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Then We Were One
By Fred A. Reed. 2011
Southern California in the late 1950s has the look and feel of a midsummer morning-bright and still. For two young…
brothers, the wide world is full of promise. Together they set out to explore it as one, ever alert to the sound of their mother's whistle calling them home. But by late afternoon, dark clouds gather on the horizon and the storm soon breaks.That storm is the war in Vietnam, and its fury sweeps away all the noble lies of the social conservatism their parents endorsed.Then, in a bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard, the eldest son happens upon a novel by Kazantzakis that entices him to Greece. There, he learns the language, and in that ancient land that has seen it all, heard it all, and done it all, he encounters militant Cretan students and the woman who will become his life partner in exile.But for the younger brother there will be no escape. Trapped by failed marriages, smothered by parental guidance and an education system exposed as the state's recruiting agent, he is dispatched to Vietnam. Fifteen years later he lies buried on a lonely hillside in New Zealand, dead of the wounds he sustained in that war.Shocked by the death of his younger brother, Fred Reed sets out on a series of journeys of discovery and understanding. By way of Iran in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution; the Anatolian highlands of the mystic Bediuzzaman Said Nursi; in pursuit of ancient and modern iconoclasts in Syria and Lebanon; he comes under the spell of Islam. In its embrace he finds a renewed brotherhood; in its discipline, liberation.Then We Were One challenges us with its conclusion that indictment, absolution and redemption, though we must seek them, are not ours to ultimately possess.David Adams Richards of the Miramichi
By Tony Tremblay. 2010
Widely considered to be one of Canada's most important authors, David Adams Richards has been honoured with a Giller Prize…
and two Governor General's Literary Awards. Despite this, there has been a dearth of critical appraisal of his life and works. In David Adams Richards of the Miramichi, Tony Tremblay sheds light not only on Richards' art and achievements, but also on Canadian literary criticism in general.Tremblay maps out the early influences on Richards' thinking and writing by drawing on interviews, archival records, and cultural studies of New Brunswick. He argues that the author is a more sophisticated craftsman than his critical reception has assumed and makes the case for a more nuanced analysis of his works. Equal parts literary biography, literary criticism, and cultural study of New Brunswick, David Adams Richards of the Miramichi provides a rare glimpse into the struggles and triumphs of a New Brunswick artist in a national and provincial milieu.Scotland's Pariah
By Patrick O'Flaherty. 2015
Scotland's Pariah is the first book to examine the remarkable life of John Pinkerton: antiquarian, poet, forger, cartographer, historian, serial…
adulterer, bigamist, and religious skeptic. A pugnacious and persistent man of letters who knew and was admired by literary masters such as Edward Gibbon, Horace Walpole, and William Godwin, Pinkerton's life was full of personal and professional misadventures.Patrick O'Flaherty's biography presents an engrossing account of Pinkerton's life and works from his early years in Scotland to his Parisian exile, covering his major editorial, antiquarian, and geographic works. Examining Pinkerton's involvement in the London literary scene, his conflicted relationship with the rise of Celtic nationalism, and his response to early literary romanticism, Scotland's Pariah is a shrewd and compassionate evaluation of an astonishing literary life.One and Only
By Anne Marie Santos, 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.Winifred Sanford: The Life and Times of a Texas Writer
By Betty Holland Wiesepape. 1938
Winifred Sanford is generally regarded by critics as one of the best and most important early twentieth-century Texas women writers,…
despite publishing only a handful of short stories before slipping into relative obscurity. First championed by her mentor, H. L. Mencken, and published in his magazine, The American Mercury, many of Sanford's stories were set during the Texas oil boom of the 1920s and 1930s and offer a unique perspective on life in the boomtowns during that period. Four of her stories were listed in The Best American Short Stories of 1926. Questioning the sudden end to Sanford's writing career, Wiesepape, a leading literary historian of Texas women writers, delved into the author's previously unexamined private papers and emerged with an insightful and revealing study that sheds light on both Sanford's abbreviated career and the domestic lives of women at the time. The first in-depth account of Sanford's life and work, Wiesepape's biography discusses Sanford's fiction through the sociohistorical contexts that shaped and inspired it. In addition, Wiesepape has included two previously unpublished stories as well as eighteen previously unpublished letters to Sanford from Mencken. Winifred Sanford is an illuminating biography of one of the state's unsung literary jewels and an important and much-needed addition to the often overlooked field of Texas women's writing.Of Time and Memory
