Cross to recuperate in Sweden, she slowly blossomed as she discovered books and language and art. Since coming to the United States as a teenager, Anita Lobel has spent her life making pictures. She has never gone back. She has never looked back. Until now. 00-01 Tayshas High School Reading List Anita Lobel was barely five years old when World War II began and the Nazis burst into her home in Krakow, Poland, changing her life forever. She spent the days of her childhood in hiding with her brother--who was disguised as a girl--and their Catholic nanny in the countryside, the ghetto, and finally in a convent where the Nazis caught up with her. She was imprisoned in a succession of concentration camps until the end of the war. Sent by the Red Cross to recuperate in Sweden, she slowly blossomed as she discovered books and language and art. Since coming to the United States as a teenager, Anita Lobel has spent her life making pictures. She has never gone back. She has never looked back. Until now.
HarperCollins 2000-02-02 193 pages

Friendly Fire How Israel Became Its Own Worst Enemy

Ami Ayalon,Anthony David
A highly decorated Israeli military officer, leader, and former director of the internal security service, Shin Bet, sees the light on what his country must do to achieve a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In this deeply personal journey of discovery, Ami Ayalon seeks input and perspective from Palestinians and Israelis whose experiences differ from his own. As head of the Shin Bet security agency, he gained empathy for 'the enemy' and learned that when Israel carries out anti-terrorist operations in a political context of hopelessness, the Palestinian public will support violence, because they have nothing to lose. Researching and writing Friendly Fire , he came to understand that his patriotic life had blinded him to the self-defeating nature of policies that have undermined Israel's civil society while heaping humiliation upon its Palestinian neighbours. 'If Israel becomes an Orwellian dystopia,' Ayalon writes, 'it won't be thanks to a handful of theologians dragging us into the dark past. The secular majority will lead us there motivated by fear and propelled by silence.' Ayalon is a realist, not an idealist, and many who consider themselves Zionists will regard as radical his conclusions about what Israel must do to achieve relative peace and security and to sustain itself as a Jewish homeland and a liberal democracy. 'How can a staunch Zionist who was raised on one of Israel's earliest settlements and trained as a kill-or-be-killed elite commando spearhead a campaign for peace with his enemies? The answer, in Ami Ayalon's captivating narrative, is an eye-opener for Palestinians and Israelis alike.' -Sari Nusseibeh, author of Once Upon a Country- a Palestinian life , former president of the Al-Quds University, and former Palestinian National Authority representative in Jerusalem ' Ayalon's aims and accomplishments are ... undeniably impressive ... Hope finds a prominent presence in what so many think is a hopeless, endless conflict.' - Kirkus Reviews 'Ami Ayalon discusses how he came to see a two-state solution with the Palestinians as the best way to ensure Israel's security, not just through analysing numbers and statistics, but through a humanistic approach. He discusses ... how his humanist paradigm not only allowed him to see how the Palestinians' grievances and aspirations are intertwined with Israel's security, but also how he still acknowledges and sympathises with the narratives of those in Israel whom he may disagree with.' -Jonah Naghi, The Times of Israel
Scribe Publications 2020-12 320 pages

Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture

Hoffman, Abbie
Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture is the life story of one of the most important activists of the 20th century. Hoffman's book opens with his reflections on his suburban Jewish upbringing & early rebelliousness & goes on to recount his involvement in the student movement at Berkeley in the early 1960s, the anti-war demonstrations of the late '60s & early '70s, & his years as a fugitive from the American justice system. Along the way he gives behind-the-scenes details about the events at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago & subsequent Chicago Seven trial, his "levitation" of the Pentagon, & his friendships with Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Allen Ginsberg & many others. Insightful, funny & often moving, Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture is a self-portrait of a radical taking stock of his life's work.
Buccaneer Books 1994-06-01

Blown Away

A. E. Hotchner
Drawing on more than 200 interviews with such consorts and courtiers as Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Andrew Oldham, Chris Jagger, and Ian Stewart, this spellbinding tour of the dark underside of the 1960s brings to life the Stones' world of wealth, power, and privilege. Enhanced with 16 pages of photographs, this fast-moving, revelatory look at the rock group is also a fascinating portrait of an era.
Fireside 1991 349 pages

