Biografías, página 148 de 935

In this brave, beautiful, and deeply personal memoir, Laura Bush, one of our most beloved and private first ladies, tells her own extraordinary story. Born in the boom-and-bust oil town of Midland, Texas, Laura Welch grew up as an only child in a family that lost three babies to miscarriage or infant death. She vividly evokes Midland's brash, rugged culture, her close relationship with her father, and the bonds of early friendships that sustain her to this day. For the first time, in heart-wrenching detail, she writes about the devastating high school car accident that left her friend Mike Douglas dead and about her decades of unspoken grief. When Laura Welch first left West Texas in 1964, she never imagined that her journey would lead her to the world stage and the White House. After graduating from Southern Methodist University in 1968, in the thick of student rebellions across the country and at the dawn of the women's movement, she became an elementary school teacher, working in inner-city schools, then trained to be a librarian. At age thirty, she met George W. Bush, whom she had last passed in the hallway in seventh grade. Three months later, "the old maid of Midland married Midland's most eligible bachelor." With rare intimacy and candor, Laura Bush writes about her early married life as she was thrust into one of America's most prominent political families, as well as her deep longing for children and her husband's decision to give up drinking. By 1993, she found herself in the full glare of the political spotlight. But just as her husband won the Texas governorship in a stunning upset victory, her father, Harold Welch, was dying in Midland. In 2001, after one of the closest elections in American history, Laura Bush moved into the White House. Here she captures presidential life in the harrowing days and weeks after 9/11, when fighter-jet cover echoed through the walls and security scares sent the family to an underground shelter. She writes openly about the White House during wartime, the withering and relentless media spotlight, and the transformation of her role as she began to understand the power of the first lady..CONTINÚA

Bestselling author A. E. Hotchner's intimate account of his 53-year friendship with his pal Paul Newman. A. E. Hotchner first met Paul Newman in 1955 when the virtually unknown actor assumed the lead role in Hotchner's first television play, based on an Ernest Hemingway story. The project elevated both men from relative obscurity to recognition and began a close and trusted friendship that lasted until Newman's death in 2008. In "Paul and Me," Hotchner depicts a complicated, unpredictable, fun-loving, talented man, and takes the reader along on their adventures. The pair traveled extensively, skippered a succession of bizarre boats, confounded the business world, scored triumphs on the stage, and sustained their friendship through good times and bad. Most notably, they started Newman's Own as a prank and watched it morph into a major enterprise that so far has donated all its $300 million in profit to charities including the Hole in the Wall Camps worldwide, dedicated to helping thousands of children with life-threatening illnesses. "Paul and Me," complete with personal photographs, is the story of a freewheeling friendship and a tribute to the acclaimed actor who gave to the world as much as the world gave him. "From the Hardcover edition."

Respecto a la célebre princesa Zaida se han elaborado estudios enmarcados en otros más amplios dedicados a al-Andalus, Alfonso VI o sus mujeres, pero ninguno abarca la totalidad de las vicisitudes de este personaje reflejados en una biografía dedicada a su persona. La aparición de novedosos estudios osteológicos del panteón real de Alfonso VI (Sahagún) elaborados por un equipo multidisciplinar de las universidades de León, Barcelona, Complutense, País Vasco y Valencia y las últimas aportaciones trascendentales de reputados historiadores (Andrés Gambra, Antonio Linaje, Gonzalo Martínez, Alberto Montaner, Jaime de Salazar) motivan la aparición de este ejemplar. Se ha pretendido elaborar un trabajo rigurosamente histórico, que recoja y contraste cuantas informaciones nos han llegado de Zaida, incluso las dudosas y las falsas, para que la verdad salga a la luz. Muchos han sido los escritos que mezclan historia con leyenda, tergiversando la verdad. Otros se han basado en crónicas, que posteriormente han sido rebatidos, y bastantes más se han dejado llevar por narraciones juglarescas cuando no por suposiciones inventadas. Actualmente se siguen encontrando relatos que mantienen al rey al-Mu'tamid como padre de Zaida, o dando por buena la juglaresca y famosa dote de ciudades y castillos de una boda inexistente o la debatida identidad de las dos Isabeles: Zaida-Isabel concubina conversa al cristianismo con la Isabel francesa, penúltima esposa de Alfonso VI. Todas estas dudas pretendo que queden definitivamente despejadas en este libro. Es precisamente la dificultad de elaborar la biografía fidedigna de Zaida la que consigue atraer la atención de historiadores y novelistas. Y también su azarosa vida, llena de lujos, exquisiteces, tragedias, amores y maternidades reales. La curiosidad que actualmente sigue despertando la figura de Zaida puede verse satisfecha tras la lectura de esta semblanza, que se ha centrado en el rigor histórico, al detallar la vida de esta emblemática princesa andalusí.

