3040 results for "Biography"

Peter Owen, not a nice Jewish boy: memoirs of a Maverick publisher

Owen, Peter,Nye, James
In this wry, candid, and sometimes poignant memoir, Peter Owen recalls his lonely Jewish boyhood in Nazi Germany and migration to England where he survived the London Blitz, a teenage dalliance with aspiring actress Fenella Fielding, and working with a motley variety of book publishers. He founded his eponymous publishing firm in 1951, becoming one of the youngest publishers in Britain. A pioneer of books on social themes, gay and lesbian writing, and literature in translation, Owen's authors included ten Nobel laureates and brought Hermann Hesse, Ezra Pound, and Anaïs Nin to a wider audience. Enjoying their success, he and his wife Wendy were memorably stylish and eccentric figures at the literary parties of the 1960s and 1970s. Owen describes his often hilarious encounters with many of those he published, including John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Salvador Dalí, his adventures in Japan with Yukio Mishima and Shūsaku Endō, and in Morocco with Tennessee Williams and Paul and Jane Bowles. As one of the last of the great émigré publishers, his death in 2016 aged 89 signalled the end of a literary era.
Fonthill Media 2021 255 pages

Parallel lines

Lantos, Peter L.
Memoirs of Lantos, born to the Leipniker family in 1939 in Makó, Hungary. In 1944, after his older brother was taken away, the rest of the family was sent to the ghetto of Szeged, but the Jews there were soon deported. He and his parents were first sent to Strasshof in Austria for a short time, then to Wiener Neustadt and to Bergen-Belsen, where his father died. He and his mother were then sent on a death transport, during which they were liberated by American soldiers. They returned to Hungary and found that his brother had perished. Lantos later studied medicine in England, and in 1969 decided to remain there.
Arcadia Books 2006 246 pages

Waiting for Daisy: the true story of one couple's quest to have a baby

Orenstein, Peggy
Waiting for Daisy is about doing all the thinsg you swore you'd never do to get something you hadn't even been sure you wanted. It's a real-life journey of loss, love, anger and redemption. Told with raw candour and a rare wit that marks Waiting for Daisy as a future classic, Peggy Orenstein's story begins when she tells her new husband that she's not certain she ever wants to be a mother. It ends six years later after she's done almost everything humanly possible to have a baby. Along the way she visits an ex-boyfriend who now has fifteen children, encounters 'parasite singles' in Tokyo (women who are rejecting marriage and motherhood in favour of shopping sprees and foreign travel), and shares stories with women survivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. The world's professional women are only now beginning to become aware of the risks and realities of 'having it all', and Orenstein's poignant saga unfolds as infertility is developing scarily into a boom industry, with many thousands of women a year seeking treatment.
Bloomsbury 2008 224 pages

What's exactly the matter with me? memoirs of a life in music

Sloan, P. F.,Feinberg, S. E.
P.F. Sloan was one of the most prolific and influential geniuses to emerge from the golden age of the 60s. From his little studio at Dunhill Records, Sloan was a veritable hit-machine, writing and playing guitar for The Mamas & The Papas (that's Sloan's infectious guitar lick on 'California Dreamin'), Barry McGuire (the brilliant and controversial 'Eve Of Destruction'), Johnny Rivers (the iconic 'Secret Agent Man'), The Turtles, The Grass Roots, Herman's Hermits, The Fifth Dimension, The Searchers, and more. P.F. Sloan was everywhere. And then he disappeared. With a foreword by British singer-songwriter Rumer and an afterword by Creed Bratton, the Grass Roots guitarist turned star of The Office, What's Exactly The Matter With Me? is a revelatory memoir of an extraordinary life through the most fascinating years of American and British musical and pop culture. Beginning with a chance meeting with Elvis Presley, this is the story of a boy whose only love was music--of dreams, success, destruction, and miraculous resurrection. Along the way we encounter The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Buffalo Springfield, The Beach Boys, and more, as well as UFOs and psychiatric hospitals. This is the dangerous ride and inspiring story of one of the greatest songwriters in popular music--and also one of the most elusive and mysterious.
Jawbone 2014-06-01 320 pages

