Biography & Autobiography : Rich & Famous

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along th more...

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SEXUAL DEVIANTS, NAZI SPIES, DANGEROUS LONERS, COMMUNISTS, DRUG ADDICTS, TRAITORS, AND MOBSTERS. THIS IS HOLLYWOOD. DECLASSIFIED. It's tough being rich and famous -- stalked, photographed, hounded, and dissected. But obsessive celebrity watching has a lurid history that began long before tabloid shutterbugs took their first shot. Here for the first time are the recently declassified celebrity files of the FBI, the CIA, and the military, giving the private dirt on the most ''suspect, dangerous an more...

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A vibrant, sympathetic portrait of the once and future king of rock ?n? roll by the award-winning author of Shiloh and In Country. To this clear-eyed portrait of the first rock ?n? roll superstar, Bobbie Ann Mason brings a novelist?s insight and the empathy of a fellow Southerner who, from the first time she heard his voice on the family radio, knew that Elvis was ?one of us.? Elvis Presley deftly braids the mythic and human aspects of his story, capturing both the charismatic, boundary-breaking singer who reveled in his celebrity and the soft-spoken, working-class Southern boy who was fatally unprepared for his success. The result is a riveting, tragic book that goes to the heart of the American dream. Introduction. ON AUGUST 16, 1977, when I learned that the King-Elvis Presley-was dead, I was vacationing in Nova Scotia. In the lounge at the inn where I was staying, the news came on TV. Stunned, I could only mumble some clichés. The bartender recalled the death of the actor Audie Murphy, a war hero of his generation. I felt far from home. Although I hadn't thought much about Elvis lately, I now sensed there was a great hole in the American cultural landscape. Elvis had always been there, hovering in the national psyche, his life punctuating our times-his appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, his first movie, the death of his mother, the Army, his marriage, the 1968 ''Comeback Special.'' It seemed inconceivable that Elvis-just forty-two years old-was gone. For me, Elvis is personal-as a Southerner and something of a neighbor. I heard Elvis from the very beginning on the Memphis radio stations. Many parents found Elvis's music dangerously evocative, his movements lewd and suggestive-but when my family saw Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show, singing ''Ready Teddy,'' my father cried, ''Boy, he's good!'' We had been listening to rhythm-and-blues late at night on the radio for years, and we immediately recognized what Elvis was about. We had heard Arthur ''Big Boy'' Crudup and more...

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This intimate, shocking—and thoroughly unauthorized—portrait of the Hiltons chronicles the family’s amazing odyssey from poverty and obscurity to glory and glamour. From Conrad Hilton, the eccentric “innkeeper to the world” who built a global empire beginning with a fleabag in a dusty Texas backwater, to Paris Hilton, his great-granddaughter, whose fame took off with a sex video, House of Hilton is the unauthorized, eye-popping portrait of one of America’s most outrageous dynasties. more...

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Learn more about 100 Richest People in the World - Top 100 Billionaires of 2007. Illustrated history of their lifes and wealth. FREE 5 top billionaires in the trial version. Illustrated with photographs. Navigate from Table of Contents or search for the words or phrases. Written in clear and concise English. Top 100 Billionaires of 2007. 1. Bill Gates $56 billion, US (Microsoft). 2. Warren Buffett $52 billion, US (Berkshire Hathaway). 3. Carlos Slim Helú $49 billion, Mexico, Lebanon (Telmex, Telcel, America Movil). 4. Ingvar Kamprad $33 billion, Sweden (IKEA). 5. Lakshmi Mittal $32 billion, UK, India (Mittal Steel Company). 6. Sheldon Adelson $26.5 billion, US (Las Vegas Sands). 7. Bernard Arnault $26 billion, France (Louis Vuitton). 8. Amancio Ortega $24 billion, Spain (Inditex Group). 9. Li Ka-shing $23 billion, Hong Kong (Cheung Kong Holdings, Hutchison Whampoa). 10. David Thomson & family $22 billion, Canada (Thomson Corporation). 11. Lawrence Ellison $21.5 billion, US (Oracle Corporation). 12. Liliane Bettencourt $20.7 billion, France (L''Oreal). 13. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud $20.3 billion, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon (Kingdom Holding Company). 14. Mukesh Ambani $20.1 billion, India (Reliance Industries). 15. Karl Albrecht $20 billion, Germany (ALDI). 16. Roman Abramovich $18.7 billion, Russia (Millhouse Capital). 17. Stefan Persson $18.4 billion, Sweden (Hennes & Mauritz). 18. Anil Ambani $18.2 billion, India (Reliance Communications). 19. Paul Allen $18 billion, US (Microsoft). 20. Theo Albrecht $17.5 billion, Germany (ALDI). 21. Azim Premji $17.1 billion, India (Wipro Technologies). 22. Lee Shau Kee $17 billion, Hong Kong (Henderson Land Development). 23. Jim Walton $16.8 billion, US (Wal-Mart). 24. Christy Walton & family $16.7 billion, US (Wal-Mart). 24. S. Robson Walton $16.7 billion, US (Wal-Mart). 26. Sergey Brin $16.6 billion, US (Google). 26. Larry Page $16.6 billion, US (Google). 26. Alice Walton $16.6 billion, US (Wal-Mart). 29. more...

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