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How to Write Like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers
By Richard Cohen. 2016
For anyone who has ever identified with a hero or heroine, been seduced by a strong opening sentence, or been…
powerfully moved by a story’s end, How to Write Like Tolstoy is a thought-provoking journey inside the minds of the world’s most accomplished storytellers, from Shakespeare to Stephen King.“I have tried, as far as possible using the words of the authors themselves, to explain their craft, aiming to take readers on a journey into the concerns, techniques, tricks, flaws, and, occasionally, obsessions of our most luminous writers.”—from the Preface. Behind every acclaimed work of literature is a trove of heartfelt decisions. The best authors put painstaking—sometimes obsessive—effort into each element of their stories, from plot and character development to dialogue and point of view. What made Nabokov choose the name Lolita? Why did Fitzgerald use first-person narration in The Great Gatsby? How did Kerouac, who raged against revision, finally come to revise On the Road? Veteran editor and teacher Richard Cohen draws on his vast reservoir of a lifetime’s reading and his insight into what makes good prose soar. Here are Gabriel García Márquez’s thoughts on how to start a novel (“In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book”); Virginia Woolf offering her definition of style (“It is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words”); and Vladimir Nabokov on the nature of fiction (“All great novels are great fairy tales”). Cohen has researched the published works and private utterances of our greatest authors to discover the elements that made their prose memorable. The result is a unique exploration of the act and art of writing that enriches our experience of reading both the classics and the best modern fiction. Evoking the marvelous, the famous, and the irreverent, he reveals the challenges that even the greatest writers faced—and shows us how they surmounted them.Hunter S. Thompson: and Other Conversations
By Hunter S. Thompson, David Streitfeld. 2018
A carefully selected volume of rare (and in some cases never-before-published) conversations with the iconic writer, thinker, and rabble-rouser Hunter…
S. ThompsonMore than a decade after his death, Hunter S. Thompson is as popular--and as relevant--as ever. Vigorously political, he both anticipated the situation in Washington now and here, in a collection that ranges from an early conversation with Studs Terkel, to a decade-long exchange with editor David Streitfeld, to his last public interview (no longer available online), his prescience is both exhilarating and profound.How to Write Your Life Story
By Ralph Fletcher. 2007
Lies About Writing Your Life Story You have to be a famous celebrity. You must have an amazing life. You…
can't write your life story until you're old and gray. Nobody will read it, so what's the point?Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg
By Michael Schumacher. 1992
With the sweep of an epic novel, Michael Schumacher tells the story of Allen Ginsberg and his times, with fascinating…
portraits of Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs, among others, along with many rarely seen photographs.Alfred Tennyson
By Andrew Lang.
INTRODUCTION. IN writing this brief sketch of the Life of Tennyson, and this attempt to appreciate his work, I have…
rested almost entirely on the Bio- graphy by Lord Tennyson with his kind per- mission and on the text of the Poems. As to the Life, doubtless current anecdotes, not given in the Biography, are known to me, and to most people. But as they must also be familiar to the author of the Biography, I have not thought it desirable to include what he rejected. The works of the localisers I liave not read Tennyson disliked these researches, as a rule, and they appear to be unessential, and often hazardous. The professed commentators I have not consulted. It appeared better to give ones own impressions of the Poems, unaffected by the impressions of others, except in one or two cases where matters of fact rather than of taste seemed to be in question. Thus on two or three points I have ventured to differ from a distinguished living critic, and have given the reasons for my dissent. . .Beloved by both Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, Lu Anne Henderson has never told her story. Lu Anne was a…
beautiful 15-year-old girl in Denver in 1945 when she met Neal, a fast-talking hurricane of male sexuality. The two married, and soon they were hanging out with a group of young would-be writers, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. But Neal and Jack initially didn't like each other. Lu Anne ended up loving them both, and she taught them how to love each other -- giving Kerouac material for one of the seminal novels of the 20th century, On the Road. One and Only traces the immense struggles of Lu Anne's life, from the split-up of her family during the Great Depression to the ravages of abusive men and a late-life heroin addiction. It shows how her life intertwined with Jack's and Neal's to the very end.One and Only: The Untold Story of On the Road
