The first English-language biography of Astrid Lindgren provides a moving and revealing portrait of the beloved Scandinavian literary icon whose adventures of Pippi Longstocking have influenced generations of young readers all over the world. Lindgren's sometimes turbulent life as an unwed teenage mother, outspoken advocate for the rights of women and children, and celebrated editor and author is chronicled in fascinating detail by Jens Andersen, one of Denmark's most popular biographers.

"Andersen provides a fascinating backdrop for the life of the acclaimed fairy tale writer . . . a budding genius placed in the context of his time." — Publishers WeeklyHans Christian Andersen was a storyteller for children of all ages, but he was more than that. He was a critical journalist with great enthusiasm for science, an existential thinker, an observant travel book writer, a passionate novelist, a deft paper cut-out artist, a neurotic hypochondriac...

An International Bestseller“Absolutely essential reading for every LEGO fan.” —BlocksThe definitive history of LEGO, based on unprecedented access to the company’s archives and rare interviews with the founding family who still owns the company"This book tells the story of how my family built the LEGO brand." —Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, former President/CEO of the LEGO Group and 3rd generation ownerIt’s estimated that each year between eighty and ninety million...

The extraordinary inside story of LEGO, based on unprecedented access to the company’s archives and rare interviews with the founding family that still owns the company""This book tells the story of how my family built the LEGO brand."" —Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, former President/CEO of the LEGO Group and 3rd generation ownerIt’s estimated that each year between eighty and ninety million children around the globe are given a box of LEGO, whil...

The basis for the movie of the same name, an astonishing tale of one lock of hair and its amazing travels--from nineteenth-century Vienna to twenty-first-century America.When Ludwig van Beethoven lay dying in 1827, a young musician named Ferdinand Hiller came to pay his respects to the great composer, snipping a lock of Beethoven's hair as a keepsake--as was custom at the time--in the process. For a century, the lock of hair was a treasured Hiller family relic, unt...

Norse Mythology explores the magical myths and legends of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and Viking-Age Greenland and outlines the way the prehistoric tales and beliefs from these regions that have remained embedded in the imagination of the world. The book begins with an Introduction that helps put Scandinavian mythology in place in history, followed by a chapter that explains the meaning of mythic time, and a third section that presents in-depth explanations of each mythologic...

From Jonathan Franzen, bestselling author of The Corrections and Crossroads, comes his razor-sharp translation of Frank Wedekind's major modern play, Spring Awakening.Featuring an introduction by Franzen.First performed in Germany in 1906, Frank Wedekind's controversial play Spring Awakening closed after one night in New York in 1917 amid charges of obscenity and public outrage. For the better part of the ...

The final work of fiction from Norman Mailer, a defining voice of the postwar era, is also one of his most ambitious, taking as its subject the evil of Adolf Hitler. The narrator, a mysterious SS man in possession of extraordinary secrets, follows Adolf from birth through adolescence and offers revealing portraits of Hitler’s parents and siblings. A crucial reflection on the shadows that eclipsed the twentieth century, Mailer’s noveldelivers myriad twists and surprises along with character...

'In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could do to any person; I create myself'Intimate, vulnerable and unsparing, Reborn bears witness to the evolution of Susan Sontag.With entries dating from 1947-1963, the first instalment from Susan Sontag's diaries charts her ascension from early adolescence to her early thirties. Unabashed, though thoroughly self-reflective, Sontag's diaries reveal the inner ...

Now a major motion picture starring Guy Pearce, The Last Vermeer* is a revelatory biography of the world’s most famous forger—a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush—and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.It’s a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering in mockery of the...

With his epic trilogy, The Sleepwalkers, Hermann Broch established himself as one of the great innovators of modern literature, a visionary writer-philosopher the equal of James Joyce, Thomas Mann, or Robert Musil. Even as he grounded his narratives in the intimate daily life of Germany, Broch was identifying the oceanic changes that would shortly sweep that life into the abyss.Whether he is writing about a neurotic army officer (The Romantic), a disgruntled bookke...

Teresa Renata Posselt, O.C.D. was the Novice Director, then Mother Prioress of the Cologne Carmel when Edith Stein lived there. This is Posselt’s tribute to Saint Edith Stein, a wreath of recollections, lovingly woven together. It is also the first-ever biography published about that “Great Woman of the Twentieth Century.” Having been out of print for half a century, the original text is here re-edited and enhanced by scholarly perspectives and updated and corrected in the light ...