Craft Biography

This classic of spycraft is based on Allen Dulles's incomparable experience as a diplomat, international lawyer, and America's premier intelligence officer. Dulles was a high-ranking officer of the CIA's predecessor - the Office of Strategic Services - and was present at the inception of the CIA, where he served eight of his 10 years there as director. Here he sums up what he learned about intelligence from nearly a half-century of experience in foreign affairs.

David Paich has shaped the sound of popular music for more than five decades, yet his story has remained largely in the shadows. David Paich brings his extraordinary journey to life in full documentary detail. Born into Los Angeles’ studio culture as the son of arranger Marty Paich, David grew up surrounded by orchestral scores, film cues, and the daily grind of professional musicianship. By the time he was a teenager, he was already rehearsing like a veteran, internalizing the discipline that would make him one of the most in-demand session keyboardists of the 1970s. This biography ...

“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery.

Whether she’s playing an “age-defying” book editor on television or dazzling audiences on the Broadway stage, Sutton Foster manages to make it all look easy. How? Crafting. From the moment she picked up a cross stitch needle to escape the bullying chorus girls in her early performing days, she was hooked. Cross stitching led to crocheting, crocheting led to collages, which led to drawing, and so much more. Channeling her emotions into her creations centered Sutton as she navigated the significant moments in her life and gave her tangible reminders of her experiences.

Authors Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key build on the popularity of their 2022 Webby Award-winning podcast and delve deeper into the world of sketch, helped along with new essays created expressly for the book by comedy greats.

Neal Schon has been the melodic constant in five decades of shifting rock landscapes. From his teenage recruitment by Santana to founding Journey, from the anthems of Escape to the resurgence of “Don’t Stop Believin’” in the streaming era, his guitar has carried both cultural weight and unforgettable identity. Neal Schon – Singable Guitar offers the definitive account of how one guitarist shaped not only a band, but the sound of American arena rock itself. Drawing from the San Francisco club circuits, the high-pressure sessions of Infinity and Frontiers, and the business battles ...

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

The eldest son of a master woodworker, Callum Robinson spent his childhood surrounded by wood and trees, absorbing craft lessons in his father’s workshop. In time he became his father’s apprentice, helping to create exquisite bespoke objects. But eventually the need to find his own path led him to establish his own workshop and chase ever bigger and more commercial projects, until the devastating loss of one major job threatened to bring it all crashing down.

Today, even as so many of us spend hours in front of screens and in the virtual world, there is a growing movement that recognizes the power in the personal, the imperfect, the handmade. Eric Gorges, a metal shaper, taps into that hunger to get back to what's "real" through visits with the fellow artisans he has profiled for his popular public television program. In this book, he tells their stories and shares the collective wisdom of calligraphers, potters, stone carvers, glassblowers, engravers, wood workers, and more while celebrating the culture they've created.

Until the mass hysteria of the seventeenth century, accusations of witchcraft in England were rare. However, four royal women, related in family and in court ties - Joan of Navarre, Eleanor Cobham, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, and Elizabeth Woodville - were accused of practicing witchcraft in order to kill or influence the king. In Royal Witches, Gemma Hollman explores the lives and the cases of these so-called witches, placing them in the historical context of 15th-century England, a setting rife with political upheaval and war.

Lindsey Buckingham is more than the guitarist behind Fleetwood Mac’s biggest hits—he is one of popular music’s most exacting architects. Lindsey Buckingham — Go Your Own Way traces his journey from Palo Alto bedrooms and high school choirs through the volatile years of Rumours, the bold experiments of Tusk, and the precision pop of Tango in the Night, into his restless solo career and post-Fleetwood Mac reinventions. This definitive biography examines the discipline that has shaped Buckingham’s music for five decades. From his intricate fingerstyle guitar technique—thumb, index,...

Peter Seibel interviews 15 of the most interesting computer programmers alive today in Coders at Work, offering a companion volume to Apress’ highly acclaimed best-seller Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston. As the words “at work” suggest, Peter Seibel focuses on how his interviewees tackle the day-to-day work of programming, while revealing much more, like how they became great programmers, how they recognize programming talent in others, and what kinds of problems they find most interesting.

Many books, fiction and nonfiction alike, purport to probe the inner workings of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Many attempt to create spine-tingling suspense or allege that America's civilian spy operation has run amok and been infested with rogues and criminals. But this book is different. In fact it’s a unique straightforward, honest, surprisingly captivating memoir by one of the CIA's most well-known and honored career officers.

In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, he finally tells her story.

Socialist, philosopher, and poet William Morris (1834 - 1896) was at the center of the design renaissance of the 1880s, not only because of his celebrated hostility to aspects of machine culture, but because of his success as a designer and businessman whose work had enormous influence on the next generation of artists, craftsmen, and designers.

Tonya Craft, a Georgia kindergarten teacher and loving mother of two, never expected a knock on her door to change her life forever. But in May 2008, false accusations of child molestation turned her world upside down. The trial that followed dragged her reputation through the mud and lent nationwide notoriety to her name. Tonya's life spiraled into a witch-trial nightmare in which she was deemed guilty before her innocence could be determined by a jury.

Discover the behind-the-scenes story of the founding and exponential growth of Hobby Lobby. Learn the secrets of retail success from the man you built America's home-and-craft superstore—from the ground up. The retail industry has undergone enormous changes during the last thirty years. But there is one retailer that not only has remained consistent in the fluctuating—even tenuous—market but also has grown in the process.

In the 1990s, a quiet producer from Wisconsin helped set off one of the greatest cultural shifts in modern music. Nevermind the Producer: Butch Vig and the Sound of the ’90s Alternative Revolution is the definitive biography of Bryan David “Butch” Vig, the drummer-turned-producer whose fingerprints are all over the albums that redefined a generation. From his rural upbringing in Viroqua, Wisconsin, to his early experiments with tape loops at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Vig built a foundation of discipline and curiosity that would eventually shape the sound of alternative ...

Enclosed is a biography of my life, growing up in central Illinois, a walk if you will of my life's journey, Involving my life's interest including, the Occult, as well as my relationships throughout my life. my many loves, as well as losses, Trials, struggles, as well as my loves, lusts, & sins, along the way. I end my book with my love of nature and my fascination in Witchcraft, and changing paths along the way, from my involvement in Christian Ministry, having now returned to my Pagan path, where I reside now in the Philippines with my Native Island Bride, as I continue my love of ...

Having flown an astonishing 400 different aircraft, as a licensed Category 1 test pilot and flight test instructor for both airplanes and helicopters, Chris Taylor is arguably one of the best qualified and widely experienced test pilots working today anywhere in the world. After obtaining his private pilot’s license at the age of 17, Chris began his service flying career with the Royal Navy. He flew Wasp and Lynx helicopters from warships around the world under all kinds of circumstances.