- Table View
- List View
The Man of Letters as a Man of Busine
by William Dean HowellsHe can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art he cannot live, that society will leave him to starve if he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too glad if there is a market for his wares.
A Man of Misconceptions
by John GlassieA Scientific American Best Science Book of 2012 An Atlantic Wire Best Book of 2012 A New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice” The "fascinating” (The New Yorker) story of Athanasius Kircher, the eccentric scholar-inventor who was either a great genius or a crackpot . . . or a bit of both. The interests of Athanasius Kircher, the legendary seventeenth-century priest-scientist, knew no bounds. From optics to music to magnetism to medicine, he offered up inventions and theories for everything, and they made him famous across Europe. His celebrated museum in Rome featured magic lanterns, speaking statues, the tail of a mermaid, and a brick from the Tower of Babel. Holy Roman Emperors were his patrons, popes were his friends, and in his spare time he collaborated with the Baroque master Bernini. But Kircher lived during an era of radical transformation, in which the old approach to knowledge-what he called the "art of knowing”- was giving way to the scientific method and modern thought. A Man of Misconceptions traces the rise, success, and eventual fall of this fascinating character as he attempted to come to terms with a changing world. With humor and insight, John Glassie returns Kircher to his rightful place as one of history’s most unforgettable figures. .
Man of Peace: The illustrated life story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet
by William Meyers Robert A.F. Thurman Michael G. BurbankWhy the "life story" of the Dalai Lama? It is a story of one man taking on an empire, calling for truth, peace, and justice for his Tibetan people. Here, in full color for the first time, people can come to know the whole drama of his lifelong struggle. Since the age of 15, the Dalai Lama has defended his people against one of the last great empires, the People&’s Republic of China. Under its "dictatorship of the proletariat," China began to invade Tibet in 1950, decimating and then continually oppressing its people. Since colonialism cannot be practiced in our era of self-determined nations, China always maintains that the Tibetans are a type of Chinese, using propaganda and military power to crush Tibet&’s unique culture and identity. Yet the Dalai Lama resists by using only the weapon of truth—along with resolute nonviolence—even worrying some of his own people by seeking dialogue and reconciliation based on his more realistic vision. The great 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet has become the first global Dalai Lama, a prominent transnational leader of all who want to make the dramatic changes actually necessary for life on earth to thrive for centuries to come. Considered the incarnation of the Buddhist savior Chenrezig or Avalokiteshvara—archangel of universal compassion—he is believed to appear in many forms, at many different times, whenever and wherever beings suffer. Representing the plight of his beloved Tibetan people to the world, he has also engaged with all people who suffer oppression and injustice, as recognized in 1989 by his being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Most importantly, the Dalai Lama walks his talk throughout these pages, as he has throughout his life, and he radiates a powerful hope that we can and will prevail. Man of Peace presents the inside story of his amazing life and vision, in the high tension of the military occupation of Tibet and the ongoing genocide of its people—a moving work of political and historical nonfiction brought to life in the graphic novel form—here for all to see.
Man of Steel: Russia's Ruthless Ruler (Jules Archer History for Young Readers)
by Jules Archer Brianna DuMontEarly in life, Joseph Stalin became convinced of the inevitability of social revolution. And in it, he was determined to play a prominent role. He carefully masked his great personal ambition during his long climb to power and devoted all this energies to furthering the cause of Lenin and Bolshevism. Only after Lenin’s death, with the Bolshevik takeover of Russia accomplished, did Stalin’s comrades in leadership find themselves forced to bow to Stalin’s will-or be eliminated.His rise to power was bloody and ruthless, yet under his twenty-nine-year leadership, Russia became a mighty industrial nation. Illiteracy was banished, interest in the arts began to flourish, and Russia moved toward amazing scientific triumphs. Man of Steel is the story of Joseph Stalin, the man who rose to become absolute master of Soviet Russia and who cast his shadow over the entire globe.
