Here is the most important autobiography from RenaissanceItaly and one of the most spirited and colorful from any time orplace, in a translation widely recognized as the most faithful tothe energy and spirit of the original. Benvenuto Cellini was both a beloved artist in sixteenth-centuryFlorence and a passionate and temperamental man of action who wascapable of brawling, theft, and murder. He counted popes,cardinals, kings, and dukes among his patrons and was the adoringfriend of—as he described them—the “divine” Michelangelo and the“marvelous” Titian, but was as well known for his violent feuds. Atage twenty-seven he helped defend the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome,and his account of his imprisonment there (under a mad castellanwho thought he was a bat), his escape, recapture, and confinementin “a cell of tarantulas and venomous worms” is an adventure equalto any other in fact or fiction. But it is only one in a long lifelived on a grand scale. Cellini’s autobiography is n

From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winningbiographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather , comesa superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women ofletters. Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with theimage of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new EdithWharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as herfiction. Born into a wealthy family, Wharton left America as anadult and eventually chose to create a life in France. Her renownednovels and stories have become classics of American literature, butas Lee shows, Wharton's own life, filled with success and scandal,was as intriguing as those of her heroines. Bridging two centuriesand two very different sensibilities, Wharton here comes to life inthe skillful hands of one of the great literary biographers of ourtime.

First introduced to the world in her sons’ now-classicmemoirs—Augusten Burroughs’s Running with Scissors and John ElderRobison’s Look Me in the Eye—Margaret Robison now tells her ownhaunting and lyrical story. A poet and teacher by profession,Robison describes her Southern Gothic childhood, her marriage to ahandsome, brilliant man who became a split-personality alcoholicand abusive husband, the challenges she faced raising two childrenwhile having psychotic breakdowns of her own, and her struggle toregain her sanity. Robison grew up in southern Georgia, where the fa?ade of 1950spropriety masked all sorts of demons, including alcoholism,misogyny, repressed homosexuality, and suicide. She met herhusband, John Robison, in college, and together they moved upnorth, where John embarked upon a successful academic career andMargaret brought up the children and worked on her art and poetry.Yet her husband’s alcoholism and her collapse into psychosis, andthe eventual disintegration of their mar

A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepensour sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success inseizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggleas a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of hisfollowers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals ofsocial justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and ruralpoor. Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows invivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, socialvalues, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped onanother subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and thentested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma,or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the wayto the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emergesas one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperouslawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated topolitical and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-

Michael Jackson: The Making of "Thriller" is an illustratedtribute to the King of Pop and his groundbreaking music video, withnever-before-seen photos of its creation. The book features over200 exclusive, behind-the-scenes photographs of the artist on setduring the 1983 production of the Grammy award winning videodirected by John Landis. Considered to be the most successful project of all time,"Thriller" is beloved the world over, inspiring imitation and acult-like following of millions of fans. Documenting the creationof the most popular and iconic music video of all time, this bookcelebrates the artist and his music at the top of his career. Famed photographer Douglas Kirkland and journalist Nancy Griffinwere the only members of the media allowed on the set of the video.The resulting photos capture Jackson both in high performance modeand relaxing on the set and depict his transformation into thecharacters in the video as well capturing the public and privatefaces of Michael Jackson.

In honor of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II,Nobel Prize winner Winston Churchill's essential, abridged memoirsof that time are reintroduced with an updated cover and a new lowprice. The quintessence of the war as seen by it's greatest player,in a one-volume abridged edition that captures all the drama of theoriginal volumes.

The first account—prodigiously researched, richly detailed—ofthe last remarkable twenty-five years of the life and art of one ofAmerica’s greatest and most beloved musical icons. Much has been written about Louis Armstrong, but most of itfocuses on the early and middle stages of his long career. Now,Ricky Riccardi—jazz scholar and musician—takes an in-depth look atthe years in which Armstrong was often dismissed as a buffoon?ish,if popular, entertainer, and shows us instead the inventiveness anddepth of expression that his music evinced during this time. These are the years (from after World War II until his death in1971) when Armstrong entertained crowds around the world andrecorded his highest-charting hits, including “Mack the Knife” and“Hello, Dolly”; years when he collaborated with, among others, EllaFitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Dave Brubeck; when he recorded withstrings and big bands, and, of course, with the All-Stars, hisprimary performing ensemble for more than