Biographien

In this absorbing and surprising memoir, one of the biggest names of classic Hollywood-the star of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Marnie-tells her story, including never-before-revealed experiences on the set of some of the biggest cult films of all time .

A blockbuster adventure about life, death and obsession in the Amazon

The final word on the world's greatest rock band, Led Zeppelin.

'When I said I was writing a book, the lads at St Helens said "Who's publishing it, Ladybird?" The cheek.' 'People have been asking me to calm down all my life and I just can't. I love it when things are a bit mental.'

Patrick Pearse was not only leader of the 1916 Easter Rising but also one of the main ideologues of the IRA. Based on new material on his childhood and underground activities, this book places him in a European context and provides an intimate account of the development of his ideas on cultural regeneration, education, patriotism and militarism.

Shortlisted for the NME Best Music Book Award 2018THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'The definitive book on Bowie' The Times Dylan Jones's engrossing, magisterial biography of David Bowie is unlike any Bowie story ever written.

After their 43-foot schooner was stove in by a pod of killer whales, the Robertson family spent 37 days adrift in the Pacific. With no maps, compass, or navigational instruments, and rations for only three days, they used every survival technique they could as they battled 20-foot waves, marauding sharks, thirst, starvation, and exhaustion.

CEO Louis V. Gerstner Jr.'s memoir about the extraordinary turnaround of IBM and his transformation of the company into the industry leader of the computer age - the great American business story of our time.

'You will not find a more devoted, thorough, loving and surprising book on the life of Leonard Bernstein - the most extraordinary man of extraordinary talents. Read it.' Lauren Bacall''Humphrey Burton has written a very detailed and candid account of his friend . . . The mass of material is superbly handled . . So much intelligence .

In Lone Star Rising, Robert Dallek offers a brilliant, definitive portrait of a great American politician. Based on seven years of research in over 450 manuscript collections and oral histories, as well as numerous personal interviews, this first of a two-volume biography follows Johnson's life from his childhood to his election as vice-president under Kennedy.

The incredible story of punk rock legend and Generation X frontman Billy Idol

This collection of autobiographical and teaching stories from peace activist and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is thought provoking and inspiring. Collected here for the first time, these stories span his life. There are stories from his childhood and the traditions of rural Vietnam. There are stories from his years as a teenage novice, as a young teacher and writer in war torn Vietnam, and of his travels around the world to teach mindfulness, make pilgrimages to sacred sites and influence world leaders. The tradition of Zen teaching stories goes back at least to the time of the Buddha. Like the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh uses story telling to engage people s interest so he can share important teachings, insights and life lessons.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Walk Through Walls written and read by Marina Abramovic. This memoir spans Marina Abramovics five decade career, and tells a life story that is almost as exhilarating and extraordinary as her groundbreaking performance art. Taking us from her early life in communist ex-Yugoslavia, to her time as an a young art student in Belgrade in the 1970s, where she first made her mark with a series of pieces that used the body as a canvas, the book also describes her relationship with the West German performance artist named Ulay who was her lover and sole collaborator for 12 years. Abramovic has collaborated with stars from Lady Gaga to Jay-Z, James Franco and Willem Dafoe. Best known for her recent pieces The Artist is Present and 512 Hours, this book is a fascinating insight into the life of one of the most important artists working today, and the woman who has been described as the grandmother of performance art.

Of the three revisionist works John Charmley has written about British foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century this is the centrepiece. The author argues that Churchill deserves more credit for 'their finest hour' than has been granted, but just as his virtues were built on the heroic scale, so too were his faults and failures. The statesman who had struggled to destroy Nazism and restore Europe's balance of power ended by allowing Stalin to dominate central and eastern Europe.This is no mere exercise in debunking, in many ways the complex man presented in these pages is more interesting than the more hagiographical portraits.'This is not instant history run up to cause a sensation, but a meticulously documented reappraisal of Churchill's war leadership and of the career that led up to it. Nor is its tone contemptuous or vindictive. The author accepts that Churchill was a great man. His starting point is that even great men make mistakes.' John Keegan, Daily Telegraph 'Probably the most important revisionist text to be published since the war.' Alan Clark, The Times

