2022 Atlantean Award, Robert E. Howard Foundation You may not know the name Robert E. Howard, but you probably know his work. His most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, is an icon of popular culture. In hundreds of tales detailing the exploits of Conan, King Kull, and others, Howard helped to invent the sword and sorcery genre. Todd B. Vick delves into newly available archives and probes Howard's relationships, particularly with schoolteacher Novalyne Price, to bring a fresh, objective perspective to Howard's life. Like his many characters, Howard was an enigma and an outsider. He spent his formative years visiting the four corners of Texas, experiences that left a mark on his stories. He was intensely devoted to his mother, whom he nursed in her final days, and whose impending death contributed to his suicide in 1936 when he was just thirty years old. Renegades and Rogues is an unequivocal journalistic account that situates Howard within the broader context of pulp literature. More than a realistic fantasist, he wrote westerns and horror stories as well, and engaged in avid correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft and other pulp writers of his day. Vick investigates Howard's twelve-year writing career, analyzes the influences that underlay his celebrated characters, and assesses the afterlife of Conan, the figure in whom Howard's fervent imagination achieved its most durable expression.

In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border. Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this "compelling...unvarnished, resonant" (BookPage) story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries. As her parents make the dangerous trek across the Mexican border to "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced into the already overburdened household of their stern grandmother. When their mother at last returns, Reyna prepares for her own journey to "El Otro Lado" to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father. Funny, heartbreaking, and lyrical, The Distance Between Us poignantly captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood, reminding us that the joys and sorrows we experience are imprinted on the heart forever, calling out to us of those places we first called home. Also available in Spanish as La distancia entre nosotros.

The extraordinary untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous secret life in espionage A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A finalist for the William E. Colby Military Writers' Award "IMPORTANT" (Wall Street Journal) - "FASCINATING" (New York Review of Books) - "CAPTIVATING" (Missourian) A riveting international cloak-and-dagger epic ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the liberation of Western Europe, wartime China, the Red Scare of Cold War America, and the Cuban Revolution, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy reveals for the first time Ernest Hemingway's secret adventures in espionage and intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s (including his role as a Soviet agent code-named "Argo"), a hidden chapter that fueled both his art and his undoing. While he was the historian at the esteemed CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime American intelligence officer, former U.S. Marine colonel, and Oxford-trained historian, began to uncover clues suggesting Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in mid-twentieth-century spycraft -- a mysterious and shocking relationship that was far more complex, sustained, and fraught with risks than has ever been previously supposed. Now Reynolds's meticulously researched and captivating narrative "looks among the shadows and finds a Hemingway not seen before" (London Review of Books), revealing for the first time the whole story of this hidden side of Hemingway's life: his troubling recruitment by Soviet spies to work with the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, followed in short order by a complex set of secret relationships with American agencies. Starting with Hemingway's sympathy to antifascist forces during the 1930s, Reynolds illuminates Hemingway's immersion in the life-and-death world of the revolutionary left, from his passionate commitment to the Spanish Republic; his successful pursuit by Soviet NKVD agents, who valued Hemingway's influence, access, and mobility; his wartime meeting in East Asia with communist leader Chou En-Lai, the future premier of the People's Republic of China; and finally to his undercover involvement with Cuban rebels in the late 1950s and his sympathy for Fidel Castro. Reynolds equally explores Hemingway's participation in various roles as an agent for the United States government, including hunting Nazi submarines with ONI-supplied munitions in the Caribbean on his boat, Pilar; his command of an informant ring in Cuba called the "Crook Factory" that reported to the American embassy in Havana; and his on-the-ground role in Europe, where he helped OSS gain key tactical intelligence for the liberation of Paris and fought alongside the U.S. infantry in the bloody endgame of World War II. As he examines the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's block and mental decline (including paranoia) that plagued him during the postwar years -- a period marked by the Red Scare and McCarthy hearings. Reynolds also illuminates how those same experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his life and perhaps contributing to his suicide. A literary biography with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life, work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.

