Napoleon III, being accused on one occasion of having nothing of the Great Napoleon about him, replied with as much exasperation as wit, that he did, on the contrary, have his relations. This book is a domestic chronicle of the incredible Bonaparte family, a greedy, amorous, quarrelsome and hot-blooded Corsican clan who provided nineteenth-century Europe — and America — not only with two French emperors but also with a dazzling assortment of pretenders and parvenus, statesmen and eccentrics, great ladies and adventurers. Plumped onto the thrones of Europe by the career of Napoleon I, who probably took better care of his family than any other conqueror in history, the Bonapartes survived the wreck of the two empires they ruled, buzzing around the honeypots of the continent with all the persistence of the imperial bees of Napoleon's crest. This is a personal history, not a political one. It is the family, with its eccentricities, vulgarities and fascinations manifesting themselves in generation after generation, which holds the centre of the stage. The great political, economic and military events of the time are heard dimly as 'noises off'. Napoleon I himself appears as a son, brother, husband, father and above all as the founder of a dynasty, rather than as a great public figure. Theo Aronson paints this family portrait with a wealth of detail based on many years of research with historical documents and original records, letters, memoirs and family diaries. Praise for The Golden Bees: ‘A very considerable feat… a long, comfortable, easy-going sort of narrative full of tit-bits of information, stuffed with anecdotes’ - Observer ‘This is a hugely entertaining book. Neither biography nor history; but a mixture of both.… All lovers of royal gossip, of sprightly anecdotes and of the scandal and personal drama of history should delight in it’ - New York Times 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.

Mark W. Clark was a major figure in World War II. He was prominent as one of the top American commanders. Together with Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley, and George S. Patton, Jr., Clark was widely regarded as being responsible for victory on the European side of the conflict. One of the great World War II memoirs by a legendary American general in charge of operations in North Africa and Italy. General Mark W. Clark recounts his wartime exploits and tells the story of the battles in Tunisia and Italy with verve and attention to key detail. An unparalleled account by a great military leader.

In Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate Warren Rudman focuses on four historic Senate actions in which he played a central the Gramm-Rudman act--the audacious 1985 attempt to force a balanced budget on an unwilling Congress and President; the Keating Five ethics committee hearings, which revealed the thin line between campaign finance and corruption; the Iran-Contra investigation, Rudman's no-holds-barred account of the Reagan administration's biggest scandal; and the appointment of his colleague and close friend David Souter to the Supreme Court. Rudman offers vivid portraits of the men he worked Dole, Packwood, Baker, Helms, Gramm, and the two presidents he served under--Reagan and Bush. He writes unflinchingly about his colleagues and about the legislative process. Here is the inner world of the Senate club, revealed by the man who was often called "the conscience of the Senate." Combat is one of the most important books on American politics to be published in years.

'This war', wrote Winston Churchill to King George VI at the height of the Second World War, 'has brought throne and people closer together than was ever before recorded.' Here is a full and fascinating account of that coming together. It is a study of the contribution made not only by George VI and his redoubtable Queen, but also by the entire royal family during those turbulent years, and of how that contribution strengthened and popularized the monarchy. This is a family saga; an account of the lives, as much private as public, of all the diverse members of what George VI called 'The Firm'. Together with the tireless efforts of the King and Queen, it deals with such aspects as the Duke of Windsor's flirtation with fascism, the mysterious death of the Duke of Kent, the activities of the Athlones in Canada and the Gloucesters in Australia, and the imprisonment of the Princess Royal's eldest son, Viscount Lascelles. Occasionally tragic, often amusing, always interesting, The Royal Family at War is a richly detailed panorama of the monarchy in one of its finest hours. Theo Aronson is the author of over twenty works of royal historical biography including 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.

'My nature', wrote Queen Victoria, 'is too passionate, my emotions too fervent, and I am a person who has to cling to someone in order to find peace and comfort.' To Queen Victoria, the love, attention and protection of a man was all but indispensable. During her long life, there were six men with whom her emotions were romantically involved: her first prime minister, the urbane Lord Melbourne; her husband, the idealistic Prince Albert; her fellow sovereign, the fascinating Napoleon III; her ghillie, the rough-hewn John Brown; another prime minister, the silver-tongued Disraeli; and her Indian servant, the exotic Munshi. The main appeal to Queen Victoria of these six apparently disparate characters was that they were men of distinctive personality: there was something exceptional about each of them. And they all treated her as a woman first, a queen second. By focusing on the Queen's romantic associations and making full use of recently revealed material, Theo Aronson has painted a fresh, intriguing and startlingly different portrait of Queen Victoria. With his talent for narrative and characterization, he has produced one of the most incisive and readable of his many royal biographies. Praise for Heart of a Queen: ’Theo Aronson always writes very thoughtfully and thoroughly. This book gave great insight into the relationships Queen Victoria had with the men in her life’ - Amazon review ‘Interesting angle on Queen Victoria who it seems could be amused! An intriguing read … Makes the Queen seem far less remote than some other portrayals’ - Amazon review Theo Aronson (1929–2003) was a South African-born writer who specialised in biographies of royal and other dynastic or celebrated figures. His warm and relaxed manner made him popular with the subjects of his works and their connections, many of whom granted him personal interviews, while C. P. Snow described his work as ‘bright with intelligence and human wisdom’.