The Man of the Crowd: Edgar Allan Poe and the City
by Scott PeeplesHow four American cities shaped Poe's life and writingsEdgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) changed residences about once a year throughout his life. Driven by a desire for literary success and the pressures of supporting his family, Poe sought work in American magazines, living in the cities that produced them. Scott Peeples chronicles Poe's rootless life in the cities, neighborhoods, and rooms where he lived and worked, exploring how each new place left its enduring mark on the writer and his craft.Poe wrote short stories, poems, journalism, and editorials with urban readers in mind. He witnessed urban slavery up close, living and working within a few blocks of slave jails and auction houses in Richmond and among enslaved workers in Baltimore. In Philadelphia, he saw an expanding city struggling to contain its own violent propensities. At a time when suburbs were just beginning to offer an alternative to crowded city dwellings, he tried living cheaply on the then-rural Upper West Side of Manhattan, and later in what is now the Bronx. Poe's urban mysteries and claustrophobic tales of troubled minds and abused bodies reflect his experiences living among the soldiers, slaves, and immigrants of the American city.Featuring evocative photographs by Michelle Van Parys, The Man of the Crowd challenges the popular conception of Poe as an isolated artist living in a world of his own imagination, detached from his physical surroundings. The Poe who emerges here is a man whose outlook and career were shaped by the cities where he lived, longing for a stable home.
Man of the Family
by Ralph MoodyFortified with Yankee ingenuity and western can-do energy, the Moody family, transplanted from New England, builds a new life on a Colorado ranch early in the twentieth century. Father has died and Little Britches shoulders the responsibilities of a man at age eleven.
Man of the Hour: James B. Conant, Warrior Scientist
by Jennet ConantThe remarkable life of one of the most influential men of the greatest generation, James B. Conant—a savvy architect of the nuclear age and the Cold War—told by his granddaughter, New York Times bestselling author Jennet Conant.James Bryant Conant was a towering figure. He was at the center of the mammoth threats and challenges of the twentieth century. As a young eminent chemist, he supervised the production of poison gas in WWI. As a controversial president of Harvard University, he was a champion of meritocracy and open admissions. As an advisor to FDR, he led the interventionist cause for US entrance in WWII. During that war, Conant was the administrative director of the Manhattan Project, oversaw the development of the atomic bomb and argued that it be used against the industrial city of Hiroshima in Japan. Later, he urged the Atomic Energy Commission to reject the hydrogen bomb, and devoted the rest of his life to campaigning for international control of atomic weapons. As Eisenhower’s high commissioner to Germany, he helped to plan German recovery and was an architect of the United States’ Cold War policy. Now New York Times bestselling author Jennet Conant recreates the cataclysmic events of the twentieth century as her grandfather James experienced them. She describes the guilt, fears, and sometimes regret of those who invented and deployed the bombs and the personal toll it took. From the White House to Los Alamos to Harvard University, Man of the Hour is based on hundreds of documents and diaries, interviews with Manhattan Projects scientists, Harvard colleagues, and Conant’s friends and family, including her father, James B. Conant’s son. This is a very intimate, up-close look at some of the most argued cases of modern times—among them the use of chemical weapons, the decision to drop the bomb, Oppenheimer’s fate, the politics of post-war Germany and the Cold War—the repercussions of which are still affecting our world today.
A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran
by Nasser RahmaninejadLife in Iran as an artist under the Shah and during the Iranian RevolutionA Man of the Theater tells the personal story of a theater artist caught between the two great upheavals of Iranian history in the 20th century. One is the White Revolution of the 1960s, the incomplete and uneven modernization imposed from the top by the dictatorial regime of the Shah, coming in the wake of the overthrow of the popular Mosaddegh government with the help of the CIA. The other one is the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a great rising of Iranian society against the rule of the Shah in which Khomeini’s Islamist faction ends up taking power. Written in a simple direct style, Rahmaninejad’s memoir describes his fraught creative life in Tehran during these decades, founding a theater company and directing plays under the increasing pressure of the censorship authorities and the Shah’s secret police. After being arrested and tortured by the SAVAK and after spending years in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison and being a cause célèbre of Amnesty International, Rahmaninejad is freed by the Revolution of 1979. But his new-found freedom is short-lived; the progressive intellectuals and artists find themselves overpowered and outmaneuvered by the better organized Islamists, leading to renewed terror and to exile. In Western perception, the Iranian Revolution, which this year has its 40th anniversary, often overshadows the decades of Iran’s modern history that preceded it. A Man of the Theater fills this gap. The title derives from a time of torture in prison when interrogators ordered him to write everything about his activities. To avoid revealing anything incriminating he took pen in hand and wrote and wrote about all his artistic passions, beginning, "Here it is—this is my life! I am an artist! A man of the theater!"
