SELECTED AS A 2018 SUMMER READ BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER, I-PAPER AND THE BIG ISSUE 'Enormously entertaining' SUNDAY TIMES 'Fascinating' NEW STATESMAN 'Excoriating, brilliant' ALI SMITH 'Enthralling' GUARDIAN 'My number one contributor when it comes to US politics' DAN SNOW 'The American dream is dead,' Donald Trump said when announcing his candidacy for president in 2015. How would he revive it? By putting 'America First'. The 'American Dream' and 'America First' are two of the most loaded phrases in America today - and also two of the most misunderstood. As divides within America widen, Sarah Churchwell looks to the past to reveal what the surprising history of these two phrases can tell us about today.

'Ferociously smart. A rare combination of guilty pleasure and intellectual insight' VOGUE 'Perceptive. Refreshing. Tears away layers of false readings and conspiracy theories' NEW YORK TIMES Intricately researched. Churchwell's Marilyn is a complex, well-rounded creature in the best sense - the human sense' OBSERVER There are many Marilyns: sex goddess and innocent child, crafty manipulator and dumb blonde, screen legend and Hollywood victim. In this incisive and subtle book, Sarah Churchwell looks at how the stories we tell have trivialised a woman we supposedly adore, and at what they reveal about our attitudes towards sex symbols and icons, to women, death, biography and Marilyn herself.

The history America never wanted you to read. 'The narrative took my breath away' Philippe Sands 'An extraordinarily and shockingly powerful read' Peter Frankopan 'One of the must-reads of the year' Suzannah Lipscomb 'Brilliant and provocative' Gavin Esler Sarah Churchwell examines one of the most enduringly popular stories of all time, Gone with the Wind, to help explain the divisions ripping the United States apart today. Separating fact from fiction, she shows how histories of mythmaking have informed America's racial and gender politics, the controversies over Confederate statues, the resurgence of white nationalism, the Black Lives Matter movement, the enduring power of the American Dream, and the violence of Trumpism. Gone with the Wind was an instant bestseller when it was published in 1936; its film version became the most successful Hollywood film of all time. Today the story's racism is again a subject of controversy, but it was just as controversial in the 1930s, foreshadowing today's debates over race and American fascism. In The Wrath to Come, Sarah Churchwell charts an extraordinary journey through 160 years of American denialism. From the Lost Cause to the romances behind the Ku Klux Klan, from the invention of the 'ideal' slave plantation to the erasure of interwar fascism, Churchwell shows what happens when we do violence to history, as collective denial turns fictions into lies, and lies into a vicious reality.

From the gothic Old South to revolutionary Mexico, few writers have evoked such a multitude of worlds, both exterior and interior, as powerfully as Katherine Anne Porter. This collection gathers together the best of her Pulitzer Prize-winning short fiction, including 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider', where a young woman lies in a fever during the influenza epidemic, her childhood memories mingling with fears for her fiance on his way to war, and 'Noon Wine', a haunting story of tragedy and scandal on a small dairy farm in Texas. In all of the compelling stories collected here, harsh and tragic truths are expressed in prose both brilliant and precise.

Since its publication in 1925, The Great Gatsby has become one of the world's best-loved books. Careless People tells the true story behind F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, exploring in newly rich detail its relation to the extravagant, scandalous, and chaotic world in which the author lived. With wit and insight, Sarah Churchwell traces the genesis of a masterpiece, mapping where fiction comes from, and how it takes shape in the mind of a genius. Careless People tells the extraordinary tale of how F. Scott Fitzgerald created a classic and in the process discovered modern America.

First published in 1961, The Severed Head is regarded is one of Iris Murdoch's most entertaining works. A dark and ferocious comic masterpiece, the novel traces the turbulent emotional journey of Martin Lynch-Gibbon, a smug, well-to-do London wine merchant and unfaithful husband, whose life is turned inside out when his wife leaves him for her psychoanalyst. In The Sea, the Sea the landscape shifts to the seclusion of an isolated house on the edge of England's North Sea, where Charles Arrowby, a big name in London's glittering theatrical world, has retired to write his memoirs. Arrowby's plans begin to unravel when he meets his first love and becomes haunted by the idea of rekindling his adolescent passion. The Severed Head and Booker prize-winner The Sea, the Sea are two of Iris Murdoch's most accomplished novels, displaying all her talent for combining profundity with playful creativity. Both tragic and comic, brooding and hilarious, they brilliantly reveal how much our lives are governed by the lies we tell ourselves as well as our all-consuming desire for love, significance and, ultimately, redemption.

