Showing results for "Biographical Stories" in All Categories

Young Edward Temple, at the age of eight, is afflicted with an ailment that threatens him with permanent blindness. A course of treatment is recommended whereby the boy is kept in a darkened chamber and his eyes, bandaged. To keep Edward's spirits up, his father decides to relate to him the inspiring life stories of six historical personages.

Born into the factious world of war-torn Arabia, Muhammad's life is a gripping and inspiring story of one man's tireless fight for unity and peace. In a world where greed and injustice ruled, Muhammad created change by affecting hearts and minds. Just as the story of Jesus embodies the message of Christianity, Muhammad's life reveals the core of Islam. Deepak Chopra shares the life of Muhammad as never before, putting his teachings in a new light.

A holy man to Hindus, a hero to Muslims, and a criminal to the British, Mohandas K. Gandhi was an inspiring figure of the 20th century, a man whose quest to live in accord with God’s highest truth led him to initiate massive campaigns against racism, violence, and colonialism.

This is A Madman's Diary, and Other Stories by Lu Xun, a renowned writer of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun was a novelist, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, and poet who wrote both in Vernacular Chinese and Classical Chinese. He became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai in the 1930s.

To understand England's greatest cricket player is to know what it takes to succeed. Alastair Cook is the greatest batsman to ever play for England, and as one of the most gifted players in the world, he knows that his triumphs are as important as the challenges and moments of resilience. Now, as he English cricket team reel from his dramatic retirement, Alastair tells his story: a close-up account of his last chapter, his 33rd and last Test hundred, an intimate tale of his life, his family, of the man he is today and the man he will be - after cricket.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “There’s such warmth to Dumas’ writing that it invites the reader to pull up a seat at her table and smile right along with her at the quirks of her family and Iranians and Americans in general.”—Booklist In the New York Times bestselling memoir Funny in...

#1 New York Times Bestseller and #1 International Bestseller Now a Peacock Original Series starring Harvey Keitel and Melanie Lynskey This beautiful, illuminating tale of hope and courage is based on interviews that were conducted with Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist...

The inner workings of a writer’s life, the interplay between experience and writing, are brilliantly recounted by a master of the art. Gay Talese now focuses on his own life—the zeal for the truth, the narrative edge, the sometimes startling precision, that won accolades for his journalism...

From the acclaimed author of Speak comes a kaleidoscopic novel about Robert Oppenheimer—father of the atomic bomb—as told by seven fictional characters. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant scientist, a champion of liberal causes, and a complex and often contradictory character. He loyally...

From the author of A Most English Princess comes a rich novel about young Princess Alix of Hesse—the future Alexandra, last Empress of Imperial Russia—and her sister, Princess Ella. Their decision to marry into the Romanov royal family changed history. They were granddaughters of Queen...

Good things happen when your life is freed from the restrictions of gravity and time. Jake Spinner is a modern-day Don Quixote mixed in with a large dose of Winnie the Pooh.

In 1963 Sylvia Plath took her own life in her London flat. Her death was the culmination of a brief, brilliant life lived in the shadow of clinical depression—a condition exacerbated by her tempestuous relationship with mercurial poet Ted Hughes. The ensuing years saw Plath rise to martyr status while Hughes was cast as the cause of her suicide, his infidelity at the heart of her demise. For decades, Hughes never bore witness to the truth of their marriage—one buried beneath a mudslide of apocryphal stories, gossip, sensationalism, and myth. Until now.

After eight months as a maid of court, Catherine Howard has become Queen. Separated from past friends and surrounded by people who resent her rise to the throne, the sole close companion she has left is Jane Boleyn, the infamous Lady Rochford. And this is not the only strain upon Catherine. People from her past come calling, the threat that the King may find out she is not the pure, innocent maiden he thinks she is puts her in peril. Catherine must imitate the Queens of the past in order to survive.

How do we give a voice to those who so often remain unheard? Will You Read This, Please is a frank and impactful collection of twelve stories as told to our best British writers, based on the lived experience of people who have faced mental illness in the UK. Edited by Joanna Cannon, the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, Three Things About Elsie and A Tidy Ending, the stories told here are powerful, resonant and heart-breaking. This is a ground-breaking and unforgettable collection, shining a light on the stigma and isolation of living with mental illness.

Java Island, 1941. Six-year-old Rita Vischer cowers in her family’s dug-out bomb shelter, listening to the sirens and waiting for a bomb to fall. Her charmed life on Java—living with other Dutch families—had always been peaceful, but when Holland declares war on Japan and the Japanese army invades Indonesia, Rita’s family is forced to relocate to a POW camp, and Rita must help care for her little brother, Georgie.

"Die Schule ist die einzige moderne Kulturfrage, die ich ernst nehme und die mich gelegentlich aufregt. An mir hat die Schule viel kaputt gemacht, und ich kenne wenig bedeutende Persönlichkeiten, denen es nicht ähnlich ging." So Hermann Hesse über sein viel diskutiertes Werk an einen seiner Brüder, der sich später - nicht zuletzt aufgrund in der Schulzeit gelegter Probleme - umbrachte.

“Perfect for fans of Grace Kelly, royal-watchers, and fans of biographical fiction alike."—PopSugar A Library Reads Pick and Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choice! A life in snapshots… Grace knows what people see. She’s the Cinderella story. An icon of glamor and elegance frozen in...

Mike Leonard is a lucky man. It’s not everyone who gets parents like Jack and Marge. At eighty-seven, Jack is a pathological optimist with an inexhaustible gift of gab. Marge, Jack’s bride of sixty years, though cut from the same rough bolt of Irish immigrant cloth, is his polar...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A deeply affecting coming-of-age memoir about family, love, loss, basketball—and life itself—by the beloved author of The Prince of Tides and The Great Santini During one unforgettable season as a Citadel cadet, Pat Conroy becomes part of a basketball team...

On a windy night in 1937, a 17-year-old German naval sub-cadet is wandering along the seawall when he stumbles upon a gang of ruffians beating up a tramp, whose life he saves. The man is none other than spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Canaris adopts the young man and dubs him "Cesare" after the character in the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for his ability to break through any barrier as he eliminates the Abwehr's enemies.