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Baldwin: A love story
By Nicholas Boggs. 2025
Drawing on new archival material, original research, and interviews, this spellbinding book is the first major biography of James Baldwin…
in three decades, revealing how profoundly his personal relationships shaped his life and work. Baldwin: A Love Story , the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer's personal relationships shaped his life and work. Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic relationships: with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin's last great love is explored in these pages for the first time. Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships—geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic— and alchemized them into novels, essays, and plays that speak truth to power and had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history. Richly immersive, Baldwin: A Love Story follows the writer's creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence
The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author…
of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy. On a warm day in September 2000, a woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut behind her brother’s home in China’s Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her family but also not her first children. Living under the shadow of China’s notorious one-child policy, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn’t imagine she could be sent as far as the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world. Following stories she wrote as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long-term impact of China’s one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation. Today, Esther—formerly Fangfang—lives in Texas, and Demick brings to vivid life the Christian family that felt called to adopt her, unaware that she had been kidnapped. Through Demick’s indefatigable reporting, will the long-lost sisters finally reunite—and will they feel whole again? A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work
A marriage at sea: A true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck
By Sophie Elmhirst. 2025
An instant New York Times bestseller, this is the electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a…
mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves. What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves. Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable
The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China&’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author…
of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy&“Excellent . . . entrancing and disturbing . . . [Demick] is one of our finest chroniclers of East Asia. . . . [Her] characters are richly drawn, and her stories, often reported over a span of years, deliver a rare emotional wallop.&”—The New York TimesOn a warm day in September 2000, a woman named Zanhua gave birth to twin girls in a small hut behind her brother&’s home in China&’s Hunan province. The twins, Fangfang and Shuangjie, were welcome additions to her family but also not her first children. Living under the shadow of China&’s notorious one-child policy, Zanhua and her husband decided to leave one twin in the care of relatives, hoping each toddler on their own might stay under the radar. But, in 2002, Fangfang was violently snatched away. The family worried they would never see her again, but they didn&’t imagine she could be sent as far as the United States. She might as well have been sent to another world.Following stories she wrote as the Beijing bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick embarks on a journey that encompasses the origins, shocking cruelty, and long-term impact of China&’s one-child rule; the rise of international adoption and the religious currents that buoyed it; and the exceedingly rare phenomenon of twin separation. Today, Esther—formerly Fangfang—lives in Texas, and Demick brings to vivid life the Christian family that felt called to adopt her, unaware that she had been kidnapped. Through Demick&’s indefatigable reporting, will the long-lost sisters finally reunite—and will they feel whole again?A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country&’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families&’ determination and one reporter&’s dogged work.
Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life
By Dan Nadel. 1972
&“A definitive and ideal biography—pound for pound, one of the sleekest and most judicious I&’ve ever read.&” —Dwight Garner, The…
New York Times A critical darling, Crumb is the first biography of Robert Crumb—one of the most profound and influential artists of the 20th century—whose frank, and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists, from Art Spiegelman to Alison Bechdel.Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, delivers a &“gripping and essential account&” (The Boston Globe) of how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact. Braiding biography with &“cultural history and criticism...that honors the complexity of [its] subject, even, perhaps particularly, when it gets ugly&” (Los Angeles Times), Crumb is the story of a richly complex life at the forefront of both the underground and popular cultures of post-war America. Including forty-five stunning black-and-white images throughout and a sixteen-page color insert featuring images both iconic and obscure, Crumb spans the pressures of 1950s suburban America and Crumb&’s highly dysfunctional early family life; the history of comics and graphic satire; 20th-century popular music; the world of the counterculture; the birth of underground comic books in 1960s San Francisco with Crumb&’s Zap Comix; the economic challenges and dissolution of the hippie dream; and the path Robert Crumb blazed through it all. Written with Crumb&’s cooperation, this fascinating, rollicking book takes in seven decades of Crumb&’s iconic works, including Fritz the Cat, Weirdo, and his adaptation of The Book of Genesis and &“floats Crumb on the rapids of his times&” (Harper&’s Magazine), capturing, in the process, the essence of an extraordinary artist.
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck
By Sophie Elmhirst. 2024
&“Gird your loins and line up your couple&’s therapist.&” – New York Times Book Review podcast&“This is nonfiction that reads…
like fiction – the best kind. Elmhirst&’s retelling is a triumph, second only to the seemingly impossible feat of Maurice and Maralyn themselves. You won&’t be able to put it down.&” – USA Today&“Such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn&’t fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? … So brilliantly depicted.&” – Elle, Best Books of Summer&“A beautiful meditation on endurance, codependence, and the power of love. A dazzling book.&” – Patrick Radden Keefe&“An enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit.&” —Bill BrysonThe electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He&’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she&’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves.What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can&’t run away from themselves.Taut, propulsive, and dazzling, A Marriage at Sea pairs an adrenaline-fueled high seas adventure with a gutting love story that asks why we love difficult people, and who we become under the most extreme conditions imaginable.