Up close (Viking)

When Bill Gates was born in 1955, no one owned a personal computer. Gates envisioned what a computerized society could be and he set out to lead the way, building the Microsoft empire with single-minded drive. Today, the man who made his fortune by putting the whole world in touch now hopes to improve lives around the planet.

Biography of Jane Goodall who at age twenty-six started a six-month project at the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve on Lake Tanganyika, Africa which became her life's work.

Thurgood Marshall became the first African American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it's his life leading up to that point--from school troublemaker to passionate lawyer--that makes him both accessibly real and a role model to Americans of every color.

Born into a poor family in Baltimore, George Herman Ruth Jr. was sent to a Catholic reform school at age seven, where he learned how to play baseball. Initially a talented southpaw, the Babe went on to shatter every home-run record on the books--when fewer games were played in a season and a heavier ball was used.