I WAS BORN, SEPTEMBER 1985, IN THE VORTEX OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE OF NEW YORK: THERE WERE FEW RULES OF LIFE AND ZERO CONTRAINTS ON BEHAVIOUR. IF YOU WERE NOT ECCENTRIC, YOU WERE WEIRD.It was a tenement building at the centre of the drug-addled, punk-edged, permanent riot that was iO's corner of the Lower East Side of New York City in the '80s and 90's. There iO grew up - or rather scrabbled up - under the broken wing of a fiercely protective, yet wildly negligent mother.Rhonna was a showgirl, actress, dancer, poet. A widow by police murder, she was also an addict. She doted and obsessed over iO, yet lacked an understanding that a child needs food and sleep and safety.Unfolding in animated, crystalline prose, an emotionally raw, devastatingly powerful memoir of one young person's extraordinary coming of age - a tale of gender and identity, freedom and addiction, rebellion and survival in the 1980s and 1990s, when punk poverty, heroin and art collided in the urban bohemia of New York's Lower East Side.Darling Days is also a provocative examination of culture and identity, of the instincts that shape us and the norms that deform us, and of the courage and resilience of a child listening closely to their deepest self. When a group of boys refuse to let the six-year-old play ball, iO instantly adopts a new persona, becoming a boy named Ricky, a choice the parents support and celebrate. It is the start of a profound exploration of gender and identity through the tenderest years, and the beginning of a life invented and reinvented at every step.Alternating between the harrowing and the hilarious, Darling Days is the candid, tough, and stirring memoir of a young person in search of an authentic self as family and home life devolve into chaos until iO escapes to Germany and then England to become an amazingly talented, exciting, edgy artist and wonderful writer.

A highly respected Hells Angel president. An honest, hard-working cop. Both of their lives on totally different paths until their worlds collide... "e;With no holds barred, Omodt and Matter rip back the curtain of seedy reality and toss you headlong into the complex relationships of biker gangs and the cops whose job it is to pursue them. The writing is graphic, truthful, revealing and explores both sides of the law-the right side, and the wrong side-with equal detail. For lovers of true crime writing this is a must-read."e; - Mark Reps, author, Sheriff Zeb Hanks crime series "e;The story of an adversarial relationship that turned into one of the most unlikely, remarkable friendships I've ever been exposed to. And, as written by the two protagonists, BREAKING THE CODE is told in the most authentic voice you'll ever read. Beyond the true crime audience, this is a story filled with so much humanity it must be experienced by all readers."e; - Ali Selim, writer and director of the award-winning film, Sweet Land "e;Up until BREAKING THE CODE I knew Pat Matter to be a formidable but fair motorcycle drag racer and a competent professional as leader of Minneapolis Custom Cycle. This book fills in the blanks about the other 'dark' side of his life as a Hells Angel-a must-read to get the whole story."e; - George B. Smith, Executive Chairman and CEO of S&S Motor Company, Viola, WI "e;BREAKING THE CODE takes you on a real-life crime adventure ... a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Hells Angels, and what it took to take down one of their most prominent leaders."e; - Tom Chorske, retired NHL player and commentator for FSN Sports

MAKING MICHAEL delves deep inside the career of one of the mostsuccessful, enigmatic and controversial entertainers of all time:Michael Jackson. Side-stepping sensationalism, journalist Mike Smallcombe enters uncharteredterritory as he takes you behind the scenes to reveal the real Jackson, a manfew people ever got to know. Interviewing over sixty of Jackson's associates including managers, lawyers,music executives, producers, musicians and engineers - many of whom arespeaking about their experiences publicly for the first time - he providesexclusive access to one of the biggest-selling recording artists in history. Featuring a foreword by Matt Forger, one of Jackson's longest serving andmost loyal collaborators, MAKING MICHAEL takes readers into thestudio with the King of Pop, charting the creation of record-breaking albumsincluding Thriller, Bad, Dangerous and HIStory and the twists and turnsthat occurred along the way. Untold stories, revelations and secrets finallysee the light of day as Jackson's career outside the studio is also examined. Smallcombe remains objective and doesn't shy away from exploringJackson's ruthless traits, his addictions, his fall outs, the relentless pursuit ofperfectionism, the financial chaos and those shocking final weeks. MIKE SMALLCOMBE is a British journalist living and working in theUK. www.makingmichael.co.ukTwitter: @mikesmallcombe1

