Literary Biography

A River Runs Through It and Other Stories turned Norman Maclean into a late-in-life literary phenomenon and then a household name after the success of the Hollywood film based on the title story. Yet fewer know of Maclean's lifelong struggles to reconcile very different parts of himself: the revered teacher and writer in the intellectual hub of Chicago and the Montana man compelled by the wildness and traumas of his home state and family, including the tragic Mann Gulch fire and the murder of his brother.

Mama believed the woman who dies with the most fabric scraps wins. She saved scraps from odd sewing jobs for neighbors. She saved buttons from old winter coats and birthday dresses. Mama had a button from Daddy's first uniform and another from Grandma's cloth coat, and every button in the box came with a story. In her trademark Texas twang, award-winning storyteller Barbara McBride-Smith recounts stories from her family that speak to all of us.

Marc Séguin revoit le garçon, l’adolescent puis le jeune adulte qu’il a été. Tous grugés par une incessante inquiétude, ils reviennent hanter l’homme mûr, le peintre reconnu qu’il est devenu. Il y a un train qui siffle au loin, des fissures multiples, un ravin qui se creuse. Et les seins de la belle Arielle. Il y aura des morts. Une amitié malmenée. Et un amour empêché. Comment aimer et se laisser aimer quand on est coupé de ses sentiments? Comment réparer l’irréparable?

Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to “banish the evil” from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters weren’t just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhere—including your own family and community—and look just like you. Dinner on Monster Island is Tania’s memoir of her life and childhood in Singapore—where she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic.

In The Trip to Echo Spring, Olivia Laing examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six of America's finest writers: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver. All six of these men were alcoholics, and the subject of drinking surfaces in some of their finest work, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to A Moveable Feast.

Filled with practical tips and helpful advice, Dear Ally is a treasure for aspiring writers at any stage of their careers. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at how books get made, from idea to publication, and gives you insight into the writing processes of some of the biggest and most talented YA authors writing today.

Authored with uninhibited candor and manic energy, this audiobook is Acosta's own account of coming of age as a Chicano in the psychedelic '60s, of taking on impossible cases while breaking all tile rules of courtroom conduct, and of scrambling headlong in search of a personal and cultural identity. It is a landmark of contemporary Hispanic American literature, at once ribald, surreal, and unmistakably authentic.

In 1963, Annie Ernaux, 23 and unattached, realizes she is pregnant. Shame arises in her like a plague: Understanding that her pregnancy will mark her and her family as social failures, she knows she cannot keep the child. In a France where abortion was illegal, she attempted, in vain, to self-administer the abortion with a knitting needle. Fearful and desperate, she finally located an abortionist and ended up in a hospital emergency ward where she nearly died. In Happening, Ernaux sifts through her memories and her journal entries dating from those days.

Described as both “one of the most important novels ever written” and “the gospel of evil,” 120 Days of Sodom was written by the Marquis de Sade, a notorious eighteenth-century aristocrat who waged a campaign of mayhem and debauchery across France, evaded execution, and inspired the word “sadism,” which came to mean receiving pleasure from pain. Despite all his crimes, Sade considered this work to be his greatest transgression.

Thomas's recording of this holiday classic is considered the first official audiobook. You'll hear the author's recollection of a holiday in the seaside town of his youth as well as some of his most celebrated poems, including "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."

On the surface, this is a biography of an accomplished seeker who mastered the practices of yoga and brought a system for understanding the mysteries of body, mind, and spirit to students in the West. But, like the life of Swami Rama, this audiobook offers more than a sequence of astonishing events. As you read the stories of authentic guru-disciple relationships Swami Rama had both with his master and with his own students, you will see how the spiritual wisdom is transmitted through generations. This book also serves as a guide to advanced practices of yoga and tantra not commonly understood in modern times.

«E noi, che cosa stiamo diventando? E io, cosa sono diventato?» si chiede Paolo Nori. E la risposta viene da una lontananza che in verità brucia distanze e porta con sé, come fosse turbine di visioni, di fatti, di sentimenti, e naturalmente di poesia, la vita di Anna Achmatova. «Vogliamo raccontare» dice Nori «la storia di Anna Achmatova, una poetessa russa nata nei pressi di Odessa nel 1889 e morta a Mosca nel 1966.

Few would question that Albert Camus (1913-1960), novelist, playwright, philosopher and journalist, is a major cultural icon. His widely quoted works have led to countless movie adaptions, graphic novels, pop songs, and even t-shirts. In this Very Short Introduction, Oliver Gloag chronicles the inspiring story of Camus' life. From a poor fatherless settler in French-Algeria to the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gloag offers a comprehensive view of Camus' major works and interventions.

Not heard of Paul Sykes? Mentioned in the book Legends by Charles Bronson, an A to Z guide of the men Bronson had regarded to be the toughest in Britain. Referring to "Sykesy", Bronson describes him as "a Legend, Born and Bred" and writing: "I first met Sykes in Liverpool in the early 70s and at that time he was probably the fittest Con in Britain. A notorious hard man from Yorkshire, a fighting man in every sense. A lot of people never liked him, perhaps they even feared him but I respected the man for what he stood for."

In the three decades that Nobel prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk has devoted himself to writing fiction, he has also produced scores of witty, moving, and provocative essays and articles. He engages the work of Nabokov, Kundera, Rushdie, and Vargas Llosa, among others, and he discusses his own books and writing process. We also learn how he lives, as he recounts his successful struggle to quit smoking, describes his relationship with his daughter, and reflects on the controversy he has attracted in recent years.

An experienced Iditarod racer, Gary Paulsen brings his love of the sport to readers on a personal level in this intimate essay about the life of a litter of pups born to pull sleds across the snowy frontier - and the marvel he experiences as he watches them grow and learn.

Before turning to her life of crime - running a one-woman forgery business out of a phone booth in a Greenwich Village bar and even dodging the FBI - Lee Israel had a legitimate career as an author of biographies. But by 1990, almost broke and desperate to hang onto her Upper West Side studio, Lee made a bold and irreversible career change: inspired by a letter she’d received once from Katharine Hepburn, and armed with her considerable skills as a researcher and celebrity biographer, she began to forge letters in the voices of literary greats.

Growing up in China as the child of American missionaries, Pearl read and listened to stories from both the East and the West. A story, she thought, was a wonderful way to learn about people and places. Pearl had read and heard about America and her family there, but she had never met her American relatives. When, at the age of 10, she spent a year in America, Pearl came to understand that she was a part of two worlds. Between Two Worlds tells the story of how Pearl Buck worked to increase the understanding between the two worlds she knew.

Tea with a hedgehog and supper with a rabbit? Beatrix Potter entertained guests that most people—certainly Beatrix Potter's proper Victorian parents—would have thought belonged in a meadow, not in a London nursery. Such unlikely companions were company for lonely Beatrix, and she spent much of her time sketching and making up stories about these small creatures. Beatrix was so well acquainted with the characters of her various animal friends that when she was older it seemed natural to write and illustrate small books about their delightful adventures.

1949 : Josef Mengele arrive en Argentine. Caché derrière divers pseudonymes, l'ancien médecin tortionnaire à Auschwitz croit pouvoir s l'inventer une nouvelle vie à Buenos Aires. L'Argentine de Perón est bienveillante, le monde entier veut oublier les crimes nazis. Mais la traque reprend et le médecin SS doit s'enfuir au Paraguay puis au Brésil. Son errance de planque en planque, déguisé et rongé par l'angoisse, ne connaîtra plus de répit... jusqu’à sa mort mystérieuse sur une plage en 1979.