Soccer Revolution How Britain taught the world to play football and then received a hard lesson from its former pupils

Willy Meisl,Cesar Oliveira,Pedro Muxfeldt
Passionate researchers of Brazilian football rushed to their computers, as soon as Germany put an end, on the lawn of the Mineirão Stadium, to one of the greatest disasters in Brazilian and world football. It was necessary to explain “that”. Probably what no one knew is that more than 60 years ago, through similar debacles, journalist and writer Willy Meisl, an Austrian naturalized Englishman, had taken the same step. Hungary had perpetrated two “shakes” on the very honorable English Team—one of them, a crushing 6-3 on the sacred Wembley lawn—and it had to explain “that.” Willy knew what he was talking about. Having migrated to England as a fugitive from World War II, he was passionate about English football. But his critical eye, sharpened by the company of his brother Hugo, who created international fame for being mentor and coach of the incensed Austrian “Wunderteam” of the 1920s, could not understand why his now compatriots did not see that English football was going downhill, opening the way to go from being a creator to supporting the football association, at world level. From astute observations, critical eye and profound knowledge, based on much study and observations, Willy Meisl produced, in the mid-1950s, SOCCER REVOLUTION —one of the greatest classics of football literature that @LivrosdeFutebol has the honor of launching now, in electronic (e-book) and paper (on demand) version by Amazon®. The preface of the Brazilian edition is by the English journalist Tim Vickery, chosen for being English, working with football and not living in his homeland, facts that bring his biography closer to that of Willy Meisl. The translation and update notes are by Brazilian journalist Pedro Muxfeldt.
LivrosdeFutebol 2021 240 pages

Before the fall: an inside view of the pre-Watergate White House

Safire, William
William Safire was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon from 1968 to 1973. During that time, as a Washington insider, Safire was able to observe the thirty-seventh president in his entirety: as noble and mean-spirited; as good and bad; as a man desirous of greatness. Rarely has there been a White House memoir more intimate or revealing in its exploration of the great events that took place "before the fall" of Watergate. In this anecdotal history, Nixon and his associates come alive, not as caricatures, but as men with high and low purpose: Henry Kissinger, William Rogers, H. R. (Bob) Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, and Arthur Burns struggle not just for power, but for ideals. As William Safire says in his Prologue: "In this memoir, which is neither a biography of [Nixon] nor an autobiography of me nor a narrative history of our times, there is an attempt to figure out what was good and bad about him, what he was trying to do and how well he succeeded, how he used and affected some of the people around him, and an effort not to lose sight of all that went right in examining what went wrong." The book is divided into ten sections, in which run three main themes: the President, the Partisan, and the Person. As a president, Safire discusses Nixon and the Vietnam War, foreign policy, economics, and race relations. As a partisan, he discusses Nixon's attempt to form an alignment across party lines, successful in many respects before the president tolerated the excesses that eventually corrupted his administration. And as a person, Safire finds that Nixon was a mixture of Woodrow Wilson, Machiavelli, Theodore Roosevelt, and Shakespeare's Cassius--an idealistic conniver evoking the strenuous life while he thinks too much. This paperback edition of a classic primary source for historians includes a new introduction by its author. Studded with direct quotations that put the reader in the room where history was being made, Before the Fall is a realistic, shades-of-gray study of the Nixon years. William Safire joined the New York Times in 1973 as a political columnist, where he also writes a Sunday column, "On Language," about grammar, usage, and etymology. The author of several books including Freedom , Full Disclosure , and Scandalmonger , he is the winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and served nine years as a member of the Pulitzer Board.
Transaction Publishers 2005 704 pages

