The story both of the real world of the Brontes at Haworth Parsonage, their home on the edge of the lonely Yorkshire moors, and of the imaginary worlds they spun for themselves in their novels and poetry.Wherever possible, their story is told using their own words - the letters they wrote to each other, Emily and Anne's secret diaries, and Charlotte's exchanges with luminaries of literary England - or those closest to them, such as their brother Branwell, their father Patrick Bronte, and their novelist friend Mrs Gaskell. The Brontes sketched and painted their worlds too, in delicate ink washes and watercolours of family and friends, animals and the English moors. These pictures illuminate the text as do the tiny drawings the Bronte children made to illustrate their imaginary worlds. In addition, there are facsimiles of their letters and diaries, paintings by artists of the day, and pictures of household life. This beautifully illustrated book offers a unique and privileged view of the real lives of three women, writers and sisters.

Samuel Clemens, the man known as Mark Twain, invented the American voice and became one of our greatest celebrities. His life mirrored his country's, as he grew from a Mississippi River boyhood in the days of the frontier, to a Wild-West journalist during the Gold Rush, to become the king of the eastern establishment and a global celebrity as America became an international power. Along the way, Mark Twain keenly observed the characters and voices that filled the growing country, and left us our first authentically American literature. Ron Powers's magnificent biography offers the definitive life of the founding father of our culture.

'HEIDA IS A FORCE OF NATURE . . . EXACTLY THE RIGHT SORT OF MODERN ROLE MODEL' SUNDAY TIMES The inspiring story of Icelandic sheep farmer, former model and feminist heroine Heida Asgeirsdottir has become a double prize-winning international bestseller. As heard on Radio 4's Start the Week I'm not on my own because I've been sitting crying into a handkerchief or apron over a lack of interested men. I've been made every offer imaginable over the years. Men offer themselves, their sons . . . drunk fathers sometimes call me up and say things like: "Do you need a farmhand?" "I can lift the hay bales" "I can repair your tractors". . . Heida is a solitary farmer with a flock of 500 sheep in a remorseless area bordering Iceland's highlands. It's known as the End of the World. One of her nearest neighbours is Iceland's most notorious volcano, Katla, which has periodically driven away the inhabitants of Ljotarstadir ever since people first started farming there in the twelfth century. This portrait of Heida written with wit and humour by one of Iceland's most acclaimed novelists, Steinunn Sigurdardottir, tells a heroic tale of a charismatic young woman, who walked away from a career as a model to take over the family farm at the age of 23. I want to tell women they can do anything, and to show that sheep farming isn't just a man's game. Divided into four seasons, Heida tells the story of a remarkable year, when Heida reluctantly went into politics to fight plans to raise a hydro-electric power station on her land. This book paints a unforgettable portrait of a remote life close to nature. Translated into six languages, Heida has won two non-fiction prizes and has become an international bestseller. We humans are mortal; the land outlives us, new people come, new sheep, new birds and so on but the land with its rivers and lakes and resources, remains. 'UTTERLY CHARMING' MAIL ON SUNDAY 'REVELATORY AND INSPIRING' HERALD

This volume is part of the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh critical edition, which brings together all Waugh's published and previously unpublished writings for the first time with comprehensive introductions and annotation. The edition's General Editor is Alexander Waugh, Evelyn Waugh's grandson and editor of the twelve-volume Personal Writings sequence, which collates all Waugh's letters, diaries, and other personal writings in chronological order. Volume one of the series covers the years 1903-1921, ending with Waugh's departure from Lancing College, aged 18, with a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford. For many years at Lancing Waugh kept a daily account of his life, and every diary entry is reprinted here along with the lively pen-and ink drawings that accompanied them and the letters he sent to his parents and friends. No other book presents such a rich anthology of writing by a school-boy, let alone one who would later turn into a major literary figure and novelist of genius.

The daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother and a lover of women, Sappho was one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience. Philip Freeman paints a vivid picture of Sappho's world. He delves into religious rites, customs, the role of women in the family, medical knowledge and the experience of motherhood at the time. Through this contextual knowledge, a picture of Sappho's life emerges. Freeman uses his vast historical research, in conjunction with Sappho's poems and other Greek works of fiction, to bring us the closest we can come to knowing the biographical details of this most famous woman poet.

This book, the first of two volumes anticipating the bicentenary of the birth of William Makepeace Thackeray in 1811, details not only the author's life, but also the cosmopolitan and literary worlds inhabited by his two daughters, Minny and Annie. When Thackeray died in 1863, the two sisters were forced to find their own way forward. Minny would marry Leslie Stephen, later father of Virginia Woolf, and die at only thirty-five; Annie, encouraged in early years by her father, would herself emerge as a successful novelist, though one always living, albeit willingly, within her father's shadow. Drawing continuously on the letters, diaries, journals and notebooks of the Thackerays and their circle, Aplin sheds light on this remarkable man's family, and the effect that his life, death and legacy had on those closest to him. The book will appeal not just to those interested in Thackeray and the Victorians, but also to readers of biography, womenis studies and memoirs, and to followers of Viriginia Woolf and Bloomsbury.

