Art Biography

Ten years ago, an FBI investigation was about to expose a scandal in the art world that would have been front-page news in New York and London. After a trail of fake paintings of astonishing quality led federal agents to art dealers, experts, and major auction houses, the investigation inexplicably ended, despite an abundance of evidence. The case was closed and the FBI file was marked “exempt from public disclosure”. Now that the statute of limitations on these crimes has expired and the case appears hermetically sealed shut by the FBI, this audiobook, Caveat Emptor, is that artist, Ken Perenyi’s, confession.

Ayelet Tsabari was 21 years old the first time she left Tel Aviv with no plans to return. Restless after two turbulent mandatory years in the Israel Defense Forces, Tsabari longed to get away. It was not the never-ending conflict that drove her but the grief that had shaken the foundations of her home. The loss of Tsabari’s beloved father in years past had left her alienated and exiled within her own large Yemeni family and at odds with her Mizrahi identity. By leaving, she would be free to reinvent herself and to rewrite her own story.

A compelling, thought-provoking memoir about Nancy French's journey from her family's mountain roots to success as a ghostwriter, only to be rejected by her party, church, and community. Ghosted by New York Times bestselling author Nancy French is for all who were alienated by those closest to them and left spiritually and politically homeless.

This memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia Child embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became.

He prepared therefore for the meditative journey that proves most excruciating in Limbo, a rounding through the past, a trip back! It is a venture full of perils. To meditate on TV might prove equal to writing a recollection of an enemy one has never met and cannot quite believe in. Indeed, how to conceive of an enemy who is without personal animosity? It was like writing a memoir of an oxymoron. Limbo set its tasks.

Nora Ephron was one of the most popular, accomplished, and beloved writers in American journalism and film. Nora Ephron: A Biography is the first biography of the Manhattan-born girl who forged a path of her own, earning accolades and adoration from critics and fans alike. Author Kristin Marguerite Doidge explores the tremendous successes and disappointing failures Ephron sustained in her career and examines the private life she tried to keep in balance with her insatiable ambition.

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was an English writer, physician, and philosopher whose work has inspired everyone form Ralph Waldo Emerson to Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf to Stephen Jay Gould. In an intellectual adventure akin to Sarah Bakewell's book on Montaigne, How to Live, Hugh Aldersey-Williams sets off not just to tell the story of Browne's life but also to champion his skeptical nature and inquiring mind for our own age.

In 1976, following years of harsh cutbacks to salaries and benefits at the New Yorker, editorial workers - the fact-checkers, copy editors, and other paraliteraries - finally took a stand and began a drive to unionize the storied magazine. But strong-willed longtime editor William Shawn's fierce resistance to unionization kicked off a stalemate between management and their subordinates.

A charged biography of a notorious Nazi art plunderer and his career in the postwar art world. Bruno Lohse (1911-2007) was one of the most notorious art plunderers in history. Appointed by Hermann Göring to Hitler's special art-looting agency, he went on to supervise the systematic theft and distribution of more than 22,000 artworks, largely from French Jews; helped Göring develop an enormous private art collection; and staged 20 private exhibitions of stolen art in Paris's Jeu de Paume museum during the war.

Striking, heartfelt, and utterly engrossing, Dispatches from the Edge is an unforgettable memoir that takes us behind the scenes of the cataclysmic events of our age and allows us to see them through the eyes of one of America's most trusted, fearless, and pioneering reporters.

Las memorias de Gabriel García Márquez: un recorrido por los días de su infancia y juventud en los que se fundó el imaginario que se reflejaría después en sus obras. Vivir para contarla es, probablemente, el libro más esperado de la primera década del siglo, compendio y recreación de un tiempo crucial en la vida de Gabriel García Márquez.

David Mamet went to Hollywood on top—a super successful playwright summoned west in 1980 to write a vehicle for Jack Nicholson. He arrived just in time to meet the luminaries of old Hollywood and revel in the friendship of giants like Paul Newman, Mike Nichols, Bob Evans, and Sue Mengers. Over the next forty years, Mamet wrote dozens of scripts, was fired off dozens of movies, and directed eleven himself. In Everywhere an Oink Oink, he revels of the taut and gag-filled professionalism of the film set.

In Roman Year, André Aciman captures the period of his adolescence that began when he and his family first set foot in Rome, after being expelled from Egypt. Though Aciman’s family had been well-off in Alexandria, all vestiges of their status vanished when they fled, and the author, his younger brother, and his deaf mother moved into a rented apartment in Rome’s Via Clelia. Though dejected, Aciman’s mother and brother found their way into life in Rome, while Aciman, still unmoored, burrowed into his bedroom to read one book after the other.

Rembrandt's life has always been an enigma. How did a miller's son from a provincial Dutch town become the greatest artist in the world? To find out, Onno Blom immersed himself in the world, the country, the city, and the house in which Rembrandt was born in 1606 and where he spent the first 25 years of his life. The result is a fascinating portrait of the artist as a young man, rich in local and biographical detail, and restless in its efforts to seek out the roots of his genius.

A rare, intimate portrait of Christopher Nolan with the full cooperation of Nolan himself who opened up more fully than ever before in his talks with Tom Shone. In chapters structured by themes and motifs ("Time"; "Chaos"), Shone writes of Nolan's thoughts on movies, on plots; on time, identity, perception, chaos, daydreams. Here is Nolan on the evolution of his pictures, and the writers, artists, directors, and thinkers who have inspired and informed his films.

Before The Voice and American Idol, there was Star Search with Ed McMahon. In the first season, an eclectic and charismatic country-rock band called Sawyer Brown appeared on the show, taking America by storm. From ignored underdogs in Nashville to overnight rock stars from LA to New York, they swept the competition and won. Since 1984, “the boys"' legendary live shows, along with their relentless drive to stay true to themselves, have captivated faithful fans around the world.

While scores of books have been written about Elvis Presley, this is the first meticulously researched biography of Tom Parker written by someone who knew him personally. And for anyone truly interested in the performer many consider the greatest and most influential of the 20th century, it is impossible to understand how Elvis came to be such a phenomenon without examining the life and mind of Parker, the man who virtually controlled Elvis' every move.

Legendary magician Penn Jillette was approaching his 60th birthday. Topping 330 pounds and saddled with a systolic blood pressure reading over 200, he knew he was at a dangerous crossroads: If he wanted to see his small children grow up, he needed to change. And then came Crazy Ray. A former NASA scientist and an unconventional, passionate innovator, Ray Cronise saved Jillette's life with his wild "potato diet". Outspoken, frank, and bitingly clever, Presto is an incisive, rollicking listen.

A small-town girl with incredible talent – and the strength and determination to realise her dream – Taylor Swift has gone from America’s sweetheart to global megastar. But how did she get there? And how has she coped with the realities of fame? Fully updated in fascinating detail, Taylor Swift: The Whole Story explores Taylor’s musical evolution and her status as a fearless businesswoman operating on her own terms. From early beginnings to the challenges on the road to success, from her relationships to her Eras tour, this is the unmissable account of Taylor’s journey to world domination.

As a journalist whose career spans three decades, CNN correspondent Tom Foreman has reported from the heart of war zones, riots, and natural disasters. He has interviewed serial killers and been in the line of fire. But the most terrifying moment of his life didn't occur on the job - it occurred at home, when his 18-year-old daughter asked, "How would you feel about running a marathon with me?"