Biography

Breaking the Code paints an extraordinary portrait of Whitehall and Westminster in our time - warts and all.

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The first biography of the acclaimed and derided filmmaker Michael Cimino—and a reevaluation of the infamous film that destroyed his career—now in paperback! The director Michael Cimino (1939–2016) is famous for two films: the intense, powerful, and enduring Vietnam movie The Deer Hunter, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 1979 and also won Cimino Best Director, and Heaven’s Gate, the most notorious bomb of all time. Originally budgeted at $11 million, Cimino’s sprawling western went off the rails in Montana. The picture grew longer and longer, and the budget ballooned to over $40 million. When it was finally released, Heaven’s Gate failed so completely with reviewers and at the box office that it put legendary studio United Artists out of business and marked the end of Hollywood’s auteur era.Or so the conventional wisdom goes. Charles Elton delves deeply into the making and aftermath of the movie and presents a surprisingly different view to that of Steven Bach, one of the executives responsible for Heaven’s Gate, who wrote a scathing book about the film and solidified the widely held view that Cimino wounded the movie industry beyond repair. Elton’s Cimino is a richly detailed biography that offers a revisionist history of a lightning rod filmmaker. Based on extensive interviews with Cimino’s peers and collaborators and enemies and friends, most of whom have never spoken before, it unravels the enigmas and falsehoods, many perpetrated by the director himself, which surround his life, and sheds new light on his extraordinary career. This is a story of the making of art, the business of Hollywood, and the costs of ambition, both financial and personal.

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Holding what appeared to be a lifeless baby, Ma resisted the captain’s orders to throw her bundle overboard. Instead, on landing, Ma rushed her baby into the arms of American military nurses and doctors, who saved the child’s life. “I had hope, just a little, you were still alive,” Ma would tell Putsata in an oft-repeated story that became family legend. Over the years, Putsata lives to please Ma and make her proud, hustling to repay her life debt by becoming the consummate good Cambodian daughter, working steadfastly by Ma’s side in the berry fields each summer and eventually building a successful career as an award-winning journalist. But Putsata’s adoration and efforts are no match for Ma’s expectations. When Putsata comes out to Ma in her twenties, Ma tells her it’s just a phase. When Putsata fails to bring home a Khmer boyfriend, it’s because she’s not trying hard enough. When, at the age of forty, Putsata tells Ma she is finally getting married—to a woman—it breaks their bond in two. In her startling memoir, Putsata Reang explores the long legacy of inherited trauma and the crushing weight of cultural and filial duty. With rare clarity and lyric wisdom, Ma and Me is a stunning, deeply moving memoir about love, debt, and duty.

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Jean Findlay was born in Edinburgh and studied Law and French at Edinburgh University and theatre in Cracow, Poland. She has worked as a playwright and as a journalist has written for The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Independent, and the BBC. She is the author of Chasing Lost Time - The Life of C. K. Scott-Moncrieff, Soldier, Spy and Translator published in 2014 by Chatto & Windus, London 2014, by Vintage paperback 2015 and by FSG, New York 2015, and now Picador 2023. For writing The Queen's Lender she won a Hawthornden Fellowship 2017 and a Lavigny International Fellowship 2018.

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''ASTONISHING'' THE DAILY MAIL ''STRIKING'' THE SUNDAY TIMES ''RADICAL'' TATLER Described by The Telegraph as ''Edward''s truth'' Once a King is the never before seen and unfiltered story of King Edward VIII, the original royal renegade, who abdicated his throne and left the royal family to pursue his own destiny. Fifteen years after having abdicated the throne to marry the woman he loved - Wallis Simpson - King Edward VIII, now the Duke of Windsor, published his memoirs. But whilst preparing the manuscript for his published and mostly ghostwritten book - which, unlike Prince Harry''s autobiography Spare, largely avoided controversy - the Duke also produced a private manuscript for posterity. This was written in his own words and with an uninhibited frankness.Once a King: The Lost Memoir of Edward VIII reproduces this uncrowned King''s previously unseen writing

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To read this book is to step into the studio of a painter. These writings, rich sources of information, share thoughts, processes and practices that together demonstrate links between geometry, visual perception, history and literature. Murmurations is constitutive of an ever-expanding studio and in its midst a life-a painter's life-comes to take place.