By Don J. Snyder. 1999
Don Snyder knew nothing about his mother aside from the terrible fact that she died at the age of nineteen,…
just sixteen days after giving birth to him and his twin brother. All his life Don had been too shy, too deeply pained to ask his father or grandparents to tell him the story of the lovely girl named Peggy Snyder--what delighted or troubled her, who her friends were, how she fell in love, what cut short her brief life.But then, nearing his fiftieth birthday and compelled by his father's failing health, Snyder embarked on a quest to find his mother. He traveled many times from his home in Maine down to his mother's small Pennsylvania town to trace her childhood and adolescence. He tracked down Peggy's high school friends, spent time with her teachers, probed the memories of the girls--now elderly women-- who had been her bridesmaids. Detail by detail, Don pieced together the harrowing story of Peggy's final year--her passionate love affair with her husband, the unexpected pregnancy, the sudden illness that consumed her, and the impossible choice she was forced to make.A heartbreaking, overwhelmingly beautiful book, Of Time and Memory is a story of remembering--and reclaiming--the fragile mystery of a beloved life.From the Trade Paperback edition.Graven With Diamonds
By Nicola Shulman. 2013
In this thrillingly entertaining book, Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of Henry VIII's reign with the story of English…
love poetry and the life of its first master, Henry VIII's most glamorous and enigmatic subject: Sir Thomas Wyatt. Poet, statesman, spy, lover of Anne Boleyn and favorite both of Henry VIII and his sinister minister Thomas Cromwell, the brilliant Wyatt was admired and envied in equal measure. His love poetry began as risqué entertainment for ambitious men and women at the slippery top of the court. But when the axe began to fall and Henry VIII's laws made his subjects fall silent in terror, Wyatt's poetic skills became a way to survive. He saw that a love poem was a place where secrets could hide.Now in one volume: Three exquisite meditations on nature, healing, and the pleasures of the solitary life from a New…
York Times–bestselling author. In a long life spent recording her personal observations, poet, novelist, and memoirist May Sarton redefined the journal as a literary form. This extraordinary volume collects three of her most beloved works. Journal of a Solitude: Sarton’s bestselling memoir chronicles a solitary year spent at the house she bought and renovated in the quiet village of Nelson, New Hampshire. Her revealing insights are a moving and profound reflection on creativity, oneness with nature, and the courage it takes to be alone. Plant Dreaming Deep: Sarton’s intensely personal account of how she transformed a dilapidated eighteenth-century farmhouse into a home is a loving, beautifully crafted memoir illuminated by themes of friendship, love, nature, and the struggles of the creative life. Recovering: In this affecting diary of one year’s hardships and healing, Sarton focuses on her sixty-sixth year, which was marked by the turmoil of a mastectomy, the end of a treasured relationship, and the loneliness that visits a life of chosen solitude. By turns uplifting, cathartic, and revelatory, Sarton’s journals still strike a chord in the hearts of contemporary readers. Through them, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, “we are able to see our own experiences reflected in hers and we are enriched.”Drunken Angel
By Alan Kaufman. 2011
Alan Kaufman recounts with unvarnished honesty the story of the alcoholism that took him to the brink of death, the…
PTSD that drove him to the edge of madness, and the love that brought him back. Son of a French Holocaust survivor, Kaufman was a drinker so mauled by his indulgences that it is a marvel that he hung on long enough to get into recovery. With his estranged daughter as inspiration, Kaufman cleaned himself up at age 40, taking full responsibility for nearly destroying himself, his work, and so many loved ones along the way. Kaufman minces no words as he looks back on a life pickled in self-pity, self-loathing, and guilt. Reading Drunken Angel is like watching an accident to see if any of the victims crawl away barely alive. Kaufman did, and here he delivers a lacerating, cautionary tale of a life wasted and reclaimed.Inventing Sam Slick
By Richard A. Davies. 2005
Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) was one of pre-confederation Canada's best-known authors. His popular 'Sam Slick the Clockmaker' character was a…