A Man of the Theater: Survival as an Artist in Iran
by Nasser RahmaninejadLife in Iran as an artist under the Shah and during the Iranian RevolutionA Man of the Theater tells the personal story of a theater artist caught between the two great upheavals of Iranian history in the 20th century. One is the White Revolution of the 1960s, the incomplete and uneven modernization imposed from the top by the dictatorial regime of the Shah, coming in the wake of the overthrow of the popular Mosaddegh government with the help of the CIA. The other one is the Iranian Revolution of 1979, a great rising of Iranian society against the rule of the Shah in which Khomeini’s Islamist faction ends up taking power. Written in a simple direct style, Rahmaninejad’s memoir describes his fraught creative life in Tehran during these decades, founding a theater company and directing plays under the increasing pressure of the censorship authorities and the Shah’s secret police. After being arrested and tortured by the SAVAK and after spending years in Tehran’s infamous Evin prison and being a cause célèbre of Amnesty International, Rahmaninejad is freed by the Revolution of 1979. But his new-found freedom is short-lived; the progressive intellectuals and artists find themselves overpowered and outmaneuvered by the better organized Islamists, leading to renewed terror and to exile. In Western perception, the Iranian Revolution, which this year has its 40th anniversary, often overshadows the decades of Iran’s modern history that preceded it. A Man of the Theater fills this gap. The title derives from a time of torture in prison when interrogators ordered him to write everything about his activities. To avoid revealing anything incriminating he took pen in hand and wrote and wrote about all his artistic passions, beginning, "Here it is—this is my life! I am an artist! A man of the theater!"
Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton
by Joe Conason"Engrossing...detailed and intimate." --Publishers Weekly "Absorbing" --Kirkus Reviews Veteran political journalist Joe Conason brings you along with Bill Clinton, as the forty-second president blazes new paths in his post-presidential career.It is unlike the second career of any other president: "Bill Clinton" is a global brand, rising from the dark days of his White House departure to become one of the most popular names in the world. Conason describes how that happened, examining Clinton's achievements, his failures, his motivations, and his civilian life. He explains why Clinton's ambitions for the world continue to inspire (and infuriate). Conason, who has covered Clinton for twenty years, interviewed him many times for this book--as well as Hillary and Chelsea and many of his friends, aides, rivals, and supporters. He has travelled with Clinton to Africa, Haiti, Israel, and across America. Clinton has earned tens of millions of dollars and raised billions for philanthropy, much of it from foreign sources, provoking questions about transparency and probity even as Hillary Clinton runs again for the presidency. Conason closely examines the financial support from other countries, corporations, and wealthy individuals, while assessing the Clinton Foundation's very real, far reaching achievements. He observes Clinton campaigning for his wife and asks: How would America's very first First Gentleman fare in a Hillary Clinton White House? Man of the World--starring the one and only Bill Clinton--tells the engrossing story of an extraordinary man who is still seeking to do good in the world.
A Man of the World: My Life at National Geographic
by Gilbert M GrosvenorThe 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.
Man of the Year: A Memoir
by Lou Cove"Hilarious and poignant" — People MagazineFor one 1970’s family, the center may not hold, but it certainly does fold.In 1978 Jimmy Carter mediates the Camp David Accords, Fleetwood Mac tops charts with Rumours, Starsky fights crime with Hutch, and twelve-year-old Lou Cove is uprooted from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Salem, Massachusetts– a backwater town of witches, Puritans, and sea-captain wannabes. After his eighth move in a dozen years, Lou figures he should just resign himself to a teenage purgatory of tedious paper routes, school bullies, and unrequited lust for every girl he likes. Then one October morning an old friend of Lou’s father, free-wheeling (and free-loving) Howie Gordon arrives at the Cove doorstep from California with his beautiful wife Carly. Howie is everything Lou wants to be: handsome as a movie star, built like a god and in possession of an unstoppable confidence. Then, over Thanksgiving dinner, Howie drops a bombshell. Holding up an issue of Playgirl Magazine, he flips to the center and there he is, Mr. November in all his natural glory. Howie has his eye on becoming the next Burt Reynolds, and a wild idea for how to do it: win Playgirl’s Man of the Year. And he knows just who should manage his campaign. As Lou and Howie canvas Salem for every vote in town – little old ladies at bridge club, the local town witch, construction workers on break and everyone in between – Lou is forced to juggle the perils of adolescence with the pursuit of Hollywood stardom. Man of the Year is the improbable true story of Lou’s thirteenth year, one very unusual campaign, and the unexpected guest who changes everything.