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From 1994 to 2023, Professor Drife wrote an entertaining column in the journal of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. His sole aim was to amuse colleagues - young and old, female and male - working in a stressful and fast-changing specialty. Using wit, observation of life inside and outside medicine, and a global perspective, he helped them to relax, reflect and sometimes laugh out loud.

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The BBC and HBO series Gentleman Jack brought Anne Lister to international attention, awakening tremendous interest in her diaries, which run to nearly five million words and are partly written in her secret code. They record in intimate detail Anne’s intellectual energy and her challenges to so many of society’s expectations of women at the time.In As Good as a Marriage, the sequel to Female Fortune, Jill Liddington’s edited transcriptions of the diaries show us Anne from 1836–38. She guides the reader through life at Shibden Hall after Anne’s unconventional ‘marriage’ to wealthy local heiress Ann Walker. The book explores the daily lives of these two women, from convivial evenings together to her ruthless pursuit of her own business and landowning ambitions.Yet the diaries’ coded passages also record tensions and quarrels, with Ann Walker often in tears. Was their relationship really as fragile as Anne’s coded writing suggests? This question is at the heart of As Good as a Marriage.

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A CELEBRATION OF THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ''THE WORLD''S GREATEST LIVING EXPLORER'' PRAISE FOR SIR RANULPH FIENNES:''Always that little bit further and always the best. It is why, even to this day, I remain in awe at all he has accomplished.'' - Bear Grylls''His ground-breaking expeditions have redefined what is possible, but have also ignited a fire within the hearts of those seeking their own extraordinary journeys.'' - Levison Wood ''That sunny March day on top of the Eiger represented the beginning of the end of our days climbing together. Looking at Ran''s grizzly, bearded face, I was yet to realise what he had planted within me, but I knew it was there. As the mist rolled in, for a while it looked like we might be stuck, but I didn''t mind at all. I simply had to channel my inner Ran.'' - Kenton Cool ''His public persona is that of the intrepid man of ac

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A poetic, passionate and intensely personal exploration of colour written during the final year of Derek Jarman's life -- with a new introduction by Ali Smith.In Chroma, his most poetic and lyrical book, Derek Jarman explores the uses of colour. Shifting across the spectrum and from the medieval to the modern, he draws on the work of great colour theorists from Pliny to Leonardo. Interwoven with these musings are evocative memories from Jarman's childhood and illustrious career, along with reflections on his deteriorating health. Written a year before Jarman’s death, and as his eyesight was failing, this is an intensely personal work; a paean from an artist seeking to memorialise the extraordinary power of colour even while it receded from his own life.

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WINNER OF THE WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDHe was the first black heavyweight champion in history (1908-15) and the most celebrated - and most reviled - African American of his age. In Unforgivable Blackness, prize-winning biographer Geoffrey C. Ward brings to vivid life the real Jack Johnson, a figure far more complex than the newspaper headlines could ever convey.Johnson battled his way from obscurity to the top of the heavyweight ranks and in 1908 won the greatest prize in American sports - one that had always been the preserve of white boxers. At a time when whites ran everything in America, he took orders from no one and resolved to live as if colour did not exist. Because of this, the federal government set out to destroy him and he was forced to endure a year of prison and seven years of exile. As Ward shows, Johnson was seen as a perpetual threat to white and African Americans alike - profligate, arrogant, amoral, a dark menace and a danger to the natural order of things.Unforgivable Blackness is the first full-scale biography of Johnson in more than twenty years. Accompanied by more than fifty photographs and drawing on a wealth of new material - including Johnson's never-before-published prison memoir - it restores Jack Johnson to his rightful place in the pantheon of sporting and social warriors.

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Hekmat Al-Taweel (1922–2008) was a native Palestinian Christian from Gaza City whose narrative unearths a version of history long excluded from mainstream discourse and provides an unfamiliar perspective on Muslim–Christian relationships. Her stories about life in Gaza highlight shared history, vibrant culture, and cherished traditions. Al-Taweel continued her education after marriage, sought community volunteer work, worked as a teacher and supervisor, and committed to activism throughout her life, all of which contradicts widespread Western orientalized stereotypes of Arab women. She also shares insights into life in Gaza during the British Mandate period as well as the 1948 Nakba and its aftermath. This is the third book in the Women’s Voices from Gaza Series, which honours women’s unique and underrepresented perspectives on the social, material, and political realities of Palestinian life. Foreword by Ilan Pappe.

