A wild, lyrical, and anguished autobiography, in which CharlesMingus pays short shrift to the facts but plunges to the verybottom of his psyche, coming up for air only when it pleases him.He takes the reader through his childhood in Watts, his musicaleducation by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, andCharlie Parker, and his prodigious appetites--intellectual,culinary, and sexual. The book is a jumble, but a glorious one, bya certified American genius.
The definitive story of one of the greatest dynasties inbaseball history, Joe Torre's New York Yankees. When Joe Torre took over as manager of the Yankees in 1996, theyhad not won a World Series title in eighteen years. In that timeseventeen others had tried to take the helm of America’s mostfamous baseball team. Each one was fired by George Steinbrenner.After twelve triumphant seasons—with twelve straight playoffappearances, six pennants, and four World Series titles—Torre leftthe Yankees as the most beloved manager in baseball. But dealingwith players like Jason Giambi, A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera,Roger Clemens, and Randy Johnson is what managing is all about.Here, for the first time, Joe Torre and Tom Verducci take readersinside the dugout, the clubhouse, and the front office, showingwhat it took to keep the Yankees on top of the baseball world.
The only thing the writers in this book have in common is thatthey've exchanged sex for money. They're PhDs and dropouts, soccermoms and jailbirds, $2,500-a-night call girls and $10 crack hos,and everything in between. This anthology lends a voice to anunderrepresented population that is simultaneously reviled andworshipped. Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys is a collection of shortmemoirs, rants, confessions, nightmares, journalism, and poetrycovering life, love, work, family, and yes, sex. The editors gatherpieces from the world of industrial sex, including contributionsfrom art-porn priestess Dr. Annie Sprinkle, best-selling memoiristDavid Henry Sterry (Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man forRent), sex activist and musical diva Candye Kane, women and menright off the streets, girls participating in the first-everNational Summit of Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, and RuthMorgan Thomas, one of the organizers of the European Sex Work,Human Rights, and Migration Conference. Se
Starred Review. In 1975, photographer Tannenbaum met John Lennon and Yoko Ono while covering the taping of what would be Lennon's final public performance. Tannenbaum eventually began a comfortable working relationship with Lennon and Ono as they emerged from years of seclusion to promote their album Double Fantasy, the release of which would presage Lennon's Dec. 8, 1980 murder by mere weeks. This volume collects Tannenbaum's images from that time, many never before published, providing breathtaking, borderline-voyeuristic peeks into one of rock's most enigmatic couples. Most photos here were taken in November and December 1980, including a Central Park stroll, working in the home office and an intimate, dreamlike series featuring the couple undressing and in bed in an all-white gallery exhibition space. A chapter on Lennon's death captures the despair of a city as word of the murder spread. Tannenbaum (New York in the 70s) introduces each chapter with an eloquent personal narrative, but these narrow slices
In his acclaimed book Lincoln's Virtues , William LeeMiller explored Abraham Lincoln's intellectual and moraldevelopment. Now he completes his "ethical biography," showing howthe amiable and inexperienced backcountry politician wastransformed by constitutional alchemy into an oath-bound head ofstate. Faced with a radical moral contradiction left by thenation's Founders, Lincoln struggled to find a balance between theuniversal ideals of Equality and Liberty and the monstrousinjustice of human slavery. With wit and penetrating sensitivity, Miller brings together thegreat themes that have become Lincoln's legacy—preserving theUnited States of America while ending the odious institution thatcorrupted the nation's meaning—and illuminates his remarkablepresidential combination: indomitable resolve and suprememagnanimity.
