Autobiografie a biografie

Published four years after Rousseau’s death, Confessions is a remarkably frank and honest self-portrait, described by Rousseau as ‘the history of my soul’. From his idyllic youth in the Swiss mountains, to his career as a composer in Paris and his abandonment of his children, Rousseau lays bare his entire life with preternatural honesty.

Thanks to the invidious reputation of his most famous work, The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli exerts a unique hold over the popular imagination. But was Machiavelli as sinister as he is often thought to be? Might he not have been an infinitely more sympathetic figure, prone to political missteps, professional failures and personal dramas? In Machiavelli: His Life and Times, Alexander Lee reveals the man behind the myth, following him from cradle to grave, from his father’s penury and the abuse he suffered at a teacher’s hands, to his marriage and his many affairs (with both men and women), to his political triumphs and, ultimately, his fall from grace and exile.

Two Years Before the Mast is Richard Henry Dana Jr’s captivating account of life as a common sailor on board a merchant ship in the early 1830s. Initially an attempt to remedy the author’s eye fatigue, the two-year voyage from Boston to California had a transformative effect on Dana, whose diary gives a fascinating snapshot of pre-Gold Rush California.

Audiokniha KORESPONDENCE Jiřího Voskovce a Jana Wericha je jedním z největších projektů historie audioknih. Více než třicet let 20. století v dopisech dvou kamarádů na život a na smrt. V celkem 561 dopisech se dva legendární klauni představují tak, jak je neznáme. Prožívají přes oceán všechny své pracovní úspěchy i nezdary a osobní tragédie.

Activist and abolitionist Frederick Douglass is one of the most famous anti-slavery writers in American history. Following 20 years of enslavement in Maryland, Douglass made a daring bid for freedom in 1838, travelling north via the ‘underground railroad’ before arriving in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he would settle.

This is an unconventional biography of an unconventional woman. Eglantyne Jebb moved from drawing rooms to war zones, often defying expectation and at times breaking the law. Although not fond of individual children, she founded Save the Children and originated the revolutionary concept of children’s human rights.

Strhujúce osobné rozprávanie o tom, ako sa tvorí história, z pera prezidenta, ktorý posilnil vieru Američanov v silu demokracie. V dlho očakávanej prvej časti memoárov prináša Barack Obama príbeh neuveriteľnej odysey mladého muža hľadajúceho svoju identitu, ktorý sa nakoniec stane vodcom slobodného sveta.

Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey’s wonderfully witty and Wildean quartet of biographies, stands out as one of the most radical and groundbreaking works of its genre. With relentless precision, Strachey explores the lives of four exemplars of the Victorian age: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon, irreverently bringing to light the flaws, strengths, ambitions and hypocrisies of these treasured legends.

A leading industrialist of the 19th and 20th centuries, Andrew Carnegie was one of America’s most successful and generous businessmen. The Autobiography tells of his rise to power, from humble beginnings in Scotland to controlling the biggest steel empire in the history of the United States. Carnegie lays down the blueprint for success, with an abundance of inspiring life lessons, while also giving unique first-hand impressions of burgeoning 19th-century America and some of the most prominent people of the age, including Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Audiokniha Vlastní životopis, kterou napsala Agatha Christie. Nejslavnější detektiv všech dob Hercule Poirot nezůstal vlastnoručně přidělenému přízvisku věru mnoho dlužen. Vždyť co do proslulosti ho předčí snad jen jeho stvořitelka, nejprodávanější autorka všech dob: Agatha Christie. I ona coby introvertka jednoho dne zatoužila zpřístupnit druhým svůj vnitřní svět formou životopisu.