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In December 2012, Juliana Buhring became the first woman to circumnavigate the world by bicycle. With only a few months of training and little sponsorship, support or money she left from Naples on 23 July 2012 to cycle the world. Raised in a religious cult as a child, Juliana finally broke away as a young adult and found her soul mate - an explorer seeking the source of unmapped rivers in Africa. When he was killed by a crocodile, her world went dark. To escape her grief, she decided to set herself a challenge. Having never seriously ridden a bike, she set out to ride around the world. 18,000 miles, 152 days, 4 continents, 19 countries, 29 punctures, 6 big mountains, 1 desert and a cyclone later, she made it back just days before Christmas with a Guinness World Record. Empowering, inspiring, often humorous, This Road I Ride is testimony to the power of sheer will to overcome any obstacle. Discover a true story of adventure, blood, sweat and gears.

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In 1951 Michael Jenkins, then 14 years old, spent the summer with 'the aunts in Flanders'. His 'aunts' were a group of elderly women whose connection to his family had never been explained but they immediately embraced him and he quickly became entwined in the lives of an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins. The warmth of their life awakes Michael to the complicated world of relationships as he falls in love for the first time. Michael Jenkins's vivid memoir of a summer that changed his life has become a much-loved classic, with its evocative portraits of his aunts, the raw memories of two world wars that still scar the Flanders plain and Michael's unraveling of the secret at the heart of this family.

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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn Look for Me There, Luke Russert traverses terrain both physical and deeply personal. On his journey to some of the world’s most stunning destinations, he visits the internal places of grief, family, faith, ambition, and purpose—with intense self-reflection, honesty, and courage."—Savannah Guthrie, coanchor of Today“Look for me there,” news legend Tim Russert would tell his son, Luke, when confirming a pickup spot at an airport, sporting event, or rock concert. After Tim died unexpectedly, Luke kept looking for his father, following in Tim’s footsteps and carving out a highly successful career at NBC News. After eight years covering politics on television, Luke realized he had no good answer as to why he was chasing his father’s legacy. As the son of two accomplished parents—his mother is journalist Maureen Orth of Vanity Fair—Luke felt the pressure of high expectations but suddenly decided to leave the familiar path behind.Instead, Luke set out on his own to find answers. What began as several open-ended months of travel to decompress and reassess morphed into a three-plus-year odyssey across six continents to discover the world and, ultimately, to find himself.Chronicling the important lessons and historical understandings Luke discovered from his travels, Look for Me There is both the vivid narrative of that journey and the emotional story of a young man taking charge of his life, reexamining his relationship with his parents, and finally grieving his larger-than-life father, who died too young. For anyone uncertain about the direction of their life or unsure of how to move forward after a loss, Look for Me There is a poignant reflection that offers encouragement to examine our choices, take risks, and discover our truest selves.

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In this inspiring memoir, undefeated five-time world champion boxer Andre Ward--aka "Son of God"--shares the gripping narrative of his unforgettable career, his rock-solid faith, and why boxing was never the biggest fight of his life.Andre Ward was the undefeated light heavyweight boxing champion of the world when he walked away from the ring and did not look back. Now that he has taken off his gloves for the final time, the Olympic gold medalist is ready to share the heartbreaking and uplifting stories of his formative years and unprecedented boxing career. Motivational, faith-building, and utterly compelling, this memoir offers an inspiring story of overcoming a broken childhood behind-the-scenes drama from Andre's epic championship bouts, complicated relationships with managers and promoters, and shocking decision to retire at the top of his game insight into breaking destructive generational bonds, forgiving those who have hurt us, and moving toward hope a challenge to live out our faith without compromise Rich with colorful characters, fascinating detail, and biblical truths, this is the story of a man known for his integrity outside the ring, his warrior's instinct inside it, and his unrelenting bond with the God who called him to the greatest victory of all.

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"Transformative...[Taylor's] experience...will shatter [your] own perception of the world."—ABC NewsThe astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours-Taylor alternated between the euphoria of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized she was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was completely lost. It would take her eight years to fully recover. For Taylor, her stroke was a blessing and a revelation. It taught her that by "stepping to the right" of our left brains, we can uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelined by "brain chatter." Reaching wide audiences through her talk at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and her appearance on Oprah's online Soul Series, Taylor provides a valuable recovery guide for those touched by brain injury and an inspiring testimony that inner peace is accessible to anyone.

