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Books > Language & Literature > Biography & autobiography > Literary
Selected for 4 of Oprah's "Best Books" lists: * Best Memoirs * Best
Beach Reads * Best First Lines * Top Books to Pick Up Now
"Sometimes things shatter," writes Dawn Raffel in The Secret Life
of Objects. "More often they just fade." But in this evocative
memoir, moments from the past do not fade - they breathe on the
page, rendering a striking portrait of a woman through her
connections to the people she's loved, the places she been, what's
been lost, and what remains. In clear, beautiful prose Raffel
reveals the haunting qualities of the objects we gather, as well as
the sustaining and elusive nature of memory itself." - Samuel
Ligon, author of Drift and Swerve: Stories "Dawn puts memories,
people and secrets together like perfectly set gems in these
shimmering stories, which are a delight to read. Every detail is
exquisite, every character beautifully observed, and every object
becomes sacred in her kind, capable hands. I savored every word." -
Priscilla Warner, author of Learning to Breathe - My Yearlong Quest
to Bring Calm to My Life
A dazzling biography of two interwoven, tragic lives: John Keats
and F. Scott Fitzgerald. 'Highly engaging ... Go now, read this
book' THE TIMES 'For awhile after you quit Keats,' Fitzgerald once
wrote, 'All other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.'
John Keats died two hundred years ago, in February 1821. F. Scott
Fitzgerald defined a decade that began one hundred years ago, the
Jazz Age. In this biography, prizewinning author Jonathan Bate
recreates these two shining, tragic lives in parallel. Not only was
Fitzgerald profoundly influenced by Keats, titling Tender is the
Night and other works from the poet's lines, but the two lived with
echoing fates: both died young, loved to drink, were plagued by
tuberculosis, were haunted by their first love, and wrote into a
new decade of release, experimentation and decadence. Luminous and
vital, this biography goes through the looking glass to meet afresh
two of the greatest and best-known Romantic writers in their
twinned centuries.
**LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2021**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2021** **SHORTLISTED FOR
THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE** **FINALIST FOR THE 2022 PLUTARCH
AWARD** D. H. Lawrence is no longer censored, but he is still on
trial - and we are still unsure what the verdict should be. Delving
into the memoirs of those who both loved and hated him most,
Burning Man follows Lawrence from the peninsular underworld of
Cornwall in 1915 to post-war Italy to the mountains of New Mexico,
and traces the author's footsteps through the pages of his lesser
known work. Wilson presents a complex, courageous and often comic
fugitive, careering around a world in the grip of apocalypse, in
search of utopia; and, in bringing the true Lawrence into sharp
focus, shows how he speaks to us now more than ever. 'A work of art
in its own right' OBSERVER 'Utterly enthralling' GEOFF DYER
'Brilliantly unconventional' RICHARD HOLMES 'A red-hot, propulsive
book' THE TIMES
Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an Essay on Dostoevsky (1901) is a
work of literary criticism by Dmitriy Merezhkovsky. Having turned
from his work in poetry to a new, spiritually charged interest in
fiction, Merezhkovsky sought to develop his theory of the Third
Testament, an apocalyptic vision of Christianity's fulfillment in
twentieth century humanity. In this collection of essays on Tolstoy
and Dostoevsky, Merezhkovsky explores the spiritual dimensions of
the written word by examining the interconnection of being and
writing for two of Russian literature's most iconic writers. For
Dmitriy Merezhkovsky, an author who always wrote with philosophical
and spiritual purpose, the figure of the artist as a human being is
a powerful tool for understanding the quality and focus of that
artist's work. Leo Tolstoy, author of such classics as War and
Peace and Anna Karenina, developed a reputation as an ascetic,
deeply spiritual man who envisioned his art as an extension of his
political and religious beliefs. Dostoevsky, while perhaps more
interested in the psychological aspects of human life, pursued a
similar path in such novels as The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and
Punishment. In Merezhkovsky's view, these writers came to embody in
their lives and works the particularly Russian conflict between
truths both human and divine. Tolstoy as Man and Artist with an
Essay on Dostoevsky is an invaluable text both for its analysis of
its subjects and for its illumination of the philosophical concepts
explored by Merezhkovsky throughout his storied career. With a
beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Dmitriy Merezhkovsky's Tolstoy as Man and Artist
with an Essay on Dostoevsky is a classic work of Russian literature
reimagined for modern readers.
