Archives de catégorie : Biography

THE WATCHMAKER’S DAUGHTER de Larry Loftis

A WWII biography of Corrie ten Boom, a groundbreaking female Dutch watchmaker who sheltered Jews and refugees from the Nazis, and persevered despite the loss of most of her family and being sent to a concentration camp.

THE WATCHMAKER’S DAUGHTER
by Larry Loftis
William Morrow/HarperCollins, March 2023
(via Javelin)

Photo credit: Spencer Freeman

From New York Times and internationally bestselling author Larry Loftis, the definitive biography of Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian watchmaker who worked with her family to help many Jews escape from the Nazis during WWII by hiding them in her home before getting arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Larry Loftis is the New York Times and international bestselling author of the nonfiction spy thrillers, Code Name: Lise—The True Story of the Woman Who Became WWII’s Most Highly Decorated Spy, and Into the Lion’s Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov—World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond, which have been published in multiple languages around the world. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Mr. Loftis was a corporate attorney and adjunct professor of law.

ZWISCHEN DURCHKOMMEN UND UMKOMMEN de Reinhold Messner

« Old-school alpinism is the art of survival in a place not fit for humans » Reinhold Messner

ZWISCHEN DURCHKOMMEN UND UMKOMMEN:
(Meeting the Challenge or Meeting One’s End)
by Reinhold Messner
Ludwig/Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe, October 2021

Old-school mountaineers confront the unknown with courage and self-sufficiency. They go where no one else dares to go, and take unbelievable risks. Ever since man first stood on top of Mont Blanc in 1786, they have continuously pushed the boundaries of the supposedly impossible. Reinhold Messner’s new book is a memorial to those pioneers, a history of traditional mountaineering told through the stories of its most celebrated heroes, often in their own words. Messner’s incisive essays reveal the mental and physical qualities needed to achieve what they did: qualities such as courage and passion, self-reliance in the face of danger, and the ability to focus on important things – and the refusal to use technically sophisticated gear.
In ZWISCHEN DURCHKOMMEN UND UMKOMMEN, Messner pays tribute to the human thirst for adventure and exploration, intimate encounters with nature, and climbing mountains without a safety net or ‘false bottoms’ – and calls on us to keep the legacy alive.

Reinhold Messner, born in 1944, is the most famous mountaineer and adventurer of our time. He was the first person to reach the top of all fourteen eight-thousanders, as well as the first to climb Everest solo and, together with Peter Habeler, the first to do so without supplemental oxygen. He has also crossed the Antarctic, Greenland and the Gobi desert on foot. He gives talks all over the world, is a documentary filmmaker, contributes to major international magazines, and has published countless books which have been translated into numerous languages. His most recent book was the 2019 « Nanga Parbat – Mein Schlüsselberg » (« Nanga Parbat – Paragon and Nemesis »), published by Ludwig.

SOFIA COPPOLA : FOREVER YOUNG de Hannah Strong

An illustrated critical survey of Academy Award–winning writer and director Sofia Coppola’s career, covering everything from her groundbreaking music videos through her latest films.

SOFIA COPPOLA : FOREVER YOUNG
by Hannah Strong
Abrams, May 2022

In the two decades since her first feature film was released, Sofia Coppola has created a tonally diverse, meticulously crafted, and unapologetically hyperfeminine aesthetic across a wide range of multimedia work. Her films explore untenable relationships and the euphoria and heartbreak these entail, and Coppola develops these themes deftly and with discernment across her movies and music videos. From The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette to Lost in Translation and The Beguiled, Coppola’s award-nominated filmography is also unique in how its consistent visual aesthetic is informed by and in conversation with contemporary fine art and photography.
SOFIA COPPOLA offers a rich and intimate look at the overarching stylistic and thematic components of Coppola’s work. In addition to critical essays about Coppola’s filmography, the book will include interviews with some of her closest collaborators, including musician Jean-Benoît Dunckel and costume designer Nancy Steiner, along with a foreword by Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher. It engages with her creative output while celebrating her talent as an imagemaker and storyteller. Along the way, readers meet again a cast of characters mired in the ennui of missed connections: loneliness, frustrated creativity, rebellious adolescence, and the double-edged knife of celebrity, all captured by the emotional, intimate power of the female gaze.

Hannah Strong is the associate editor at Little White Lies magazine. Her work has appeared in Vulture, GQ, the Guardian, and Dazed & Confused, and she regularly appears on television and radio as a film critic, largely for the BBC and ITV. Strong lives in London.

DIANAWORLD de Edward White

An intelligent and insightful exploration of Diana Spencer – the person and the cultural figure – through her relationships with the wide range of people who surrounded her.

DIANAWORLD:
The Many Lives of the People’s Princess
by Edward White
W.W. Norton, 2025
(via The Gernert Company)

DIANAWORLD is a fascinating, multi-faceted portrait of Diana, Princess of Wales—the person, the cultural figure, and the enduring mythology of the “People’s Princess”—exploring her relationships with those who knew her intimately, those who worked with and for her, and the many ordinary people from Britain, America, and elsewhere who felt connected to her. In some chapters, White will pay particular attention to Diana’s relationship with one person; in others, there will be a wider cast of characters. But in each case these relationships will connect to a theme highly germane to her private life, and her public reputation, providing an opportunity to question unexamined assumptions, as well as branching out into areas unexplored by straightforward biographies of Diana. This is a book about what Diana means to “us.”

Based in the UK, Edward White studied European and American history at Mansfield College, Oxford and Goldsmiths College, London. Since 2005 he has worked in the television industry, including two years at the BBC, devising programs in its art and history departments. Hehas written for publications including the Paris Review and is a contributor to The Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America (FSG, 2014) and The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock (W.W. Norton, 2021).

WITH GREAT POWER: The Marvelous Stan Lee, d’Annie Hunter Eriksen, illustré par Lee Gatlin

Stan Lee didn’t have hulking strength. Or fantastic flexibility. Or cat-like reflexes. His superpower was creating heroes who did.

WITH GREAT POWER: The Marvelous Stan Lee
by Annie Hunter Eriksen
illustrated by Lee Gatlin
Page Street Kids, September 2021

Every superhero has their origin story: a radioactive spider bite turns ordinary teen Peter Parker into Spider-Man, wealthy Tony Stark escapes captivity by building his Iron Man suit, scientist Bruce Banner survives gamma rays only to transform into the Hulk.
For Stan Lee, it was books of adventure, monsters, and magic that helped him transform from an ordinary boy to a superstar superhero creator. At first, reading these stories was a pathway to a world bigger than his family’s tiny apartment in New York City, but it wasn’t long until Stan was crafting his own stories, creating comics professionally when he was still just a teenager! Still, writing wasn’t exciting when the heroes were always the same: strong, perfect, and
boring. Stan had a revolutionary idea. What if anyone―even an ordinary kid―could be a superhero?
Discover more about the life of the Cameo King, known to many for his appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and how he revolutionized comics with this vibrant introduction bustling with action, humor, and references for fans new and old.
‘Nuff said!

Annie Hunter Eriksen grew up with a love of superheroes, and remains a huge Marvel nerd to this day. Her favorite comic book series is Ms. Marvel. She works as a freelance writer and lives in Ohio with her husband, cat named Cosmo, and hedgehog named Pineapple.

Lee Gatlin learned to draw by looking at cartoons, kids’ books, and comics. He is the illustrator of the Monster School by Kate Coombs (Chronicle). In addition to drawing and making things, he enjoys making a racket on the piano or banjo. An illustrator and cartoonist, he lives with wife and three children in Georgia.