First published in 1946, Viktor Frankl's memoir Man's Search for Meaning remains one of the most influential books of the last century, selling over ten million copies worldwide and having been embraced by successive generations of readers captivated by its author's philosophical journey in the wake of the Holocaust. This long-overdue reappraisal examines Frankl's life and intellectual evolution anew, from his early immersion in Freudian and Adlerian theory to his development of the "e;third Viennese school"e; amid the National Socialist domination of professional psychotherapy. It teases out the fascinating contradictions and ambiguities surrounding his years in Nazi Europe, including the experimental medical procedures he oversaw in occupied Austria and a stopover at the Auschwitz concentration camp far briefer than has commonly been assumed. Throughout, author Timothy Pytell gives a penetrating but fair-minded account of a man whose paradoxical embodiment of asceticism, celebrity, tradition, and self-reinvention drew together the complex strands of twentieth-century intellectual life.

This biography of Ataturk aims to strip away the myth to show the complexities of the man beneath. Born plain Mustafa in Ottoman Salonica in 1881, he trained as an army officer but was virtually unknown until 1919, when he took the lead in thwarting the victorious Allies' plan to partition the Turkish core of the Ottoman Empire. He divided the Allies, defeated the last Sultan and secured the territory of the Turkish national state, becoming the first president of the new republic in 1923. He imposed coherence, order and mordernity and in the process, created his own legend and his own cult.

An extraordinary memoir of transition and transgender politics and culture';Six weeks before sex reassignment surgery (SRS), I am obliged to stop taking my hormones. I suddenly feel very differently about my forthcoming operation.' In July 2012, aged thirty, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgerya process she chronicled with unflinching honesty in a serialised national newspaper column. Trans tells of her life to the present moment: a story of growing up, of defining yourself, and of the rapidly changing world of gender politics. Fresh from university, eager to escape a dead-end job, she launches a career as a writer in a publishing culture dominated by London cliques and still figuring out the impact of the Internet. She navigates the treacherous waters of a world where, even in the liberal and feminist media, transgender identities go unacknowledged, misunderstood or worse. Yet through art, film, music, politics and football, Jacques starts to become the person she had only imagined, and begins the process of transition. Interweaving the personal with the political, her memoir is a powerful exploration of debates that comprise trans politics, issues which promise to redefine our understanding of what it means to be alive. Revealing, honest, humorous, and self-deprecating, Trans includes an epilogue with Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?, in which Jacques and Heti discuss the cruxes of writing and identity.

Stuart Sutcliffe is the most famous contender for the crown of 'fifth Beatle'. One of the founding members, a close friend of Lennon, he left the band after their Hamburg sojourn in order to pursue his promising career as an artist, dying shortly thereafter of a brain haemorrhage. For years his sister Pauline has tried to protect his memory against the Beatles' need to sanitise their early history and now she is ready to tell the real story. In so doing she sheds new light on their formative period - the rivalry with McCartney, how George Harrison tried to keep the peace, the truth about Stuart's intense relationship with Lennon and why Lennon was haunted by guilt over her brother's death. And she describes what it was like for those like herself and Cynthia Lennon who have had no choice but to live with the Beatles all their lives. 'Gripping . . . the story of Stuart Sutcliffe. . . holds the key to the birth of pop's greatest group' Daily Mail 'An odd, fascinating book' MOJO