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This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold and a tortured soul.'From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother's joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel's powerful story of the son she lost and the lessons she learned during his courageous battle against darkness. Sharing tender, painful memories, Steel brings us a haunting duet between and singular young man and the mother who loved him - and a harrowing portrait of a masked killer called manic depression.Nick rocketed through life like a shooting star. He spoke in full sentences at the age of one. He was a brilliant, charming child who never slept. His gift for writing was extraordinary, his musical talent promised a golden future. But by the time he entered junior high, he was hurtling towards disaster. His mother tried desperately to get him the help he needed - the opening salvos for what would become a ferocious battle for his life. At once a loving legacy and an unsparing depiction of a devastating illness, Danielle Steel's tribute to her lost son is a gift of life, hope, healing and understanding to us all. 'I want to share the story, and the pain, the courage, the love, and what I learned in living through it...My hope is that someone will be able to use what we learned, and save a life with it'

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The third volume in the classic story of Helen Forrester’s childhood and adolescence in poverty-stricken Liverpool during the 1930s. Helen Forrester continues the moving story of her early poverty-stricken life with an account of her teenage years and the devastating effect of the Second World War on her hometown of Liverpool. At seventeen, Helen Forrester's parents are still as irresponsible as ever, wasting money while their children still lack adequate food and clothing. But for Helen, having won a small measure of independence, things are looking up. Having educated herself at night school and now making friends in her first proper job, she meets a handsome seaman and falls in love for the first time. But the storm clouds of war are gathering and Helen will experience at first hand the horror of the blitz and the terrible toll that the war exacted on ordinary people. As ever, Helen faces the future with courage and determination.

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WINNER OF THE 2018 GIRO D'ITALIA!THREE TIME WINNER OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE.THE FIRST MAN SINCE BERNARD HINAULT TO HOLD THE MAGLIA ROSA, THE MAILLOT JAUNE AND THE MAILLOT ROJO AT THE SAME TIME.This is Chris Foome in his own words.'Engaging, vividly evoked' Mail on Sunday, Books of the Year'What Chris has done is phenomenal' Sir Chris HoySunday Times Bestseller, July 2014

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Of Queen Victoria's four sons, the eldest married a Danish princess, one a Russian Grand Duchess, and the other two princesses of German royal houses. The first to join the family of the Grandmama of Europe' was Alexandra, eldest daughter of the prince about to become King Christian IX of Denmark. Charming, ever sympathetic and widely considered one of the most attractive royal women of her time, she was prematurely deaf and suffered from a limp which was made fashionable by court ladies due to her popularity. Alexandra proved an ideal wife for the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. Grand Duchess Marie, daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and wife of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and later Saxe-Coburg Gotha, was cultured and intelligent, but dowdy, haughty and, convinced of the Romanovs' superiority, resented having to give precedence at court to her in-laws. Louise of Prussia, a niece of William I, German Emperor, had the good fortune to escape from a miserable family life in Berlin and marry Arthur, Duke of Connaught, a dedicated army officer who was always the Queen's favourite among her children. Finally, Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont, sister of Emma, Queen Consort of the Netherlands, became the wife of the cultured Leopold, Duke of Albany, but he was haemophiliac and their marriage was destined to be the briefest of all, cut short by his sudden death less than three years later. All four were very different personalities, proved themselves to be supportive wives, mothers and daughters-in-law in their own way, and dedicated workers for charity at home and abroad. Based partly on previously unpublished material from the Royal Archives at Windsor and Madrid, and the Leonie Leslie Papers, University of Chicago, this is the first book to study all four as a family group.

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“Dishy, warm, and entertaining.”—Kirkus Reviews?The beloved Black pop culture icon, entrepreneur, Hollywood actress and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star bares her life in this frank, funny, and fearless memoir about life, love and the pursuit of true happiness.Love Me As I Am is Garcelle Beauvais’s smart, inspiring, and raw memoir—an entertaining and unforgettable emotional rollercoaster ride that moves from her early childhood years in Haiti to her adolescence in Boston; from her heady days as a young model in New York—her first taste of real freedom—to Los Angeles and the many ups, downs, and then more ups, both personal and professional, she experienced in her three-decade acting career, including her massive fame as a star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Throughout her life, Beauvais has suffered from an emotional battle between her wild, rebellious nature and her desire to be a “good girl.” No matter how many cover stories she earned, “Most Beautiful” lists, or coveted roles in iconic series such as The Jamie Foxx Show and NYPD Blue, Beauvais could not cure herself of her “disease to please” or learn to put herself first. She also had to learn how to unapologetically put herself first. In Love Me As I Am, she brings together the voices of both the good girl and the rebel to deliver an unflinching examination of her successes and ongoing challenges as a mother, wife, daughter, sibling, and friend. Beauvais fearlessly talks about how she boldly embraced her sexuality in her 40s, and her determination to break free of the stereotypes that define and limit African American women in popular culture. Most importantly, she reveals how finally putting herself first led to better relationships with her three sons and even her ex-husband. Beauvais dishes too—offering juicy behind-the-scenes stories from movie sets, red carpet events, and The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Love Me As I Am is an unflinching look at one woman’s extraordinary journey to create a new and more exciting life—and to become the woman she was meant to be.