Paris. The name alone conjures images of chestnut-linedboulevards, sidewalk cafés, breathtaking fa?ades around everycorner--in short, an exquisite romanticism that has captured theAmerican imagination for as long as there have beenAmericans. In 1995, Adam Gopnik, his wife, and their infant son left thefamiliar comforts and hassles of New York City for the urbaneglamour of the City of Light. Gopnik is a longtime New Yorkerwriter, and the magazine has sent its writers to Paris fordecades--but his was above all a personal pilgrimage to the placethat had for so long been the undisputed capital of everythingcultural and beautiful. It was also the opportunity to raise achild who would know what it was to romp in the Luxembourg Gardens,to enjoy a croque monsieur in a Left Bank café--a child (andperhaps a father, too) who would have a grasp of that Parisiansense of style we Americans find so elusive. So, in the grand tradition of the American abroad, Gopnik walkedthe paths of the Tuileries, enjoy
“Christopher Hogwood came home on my lap in a shoebox. He wasa creature who would prove in many ways to be more human than Iam.” –from The Good Good Pig A naturalist who spent months at a time living on her own amongwild creatures in remote jungles, Sy Montgomery had always feltmore comfortable with animals than with people. So she gladlyopened her heart to a sick piglet who had been crowded away fromnourishing meals by his stronger siblings. Yet Sy had no inklingthat this piglet, later named Christopher Hogwood, would not onlysurvive but flourish–and she soon found herself engaged with hersmall-town community in ways she had never dreamed possible.Unexpectedly, Christopher provided this peripatetic traveler withsomething she had sought all her life: an anchor (eventuallyweighing 750 pounds) to family and home. The Good Good Pig celebrates Christopher Hogwood in all hisglory, from his inauspicious infancy to hog heaven in rural NewHampshire, where his boundless zest for life a
ON THE WAY home from a conference, Don Piper's car was crushed by a semi that crossed into his lane. Medical personnel said he died instantly. While his body lay lifeless inside the ruins of his car, Piper experienced the glories of heaven, awed by its beauty and music. Ninety minutes after the wreck, while a minister prayed for him, Piper miraculously returned to life on earth with only the memory of inexpressible heavenly bliss. His faith in God was severely tested as he faced an uncertain and grueling recovery. Now he shares his life-changing story with you. 9o Minutes in Heaven offers a glimpse into a very real dimension of God's reality It encourages those recovering from serious injuries and those dealing with the loss of a loved one. The experience dramatically changed Piper's life,and it will change yours too. 作者简介：Don Piper has been an ordained minister since 1985 and has served in several capacities on church staffs, including six years as a senior pastor. Don has appeared on
In a brilliant combination of biography, literary criticism,and history, The Bronté Myth shows how Charlotte, Emily, and AnneBronté became cultural icons whose ever-changing reputationsreflected the obsessions of various eras. When literary London learned that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heightshad been written by young rural spinsters, the Brontés instantlybecame as famous as their shockingly passionate books. Soon aftertheir deaths, their first biographer spun the sisters into apicturesque myth of family tragedies and Yorkshire moors. Eversince, these enigmatic figures have tempted generations ofreaders–Victorian, Freudian, feminist–to reinterpret them, castingthem as everything from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics.In her bewitching “metabiography,” Lucasta Miller follows thetwists and turns of the phenomenon of Bront-mania and rescues thesethree fiercely original geniuses from the distortions oflegend.
In 1997, Tony Blair won the biggest Labour victory in history to sweep the party to power and end eighteen years of Conservative government. He has been one of the most dynamic leaders of modern times; few British prime ministers have shaped the nation's course as profoundly as Blair during his ten years in power, and his achievements and his legacy will be debated for years to come. Now his memoirs reveal in intimate detail this unique political and personal journey, providing an insight into the man, the politician and the statesman, and charting successes, controversies and disappointments with an extraordinary candour. "A Journey" will prove essential and compulsive reading for anyone who wants to understand the complexities of our global world. As an account of the nature and uses of power, it will also have a readership that extends well beyond politics, to all those who want to understand the challenges of leadership today.
In Lady Blue Eyes, Barbara Sinatra's firstpubliclove letter to the husband she adored, she celebratesthesensational singer, possessive mate, sexy heart-throb, and devotedfriend that she found in Frank.For more than two decades, Barbarawas always byhis side, traveling the globe and hostingglitteringevents for their famous friends, including presi-dents,kings, queens, Hollywood royalty, and musi-cal legends. Among themwere Sammy Davis Jr.,Princess Grace of Monaco, Bob Dylan, andRonaldReagan. Each night, as Frank publicly wooed hisbride withlove songs from a concert stage, she'd fallin love with him allover again.