Preminger: an autobiography

Preminger, Otto
"With the same candor that has characterized his life, Otto Preminger--actor, director, producer, and now writer--exposes himself (in writing) as well as an impressive line-up of show business folk in this engrossing memoir. As one of Hol1ywood's pre-eminent directors with 36 films and 32 stage productions to his credit, Preminger reveals the funny, outrageous, and often exasperating moments of his career, and his association with the eccentric, the gracious, the wealthy, the egomaniacal--'the stars.' Beginning his career as an apprentice of Max Reinhardt, Preminger became an instant success as an actor and then as a director. Hollywood called and he went there in 1935. His outspoken manner clashed with the autocratic studio moguls. He was forced to return to New York and find work directing plays on Broadway. He rebounded in 1944 to begin his stormy and remarkably creative period in Hollywood with Laura, his first all-out hit, starring Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, and Dana Andrews. Preminger gives an inside glimpse at shooting such films as Daisy Kenyon with Joan Crawford (whom he considers a remarkable, independent, and generous woman); River of No Return, starring Marilyn Monroe; the all-black productions of Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess, both accused of being racist; The Man With the Golden Arm, with Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak; plus such legendary films as Anatomy of a Murder (James Stewart, Lee Remick, and George C. Scott), Exodus (Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint), Advise and Consent (Henry Fonda and Charles Laughton), The Cardinal (Tom Tryon, Romy Schneider), Hurry Sundown (Jane Fonda, Michael Caine, Diahann Carroll and Faye Dunaway), and In Harm's Way (John Wayne). Making no bones about naming enemies or exalting his friends, Preminger elaborates on the blacklisting during the fifties and includes his own critique of the critics. Preminger gives us a little more insight into his friend Tallulah Bankhead and her affinity for shocking behavior (with a few choice examples), as well as his opinion of Howard Hughes (a fascinating man, but not all that eccentric). He sets the record straight on a number of his love affairs and marriages, and divulges the story of his relationship with Gypsy Rose Lee and their child, who after Gypsy's death emerged as Erik Preminger. Leaving few stones unturned, this unique "Otto-biography" zooms in on Hollywood through the eyes of one of its most active and highly creative personalities--Preminger!"--Jacket.
Doubleday 1977 245 pages

Rebels, mavericks, and heretics in biology

Oren Solomon Harman,Michael R. Dietrich
This book is the first devoted to modern biology s innovators and iconoclasts: men and women who challenged prevailing notions in their fields. Some of these scientists were Nobel Prize winners, some were considered cranks or gadflies, some were in fact wrong. The stories of these stubborn dissenters are individually fascinating. Taken together, they provide unparalleled insights into the role of dissent and controversy in science and especially the growth of biological thought over the past century. Each of the book s nineteen specially commissioned chapters offers a detailed portrait of the intellectual rebellion of a particular scientist working in a major area of biology--genetics, evolution, embryology, ecology, biochemistry, neurobiology, and virology as well as others. An introduction by the volume s editors and an epilogue by R. C. Lewontin draw connections among the case studies and illuminate the nonconforming scientist s crucial function of disturbing the comfort of those in the majority. By focusing on the dynamics and impact of dissent rather than on winners who are credited with scientific advances, the book presents a refreshingly original perspective on the history of the life sciences. Scientists featured in this volume: Alfred Russel Wallace Hans Driesch Wilhelm Johannsen Raymond Arthur Dart C. D. Darlington Richard Goldschmidt Barbara McClintock Oswald T. Avery Roger Sperry Leon Croizat Vero Copner Wynne-Edwards Peter Mitchell Howard Temin Motoo Kimura William D. Hamilton Carl Woese Stephen Jay Gould Thelma Rowell Daniel S. Simberloff "
Yale University Press 2008 400 pages

Rebels, mavericks, and heretics in biology

Oren Harman,Michael Dietrich
The stories of nineteen scientists--some famous, some forgotten--who stubbornly challenged assumptions and icons in the life sciences This book is the first devoted to modern biology's innovators and iconoclasts: men and women who challenged prevailing notions in their fields. Some of these scientists were Nobel Prize winners, some were considered cranks or gadflies, some were in fact wrong. The stories of these stubborn dissenters are individually fascinating. Taken together, they provide unparalleled insights into the role of dissent and controversy in science and especially the growth of biological thought over the past century. Each of the book's nineteen specially commissioned chapters offers a detailed portrait of the intellectual rebellion of a particular scientist working in a major area of biology--genetics, evolution, embryology, ecology, biochemistry, neurobiology, and virology as well as others. An introduction by the volume's editors and an epilogue by R. C. Lewontin draw connections among the case studies and illuminate the nonconforming scientist's crucial function of disturbing the comfort of those in the majority. By focusing on the dynamics and impact of dissent rather than on "winners" who are credited with scientific advances, the book presents a refreshingly original perspective on the history of the life sciences. Scientists featured in this volume: Alfred Russel Wallace Hans Driesch Wilhelm Johannsen Raymond Arthur Dart C. D. Darlington Richard Goldschmidt Barbara McClintock Oswald T. Avery Roger Sperry Leon Croizat Vero Copner Wynne-Edwards Peter Mitchell Howard Temin Motoo Kimura William D. Hamilton Carl Woese Stephen Jay Gould Thelma Rowell Daniel S. Simberloff
Yale University Press 2009-09 400 pages

