Abraham Lincoln: A Penguin Life
by Thomas Keneally
Listed under Lincoln, Abraham
Andy Warhol: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives)
by Wayne Koestenbaum
Listed under Andy Warhol
Charles
Dickens: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives Series)
by Jane Smiley
(Hardcover)
Buddha
(Penguin Lives)
by Karen Armstrong
Books on Buddhism may overflow the shelves, but the life story of the
Buddha himself has remained obscure despite over 2,500 years of influence
on millions of people around the world. In an attempt to rectify this,
and to make the Buddha and Buddhism accessible to Westerners, the beloved
scholar and author of such sweeping religious studies as A History of God
has written a readable, sophisticated, and somewhat unconventional biography
of one of the most influential people of all time. Buddha himself fought
against the cult of personality, and the Buddhist scriptures were faithful,
giving few details of his life and personality. Karen Armstrong mines these
early scriptures, as well as later biographies, then fleshes the story
out with an explanation of the cultural landscape of the 6th century B.C.,
creating a deft blend of biography, history, philosophy, and mythology.
At the age of 29, Siddhartha Gautama walked away from the insulated
pleasure palace that had been his home and joined a growing force of wandering
monks searching for spiritual enlightenment during an age of upheaval.
Armstrong traces Gautama's journey through yoga and asceticism and grounds
it in the varied religious teachings of the time. In many parts of the
world during this so-called axial age, new religions were developing as
a response to growing urbanization and market forces. Yet each shared a
common impulse--they placed faith increasingly on the individual who was
to seek inner depth rather than magical control. Taoism and Confucianism,
Hinduism, monotheism in the Middle East and Iran, and Greek rationalism
were all emerging as Gautama made his determined way towards enlightenment
under the boddhi tree and during the next 45 years that he spent teaching
along the banks of the Ganges. Armstrong, in her intelligent and clarifying
style, is quick to point out the Buddha's relevance to our own time of
transition, struggle, and spiritual void in both his approach--which was
based on skepticism and empiricism--and his teachings.
Despite the lack of typical historical documentation, Armstrong has
written a rich and revealing description of both a unique time in history
and an unusual man. Buddha is a terrific primer for those interested in
the origins and fundamentals of Buddhism. --Lesley Reed - Amazon.com
Hardcover: 205 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.00 x
8.00 x 5.75
Publisher: Viking Press; (February 15, )
ISBN: 0670891932
Elvis Presley: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives)
by Bobbie Ann Mason
Listed under Elvis Presley
Napoleon: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives Series.)
by Paul Johnson
Listed under Napoleon Boneparte
Mao
Zedong (Penguin Lives)
by Jonathan D. Spence
(Hardcover)
Leonardo
Da Vinci (Penguin Lives)
by Sherwin B. Nuland
(Hardcover)
Pope
John XXIII: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives)
by Thomas Cahill
(Hardcover)
Joseph
Smith (Penguin Lives)
by Robert Vincent Remini
In 1820, a tall New York teenager received a vision from two angels,
warning him that all existing churches were corrupt abominations and that
"he must join none of them." So Joseph Smith founded the Mormon church.
Robert Remini, the noted biographer of Andrew Jackson and historian
of the Jacksonian era, locates Smith and the origins of the Mormon faith
in the heady early-nineteenth-century epoch of religious evangelicalism.
None of the many new sects and creeds that came out of that period has
enjoyed the success of Smith's church, Remini notes. None has undergone
the same intense degree of persecution, either, provoked by Smith's quest
for secular political power and "such teachings as polygamy, eternal matter,
baptism of the dead, a plurality of gods, men and women becoming gods themselves,
[and] God the Father being once a man who passed through a stage of mortality
before becoming God"--teachings that inspired charges of heresy, and that,
in the end, cost Joseph Smith his life in what Remini calls an act of political
assassination.
Remini delivers a nuanced, highly readable portrait of the controversial
leader, one that sheds light on his time and beliefs and emphasizes his
"striking human qualities." --Gregory McNamee - Amazon.com
(Hardcover)
Dante
(Penguin Lives)
by R. W. B. Lewis
(Hardcover)
Crazy
Horse (Penguin Lives)
by Larry McMurtry
(Hardcover)
Joan of Arc (Penguin Lives)
by Mary Gordon
Listed under Joan of Arc
Herman
Melville (Penguin Lives)
by Elizabeth Hardwick
(Hardcover)
James
Joyce: A Penguin Life (Penguin Lives)
by Edna O'Brien
(Hardcover)
Jane
Austen (Penguin Lives)
by Carol Shields
(Hardcover)
Marcel
Proust (Penguin Lives)
by Edmund White
(Hardcover)
Marlon
Brando (Penguin Lives)
by Patricia Bosworth
(Hardcover)
Mozart
(Penguin Lives)
by Peter Gay
(Hardcover)
Robert
E. Lee (Penguin Lives Series)
by Roy Blount
(Hardcover)
Rosa
Parks (Penguin Lives)
by Douglas Brinkley
(Hardcover)
Saint
Augustine (Penguin Lives)
by Garry Wills
(Hardcover)
Saint Therese of Lisieux (Penguin Lives Series)
by Kathryn Harrison
(Hardcover)
Out of Print - Try Used
Books
Simone
Weil (Penguin Lives)
by Francine Du Plessix Gray, Francis Du Plessix Gray
(Hardcover)
Virginia
Woolf (Penguin Lives)
by Nigel Nicolson
Book Description: This biography of Virginia Woolf is unusual
in two respects. It is written by someone who knew her well when he was
a child; and it closely investigates her attitudes to feminism and war.
Nigel Nicolson was the son of Vita Sackville-West, who was Virginia
Woolf’s most intimate friend, and for a short time her lover. He spent
many days in her company, particularly at the period when she was writing
Orlando, her spoof biography of his mother, and he has threaded his recollections
of her through his narrative of her life.
Virginia Woolf was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, and her
writings, specially her novels Mrs Dalloway and The Waves, were works of
astonishing originality. She is equally well-known for her two polemical
books, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas, which have become classics
of the feminist movement., although in Nicolson’s view they are ‘wildly
overstated’. On matters political, on the first world war, he also thinks
‘she got it wrong’. Nigel Nicolson’s life of Virginia Woolf is an affectionate,
but not uncritical biography of one of the most remarkable women of her
age.
Hardcover: 160 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.79 x
7.77 x 5.38
Publisher: Viking Press;
ISBN: 0670894435
Woodrow Wilson (Penguin Lives)
by Louis Auchincloss
Listed under Woodrow Wilson
Winston Churchill: A Penguin Life
by John Keegan
Listed under Winston Churchill
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