Literary Memoir

Jack the Ripper was probably the first serial killer to appear in a large metropolis at a time when the general populace was literate and the press was a force for social change. The press was also partly responsible for creating many myths surrounding the Ripper. Robin Odell's Ripperology is the first study to present a sequential history of literary investigations of Jack the Ripper's crimes and to address the seven principal phases of Ripper speculations....

Thanks, PG!: Memoirs of a Tabloid Reporter recounts the life and adventures of reporter Billy Don Johnson during his 20 years (1975-1995) working for the fictional tabloid The National Insider. After his dreams of becoming a crusading journalist with daily newspapers are dashed, Billy throws himself into the wild world of diets, household tips, ghosts, UFOs, weird history, and celebrity scandal, all of which is designed to please Padrone Gallione (PG), the wonderful madman who was editor of the magazine. Like the tabloid industry itself, this book is a combination of fact and fiction.

Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life examines the way Plath made herself into a writer. Close analysis of Plath's reading and apprenticeship writing both in fiction and poetry sheds considerable light on Plath's work in the late 1960s. In this updated edition, there will be discussion of the aftermath of Plath's death including the publication of her Collected Poems edited by Ted Hughes which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982. Biographies of Plath will be examined along with the publication of Hughes's Birthday Letters.

"We all need a hero or two to help us stand fast and think right," says William J. Bennett, author of The Book of Virtues, the #1 best seller that millions of American families turn to for moral inspiration. A new treasury chosen for young children, presents splendid tales of the valor and indomitable spirit.

Why did Norman Mailer stab his second wife at a party? Who was Edith Wharton's secret transatlantic lover? What motivated Anais Nin to become a bigamist? Writers Between the Covers rips the sheets off these and other real-life love stories of the literati - some with fairy tale endings and others that resulted in break-ups, breakdowns, and brawls. Among the writers laid bare are Agatha Christie, who sparked the largest-ever manhunt in England as her marriage fell apart; Arthur Miller, whose jaw-dropping pairing with Marilyn Monroe proved that opposites attract, at least initially.

In the opening of Holding Silvan: A Brief Life, Monica Wesolowska gives birth to her first child, a healthy-seeming boy who is taken from her arms for "observation" when he won't stop crying. Within days, Monica and her husband have been given the grimmest of prognoses for Silvan, and they must make a choice about his life. The story that follows is not a story of typical maternal heroism. There is no medical miracle here. Instead, we find the strangest of hopes.

In Russian literary marriages, the wives of some of the most famous authors of all time did not resent taking a "secondary position", although to call their position secondary does not do justice to the vital role these women played in the creation of some of the greatest literary works in history. Living under restrictive regimes, many of these women battled censorship and preserved the writers' illicit archives, often risking their own lives to do so. They established a tradition all their own, unmatched in the West.

Mississippi author Eudora Welty, the first living writer to be published in the Library of America series, mentored many of today's greatest fiction writers and is a fascinating woman, having lived the majority of the 20th century (1909-2001). Her life reflects a century of change and is closely entwined with many events that mark our recent history. This biography follows this 20th-century path while telling Welty's story, beginning with her parents and their important influence on her reading and writing life.

Karl August Böttiger war Zeitgenosse der großen Dichter und Denker von Weimar – und hielt alles fest, was ihm in die Quere kam: Stimmen und Bilder, Klatsch und Tratsch. Heute würde man Böttiger Züge eines Paparazzos zuschreiben, wenn er etwa über Goethes Häuslichkeit schreibt: "Abends sitzt er in einer wohlgeheizten Stube, eine weiße Fuhrmannsmütze auf dem Kopf, ein Moltumjäckchen und lange Flauschpantalons an." Böttiger machte sich mit seinen Schriften in Weimar so unbeliebt, dass er 1804 die Stadt verlassen musste.

"Who is Mr Ian Fleming, the creator of this—to put it mildly—rubbish?" The whole Bond phenomenon is attacked as pornography, capitalist filth and anti-socialist poison. Here, translated into English for the first time, you will also hear the long Russian critique of the Bond films by Maja Turovskaya published in 1966, and the extremely interesting account that appeared in Prague the following year of Sean Connery’s rise to fame. A bonus is the Bulgarian attempt to publish a novel in which Bond was killed.

Johann Ernst Biren, il mangiatore di carta, era per Balzac un esempio di "imperio del vizio". Eppure il poderoso scrittore gli dedica un brevissimo studio in un paio di pagine delle "Illusioni perdute", facendo mostra quasi di voler strappare il segreto nascosto di quel curioso personaggio.

A series of random sniper attacks, sexual assaults and murders continued at a relentless pace with no end in sight. The victims were both men and women, young and old, of all races and ethnicities. Most disturbingly, they had done nothing to place themselves in harm's way. They'd not visited the "bad" parts of town, frequented a gambling den, solicited prostitutes or sought out drug dealers. They were assaulted and murdered as they went about the routine activities of their lives, the kinds of things we all do without a second thought.

Imprisoned for preaching outside the Anglican Church, John Bunyan recorded the doubts, temptations, and hopes of his own spiritual journey, a journey later traveled by the searching sojourner in The Pilgrim's Progress.

From the best-selling book On The Road With Charles Kuralt, these classic stories represent Kuralt's defining, and perhaps finest, work. Never before released on audio, this collection ensures that his unforgettable voice will be heard by generations to come.

Un bizzarro e coinvolgente viaggio sentimentale: sedici anni dopo le tragicomiche peripezie raccontate in "Stupore e tremori" e in "Né di Eva né di Adamo", Amélie Nothomb torna in Giappone. È l'occasione per rivedere i luoghi e le persone amati dopo lo spaventoso terremoto di Fukushima del 2011.

This critically acclaimed imaginary autobiography of Frédéric Chopin was given a privileged place in the Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw on his Bicentennial, "Since it's written by him," wrote the museum's director to the author. A work of lovely lyrical and musical accents written in Chopin's voice, Manuscript in Dreams brings to light the most meaningful moments and aspects of the composer’s life and work. Juana Rosa Pita threads together “manuscripts that appeared from dream to dream…” and the result is an ensemble of intimate pieces.

In the days just before the rise of the Internet, a music scene begins in the small Midwestern city of Terre Haute, Indiana and the local club owner has a fierce vision of the town becoming the next Seattle. But there is a long way to go for these scruffy upstarts. Some obstacles: a big-time music journalist with motivational difficulties, the antics of the musicians, a politician looking to make a name and the club owner's own personal drive.

A Father and Son's Journey is about love and understanding, for each other and the people around them. Malhar Ramcharran and Dr. Ram Ramcharran decided to write these short life lessons as a way to help share similar experiences they had while growing up.

Here are the remarkable life stories of nine famous people who have left their mark upon the world: Alexander the Great, Joan of Arc, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, George Washington, Ludwig van Beethoven, Louis Pasteur, Marie Curie, and Mahatma Gandhi.

This highly enjoyable account of the life of Jane Austen is regarded as the classic biography of one of the greatest English novelists. It illustrates not only the character and opinions of an unusually perceptive and gifted woman, but also the social life amonst the county gentry of Georgian England. Outside her writing, Jane Austen's main interest was her large and affectionate family and their circle of friends.