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.

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Time, including a brand-new, redrawn world map by Ellisa Mitchell using change requests discovered in Robert Jordan's unpublished notes and an alternate scene from an early draft of The Eye of the World.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delve into the creation of Robert Jordan's masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes.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.

A fearless innovator who inspired designers, models, photographers, and artists, Diana Vreeland, the famed editor of Vogue, reinvented the way we think about style. In this first full-length biography, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart tells the story of Vreeland's childhood on New York's Upper East Side, her first job at Harper's Bazaar, her renowned post at Vogue, and her role as special consultant to the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Empress of Fashion is an intimate and surprising look at an icon who made a lasting mark on the world of couture.

“We always believe that changing our mind is an improvement, bringing a greater truthfulness to our dealings with the world and other people. It puts an end to vacillation, uncertainty, weak-mindedness. It seems to make us stronger and more mature. Well, we would think that, wouldn't we?”

In these engaging and erudite essays, critically acclaimed writer Julian Barnes explores what is involved when we change our minds: about words, about politics, about books, about memories, about age and time.

One of the world’s bestselling storytellers, Lesley Pearse appears to have everything. But heartbreak has scarred her life . . .

Born during the Second World War, Lesley’s innocence came to an abrupt end when a neighbour found her, aged 3, coatless in the snow. The mother she’d been unable to wake had been dead for days. Sent to an orphanage, Lesley soon learned adults couldn’t always be trusted.

As a teenager in the swinging sixties, she took herself to London. Here, the second great tragedy of her life occurred. Falling pregnant, she was sent to a mother and baby home, and watched helplessly as her newborn was taken from her.

But like so many of her generation, Lesley had to carry on. Marriage and children followed – and all the while she nurtured a dream: to be a writer. Yet it wasn’t until at the age of 48 that her stories – of women struggling in a difficult world – found a publisher, and the bestseller lists beckoned.

As heartbreaking as it is heartwarming, Lesley’s story really is A Long and Winding Road with surprises and a little hope around every corner . . .

Widely regarded as the finest poet of his generation, Seamus Heaney is the subject of numerous critical studies, but no book-length portrait has appeared before now. Through his own lively and eloquent reminiscences, "Stepping Stones "retraces the poet's steps from his first exploratory testing of the ground as an infant to what he called his "moon-walk" to the podium to receive the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. It also fascinatingly charts his post-Nobel life and is supplemented with a number of photographs, many from the Heaney family album and published here for the first time. In response to firm but subtle questioning from Dennis O'Driscoll, Heaney sheds a personal light on his work (poems, essays, translations, plays) and on the artistic and ethical challenges he faced during the dark years of the Ulster Troubles. Combining the spontaneity of animated conversation with the considered qualities of the best autobiographical writing, "Stepping Stones "provides an original, diverting, and absorbing store of reflections and recollections. Scholars and general readers alike are brought closer to the work, life, and creative development of a charismatic and lavishly gifted poet whose latest collection, "District and Circle," was awarded the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2007.

""Stepping Stones"--a conversation-style response to questions submitted over the years by Dennis O'Driscoll--is an outspoken oral work of art."--Karl Miller, "The Times Literary Supplement"