The first comprehensive biography of this iconic artist to appear in English. Richly illustrated with 160 photographs. Since her dramatic death at the age of 31 the name Ingrid Jonker has been linked to that of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath - legends who died young. In her first biography to appear in English, the frail figure of Jonker as a child, a young poet, daughter of a prominent politician, wife, mother, mistress of a famous author, lover and rebel is portrayed against the backdrop of revolt against South Africa's policies of censorship and apartheid.

Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2019 Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing 2020 'If you have even the slightest interest in Orwell or in the development of our culture, you should not miss this engrossing, enlightening book.' John Carey, Sunday Times George Orwell's last novel has become one of the iconic narratives of the modern world. Its ideas have become part of the language - from 'Big Brother' to the 'Thought Police', 'Doublethink', and 'Newspeak' - and seem ever more relevant in the era of 'fake news' and 'alternative facts'. The cultural influence of 1984 can be observed in some of the most notable creations of the past seventy years, from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale to Terry Gilliam's Brazil, from Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta to David Bowie's Diamond Dogs - and from the launch of Apple Mac to the reality TV landmark, Big Brother. In this remarkable and original book. Dorian Lynskey investigates the influences that came together in the writing of 1984 from Orwell's experiences in the Spanish Civil War and war-time London to his book's roots in utopian and dystopian fiction. He explores the phenomenon that the novel became on publication and the changing ways in which it has been read over the decades since. 2019 marks the seventieth anniversary of the publication of what is arguably Orwell's masterpiece, while the year 1984 itself is now as distant from us as it was from Orwell on publication day. The Ministry of Truth is a fascinating examination of one of the most significant works of modern English literature. It describes how history can inform fiction and how fiction can influence history.

A revelatory look at the life of the great American author--and how it shaped his most beloved works

Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast--an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed bestselling books "The Call of the""Wild," "White Fang," and "The Sea-Wolf."

The bare outlines of his story suggest a classic rags-to-riches tale, but London the man was plagued by contradictions. He chronicled nature at its most savage, but wept helplessly at the deaths of his favorite animals. At his peak the highest paid writer in the United States, he was nevertheless forced to work under constant pressure for money. An irrepressibly optimistic crusader for social justice and a lover of humanity, he was also subject to spells of bitter invective, especially as his health declined. Branded by shortsighted critics as little more than a hack who produced a couple of memorable dog stories, he left behind a voluminous literary legacy, much of it ripe for rediscovery.

In "Jack London: An American Life," the noted Jack London scholar Earle Labor explores the brilliant and complicated novelist lost behind the myth--at once a hard-living globe-trotter and a man alive with ideas, whose passion for seeking new worlds to explore never waned until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Labor resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory.

"Every page brings forth the elegiac tone of JRR Tolkien's work... It is a beautiful book, including many wonderful pictures by Tolkien himself... Garth's book made me realise the impact that Tolkien has had on my life." The Times A lavishly illustrated exploration of the places that inspired and shaped the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of Middle-earth. This new book from renowned expert John Garth takes us to the places that inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create his fictional locations in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and other classic works. Featuring more than 100 images, it includes Tolkien's own illustrations, contributions from other artists, archive images, maps and spectacular present-day photographs. Inspirational locations range across Great Britain - particularly Tolkien's beloved West Midlands and Oxford - but also overseas to all points of the compass. Sources are located for Hobbiton, the elven valley of Rivendell, the Glittering Caves of Helm's Deep, and many other key spots in Middle-earth, as well as for its mountain scenery, forests, rivers, lakes and shorelands. A rich interplay is revealed between Tolkien's personal travels, his wide reading and his deep scholarship as an Oxford professor. Garth uses his own profound knowledge of Tolkien's life and work to uncover the extraordinary processes of invention, to debunk popular misconceptions about the inspirations for Middle-earth, and to put forward strong new claims of his own. Organised by theme, The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien is an illustrated journey into the life and imagination of one of the world's best-loved authors, an exploration of the relationship between worlds real and fantastical, and an inspiration for anyone who wants to follow in Tolkien's footsteps.

