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All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the art of risking everything
By Claire Harman. 2023
** The Sunday Times Best Literary Book of 2023**** A Waterstones Best Book of 2023**'All Sorts of Lives is a…
beautiful, fastidiously researched and fascinating exploration of Mansfield's life and work' A.L. KENNEDYRestless outsider, masher-up of form and convention, Katherine Mansfield’s career was short but dazzling. She was the only writer Virginia Woolf admitted being jealous of, yet by the 1950s was so undervalued that Elizabeth Bowen was moved to ask, 'Where is she – our missing contemporary?'In this inventive and intimate study, Claire Harman takes a fresh look at Mansfield’s life and achievements, through the form she did so much to revolutionise: the short story. Exploring ten pivotal works, we watch how Mansfield’s desire to grow as a writer pushed her art into unknown territory, and how illness sharpened her extraordinary vitality: ‘Would you not like to try all sorts of lives – one is so very small.’‘What a gift to the biographer, this life of adventure and sickness and sex and celebrity… Brilliant’ Sunday Times‘A searching, incisive and compulsive book. A lesson in how to read and connect and understand’ Sunjeev SahotaAll for Love: Continents of Exile: 10 (Penguin Modern Classics)
By Ved Mehta. 2001
Book 10 in Ved Mehta's Continents of Exile series. Nearly 50 years in the making, Continents of Exile is one…
of the great works of twentieth-century autobiography: the epic chronicle of an Indian family in the twentieth century. From 1930s India to 1950s Oxford and literary New York in the 1960s-80s, this is the story of the post-colonial twentieth century, as uniquely experienced and vividly recounted by Ved Mehta.In lucid, sparse prose Mehta documents the twists and turns of a romantic history peppered with disappointment and anguish - that is until, in his search for self-understanding, he meets a surprising guide who shows the way toward new insights about himself and those he has loved.Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News
By Emily Maitlis. 2019
FEATURING EMILY MAITLIS' GROUNDBREAKING INTERVIEW WITH PRINCE ANDREWThe news has never been more prominent - but are we getting the…
full story? Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis gives us a behind-the-scenes look at some of the biggest news stories and interviews of recent years 'Smart, funny and brilliantly told' Elizabeth Day 'Revelatory, riveting and frequently hilarious' James O'Brien 'Absolutely irresistible' Jeremy Vine ________ In this no holds barred account of life in the seconds before, during and after going on air, Newsnight presenter, leading journalist, and queen of the side eye Emily Maitlis gives us the insider info on what we don't get to see on-screen. Giving us the inside scoop on her interviews with everyone from Emma Thompson to Russell Brand, and Donald Trump to Tony Blair, as well as covering news stories such as President Clinton's affairs, Boris Johnson's race to PM, Grenfell, #MeToo, and that interview with Prince Andrew. Airhead is a brilliant exposé of the moments that never make the news. From News Presenter of the Year and 2020 BAFTA nominee ________ 'Funny and subtly smart' GUARDIAN, BOOKS OF THE YEAR DAILY MAIL BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'Deliciously funny . . . Irresistible' The Times '[Emily] is so absolutely of the moment' Evening StandardIan Fleming: The Complete Man
By Nicholas Shakespeare. 2023
A fresh portrait of the man behind James Bond, and his enduring impact, by an award-winning biographer with unprecedented access…
to the Fleming family papers. Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote.Ian's childhood with his gifted brother Peter and his extraordinary mother set the pattern for his ambition to be “the complete man,” and he would strive for the means to achieve this “completeness'”all his life. Only a thriller writer for his last twelve years, his dramatic personal life and impressive career in Naval Intelligence put him at the heart of critical moments in world history, while also providing rich inspiration for his fiction. Exceptionally well connected, and widely travelled, from the United States and Soviet Russia to his beloved Jamaica, Ian had access to the most powerful political figures at a time of profound change.Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today. His talent for uncovering material that casts new light on his subjects is fully evident in this masterful, definitive biography. His unprecedented access to the Fleming archive and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of the man and his famous creation.The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: Their stories are better than the bestsellers
By James Patterson, Matt Eversmann. 2024
This &“celebration of the world of books&” (Kirkus) is filled with true stories from the booksellers and librarians—the superheroes of reading—as…