A Man of Three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant Europe
by Mercedes García-Arenal Gerard WiegersIn the late fifteenth century, many of the Jews expelled from Spain made their way to Morocco and established a dynamic community in Fez. A number of Jewish families became prominent in commerce and public life there. Among the Jews of Fez of Hispanic origin was Samuel Pallache, who served the Moroccan sultan as a commercial and diplomatic agent in Holland until Pallache's death in 1616. Before that, he had tried to return with his family to Spain, and to this end he tried to convert to Catholicism and worked as an informer, intermediary, and spy in Moroccan affairs for the Spanish court. Later he became a privateer against Spanish ships and was tried in London for that reason. His religious identity proved to be as mutable as his political allegiances: when in Amsterdam, he was devoutly Jewish; when in Spain, a loyal converso (a baptized Jew).In A Man of Three Worlds, Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers view Samuel Pallache's world as a microcosm of early modern society, one far more interconnected, cosmopolitan, and fluid than is often portrayed. Pallache's missions and misadventures took him from Islamic Fez and Catholic Spain to Protestant England and Holland. Through these travels, the authors explore the workings of the Moroccan sultanate and the Spanish court, the Jewish communities of Fez and Amsterdam, and details of the Atlantic-Mediterranean trade. At once a sweeping view of two continents, three faiths, and five nation-states and an intimate story of one man's remarkable life, A Man of Three Worlds is history at its most compelling.
Man of Tomorrow: The Relentless Life of Jerry Brown
by Jim NewtonVisionary. Iconoclast. Political Survivor. "A powerful and entertaining look" (Governor Gavin Newsom) at the extraordinary life and political career of Governor Jerry Brown.Jerry Brown is no ordinary politician. Like his state, he is eclectic, brilliant, unpredictable and sometimes weird. And, as with so much that California invents and exports, Brown's life story reveals a great deal about this country. With the exclusive cooperation of Governor Brown himself, Jim Newton has written the definitive account of Jerry Brown's life. The son of Pat Brown, who served as governor of California through the 1960s, Jerry would extend and also radically alter the legacy of his father through his own service in the governor's mansion. As governor, first in the 1970s and then again, 28 years later in his remarkable return to power, Jerry Brown would propound an alternative menu of American values: the restoration of the California economy while balancing the state budget, leadership in the international campaign to combat climate change and the aggressive defense of California's immigrants, no matter by which route they arrived. It was a blend of compassion, far-sightedness and pragmatism that the nation would be wise to consider. The story of Jerry Brown's life is in many ways the story of California and how it became the largest economy in the United States. Man of Tomorrow traces the blueprint of Jerry Brown's off beat risk-taking: equal parts fiscal conservatism and social progressivism. Jim Newton also reveals another side of Jerry Brown, the once-promising presidential candidate whose defeat on the national stage did nothing to diminish the scale of his political, intellectual and spiritual ambitions. To the same degree that California represents the future of America, Jim Newton's account of Jerry Brown's life offers a new way of understanding how politics works today and how it could work in the future.
A Man of Two Faces
by Viet Thanh NguyenThe highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwideWith insight, humour, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son. At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê Thu?t and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San José. But there is violence hidden behind the sunny façade of what he calls AMERICA™. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SàiGòn M?i, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are reopening. Resonant in its emotions and clear in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional life story of one of the most original and important writers working today.
Man of War: My Adventures in the World of Historical Reenactment
by Charlie Schroeder“A rollicking good ride. ” —Jay Winik, bestselling author of April 1865 It’s the middle of a heat wave, and Charlie Schroeder is dressed in heavy clothing and struggling to row a replica eighteenth-century bateau down the St. Lawrence River. Why? Months earlier, Schroeder realized he knew almost nothing about history. But he wanted to learn, so the actor—best known for his role as Mr. Pussy on Sex and the City—spent a year reenacting it. Man of War is Schroeder’s hilarious account of the time he spent chasing Celts in Arkansas, raiding a Viet Cong village in Virginia, and flirting with frostbite en route to “Stalingrad” in Colorado. Along the way, he illuminates just how much the past can teach us about the present. .