An instant "New York Times "bestseller, this "explosive biography" ("People") of one of the most beloved and mysterious figures of the twentieth century is "as close as we'll ever get to being inside J.D. Salinger's head" ("Entertainment Weekly").
This "revealing" ("The" "New York Times") and "engrossing" ("The" "Wall Street Journal") oral biography, "fascinating and unique" ("The Washington Post") and "an unmitigated success" ("USA TODAY"), has redefined our understanding of one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century.
In nine years of work on "Salinger," and especially in the years since the author's death, David Shields and Shane Salerno interviewed more than 200 people on five continents, many of whom had previously refused to go on the record about their relationship with Salinger. This oral biography offers direct eyewitness accounts from Salinger's World War II brothers-in-arms, his family members, his close friends, his lovers, his classmates, his neighbors, his editors, his publishers, his "New Yorker" colleagues, and people with whom he had relationships that were secret even to his own family. Their intimate recollections are supported by more that 175 photos (many never seen before), diaries, legal records, and private documents that are woven throughout; in addition, appearing here for the first time, are Salinger's "lost letters"--ranging from the 1940s to 2008, revealing his intimate views on love, literature, fame, religion, war, and death, and providing a raw and revelatory self-portrait.
The result is "unprecedented" (Associated Press), "genuinely valuable" ("Time"), and "strips away the sheen of Salinger's] exceptionalism, trading in his genius for something much more real" ("Los Angeles Times"). According to the "Sunday Times" of London, "Salinger" is "a stupendous work...I predict with the utmost confidence that, after this, the world will not need another Salinger biography."

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography

"Thoroughly absorbing, lively . . . Fuller, so misunderstood in life, richly deserves the nuanced, compassionate portrait Marshall paints." --" Boston Globe"

Pulitzer Prize finalist Megan Marshall recounts the trailblazing life of Margaret Fuller: Thoreau's first editor, Emerson's close friend, daring war correspondent, tragic heroine. After her untimely death in a shipwreck off Fire Island, the sense and passion of her life's work were eclipsed by scandal. Marshall's inspired narrative brings her back to indelible life.

Whether detailing her front-page "New-York Tribune" editorials against poor conditions in the city's prisons and mental hospitals, or illuminating her late-in-life hunger for passionate experience--including a secret affair with a young officer in the Roman Guard--Marshall's biography gives the most thorough and compassionate view of an extraordinary woman. No biography of Fuller has made her ideas so alive or her life so moving.

"Megan Marshall's brilliant "Margaret Fuller" brings us as close as we are ever likely to get to this astonishing creature. She rushes out at us from her nineteenth century, always several steps ahead, inspiring, heartbreaking, magnificent." -- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of "Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity"

"Shaping her narrative like a novel, Marshall brings the reader as close as possible to Fuller's inner life and conveys the inspirational power she has achieved for several generations of women." --" New Republic"

Hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph), this book reflects candidly, sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old. Charming readers, writers, and critics alike, the memoir won the Costa Award for Biography and made Athill, then ninety-one, a surprising literary star. Diana Athill was one of the great editors in British publishing. For more than five decades she edited the likes of V. S. Naipaul and Jean Rhys, for whom she was a confidante and caretaker. As a writer, Athill made her reputation for the frankness and precisely expressed wisdom of her memoirs. Writing in her ninety-first year, "entirely untamed about both old and new conventions" (Literary Review) and freed from any of the inhibitions that even she may have once had, Athill reflects candidly, and sometimes with great humor, on the condition of being old-the losses and occasionally the gains that age brings, the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. Distinguished by "remarkable intelligence...[and the] easy elegance of her prose" (Daily Telegraph), this short, well-crafted book, hailed as "a virtuoso exercise" (Sunday Telegraph) presents an inspiring work for those hoping to flourish in their later years.