Genius Biographies

Vince Ciacci wanted to be a "Made Guy". From the time he left the brutality of upstate New York's Coxsackie Reformatory, he worked for "Wiseguys", committing armed robberies, collecting for the Mob, and dreaming of the day that he would "get his button". He never made it into the Mafia's inner sanctum. Why? He was too crazy and too violent. Hooked on drugs and alcohol, Vince was a loose cannon, so dangerous that his own crew considered taking him out.

Much like her hit TV show, I Love Lucy, Americans in the 1950s fell in love with Lucy. Born in New York in 1911, Lucille Ball was always a natural performer. She danced in the chorus of Broadway shows and acted in small parts in Hollywood movies. But Ball's true gift was comedy. She found a way to showcase her gifts in 1951 when CBS gave her the chance to star in a sitcom.

In September 1769, 3,000 people descended on Stratford-upon-Avon to celebrate the artistic legacy of the town's most famous son, William Shakespeare. Attendees included the rich and powerful, the fashionable and the curious, eligible ladies and fortune hunters, and a horde of journalists and profiteers. For three days, they paraded through garlanded streets, listened to songs and oratorios, and enjoyed masked balls. It was a unique cultural moment - a coronation elevating Shakespeare to the throne of genius. Except it was a disaster....

For 10 years, they exchanged notes, letters, faxes, and phone calls. Stephen Sondheim would contact him, and Paul Salsini, the founder and editor of The Sondheim Review, would respond. And vice versa. Now, Salsini, a Milwaukee journalist, has described his unlikely long-distance relationship with the fabled composer/lyricist. Almost none of the book material has been seen by the general public. To thoroughly understand the great, revolutionary artistry of Stephen Sondheim, Sondheim & Me is indispensable.

A wildly entertaining book by one of the most obsessed and informed fans on the planet of TV icon Johnny Carson, setting the record straight on Carson's legacy and shining light on the personality behind the legendary comedian and talk show host.

Mr. Feynman was a brilliant and complicated man. He knew that his then-girlfriend, Arline, would die shortly after her tuberculosis diagnosis, but he married her anyway so he could take care of her. He emphasized the importance of learning rather than merely acquiring knowledge. He said that he did not need the Nobel Prize to validate his achievements, that the real litmus test would be the impact that he would make.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was recognized in his lifetime as the greatest living artist, creator of a succession of masterpieces in sculpture, fresco painting, and architecture. In all his work, Michelangelo impressed his contemporaries as a forceful personality, a divine genius endowed with terribilita, or intense emotional power.

في هذا الكتاب يتحدث عباس محمود العقاد عن الخليفة الأول أبو بكر الصديق ويرد فيه على اتهامات بعض المؤرخين للصديق بالمنهج العلمي وبدون أسلوب انفعالي وخصوصاً مسالة خلافته للدولة الإسلامية. كما أن الكاتب يتحدث في هذا عن مفتاح شخصيته ومفتاح الشخصية حسب رأي الكاتب هو ذلك الشيء الصغير الذي عن طريقه نستطيع الدخول في فهم شخصية الرجل ومفتاح الصديق هو الإعجاب بالبطولة وهي التي دفعته ليكون أول من آمن برسالة النبي محمد لان اعجابه بالرسول هو الذي أدى إلى اعجابه بالرسالة خلاف الخليفة الثاني عمر بن الخطاب والذي أدى اعجابه بالرسالة إلى الإعجاب بالنبي. عبقرية الصديق هو أحد سلسلة العبقريات الإسلامية.

In 2007, agents of the New York State Petroleum, Alcohol, and Tobacco Bureau (PATB) seized over half a million dollars in untaxed alcohol, drugs, and guns. This takedown, the largest in New York history, led to 87 arrests, the recovery of an unprecedented quantity of cocaine, crack, and marijuana, and captured the attention of law enforcement agencies all around the world. Under Too Long is the story of the PATB undercover team that led this investigation, as seen through the eyes of “Billy the Liquor Guy”.

Armed with unprecedented access to Edison's workshop diaries, notebooks, and letters, Israel brings fresh insights into how the inventor's creative mind worked. For the first time, much attention is devoted to his early family life in Ohio and Michigan, where the young Edison honed his entrepreneurial sense and eye for innovation as a newsstand owner and editor of a weekly newspaper. These experiences underscore the inventor's later successes with new resonance and pathos.

A radical look at Jane Austen as you've never seen her - as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies time after time.

For the centennial of his birth, the defining wunderkind of modern entertainment gets his due in a groundbreaking new biography of his early years - from his first forays in theater and radio to the inspiration and making of Citizen Kane. No American artist or entertainer has enjoyed a more dramatic rise than Orson Welles. In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before.

Toby Lester, author of the award-winning The Fourth Part of the World, masterfully crafts yet another century-spanning saga of people and ideas in this epic story of Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic drawing of a man inscribed in a circle and a square. Over time, the nearly 550-year-old ink-on-paper sketch has transformed into a collective symbol of the nature of genius, the beauty of the human form, and the universality of the human spirit.

Obsessive, brilliant, and tortured, Nikola Tesla was lauded for his invention of the alternating current (AC) and other significant contributions to science. His claim that “harnessing the forces of nature was the only worthwhile scientific endeavor" both impressed and enraged the scientific community. Eventually his peers could no longer dismiss his eccentricities and began to view him as a crackpot - a potentially dangerous one.

Immerse yourself in the life and legacy of one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of art, Michelangelo Buonarroti. "Michelangelo: Enigmatic Artist, Renaissance Genius" offers a comprehensive and captivating exploration of the artist's life, revealing the man behind the masterpieces that have defined the Renaissance and continue to inspire the world today. Born in 1475 in the small town of Caprese, Michelangelo's journey from a modest upbringing to becoming a towering figure of Western art is nothing short of remarkable. His story is one of relentless pursuit of perfection, ...

Discover the incredible lives of three geniuses who changed the world. Throughout history, countless inventors and thinkers have left huge impacts on the way we live - but none have been more impactful than the three men in this biography bundle. Inside, you’ll uncover the lives and powerful legacies of three inventors who irreversibly shaped the modern world.

This collection of essays and stories spans a wide variety of topics. There's the open letter to Charles Manson, the report of a brave archeologist's journey into a suburban man cave, and a long overdue missive from Leif Erikson to Christopher Columbus. Walt Whitman even teaches a spin class. Nate Dern's razor-sharp eye examines modern society and technology, man buns, dating apps, and juicing crazes.

¿Cómo surgieron los mayores genios del balón? Sus orígenes e inicios. Todos los obstáculos a los que se sobrepusieron. Su vida antes de la gloria.

Ernest Rutherford, who grew up in colonial New Zealand and came to Cambridge on a scholarship, made numerous revolutionary discoveries, among them the orbital structure of the atom and the concept of the “half-life” of radioactive materials, which led to a massive re-evaluation of the age of the Earth―previously judged just 100 million years old. Above all, perhaps, Rutherford and the young men working under him were the first to split the atom, unlocking tremendous forces―forces, as Rutherford himself predicted, that would bring us the atomic bomb.

Os talentos que ele cultivou se tornaram conhecidos do mundo todo: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe e vários outros. No entanto, Maxwell Perkins permaneceu um mistério, uma presença nos bastidores que servia a esses autores não só como editor, mas também como crítico, administrador de suas carreiras, financiador, terapeuta, confessionário e amigo.