told to the greatest storyteller of our time, James Patterson. To be a bookseller or librarian… You have to play detective. Be a treasure hunter. A matchmaker. An advocate. A visionary. A person who creates &“book joy&” by pulling a book from a shelf, handing it to someone and saying, &“You&’ve got to read this. You&’re going to love it.&” Step inside The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians and enter a world where you can feed your curiosities, discover new voices, find whatever you want or require. This place has the magic of rainbows and unicorns, but it's also a business. The book business. Meet the smart and talented people who live between the pages—and who can&’t wait to help you find your next favorite book.The Astors
By Harvey O'Connor. 2024
The Astors is a comprehensive biography of one of the most prominent and influential families in American history. The Astors…
were a wealthy and powerful family who made their fortune in the fur trade and real estate, and went on to become one of the most influential families in New York City and beyond. This book traces the history of the Astor family from its humble beginnings in Germany to its rise to prominence in America and explores the lives of some of its most famous members, including John Jacob Astor, William Waldorf Astor, and Brooke Astor. It delves into their personal lives, business ventures, and philanthropic endeavors, and sheds light on the family's role in shaping the cultural and economic landscape of America. Harvey O’Connor’s meticulously researched and engagingly written book, which includes numerous family photos and a thorough genealogy, offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of one of America's most iconic families. It is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, business, and culture.Also available in audiobook format.Black Women Writers of Louisiana: Telling Their Stories
By Ann B. Dobie, Daren Tucker. 2022
Louisiana has been home, by birth or adoption, to numerous literary greats. But among that talent, there's an under-celebrated cohort:…
Black women. Due to lack of education and opportunity, their record is fairly brief, but over the past century they have been responsible for a flowering of literature that portrays the Black experience through poetry, fiction, plays, essays and journalism. The writers profiled here have not gone wholly unrecognized though--far from it. Some have been honored with prestigious awards and have found a readership large enough to put them at the forefront of the national literary scene. Beginning with Alice Ruth Dunbar Nelson--a fiery activist, columnist and storyteller in the late nineteenth century--the work extends to Fatima Shaik, named 2021 Louisiana Writer of the Year. Join Ann B. Dobie on this celebration of Louisiana literary talent.El secreto de Selena: La reveladora historia detrás su trágica muerte (Atria Espanol)
By María Celeste Arrarás. 2015
Edición 20 aniversario Un retrato íntimo e investigativo del asesinato de la querida reina de la música tejana, Selena Quintanilla…
Pérez, escrito por la galardonada periodista María Celeste Arrarás. Ahora, con un nuevo introducción y epílogo por la vigésima edición de aniversarioNo hay duda de que Yolanda Saldívar disparó la bala que mató a Selena el 31 de Marzo de 1995, pero ¿alguien sabe lo que realmente sucedió en la habitación 158 del hotel Days Inn, momentos antes de que el crimen se llevara a cabo? María Celeste Arrarás tiene muchas respuestas. Su cobertura de la muerte, el juicio y el drama detrás de la tragedia la convirtió en la experta indiscutible del caso de Selena. Arrarás comparte detalles de primera mano sobre el crimen y las personas involucradas. Incluyendo la polémica entrevista en la cárcel con Yolanda, que en repetidas ocasiones habló sobre “el secreto de Selena”, una insólita información que Saldívar mantuvo oculta durante y después del juicio pero que sí le reveló a Arrarás. Muchas preguntas quedaron sin respuesta hasta la publicación de la citada entrevista. ¿Por qué hubo una maleta llena de ropa de Selena en la escena del crimen? ¿Cuál fue el significado del anillo de piedras preciosas, adornado con la S inicial que cayó del puño ensangrentado de Selena? ¿Quién era el médico de Monterrey que se hacía llamar asesor de Selena? María Celeste le ha seguido la pista al caso durante dos décadas y logro encajar las piezas de este rompecabezas. El secreto de Selena revela lo que realmente sucedió aquel lluvioso día de marzo.Memoirs
By Robert Lowell. 2022
A complete collection of Robert Lowell’s autobiographical prose, from unpublished writings about his youth to reflections on the triumphs and…
confusions of his adult life.Robert Lowell's Memoirs is an unprecedented literary discovery: the manuscript of Lowell’s lyrical evocation of his childhood, which was written in the 1950s and has remained unpublished until now. Meticulously edited by Steven Gould Axelrod and Grzegorz Kosc, it serves as a precursor or companion to his groundbreaking book of poems Life Studies, which signaled a radically new prose-inflected direction in his work, and indeed in American poetry. Memoirs also includes intense depictions of Lowell’s mental illness and his determined efforts to recover. It concludes with Lowell’s reminiscences of other writers, among them T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, Hannah Arendt, and Sylvia Plath. Memoirs demonstrates Lowell’s expansive gifts as a prose stylist and his powers of introspection and observation. It provides striking new evidence of the range and brilliance of Lowell’s achievement.Includes black-and-white photographsThe Life and Times of Hannah Crafts: The True Story of The Bondwoman's Narrative