'POWERFUL AND SOMETIMES SHOCKING ...' SUNDAY TIMES In this powerful book, Dr Shirin Ebadi, Iranian human rights lawyer and activist, tells of her fight for reform inside Iran, and the devastating backlash she faced after winning the Nobel Peace Prize.Having fought tirelessly for democracy, equality before the law and freedom of speech, Ebadi became a global voice of inspiration. Yet, inside her own country, her life has been plagued by surveillance, intimidation and violence. Until We Are Free tells shocking stories of how the Iranian authorities eventually forced her into exile. Her sister and daughter were detained, her husband was enmeshed in an espionage plot with another woman, her Nobel medal was stolen from her safety deposit box, and her offices in Tehran were ransacked.An illuminating depiction of life in Iran today as well as the account of Ebadi's personal struggle to uphold her work and keep her family together, Until We Are Free is ultimately a work of hope and perseverance under circumstances of exceptional difficulty.

A colorful introduction to one of the most influential businessmen in history (The New York Times Book Review), Jacob Fuggerthe Renaissance banker who wrote the playbook for everyone who keeps score with money (Bryan Burrough, author of Days of Rage).In the days when Columbus sailed the ocean and Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, a German banker named Jacob Fugger became the richest man in history. Fugger lived in Germany at the turn of the sixteenth century, the grandson of a peasant. By the time he died, his fortune amounted to nearly two percent of European GDP. In an era when kings had unlimited power, Fugger dared to stare down heads of state and ask them to pay back their loanswith interest. It was this coolness and self-assurance, along with his inexhaustible ambition, that made him not only the richest man ever, but a force of history as well. Before Fugger came along it was illegal under church law to charge interest on loans, but he got the Pope to change that. He also helped trigger the Reformation and likely funded Magellans circumnavigation of the globe. His creation of a news service gave him an information edge over his rivals and customers and earned Fugger a footnote in the history of journalism. And he took Austrias Habsburg family from being second-tier sovereigns to rulers of the first empire where the sun never set. Enjoyablereadable and fast-paced (The Wall Street Journal), The Richest Man Who Ever Lived is more than a tale about the most influential businessman of all time. It is a story about palace intrigue, knights in battle, family tragedy and triumph, and a violent clash between the one percent and everybody else. The tale of Fuggers aspiration, ruthlessness, and greed is riveting (The Economist).

A fascinating biography of Bulgaria's tragic monarch, Boris III, based on private correspondence and extensive interviews with members of the Bulgarian royal family. The son of King Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Boris became king after the first World War. Noted for defying Hitler wishes for Bulgaria's Jews, the popular king died mysteriously in 1943 after a stormy meeting with Hitler.

Maya Angelou's five volumes of autobiography are a testament to the talents and resilience of this extraordinary writer. Loving the world, she also knows its cruelty. As a black woman she has known discrimination and extreme poverty, but also hope, joy, achievement and celebration. In the fifth volume, Maya Angelou emigrates to Ghana only to discover that 'you can't go home again' but she comes to a new awareness of love and friendship, civil rights and slavery - and the myth of mother Africa.

*AS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 2 FACT NOT FICTION BOOKCLUB AND READ BY BILL NIGHY ON AUDIO*'I was hoping against hope that the penguin would survive because as of that instant he had a name, and with his name came the beginning of a bond which would last a life-time'Tom Michell is in his roaring twenties: single, free-spirited and seeking adventure. He has a plane ticket to South America, a teaching position in a prestigious Argentine boarding school, and endless summer holidays. He even has a motorbike, Che Guevara style. What he doesn't need is a pet. What he really doesn't need is a pet penguin.Set against Argentina's turbulent years following the collapse of the corrupt Per nist regime, this is the heart-warming story of Juan Salvador the penguin, rescued by Tom from an oil slick in Uruguay just days before a new term. When the bird refuses to leave Tom's side, the young teacher has no choice but to smuggle it across the border, through customs, and back to school. Whether it's as the rugby team's mascot, the housekeeper's confidant, the host at Tom's parties or the most flamboyant swimming coach in world history, Juan Salvador transforms the lives of all he meets - in particular one homesick school boy. And as for Tom, he discovers in Juan Salvador a compadre like no other...The Penguin Lessons is a unique and moving true story which has captured imaginations around the globe - for all those who dreamed as a child they might one day talk to the animals.

