Biografier

The inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFICHere is one of the most riveting first-person accounts to ever come out of World War 2. Robert Leckie was 21 when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps in January 1942. In Helmet for My Pillow we follow his journey, from boot camp on Parris Island, South Carolina, all the way to the raging battles in the Pacific, where some of the war's fiercest fighting took place. Recounting his service with the 1st Marine Division and the brutal action on Guadalcanal, New Britain and Peleliu, Leckie spares no detail of the horrors and sacrifice of war, painting an unsentimental portrait of how real warriors are made, fight, and all too often die in the defence of their country.From the live-for-today rowdiness of Marines on leave to the terrors of jungle warfare against an enemy determined to fight to the last man, Leckie describes what it's really like when victory can only be measured inch by bloody inch. Unparalleled in its immediacy and accuracy, Helmet for My Pillow tells the gripping true story of an ordinary soldier fighting in extraordinary conditions. This is a book that brings you as close to the mud, the blood, and the experience of war as it is safe to come.'Helmet for My Pillow is a grand and epic prose poem. Robert Leckie's theme is the purely human experience of war in the Pacific, written in the graceful imagery of a human being who - somehow - survived' Tom Hanks

**THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** **WINNER OF THE 2010 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD** 264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment.

On D-Day, Dick Winters took off with 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and prepared to parachute into German-held north France. Ground troops landing on Utah beach were relying on Easy Company to secure one of the causeways that were vital if the troops were to get off the beaches and reach the solid ground of Normandy. The plane carrying many of the commanding officers was shot down, leaving Dick Winters suddenly in command of his company. But during the drop he, and many of his men, had been separated from his equipment and was unarmed except for a trench knife.In this remarkable World War 2 memoir, Dick Winters tells the tales left untold by Stephen Ambrose in his 1992 epic Band of Brothers. Starting with an account of the gruelling training designed to make the 506th the most elite unit in the US Army, Beyond Band of Brothers is fascinating account of one man's experience of commanding Easy Company from D-Day, to the Battle of the Bulge and into Germany. Dick Winters gives real insight into leadership under the most difficult conditions - every man in the company had been injured by the time they reached Germany - and tells the real story of the Allies' final defeat of Hitler, from the point of view of someone who was really there.

The inspiration behind the HBO series THE PACIFICThis was a brutish, primitive hatred, as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands...Landing on the beach at Peleliu in 1944 as a twenty-year-old new recruit to the US Marines, Eugene Sledge can only try desperately to survive. At Peleliu and Okinawa - two of the fiercest and filthiest Pacific battles of WWII - he witnesses the dehumanising brutality displayed by both sides and the animal hatred that each soldier has for his enemy.During temporary lapses in the fighting, conditions on the islands mean that the Marines often can't wash, stay dry, dig latrines, or even find time to eat. Suffering from constant fear, fatigue, and filth, the struggle of simply living in a combat zone is utterly debilitating.Yet despite horrendous conditions Sledge finds time to keep notes that he would later turn into a book. Described as one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war, With the Old Breed tells with compassion and honesty of the cruelty, bravery and deaths of the men he fought alongside, and of his own journey from patriotic innocence to battle-scarred veteran.'Eugene Sledge became more than a legend with his memoir, With The Old Breed. He became a chronicler, a historian, a storyteller who turns the extremes of the war in the Pacific - the terror, the camaraderie, the banal and the extraordinary - into terms we mortals can grasp' Tom Hanks

As a medical student, Dr Paul Farmer found his life's calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine - so readily available in the developed world - to those who need them most. The author's account shows how, from achieving this modest dream, one person can make a difference in solving global problems.

The definitive biography of this remarkable man.

'This is a riveting book, with as much to say about the transformation of modern life in the information age as about its supernaturally gifted and driven subject' - Telegraph Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years - as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues - this is the acclaimed, internationally bestselling biography of the ultimate icon of inventiveness. Walter Isaacson tells the story of the rollercoaster life and searingly intense personality of creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies,music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written, nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

The #1 New York Times bestselling memoir of U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle, and the source for Clint Eastwood's blockbuster movie which was nominated for six academy awards, including best picture. From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history.

Magnitsky's brutal killing has remained uninvestigated and unpunished to this day. His farcical posthumous show-trial brought Putin's regime to a new low in the eyes of the international community.

The original bestseller and heartwarming story of the life-saving friendship between a man and his streetwise cat'[Bob] has entranced London like no feline since the days of Dick Whittington.' (Evening Standard)'A heartwarming tale with a message of hope' (Daily Mail)'Reminded me how amazing having a cat can be' (Glamour)* * * * * * * *The uplifting true story of an unlikely friendship between a man on the streets of Covent Garden and the ginger cat who adopts him and helps him heal his life. Now a major motion picture starring Luke Treadaway.When James Bowen found an injured, ginger street cat curled up in the hallway of his sheltered accommodation, he had no idea just how much his life was about to change. James was living hand to mouth on the streets of London and the last thing he needed was a pet.Yet James couldn't resist helping the strikingly intelligent tom cat, whom he quickly christened Bob. He slowly nursed Bob back to health and then sent the cat on his way, imagining he would never see him again. But Bob had other ideas.Soon the two were inseparable and their diverse, comic and occasionally dangerous adventures would transform both their lives, slowly healing the scars of each other's troubled pasts.A Street Cat Named Bob is a moving and uplifting story that will touch the heart of anyone who reads it.IF you love A Street Cat Named Bob, don't miss The Little Book of Bob, the new book from James and Bob.

