Biographien

Reveals how Qassem Soleimani became the military mastermind who established Iran as a major power in the Middle East

The story of how a singular group of women in a pivotal time and place - Paris, Between the Wars - fostered the birth of the Modernist movement.

A book of recipes and reflections that reveal the life-changing happiness of cooking.

From the private papers of Mark Twain and Mozart to those of Robert Browning and Nelson, Love Letters of Great Men collects together some of the most romantic letters in history. For some of these great men, love is a 'delicious poison' (William Congreve); for others, 'a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music' (Charles Darwin). Love can scorch like the heat of the sun (Henry VIII), or penetrate the depths of one's heart like a cooling rain (Flaubert). Every shade of love is here, from the exquisite eloquence of Oscar Wilde and the simple devotion of Robert Browning, to the wonderfully modern misery of the Roman Pliny the Younger, losing himself in work to forget how much he misses his beloved wife, Calpurnia. Taken together, these Love Letters of Great Men show that perhaps men haven't changed so very much over the last 2,000 years; passion, jealousy, hope and longing are all represented here - as is the simple pleasure of sending a letter to, and receiving one from, the person you love most.

Linking the time when karate was a strictly Okinawan art of self-defense shrouded in the deepest secrecy and the present day, when it has become a martial art practiced throughout the world, is Gichin Funakoshi, the "Father of Karate-do."Out of modesty, he was reluctant to write this autobiography and did not do so until he was nearly ninety years of age. Trained in the Confucian classics, he was a schoolteacher early in life, but after decades of study under the foremost masters, he gave up his livelihood to devote the rest of his life to the propagation of the Way of Karate. Under his guidance, techniques and nomenclature were refined and modernized, the spiritual essence was brought to the fore, and karate evolved into a true martial art.Various forms of empty-hand techniques have been practiced in Okinawa for centuries, but due to the lack of historical records, fancy often masquerades as fact. In telling of his own famous teachers--and not only of their mastery of technique but of the way they acted in critical situations--the author reveals what true karate is. The stories he tells about himself are no less instructive: his determination to continue the art, after having started it to improve his health; his perseverance in the face of difficulties, even of poverty; his strict observance of the way of life of the samurai; and the spirit of self-reliance that he carried into an old age kept healthy by his practice of Karate-do.

The international bestselling classic from the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Immerse yourself into the world of cinema and discover action-packed chases, epic journeys, and tear-jerking moments.Get the popcorn popping and keep the movies coming! From box office hits and cult classics to romcoms and thrillers, this is your go-to guide to movies, directors, genres and styles.This ultimate movie guide profiles more than 100 of the most significant films ever made and brings cinema to life in true blockbuster fashion. Discover the behind-the-scenes stories about timeless classics like Citizen Kane and The Godfather, and take a front-row seat at lavish blockbusters like Star Wars or Titanic.- Lists of top 10 film recommendations - What to watch boxes that explore specific plot lines, scenes, and images- Trivia sections to test your knowledge on Oscar-winning movies, biggest flops and banned films- Explains complex methods of film-making in familiar, non-technical jargon- High-resolution photography and stills allow for a deeper understanding of the nature of film-makingEach page of this film book takes you on a journey through the ever-changing landscape of cinema - from Hollywood to Bollywood and everything in between. It includes every film-making school from across the globe, behind-the-scenes shots, profiles of 100 influential directors, and lists more than 100 of the greatest movies ever made!Lights. Camera. Action!Whether you enjoy art films or sci-fi, going to the cinema or watching movies on Netflix, The Film Book covers it all. It's perfect for inspiring your next movie night!This updated version covers the best films and directors of the last 10 years, along with new discoveries in the history of cinema since the last edition from 2011. It's the ultimate gift for any film buff or critic.

In A GIRL'S STORY, Annie Ernaux revisits the summer of 1958, her first away from home, and recounts the first night she spent with a man.

The gripping true story of a front-line trauma surgeon in the world's most dangerous war zones.

In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost.

`Prepare to laugh' - Reese Witherspoon 253 steps to becoming an anti-it girl.

1999 Winner of the National Outdoor Book AwardCelebrating the 50th anniversary of when Dick Proenneke first broke ground and made his mark in the Alaskan wilds in 1968, this special edition of the best-selling memoir features an all-new foreword by Nick Offerman plus color photographs not seen in print for over 20 years.To live in a pristine land unchanged by man . . . to roam a wilderness through which few other humans have passed . . . to choose an idyllic site, cut trees, and build a log cabin . . . to be a self-sufficient craftsman, making what is needed from materials available . . . to be not at odds with the world, but content with one's own thoughts and company . . . Thousands have had such dreams, but Dick Proenneke lived them. He found a place, built a cabin, and stayed to become part of the country. One Man's Wilderness is a simple account of the day-to-day explorations and activities he carried out alone, and the constant chain of nature's events that kept him company. From Dick's journals, and with firsthand knowledge of his subject and the setting, Sam Keith has woven a tribute to a man who carved his masterpiece out of the beyond.

A uniquely personal exploration of the origins of international law, centring on the Nuremberg Trials, the city of Lviv and a secret family history

Illuminating biography of legendary composer, musician and performer Paul McCartney.

Barack Obama's memoir, written long before his political career began, is a remarkable story of one man's search for his identity.

The superb, bestselling story of David Eggers's extraordinary life with his brother

Shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year! Will snare you in its web of deceit ... A brilliant investigative expos - Harlan Coben, bestselling thriller author Reads like a fast-paced John le Carr thriller, and never lets up - New York Times book review The Spider Network is the almost-unbelievable and darkly entertaining inside account of the Libor scandal one of the biggest, farthest-reaching financial scams since the global financial crisis written by the only journalist with access to Tom Hayes before he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Full of exclusive details, and with ramifications that stretch right across the British establishment, this is a gripping, real-life story of outlandish characters and reckless greed in the City of London. By turns a rollicking account of the scandal and also a provocative examination of a financial system that was crooked throughout, The Spider Network is a perfect read for fans of The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short.