The Kaisers

Aronson, Theo
The Kaisers were only in power for less than fifty years, but their reigns would shape the fate of Europe forever… There were only three Kaisers, and their reigns lasted for less than fifty years. Yet their time on the throne was marked by drama, turbulence, and a bloody impact upon the lives of millions. The short lived Second Reich born out of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and defeated on the Western Front in 1918 is without parallel. The Kaisers is the story of six people whose influence changed the world. Wilhelm I, Frederick II, Wilhelm II and their wives had huge control over the recently unified Germany. They were military minded, autocratic men who, caught in bitter, almost continual conflict, found themselves on an inevitable path to destruction. The Kaisers is a comprehensive study of the rise and fall of the House of Hohenzollern that shows the light and shade of the Kaisers as well as explaining why they are perhaps deserving of our understanding and compassion. Praise for Theo Aronson: 'A lively and eminently readable book' - The Teacher 'An engrossing piece of almost contemporary history' - Homes & Gardens 'A vivid evocation of the lives and characters of the personalities involved' - The Observer Theo Aronson is the author of over twenty works of royal historical biography, published in eleven languages. Among the widely read are Grandmama of Europe, The King in Love, Napoleon and Josephine and a biography of Princess Margaret. In the course of researching and writing these books he has interviewed major and minor members of Britain’s royal family and members of the royal households, as well as various officials, servants, friends and others whose lives are in some way connected with the monarchy.
Independently published 2021-05-14 280 pages

The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila By St. Teresa of Avila - Illustrated

St. Teresa Of Avila
How is this book unique? Font adjustments & biography included Unabridged (100% Original content) Formatted for e-reader Illustrated About The Autobiography of St. Teresa Of Avila by St. Teresa Of Avila In this landmark of Christian mysticism, the revered Carmelite nun presents moving accounts of her profound religious experiences and ultimate union with God. St. Teresa wrote this memoir at the behest of her confessor. It offers a warm, accessible account of her transformation into an impassioned leader and reformer of church doctrine.St. Teresa recounts her childhood and education in sixteenth-century Spain, her physical afflictions and spiritual crises, her many visions and mystical encounters, and her determination to embrace the contemplative life. In describing the ascent of the soul, she explains the core of her theology as a four-stage process that progresses from mental prayer to divine rapture. Next to Don Quixote, this timeless work constitutes Spain's most popular prose classic. It forms an excellent introduction to the saint's other writings and to the Christian tradition of mystical literature.
Independently Published 2017-02-18 275 pages

A little love in big Manhattan

Wisse, Ruth R.
In the early decades of this century, the wave of immigration that brought nearly two million Jews from the Pale of Settlement to the United States included an extraordinary group of gifted Yiddish poets and writers, who came to be called Di Yunge (The Young). A Little Love in Big Manhattan tells the story of two of the Young’s most prominent figures―Mani Leib, a lyric poet intent on refining the hard facts of his life into works of enduring beauty, and Moishe Leib Halpern, for whom poetry had to be the expression of coarse and shattering reality. Through a dual biography of these opposing personalities, Ruth Wisse describes the rich and vital cultural movement that embraced them both. She tells of the burst of creative energy exhibited by the young poets and intellectuals who, after a long day of manual labor, would congregate in the cafes of the Lower East Side for badinage, debate, and literary talk. They started literary journals and compiled anthologies of their writings, which found their way overseas and had a rejuvenating influence on Yiddish poetry abroad. Ironically, their achievement coincided with the decline of the language in which they wrote, so that Yiddish poetry came into its own in America at a time when the next generation could scarcely read it; there were no literary heirs. Ruth Wisse presents modern Jews with a part of their lost inheritance, and also claims for the Yiddish poets a place in the American canon. The first book to present these poets as part of the history of immigrant Jews in America, A Little Love in Big Manhattan (the title is from a poem of Halpern’s) will appeal to readers of poetry and to people interested in facets of the intellectual and artistic atmosphere of the interwar period.
Harvard University Press 1988-07-27 279 pages

The many lives of Anne Frank

Franklin, Ruth
"In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929-1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hiding, now translated into more than seventy languages, is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust. Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, this book chronicles and interprets Anne's life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary--its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today's world. Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne's ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity. With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne's life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne's evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today's hyperpolarized world."--
Yale University Press 2025 424 pages

