Självbiografier

A new biography exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's wartime experiences and their impact on his life and his writing of The Lord of The Rings. "e;To be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than in 1939 ... by 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead."e;So J.R.R. Tolkien responded to critics who saw The Lord of the Rings as a reaction to the Second World War. Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life. It shows how, after two of these brilliant young men were killed, Tolkien pursued the dream they had all shared by launching his epic of good and evil. John Garth argues that the foundation of tragic experience in the First World War is the key to Middle-earth's enduring power. Tolkien used his mythic imagination not to escape from reality but to reflect and transform the cataclysm of his generatuion. While his contemporaries surrendered to disillusionment, he kept enchantment alive, reshaping an entire literary tradition into a form that resonates to this day. This is the first substantially new biography of Tolkien since 1977, meticulously researched and distilled from his personal wartime papers and a multitude of other sources.

An intimate memoir by blues legend Robert Johnson's stepsister, including new details about his family, music, influences, tragic death, and musical afterlife

A searing, raw and honest memoir of television's greatest SAS veteran. Sergeant Major Mark 'Billy' Billingham recounts his life, twenty-seven years of military service as an elite soldier, and new-found fame on the hugely successful Channel Four series SAS: Who dares Wins.

'The best American political biography since Obama's Dreams from My Father' GuardianNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA mayor's inspirational story of a Midwest city that has become nothing less than a blueprint for the future of American renewal.

The incredible untold story of Virginia Hall, an American woman with a wooden leg who infiltrated Occupied France for the SOE and became the Gestapo's most wanted Allied spy, written by acclaimed biographer Sonia Purnell.

An intimate account of Alex Honnold's unprecedented, almost unimaginable feat: a 3,000-foot vertical climb up El Capitan in Yosemite, without a rope.

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. A memoir with a message - about growing up in care and finding hope, determination and creativity - from British poet and national treasure Lemn Sissay

The extraordinary life story of the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose absolute integrity provides the inspiration we need as our constitutional system and political tradition are being tested to the breaking point.

The rich, revealing, and thrilling story of five women whose lives and painting propelled a revolution in modern art

We sat down in a lovely hotel in a nice part of town, and she hit me with her first question: "This must mean a lot to you, with you coming from nothing?" I looked at her, and I laughed. A decent translation might be: `By all means punch me in the nose but prepare yourself for a kick in the arse.' I did'nae come from nothing: I come from Scotland.

Now a major motion picture, the New York Times-bestselling, first-and only-definitive authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, one of America's most celebrated yet enigmatic heroes.

NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERNo one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life's challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he's learned over the course of his fascinating, exhilarating life.

The #1 New York Times bestseller from Walter Isaacson brings Leonardo da Vinci to life in this exciting new biography that is ';a study in creativity: how to define it, how to achieve itMost important, it is a powerful story of an exhilarating mind and life' (The New Yorker).Based on thousands of pages from Leonardo da Vinci's astonishing notebooks and new discoveries about his life and work, Walter Isaacson ';deftly reveals an intimate Leonardo' (San Francisco Chronicle) in a narrative that connects his art to his science. He shows how Leonardo's genius was based on skills we can improve in ourselves, such as passionate curiosity, careful observation, and an imagination so playful that it flirted with fantasy. He produced the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry. He explored the math of optics, showed how light rays strike the cornea, and produced illusions of changing perspectives in The Last Supper. His ability to stand at the crossroads of the humanities and the sciences, made iconic by his drawing of Vitruvian Man, made him history's most creative genius. In the ';luminous' (Daily Beast) Leonardo da Vinci, Isaacson describes how Leonardo's delight at combining diverse passions remains the ultimate recipe for creativity. So, too, does his ease at being a bit of a misfit: illegitimate, gay, vegetarian, left-handed, easily distracted, and at times heretical. His life should remind us of the importance to be imaginative and, like talented rebels in any era, to think different. Here, da Vinci ';comes to life in all his remarkable brilliance and oddity in Walter Isaacson's ambitious new biographya vigorous, insightful portrait' (The Washington Post).