The Life of Teresa of Jesus: The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila

"The House of Twenty Thousand Books is journalist Sasha Abramsky's elegy to the vanished intellectual world of his grandparents, Chimen and Miriam, and their vast library of socialist literature and Jewish history. A rare book dealer and self-educated polymath who would go on to teach at Oxford and consult for Sotheby's, Chimen Abramsky drew great writers and thinkers like Isaiah Berlin and Eric Hobsbawm to his north London home; his library grew from his abiding passion for books and his search for an enduring ideology. The books, documents, and manuscripts that covered every shelf at 5 Hillway were testaments to Chimen's quest -- from the Jewish orthodoxy of his boyhood, to the Communism of his youth, to the liberalism of his mature years. The House of Twenty Thousand Books is at once the story of a fascinating family and chronicle of the embattled twentieth century. The House of Twenty Thousand Books includes 43 photos. "--

A finalist for the 2017 George Freedley Memorial Award "A compelling, absolutely unputdownable story . . . And, in case you're wondering, yes, the book is funny. In places, very funny. A remarkable story, magnificently told." -- Booklist In this richly reported, scene-driven narrative, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, hang out at the after-hours bar where Dan Aykroyd hosted friends like John Belushi, Bill Murray, and Gilda Radner, and go behind the scenes of cultural landmarks from The Graduate to The Colbert Report . Along the way, we befriend pioneers such as Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Alan Arkin, Tina Fey, Judd Apatow, and many others. Wasson shows why improv deserves to be considered the great American art form of the last half century. " One of the most important stories in American popular culture . . . Wasson may be the first author to explain [improv's] entire history . . . For that reason alone, it's a valuable book . " -- New York Times Book Review "A compelling history . . . It holds the element of surprise--true to the spirit of its subject." -- Entertainment Weekly

A Russian biography of Krushchev, containing new information on his private and political life.

Sweet and Low is the amazing, bittersweet, hilarious story of an American family and its patriarch, a short-order cook named Ben Eisenstadt who, in the years after World War II, invented the sugar packet and Sweet'N Low, converting his Brooklyn cafeteria into a factory and amassing the great fortune that would destroy his family. It is also the story of immigrants to the New World, sugar, saccharine, obesity, and the health and diet craze, played out across countries and generations but also within the life of a single family, as the fortune and the factory passed from generation to generation. The author, Rich Cohen, a grandson (disinherited, and thus set free, along with his mother and siblings), has sought the truth of this rancorous, colorful history, mining thousands of pages of court documents accumulated in the long and sometimes corrupt life of the factor, and conducting interviews with members of his extended family. Along the way, the forty-year family battle over the fortune moves into its titanic phase, with the money and legacy up for grabs. Sweet and Low is the story of this struggle, a strange comic farce of machinations and double dealings, and of an extraordinary family and its fight for the American dream.

"Among the greatest intellectual heroes of modern times, Raphael Lemkin lived an extraordinary life of struggle and hardship, yet altered international law and redefined the world's understanding of group rights. He invented the concept and word "genocide" and propelled the idea into international legal status. An uncommonly creative pioneer in ethical thought, he twice was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although Lemkin died alone and in poverty, he left behind a model for a life of activism, a legacy of major contributions to international law, and--not least--an unpublished autobiography. Presented here for the first time is his own account of his life, from his boyhood on a small farm in Poland with his Jewish parents, to his perilous escape from Nazi Europe, through his arrival in the United States and rise to influence as an academic, thinker, and revered lawyer of international criminal law"--

Most fans know Ralph Kiner as the New York Mets' long-tenured color commentator, but as a player he was one of the most feared hitters in the game; this autobiography allows Kiner to reveal his life story and to share his learned opinion about many topics affecting the game today.

Reader, you have in your hands a motley collection of essays, personal and critical. The advantage of the heterogeneous essay collection by a single author is that it shows you how a particular mind moves through the world. If you are attracted to an essayist's mentality and way of speaking, ideally you can surrender happily to his or her take on various subject matters, the more diverse the better. Let us see how our author will tackle this particular memory, neurotic tic, political or social problem, book, movie, play, comic strip, rock band, without requiring an over-arching theme. If there is a consistent theme in this particular collection, it is the discovery of limitations, and learning to live with them. The recognition of one's limits, painful as it may be, can have salutary side-effects.In my case, it absolves me of the need to be both a hero and a coward, an explorer and a stay-at-home, a saint and a villain, a loyal husband and a Don Juan, a political activist and a skeptic, a spiritual mystic and a rationalist atheist, a performing athlete and a sports fan, a great if excruciatingly self-demanding literary stylist and a prolific if merely good-enough writer.

