Human Biography

A photo on Masih's Facebook page: a woman standing proudly, face bare, hair blowing in the wind. Her crime: removing her veil, or hijab, which is compulsory for women in Iran. This is the self-portrait that sparked "My Stealthy Freedom", a social media campaign that went viral. But Masih is so much more than the arresting face that sparked a campaign inspiring women to find their voices. She's also a world-class journalist whose personal story, told in her unforgettably bold and spirited voice, is emotional and inspiring.

Travelling at almost 18,000 miles per hour - 10 times faster than a rifle bullet - Yuri Gagarin circles the globe in just 106 minutes. From his windows, he sees the Earth as nobody has before, crossing a sunset and a sunrise, crossing oceans and continents, witnessing its beauty and its fragility. While his launch begins in total secrecy, within hours of his landing, he has become a world celebrity - the first human to leave the planet. Beyond tells the thrilling story behind that epic flight on its 60th anniversary.

Jane Ferguson has covered nearly every war front and humanitarian crisis of our time. She reported from Yemen as protests grew into the Arab Spring; she secured rare access to rebel-held Syria, where foreign journalists were banned, to cover its civil war. When the Taliban claimed Kabul in 2021, she was one of the last Western journalists to remain at the airport as thousands of Afghans, including some of her colleagues, struggled to evacuate.

In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain?

"You can love a dog so much, but you can never love them as much as you will miss them." A witty, heart-warming, and touching tale of a man, and man's best friend, brought together by a moment of fate. The Life and Adventures of Bert will make you smile, laugh, and shed a tear. This irresistibly charming memoir captures hearts and imaginations as we experience Bert's life from escaping a wretched existence, forming unbreakable loving bonds, to becoming one of Twitter's most loved dogs. You'll love this life-affirming book about an ordinary dog from humble beginnings because the love of a ...

Have you ever experienced moments that felt truly miraculous or beyond explanation? In this intimate journey, she unveils the tumultuous relationship with her father—a metamorphosis from the shackles of pain, hurt, and fear to the liberating embrace of compassion, generosity, and forgiveness. This book is both raw and redemptive — Rosanne invites you into the haunting image of a young girl, clad in a yellow pinafore, white socks, and shoes, too afraid to smile. Yet, amid the shadows, there are heartwarming vignettes of Sunday morning adventures to the bakery, where watermelon-sized ...

Met hierdie unieke boek vertel Nataniël die verhaal van ’n kindertyd in drie klein dorpies en een groot voorstad, ’n era waartydens reëls blindelings gevolg is en oor ’n jong seun met ’n oorweldigende vrees vir die gewone. Kyk na my is Nataniël se eerste volwaardige memoir. Voorgelees deur die skrywer.

Shyness is a pervasive human trait: even most extroverts know what it is like to stand tongue-tied at the fringe of an unfamiliar group or flush with embarrassment at being the unwelcome center of attention. And yet the cultural history of shyness has remained largely unwritten - until now. With incisiveness, passion, and humor, Joe Moran offers an eclectic and original exploration of what it means to be a "shrinking violet".

Henry Miller's gifts of profundity, humor, and spiritual sensitivity as well as his joy of living are well displayed in this collection of his insights into the human character. The pieces range from the delightfully raucous to the metaphysically illuminating, and include portraits of the famous and less-than-famous people in Miller's life. All human beings become real to the listener under Miller's penetrating mind and loving eye.

At thirty-seven, Dr. Stephanie Cacioppo was content to be single. She was fulfilled by her work on the neuroscience of romantic love—how finding and growing with a partner literally reshapes our brains. That was, until she met the foremost neuroscientist of loneliness. A whirlwind romance led to marriage, to sharing an office at the University of Chicago. After seven years of being inseparable at work and home, she lost her beloved husband following a devastating battle with cancer.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish---now known simply as the "Gaza doctor"---captured hearts and headlines around the world in the aftermath of horrific tragedy: On January 16, 2009, Israeli shells hit his home in the Gaza Strip, killing three of his daughters and his niece. By turns inspiring and heartbreaking, hopeful and horrifying, I Shall Not Hate is Abuelaish's account of an extraordinary life.

The fair sex. We've often heard this cliched expression being used to refer to women. Although it has become increasingly outdated, the mindset still exists that women are the gentle and nurturing sex. When it comes to murder, that notion gets turned on its head. And this isn't a recent phenomenon; we can find plenty of female killers going back in history. In fact, some of the world's most notorious serial killers have been women. These female killers give their male counterparts a run for their money and deserve to be counted among the most famous serial killers.

The Age of Genius explores the eventful intertwining of outward event and inner intellectual life to tell, in all its richness and depth, the story of the 17th century in Europe. It was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, from science to the arts, from philosophy to politics. Acclaimed philosopher and historian A. C. Grayling points to three primary factors that led to the rise of vernacular (popular) languages in philosophy, theology, science, and literature.

As co-founder and CEO of Dark Watch, author Noel Thomas has led United States law enforcement and the judicial system into the new battleground, where high-tech data analysis is changing how criminals are caught and prosecuted. Dark Traffic arrives on a new wave of media attention and actions at the federal, state, and local government levels, and informs listeners how they can play a role in identifying and helping stop trafficking that occurs in their own neighborhood. Noel’s story of how he became aware of the issue is proof.

David Hume (1711-1776) is perhaps best known for his ideas about cause and effect and his criticisms of religion, but he is rarely thought of as a philosopher with practical wisdom to offer. Yet Hume's philosophy is grounded in an honest assessment of nature - human nature in particular. The Great Guide is an engaging and eye-opening account of how Hume's thought should serve as the basis for a complete approach to life. Julian Baggini masterfully interweaves biography with intellectual history and philosophy to give us a complete vision of Hume's guide to life.

In 1894, Leonarda Cianciulla was born into an abusive household. As a young girl, she attempted suicide twice. After decades of abuse, Leonarda sought stability and married Raffaele Pansardi. Her mother did not approve and conveyed her anger in the strongest possible sense. She cursed the marriage. Leonarda believed that her mother’s words had power and they haunted her. In 1939, Leonarda’s eldest son, Giuseppe, informed her that he was going to join the Army. She decided that the only way to protect him was through the most extreme means - human sacrifice.

One Breath is a gripping and powerful exploration of the strange and fascinating sport of freediving, and of the tragic, untimely death of America's greatest freediver Competitive freediving - a sport built on diving as deep as possible on a single breath - tests the limits of human ability in the most hostile environment on earth.

In Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, longtime intrepid war correspondent Christina Lamb makes us witness to the lives of women in wartime. An award-winning war correspondent for 25 years (she’s never had a female editor) Lamb reports two wars - the “bang-bang” war and the story of how the people behind the lines live and survive.

Ultra running defies conventional logic. Yet this most brutal and challenging sport is now one of the fastest growing in the world. But is it an antidote to modern life or a symptom of a modern illness? Adharanand Finn travelled to the heart of the sport to find out - and to see if could become an ultra runner himself. His journey took him from the deserts of Oman to the snow-capped peaks of the Rockies, and from a 24-hour track race in Tooting to his ultimate goal, the 105-mile Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc.

Nina McCall was one of many women unfairly imprisoned by the United States government throughout the 20th century. Tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of women and girls were locked up - usually without due process - simply because officials suspected these women were prostitutes, carrying STIs, or just "promiscuous." This discriminatory program, dubbed the "American Plan", lasted from the 1910s into the 1950s, implicating a number of luminaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Earl Warren, and even Eliot Ness.