Towards the end of a long and astonishingly full life, whose scope and variety most of us can only dream about, Jan Carew began writing his memoirs. A global, multifaceted man, they cover his multiple lives as Guyanese/Caribbean novelist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activist, the early shaper of Black Studies in the United States, actor and playwright, painter, agricultural evangelist, advisor to Heads of State in Africa and the Caribbean and theoretician of the Columbian origins of racism in the Americas. Where there are gaps, Joy Gleason Carew goes back to some of the vivid, eyewitness journalism Jan Carew wrote in those heady days of hope and struggle.

With an introduction by Harriet McDougal, Origins of The Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston explores the inspirations behind the acclaimed series The Wheel of Time, including a biography of Robert Jordan for the first time. 'Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal' - New York Times on The Wheel of Time series Explore never-before-seen insights into The Wheel of Time, including: - A brand-new, redrawn world map by Ellisa Mitchell using change requests discovered in Robert Jordan's unpublished notes - An alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the World This companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Robert Jordan's masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was (including a chapter that is the very first published biography of the author), how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature. The second part of the book is a glossary to the 'real world' in The Wheel of Time. King Arthur is in The Wheel of Time. Merlin, too. But so is Alexander the Great and the Apollo Space Program, the Norse gods and Napoleon's greatest defeat - and so much more. Origins of The Wheel of Time will provide exciting knowledge and insights to both new and longtime fans looking either to expand their understanding of the series or unearth the real-life influences that Jordan utilized in his world-building - all in one accessible text.

"Beautifully written, searingly honest, and deeply affecting ... when the book ended, I only wanted more" - Roxane Gay "Ford is a writer for the ages, and Somebody's Daughter will be a book of the year" - Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed "Truly a classic in the making" - John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars An Oprah book Throughout her adolescence, Ashley Ford doesn't know how to deal with the worries that keep her up at night. If only she could turn to her father for his advice and support. But he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there. After being raped by her ex-boyfriend, Ashley desperately searches for her sense of self. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father's incarceration... and Ashley's world is turned upside down. Ashley embarks on a powerful journey to find the connections between who she is and what she was born into, discovering that, however much we might try to untether ourselves from a painful past, the ties that bind families together are the strongest ones of all. "Sure to be one of the best memoirs of 2021" - Kirkus Reviews "A heart-wrenching coming-of age story" - Time "Her coming-of-age story gets at how to both acknowledge and break away from what we're born into" - Cosmopolitan "A beautiful, delicate memoir... a journey toward true and powerful selfhood" - Elle

Hunter S. Thompson is best remembered today as a caricature: drug-addled, sharp-witted, and passionate; played with bowlegged aplomb by Johnny Depp; memorialized as a Doonesbury character. In all this entertainment, the true figure of Thompson has unfortunately been forgotten. In this perceptive, dramatic book, Tim Denevi recounts the moment when Thompson found his calling. As the Kennedy assassination and the turmoil of the 60s paved the way for Richard Nixon, Thompson greeted him with two very powerful emotions: fear and loathing. In his fevered effort to take down what he saw as a rising dictator, Thompson made a kind of Faustian bargain, taking the drugs he needed to meet newspaper deadlines and pushing himself beyond his natural limits. For ten years, he cast aside his old ambitions, troubled his family, and likely hastened his own decline, along the way producing some of the best political writing in our history. This remarkable biography reclaims Hunter Thompson for the enigmatic true believer he was: not a punchline or a cartoon character, but a fierce, colorful opponent of fascism in a country that suddenly seemed all too willing to accept it.