household name not only in his home country, but also in England and the United States.Born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, Haliburton was not only a writer, but also a lawyer, judge, politician, and historian. He gained fame for his writing in 1836 with The Clockmaker: or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville for a Halifax newspaper. It became a hit in England and was followed by six sequels. Although Haliburton tried to put Sam Slick aside and work in other genres, he found himself invariably returning to the character in his later books. This commitment to Slick resulted in a curious effacement of Haliburton's own personal gentlemanly identity, which he spent the second half of his life affirming by fostering links with socially well connected family in England. In the public imagination, however, he remained linked with Sam Slick. Based on over ten years of archival research, Richard A. Davies's scholarly biography of Haliburton is the first since 1924. It is an engaging examination of a controversial and contradictory Canadian writer and significant figure in the history of pre-confederation Nova Scotia.Without You
By Anthony Rapp. 2006
Anthony Rapp captures the passion and grit unique to the theatre world as he recounts his life-changing experience in the…
original cast of the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent. Anthony had a special feeling about Jonathan Larson's rock musical from his first audition, so he was thrilled when he landed a starring role as the filmmaker Mark Cohen. With his mom's cancer in remission and a reason to quit his newly acquired job at Starbucks, his life was looking up. When Rent opened to thunderous acclaim off Broadway, Rapp and his fellow cast members knew that something truly extraordinary had taken shape. But even as friends and family were celebrating the show's success, they were also mourning Jonathan Larson's sudden death from an aortic aneurysm. By the time Rent made its triumphant jump to Broadway, Larson had posthumously won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize. When Anthony's mom began to lose her battle with cancer, he struggled to balance the demands of life in the theatre with his responsibility to his family. Here, Anthony recounts the show's magnificent success and his overwhelming loss. He also shares his first experiences discovering his sexuality, the tension it created with his mother, and his struggle into adulthood to gain her acceptance. Variously marked by fledgling love and devastating loss, piercing frustration and powerful enlightenment, Without You charts the course of Rapp's exhilarating journey with the cast and crew of Rent as well as the intimacies of his personal life behind the curtain.Take Me with You
By Carlos Fras. 2008
Carlos Frías, an award-winning journalist and the American-born son of Cuban exiles, grew up hearing about his parents' homeland only…
in parables. Their Cuba, the one they left behind four decades ago, was ethereal. It existed, for him, only in their anecdotes, and in the family that remained in Cuba -- merely ghosts on the other end of a telephone. Until Fidel Castro fell ill. Sent to Cuba by his newspaper as the country began closing to foreign journalists in August 2006, Frías begins the secret journey of a lifetime -- twelve days in the land of his parents. That experience led to this evocative, spectacular, and unforgettable memoir. Take Me With You is written through the unique eyes of a first-generation Cuban-American seeing the forbidden country of his ancestry for the first time. Take Me With You provides a fresh view of Cuba, devoid of overt political commentary, focusing instead on the gritty, tangible lives of the people living in Castro's Cuba. Frías takes in the island nation of today and attempts to reconstruct what the past was like for his parents, retracing their footsteps, searching for his roots, and discovering his history. The book creates lasting and unexpected ripples within his family on both sides of the Florida Straits -- and on the author himself.Toni Morrison: Great American Writer
By Lisa Renee Rhodes. 2001
And Home Was Kariakoo
By M. G. Vassanji. 2014
From M.G. Vassanji, two-time Giller Prize winner and a GG winner for nonfiction, comes a poignant love letter to his…
birthplace and homeland, East Africa--a powerful and surprising portrait that only an insider could write. Part travelogue, part memoir, and part history-rarely-told, here is a powerful and timely portrait of a constantly evolving land. From a description of Zanzibar and its evolution to a visit to a slave-market town at Lake Tanganyika; from an encounter with a witchdoctor in an old coastal village to memories of his own childhood in the streets of Dar es Salaam and the suburbs of Nairobi, Vassanji combines brilliant prose, thoughtful and candid observation, and a lifetime of revisiting and reassessing the continent that molded him--and, as we discover when we follow the journeys that became this book, shapes him still.Usama Ibn Munqidh: Warrior Poet of the Age of Crusades (Makers of the Muslim World)
By Paul M. Cobb. 2005
Usama Ibn Munqidh (1095-1188) was a Syrian poet and warrior whose life coincided with some of the most dramatic moments…