Man of War: The Fighting Life of Admiral James Saumarez: From The American Revolution to the Defeat of Napoleon
by Anthony SullivanThe career of Guernsey-born Admiral James Saumarez reads like an early history of the Royal Navy. His first battle was against the American revolutionaries in 1775, but thereafter his main opponents were the French and the Spanish, and the first fighting ship he commanded, the eight-gun galley Spitfire, was involved in forty-seven engagements before being run aground.Rising through the ranks, Saumarez fought on land and at sea, and was involved in actions in the English Channel, being given command of a squadron of ships based at Guernsey. He served on HMS Victory, took part in the Battle of Cape St Vincent, the Blockade of Cadiz, and was with Nelson at the Battle of the Nile.Promoted to Rear Admiral, he led his ships at the battles of Algeciras and the Gut of Gibraltar. Saumarez was then dispatched into the Baltic, where he helped thwart Napoleons attempt at conquering Russia.So prominent was Saumarez during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, he was featured in the Hornblower novels and other fictional books, including Master and Commander. Tony Sullivan, however, tells the true story of one of the most remarkable individuals of the great days of sail, in the first biography of Saumarez for more than 170 years.
Man on a Mission: The David Hilmers Story
by David Hilmers Rick Houston“I floated toward one of the windows as Atlantis sailed high over the coast of Africa, unprepared for the incredible view that was about to unfold right before my eyes.” Being an astronaut wasn’t enough. Dr. David C. Hilmers has launched into space four times as part of NASA space shuttle crews. But God had more planned for Dr. Hilmers. The beauty of the Earth from orbit reminded Hilmers of his first dream to become a doctor. He went to medical school, became a pediatrician, and has since launched into countless missions and disaster relief trips around the world. Dr. Hilmers’ extraordinary life and work as a missionary will inspire you to reach even higher than the stars.
The Man on Mao's Right
by Ji ChaozhuNo other narrative from within the corridors of power has offered as frank and intimate an account of the making of the modern Chinese nation as Ji Chaozhu’sThe Man on Mao’s Right. Having served Chairman Mao Zedong and the Communist leadership for two decades, and having become a key figure in China’s foreign policy, Ji now provides an honest, detailed account of the personalities and events that shaped today’s People’s Republic. The youngest son of a prosperous government official, nine-year-old Ji and his family fled Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, escaping to America. Warmly received by his new country, Ji returned its embrace as he came of age in New York’s East Village and then attended Harvard University. But in 1950, after years of enjoying a life of relative ease while his countrymen suffered through war and civil strife, Ji felt driven by patriotism to volunteer to serve China in its conflict with his adoptive country in the Korean War. Ji’s mastery of the English language and American culture launched his improbable career, eventually winning him the role of English interpreter for China’s two top leaders: Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong. With a unique blend of Chinese insight and American candor, Ji paints insightful portraits of the architects of modern China: the urbane, practical, and avuncular Zhou, the conscience of the People’s Republic; and the messianic, charismatic Mao, student of China’s ancient past–his country’s stern father figure. In Ji’s memoir, he is an eyewitness to modern Chinese history, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Nixon summit, and numerous momentous events in Tiananmen Square. As he becomes caught up in political squabbles among radical factions, Ji’s past and charges against him of “incorrect” thinking subject him to scrutiny and suspicion. He is repeatedly sent to a collective farm to be “reeducated” by the peasants. After the Mao years, Ji moves on to hold top diplomatic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom and then serves as under secretary-general of the United Nations. Today, he says, “The Chinese know America better than the Americans know China. The risk is that we misperceive each other. ” This highly accessible insider’s chronicle of a struggling people within a developing powerhouse nation is also Ji Chaozhu’s dramatic personal story, certain to fascinate and enlighten Western readers. A riveting biography and unique historical record,The Man on Mao’s Rightrecounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other. Ji Chaozhu played an important role in paving the way for what is destined to be known as the Chinese Century. Praise forThe Man on Mao’s Right "Brave, beautifully written testimony . A true "fly-on-the-wall" account of the momentous changes in Chinese society and international relations over the last century. " --Kirkus Reviews “It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders . . . . Highly recommended. "—Library Journal, starred review
