Literary Biography

In 1995, on a four-hour-delayed train from Manchester to London, J. K. Rowling conceived of the idea of a boy wizard named Harry Potter. Upon arriving in London, she began immediately writing the first book in the saga. Rowling's true-life, rags-to-riches story is as compelling as the world of Hogwarts that she created. This biography details not only Rowling's life and her love of literature but the story behind the creation of a modern classic.

The further adventures of "Dr. Gonzo" as he defends the "cucarachas" - the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Before his mysterious disappearance and probable death in 1971, Oscar Zeta Acosta was famous as a Robin Hood Chicano lawyer and notorious as the real-life model for Hunter S. Thompson's "Dr. Gonzo" a fat, pugnacious attorney with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs, and life on the edge.

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this definitive audio collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style - from the plain bold language of this first story to his mastery of seamless prose that contained a spare, eloquent pathos, as well as a sense of expansive solitude.

Here is Hemingway: the adventurer, the reporter, the man! More intimately than all his fiction, Hemingway the reporter reveals Hemingway the man, driving an ambulance through a bullet-barrage or leading guerrilla forces into Paris, always in the thick of the action. Here are his most sensational dispatches, the behind-the-scenes stories that became For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises.

Stan Lee is one of the most influential people in the comic book world. The memorable heroes he created, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, the X-Men, and Daredevil, helped build Marvel Comics into the publishing powerhouse we know today.

R. L. Stine has written hundreds of children's books, including the scary, creepy Goosebumps series. His books have inspired TV shows and movies. Learn more about Stine's life as a famous writer!

It was a long, sometimes devastating, journey Maxine was forced to undertake through the depths of despair as a preschooler, and then on through a tumultuous adolescence during which she was ignored yet at the same time abused by a uncaring mother who daily left her with a malevolent grandmother who similarly mistreated her. Instructed by her divorced mother to no longer call her Mama, in an effort to enhance her own marketability as a perspective wife to some unsuspecting man.

Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth. So begins Sid Fleischman's ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens.

On the edge of the remote salt flats of Australia, a young woman blows in from nowhere and disturbs the precarious equilibrium of a family farm. The boy is fascinated by her, his mother despises her, and the brutish farmhand wants to possess her. When the woman mysteriously disappears, the only trace of her a bloodied dress, the boy sets out in search of an Indian hawker who may or may not have the answers. As he journeys through the broken landscape, accompanied only by his horse and his dog, the boy becomes aware of another party converging murderously on his destination.

This is a gritty story of a badminton star, Pullela Gopi Chand, who brought laurels to India by winning the coveted All England Championships in 2001. The player for whom losing was not an option, who went against all rules and conventions. This book , the authorised biography of Pullela Gopichand, is about his rise from humble beginnings to become a star on Indian Badminton's horizon, as well as his endeavours to produce more sports icons like him through his one-of-a-kind badminton Academy.

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep the child. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist and ended up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly died. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days.

One of America's favorite African-American storytellers remembers her childhood in tender, unforgettable new stories. Jackie Torrence, a frequent headliner at the National Storytelling Festival, is known to audiences nationwide as The Story Lady.

One of the most important patriots in post-Revolutionary times. Most people know Noah Webster for his dictionary masterpieces and his promotion of a living "American Language" that embraces words and idioms from all its immigrant peoples. But he was also the driving force behind universal education for all citizens, including slaves, females, and adult learners. Speaker of twenty languages, he developed the new country's curriculum, writing and publishing American literature, American history, and American geography. He published New York City's first daily newspaper.

"Over the last few years I've started writing a number of stories that, for various reasons, I never finished writing..." So begins Special Problems, the comic tale of Christie Hodges, a writer who can't seem to finish a story. The problem isn't that Hodges has nothing to write about - there's her recent divorce, her paralyzed foot, trouble with her daughter and job - it's that once she starts writing, she can't stop. One problem leads to another, and another.

"All the world's a stage," William Shakespeare wrote. More than 400 years later, stages around the world still show Shakespeare's plays. But who was William Shakespeare? And what makes his plays so great?

Explore the life and career of Newbery-award-winning author Jacqueline Woodson.

Explore the life and career of writer and poet Jerry Pinkney, author of Soapstone Signs.

Did you know Barbara Park wanted to be a teacher instead of a writer when she was growing up? Discover how a late-blooming writer used her talent for humor to become a best-selling children's author.

Joe Gere said he died on the afternoon his 12-year-old daughter Brenda disappeared. It was left to Brenda's mother Elaine to sustain her stricken family, search for her missing child, and pressure the authorities for justice. From the first minutes of the investigation, suspicion fell on Michael Kay Green, a steroid-abusing "Mr. Universe" hopeful, but there was no proof of a crime, leaving police and prosecutors stymied. Tips and sightings poured in as lawmen and volunteers combed the Cascades forest.

"Live fast, die young" , "Vivre vite, mourir jeune" : en trois films et un crash automobile, James Dean est devenu une légende intemporelle, dont la séduction nous fascine encore. Quel est le mystère de cette icône insaisissable ?