Sobibor traces the life of Berek (later Bernard) Schlesinger from his Polish shtetl childhood to his life during the Holocaust - hiding in the woods, finding refuge with non-Jews, confinement in Sobibor, escape during the uprising, working with partisans' documents. A physician after the war, he follows a relentless, unfulfilled pursuit of retribution for Nazi war criminals through the courts. The Sobibor uprising and its leaders, Alexander Pechersky, are pivotal to the novel. The author, Michael Lev, a product of Soviet Jewish culture, avoids loud rhetoric and heroic pathos, keeping the narration within the limits of realism. A flowing, masterful read.

Max Brod, a successful novelist, was a boyhood companion of Kafka's and remained closely tied to him until Kafka's death in 1924. He was undoubtedly the one man whom Kafka trusted more than any other, and it is to Brod, as his literary executor and editor, that we are indebted for rescuing and bringing to light Kafka's work. Out of a lifelong devoted friendship, Brod drew this account of Kafka's youth, family and friends, his struggle to recognize himself as a writer, his sickness, and his last days. Franz Kafka gives us not only a more vivid and lifelike picture of Kafka than that painted by any of his contemporaries, but also a fascinating portrayal of the complicated interaction between two writers of different temperaments but similar backgrounds who together helped shape the future of twentieth-century literature.

Foreword by Daniel J. Kevles. With illustrations and index of names.

"Telling Larry Charles's life story is telling the story of modern American comedy. Over the last 40 years, few comedians have been a part of so many iconic, beloved projects. Larry was one of the original writers and producers on the first five seasons of Seinfeld, directed over 20 episodes each of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage, and served as the showrunner for Mad About You. His film directing credits include Borat, Bruno, and The Dictator, Bill Maher's Religulous, and Bob Dylan's Masked and Anonymous. In Comedy Samurai, Charles pulls back the curtain on the making of his successful projects, offering often sharp, never-before-told anecdotes about Jerry Seinfeld, Sacha Baron Cohen, Bill Maher, Nic Cage, Mel Brooks, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Larry David, among many others. Perfect for fans of Seinfeldia and lovers of comedy in general, Larry promises to offer new insights into and about many of the most beloved shows, films, and actors of all time"--

Most recognisable as EastEnders' Dot Cotton, June Brown is both an institution and a national treasure. Her full and captivating life makes her more than just a soap star, but a showbiz veteran. And this largely anticipated book doesn't shy away from her strong opinions and fascinating stories; it's a celebration of her extraordinary life. June's childhood was colourful and quirky though marked with tragedy with the death of a brother and a sister and a difficult father. June went on to be classically trained at the Old Vic Drama School in London before going on to play the role of Dot Cotton, the longest serving member of the cast of EastEnders. But the tragedies June has endured make those of her down-trodden character pale into insignificance. Her first husband gassed himself in the marital home, leaving June to find his body and in 2003 her adored second husband of 45 years lost a 3 year battle to dementia. Further tragedy ensued when her second child was born prematurely and, as a result of medical malpractice, lived for just 16 days. Through all of life's considerable trials and heartbreak, her wit, charm and indefatigable spirit have remained strong. This is the inspiring story of the full and captivating life of one of our most respected and admired soap stars.

"It was one of history's great vanishing acts. As early as 3500 BCE, scribes in the mud-walled city-state of Sumer used a reed stylus to press tiny wedge-shaped symbols into clay. For three thousand years, the script chronicled the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the grand kingdoms of Mesopotamia - Assyria, Babylon, the mighty Achaemenid Empire - along with precious minutia about everyday life so long ago. But as the palaces of these once great kingdoms sank beneath the desert sands, the meaning of these characters was lost. London, 1857. Colossal sculptures of winged bulls and alabaster bas-reliefs depicting cities under siege and vassals bearing tributes to Biblical kings lined the halls of the British Museum. In the Victorian era's obsession with the triumph of human progress, the mysterious kingdoms of ancient Mesopotamia - the very cradle of civilization - had captured the public imagination. Yet Europe's best philologists struggled to decipher the strange characters. Cuneiform seemed to have thousands of symbols - with some scholars claiming each could be pronounced in up to eight, nine, even ten different ways. Others insisted they'd cracked the code and deciphered inscriptions that corresponded precisely to the Old Testament - proving the veracity of the Word of God. Was it all a hoax? A delusion? A rollicking adventure through the golden age of archaeology, The Writing on the Wall tracks the decades-long race to decipher the oldest script in the world. It's the story of a swashbuckling young archeologist, a suave British military officer, and a curmudgeonly Irish rector, all vying for glory - from the ruins of Persepolis to the opulence of Ottoman-era Baghdad - in a quest to unearth the relics of lost civilizations and unlock the secrets of humanity's past"--