Literary Biography

Samuel Clemens grew up in a child's paradise--Hannibal, Missouri. There, mischief added humor to everyday events as Sam encountered the folks who would one day reappear as Huck Finn, Aunt Polly, and Becky Thatcher in his books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. At eighteen, Sam left Hannibal to seek his fortune. He became a newspaperman and story writer.

An inventive, unique, and extraordinarily moving literary debut that pieces together the fascinating story of one woman's family across 20th-century Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Germany. Katja Petrowskaja wanted to create a kind of family tree, charting relatives who had scattered across multiple countries and continents. Her idea blossomed into this striking and highly original work of narrative nonfiction, an account of her search for meaning within the stories of her ancestors.

Meet one of the most significant and notorious American writers of the 20th century. Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the greatest writers in modern history, and his novels and stories are read, studied, and imitated around the world. His concise prose style earned him both a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize. His name conjures up vivid images: grand adventurer, soldier, war correspondent, big-game hunter, bullfight aficionado, and writer.

The Literary Legacy of Rebecca West is the first book to explore the entire corpus of her extraordinary 71-year writing career. The general introductory studies of West are outdated and do not take into account her posthumous publications, or her large literary archive of unpublished letters and manuscripts. Previous scholarly books have chopped West up into categories and genres instead of following the evolution of her career.

Former bookseller, longtime publisher, and author Jon M. Sweeney shows—with history and anecdotes centering around books such as Thoreau's Journal, Tagore's Gitanjali, Martin Buber's Hasidic Tales, and Tolstoy's Twenty-three Tales—what it means to be carried by a book. He explores the discovery that once accompanied finding books, and books finding us. He ponders the smell of an old volume, its heft, and why bibliophiles carry them around even without reading them. He demonstrates how and why there is magic and enchantment that takes place between people and books.

Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, believed that our national character was defined by three key moments: the writing of the Constitution, our declaration of independence from England, and the beginning of slavery on the North American continent.

Des destins qui, comme des droites parallèles, n'auraient jamais dû se rencontrer... l'étrange message de nombres que seule la quête d'absolu permet de déchiffrer... Dans ce manoir isolé de Vannery le hasard et l'obstination permettent d'élucider le mystère, mais aussi de vivre un grand amour.

Un volume che raccoglie per la prima volta tutti gli scritti che, a partire dagli anni Trenta fino alla morte, Dino Buzzati ha dedicato al Natale. Si tratta di articoli giornalistici, racconti, poesie, fiabe disegnate, resoconti autobiografici che, pubblicati su quotidiani e periodici, sono rimasti da allora per lo più inediti.

Federico a 4 ans. Rubiel aussi. À l'Orphelinat de Medellín, où ils partagent une chambre insipide, ils sont plus que des amis. Ce sont des frères, voire plus, que l'adoption de Federico va bientôt séparer.

Award-winning children's author Mitali Perkins grew up steeped in stories - escaping into her books on the fire escape of a Flushing apartment building and, later, finding solace in them as she navigated between the cultures of her suburban California school and her Bengali heritage at home. Now Perkins invites us to explore the promise of seven timeless children's novels for adults living in uncertain times: stories that provide mirrors to our innermost selves and open windows to other worlds.

Graham Greene's 'long journey through time' began in 1904, when he was born into a tribe of Greenes based in Berkhamstead at the public school where his father was headmaster. In A Sort of Life, Greene recalls schooldays and Oxford, adolescent encounters with psychoanalysis and Russian roulette, his marriage and conversion to Catholicism and how he rashly resigned from The Times when his first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929.

Well-loved author Tomie dePaola brings his childhood memories to audio in this collection of books 5-8 from his 26 FAIRMOUNT AVENUE series.

Novelists, poets and playwrights live double lives, sharing the real world with everyone else while spending a good deal of time in a universe of their own making. When they fall out with each other, they are able to kindle feuds and antagonisms as passionate and public as workers in any trade. Richard Bradford’s highly entertaining audiobook looks at some of the closest and most complex relationships in literary history, examining their dramatic effects on literature itself.

The year 2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri. His, like ours, was a world of moral uncertainty and political violence, all of which made not only for the agony of exile but for an ever deeper meditation on the nature of human happiness. In Why Dante Matters, John Took offers - by way of three of Dante’s works in particular - an account, not merely of Dante’s development as a poet and philosopher, but of his continuing presence to us as a guide to man’s wellbeing as man.

C. S. Lewis, long renowned for his children's books as well as his Christian apologetics, has been the subject of wide interest since he first stepped-up to the BBC's microphone during the Second World War. Until now, however, the reasons why this medievalist began writing books for a popular audience, and why these books have continued to be so popular, had not been fully explored. The Fame of C. S. Lewis is the most comprehensive account of Lewis' popularity to date, drawing on a wealth of fresh material and with much to interest scholars and C. S. Lewis admirers alike.

At the turn of the 20th century, Rudyard Kipling towered over not just English literature, but the entire literary world. At the height of his fame in 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming its youngest winner. His influence on major figures - including Freud and William James - was pervasive and profound. But in recent decades Kipling’s reputation has suffered a strange eclipse.

The life of Letitita Elizabeth Landon - pen name L.E.L. - was one lived in a blaze of scandal and worship, one of the most famous women of her time, the Romantic Age in London's 1820s, her life and writing on the ascendency as Byron's came to an end. Lucasta Miller tells the full story and recreates the literary London of her time.

When Reyna Grande was nine years old, she walked across the US-Mexico border in search of a home, desperate to be reunited with the parents who had left her behind years before for a better life in the City of Angels. What she found instead was an indifferent mother, an abusive, alcoholic father, and a school system that belittled her heritage. With so few resources at her disposal, Reyna finds refuge in words, and it is her love of reading and writing that propels her to rise above until she achieves the impossible and is accepted to the University of California, Santa Cruz.

A blockbuster illustrated book that captures what Americans love to read, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is the gorgeously-produced companion book to PBS's ambitious summer 2018 series.

What are America's best-loved novels? PBS will launch The Great American Read series with a two-hour special in May 2018 revealing America's 100 best-loved novels, determined by a rigorous national survey. Subsequent episodes will air in September and October. Celebrities and everyday Americans will champion their favorite novel and in the finale in late October, America's number one best-loved novel will be revealed.

The Great American Read: The Book of Books will present all 100 novels with fascinating information about each book, author profiles, a snapshot of the novel's social relevance, film or television adaptations, other books and writings by the author, and little-known facts. Also included are themed articles about banned books, the most influential book illustrators, reading recommendations, the best first-lines in literature, and more.

Beautifully designed with rare images of the original manuscripts, first-edition covers, rejection letters, and other ephemera, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is a must-have book for all book lovers.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so, too! Listen to 25 Months and learn about Linda's life story.