By Gerald Nicosia. 2011
Beloved by both Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, Lu Anne Henderson's story has never been told. Lu Anne was a…
beautiful 15-year-old girl in Denver in 1945 when she met Neal, a fast-talking hurricane of male sexuality and vast promises. The two married, and soon they were hanging out with a group of would-be writers, including Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. But Neal and Jack initially didn't like each other very much. Lu Anne taught them how to love each other -- in effect, making the Beat Generation possible, as well as giving Kerouac material for one of the seminal novels of the 20th century, On the Road. One and Only traces the immense struggles of Lu Anne's own life, which ranged from the split-up of her family to the ravages of abusive men, lingering illness, and the grief of losing the two most important men in her life. Lu Anne Henderson did not live to see the filming of On the Road by Walter Salles, but One and Only tells how Twilight's Kristen Stewart, through her work with both Nicosia and Anne Marie Santos (Lu Anne's daughter), came to find the key to playing Lu Anne in the film.Diary of a Pilgrimage
By Jerome K. Jerome. 2007
This is a sensible book. I want you to understand that. This is a book to improve your mind. In…
this book I tell you all about Germany--at all events, all I know about Germany--and the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play. I also tell you about other things. I do not tell you all I know about all these other things, because I do not want to swamp you with knowledge. I wish to lead you gradually. When you have learnt this book, you can come again, and I will tell you some more.How to Write Your Own Life Story: The Classic Guide for the Nonprofessional Writer
By Lois Daniel. 1997
Writing the story of one's life sounds like a daunting task, but it doesn't have to be. This warmhearted, encouraging…
guide helps readers record the events of their lives for family and friends. Excerpts from other writers' work are included to exemplify and inspire. Provided are tips on intriguing topics to write about, foolproof tricks to jog your memory, ways to capture stories on paper without getting bogged down, ways to gather the facts at a local library or historical society, inspired excerpts from other writers, and published biographies that will delight and motivate.Quick Sex: Erotic Stories of Fast Flings
By Alex Algren. 2013
Alex Algren likes flash fiction, especially if it is about quickies. In she has curated a collection of delectable bon…
mots to quicken the pulse and give you ideas for your next lunch hour! A waitress delights in weakening a restaurateur's resolve by proBlackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found
By Jennifer Lauck. 2000
With the startling emotional immediacy of a fractured family photo album, Jennifer Lauck's incandescent memoir is the story of an…
ordinary girl growing up at the turn of the 1970s and the truly extraordinary circumstances of a childhood lost. Wrenching and unforgettable, Blackbird will carry your heart away.The house on Mary Street was home to Jennifer; her older brother B.J.; their hardworking father, who smelled like aftershave and read her Snow White; and their mother, who called her little daughter Sunshine and embraced Jackie Kennedy's sense of style. Through a child's eyes, the skies of Carson City were forever blue, and life was perfect -- a world of Barbies, Bewitched, and the Beatles. Even her mother's pain from her mysterious illness could be patted away with hairspray, powder, and a kiss on the cheek....But soon, everything Jennifer has come to love and rely on begins to crumble, sending her on a roller coaster of loss and loneliness. In a world unhinged by tragedy, where beautiful mothers die and families are warped by more than they can bear, a young girl must transcend a landscape of pain and mistreatment to discover her richest resource: her own unshakable will to survive.The Last Blind Date
By Linda Yellin. 2011
Oscar Wilde
By Richard Ellmann. 1987
The biography sensitive to the tragic pattern of the story of a great subject: Oscar Wilde - psychologically and sexually…
complicated, enormously quotable, central to a alluring cultural world and someone whose life assumed an unbearably dramatic shape.Dream Catcher: A Memoir
By Margaret A. Salinger. 2000
In her highly anticipated memoir, Margaret A. Salinger writes about life with her famously reclusive father, J.D. Salinger--offering a rare…