By Gregg Hecimovich. 2023
A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and the Los Angeles Times Book PrizeA groundbreaking study…
of the first Black female novelist and her life as an enslaved woman, from the biographer who solved the mystery of her identity, with a forward by Henry Louis Gates Jr.In 1857, a woman escaped enslavement on a North Carolina plantation and fled to a farm in New York. In hiding, she worked on a manuscript that would make her famous long after her death. The novel, The Bondwoman’s Narrative, was first published in 2002 to great acclaim, but the author’s identity remained unknown. Over a decade later, Professor Gregg Hecimovich unraveled the mystery of the author’s name and, in The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts, he finally tells her story.In this remarkable biography, Hecimovich identifies the novelist as Hannah Bond “Crafts.” She was not only the first known Black woman to compose a novel but also an extraordinarily gifted artist who honed her literary skills in direct opposition to a system designed to deny her every measure of humanity. After escaping to New York, the author forged a new identity—as Hannah Crafts—to make sense of a life fractured by slavery.Hecimovich establishes the case for authorship of The Bondwoman’s Narrative by examining the lives of Hannah Crafts’s friends and contemporaries, including the five enslaved women whose experiences form part of her narrative. By drawing on the lives of those she knew in slavery, Crafts summoned into her fiction people otherwise stolen from history.At once a detective story, a literary chase, and a cultural history, The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts discovers a tale of love, friendship, betrayal, and violence set against the backdrop of America’s slide into Civil War.The Real Work: On The Mystery Of Mastery
By Adam Gopnik. 2023
"[W]ise, companionable, and often extremely funny.” —Oliver Burkeman, The Atlantic Best-selling author and New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik investigates a…
foundational human question: How do we learn—and master—a new skill? For decades now, Adam Gopnik has been one of our most beloved writers, a brilliantly perceptive critic of art, food, France, and more. But recently, he became obsessed by a more fundamental matter, one he had often meditated on in The New Yorker: How do masters learn their miraculous skill, whether it was drawing a museum-ready nude or baking a perfect sourdough loaf? How could anyone become so good at anything? There seemed to be a fundamental mystery to mastery. Was it possible to unravel it? In The Real Work—the term magicians use for the accumulated craft that makes for a great trick—Gopnik becomes a dedicated student of several masters of their craft: a classical painter, a boxer, a dancing instructor, a driving instructor, and others. Rejecting self-help bromides and bullet points, he nevertheless shows that the top people in any field share a set of common qualities and methods. For one, their mastery is always a process of breaking down and building up—of identifying and perfecting the small constituent parts of a skill and the combining them for an overall effect greater than the sum of those parts. For another, mastery almost always involves intentional imperfection—as in music, where vibrato, a way of not quite landing on the right note, carries maximum expressiveness. Gopnik’s simplest and most invigorating lesson, however, is that we are surrounded by mastery. Far from rare, mastery is commonplace, if we only know where to look: from the parent who can whip up a professional strudel to the social worker who—in one of the most personally revealing passages Gopnik has ever written—helps him master his own demons. Spirited and profound, The Real Work will help you understand how mastery can happen in your own life—and, significantly, why each of us relentlessly seeks to better ourselves in the first place.The unlikely true story of why we know the name William Shakespeare today, and the four-hundred-year-old book that made it…
possible.Four hundred years ago, no one bothered to write down the exact words of stage plays. Characters&’ lines were scribbled on small rolls of paper (as in, an actor&’s role) and passed around, but no master script was saved for the future. The main reason we&’ve heard of Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, and Shakespeare himself is that a group of people made the excellent choice to preserve the plays after the Bard died. If they hadn&’t created the book known as the First Folio, Shakespeare and his works would surely have been lost to history. Part literary scavenger hunt (the search for every existing First Folio continues today), part book trivia treasure trove, and part love letter to Shakespeare, this behind-the-scenes, sharply funny true story is an ideal introduction to the Bard and his famous plays.Holding On Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore
By Linda Leavell. 1965
Winner of the Plutarch Award for the Best Biography of 2013A mesmerizing and essential biography of the modernist poet Marianne…
MooreThe Marianne Moore that survives in the popular imagination is dignified, white-haired, and demure in her tricorne hat; she lives with her mother until the latter's death; she maintains meaningful friendships with fellow poets but never marries or falls in love. Linda Leavell's Holding On Upside Down—the first biography of this major American poet written with the support of the Moore estate—delves beneath the surface of this calcified image to reveal a passionate, canny woman caught between genuine devotion to her mother and an irrepressible desire for personal autonomy and freedom. Her many poems about survival are not just quirky nature studies but acts of survival themselves. Not only did the young poet join the Greenwich Village artists and writers who wanted to overthrow all her mother's pieties but she also won their admiration for the radical originality of her language and the technical proficiency of her verse. After her mother's death thirty years later, the aging recluse transformed herself, against all expectations, into a charismatic performer and beloved celebrity. She won virtually every literary prize available to her and was widely hailed as America's greatest living poet. Elegantly written, meticulously researched, critically acute, and psychologically nuanced, Holding On Upside Down provides at last the biography that this major poet and complex personality deserves.Spílexm: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence
By Nicola I. Campbell. 2021
If the hurt and grief we carry is a woven blanket, it is time to weave ourselves anew.In the Nłeʔkepmxcín…
language, spíləx̣m are remembered stories, often shared over tea in the quiet hours between Elders. Rooted within the British Columbia landscape, and with an almost tactile representation of being on the land and water, Spíləx̣m explores resilience, reconnection, and narrative memory through stories.Captivating and deeply moving, this story basket of memories tells one Indigenous woman&’s journey of overcoming adversity and colonial trauma to find strength through creative works and traditional perspectives of healing, transformation, and resurgence.Buseyisms: Gary Busey's Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
By Gary Busey, Steffanie Sampson. 2018
Words of wisdom and incredible life stories, told through Gary Busey's unique Buseyisms.Take a wild ride through the life and…
mind of Gary Busey in his new hilarious, uplifting, tell-all memoir, Buseyisms. Gary transports you on a laugh-out–loud journey through the crazy twists and turns of his rise to fame, his descent into drug addiction, and his trip to the ‘other side’ after a near-fatal motorcycle accident. Gary also shares untold stories of his militant upbringing, surviving cancer in the middle of his face, and fun behind the scenes stories of his most popular movies and television roles including: A Star Is Born, The Buddy Holly Story, Lethal Weapon, Point Break, Under Siege, The Firm, Entourage, Celebrity Apprentice, and more. Included in this book are dozens of personal photographs from Gary’s early years up until now. Gary is a living testimony to the resilience of the human body and spirit. In his simply written but profound memoir, he shares his Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth to help others, who may be going through similar things, to realize that it is possible to survive challenging life events and come out a happy champion.Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics, and Mystique
By Sydney Ladensohn Stern. 1997
Includes a new afterword: A &“richly detailed&” biography of the iconic feminist based on interviews with friends, family, colleagues, and…
Steinem herself (The Washington Post). Going beyond Gloria Steinem&’s public persona, this biography provides an in-depth portrait of the famed activist—covering her family of origin, Smith College education, travels in India, founding of Ms. magazine, and much more—drawn from fifty hours of interviews with Steinem, as well as conversations with more than two hundred people in her life. &“Stern&’s biography is sympathetic but critical about the woman who was once perhaps the foremost figure of American feminism. . . . Follows its subject from her childhood with a mentally ill mother and ne&’er-do-well father through her rise in the women&’s movement.&” —The New York Times Book Review &“Feminist icon, goddess, social climber, bunny—who is Gloria Steinem? All of the above, according to [this] serious new biography. . . . A real look at Steinem off the public platform.&” —Kirkus Reviews &“Avoiding esoteric psychological or feminist theorizing, Stern still provides a clear context for Steinem&’s development both as a public figure and as an exemplar of the movement that seeks to have women define themselves as autonomous individuals.&” —Library JournalIncludes photographsMy Life as a Russian Novel: A Memoir
