Biographies

'This is BRAVO TWO ZERO meets ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. Tom Read's story had me on the edge of my seat. It also made me cry.'Andy McNabA former member of the British Parachute Regiment, Tom Read was preparing to freefall from more than 23 miles above the earth to become the first man to punch a hole through the sound barrier unassisted. It didn't work out that way. From his hospital bed in a French sanatorium, Tom began to review his life in an attempt to trace the roots of his madness: the tough childhood, moving from place to place; joining the Parachute Regiment at seventeen and confronting riots, IRA snipers and booby-traps; doing more than 1,000 jumps with the Red Devils and the first ever Parachute drop onto the Falklands; and the high-altitude work that may have created a chemical imbalance in his brain. Weaving backwards and forwards between a haunting present and a remarkable past FREEFALL is an unrelentingly suspenseful account of an amazing life.'Extraordinary'Mail on Sunday'A courageous book'The Times

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator is the unforgettable story of the life of Jesse Livermore, one of Wall Street's greatest ever stock speculators.

When Sofia Behrs married Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of "War and Peace", husband and wife regularly exchanged diaries covering the years from 1862 to 1910. Sofia's life was not an easy one: she idealized her husband, but was tormented by him. Even her many children were not an unmitigated blessing.

The story of the 1972 Andes plane crash and rescue, made famous by Piers Paul Read in his book Alive, finally told by one of the heroes who saved his team-mates.

A fascinating new biography of singing legend Edith Piaf

Presents some of the findings and theories which made inventor Nikola Tesla famous. Includes lectures, articles and discussions.Including: wireless transmission, the magnifying transmitter, design and construction of a half-wave Tesla coil, electrostatics: a key to free energy.

"An intriguing look at the life and times of Marion TSuge' Knight, the controversial rap mogul whose 'gangsta' persona and stable of hard-core artists changed the face of American music."

Lincoln the Unknown is a biography on Abraham Lincoln, written by Dale Carnegie.

A Fly Girl gives insight to the highs and lows in the world of a former BA cabin crew, in an intriguing travel writing memoir. In the global landscape the memoirist meticulously documents personal adventures, social structures and political history throughout her daring and exciting expeditions. Conveying tales from the America's, Arabia, Asia to Africa the narrative is fuelled with race, gender and sexuality as the author walks through hip hop history to terrain vibrations and eruptions. The author exposes her relation to addictions, alcohol, air rage and the life of the jet set, highlighting history of British Airways at forty. Amanda tells poignant stories that portray the complications of humanity; others are alarming, amusing and vivid and manifest the nature of humankind, the kith and kin of a global family. In addition to powerful story telling infused with lyrical prose the book is also spiritual and reveals a healing mindset as the autobiographer deals with the battle of self esteem, national identity, and the idea of beauty for women in an image conscious world. Is Amanda transformed by travel? Memoir ǀ Mind, Body & Spirit Travel

This book offers a revealing look at Rosa Parks, whose role as an activist and struggle with racism began long before her historic 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus ride. Rosa Parks: A Biography captures the story of this remarkable woman like no other biography of her before it.

There are many dreadful -- and perhaps scurrilous -- rumors about the Borgia family of renaissance Italy, and Alexandre Dumas (author of "The Three Musketeers" and many other period classics) reveals one possible truth in all its ugly glory. Dumas minces no words in describing the violent acts of a violent time.

The World of Tennessee Williams offers a survey of the life and career of one of American's greatest dramatists from birth in 1911 to his death in 1983. Richard Leavitt was in a unique position to create such a volume, since he was a friend of Tennessee's and followed his career close up. Kenneth Holditch, who has undertaken the task of completing the text, was a friend of Leavitt's and knew Tennessee Williams. It has been his desire to carry to fruition the original plan Dick Leavitt conceived in the 1970s and augmented in 1983 when Williams died.

A Kyokushin Karate Coming of Age StoryJust another unassuming undergrad? Yes, but this one carries a terrible secret . . . one that's driven him through seven years of hellish karate training and study so that he might learn to bear its weight. Seven years have already taken Nathan Ligo to Japan, where he spent 600 days in the most rigorous, monastic karate program in the world, training under the watchful daily supervision of Masutatsu Oyama, Japan's most famous living karateka. But it's not until he suffers a crushing defeat in Japan, and returns home empty-handed, that he comes to understand that the combination of three treasured sources of his ongoing education just might hold the key to unlocking an awesome truth. The samurai-like do-or-die education he acquired from his karate teachers, the progressive liberal arts education he acquires at North Carolina's Davidson College, and the enlightened, open-eyed, and all-loving character education he received in the first decade of his life from his father: three sometimes violently warring components combine to show Nathan that he just might use the dark secret that he carries to enact a great good for the children of the future . . . that is, IF he's willing to make the necessary sacrifice. "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat." -Theodore RooseveltThe Only American Student of the Legend Mas Oyama> At the time of Masutatsu Oyama's death in 1994, he was regarded by many as the world's greatest living karateka. His Kyokushin Karate had spread to 133 countries around the world and was reputed to have touched as many as twelve million students. Forty years earlier, the Korean-born "Mas" Oyama had, himself, become a virtual revolution in the world of Japanese karate, in that it was he who introduced stone- and therefore bone-breaking power to the highly stylized traditional forms of karate that had come to exist in Japan. Kyokushin Karate became known for its no-nonsense practicality, its fearsome physical power, and a theretofore unseen degree of spiritual strength conjured through a revival of Japan's do-or-die samurai personality. Once Kyokushin exploded to such incredible proportions, Mas Oyama took on only a very few students that were his own, that he himself guided, day by day, in an attempt to ensure that his teaching would endure. Uchi deshi literally means "live-in disciple;" it is the opposite of the kayoi deshi or "commuting student," who merely visits the dojo regularly for training. Mas Oyama's uchi deshi program was a one-thousand-day monastic karate program for his small group of personal students who lived in the Young Lions' Dormitory, a small building attached to his world headquarters dojo in Tokyo. In 1993, Nathan Ligo become the only American to hold a graduation certificate from this program, given to him by Mas Oyama in recognition of the 600 days he lived in the Young Lions' dormitory.

For Karl Strecker the defeat at Stalingrad and his subsequent captivity were the climax of a lifetime of political and military frustration.

A few months before his fiftieth birthday the author Wigand Lange noticed a growing stiffness in his right arm. The diagnosis was devastating: Parkinson's. Four million people are suffering from this disease worldwide, among them Muhammad Ali and Michael J. Fox. But who cares about celebraties when you are afflicted with this disease yourself? Lange has to go through hell, but eventually manages to reorganize his life in a positiv way. He accepts the disease and develops his own individual therapeutic approach to dealing with his new way of life. As a new-found friend Parkinson also shows him, where there are new possibilities in life. "Thank you for your book! I read it in one sitting and couldn't put it down. It is a book that can speak to all kinds of people. A masterpiece!" [a reader]