In the tradition of "The Glass Castle," two sisters confront schizophrenia in this poignant literary memoir about family and mental illness. Through stunning prose and original art, "The Memory Palace" captures the love between mother and daughter, the complex meaning of truth, and family's capacity for forgiveness.
"People have abandoned their loved ones for much less than you've been through," Mira Bartok is told at her mother's memorial service. It is a poignant observation about the relationship between Mira, her sister, and their mentally ill mother. Before she was struck with schizophrenia at the age of nineteen, beautiful piano protege Norma Herr had been the most vibrant personality in the room. She loved her daughters and did her best to raise them well, but as her mental state deteriorated, Norma spoke less about Chopin and more about Nazis and her fear that her daughters would be kidnapped, murdered, or raped.
When the girls left for college, the harassment escalated--Norma called them obsessively, appeared at their apartments or jobs, threatened to kill herself if they did not return home. After a traumatic encounter, Mira and her sister were left with no choice but to change their names and sever all contact with Norma in order to stay safe. But while Mira pursued her career as an artist--exploring the ancient romance of Florence, the eerie mysticism of northern Norway, and the raw desert of Israel--the haunting memories of her mother were never far away.
Then one day, a debilitating car accident changes Mira's life forever. Struggling to recover from a traumatic brain injury, she was confronted with a need to recontextualize her life--she had to relearn how to paint, read, and interact with the outside world. In her search for a way back to her lost self, Mira reached out to the homeless shelter where she believed her mother was living and discovered that Norma was dying.
Mira and her sister traveled to Cleveland, where they shared an extraordinary reconciliation with their mother that none of them had thought possible. At the hospital, Mira discovered a set of keys that opened a storage unit Norma had been keeping for seventeen years. Filled with family photos, childhood toys, and ephemera from Norma's life, the storage unit brought back a flood of previous memories that Mira had thought were lost to her forever.

This volume considers two authors who represent different but complementary responses to social injustice and human degradation. The writings of Walter Rauschenbusch and Dorothy Day respond to an American situation that arose out of the industrial revolution and reflect especially-but not exclusively-urban life in the east coast of the United States during the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. Although these two authors differ greatly, they both reacted to the extreme social inequality and strife that occurred between 1890 and the beginning of World War II. They shared a total commitment to the cause of social justice, their Christian faith, and an active engagement in the quest for a just social order. But the different ways they reacted to the situation generated different spiritualities. Rauschenbusch was a pastor, writer, historian, and seminary professor. Day was a journalist who became an organizer. The strategic differences between them, however, grew out of a common sustained reaction against the massive deprivation that surrounded them. There is no spiritual rivalry here. They complement each other and reinforce the Christian humanitarian motivation that drives them. Their work brings the social dimension of Christian spirituality to the surface in a way that had not been emphasized in the same focused way before them. They are part of an awakening to the degree to which the social order lies in the hands of the people who support it. Both Rauschenbusch and Day are examples of an explicit recognition of the social dimension of Christian spirituality, and a radical acting out of that response in two distinctly different ways.

'Laura Thompson's outstanding biography . . . is a pretty much perfect capturing of a life' - Kate Mosse It has been 100 years since Agatha Christie wrote her first novel and created the formidable Hercule Poirot. In this biography, Laura Thompson describes the Edwardian world in which she grew up, explores the relationships she had, including those with her two husbands and daughter, and investigates the mysteries still surrounding Christie's life - including her disappearance in 1926. Agatha Christie is a mystery and writing about her is a detection job in itself. But, with access to all of Christie's letters, papers and writing notebooks, as well as interviews with her grandson, daughter, son-in-law and their living relations, Thompson is able to unravel not only the detailed workings of Christie's detective fiction, but the truth behind her private life as well. First published in 2007 as 'Agatha Christie: An English Mystery', this is a fully updated edition with a new introduction by the author

At the outset of his career Ted Hughes described letter-writing as 'excellent training for conversation with the world', and he was to become a prolific master of this art which combines writing and talking. This selection begins when Hughes was seventeen, and documents the course of a life at once resolutely private but intensely attuned to other lives (including a readership comprising both adults and children); a life pared down to essentials and yet eventful, peripatetic, at times publicly controversial.

Anne Bronte, the youngest and most enigmatic of the Bronte sisters, remains a best-selling author nearly two centuries after her death. The brilliance of her two novels - Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - and her poetry belies the quiet, yet courageous girl who often lived in the shadows of her more celebrated sisters. Yet her writing was the most revolutionary of all the Brontes, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable. This revealing new biography opens Anne's most private life to a new audience and shows the true nature of her relationships with her siblings, in particular with her sister Charlotte.