While F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing the novels we remember him for today, he was also publishing short stories in popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire. Although many of Fitzgerald's short stories are celebrated and anthologised today, more remain out of print than would be expected for a writer of his stature. Some of these forgotten stories deserve to be rediscovered by the many readers who love Fitzgerald's work. Sarah Churchwell, author of the acclaimed Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby, has selected twelve forgotten stories from throughout Fitzgerald's career that refract, in different ways, his most familiar motifs: the changing meanings of America in the first decades of the twentieth century, and the desire to reconcile rich and poor through a romantic search for glamour, hope and wonder. Each of these stories offers a riff on the theme of America, a world we have lost, but can hear echoes of in Fitzgerald's characteristically rich, vivid prose.

Regarded as a modern fairy tale, L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz is one of America’s most cherished and enchanting children’s stories.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features original illustrations by W. W. Denslow, coloured by Barbara Frith, and an introduction by Professor Sarah Churchwell.

Follow Dorothy, and her loyal dog Toto, as they are carried away from Kansas by a cyclone to the wonderful world of Oz. Wandering down the yellow brick road Dorothy meets her three famous companions – a Scarecrow longing for a brain, a Tin Woodman wishing for a heart, a cowardly Lion yearning for some courage – and together they travel to the illustrious Emerald City where they hope all their dreams will come true.

What is it about certain books that makes them bestsellers? Why do some of these books remain popular for centuries, and others fade gently into obscurity? And why is it that when scholars do turn their attention to bestsellers, they seem only to be interested in the same handful of blockbusters, when so many books that were once immensely popular remain under-examined?
Addressing those and other equally pressing questions about popular literature, "Must Read" is the first scholarly collection to offer both a survey of the evolution of American bestsellers as well as critical readings of some of the key texts that have shaped the American imagination since the nation's founding.
Focusing on a mix of enduring and forgotten bestsellers, the essays in this collection consider 18th and 19th century works, like "Charlotte Temple" or "Ben-Hur," that were once considered epochal but are now virtually ignored; 20th century favorites such as" The Sheik "and "Peyton Place"; and 21st century blockbusters including the novels of Nicholas Sparks, "The Kite Runner," and "The Da Vinci Code."

What is it about certain books that makes them bestsellers? Why do some of these books remain popular for centuries, and others fade gently into obscurity? And why is it that when scholars do turn their attention to bestsellers, they seem only to be interested in the same handful of blockbusters, when so many books that were once immensely popular remain under-examined?
Addressing those and other equally pressing questions about popular literature, "Must Read" is the first scholarly collection to offer both a survey of the evolution of American bestsellers as well as critical readings of some of the key texts that have shaped the American imagination since the nation's founding.
Focusing on a mix of enduring and forgotten bestsellers, the essays in this collection consider 18th and 19th century works, like "Charlotte Temple" or "Ben-Hur," that were once considered epochal but are now virtually ignored; 20th century favorites such as" The Sheik "and "Peyton Place"; and 21st century blockbusters including the novels of Nicholas Sparks, "The Kite Runner," and "The Da Vinci Code."

There are many Marilyns: sex goddess and innocent child, crafty manipulator and dumb blonde, liberated woman and tragic loner. "The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe "reviews the unreliable and unverifiable--but highly significant--stories that have framed this Hollywood legend, all the while revealing the meanings behind the American myths that have made Marilyn what she is today.
In incisive and passionate prose, cultural critic Sarah Churchwell uncovers the shame, belittlement, and anxiety that we bring to the story of a woman we supposedly adore and, in the process, rescues a Marilyn Monroe who is far more complicated and credible than the one we think we know.