Four popular novelists of the same generation each wrote a novel
inspired by a holiday that the author spent in France. In the
nineteen-fifties, Rumer Godden based The Greengage Summer on her
recollections of her family's 1923 battlefield-tour manque in the
Champagne region. Margery Sharp's 1936 holiday in Southern France
led to 'Still Waters' and The Nutmeg Tree: both the short story and
the novel are set in and around the region of Aix-les-Bains. In
1955, Daphne du Maurier first visited the department of Sarthe to
research French family history; the novel The Scapegoat was the
immediate result of the holiday. And in 1966, Stella Gibbons' last
trip to the continent took the form of a visit to an old friend in
her summer home near Grenoble. The stay is obliquely reflected in
The Snow-Woman, in which a similar holiday leads a never-married
septuagenarian to experience a renaissance of sorts.
'Amusing, charming, stimulating, urbane' - THE TIMES 'Revelatory' -
GUARDIAN 'Restores Clive Bell vividly to life' - Lucasta Miller
______________ Clive Bell is perhaps better known today for being a
Bloomsbury socialite and the husband of artist Vanessa Bell, sister
to Virginia Woolf. Yet Bell was a highly important figure in his
own right: an internationally renowned art critic who defended
daring new forms of expression at a time when Britain was closed
off to all things foreign. His groundbreaking book Art brazenly
subverted the narratives of art history and cemented his status as
the great interpreter of modern art. Bell was also an ardent
pacifist and a touchstone for the Wildean values of individual
freedoms, and his is a story that leads us into an extraordinary
world of intertwined lives, loves and sexualities. For decades,
Bell has been an obscure figure, refracted through the wealth of
writing on Bloomsbury, but here Mark Hussey brings him to the fore,
drawing on personal letters, archives and Bell's own extensive
writing. Complete with a cast of famous characters, including
Lytton Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Pablo Picasso
and Jean Cocteau, Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism is a
fascinating portrait of a man who became one of the pioneering
voices in art of his era. Reclaiming Bell's stature among the
makers of modernism, Hussey has given us a biography to muse and
marvel over - a snapshot of a time and of a man who revelled in and
encouraged the shock of the new. 'A book of real substance written
with style and panache, copious fresh information and many
insights' - Julian Bell
This first full-length biography of the Nobel Laureate to appear in
a quarter century explores John Steinbeck's long apprenticeship as
a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and
his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of
Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. His most poignant and
evocative writing emerged in his sympathy for the Okies fleeing the
dust storms of the Midwest, the migrant workers toiling in
California's fields and the labourers on Cannery Row, reflecting a
social engagement-paradoxical for all of his natural
misanthropy-radically different from the writers of the so-called
Lost Generation. A man by turns quick-tempered, contrary,
compassionate and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck took aim at the
corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality and the
growing urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive fierce
public debate to this day.
Lewis Carroll is one of the world's best-loved writers. His
immortal Wonderland and delightful nonsense verses have enchanted
generations of children and adults alike. The wit and imagination,
the wisdom, sense of absurdity and sheer fun which fill his books
shine just as clearly from the many letters he wrote. '...each is a
miniature Wonderland... They reveal a truly delightful man...the
combination of intense goodness and unselfishness with a magic,
nonsense wit is unique'. The Scotsman '...a magnificent collection
of delightful and entertaining letters reflecting all that was
embraced in that remarkable character...all his charm, inventive
fun, wisdom, generosity, kindliness and inventive mind'. Walter
Tyson, Oxford Times.
Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) was one of the youngest of the war
poets, enlisting straight from school to find himself in some of
the Western Front's most notorious hot-spots. His prose memoir,
written in a rich, allusive vein, full of anecdote and human
interest, is unique for its quiet authority and for the potency of
its dream-like narrative. Once we accept the archaic conventions
and catch the tone-which can be by turns horrifying or
hilarious-Undertones of War gradually reveals itself as a
masterpiece. It is clear why it has remained in print since it
first appeared in 1928. This new edition not only offers the
original unrevised version of the prose narrative, written at white
heat when Blunden was teaching in Japan and had no access to his
notes, but provides a great deal of supplementary material never
before gathered together. Blunden's 'Preliminary' expresses the
lifelong compulsion he felt 'to go over the ground again' and for
half a century he prepared new prefaces, added annotations. All
those prefaces and a wide selection of his commentaries are
included here-marginalia from friends' first editions, remarks in
letters, extracts from later essays, and a substantial part of his
war diary. John Greening has provided a scholarly introduction
discussing the bibliographical and historical background, and
brings his poet's eye to a much expanded (and more representative)
selection of Blunden's war poetry. For the first time we can see
the poet Blunden as the major figure he was. Blunden had always
hoped for a properly illustrated edition of the work, and kept a
folder full of possible pictures. The editor, with the Blunden
family's help, has selected some of the best of them to include in
this new edition.
The biographer Winifred Gerin (1901-81), who wrote the lives of all
four Bronte siblings, stumbled on her literary vocation on a visit
to Haworth, after a difficult decade following the death of her
first husband. On the same visit she met her second husband, a
Bronte enthusiast twenty years her junior. Together they turned
their backs on London to live within sight of the Parsonage, Gerin
believing that full understanding of the Brontes required total
immersion in their environment. Gerin's childhood and youth, like
the Brontes', was characterised by a cultured home and intense
imaginative life shared with her sister and two brothers, and by
family tragedies (the loss of two siblings in early life). Strong
cultural influences formed the children's imagination: polyglot
parents, French history, the Crystal Palace, Old Vic productions.
Winifred's years at Newnham College, Cambridge were enlivened by
eccentric characters such as the legendary lecturer Quiller-Couch
(Q'), Lytton Strachey's sister Pernel and Bloomsbury's favourite
philosopher, G.E. Moore. Her happy life in Paris with her Belgian
cellist husband, Eugene Gerin, was brought to an abrupt end by the
Second World War, in which the couple had many adventures: fleeing
occupied Belgium, saving Jews in Nice in Vichy France, escaping
through Spain and Portugal to England, where they did secret war
work for Political Intelligence near Bletchley. After Eugene's
death in 1945 Winifred coped with bereavement through poetry and
playwriting until discovering her true literary metier on the trip
to Haworth. She also wrote about Elizabeth Gaskell, Anne Thackeray
Ritchie and Fanny Burney. The book is based on her letters and on
her unpublished memoir.
Cold Cream is a sparkling autobiography in the great tradition:
wonderfully perceptive, exquisitely rendered and bursting with
characters and anecdotes of every shade and hue. A tender, moving
and witty portrait of Ferdinand Mount's family and his early life,
it follows his bumbling path from his decadent upbringing in the
world of 'Hobohemia' to his schooldays at Eton, and from the boozy
depths of Fleet Street in the 60s to his years at the vortex of
Downing Street in the 80s as speech writer (much to his own
bemusement) for Margaret Thatcher. Every sentence radiates with
fondness, intelligence and humour in this utterly charming
anthology of an eccentric and colourful cast of people who defined
their generation.
This uncompromising biography tells the story of a wounded D-Day
veteran, a deserter, a violent drunk, a loving father who abandoned
his first child, a boxer and brawler, a wife-beater, a bigamist,
and a passionately romantic lover. It is also, most importantly,
the story of a poet. Vernon Scannell wrote some of the finest
poetry to come out of the Second World War. He won the Chomondeley
Prize and the Heinemann Award, and for half a century he was
acknowledged as one of the leading poets in the country. His
Collected Poems are still in print, and his poetry for both adults
and children is regularly anthologised and appears on English
Literature examination papers. Scannell died in 2007, and Walking
Wounded draws on his personal diaries, poems, and other writings to
offer the first detailed study of this complex, controversial, and
occasionally tragic life. For the first time, the women who loved
him tell their stories; his children describe growing up with a
father who was funny, affectionate, sometimes violent, and often
not there at all; and his fellow poets, including Seamus Heaney,
Anthony Thwaite, Alan Brownjohn and Kit Wright, speak of the
dedicated stylist, assured performer, and occasionally roistering
drunk that they knew. Scannell was seriously wounded in Normandy
shortly after D-Day, but the book looks at the deeper, mental scars
from the War that he bore all his life, and of the suffering they
caused to him and the people who loved him. It is an important book
about an important poet, which investigates where poetry comes
from, and the terrible price that sometimes has to be paid for it.