David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters.He goes on vacation with his family.He gets a job selling drinks.He attends his brother's wedding.He mops his sister's floor.He gives directions to a lost traveller.He eats a hamburger.He has his blood sugar tested.It all sounds so normal, doesn't it?In his new book David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives - a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim finds one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today at the peak of his form.

In Chanel: An Intimate Life, acclaimed biographer Lisa Chaney tells the controversial story of the fashion icon who starred in her tumultuous era Coco Chanel was many things to many people. Raised in emotional and financial poverty, she became one of the defining figures of the twentieth century. She was mistress to aristocrats, artists and spies. She broke rules of style and decorum, seducing both men and women, yet in her work expected the highest standards. She took a 'plaything' and turned it into a global industry which defined the modern woman. Filled with new insights and thrilling discoveries, Lisa Chaney's Chanel provides the most defining and provocative portrait yet. 'Chaney's research is laudable, uncovering fresh details of Chanel's well-trodden rag trade to riches story' Evening Standard 'An unflinching examination of the historically inscrutable designer' Vogue Lisa Chaney has lectured and tutored in the history of art and literature, made TV and radio broadcasts on the history of culture, and reviewed and written for journals and newspapers, including The SundayTimes, the Spectator and the Guardian. She is the author of two previous biographies: Elizabeth David and Hide-and-Seek With Angels: The Life of J.M. Barrie.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the acclaimed multi-million copy bestseller Team of Rivals, filmed by Spielberg as Lincoln, turns to the birth of America's Progressive Era - that heady, optimistic time when the 20th Century is fresh. Reform is in the air, and it is time to take on the robber barons and corrupt politicians who have brought the country to its knees.The story is told through the close friendship between two Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) and his handpicked successor William Howard Taft (1909-1913). The decades-long intimacy strengthens both men as they reform America, breaking up monopolies, protecting the rights of labour, banning unsafe drugs and closing sweatshops.Also at the heart of the story are the original 'muckrakers' - a brilliant group of investigative journalists at the celebrated magazine McClure's. They publish popular exposes of fraudulent railroads and millionaire senators, aiding Roosevelt in his quest for change and fairness.As Roosevelt, Taft and the muckrakers confront corruption and expose exploitation, America is reborn.

Reborn is the compelling and frank early diary of Susan Sontag.'Vivid, exhilarating, often moving . . . charts the development of a good writer and an important critic'Sunday Telegraph'I intend to do everything . . . I shall anticipate pleasure everywhere and find it too, for it is everywhere! I shall involve myself wholly . . .everything matters!'This first selection from Susan Sontag's diaries (from 1947-1963) takes us from early adolescence though to when Sontag was in her early thirties. It is an astonishingly affecting, honest self-portrait which is also a fascinating, revealing account of an artist and critic being born. We see Sontag honing her skills and fashioning herself, by a supreme act of will, into an intellectual force.'Fascinating. One can feel Sontag's mind beginning to ripen and bloom, and the full force of the intellectual originality that would be her hallmark emerging' Guardian'Inspirational. Sontag shows us not just the importance, but the exhilaration of being earnest' New Statesman'A fascinating document of her apprenticeship, charting her earnest quest for education, identity, and voice. Reborn is overwhelmingly a record of an inner landscape' New York Review of Books'One of the finest American writers, thinkers, and political activists of the past four decades . . . an intimate portrait of her early life' Independent on SundayOne of America's best-known and most admired writers, Susan Sontag was also a leading commentator on contemporary culture until her death in December 2004. Her books include four novels and numerous works of non-fiction, among them Regarding the Pain of Others, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, At the Same Time, Against Interpretation and Other Essays and Reborn: Early Diaries 1947-1963, all of which are published by Penguin. A further eight books, including the collections of essays Under the Sign of Saturn and Where the Stress Falls, and the novels The Volcano Lover and The Benefactor, are available from Penguin Modern Classics.