in Islamic history: the invasion of the Turks into the Middle East, the collapse of the Shi'ite political power, and above all, the coming of the Crusades. Often at the frontline of such events whilst on military service representing one of his many Lords, including on occasion the legendary Saladin, Usama was nonethless best-known to his contemporaries as a poet. Covering his exquisite anthologies of Arabic poetry, his witty and well- loved memoirs, and his political adventures, this comprehensive biography examines both the literary works of the famous "Arab- Syrian Gentleman" and the tumultuous life which inspired them. With a guide to further reading, a dynastic family tree and a glossary of the principal characters encountered in the book, it offers an indispensable window into Usmama's life, times and world of thought.Genius in Disguise
By Thomas Kunkel. 1995
This hugely entertaining biography of the founding editor of The New Yorker tells the diverting story of how Ross and…
the brilliant group of people he gathered around him--including James Thurber, Charles Addams, Dorothy Parker, and John O'Hara--devised the formula that made the magazine such a popular and critical success. Photos & cartoons.Aldous Huxley's Hands
By Allene Symons. 2015
Psychedelics, neuroscience, and historical biography come together when a journalist finds a lost photograph of Aldous Huxley and uncovers a…
hidden side of the celebrated author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception. Allene Symons had no inkling that Aldous Huxley was once a friend of her father's until the summer of 2001 when she discovered a box of her dad's old photographs. For years in the 1940s and '50s, her father had meticulously photographed human hands in the hope of developing a science of predicting human aptitudes and even mental illness. In the box, along with all the other hand images, was one with the name of Aldous Huxley on the back. How was it possible for two such unlikely people to cross paths--her aircraft-engineer father and the famous author?This question sparked a journalist's quest to understand what clearly seemed to be a little-known interest of Aldous Huxley. Through interviews, road trips, and family documents, the author reconstructs a time peaking in mid-1950s Los Angeles when Huxley experimented with psychedelic substances, ran afoul of gatekeepers, and advocated responsible use of such hallucinogens to treat mental illness as well as to achieve states of mind called mystical. Because the author's father had studied hundreds of hands, including those of schizophrenics, he was invited into Huxley's research and discussion circle. This intriguing narrative about the early psychedelic era throws new light on one of the 20th-century's foremost intellectuals, showing that his experiments in consciousness presaged pivotal scientific research underway today.From the Trade Paperback edition.Sa'di: The Poet of Life, Love and Compassion (Makers of the Muslim World)
By Homa Katouzian. 2006
One of greatest Persian writers of both classical prose and poetry, Sa'di was revered in his time as a man…
of great wisdom and passion. Sometimes said to have lived over one hundred years, the body of his work was written in the thirteenth century. Filled with extracts of the poet's melodious and insightful writing, and critical analysis thereof, this revealing biography examines why he was so idolised until the 1950s, and why since then he has fallen into relative obscurity. Focussing on the themes of both physical and spiritual love stitched through Sa'di's writing, as well as the impact of his many years travelling, Katouzian sheds a unique insight on who he calls 'the poet of life, love and compassion'.Code Black: Winter of Storm Surfing
By Tom Anderson. 2015
The true story of the daredevils who took on the force of nature ... and won Winter 2013-14: six of…
the most enormous storms ever to show up in the North Atlantic slammed in to the UK. As buildings fell and valleys flooded, one group of maverick Welsh surfers tackled the sea head-on. Code Black tells the story of how the Welsh surf scene made history during two months in which conditions made their country rival Hawaii - apart from the cold.Selling Shakespeare
By Adam G. Hooks. 2016
Selling Shakespeare tells a story of Shakespeare's life and career in print, a story centered on the people who created,…
bought, and sold books in the early modern period. The interests and investments of publishers and booksellers have defined our ideas of what is 'Shakespearean', and attending to their interests demonstrates how one version of Shakespearean authorship surpassed the rest. In this book, Adam G. Hooks identifies and examines four pivotal episodes in Shakespeare's life in print: the debut of his narrative poems, the appearance of a series of best-selling plays, the publication of collected editions of his works, and the cataloguing of those works. Hooks also offers a new kind of biographical investigation and historicist criticism, one based not on external life documents, nor on the texts of Shakespeare's works, but on the books that were printed, published, sold, circulated, collected, and catalogued under his name.