Charles M. Blow's mother was a fiercely driven woman with five
sons, brass knuckles in her glove box, and a job plucking poultry
at a factory near their town in segregated Louisiana, where
slavery's legacy felt close. When her philandering husband finally
pushed her over the edge, she fired a pistol at his fleeing back,
missing every shot, thanks to "love that blurred her vision and
bent the barrel." Charles was the baby of the family, fiercely
attached to his "do-right" mother. Until one day that divided his
life into Before and After - the day an older cousin took advantage
of the young boy. The story of how Charles escaped that world to
become one of America's most innovative and respected journalists
is a searing, redemptive journey that works its way into the
deepest chambers of the heart.
J. R. R. Tolkien: The Mind Behind the Rings, you'll get a
never-before-seen look at the man, the artist, and the believer
behind some of the world's most beloved stories. Join bestselling
author Mark Horne as he explores lasting impact of the kind of
creative freedom that can only come from faith and struggle. Raised
in South Africa and Great Britain, young Tolkien led a life filled
with uncertainty, instability, and loss. As he grew older, however,
the faith that his mother instilled in him continued as an
intrinsic contribution to his creative imagination and his everyday
life. J. R. R. Tolkien explores: The literary giant's childhood,
coming-of-age stories, and the countless hurdles he faced What
inspired and influenced The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit
Tolkien's service in the war The ways that Tolkien's faith
influenced his work Previously published as a volume in the
Christian Encounters series, this renewed edition of J. R. R.
Tolkien now includes updated information about TV series and films
inspired by Tolkien's literary creations as well as a discussion
guide designed to keep the conversation going.
'Make this your next inspirational read. Trust us, it's Oprah's
Book Club worthy' Vice In London in 1958, a play by a 19-year-old
redefined women's writing in Britain. It also began a movement that
would change women's lives forever. The play was A Taste of Honey
and the author, Shelagh Delaney, was the first in a succession of
young women who wrote about their lives with an honesty that
dazzled the world. They rebelled against sexism, inequality and
prejudice and in doing so challenged the existing definitions of
what writing and writers should be. Bypassing the London cultural
elite, their work reached audiences of millions around the world,
paved the way for profound social changes and laid the foundations
of second-wave feminism. After Delaney came Edna O'Brien, Lynne
Reid-Banks, Charlotte Bingham, Nell Dunn, Virginia Ironside and
Margaret Forster; an extraordinarily disparate group who were
united in their determination to shake the traditional concepts of
womanhood in novels, films, television, essays and journalism. They
were as angry as the Angry Young Men, but were also more
constructive and proposed new ways to live and love in the future.
They did not intend to become a literary movement but they did,
inspiring other writers to follow. Not since the Brontes have a
group of young women been so determined to tell the truth about
what it is like to be a girl. In this biographical study, the
acclaimed author, Celia Brayfield, tells their story for the first
time.
This intimate portrayal of the friendship between two icons of
twentieth-century poetry, Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky,
highlights the parallel lives of the poets as exiles living in
America and Nobel Prize laureates in literature. To create this
truly original work, Irena Grudzinska Gross draws from poems,
essays, letters, interviews, speeches, lectures, and her own
personal memories as a confidant of both Milosz and Brodsky. The
dual portrait of these poets and the elucidation of their attitudes
toward religion, history, memory, and language throw a new light on
the upheavals of the twentieth-century. Gross also incorporates
notes on both poets' relationships to other key literary figures,
such as W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag, Seamus Heaney, Mark Strand,
Robert Haas, and Derek Walcott.
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