This comprehensive, original portrait of the life and work ofone of America's greatest poets--set in the social, cultural, andpolitical context of his time--considers the full range of writingsby and about Whitman, including his early poems and stories, hisconversations, letters, journals, newspaper writings, and daybooks. of photos.
Far more than a superb memoir about the highest levels ofprofessional tennis, Open is the engrossing story of a remarkablelife. Andre Agassi had his life mapped out for him before he left thecrib. Groomed to be a tennis champion by his moody and demandingfather, by the age of twenty-two Agassi had won the first of hiseight grand slams and achieved wealth, celebrity, and the game’shighest honors. But as he reveals in this searching autobiography,off the court he was often unhappy and confused, unfulfilled by hisgreat achievements in a sport he had come to resent. Agassi writescandidly about his early success and his uncomfortable relationshipwith fame, his marriage to Brooke Shields, his growing interest inphilanthropy, and—described in haunting, point-by-point detail—thehighs and lows of his celebrated career.
When Newton was not yet twenty-five years old, he formulatedcalculus, hit upon the idea of gravity, and discovered that whitelight was made up of all the colors of the spectrum. By 1678,Newton designed a telescope to study the movement of the planetsand published Principia, a milestone in the history of science,which set forth his famous laws of motion and universalgravitation. Newton’s long-time research on calculus, finally madepublic in 1704, triggered a heated controversy as Europeanscientists accused him of plagiarizing the work of the Germanscientist Gottfried Leibniz. In this third volume in the acclaimed Ackroyd’s Brief Livesseries, bestselling author Peter Ackroyd provides an engagingportrait of Isaac Newton, illuminating what we think we know abouthim and describing his seminal contributions to science andmathematics. A man of wide and eclectic interests, Newton blurred theborders between natural philosophy and speculation: he was aspassionate about astrology as astronomy an
“If my story were ever to be written down truthfully fromstart to finish, it would amaze everyone,” wrote Henri Matisse. Itis hard to believe today that Matisse, whose exhibitions draw hugecrowds worldwide, was once almost universally reviled andridiculed. His response was neither to protest nor to retreat; hesimply pushed on from one innovation to the next, and left theworld to draw its own conclusions. Unfortunately, these weregenerally false and often damaging. Throughout his life andafterward people fantasized about his models and circulatedbaseless fabrications about his private life. Fifty years after his death, Matisse the Master (the second halfof the biography that began with the acclaimed The Unknown Matisse)shows us the painter as he saw himself. With unprecedented andunrestricted access to his voluminous family correspondence, andother new material in private archives, Hilary Spurling documents alifetime of desperation and self-doubt exacerbated by Matisse’sattempts to counterac
Marine General Tony Zinni was known as the "Warrior Diplomat"during his nearly forty years of service. As a soldier, hiscredentials were impeccable, whether leading troops in Vietnam,commanding hair-raising rescue operations in Somalia, or-asCommander-in-Chief of CENTCOM-directing strikes against Iraq and AlQaeda. But it was as a peacemaker that he made just as great amark-conducting dangerous troubleshooting missions all over Africa,Asia, and Europe; and then serving as Secretary of State ColinPowell's special envoy to the Middle East, before disagreementsover the 2003 Iraq War and its probable aftermath caused him toresign. This is his story-and that of his beloved Marine Corps-from thecauldron of Vietnam to the realities of the post-9/11 military, astold by none other than Tom Clancy.
The outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatestscientific minds and a legendary American original. In thisphenomenal national bestseller, the Nobel Prize-winning physicistRichard P. Feynman recounts in his inimitable voice his adventurestrading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas ongambling with Nick the Greek, painting a naked female toreador,accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums and much else of aneyebrow-raising and hilarious nature. A New York Times bestseller; more than 500,000 copies sold.