Henry David Thoreau is considered one of the leading figures in early American literature, and Walden is without doubt his most influential book. It recounts the author's experiences living in a small house in the woods around Walden Pond near Concord in Massachusetts. Thoreau constructed the house himself, with the help of a few friends, to see if he could live 'deliberately' - independently and apart from society. The result is an intriguing work which blends natural history with philosophical insights, and includes many illuminating quotations from other authors. Thoreau's wooden shack has won a place for itself in the collective American psyche, a remarkable achievement for a book with such modest and rustic beginnings.Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

It's December 1997, and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren't random: the tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again. As he re-creates these extraordinary events, John Vaillant gives us an unforgettable portrait of this spectacularly beautiful and mysterious region. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers, even sharing their kills with them. We witness the arrival of Russian settlers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, soldiers and hunters who greatly diminished the tiger populations. And we come to know their descendants, who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching and further upset the natural balance of the region. This ancient, tenuous relationship between man and predator is at the very heart of this remarkable book. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters, and how early Homo sapiens may have fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator that can grow to ten feet long, weigh more than six hundred pounds, and range daily over vast territories of forest and mountain. Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger circles around three main characters: Vladimir Markov, a poacher killed by the tiger; Yuri Trush, the lead tracker; and the tiger himself. It is an absolutely gripping tale of man and nature that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the taiga.

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most unfathomable composers in the history of music. How can such sublime work have been produced by a man who (when we can discern his personality at all) seems so ordinary, so opaque - and occasionally so intemperate?John Eliot Gardiner grew up passing one of the only two authentic portraits of Bach every morning and evening on the stairs of his parents' house, where it hung for safety during the Second World War. He has been studying and performing Bach ever since, and is now regarded as one of the composer's greatest living interpreters. The fruits of this lifetime's immersion are distilled in this remarkable book, grounded in the most recent Bach scholarship but moving far beyond it, which explains in wonderful detail the ideas on which Bach drew, how he worked, how his music is constructed, how it achieves its effects - and what it can tell us about Bach the man.Gardiner's background as a historian has encouraged him to search for ways in which scholarship and performance can cooperate and fruitfully coalesce. This has entailed piecing together the few biographical shards, scrutinising the music, and watching for those instances when Bach's personality seems to penetrate the fabric of his notation. Gardiner's aim is 'to give the reader a sense of inhabiting the same experiences and sensations that Bach might have had in the act of music-making. This, I try to show, can help us arrive at a more human likeness discernible in the closely related processes of composing and performing his music.'It is very rare that such an accomplished performer of music should also be a considerable writer and thinker about it. John Eliot Gardiner takes us as deeply into Bach's works and mind as perhaps words can. The result is a unique book about one of the greatest of all creative artists.SIR JOHN ELIOT GARDINER is one of the world's leading conductors, not only of Baroque music but across the whole repertoire. He founded the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra, the Orchestre de l'Op ra de Lyon, the English Baroque Soloists, and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique. He has conducted most of the world's great orchestras and in many of the leading opera houses. He lives and farms in Dorset.

The story of one of the most recognisable and successful players in world football. Didier Drogba is renowned for his heading ability, sharp shooting and sheer strength. He has played for his native Ivory Coast and for clubs in France, China and Turkey, but it is as a Chelsea striker that he is best known. His feats with Chelsea have made him a cult hero among supporters. In Didier Drogba's honest and revealing autobiography he will talk about life as an immigrant in Paris, the importance of his education and how finding success later than most professional footballers has kept him grounded.In 2012 Didier was voted Chelsea's greatest ever player. He talks from a privileged behind-the-scenes position about tactics and how he felt mentally and physically as well as anecdotes from the dressing room. Didier provides unique insight into important and controversial matches from the first trophy he won with them in 2005 to the Premier League title a decade later; as well as what persuaded him to stay when he was at his lowest ebb.Away from football Drogba has been widely applauded for his involvement in trying to broker peace in the Ivorian civil war - he is a UN Goodwill Ambassador and does a huge amount of work with the Didier Drogba Foundation - Time magazine named him one of the world's 100 most influential people. Go behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge and find out about life on and off the field for this humble Chelsea hero.

Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents. At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane, middle class existence' she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by 'a portrait of someone else's ancestor' she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.

WITH NEW ANALYSIS OF HBS AND THE FINANCIAL CRISISWhen Philip Delves Broughton abandoned his career as a successful journalist and enrolled in Harvard Business School's prestigious MBA course, he joined 900 other would-be tycoons in a cauldron of capitalism. Two years of Excel shortcuts and five hundred of HBS's notorious business case studies lay ahead of him, but he couldn't have told you what OCRA was, other than a vegetable, or whether discount department stores make more money than airlines.He did, however, know that HBS's alumni appeared to be taking over the world. The US president, the president of the World Bank, the US treasury secretary, the CEOs of General Electric, Goldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble - all were bringing HBS experience to the way they ran their banks, businesses and even countries. And with the prospect of economic enlightenment before him, he decided to see for himself exactly what they teach you at Harvard Business School.Philip Delves Broughton's hilarious and enlightening account of his experiences within Harvard Business School's hallowed walls provides an extraordinary glimpse into a world of case study conundrums, guest lectures, Apprentice-style tasks, booze luging, burn-outs and high flyers. And with HBS alumni heading the very global governments, financial institutions and FTSE 500 companies whose reckless love of deregulation and debt got us into so much trouble, he discovers where HBS really adds value - and where it falls disturbingly short.