look into the man and the myth, what it is like to be his daughter, and the effect of such a charismatic figure on the girls and women closest to him.With generosity and insight, Ms. Salinger has written a book that is eloquent, spellbinding, and wise, yet at the same time retains the intimacy of a novel. Her story chronicles an almost cultlike environment of extreme isolation and early neglect interwoven with times of laughter, joy, and dazzling beauty. Compassionately exploring the complex dynamics of family relationships, her story is one that seeks to come to terms with the dark parts of her life that, quite literally, nearly killed her, and to pass on a life-affirming heritage to her own child.The story of being a Salinger is unique; the story of being a daughter is universal. This book appeals to anyone, J.D. Salinger fan or no, who has ever had to struggle to sort out who she really is from whom her parents dreamed she might be.The Value of Emily Dickinson
By Mary Loeffelholz. 2016
The Value of Emily Dickinson is the first compact introduction to Dickinson to focus primarily on her poems and why…
they have held and continue to hold such significance for readers. It addresses the question of literary value in light of current controversies dividing scholars, including those surrounding the critical issue of whether her writings are best appreciated as visual works of manuscript art or as rhymed and metered poems intended for the inner ear. Mary Loeffelholz deftly incorporates Dickinson's distinctive biography and her historical, religious, and cultural contexts into close readings, tracing the evolution of Dickinson's style. This volume - which considers not only the complex history of Dickinson's poems in print, but also their future in digital formats - will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students seeking to better understand the importance of this seminal American poet.Testament of My Childhood
By Felix Walter, Robert De Roquebrune. 1964
Life in a Quebec manor-house at the turn of the century is colourfully described in this biography of his childhood…
by Robert de Roquebrune. Skilfully woven into the texture of reminiscences about his own growing up are absorbing accounts of the early history of Canada. Through his ancestors, whose careers and personalities live vividly in accounts preserved by the family, there is a strong feeling for the continuity of life and traditions from the France of Louis XIII to what was to become of the province of Quebec. This is the first time this classic of French Canada has been translated into English.Rumi: Past and Present, East and West
By Franklin D. Lewis. 2008
This long awaited paperback edition describes the key events in Rumi's magical life story: his unusual childhood, his relationship with…
his father, and his intense, though controversial, affection for a wandering dervish.Melville: His World and Work
By Andrew Delbanco. 2005
If Dickens was nineteenth-century London personified, Herman Melville was the quintessential American. With a historian's perspective and a critic's insight,…
award-winning author Andrew Delbanco marvelously demonstrates that Melville was very much a man of his era and that he recorded -- in his books, letters, and marginalia; and in conversations with friends like Nathaniel Hawthorne and with his literary cronies in Manhattan -- an incomparable chapter of American history. From the bawdy storytelling of Typee to the spiritual preoccupations building up to and beyond Moby Dick, Delbanco brilliantly illuminates Melville's life and work, and his crucial role as a man of American letters.Stealing History
By Gerald Stern. 2012
In what could be boldly called a new genre, Gerald Stern reflects with wit, pathos, rage, and tenderness, on 85…
years of life. In 70 short, intermingling pieces that constitute a kind of diary of a mind, Stern moves nimbly between the past and the present, the personal and the philosophical. Creating the immediacy of dailiness, he writes with entertaining engagement about what he's reading, be it Spinoza, Maimonides, John Cage, Etheridge Knight, James Schuyler, or Lucille Clifton, and then he seamlessly turns to memories of his student years in Europe on the GI Bill, or his political and social action. Unexpected anecdotes abound. He hilariously recounts the evening Bill Murray bit his arm and tells about singing together with Paul McCartney. Interwoven with his formidable recollections are passionate discussions of lifelong obsessions: his conflicted identity as a secular Jew opposed to Israel's Palestinian policy; the idea of neighbors in various forms - from the women of Gee's Bend who together made beautiful quilts to the inhabitants of Jedwabne, who on a single day in 1941 slaughtered 300 Jews; and issues of justice.The Journals of John Cheever (Vintage International)
By John Cheever, Robert Gottlieb. 1990
In these journals, the experiences of one of the most renowned twentieth-century American writers come to life with fascinating, wholly…
revealing detail.John Cheever's journals provide peerless insights into the creation of his novels and stories. But they are equally the record of a complex, often dark, always closely observed inner world. No American writer of comparable stature has left such an unreservedly revealing and moving account of himself: his family life, his literary life, and his emotional life. The final word from one of modern America's great writers, The Journals of John Cheever provides a powerful and beautiful capstone to a towering oeuvre.From the Trade Paperback edition.