Charles John Klosterman is an American author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New …
The Brazilian author PAULO COELHO was born in 1947 in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Before dedicating his life completely to literature, he worked as theatre director and actor, lyricist and journalist.…
Barack Obama was the 44th president of the United States, elected in November 2008 and holding office for two terms. He is the author of two previous New York Times bestselling books, Dreams from My F…
In 1934, scientist Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. After earning bachelor and master's degrees at Cornell, Sagan earned a double doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1960. He became profess…
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little), also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an American Black Muslim minister and a spokesman for the Nation of Islam.
After leaving the Nation of Islam in 1964, he mad…
Frederick Douglass (né Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey) was born a slave in the state of Maryland in 1818. After his escape from slavery, Douglass became a renowned abolitionist, editor and femin…
Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the pivotal leaders of the American civil rights movement. King was a Baptist minister, one of the few leadership roles available to black men at the time. He became…
Rhonda Byrne is an Australian television writer and producer, best known for her New Thought works, The Secret—a book and a film by the same name. By the Spring of 2007 the book had sold almost 4 mill…
Rashid Ismail Khalidi (Arabic: رشيد إسماعيل خالدي; born 18 November 1948) is a Palestinian-American historian of the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columb…
In 1964, Poitier became the first Bahamian to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field. Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and …
Cal Newport is Provost’s Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University, and the author of seven books. His ideas and writing are frequently featured in major publications and on…
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in a fully representative democratic election, who held office from 1994–99.
Charlie Macksey was born during a snowy winter in Northumberland. He has been a cartoonist for The Spectator and a book illustrator for Oxford University Press. He has collaborated with Richard Curtis…
Megan Miranda is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls; The Perfect Stranger; The Last House Guest, which was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick; The Girl from Widow Hills; Su…
Sri M (born Mumtaz Ali Khan), who was born a Muslim, was attracted to Vedic teachings at an early age. He met his Guru at the age of 9 and left home at 19 to live in the Himalayas, where he met many s…
"Dipo Faloyin is a Senior Editor at VICE, where he focuses on race, culture, and identity around the world. His writing has also appeared in Dazed, Prospect, Huffington Post, and Refinery 29 among oth…