On a foggy and frosty November day Kate Middleton sat next to the man she had agreed to marry, Prince William. Nervous, excited, yet strangely composed she faced the cameras for the first time as the woman who would one day be Queen. The world it seemed still loved their favourite fairytale - any girl could dream of becoming a princess. Kate's journey begins with her remarkable mother, Carole, a true rags-to-riches story. Sean Smith examines Kate's early life, her unhappy time being bullied at school before finding her feet at Marlborough College where she was transformed from an ugly duckling to a swan. He travels to St Andrews in Scotland where she met Prince William. Her relationship with William began when they shared a house, blossomed when they left university before hitting the rocks in 2007 when they split leaving Kate shattered and upset. But they rekindled their romance, and eventually William proposed and Kate's life changed forever. The story ends in Westminster Abbey where Kate and William married, describing all the glamour and spectacle of the great day. Fully illustrated this is the one book you will want to read about the event of the decade. And read again.

Un niño que se convertiría en un “mestizo perfecto”, huye de Polonia y acaba refugiado en un campo de concentración de Rusia, navega hacia México, donde inicia su carrera teatral, y acaba por convert

Out of the ruins and savagery of Second World War, the figure of Benito Mussolini looms large as one of the most influential during the first half of the twentieth century. After his ignominious end in Piazzale Loreto, most have tried to erase the memory and the actions of the once powerful dictator, while others have made an attempt to reassess his life and works, despite the indelible legacy of death, violence and destruction he left behind. But who is the real Benito Mussolini? Now that over sixty years of scholarship and an abundance of first-hand documents by his closest relations and his many lovers are available to the researcher, the elusive, contradictory and often misunderstood traits of his character are beginning to take shape into a more meaningful and better defined portrait of the man, the politician and the leader. Il Duce and His Women charts the main events in Mussolinis private and public life, from his humble beginnings in Romagna as the son of a blacksmith to his years as the director of a leading Socialist newspaper and his irresistible rise to power, with a particular focus on his renowned appetite for women, and the lesser-known influence they had on his decision-making. The result is a riveting account that will shock and haunt the readers for a long time.

Estas Confesiones melancólicas responden al doble propósito de contar todo aquello que a lo largo de la vida ha llenado el ser anímico del autor y de buscar la paz interior que piadosamente cierre el largo periplo de una vida intensa y, en ocasiones, dolorosa. Casi a la manera en que el filosofo Proclo reclamaba:"Dejadme descansar, pues estoy cansado, en el refugio de la piedad".Escribir un libro como este supone haber perdido, en buena medida, el arraigo que con tanta fuerza nos sujeta a los engaños y captaciones de la vida ordinaria, pero implica tambien, porque homo sum, mantener inevitablemente dosis apreciables de autoengaño y vanidad, aunque solo fuera porque esta ultima, al decir de Ernst Bloch, es el"ultimo vestido de que se despoja al hombre".Aunque en todo momento he tenido presente las modelicas Confesiones de san Agustin, no he tratado de emularlas y ni siquiera de acogerme a su habito elevador y santificante, sino tan solo de contar, con sinceridad y hasta con desgarro, que acontecimientos, vivencias y anhelos han estado presentes, para bien y para mal, en una vida que ha discurrido por trochas, ora edificantes y placenteras, ora sombrias y tristes, pero siempre signados por la nota de la"melancolia", que, desde Aristoteles, se atribuye a aquellos humanos empeñados en hacer cosas que intenten romper la monotonia e insignificancia de los que Schopenhauer llamaba"hombres fabricados en serie".

Un té en el Savoy que acabó en compromiso, matrimonio en Atenas y una vida común como monarcas. El 14 de mayo de 2012 se cumplen las Bodas de Oro de don Juan Carlos y doña Sofía. Una fecha idónea para hacer balance de estos cincuenta años de relacion personal y profesional de los reyes de España, dos personalidades que, aparentemente, no tenian nada que ver y que se unieron en un destino comun: la creacion de una familia y el servicio a nuestro pais.No fue un camino de rosas: las trabas del bunker franquista; las desavenencias con don Juan y su entorno de Estoril; las renunciasfamiliares; la crispacion y violencia de los primeros años de reinado; los distintos gobiernos en democracia; el fallido golpe de estado; la soledad; la conciliacion del deber con la vida familiar; los primeros pasos de los hijos; el papel de los principes de Asturias; los delicados momentos que atraviesa la corona a raiz del escandalo Urdangarin y el debate sucesorio son inteligentemente compendiados por Marius Carol en un libro que constituye un testimonio de estos cincuenta años de labor institucional, familiar y personal. Un libro imprescindible para entender mejor el papel jugado por la monarquia en la mas reciente historia de España y cual es el futuro de sus miembros.