The Life of Benito Mussolini

Sarfatti, Margherita G.
The Life of Benito Mussolini is a comprehensive biography of the Italian fascist dictator written by Margherita G. Sarfatti. The book covers Mussolini's early life, his rise to power, and his eventual downfall. Sarfatti, who was a close friend and advisor to Mussolini, offers unique insights into his personality and political philosophy. The biography explores Mussolini's role in World War II, his alliance with Nazi Germany, and his ultimate defeat and execution. Sarfatti also delves into Mussolini's personal life, including his relationships with women and his family. The Life of Benito Mussolini is a detailed and informative account of one of the most controversial figures in modern history.1925. Translated by Frederic Whyte. A pro-Fascist biography of the life and, pre-WWII, pre-Hitler alliance, political career of Mussolini. Towards the end of the Preface, Mussolini writes: my life is to be found recorded-at least, such part of it as can be made known, ...it is no great affair-my life. There is nothing extraordinary in it to capture the imagination. No victorious wars, no out-of-the-way adventures. No creations of new systems of thought. It is a life full of movement, certainly, but it is a less interesting life, ...It is possible that the future may modify these proportions-it may reduce or increase them. But with this my biographers of tomorrow will have to do.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original wor
Kessinger Publishing, LLC 2010-09-10 368 pages

Boggs, a comedy of values

Weschler, Lawrence
In this highly entertaining book, Lawrence Weschler chronicles the antics of J. S. G. Boggs, an artist whose consuming passion is money, or perhaps more precisely, value. Boggs draws money-paper notes in standard currencies from all over the world-and tries to spend his drawings. It is a practice that regularly lands him in trouble with treasury police around the globe and provokes fundamental questions regarding the value of art and the value of money. "Lawrence Weschler, who evidently admires [Boggs]-something not difficult to do-has written what may be the most extraordinary biography imaginable: "weird," to use a favourite Boggs word. It does something towards changing our entire outlook on money and its uses. And the reader is left with an uneasy feeling that anything in this world can be created by drawing it." —Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph "As ideal a subject matter as money is for Boggs' genius, Boggs is as ideal a topic for Weschler's considerable talents. . . . A writer any less lucid than Weschler would smudge the lines, making of Boggs a counterculture caricature or a high-art huckster. And a writer any less confident would knock the balance, making academic mud pies of Boggs' enlightened chaos." —Jonathon Keats, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review "[A] witty and engaging chronicle. . . . Weschler's fascinating account of the artist as agent provocateur demonstrates both the significance of Boggs's art and his determination to continue his unusual critique of the idea of money." —Henry Wessells, Washington Post Book World "[A] witty, excellently written account of a bizarre and fascinating snippet of modern life." —Paul Ormerod, Times Higher Education Supplement "The book, like the artist, challenges people to pause and consider the extent to which the economic bedrock of everyday life is in part a confusing welter of artistic abstractions. It's a work that is at once informative, entertaining, and provocative-a reading experience, one might say, of rather good value." —Toby Lester, Atlantic Monthly "[A] fascinating tale, especially in these days of fluctuating currency rates, the euro, and inexplicable Net-stock valuations." —Paul Lukas, Fortune Lawrence Weschler, a recipient of the prestigious Lannan Literary Award for 1998, is the author of numerous books, including Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas , and Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder , which was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
University of Chicago Press 1999-06-01 160 pages

The art of the Jewish family: a history of women in early New York in five objects

Leibman, Laura Arnold
In The Art of the Jewish Family, Laura Arnold Leibman examines five objects owned by a diverse group of Jewish women who all lived in New York in the years between 1750 and 1850: a letter from impoverished Hannah Louzada seeking assistance; a set of silver cups owned by Reyna Levy Moses; an ivory miniature owned by Sarah Brandon Moses, who was born enslaved and became one of the wealthiest Jewish women in New York; a book created by Sarah Ann Hays Mordecai; and a family silhouette owned by Rebbetzin Jane Symons Isaacs. These objects offer intimate and tangible views into the lives of Jewish American women from a range of statuses, beliefs, and lifestyles--both rich and poor, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, slaves and slaveowners. Each chapter creates a biography of a single woman through an object, offering a new methodology that looks past texts alone to material culture in order to further understand early Jewish American women's lives and restore their agency as creators of Jewish identity. While much of the available history was written by men, the objects that Leibman studies were made for and by Jewish women. Speaking to American Jewish life, women's studies, and American history, The Art of the Jewish Family sheds new light on the lives and values of these women, while also revealing the social and religious structures that led to Jewish women being erased from historical archives.
Bard Graduate Center 2020 289 pages