Biography & autobiography

The Fourth K

by Mario Puzo

A PRESIDENTIAL DYNASTY. AN ARAB TERRORIST ATTACK. DEMOCRACY UNDER SIEGE. Mario Puzo envisioned it all in his eerily prescient 1991 novel, The Fourth K.

President Francis Xavier Kennedy is elected to office, in...

George Sand: A Woman's Life Writ Large

by Belinda Jack

A fascinating exploration of the life of George Sand--whose brilliant writing, radical politics, and unorthodox personality made her a legendary figure in her own time and forever after.

Born Aurore Dupin in...

The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity

by Daniel Mendelsohn

Hailed for its searing emotional insights, and for the astonishing originality with which it weaves together personal history, cultural essay, and readings of classical texts by Sophocles, Ovid, Euripides, and...

Una vida robada

by Jaycee Dugard

In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother that loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I...

Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image

by Toby Lester

Everybody knows the image, but nobody knows its story.

In 1490, Leonardo da Vinci produced his iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square: Vitruvian Man. Today the image appears on everything...

Daughter of the Ganges: The Story of One Girl's Adoption and Her Return Journey to India

by Asha Miro

A moving and emotional story about one girl's adoption

While growing up in an Indian orphanage, Asha Miró dreamed of someday being adopted. Her wish finally came true, but only at the misfortune of another....

The Secret Life of Cowboys

by Tom Groneberg

"One of the stories I tell myself when I am trying to fall asleep is that I have tried. I've tagged along after myself in the pages of my own modern Western, and every few years is another chapter to the story....

America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible

by Stephan Thernstrom & Abigail Thernstrom

In a book destined to become a classic, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom present important new information about the positive changes that have been achieved and the measurable improvement in the lives of the...

Francis Crick: Discoverer of the Genetic Code

by Matt Ridley

Francis Crick—the quiet genius who led a revolution in biology by discovering, quite literally, the secret of life—will be bracketed with Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein as one of the greatest scientists of...

The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived The Holocaust

by Edith H. Beer

Edith Hahn was an outspoken young woman in Vienna when the Gestapo forced her into a ghetto and then into a labor camp. When she returned home months later, she knew she would become a hunted woman and went...

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis

by Lauren F. Winner & Lauren Winner

In the critically acclaimed memoir Girl Meets God, Lauren F. Winner chronicled her sojourn from Judaism to Christianity. Now, in Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, Winner describes how experiences of loss and...

Wanted Women

by Deborah Scroggins

A riveting look at militant Islam, Muslim women’s rights, and the war on terror—brought into focus through two lives on opposite sides: activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and religious extremist Aafia Siddiqui.

Ayaan...

Unbelievable

by Arne Kruithof

The story of Arne Kruithof, the boy from Rotterdam who taught the hijacker of United Airlines Flight 93 to fly. This book describes the journey through life, of a boy born in 1963 in Rotterdam the Netherlands,...

Fish Out of Agua

by Michele Carlo

A voice from the loudspeaker blared, "Will the family who brought the little redheaded white girl to the Puerto Rican Day parade please come to the bandstand to pick her up." I looked around. Wait a minute....

Policy Entrepreneurship and Elections in Japan

by Takashi Oka

Ozawa Ichir? is one of the most important figures in Japanese politics, having held the positions of Chief Secretary of the Liberal Democrat Party and, after defection from the LDP, President of the Democratic...

Good in a Crisis: A Memoir of Divorce, Dating, and Other Near-Death Experiences

by Margaret Overton

During the four years of physician Margaret Overton's acrimonious divorce, she dated widely and indiscriminately, determined to find her soul mate and live happily ever after. But then she discovered she had...

William Henry Seward

by John M Taylor

From Kirkus Reviews: A friendly yet not uncritical biography of the secretary of state in the Lincoln and Andrew Johnson Cabinets. Taylor--who chronicled his father's life in General Maxwell Taylor (1987)- -offers...

Walther Rathenau: Weimar's Fallen Statesman

by Shulamit Volkov

This deeply informed biography of Walther Rathenau (1867–1922) tells of a man who—both thoroughly German and unabashedly Jewish—rose to leadership in the German War-Ministry Department during the First...

The Life and Music of Kenny Davern: Just Four Bars

by Edward N. Meyer

This is the first biography of jazz clarinetist Kenny Davern. Drawing from Davern's many interviews and the recollections of his friends and family, Meyer tells the story of the man and his music and why both...

John Ilhan: A Crazy Life

by Annie Reid, Steve Dabkowski & Patricia Ilhan

John Ilhan: A Crazy Life tells the fascinating story of John Ilhan -- a working-class immigrant who overcame incredible odds to become one of the richest men in Australia. Founder of phenomenally successful...