Biographies Power

Just as Steve Coll told the story of globalization through ExxonMobil and Andrew Ross Sorkin told the story of Wall Street excess through Too Big to Fail, Christopher Leonard’s Kochland uses the extraordinary account of how the biggest private company in the world grew to be that big to tell the story of modern corporate America.

They were the most powerful gang in Chinatown. Like the notorious crime families of the Italian Mob, the Asian youth gang known as the Ghost Shadows carved out their own territory in New York's underworld and ruled those streets for decades. Their leader Peter Chin, a young immigrant from the outskirts of Hong Kong, not only found a new family among his fellow gang members but became one of the two most powerful men in Chinatown's history at that time. For the first time ever, the former leader of the Ghost Shadows breaks his silence in this tell-all to author Everett De Morier

It was a rare and stunning reversal: after the judges at the 2024 Paris Olympics determined that Jordan had rightfully scored third place for her performance—following a successful challenge by her coach—she earned the bronze medal. Later, Jordan’s euphoria turned to devastation when the Court of Arbitration for Sport stripped her of that medal based on nothing but semantics. Jordan called the ruling, “One of the most challenging moments of my career. Believe me when I say I have had many.”

Producer, editor, and writer behind the highly addictive, informative, and popular YouTube channel The Nerdwriter, Evan Puschak presents “a brilliant, wide-ranging essay collection that explores meaning and how we make it with the thoughtfulness and open-hearted generosity that have long been hallmarks of Puschak’s writing” (John Green, New York Times bestselling author).

Rasputin separates fact from fiction to reveal the real life of one of history's most alluring figures. Drawing on a wealth of forgotten documents from archives in seven countries, Smith presents Rasputin in all his complexity - man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. Rasputin is not just a definitive biography of an extraordinary and legendary man, but a fascinating portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.

Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolo da Pavia return to Florence hoping for peace and quiet. It is not to be! An unwanted gift greets Leonardo as he enters his workshop. The gift he knows comes with “strings” but not accepting it could come with dire consequences. A debt to Cesare Borgia is incurred. Meanwhile, Florence is in turmoil, religious, social and political unrest leads to violence in the streets. Most horrifying – famous paintings are discovered slashed and burned, and sculptures are reduced to rubble. Which one of the disruptive forces terrorizing the city could be responsible. ...

In 1929, Stalin plunged Soviet Russia into a coercive "revolution from above", a decade-long effort to amass military-industrial power for a new war. He forced 25 million peasant families into state-run collectives and transformed the Communist Party into a servile instrument. In 1939, he concluded the pact with Hitler that enabled him to grasp at Eastern Europe while Hitler made war in the West.

As a young woman growing up in Africa, 17-year-old Leymah Gbowee was crushed by a savage war when violence reached her native Monrovia, depriving her of the education she yearned for and claiming the lives of relatives and friends. As war continued to ravage Liberia, Gbowee’s bitterness turned to rage-fueled action as she realized that women bear the greatest burden in prolonged conflicts.

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters comes a revelatory look at the inner workings of the world's most powerful royal family, and how the struggle for succession produced Saudi Arabia's charismatic but ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS.​

The “adopted” son of legendary organized crime boss Russell Bufalino, for decades D’Elia had unequaled access to the man the FBI and US Justice Department considered one of the leading organized crime figures in the United States. But the government had no real idea as to the breadth of Bufalino’s power and influence—or that it was Bufalino, from his bucolic home base in Pittston, Pennsylvania, who reigned over the five families in New York and other organized crime families throughout the country.

In an audiobook that is The Big Sick meets Dad Is Fat, Jeannie Gaffigan, writer/director/producer/accused supermom and wife of best-selling author/comedian Jim Gaffigan, writes with humor and heart about the pear-sized brain tumor she had removed, the toll it took on her enormous family, and the priceless lessons she learned along the way.

Years after his tragic death, Trayvon Martin’s name is still evoked every day. He has become a symbol of social justice activism, as has his hauntingly familiar image: the photo of a child still in the process of becoming a young man, wearing a hoodie and gazing silently at the camera. But who was Trayvon Martin, before he became, in death, an icon? And how did one Black child’s death on a dark, rainy street in a small Florida town become the match that lit a civil rights crusade?

MBS is the untold story of how a mysterious young prince emerged from Saudi Arabia’s sprawling royal family to overhaul the economy and society of the richest country in the Middle East - and gather as much power as possible into his own hands. Since his father, King Salman, ascended to the throne in 2015, Mohammed bin Salman has leveraged his influence to restructure the kingdom’s economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes, and confront its enemies around the region, especially Iran.

Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later to become the mother of Winston Churchill) refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated much of their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents.

On the night of October 6, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard left a bar with two alleged “strangers”, Aaron McKin­ney and Russell Henderson. Eighteen hours later, Matthew was found tied to a log fence on the outskirts of town, unconscious and barely alive. Overnight, a politically expedient myth took the place of important facts. By the time Matthew died a few days later, his name was synonymous with anti-gay hate. The Book of Matt, first published in 2013, demonstrated that the truth was in fact far more complicated - and daunting.

Hatshepsut - the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty - was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father's family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king.

As one of the most famous and influential couples in the world, David and Victoria Beckham have attained iconic status. The ultimate power couple have together built a multi-billion-dollar global brand. For decades, adoring fans have been captivated by the glamorous world they have created, but are their lives really as perfect as the Beckhams would like the world to believe? The House of Beckham unravels the extraordinary reality of the business-savvy cultural icons to tell an engrossing, often astonishing story of money, sex and power.

In her midforties, Gwendolyn Bounds attended a dinner party where someone asked a little girl: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It struck Bounds: In middle age, no one asks you that anymore. So she put the question to herself. The answer set her on an unexpected five-year path of transformation from an unathletic office executive glued to her screens to an age-group medalist and world championship competitor in obstacle course racing—a demanding military-style sport requiring speed, endurance, mobility, and strength.

Doaa Al Zamel was once an average Syrian girl growing up in a crowded house in a bustling city near the Jordanian border. But in 2011 her life was upended. Inspired by the events of the Arab Spring, Syrians began to stand up against their own oppressive regime. When the army was sent to take control of Doaa's hometown, strict curfews, power outages, water shortages, air raids, and violence disrupted everyday life.

Twitter seems like a perfect start-up success story. In barely six years, a small group of young, ambitious programmers in Silicon Valley built an $11.5 billion business out of the ashes of a failed podcasting company. Today Twitter boasts more than 200 million active users and has affected business, politics, media, and other fields in innumerable ways.