""Stepping Stones: Interviews With Seamus Heaney," poet Dennis O'Driscoll's extraordinary book, takes its title from the place in Heaney's Nobel lecture where he observes that both his writing and his life can be seen as 'a journey where each point of arrival . . . turned out to be a stepping-stone rather than a destination, ' and the emphasis on continuing process informs it from beginning to end. The book's form is that of extended interviews, conducted (largely in writing) over a period of years, in which the interviewer, O'Driscoll, defines his role as that of prompter rather than interrogator. Its purpose--in the continuing absence of any substantial biography--is to present interviews, freed from space limitations, that might come to comprise 'a comprehensive portrait of the man and his times'--and, of course, of the work itself. (Heaney's only stipulation was that he would not speak in analytic detail of any of the poems, though he does cite particular aspects of many, and to dazzling effect.) O'Driscoll calls the book 'a survey of [Heaney's] life, often using the poems as reference points, ' thus providing 'a biographical context for the poems and a poetry-based account of the life.' For this reason he is right to find the result 'very much a book for readers of [Heaney's] oeuvre.' But it is much, much more. Many-leveled, it is a book that rearranges itself according to the angle of the reader's questioning, and while it will surely send many readers to the poems themselves, whether for the first or the dozenth time, it has, as great autobiography must have, stand-alone value as well. Some of this value is documentary, whether detailing the nuances of Irish cultural politics during the Troubles of the late '60s, or trenchantly evoking the writers and writings that assumed a place in Heaney's development. Richly deployed, this is the stuff of cultural history, and it is inevitably central to Heaney's probing account of his formation as man and poet. What I want to stress here, however, is that the book is more than simply an account of experience; it is itself "an agency of" experience. You come away from it--at least you can: I did--moved, enlarged and deepened. "Stepping Stones" consists of three sections, the first evoking in magical detail the poet's childhood on the family farm (Mossbawn) in County Derry--'a small, ordinary, nose-to-the-grindstoney place'--and his subsequent schooling in Belfast. The long central section organizes the intertwinings of life and work through the successive collections of the poems; and the third--the briefest--brings the account up to date, describing the poet's stroke in 2006, his recovery, and his view of the world on the eve of his 70th birthday . . . This is not only a radically original book; in its own quiet way it is also a great one."--Donald Fanger, "Truthdig"" "
"Popular contemporary Irish poet O'Driscoll began work on this book of interviews with Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney in September 2001. Interestingly, aside from some transcriptions in Chapters 13 and 15, these interviews were conducted in writing and through the mail. This format allowed Heaney to pick which questions to answer and to rearrange their order as he chose, and O'Driscoll sees his role as 'prompter rather than interrogator, ' giving Heaney a good deal of influence on the final book. The result is not a comprehensive biography (nor is it meant to be) but rather 'a survey of his life, using the poems as reference points.' Though Heaney has been interviewed by many others, this collection's unique method of creation makes it a worthy addition to literature collections."--Felicity D. Walsh, "Library Journal
""There is no shortage of writing by or about Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet Heaney. Yet this big book is a unique and useful addition to the Heaney canon: beginning in 2001, the Dublin-based poet, essayist and anthologist O'Driscoll entered into an extended correspondence with Heaney for the purpose of collaboratively constructing a kind of autobiography-in-interviews. The result is a collection of 16 discreet interviews, the first two of which discuss Heaney's childhood and poetic growth. Then there is one interview-chapter for each of Heaney's celebrated books (except the last two, which are grouped together), followed by a summing up. In conversation, Heaney comes across as extremely friendly, expansively intelligent and in possession of the groundedness in the details of his environment that readers of his poems will be familiar with. Here are boyhood recollections ('Our travelling grocery van . . . was run first by a man called McCarney, but 'the egg man' was our name for him'), memories of the famous Belfast Group and accounts of coming-of-age, and then coming to international prominence, against the backdrop of Ireland's troubled 20th-century politics. And, of course, Heaney traces the events--both political and personal--that led to many of his poems. For fans of Heaney, of 20th-century Irish literature or anyone eager to get deep into the mind of a major artist, this is an essential book."--"Publishers Weekly"

A "NEW YORK TIMES" EDITORS' CHOICE
Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire, is the youngest of the famously witty brood that includes the writers Jessica and Nancy. "Wait for Me! "chronicles her remarkable life, from an eccentric but happy childhood roaming the Oxfordshire countryside, to tea with her sister Unity and Adolf Hitler in 1937, to her marriage to Andrew Cavendish, the second son of the Duke of Devonshire. Written with intense warmth, charm, and perception, "Wait for Me!" is a unique portrait of an age of tumult, splendor, and change. "Touching . . . moving . . . [and] compelling as a portrait of a vanishing world" ("The Wall Street Journal").