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Books > Biography > Literary
This is a new release of the original 1949 edition.
Gregory Sumner guides readers through a biography of 15 of Kurt
Vonnegut's best known works, giving them a poignant portrait of
Vonnegut and his resistance to celebrating the traditional values
associated with the American dream - grandiose ambition, unbridled
material success and individualism.
![Inadvertent (Paperback): Karl Ove Knausgaard](//media.loot.co.za/images/x80/143214641200179215.jpg) |
Inadvertent
(Paperback)
Karl Ove Knausgaard; Translated by Ingvild Burkey
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The second book in the Why I Write series provides generous insight
into the creative process of the award-winning Norwegian novelist
Karl Ove Knausgaard "Why I Write" may prove to be the most
difficult question Karl Ove Knausgaard has struggled to answer yet
it is central to the project of one of the most influential writers
working today. To write, for the Norwegian artist, is to resist
easy thinking and preconceived notions that inhibit awareness of
our lives. Knausgaard writes to "erode [his] own notions about the
world. . . . It is one thing to know something, another to write
about it." The key to enhanced living is the ability to hit upon
something inadvertently, to regard it from a position of
defenselessness and unknowing. A deeply personal meditation,
Inadvertent is a cogent and accessible guide to the creative
process of one of our most prolific and ingenious artists.
This book is the very simple story of the love affair between Miss
Helene Hanff of New York and Messrs Marks and Co, sellers of rare
and secondhand books, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London'. DAILY
TELEGRAPH Told in a series of letters in 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD and
then in diary form in the second part THE DUCHESS OF BLOOMSBURY
STREET, this true story has touched the hearts of thousands.
Seth Lerer's moving memoir Prospero's Son is rooted in the age-old
problem of the fraught relationship between fathers and sons. But
at the same time, it is about the power of books and theater, the
excitement of stories in a young man's life, and the transformative
magic of words and performance. A flamboyantly performative father,
a teacher and lifelong actor, comes to terms with his life as a gay
man. A bookish boy becomes a professor of literature and an
acclaimed expert on the very children's books that set him on his
path in the first place. And when that boy grows up, he learns how
hard it is to be a father and just how much books can - and cannot
- instruct him. Throughout these intertwined accounts of changing
selves, Lerer returns again and again to stories - the ways they
teach us about discovery, deliverance, forgetting, and remembering.
Guy Butler was a substantial public figure in South Africa over the
second half of the 20th century: professor, poet, playwright,
autobiographer, historian, and cultural politician. Nevertheless,
his is not a familiar name to the majority of South Africans and,
where he is known, Butler remains a problematic figure. Author
Chris Thurman's assessment of Butler's life and work also
represents a response to life in South Africa preceding, during,
and at the end of the apartheid era. The book is more than the
study of one man, it is the examination of an era and the role of
white, English-speaking liberals in South Africa. Guy Butler was
seen as a 'grand old man' in South African literature rather than
as a writer for a new generation of readers. Yet much of Butler's
work was, and still is, subversive and intellectually compelling
with an enduring literary value. His response to the South African
situation presents readers with a challenge to acknowledge frankly
those elements in his oeuvre that distance him from us, without
losing sight of the significance it holds. This book makes use of
Butler's private correspondence and unpublished archive material,
combining biographical insight with criticism of his publications
in various genres to offer a balanced explication of his life and
work.
A deftly crafted biography of the author of Siddhartha, whose
critique of consumer culture continues to inspire millions of
readers. Against the horrors of Nazi dictatorship and widespread
disillusionment with the forces of mass culture and consumerism,
Hermann Hesse's stories inspired nonconformity and a yearning for
universal values. Few today would doubt Hesse's artistry or his
importance to millions of devoted readers. But just who was the
author of Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Demian? Gunnar Decker weaves
together previously unavailable sources to offer a unique
interpretation of the life and work of Hermann Hesse. Drawing on
recently discovered correspondence between Hesse and his
psychoanalyst Josef Lang, Decker shows how Hesse reversed the
traditional roles of therapist and client, and rethinks the
relationship between Hesse's novels and Jungian psychoanalysis. He
also explores Hesse's correspondence with Stefan Zweig-recently
unearthed-to find the source of Hesse's profound sense of
alienation from his contemporaries. Decker's biography brings to
life this icon of spiritual searching and disenchantment who
galvanized the counterculture in the 1960s and feels newly relevant
today.