By Emmanuel Carrère, Linda Coverdale. 2007
An unsparingly truthful account of love, betrayal, and the traps we set for ourselves, by France's master of psychological suspenseIn…
work after work, the critically acclaimed author Emmanuel Carrère has trained his unblinking gaze on the lives of others as they fight a losing battle with that most fearsome of adversaries—the self. Now, determined to escape the bleak visions of his narratives, he takes on a film project in the heart of Russia while also embarking on a new love affair back home in Paris. But soon enough, the diversion he seeks eludes him, intimacy proves too arduous, and Carrv®re is left peering into the dark mirror of his own life.Set in Paris and Kotelnich, a small post-Soviet town, My Life as a Russian Novel traces Carrère's pursuit of two obsessions—the disappearance of his Russian grandfather and his erotic fascination with a woman he loves but cannot keep from destroying. In prose that is elegant and passionate, Carrère weaves the strands of his story into a travelogue of a journey inward. Road trip, confession, erotic tour de force—this fearless reckoning illuminates the schemes we devise to evade ourselves and the inevitable payment they exact.I Am Alive and You Are Dead: A Journey into the Mind of Philip K. Dick
By Emmanuel Carrère. 1966
For his many devoted readers, Philip K. Dick is not only one of the "one of the most valiant psychological…
explorers of the 20th century" (The New York Times) but a source of divine revelation. In the riveting style that won accolades for The Adversary, Emmanuel Carrère's I Am Alive and You Are Dead, follows Dick's strange odyssey from his traumatic beginnings in 1928, when his twin sister died in infancy, to his lonely end in 1982, beset by mystical visions of swirling pink light, three-eyed invaders, and messages from the Roman Empire. Drawing on interviews as well as unpublished sources, he vividly conjures the spirit of this restless observer of American postwar malaise who subverted the materials of science fiction--parallel universes, intricate time loops, collective delusions--to create classic works of contemporary anxiety.This Is Not My Beautiful Life: A Memoir
By Victoria Fedden. 2016
ONE OF PUBLISHERS WEEKLY'S TEN MOST ANTICIPATED MEMOIRS OF THE SEASONIF YOU THINK IT SUCKS TO LIVE WITH YOUR PARENTS…
WHEN YOU’RE THIRTY-SIX AND NINE MONTHS PREGNANT, JUST WAIT TILL THE DEA COMES KNOCKING (WITH THE IRS IN TOW): WELCOME TO VICTORIA FEDDEN’S LIFE.When a squad of federal agents burst through her parents’ front door, Victoria Fedden felt ill-prepared to meet them: She was weeks away from her due date and her T-shirt wasn’t long enough to hide her maternity undies. As for the question of how to raise a child when you’ve just discovered that your mother and stepfather have allegedly masterminded a pump-and-dump scheme? She was pretty sure that wasn’t covered in What to Expect When You’re Expecting—and she really hoped that Bradford Cohen, the noted criminal defense attorney who famously waived his exemption on The Apprentice, would prove them innocent.This Is Not My Beautiful Life is the story of how Victoria lost her parents to prison and nearly lost her mind. No one ever said motherhood would be easy, but as she struggles to change diapers, install car seats, and find the right drop-off line at pre-school—no easy task, when each one is named for a stage in the lifecycle of a f*cking butterfly—she’s also forced to ask herself whether a jump-suit might actually complement her mom’s platinum-blonde extensions and fend off the cast of shady, stranger-than-fiction characters (like the recovering addict who scored a reality show when he started an escort service for women) who populated her parents’ world.A real-life Arrested Development that could only unfold in southern Florida, This Is Not My Beautiful Life is a hilariously funny and unexpectedly moving memoir of a just-functional family you’ll never forget.Robert A. Heinlein: Learning Curve, 1907–1948 (Robert A. Heinlein)
By William H. Patterson Jr.. 2014
For the first time, the real story of the life of Robert A. Heinlein in the authorized biography Robert A.…
Heinlein (1907-1988) is generally considered the greatest American SF writer of the 20th century. A famous and bestselling author in later life, he started as a navy man and graduate of Annapolis who was forced to retire because of tuberculosis. A socialist politician in the 1930s, he became one of the sources of Libertarian politics in the USA in his later years. His most famous works include the Future History series (stories and novels collected in The Past Through Tomorrow and continued in later novels), Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Given his desire for privacy in the later decades of his life, he was both stranger and more interesting than one could ever have known. This is the first of two volumes of a major American biography. This volume is about Robert A. Heinlein's life up to the end of the 1940s and the mid-life crisis that changed him forever.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.