Warm, witty, honest and human, this book is a manifesto for staying alive, whatever your demons

Winner of the Pulitzer Price and William Hill Sports Book of the Year: Barbarian Days is a deeply rendered self-portrait of a lifelong surfer looking for transcendence 'that recalls early James Salter' (Geoff Dyer, Observer)Surfing only looks like a sport. To devotees, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a mental and physical study, a passionate way of life.New Yorker writer William Finnegan first started surfing as a young boy in California and Hawaii. Barbarian Days is his immersive memoir of a life spent travelling the world chasing waves through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa and beyond. Finnegan describes the edgy yet enduring brotherhood forged among the swell of the surf; and recalling his own apprenticeship to the world's most famous and challenging waves, he considers the intense relationship formed between man, board and water.Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, a social history, an extraordinary exploration of one man's gradual mastering of an exacting and little-understood art. It is a memoir of dangerous obsession and enchantment. 'Reading this guy on the subject of waves and water is like reading Hemingway on bullfighting; William Burroughs on controlled substances; Updike on adultery. . . . a coming-of-age story, seen through the gloss resin coat of a surfboard' Sports Illustrated

Carlo Ancelotti is one of the greatest managers of all time, with five Champions League titles to his name. Yet his approach could not be further from the aggressive theatricals favoured by many of his rivals. His understated style has earned him the fierce loyalty of players like David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo.In Quiet Leadership, Ancelotti reveals the full, riveting story of his managerial career - his methods, mentors, mistakes and triumphs - and takes us inside the dressing room to trace the characters, challenges and decisions that have shaped him. The result is both a scintillating memoir and a rare insight into the business of leadership.

'I am most grateful for two things: that I was born in North Korea, and that I escaped from North Korea.'Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die - from starvation, or disease, or even execution. This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on earth; her harrowing escape through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and then her escape from China across the Gobi desert to Mongolia, with only the stars to guide her way, and from there to South Korea and at last to freedom; and finally her emergence as a leading human rights activist - all before her 21st birthday.'Clear-eyed and devastating' Observer

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: with a new bonus chapterWINNER of the GoodReads Choice Awards 2017 for HumourIn this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood-along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again.In Talking As Fast As I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, "e;Did you, um, make it?"e; She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood ("e;Strangers were worried about me; that's how long I was single!"e;), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge onProject Runway ("e;It's like I had a fashion-induced blackout"e;).In "e;What It Was Like, Part One,"e; Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay "e;What It Was Like, Part Two"e; reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she's aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls ("e;If you're meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you've already set the bar too high"e;), and she's a card-carrying REI shopper ("e;My bungee cords now earn points!"e;).Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and-of course-talking as fast as you can.

The thrilling true story of a Marine special forces unit in a battle for their lives in Afghanistan from the New York Times bestselling author of Level Zero Heroes.

The unimaginable success of a gambling and investment legend

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE 'The political book of the year' Sunday Times 'You will not read a more important book about America this year' Economist

A collection of transcripts of conversations the novelist and screenwriter had with nine of her friends in 1964.

Garry Kasparov gives his first public account of his landmark 1997 chess match with the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue, and explains why, twenty years later, he's become convinced that artificial intelligence is good for humans.

________________________________________The bestselling true story and inspiration behind the hit Netflix show of how one underfunded FBI team became the first to explore the dark world of serial murderers.John Douglas is a former FBI Special Agent and expert in criminal profiling and behavioural science. He made a career of looking evil in the eye - and understanding it. No wonder that he was the inspiration for Special Agent Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, as well as the film's consultant on the reality of serial killers.Douglas invented and established the practice of criminal profiling, and submerged himself in the world of serial killers in a quest to understand why they killed, and to help prevent more innocent lives from being ended by future killers. As his serial crime unit developed from a derided two-bit operation in a dingy officer to one of the FBI's elite task forces, Douglas personally confronted the most terrible crimes of the age, including those of Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy and the Atlanta child murderer.With the fierce page-turning power of a bestselling novel, yet terrifyingly true, Mindhunter is a true crime classic.________________________________________'John Douglas knows more about serial killers than anybody in the world' - Jonathan Demme, director of The Silence of the Lambs 'A cracker of a book' - Esquire

What do you do when you wake up in your mid-forties and realize you've been living a lie your whole life? Do you tell? Or do you keep it to yourself?Laura James found out that she was autistic as an adult, after she had forged a career for herself, married twice and raised four children. This book tracks the year of Laura's life after she receives a definitive diagnosis from her doctor, as she learns that 'different' doesn't need to mean 'less' and how there is a place for all of us, and it's never too late to find it.Laura draws on her professional and personal experiences and reflects on her life in the light of her diagnosis, which for her explains some of her differences; why, as a child, she felt happier spinning in circles than standing still and why she has always found it difficult to work in places with a lot of ambient noise. Although this is a personal story, the book has a wider focus too, exploring reasons for the lower rate of diagnosed autism in women and a wide range of topics including eating disorders and autism, marriage and motherhood.Odd Girl Out gives a timely account from a woman negotiating the autistic spectrum, from a poignant and personal perspective.

The often hilarious, at times horrifying and occasionally heartbreaking diaries of a former junior doctor, and the story of why he decided to hang up his stethoscope.

When reality dawned and Sammy realised she was one of countless vulnerable child victims - many of whom were trafficked around the north of England - she took it upon herself to blow the whistle and save others from a similar fate. Thanks to Sammy's bravery, the gang was fully exposed, as well as the authorities that did little to help her.