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Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths (1982-1987), Morrissey has been a solo artist for twenty-six years, during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades.Achieving twelve Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by David Bowie, Nancy Sinatra, Marianne Faithfull, Chrissie Hynde, Thelma Houston, My Chemical Romance and Christy Moore, amongst others. An animal protectionist, in 2006 Morrissey was voted the second greatest living British icon by viewers of the BBC, losing out to Sir David Attenborough. In 2007 Morrissey was voted the greatest northern male, past or present, in a nationwide newspaper poll. In 2012, Morrissey was awarded the Keys to the City of Tel-Aviv. It has been said 'Most pop stars have to be dead before they reach the iconic status that Morrissey has reached in his lifetime.'Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day.

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Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh were two of the twentieth century's most amusing and gifted writers, who matched wits and traded literary advice in more than five hundred letters over twenty-two years. Dissecting their friends, criticizing each other's books and concealing their true feelings beneath a barrage of hilarious and knowing repartee, they found it far easier to conduct a friendship on paper than in person. This correspondence provides a colourful glimpse into the literary and social circles of London and Paris, during the Second World War and for twenty years after.

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The first full-scale account of a Persian king vilified by history Xerxes, Great King of the Persian Empire from 486–465 B.C., has gone down in history as an angry tyrant full of insane ambition. The stand of Leonidas and the 300 against his army at Thermopylae is a byword for courage, while the failure of Xerxes’ expedition has overshadowed all the other achievements of his twenty-two-year reign. In this lively and comprehensive new biography, Richard Stoneman shows how Xerxes, despite sympathetic treatment by the contemporary Greek writers Aeschylus and Herodotus, had his reputation destroyed by later Greek writers and by the propaganda of Alexander the Great. Stoneman draws on the latest research in Achaemenid studies and archaeology to present the ruler from the Persian perspective. This illuminating volume does not whitewash Xerxes’ failings but sets against them such triumphs as the architectural splendor of Persepolis and a consideration of Xerxes’ religious commitments. What emerges is a nuanced portrait of a man who ruled a vast and multicultural empire which the Greek communities of the West saw as the antithesis of their own values.

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"The highlights of my extraordinary journey with Mr Clarkson included pizza with Harry and Wills; dancing with Mick Jagger on the private island of Mustique (Mick had to pull me up after, shamefully, I could not recover from the twist!); and having happy birthday sung to me by Brian Ferry and Richard E. Grant. I was asked out by Hugh Grant (and went!); partied at what I called Jimmy Carr’s celebtastic weekly house parties attended by Sir Elton John, James Corden and the like; and, at Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch’s engagement party, I received the ultimate compliment on my outfit from the Dame Joan Collins. The adventures, laughter, drama and excitement were neverending. Party after party, celeb after celeb, private villas, palaces, MPs and royalty adorned our crazy life on this road less travelled. From the low-budget, dark, smoke- and fume-filled halls of Earls Court Exhibition Centre and the NEC in Birmingham, where the highlights of our nights out were a good curry and gallons of beer followed by ridiculous games of girl-on-girl arm wrestling and the Celebrity Loo Roll Challenge – this entailed Clarkson, Hammond, May or The Stig having to return from the bathroom with loo roll tucked down their trousers, trailing a length of loo paper from cubicle to table without it breaking – Jeremy ascended to great heights, both in his professional career and his personal life. So too did our relationship, leading us both into a social circle that most can only dream of." In The Wonderful World of Jeremy Clarkson, Phillipa Sage shares her continuing adventures – the ongoing highs, lows and constant mayhem – she shared for so many years with Clarkson and his fellow presenters, Hammond and May, some of which she had begun to detail in her first book, Off Road with Clarkson, Hammond and May.