Man on the Run
by Tom DoyleAn illuminating look at the most tumultuous decade in the life of a rock icon--the only McCartney biography in decades based on firsthand interviews with the ex-Beatle himself. As the 1970s began, the Beatles ended, leaving Paul McCartney to face the new decade with only his wife Linda by his side. Holed up at his farmhouse in Scotland, he sank into a deep depression. To outsiders, McCartney seemed like a man adrift--intimidated by his own fame, paralyzed by the choices that lay before him, cut loose from his musical moorings. But what appeared to be the sad finale of a glorious career was just the start of a remarkable second act. The product of a long series of one-on-one interviews between McCartney and Scottish rock journalist Tom Doyle, Man on the Run chronicles Paul McCartney's decadelong effort to escape the shadow of his past, outrace his critics, and defy the expectations of his fans. From the bitter and painful breakup of the Beatles to the sobering wake-up call of John Lennon's murder, this is a deeply revealing look at a sometimes frightening, often exhilarating period in the life of the world's most famous rock star. Sensing that he had nowhere to go but up, Paul McCartney started over from scratch. With emotional--and musical--backing from Linda, he released eccentric solo albums and embarked on a nomadic hippie lifestyle. He formed a new band, Wings, which first took flight on a ramshackle tour of British university towns and eventually returned Paul to the summit of arena rock superstardom. In Man on the Run, Doyle follows McCartney inside the recording sessions for Wings' classic album Band on the Run--and provides context for some of the baffling misfires in his discography. Doyle tracks the dizzying highs and exasperating lows of a life lived in the public spotlight: the richly excessive world tours, the Japanese drug bust that nearly ended McCartney's career, his bitter public feuds with his erstwhile Beatle bandmates, and the aftermath of an infamous drug-and-alcohol-fueled jam session where McCartney helped reconcile the estranged John Lennon and Yoko Ono. For Paul McCartney, the 1970s were a wild ride with some dark turns. Set against the backdrop of a turbulent decade, Man on the Run casts the "sunny Beatle" in an entirely new light.Advance praise for Man on the Run "Tom Doyle's Man on the Run is a riveting dispatch from the seventies. Paul McCartney's story is told with clever pacing, unflinching honesty, and a gripping narrative drive that benefits from his intimate participation via interviews and support. This is simply one of the best rock biographies anyone has written."--Stephen Davis, bestselling author of Hammer of the Gods and Watch You Bleed "Man on the Run is simply brimming with enough fascinating facts and expertly rendered anecdotes to make even the most ardent McCartney follower do an abrupt about-face. Maybe I'm amazed? You better believe it."--Kent Hartman, music industry executive and bestselling author of The Wrecking Crew "What happens when you can do anything you like but nothing will ever be good enough? Doyle makes sense of a stoned shaggy dog story that has none of the narrative neatness of the Beatles' rise and fall."--The Guardian (U.K.), "Music Books of the Year" "[Doyle] offers a level-headed and admirably nonjudgmental portrait of a turbulent ten years, punctuated by great music, creative misfires and frequent run-ins with the law."--Sunday Express (U.K.)From the Hardcover edition.
The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill
by Molly WorthenPsychologically astute and passionately written, Molly Worthen’s remarkable debut charts the intricate relationship between student and teacher, biographer and subject. As a Yale freshman, Worthen found herself deeply fascinated by worldly-wise professor Charles Hill, a former diplomat who had shaped American foreign policy in his forty-year career as an adviser to Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, among others. Hill was never afraid to tell students how to think or what to do, and the Grand Strategy seminar he co-taught had developed a cult following.The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost is at once the biography of a political insider and the story of how its author evolved as she wrote it. In a moving, highly original work, Worthen conveys the joy and the heartache of uncovering the human being behind one’s idol.
