Great Authors

Samuel Pepys kept a diary in which he wrote with astonishing candour about the life he saw around him in London in the 1660s, and about his private desires and ambitions. The diary was kept for fewer than 10 years of his long life: Claire Tomalin tells the whole story of the Fleet Street tailor's son who made himself rich and powerful, an MP and adviser to royalty.

As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived.

Do you want to learn more about William Shakespeare, but don’t have time to read/listen to huge, long biographies? Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his life. Mention the name of William Shakespeare to students of English the whole world over, and you’ll run an entire gauntlet of reactions ranging from a glazed expression of complete indifference to abject misery and unmitigated terror.

Do you want to learn more about the great author Thomas Hardy, but don’t have time to read/listen to huge, long biographies? Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of his life. Some of the most memorable stories of all time were written by the 19th century author and poet, Thomas Hardy.

And a Bottle of Rum tells the raucously entertaining story of America as seen through the bottom of a drinking glass. With a chapter for each of 10 cocktails, Wayne Curtis reveals that the homely spirit once distilled from the industrial waste of the exploding sugar trade has managed to infiltrate every stratum of New World society. Curtis takes us from the taverns of the American colonies, to the plundering pirate ships off the coast of Central America, to the watering holes of pre-Castro Cuba, and to the kitsch-laden tiki bars of 1950s America.

John Milton (1608-1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defenses of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions. Tracing Milton’s literary, intellectual, and political development with unprecedented depth and understanding, Poet of Revolution is an unmatched biographical account of the formation of the mind that would go on to create Paradise Lost - but would first justify the killing of a king.

In the public imagination, Ernest Hemingway looms larger than life. But the actual person behind the legend has long remained elusive. Now, his son Patrick shares the letters they exchanged over two decades, offering a glimpse into how one of America’s most iconic writers interacted with his children. These letters reveal a father who wished for his children to share his interests—hunting, fishing, travel—and a son who was receptive to the experiences his father offered.

Charlotte Gordon's new work is a fresh look at the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, who together comprise one of the most illustrious and inspiring mother-daughter pairs in history.

There is a perplexing question Christians don't usually know how to answer: Why do the Jewish people reject Christ so strongly? In this book, Dr. Eitan Bar goes beyond his personal experiences and uses extensive research to investigate the historical, theological, cultural, and psychological factors that inhibit Jews from accepting Jesus Christ as their Messiah. He examines how Judaism, initially boring Christianity, evolved into a faith that contradicts and is hostile to Christianity.

A short life of Dickens which celebrates the impact of the theatre on his life and work. Two hundred years after his death, Dickens’s work is more popular than ever, in a variety of media, most of them undreamed of during his lifetime. Over the last few decades of intensive research, Dickens the man has become much better known to us and the sheer originality of his personality blazes forth as never before.

Do you feel overwhelmed by the many demands of coaching? Do you wish you knew exactly what to do in order to help your team succeed? Whether you want to (1) improve your coaching skills, (2) build a great team, or (3) have a positive impact on your players, this audiobook will get you there. Learn the coaching strategies that can help your team perform like champions. You only live once, so make the most of it! Being an integral part of a highly successful, happy, and highly motivated team is one of the great joys in life.

Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he embarked on the creation of Middle-earth in his youth as the world around him was plunged into catastrophe. This biography reveals the horror and heroism that he experienced as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme and introduces the circle of friends who spurred his mythology to life.

In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.

While the hyper-partisanship in Washington that has stunned the world has been building for decades, Ira Shapiro argues that the US Senate has suffered most acutely from the loss of its political center. In Broken, Ira Shapiro, a former senior Senate staffer and author of the critically-acclaimed book The Last Great Senate, offers an expert's account of some of the most prominent battles of the past decade and lays out what must be done to restore the Senate's lost luster.

In 1612, William Shakespeare gave evidence in a court case at Westminster; it is the only occasion on which his actual spoken words were recorded. The case seems routine - a dispute over an unpaid marriage dowry - but it opens an unexpected window into the dramatist's famously obscure life. Using the court testimony as a springboard, acclaimed nonfiction writer Charles Nicholl examines this fascinating period in Shakespeare's life.

When Carrie Bradshaw in the Sex and the City movie began reading the book Love Letters of Great Men, millions of women wanted to get their hands on the book. Of course, what could be more romantic than an entire book of love letters, written by men! This edition includes love letters written by Ludwig van Beethoven, Napolean Bonaparte, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, Oliver Cromwell, Pierre Curie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, and many more.

Author MK Mueller's journey to her ideal weight was 40 years in the making with a trail of unsuccessful diets in her wake. Once she learned the truth about how simple it was to end sugar cravings, she created her own methodology based on an 8-step process Mike Dooley calls "inspired". With her encouragement and gentle guidance, you will let go of the burden of living life as a weight number and reclaim your energy, self-esteem, and personal power.

Do you want to learn more about the Bronte Sisters, but don’t have time to rlisten to huge, long biographies? Then let The History Journals take you on an hourly history tour of their lives. The Brontes are one of the most famous literary families the world has ever known. Their magnificent novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights continue to be the epitome of English Literature and can still be found in our bookshops and on library shelves, as well as online.

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of 20 reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three decades tells the story of what happened next.

Seventeen of Twain's best-loved and funniest shorter works, including "The Jumping Frog of Calavarous County", "The Story of Old Ram", "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", "Tom Quartz", and "The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut". Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. He grew up in the Mississippi River town of Hannibal. Sam was to be a printer, a river boat pilot, an officer in the Confederacy, a silver prospector and a journalist. He once wrote, "To simply amuse would have satisfied my dearest ambition".