LIVES – serie

'Karen Armstrong has been one of the most persistent and powerful voices in the eminently respectable task of popularising religious scholarship in the anglophone world' GUARDIAN'Her work has a broad sweep and that is extremely important' TLSBuddhism is a faith that commands over 100 million followers throughout the world. Buddha stands with Christ, Confucius and Mohammed as someone who revolutionised the religious ideas of his time to advocate a new way of living. Since Buddhism promotes no personal god, Buddhism, writes Armstrong, 'is essentially a psychological faith'. In our own age of secular anxiety, she shows that it has profound lessons to teach about selflessness and the simple life.All that is known about Buddha comes from a collection of ancient writings that fuse history, biography and myth. Karen Armstrong distils from these the key events of Buddha's life: his birth as Siddhartha Gotama in the fifth century BC and his abandonment of his wife and son; his attainment of enlightenment under the Banyan tree (the moment he became a buddha, or enlightened one; his political influence; the divisions among his followers; and his serene death. Armstrong also introduces the key tenets of Buddhism: she explains the doctrine of anatta (no-soul) and the concepts of kamma (actions), samsara (keeping going), dhamma (a law or teaching that reflects the fundamental principles of existence) and the idealised state of nibbana (literally the 'cooling of the ego'). Karen Armstrong's short book is a magnificent introduction to the life and thought of this most influential of spiritual thinkers.

Bestselling, award-winning novelist writing about one of the most popular and enduring English novelists - recently voted best author of all time.'Splendid ... a gem' LITERARY REVIEW'An excellent biography' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Shields on Austen offers up a delicious prospect. And we are not disappointed' SCOTSMANJane Austen was one of the world's most remarkable writers, whose characters are as alive today as they were two hundred years ago. Despite being one of the most perceptive writers about people and relationships, she never married and always lived with her parents and sister Cassandra.Perhaps unusual for women at that time, Jane Austen was acutely aware of the larger political and social world around her, but chose to focus her novels on the family as a microcosm through which to explore human nature.The prizewinning novelist Carol Shields gives us a beautifully written, perceptive look at the life of one of the finest and most popular English novelists of all time.

Superb, highly accessible biography of one of the giants of English literature by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A THOUSAND ACRES'Engaging and stimulating' Simon Callow'Jane Smiley, in her admirable contribution to Weidenfeld's series of short biographies, deals briskly with Dickens's career and works, and treats with sympathy and sense his relations with the women in his life' LITERARY REVIEWFrom a bitter and poverty-stricken childhood to a career as the most acclaimed and best loved writer in the English-speaking world, Charles Dickens had a life as full of incident as any of those he created in his novels of life in Victorian England. The enormous quantity of work, his public readings and his difficult relationships has made him a figure of enduring fascination. In this biography Jane Smiley reveals Charles Dickens as his contemporaries would have done, getting to know him more intimately than ever before. At the same time Smiley offers interpretations of almost all of Dickens' major works, showing how 'his novels shaped his life as much as his life shaped his novels'.

'You cannot find peace by avoiding life' Virginia WoolfAn intimate portrait of Virginia, the best-known and most influential Bloomsbury author of them all - 'All you need to know about the modernist, feminist icon' TIME OUT'A gem' SUNDAY TIMES'As a short introduction to Virginia Woolf this deceptively brief book could hardly be bettered and achieves high status instantly as a significant work of reference in its own right' THE TIMESVirginia Woolf was undoubtedly one of the literary giants of the twentieth century. She was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group, and her writings were works of astonishing originality. Nigel Nicolson is the son of Vita Sackville-West, who was Virginia Woolf's most intimate friend, and for a short time her lover. He spent many days in her company and he has threaded his recollections of her throughout this unique narrative of her life.

'Properly analytical ... always entertaining' TIME OUT'Should tempt both those generally familiar with Andy Warhol and, even more, young people who have trouble imagining how popular art can challenge the status quo' L A TIMESPainter, filmmaker, photographer, philosopher, all-round celebrity, Andy Warhol is an outstanding cultural icon. He revolutionised art by bringing to it images from popular culture - such as the Campbell's soup can and Marilyn Monroe's face - while his studio, the Factory, where his free-spirited cast of 'superstars' mingled with the rich and famous, became the place of origin for every groundswell shaping American culture.In many ways he can be seen as the precursor to today's 'celebrity artists' such as Tracey Emin and Damian Hirst. But what of the man behind the white wig and dark glasses? Koestenbaum gives a fascinating, revealing and thought-provoking picture of pop art's greatest icon.

The greatest politician and statesmen of the twentieth century by Britain's leading military historian.'Superbly accessible ... witty, opinionated, but above all authoritative' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Keegan's lively, loving biography is a very useful introduction to the mass of materials that underpin its subject' THE TIMESWas Churchill as a great a wartime leader as he has hitherto been made out? John Keegan discusses the view of the soldiers such as Alanbrooke, his wartime Chief of Staff, and considers Churchill the politician who surprisingly got it wrong so often, not least in the 1945 election. Keegan also writes vividly about Churchill's upbringing and his ambitious streak, which emerged early on and led him into the army and the Boer War.