Man Overboard: The Counterfeit Resurrection of Phil Champagne
by Burl BarerThe true-crime story of one man’s life after his faked death, by the New York Times–bestselling author of Murder in the Family.1982: Oregon businessman Phil Champagne, age 52, dies in a tragic boating accident off Lopez Island off the coast of Washington state. He is survived by one ex-wife, four adult children, an octogenarian mother, and two despondent brothers. Phil didn’t know he was dead until he read it in the paper. All things considered, he took it rather well. So did Phil’s brother, Mitch, the beneficiary of a 1.5 million dollar policy on Phil’s life.1992: Washington restauranteur Harold Stegeman, famous for his thick, juicy steaks, is arrested by the Secret Service for printing counterfeit United States currency in an Idaho shed. In addition to the bogus bills, Stegeman also has a fraudulently obtained passport, a fabricated Cayman Island driver’s license, and Phil Champagne’s fingerprints.When the uproarious reality of Harold Stegeman’s secret identity hit the headlines, the counterfeit resurrection of Phil Champagne became one of the most celebrated and hysterically funny true-crime stories of the twentieth century. And while every supermarket tabloid and television talk show hounded after the untold story, only Edgar Award–winner Burl Barer captured Champagne’s confidence and received permission to detail Phil’s post-mortem career of fraud, deception, trickery, lies, and fine prime rib, bringing to life the exploits of a man his family thought dead over a decade ago.Includes bonus photographs, a police interrogation transcript, and an afterword by Phil ChampagnePraise for Man Overboard“True crime at its best. . . . Barer has undeniable talent, pizzaz and imagination!” —Jack Olsen, New York Times–bestselling author of Son: A Psychopath and His Victims“Crisp as a freshly printed C-note. Exceptionally clever and vastly entertaining!” —Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Bone Canyon“Barer does it again! A deft and dazzling display of solid research and rapier wit—a must for all true crime aficionados.” —Gary C. King, author of Love, Lies, and Murder
Man Proposes, God Disposes: Recollections of a French Pioneer
by Pierre Maturié Vivien Bosley Robert WardhaughIn 1910, young Pierre Maturié bid farewell to his comfortable bourgeois existence in rural France and travelled to northern Alberta in search of independence, adventure, and newfound prosperity. Some sixty years later, he wrote of the four years he spent in Canada before he returned to France in 1914 to fight in the First World War. Like that of so many youthful pioneers, his story is one of adventure and hardship—perilous journeys, railroad construction in the Rockies, panning for gold in swift-flowing streams, transporting goods for the Hudson’s Bay Company along the Athabasca River. Blessed with the rare gift of a natural storyteller, Maturié conveys his abiding nostalgia for a country he loved deeply yet ultimately had to abandon. Maturié’s memoir, Man Proposes, God Disposes, appeared in France in 1972, to a warm reception. Now, in the deft and marvellously empathetic translation of Vivien Bosley, it is at long last available in English. As a portrait of pioneer life in northern Alberta, as a window onto the French experience in Canada, and, above all, as an irresistible story—it will continue to find a place in the hearts of readers for years to come.
Man Ray: The Artist and His Shadows (Jewish Lives)
by Arthur LubowA biography of the elusive but celebrated Dada and Surrealist artist and photographer connecting his Jewish background to his life and art Man Ray (1890–1976), a founding father of Dada and a key player in French Surrealism, is one of the central artists of the twentieth century. He is also one of the most elusive. In this new biography, journalist and critic Arthur Lubow uses Man Ray&’s Jewish background as one filter to understand his life and art. Man Ray began life as Emmanuel Radnitsky, the eldest of four children born in Philadelphia to a mother from Minsk and a father from Kiev. When he was seven the family moved to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, where both parents worked as tailors. Defying his parents&’ expectations that he earn a university degree, Man Ray instead pursued his vocation as an artist, embracing the modernist creed of photographer and avant-garde gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz. When at the age of thirty Man Ray relocated to Paris, he, unlike Stieglitz, made a clean break with his past.
Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine
by Eric WeinerWhen a health scare puts him in the hospital, Eric Weiner--an agnostic by default--finds himself tangling with an unexpected question, posed to him by a well-meaning nurse. "Have you found your God yet?" The thought of it nags him, and prods him--and ultimately launches him on a far-flung journey to do just that. Weiner, a longtime "spiritual voyeur" and inveterate traveler, realizes that while he has been privy to a wide range of religious practices, he's never seriously considered these concepts in his own life. Face to face with his own mortality, and spurred on by the question of what spiritual principles to impart to his young daughter, he decides to correct this omission, undertaking a worldwide exploration of religions and hoping to come, if he can, to a personal understanding of the divine. The journey that results is rich in insight, humor, and heart. Willing to do anything to better understand faith, and to find the god or gods that speak to him, he travels to Nepal, where he meditates with Tibetan lamas and a guy named Wayne. He sojourns to Turkey, where he whirls (not so well, as it turns out) with Sufi dervishes. He heads to China, where he attempts to unblock his chi; to Israel, where he studies Kabbalah, sans Madonna; and to Las Vegas, where he has a close encounter with Raelians (followers of the world's largest UFO-based religion). At each stop along the way, Weiner tackles our most pressing spiritual questions: Where do we come from? What happens when we die? How should we live our lives? Where do all the missing socks go? With his trademark wit and warmth, he leaves no stone unturned. At a time when more Americans than ever are choosing a new faith, and when spiritual questions loom large in the modern age, MAN SEEKS GOD presents a perspective on religion that is sure to delight, inspire, and entertain.