John Merrick had lived for more than twenty years imprisoned in a body that condemned him to a miserable life in the workhouse and to humiliation as a circus sideshow freak. But beneath that tragic exterior, within that enormous and deformed head, thrived the soul of a poet, the heart of a dreamer, the longings of a man.

Merrick was doomed to suffer forever—until the kind Dr. Treves gave him the first real home in the London Hospital, and the town's most beautiful and esteemed actress made possible Merrick's cherished dream of human contact—and love.

Tisha is the beloved real-life story of a woman in the Alaskan wilderness, the children she taught, and the man she loved.

“From the time I’d been a girl, I’d been thrilled with the idea of living on a frontier. So when I was offered the job of teaching school in a gold-mining settlement called Chicken, I accepted right away.”

Anne Hobbs was only nineteen in 1927 when she came to the harsh and beautiful Alaska. Running a ramshackle schoolhouse would expose her to more than just the elements. After she allowed Native American children into her class and fell in love with a half-Inuit man, she would learn the meanings of prejudice and perseverance, irrational hatred and unconditional love.

“People get as mean as the weather,” she discovered, but they were also capable of great good. As told to Robert Specht, Anne Hobbs’s true story has captivated generations of readers.

A Man is a pseudo-biography about Alexandros Panagoulis written in the form of a novel. The story is penned by the renowned author Oriana Fallaci, who had an intense romantic relationship with Panagoulis.

The novel delves into Fallaci's view that Panagoulis was assassinated by a vast conspiracy, a perspective widely shared by many Greeks. Through this narrative, Fallaci explores themes of suffering, struggle, and the essence of truly living beyond mere survival.

Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo tells the harrowing story of Christiane F., a young girl who, at the age of twelve, was introduced to hashish in a youth home and by thirteen had fallen into heroin addiction. She and her heroin-addicted friends resorted to prostitution in the area around Bahnhof Zoo to fund their addiction. For nearly two years, her mother was unaware of her daughter's double life.

Christiane F. recounts her experiences with precise memory and unreserved openness, sharing the fates of children who are only acknowledged by the public in their deaths due to drugs. This story, repeating itself in Berlin, small towns, and villages, reflects the lives of thousands of children caught in the grip of substance abuse.

The Power Broker tells the hidden story behind the shaping (and mis-shaping) of twentieth-century New York, both city and state. For almost half a century, Robert Moses was the single most powerful man in New York, influencing not only the city's politics but also its physical structure. This book reveals how Moses developed his public authorities into a political machine that was virtually a fourth branch of government.

By mobilizing banks, contractors, labor unions, insurance firms, and even the press and the Church, Moses created an irresistible economic force. He personally conceived and completed public works costing 27 billion dollars, making him the greatest builder America—and probably the world—has ever known. Without ever being elected to office, he dominated the men who were, including his most bitter enemy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, until he encountered Nelson Rockefeller, the only man whose power equaled his own.

This book by Robert A. Caro reveals how power works in cities across the United States, making it a vital read for anyone interested in urban studies and the dynamics of power.

Corrie ten Boom, an unassuming old-maid watchmaker, led a life that would have been considered unremarkable for the first fifty years. Living with her sister and their father in a tiny Dutch house above their shop, their lives were as precise and regular as the timepieces they crafted. But as the Nazi occupation of Holland turned their world upside down, Corrie and her family were thrust into a story of extraordinary courage and faith.

Transformed into leaders within the Dutch Underground, they risked everything to hide Jewish individuals from the Nazi regime, ingeniously concealing a secret room for this purpose in their home. Despite their valiant efforts, they were eventually betrayed, and all but Corrie faced a grim fate in a concentration camp.

The Hiding Place is more than just a recounting of historical events; it's a testament to the indomitable human spirit and the power of love and faith to overcome the darkest of times.

Lust for Life is the classic fictional re-telling of the incredible life of Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent is not dead. He will never die. His love, his genius, the great beauty he has created will go on forever, enriching the world... He was a colossus... a great painter... a great philosopher... a martyr to his love of art.

Walking down the streets of Paris the young Vincent Van Gogh didn't feel like he belonged. Battling poverty, repeated heartbreak and familial obligation, Van Gogh was a man plagued by his own creative urge but with no outlet to express it. Until the day he picked up a paintbrush.

Written with raw insight and emotion, follow the artist through his tormented life, struggling against critical discouragement and mental turmoil and bare witness to his creative journey from a struggling artist to one of the world's most celebrated artists.

Henri Charrière, called Papillon, for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal: escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped... until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.

Charrière's astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic -- the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who simply would not be defeated.

Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished.

Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

Sarmiento, proscrito por la tiranía rosista y exiliado por dos veces en Chile, fue periodista brillante, político y polemista literario. "Facundo" es una biografía concebida como historia, historia de las guerras civiles de su patria centradas en la figura de Juan Facundo Quiroga, el más famoso, cruel, violento y despiadado caudillo de las guerras civiles argentinas. El desarrollo de los acontecimientos impulsó a Sarmiento a unir el tema biográfico a la realidad presente, denunciando a su enemigo Rosas.

Based on the biography of Lucio Agustine Rosenkreutz Crăciunescu and Thérèse Joselynn Aubrière.

Development period from 02-2002 to 04-20-2004.

On a summer morning in Sarajevo a hundred years ago, a teenage assassin named Gavrilo Princip fired not just the opening shots of the First World War but the starting gun for modern history, when he killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Yet the events Princip triggered were so monumental that his own story has been largely overlooked, his role garbled and motivations misrepresented.

The Trigger puts this right, filling out as never before a figure who changed our world and whose legacy still has an impact on all of us today. Born a penniless backwoodsman, Princip's life changed when he trekked through Bosnia and Serbia to attend school. As he ventured across fault lines of faith, nationalism and empire, so tightly clustered in the Balkans, radicalisation slowly transformed him from a frail farm boy into history's most influential assassin.

By retracing Princip's journey from his highland birthplace, through the mythical valleys of Bosnia to the fortress city of Belgrade and ultimately Sarajevo, Tim Butcher illuminates our understanding both of Princip and the places that shaped him. Tim uncovers details about Princip that have eluded historians for a century and draws on his own experience, as a war reporter in the Balkans in the 1990s, to face down ghosts of conflicts past and present.