Michael Jackson was the undisputed King of Pop and his untimely death has provoked tributes from around the world. With a colourful life spanning from 1968 when Michael was a member of the Jackson 5 to his recent announcement of a final comeback tour at the O2 in London, nobody can dispute the achievements of the man who was arguably the greatest artist of the millenium. This fully illustrated book offers an insightful tribute to the man behind Thriller, the world's best selling album of all time. Including sections on Michael's early life and the Jackson 5, the making of Off the Wall and Thriller, and the troubled years leading right up to his announcement of a comeback tour, this will be a comprehensive and fitting tribute to a legendary pop star, the likes of which the world will never be seen again.
Bono is one of the most influential musicians at work today.Over the past twenty-five years his band, U2, have sold astaggering 130 million albums and collected 14 Grammys. Theirsuccess has made Bono one of the most recognisable faces in theworld. Here, in a series of conversations with his friend, themusic journalist, Michka Assayas, Bono reflects on histransformation from extrovert singer of a small, Irish, post-punkband into an international rock star. Along the way he speakscandidly about his childhood, about his mother's death, about hisChristian faith and about his difficult relationship with hisfather, who died recently. Bono also speaks passionately about howhe has used his fame as a platform to campaign fervently on a rangeof global issues, and why these issues - which include the IRAceasefire, Third World debt and, most recently, the growing AIDScrisis in Africa - are so important to each of us. Intimate,humorous, and fiercely opinionated, BONO ON BONO is Bono's story inhis own words. It will
Henri Matisse is one of the masters of twentieth-century artand a household word to millions of people who find joy and meaningin his light-filled, colorful images--yet, despite all the booksdevoted to his work, the man himself has remained a mystery. Now,in the hands of the superb biographer Hilary Spurling, the unknownMatisse becomes visible at last. Matisse was born into a family of shopkeepers in 1869, in agloomy textile town in the north of France. His environment wasbrightened only by the sumptuous fabrics produced by the localweavers--magnificent brocades and silks that offered Matisse hisfirst vision of light and color, and which later became a familiarmotif in his paintings. He did not find his artistic vocation untilafter leaving school, when he struggled for years with his father,who wanted him to take over the family seed-store. Escaping toParis, where he was scorned by the French art establishment,Matisse lived for fifteen years in great poverty--an ordeal heshared with other young a
Book De*ion Isaac Newton was born in a stone farmhouse in 1642, fatherlessand unwanted by his mother. When he died in London in 1727 he wasso renowned he was given a state funeral—an unheard-of honor for asubject whose achievements were in the realm of the intellect.During the years he was an irascible presence at Trinity College,Cambridge, Newton imagined properties of nature and gave themnames—mass, gravity, velocity—things our science now takes forgranted. Inspired by Aristotle, spurred on by Galileo’s discoveriesand the philosophy of Descartes, Newton grasped the intangible anddared to take its measure, a leap of the mind unparalleled in hisgeneration. James Gleick, the author of Chaos and Genius, and one of the mostacclaimed science writers of his generation, brings the reader intoNewton’s reclusive life and provides startlingly clear explanationsof the concepts that changed forever our perception of bodies,rest, and motion—ideas so basic to the twenty-first century, it cant
The author tells the story as told to him of Anne Hobbs, awoman who went to Alaska in the 1920's to teach, but who hadtrouble due to her kindness to the Indians there.
Eva was arrested by the Nazis on her fifteenth birthday andsent to Auschwitz. Her survival depended on endless strokes ofluck, her own determination and the love and protection of hermother Fritzi, who was deported with her. When Auschwitz was liberated, Eva and Fritzi began the longjourney home. They searched desperately for Eva's father andbrother, from whom they had been separated. The news came somemonths later. Tragically, both men had been killed. Before the war, in Amsterdam, Eva had become friendly with ayoung girl called Anne Frank. Though their fates were verydifferent, Eva's life was set to be entwined with her friend's forever more, after her mother Fritzi married Anne's father Otto Frankin 1953. This is a searingly honest account of how an ordinary personsurvived the Holocaust. Eva's memories and de*ions areheartbreakingly clear, her account brings the horror as close as itcan possibly be. But this is also an exploration of what happened next, of Eva'sstruggle to live with herself after t
"Franklin''s is one of the greatest autobiographies inliterature, and towers over other autobiographies as Franklintowered over other men." -William Dean Howells