The capture of Black Bart: gentleman bandit of the Old West

Finkelstein, Norman H.
"Black Bart was not the Old West's only stagecoach robber, but he was the most famous. To many people, he was a folk hero: a robber who didn't threaten or harm passengers. He was a bandit with a sense of humor who wrote poetry. In robbing at least 28 Wells Fargo stagecoaches across northern California between 1875 and 1883, he never fired a shot or injured anyone. His gun, it turned out, was never loaded. Newspaper stories about the poet robber's exploits and about Jim Hume, the unyielding chief detective of Wells Fargo, became popular reading throughout the West. Black Bart seemed to enjoy the chase. During one robbery the driver told him "They'll catch you one of these days." Bart answered, "Perhaps, but in the meantime give my regards to J. B. Hume, will you?" For eight years, each new robbery--and each new story--made Hume even more determined to track him down. Resources include a list of all Bart's robberies, notes, and bibliography, making this a rich resource for all Wild West readers."--Provided by publisher.
Chicago Review Press 2019 150 pages

Listening to the languages of the people: Lazare Sainéan on Romanian, Yiddish, and French

Davis, Natalie Zemon
"This tale of great achievements and great disappointments offers a fresh perspective on the interplay between scholarship and political sentiment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Lazăr Șăineanu (1859-1934), linguist and folklorist, was a pioneer in his native Romania, seeking out the popular elements in culture along with high literary ones. He was the first to publish a study of Yiddish as a genuine language, and he uncovered Turkish features in Romanian language and customs. He also made an index of hundreds of Romanian folktales. Yet when he sought Romanian citizenship and a professorship, he was blocked by powerful figures who thought Jews could not be Romanians and who fancied the origins of Romanian culture to be wholly Latin. Faced with anti-Semitism, some of his friends turned to Zionism. Instead he tried baptism, which brought him only mockery and shame. Hoping to find a polity to which he could belong, Șăineanu moved with his family to Paris in 1900 and became Lazare Sainéan. There he made innovative studies of French popular speech and slang, culminating in his great work on the origins of that language. Once again, he was contributing to the development of a national tongue. Even then, while welcomed by literary scholars, Sainéan was unable to get a permanent university post. Though a naturalized citizen of France, he felt himself a foreigner, an "intruder," into his old age"--
Central European University Press 2022-10-15 188 pages

Tiny lights for travellers

Lewis, Naomi K.
"When her marriage suddenly ends, and a diary documenting her beloved grandfather's escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942 is discovered, Naomi K. Lewis decides to retrace his journey to learn about her family history. Despite suffering from extreme disorientation and a lifetime of anxiety, she travels alone for the first time. Moving from Amsterdam to Lyon--relying on the marvels of GPS--she discovers family secrets and her own narrative as a second-generation Jewish Canadian. With vulnerability, humour, and wisdom, Lewis's memoir asks tough questions about her identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations. How do immigrants weave their sense of identity into their chosen countries? Must we be able to locate ourselves within family and cultural geography to belong?"--
University of Alberta Press 2019-05-15 281 pages

The straits of hell: the chronicle of a Salonikan Jew in the Nazi extermination camps Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Melk, Ebensee

Ha-Elion, Moshe
"The Jerusalem of the Balkans is today a city of ghosts. Saloniki or Salonika, as Thessaloniki was known its Jewish community, today barely numbers a thousand Jews whereas from 1500 to World War I the Jews constituted the majority of its inhabitants. Moshe Ha-Elyon and his extended family were part of the deportation from Salonika of some 45,000 Jews to Auschwitz where all but a handful were gassed, beaten, or starved to death during the spring of 1943 to the end of the war. This memoir differs from the many memoirs of Greek Jews. Moshe Ha- Elyon portrays the religious and cultural life of his ancestral community as well as the spiritual and mystical research of his father who predicted, prior to his death at the onset of the war, both the persecution of the Jews and the subsequent rise of a Jewish state in its aftermath. It is the moving story of a teenager who suffered in extremis yet lived to transmit to his family in Israel the legacy of a vanished era. A most informative and worthwhile insight into the inner world of Greek Jewry before and during its destruction during World War II"--
Bibliopolis 2005 120 pages