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Christopher A. Roosa grew up the eldest son of Apollo 14 astronaut and command module pilot Stuart A. Roosa. As a child of the space program, Christopher had a ringside seat at the dinner table of one of twenty-four Americans who had either entered lunar orbit or landed on the moon. The first book written by an offspring of an Apollo astronaut to focus on growing up in that era, Son of Apollo tells the inside story of the life of his father, a man who had a remarkable career despite always believing his air force career was “off-track,” from his initial application to the service to his removal from the prime crew of Apollo 13 and his subsequent assignment to Apollo 14. During the Apollo 13 mission and recovery, Stuart played an integral role in developing the procedures to return the crew to Earth safely. The focus—and the pressure—of the entire Apollo program then shifted to the Apollo 14 mission. If the Apollo program was to continue, Stuart and the Apollo 14 crew would need to get safely to the moon, land, and return. In writing about his father’s career, Christopher Roosa also shows us a familial side of the Apollo experience, from the daily struggles of growing up in the shadow of a father who was necessarily away in training most of the year to the expectations involved in being an astronaut’s son. Roosa’s story shows the Apollo era was the result not only of thousands of scientists and engineers working steadfastly toward achieving an assassinated president’s national goal but also the families who supported them and lived the missions in their own way. For more information about the book visit roosa.com

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An eye-opening biography of a woman whose life intersected with three distinct cultures in eighteenth-century America: colonial New England, French Canadian, and Native American“Esther Wheelwright’s journey—from Puritan girl, to Wabanaki captive, to mother superior of the largest Catholic convent in French Canada—is one of the most fascinating personal stories in the annals of what we call ‘colonial history.’ Deeply researched, and wonderfully contextualized . . . [this book] opens a wide window on three major cultural venues, whose interplay defined and shaped a whole era.”—John Demos, author of The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America Born and raised in a New England garrison town, Esther Wheelwright (1696–1780) was captured by Wabanaki Indians at age seven. Among them, she became a Catholic and lived like any other young girl in the tribe. At age twelve, she was enrolled at a French-Canadian Ursuline convent, where she would spend the rest of her life, eventually becoming the order’s only foreign-born mother superior. Among these three major cultures of colonial North America, Wheelwright’s life was exceptional: border-crossing, multilingual, and multicultural. This meticulously researched book discovers her life through the communities of girls and women around her: the free and enslaved women who raised her in Wells, Maine; the Wabanaki women who cared for her, catechized her, and taught her to work as an Indian girl; the French-Canadian and Native girls who were her classmates in the Ursuline school; and the Ursuline nuns who led her to a religious life.

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As liberty and truth are increasingly challenged, the figures of Churchill and Orwell loom large. Exemplars of Britishness, they preserved individual freedom and democracy for the world through their far-sighted vision and inspired action, and cast a long shadow across our culture and politics. In Churchill & Orwell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas E. Ricks masterfully argues that these extraordinary men are as important today as they ever were. They stood in political opposition to each other, but were both committed to the preservation of freedom. In the late 1930s they occupied a lonely position: democracy was much discredited, and authoritarian rulers, fascist and communist, were everywhere in the ascent. Unlike others, they had the wisdom to see that the most salient issue was human liberty – and that any government that denies its people basic rights is a totalitarian menace to be resisted. Churchill and Orwell proved their age’s necessary men, and this book reveals how they rose from a precarious position to triumph over the enemies of freedom. Churchill may have played the larger role in Hitler’s defeat, but Orwell’s reckoning with the threat of authoritarian rule in 1984 and Animal Farm defined the stakes of the Cold War and continues to inspire to this day. Their lives are an eloquent testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it takes to stay true to it.

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What were Montmartre and Montparnasse really like in their hey-day, roughly between 1904, when the youthful Picasso had just arrived on the Hill of Martyrs, and 1920, when Amedeo Modigliani, justly called 'the prince of Bohemians', died of consumption and dissipation in Montparnasse? This book, written by an Englishman who lived in Montmartre for 30 years and knew its famous habitue intimately, gives a vivid description. It reveals the truth behind the many legends, is packed with authentic stories about writers and painters whose names are now household words, and contains much hitherto unpublished information about the life and career of Modigliani obtained from his family and friends. Much of the text was written in Montmartre amid the scenes described, and after personal consultation with survivors of the great days when Frede presided over the Lapin Agile and Libion, patron of the Cafe de la Rotonde, was beginning to rival him in Montparnasse. It is the most complete account which has yet been written in English of the birth of Cubism and other contemporary movements in modern painting, and of the lives and loves who started them.

