Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than of marble. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we ... more »

Paul Williams has been writing about pop music for decades, never flagging in his enthusiasm or his emotional and intellectual openness to the newest music. His insight into how it feels when we listen to certain performers or certain performances makes a connection between music and reading that is ... more »

You are six years old. Every day after school your father takes you to a sprawling castle filled with exotic animals, bowls of candy, and half-naked women catering to your every need. You have your own room. You have new friends. You have an uncle Hef who's always there for you. Welcome to the world ... more »

Boy meets dot-com, boy falls for dot-com, boy flees dot-com in horror. So goes one of the most perversely hilarious love stories you will ever read, one that blends tech culture, hero worship, cat litter, Albanian economics, venture capitalism, and free bagels into a surreal cocktail of delusion. In ... more »

Eminem: Kotzbrocken für die einen, rebellischer Held für die anderen. Kaum ein Musikkünstler hat je so stark polarisiert wie der 28-jährige amerikanische Rapper Eminem. Marshall Bruce Mathers III., so sein bürgerlicher Name, wuchs ohne Vater und unter ärmlichsten Bedingungen in den schlimmsten Gegenden ... more »

Whatever anyone thinks of Donald Trump, the truth is far more complex--and fascinating. Instead of society nightlife, most evenings he's at home watching TV and munching Oreos. He has a line of clothing and bottled water emblazoned with his image, yet he needed a loan from his siblings to stay afloat ... more »

It is with a kind of fear that I begin to write the history of my life. I have, as it were, a superstitious hesitation in lifting the veil that clings about my childhood like a golden mist. The task of writing an autobiography is a difficult one. When I try to classify my earliest impressions, I find ... more »

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write. In 1999, Stephen King began to write about his craft -- and his life. By midyear, a widely reported accident jeopardized the survival of both. And in his months of recovery, the link between writing and living became more ... more »

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor - actor and self-confessed bike nut - noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska. It was a revelation ... more »

Just two hours ago, I had been heating up some lentil soup at my mom's in Brooklyn, thinking I'd eat it and maybe read some Edith Wharton before bed. Now here I was at a runaway shelter, staring at a nun's mustache and wondering where I was going to spend the rest of my adolescence. At fifteen, sick ... more »

Selected and annotated by the author of the acclaimed Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, this collection of Franklin's writings shows why he was the bestselling author of his day and remains America's favorite Founder and wit. more »

It's all about you. Your apartment. Your job. Your dates. Your sex life. Your time off. Your exercise. Your food. Your music. Your future. What are you waiting for? Who will you love? What is it, really, that you want? The life of a single woman in the twenty-first century is full of new connections ... more »