"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER
The story of Maya Angelou's extraordinary life has been chronicled
in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the
legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her
relationship with her mother.
For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of
being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose
petite size belied her larger-than-life presence--a presence absent
during much of Angelou's early life. When her marriage began to
crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older
brother away from their California home to live with their
grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of
abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a
decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In
"Mom & Me & Mom," Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling
with the mother she preferred to simply call "Lady," revealing the
profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect
between them.
Delving into one of her life's most rich, rewarding, and fraught
relationships, "Mom & Me & Mom" explores the healing and
love that evolved between the two women over the course of their
lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou's rise from immeasurable
depths to reach impossible heights.
Praise for "Mom & Me & Mom"
" "
""Mom & Me & Mom" is delivered with Angelou's trademark
good humor and fierce optimism. If any resentments linger between
these lines, if lives are partially revealed without all the bitter
details exposed, well, that is part of Angelou's forgiving design.
As an account of reconciliation, this little book is just revealing
enough, and pretty irresistible."--"The Washington Post"
"Moving . . . a remarkable portrait of two courageous
souls."--"People"
" The] latest, and most potent, of her serial autobiographies . . .
a] tough-minded, tenderhearted addition to Angelou's spectacular
canon."--"Elle"
" "
"Mesmerizing . . . Angelou has a way with words that can still
dazzle us, and with her mother as a subject, Angelou has a
near-perfect muse and mystery woman."--"Essence"
" "
"True to her style, Angelou's] writing cuts to the chase with
compression and simplicity, and there in the background is a
calypso smoothness, flurries and showers of musicality between the
moments of wickedness. . . . A tightly strung, finely tuned memoir
about life with her mother."--"Kirkus Reviews"
" "
"In this loving recollection of a complicated relationship,
Angelou for the first time details the mother-daughter journey to
reconciliation and unwavering connection and support. . . . Angelou
vividly portrays a spirited woman. . . . A] remarkable and deeply
revealing chronicle of love and healing."--"Booklist"
" "
"Written with her customary eloquence . . . follows in the
episodic style of Angelou's earlier volumes of autobiography,
pulling the reader along effortlessly. The lessons and the love
presented here will speak to those trying to make their way in the
world."--"Publishers Weekly
"
"In straightforward style, "Mom & Me & Mom"dives deeply
into Angelou's complicated relationship with her mother. . . . At
84, Angelou shows few signs of slowing down."--"BookPage"
Gissing's combination of the love of classical literature with this
vivid sense of modern realism, showing how his classical background
was built up by reading and his travels in Italy, with references
of classical allusions in his works.
An intimate portrait of Stephen Spender's extraordinary life
written by Matthew Spender, shifting between memoir and biography,
with new insights drawn from personal recollections and his
father's copious unpublished archives. Stephen Spender's life is a
vivid snapshot of the twentieth century. Making friends with Auden
and Isherwood while at Oxford, together they enjoyed adventures in
Europe, becoming early opponents of the rise of fascism. Whilst
pioneering modern poetry, Stephen later produced propaganda for the
war effort - establishing an enduring reputation for mysterious
activity. Despite marrying Natasha Litvin, an ambitious young
concert pianist, Stephen was often entangled with young men and
never able to reveal his secrets, leaving her to introspective
questions, as the artistic world of London circled them. In this
elegant memoir, his son Matthew offers an intimate portrait of a
father, a marriage and an extraordinary life.