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Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street – as a prolific writer. Before he came to London, as one of the “Best of Young British” novelists, and Literary Editor of the Spectator, we meet another A. N. Wilson. We meet his father, the Managing Director of Wedgwood, the grotesque teachers at his first boarding school, and the dons of Oxford – one of whom, at the age of just 20, he married, Katherine Duncan-Jones, the renowned Shakespearean scholar. The book begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self – whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood. His chapter on the High Camp seminary which he attended in Oxford is among the funniest in the book. We follow his unsuccessful attempts to become an academic, his aspirations to be a Man of Letters, and his eventual encounters with the famous, including some memorable meetings with royalty. The princesses, dons, paedophiles and journos who cross the pages are as sharply drawn as figures in Wilson’s early comic fiction. But there is also a tenderness here, in his evocation of those whom he has loved, and hurt, the most.

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He was the original 20th century “enfant terrible” with the looks of a Greek god who blazed like a comet across the worlds of art, photography, and fame. The scion of several old WASP fortunes, he was by instinct an adventurer, and the more dangerous the escapade, the better: whether he was hunting big game in Africa, ingesting epic quantities of drugs, or pursuing the most beautiful women in the world. Among his friends were Jackie Onassis, Andy Warhol, and Francis Bacon. When Peter Beard died in 2020 after mysteriously disappearing from his Montauk home, he remained an enigma to even his closest friends. Journalist and author Graham Boynton was a friend for more than 30 years, spending time with Beard at his bush camp in Africa, in London, and at his Long Island home. From hundreds of Boynton’s interviews with Beard’s closest friends, former lovers, and fellow artists comes this intimate portrait of a man Sir Mick Jagger called “a visionary.”

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As liberty and truth are increasingly challenged, the figures of Churchill and Orwell loom large. Exemplars of Britishness, they preserved individual freedom and democracy for the world through their far-sighted vision and inspired action, and cast a long shadow across our culture and politics. In Churchill & Orwell, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas E. Ricks masterfully argues that these extraordinary men are as important today as they ever were. They stood in political opposition to each other, but were both committed to the preservation of freedom. In the late 1930s they occupied a lonely position: democracy was much discredited, and authoritarian rulers, fascist and communist, were everywhere in the ascent. Unlike others, they had the wisdom to see that the most salient issue was human liberty – and that any government that denies its people basic rights is a totalitarian menace to be resisted. Churchill and Orwell proved their age’s necessary men, and this book reveals how they rose from a precarious position to triumph over the enemies of freedom. Churchill may have played the larger role in Hitler’s defeat, but Orwell’s reckoning with the threat of authoritarian rule in 1984 and Animal Farm defined the stakes of the Cold War and continues to inspire to this day. Their lives are an eloquent testament to the power of moral conviction, and to the courage it takes to stay true to it.

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The captivating inside story of the man who helmed National Geographic over the course of six decades is a front-row seat to iconic feats of exploration, from the successful hunt for the Titanic to Jane Goodall's field studies, offering a rare portrait of one of the most iconic media empires in history and making an impassioned argument for our enduring need to know and care for our world.Though his career path had been paved by four generations of his family before him, Gilbert M. Grosvenor left his own mark on the National Geographic Society, founded in 1888 and recognised the world over by its ubiquitous yellow border. In an unflinchingly honest memoir as big as the world and all that is in it, Grosvenor shows us what it was like to "grow up Geographic" in a family home where explorers like Robert Peary, Louis Leakey, and Jane Goodall regularly crossed the threshold. As staff photographer, editor in chief and then president of the organisation, Grosvenor oversaw the diversification into television, film, books, as well as its flagship magazine, which under his tenure reached a peak circulation of nearly 11 million. He also narrates the shift from a nonprofit, family-focused enterprise to the more corporate, bottom-line focused world of publishing today.For Grosvenor, running National Geographic wasn’t just a job. It was a legacy, motivated by a passion not just to leave the world a better place, but to motivate others to do so, too. Filled with world travel, charismatic explorers, and the complexities of running a publishing empire, A MAN OF THE WORLD is the story of one man, a singular family business, and the changing face of American media.

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