Biography Work

Aussi improbable que cela puisse paraître, Gladys était certaine que Dieu l’appelait en Chine en tant que missionnaire. Et voilà qu’à l’âge de vingt-sept ans, elle venait d’être renvoyée de l’école de formation à la mission pour avoir échoué au cours d’étude de la Bible!

A traveling tinker, John Bunyan accepted long imprisonment rather than give up preaching the Gospel. He explained the life of the Spirit in language the common people could understand and in pictures that stuck in the mind. When he wrote Pilgrim's Progress, his fame spread rapidly, and within 50 years of his death, the book was reputed to be in most English homes. John Brown's biography of John Bunyan remains the standard, despite the lapse of over 100 years since it was first published. The author was one of Bunyan's successors as minister of the church in Bedford.

From William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison, Writers explores more than 100 biographies of the world’s greatest writers. Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations, and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.

You might not know the name Tyrus Wong, but you probably know many of the images he shaped, including scenes from the beloved Disney classic Bambi. Yet when he came to this country as a child, Tyrus was an illegal immigrant locked up in an offshore detention center. How did he go on to a long and prosperous career drawing animation cels, storyboards, and greeting cards that shaped the American imagination?

Known as “Hitler's Filmmaker,” Leni Riefenstahl directed two of the most innovative and effective propaganda documentaries ever made, Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), which glorified the Third Reich. In this definitive biography, Steven Bach illuminates the truths and lies regarding the self-proclaimed apolitical artist's involvement with Hitler and other Nazi leaders who financed and advanced her career. Probing the borders that divide art and beauty from truth and humanity, Bach untangles the past and gives an objective but unsparing appraisal.

The Harder You Work, The Luckier You Get offers a view inside Joe Ricketts’s mind, giving listeners a visceral understanding of how entrepreneurs think and act differently from the rest of us - how they see the horizon where we just see a spreadsheet. Ricketts also talks honestly about his shortcomings as a manager, the career sacrifices his wife made for his business, the complexity of being a father, and the pain of his mentor’s betrayal and of his brother’s death from of AIDS. Overcoming these and other challenges, he built a company now worth $30 billion.

I’m only in my mid-20s, and some might think that’s young to write a memoir. Who does that, right? But for me and my team it’s always been important to reflect on every part of the journey, especially the end. In that context, the timing is perfect to share my story, from the first time I picked up a racket as a five-year-old girl in Ipswich, to the night I packed up my tennis bag at Melbourne Park after winning the 2022 Australian Open.

Runners' vocabulary is full of acronyms like DNS for "Did Not Start" and DNF for "Did Not Finish," but when Mirna Valerio stepped up to the starting line, she needed a new one: DNQ for "Did Not Quit."

John Stuart Mill was the most influential British philosopher of the 19th century. His works spanned a startling variety of topics including logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and social theory. All of Mill's writings were aimed at the support and expansion of philosophical radicalism, and he had a significant influence on social theory, political theory, and political economy.

"It took months of God waking me up in the middle of the night before I realized I was the one He was calling to leave my comfortable American life and move to Haiti." Miracle on Voodoo Mountain is the inspirational memoir of an accomplished and driven 24-year-old who quit her job, sold everything, and moved to Haiti, by herself - all without a clear plan of action. Megan Boudreaux had visited Haiti on a few humanitarian trips but each trip multiplied the sense that someone needed to address the devastation.

Veteran journalists Simon Pearson and Fiona Gorman follow the remarkable life of heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub from his formative years in Egypt, through spectacular success at Cairo University, to his long and distinguished career in Britain. Although at times he clashed with the medical establishment in London, Yacoub pioneered great advances in heart surgery. He was knighted in 1992, and in 2014, he was awarded the highest honor in the gift of the Queen, the Order of Merit.

When acclaimed science writer Stefan Klein asks Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann what sets scientists apart, Hoffmann says, "First and foremost, curiosity." In this collection of intimate conversations with 19 of the world's best-known scientists (including three Nobel Laureates), Klein lets us listen in as today's leading minds reveal what they still hope to discover - and how their paradigm-changing work entwines with their lives outside the lab.

For 20 years, Lisa Murphy, Jeff Murphy, and a group of volunteers traveled the world with the Mobility Project, delivering mobility to the poorest people on the planet. They helped tens of thousands of disabled poor to gain mobility and hope. The disabled received wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches from the United States, items they never would have been able to afford. Like Simon of Cyrene, we helped people carry their cross of disability. From the hot tropical jungles of Costa Rica, Thailand, and São Tomé to the deserts of Afghanistan, the disabled poor got a new chance at life.

Silicon Valley technology is transforming the way we work, and Uber is leading the charge. Upending our understanding of work in the digital age, Uberland paints a future where any of us might be managed by a faceless boss. Based on award-winning technology ethnographer Alex Rosenblat's experience of riding over 5,000 miles with Uber drivers, daily visits to online forums, and face-to-face discussions with senior Uber employees, Uberland goes beyond the headlines to reveal the complicated politics of popular technologies that are manipulating both workers and consumers.

Old School Love is a book to help you find the kind of soul-filling love you desire, written by a couple who has built a strong and joyful relationship amid the pressures, pitfalls, and temptations of the entertainment industry. Rev Run and his wife, Justine, have been blessed with a devoted partnership that has inspired other famous long-term marriages, including Beyoncé and Jay-Z, and Jada Pinkett-Smith and Will Smith. In this homage to classic courtship, Rev and Justine reveal the secrets to their marriage’s longevity and happiness.

Few organizations solve as many impossible problems as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and nobody knows more about leading rocket scientists to unlikely breakthroughs than Adam Steltzner. As the phase lead and development manager for EDL (entry, descent, and landing) of the Curiosity rover to Mars, Steltzner spearheaded the creation of one of engineering's wackiest kluges - the sky crane, which allowed the heaviest rover in the history of space exploration to land on Mars unscathed.

In this lecture series, art historian Gary Schwartz surveys the life, time and work of Rembrandt van Rijn. He reflects on both the 17th century historical context in which Rembrandt emerged as an artist, as well as on his superb techniques. Schwartz presents the listener with a unique re-introduction to the artist's biography in which he gives a vivid description of Rembrandt's life and his rich and varied drawings, etchings and paintings, such as the Nightwatch.

For Eve, Irene, Betty, and Rosemary, working at the exclusive Heyworth's department store in Cambridge is a dream come true. Once the girls step inside the elegant building, the hardships of their own lives are temporarily forgotten. Serving a variety of customers, from glamorous gypsy queens to royalty and the city's fashionable elite, the store is a place where these young women can forge successful careers under the ever-watchful eye of flamboyant owner Mr Heyworth.

Did you know hot air balloons were dreamed up by a French boy in the 1700s? Joseph Montgolfier devoted his life to experiments that he hoped would allow him to fly. With the help of his little brother, his invention allowed humans to fly for the first time in history!

Anything but Ordinary tells the story of the divine encounter that changed the trajectory of one man's life and the faith that profoundly influenced the too-short journey to his death. Jesse Morales was an ordinary Filipino immigrant and mechanic who found the better life he was looking for when he met Jesus.