'An incredibly moving, truly inspiring story of the power of determination. An absolutely stunning read.' Katharine Birbalsingh 'Fascinating and poignant... an astoundingly honest and intimate memoir.' Angela Petch Perhaps it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps it's true that you only know what you truly love when you no longer have it. But I wouldn't have known any of this if I hadn't left it all behind to discover where my home truly was... Growing up in British Guiana in the 1950s, Sharon Maas has everything a shy child with a vivid imagination could wish for. She spends her days studying bugs in the backyard, eating fresh mangos straight from the tree and tucked up on her granny's lap losing herself in books. But with her father campaigning for the country's independence and her mother away for work, there's a void in Sharon's heart, and she craves rules and structure. The books she devours give her a glimpse of life in a faraway country: England. And although none of the characters in these books look like her, her insatiable curiosity leads Sharon to beg to be sent to boarding school. Life at a conservative, Christian school is quite different from Sharon's liberal, atheist upbringing. Girls march silently and single file along corridors and earn badges for deportment. There are twice-daily hymns, grace before and after meals and mandatory bedside prayers. And, all the girls are posh and white, while Sharon is the only one with dark skin. Will she ever fulfil her dream of horseback riding over green hills and going on adventures like her literary heroes? And has she truly found what she was looking for in this chilly corner of the world, thousands of miles away from home? You will be swept off your feet by the unputdownable story of Sharon Maas's extraordinary childhood in British Guiana and England, a beautiful and inspiring coming-of-age tale of self-discovery, determination and chasing your dreams. Praise for The Girl from Lamaha Street: 'Beautiful. Poignant. Phenomenal. This was a beautiful read and I learnt so much. I cried and I smiled and there was nothing more that I wanted from this book. Truly a gem.' Goodreads reviewer 'To say this story was inspirational would be an understatement. I was utterly mesmerized... As a woman of color, I recognized myself and my experiences in the pages of this memoir... powerful, moving, and heartwarming... I devoured this book, and it is no doubt a five-star read.' Goodreads reviewer 'Enlightening... powerful... Beautifully written... I found myself turning and turning, immersed in the story. A wonderful, evocative read.' Nicki's Book Blog 'Engaging and intriguing... so good that I was completely enthralled from beginning to end.' NetGalley reviewer

The 50th anniversary deluxe edition of Travels with Charley in Search of America features an updated introduction by Jay Parini and first edition cover art and illustrated maps of Steinbeck's route by Don Freeman.
In September 1960, John Steinbeck embarked on a journey across America. He felt that he might have lost touch with the country, with its speech, the smell of its grass and trees, its color and quality of light, the pulse of its people. To reassure himself, he set out on a voyage of rediscovery of the American identity, accompanied by a distinguished French poodle named Charley; and riding in a three-quarter-ton pickup truck named Rocinante.
His course took him through almost forty states: northward from Long Island to Maine; through the Midwest to Chicago; onward by way of Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana (with which he fell in love), and Idaho to Seattle, south to San Francisco and his birthplace, Salinas; eastward through the Mojave, New Mexico, Arizona, to the vast hospitality of Texas, to New Orleans and a shocking drama of desegregation; finally, on the last leg, through Alabama, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to New York.
Travels with Charley in Search of America is an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life--a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South--which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand--Travels with Charley is a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade.

A beautifully illustrated account of the letters and correspondence of Jane Austen. It has been said that Jane Austen the woman and Jane Austen the author are all of a piece, and nowhere is this more evident to the lovers of her novels than in the pages of her letters. This handsome celebration of Austen's letters is illustrated with portraits, facsimile letters, topographical engravings and fashion plates, all helping to bring to life the world Jane Austen inhabited. The letters, with an accompanying commentary by Penelope Hughes-Hallett, are separated into six periods of Jane Austen's life, between the years 1796, when she was twenty, and 1817, the year of her death. They celebrate Jane Austen's talent for expressing exactly what she perceived, making this an illuminating companion to her novels. Although the book follows a broadly chronological scheme, the letters are arranged round visual themes, including the Hampshire countryside, social life in Bath and London, domestic pursuits, paying visits and travelling by carriage. The author, who was born in Jane Austen's Hampshire village of Steventon, lectured on English Literature for the Open University and the Oxford University Department of External Studies.

Elizabeth Gaskell is best known as a novelist and biographer, but she was also a lively and sensitive letter writer, with a vivacious interest in all that was going on around her. This selection from her letters, with a linking commentary, provides a biography of Gaskell largely in her own words. It is in chronological order, with special chapters devoted to her family life, her travels, her charities and her life as an author who was also a wife and mother, in a period when Victorian society and culture were undergoing major changes - especially apparent in the Manchester where she lived. She emerges as a woman of intelligence, integrity and grace, with an enchanting sense of humour, an insatiable curiosity about life, a deep regard for truth and a boundless sympathy for others. This selection by John Chapple, and assisted by John Geoffrey Sharps, was originally published in 1980. With the support of the Gaskell Society it has been reprinted without alteration, except for some new illustrations.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Last Act of Love, Cathy Rentzenbrink's Dear Reader is the ultimate love letter to reading and to finding the comfort and joy in stories. 'Exquisite' - Marian Keyes, author of Grown Ups 'A warm, unpretentious manifesto for why books matter' - Sunday Express Growing up, Cathy Rentzenbrink was rarely seen without her nose in a book and read in secret long after lights out. When tragedy struck, it was books that kept her afloat. Eventually they lit the way to a new path, first as a bookseller and then as a writer. No matter what the future holds, reading will always help. A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how books can change the course of your life, packed with recommendations from one reader to another.