The first English language biography of the great European writer
Joseph Roth, exploring his genius and his tragic life story, lived
in the shadow of war. The brilliant, mercurial, self-mythologising
novelist and journalist Joseph Roth, author of the European 20th
century masterpiece The Radetzky March, was an observer and
chronicler of his times. Born and raised in Galicia on the eastern
edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, his life's decline mirrored
the collapse of civilised Europe: in his last peripatetic years, he
was exiled from Germany, his wife driven into an asylum, and he
died an alcoholic on the eve of the World War II. With keen
insight, rigor and sensitivity, Keiron Pim delivers a visceral
portrait of Roth's internal restlessness and search for belonging,
from his childhood in the town of Brody to his Vienna years and his
unsettled roaming of Europe. Exploring the role of Roth's absent
father in his imaginings, and his attitude to his Jewishness,
Roth's biography has particular relevance to us now, not only in
the growing recognition and revival of his works, but also because
his life's trajectory speaks powerfully to us in a time of
uncertainty, fear, refugee crises, and rising ethno-nationalism. "A
superb biography - fascinating, shrewd, insightful. Finally, Joseph
Roth's extraordinary life is recounted for his multitude of English
readers in compelling detail... Enthralling" - William Boyd
Biographical background and sectional writings of an American
authoress of the last century whose very genuine talents have been
largely overlooked.
The surprising final chapter of a great American life. When the
first volume of Mark Twain's uncensored Autobiography was published
in 2010, it was hailed as an essential addition to the shelf of his
works and a crucial document for our understanding of the great
humorist's life and times. This third and final volume crowns and
completes his life's work. Like its companion volumes, it
chronicles Twain's inner and outer life through a series of daily
dictations that go wherever his fancy leads. Created from March
1907 to December 1909, these dictations present Mark Twain at the
end of his life: receiving an honorary degree from Oxford
University; railing against Theodore Roosevelt, founding numerous
clubs; incredulous at an exhibition of the Holy Grail; credulous
about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays; relaxing in Bermuda;
observing (and investing in) new technologies. The Autobiography's
"Closing Words" movingly commemorate his daughter Jean, who died on
Christmas Eve 1909. Also included in this volume is the previously
unpublished "Ashcroft-Lyon Manuscript," Mark Twain's caustic
indictment of his "putrescent pair" of secretaries and the havoc
that erupted in his house during their residency. Fitfully
published in fragments at intervals throughout the twentieth
century, Autobiography of Mark Twain has now been critically
reconstructed and made available as it was intended to be read.
Fully annotated by the editors of the Mark Twain Project, the
complete Autobiography emerges as a landmark publication in
American literature. Editors: Benjamin Griffin and Harriet Elinor
Smith Associate Editors: Victor Fischer, Michael B Frank, Amanda
Gagel, Sharon K Goetz, Leslie Diane Myrick, Christopher M Ohge.
When Sofia Behrs married Count Leo Tolstoy, the author of "War and
Peace", husband and wife regularly exchanged diaries covering the
years from 1862 to 1910. Sofia's life was not an easy one: she
idealized her husband, but was tormented by him; even her many
children were not an unmitigated blessing. In the background of her
life was one of the most turbulent periods of Russian history: the
transition from old feudal Russia to the three revolutions and
three major international wars. Yet it is as Sofia Tolstoy's own
life story, the study of one woman's private experience, that the
diaries are most valuable and moving. They are a testament to a
woman of tremendous vital energy and poetic sensibility who, in the
face of provocation and suffering, continued to strive for the
higher things in life and to remain indomitable. It contains a
forward by Doris Lessing.
Although his hilariously entertaining stories have touched the
hearts of generations of children, there was much more to beloved
author Roald Dahl than met the eye. His fascinating life began in
Norway in 1916, and he became a highly rebellious teenager who
delighted in defying authority before joining the RAF as a fighter
pilot. But after his plane crashed in the African desert he was
left with agonising injuries and unable to fly. He was dispatched
to New York where, as a dashing young air attache, he enraptured
societies greatest beauties and became friends with President
Roosevelt. Roald soon found himself entangled with a highly complex
network of British undercover operations. Eventually he grew tired
of the secrecy of spying and retreated to the English countryside.
He married twice and had five children, but his life was also
affected by serious illness, tragedy and loss. He wrote a number of
stories for adults, many of which were televised as the hugely
popular Tales of the Unexpected, but it was as a children's author
that he found greatest fame and satisfaction, saying "I have a
passion for teaching kids to become readers...Books shouldn't be
daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful." From 1945
until his death in 1990, he lived in Buckinghamshire, where he
wrote his most celebrated children's books including Matilda,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox.
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