Showing titles in Authors

Als Jean-Paul Sartre mit Simone de Beauvoir im Kranzler-Eck in Berlin Käsekuchen isst, Henry Miller und Anaïs Nin wilde Nächte in Paris erleben, F. Scott Fitzgerald und Frida Kahlo sich in leidenschaftliche Affären stürzen, fliehen Bertolt Brecht und Helene Weigel ins Exil. Genau das ist die Zeit, in der die Nazis die Macht in Deutschland ergreifen, Bücher verbrennen und die Gewalt gegen die Juden beginnt. 1933 enden die "Goldenen Zwanziger" mit einer Vollbremsung.

Three-a-Penny describes what it is like to be a woman in a man's world - about the ups and downs of earning a living as a writer in the 1920s and '30s. Lucy Malleson wrote over 70 crime novels and was part of what is often referred to as the Golden Age of crime writing. But in order to be published she used a male pseudonym and successfully concealed her true identity for many years.

In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures.

Edna O'Brien depicts James Joyce as a man hammered by Church, State and family, yet from such adversities he wrote works 'to bestir the hearts of men and angels'. The journey begins with Joyce the arrogant youth, his lofty courtship of Nora Barnacle, their hectic sexuality, children, wanderings, debt and profligacy and Joyce's obsession with the city of Dublin, which he would re-render through his words.

'There are certain women,' Truman Capote wrote, 'who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich.' These women captivated and enchanted Capote - he befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. From Barbara 'Babe' Paley to Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister) they were the toast of mid-century New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. For years, Capote had been trying to write what he believed would be his magnum opus, Answered Prayers.

During the course of his life, Malachy McCourt practically invented the singles bar and was a pioneer in talk radio, a soap opera star, a best-selling author, a gold smuggler, a political activist, and a candidate for governor of the state of New York. It seems that the only two things he hasn't done are stick his head into a lion's mouth and die. Since he is allergic to cats, he decided to write about the great hereafter and answer the question on most minds: What's so great about it anyhow?

On 16 August 1952, Ian Fleming wrote to his wife, Ann, "My love, This is only a tiny letter to try out my new typewriter and to see if it will write golden words since it is made of gold". And he did write golden words: 14 best-selling James Bond books and an equally energetic flow of letters to his wife, publisher, editors, fans, friends and critics, charting 007's progress....

The epitaph John Keats composed for his own gravestone - 'Here lies one whose name was writ in water' - seemingly damned him to oblivion. When he died at the age of 25, having taken a battering from the conservative press, few critics imagined he would be considered one of the great English poets 200 years later, though he himself had an inkling. In this brief life, Lucasta Miller takes Keats' best-known poems - the ones you are most likely to have read - and excavates their backstories.

Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë—the first full-length biography of a woman novelist by a woman novelist—is a true classic. It transports us with a deft hand straight into 19th-century Haworth, Yorkshire and crafts an extensive account of Brontë’s life, quoting throughout from letters she sent and received. From her challenging, isolated childhood to her death shortly before the age of 39, newly married and pregnant, the enigmatic author of Jane Eyre is portrayed with enormous care.

Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche, and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote. Nicholas Shakespeare is one of the most gifted biographers working today and his unprecedented access to the Fleming archives and his nose for a story make this a fresh and eye-opening picture of a man who lived his life in the shadow of his famous creation.

The first biography to explore his life and work, Speak, Silence pursues the true Sebald through the memories of those who knew him and through the work he left behind. This quest takes Carole Angier from Sebald’s birth as a second-generation German at the end of the Second World War, through his rejection of the poisoned inheritance of the Third Reich, to his emigration to England. It digs deep into a creative mind on the edge, finding profound empathy and paradoxical coldness, saving humour and an elusive mix of fact and fiction in his life as well as work.

Throughout history, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don’t coexist easily: we value individuality and self-reliance, yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. In this intricately crafted and thought-provoking book, Sebastian Junger examines this tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human.

Hunter S. Thompson is often misremembered as a wise-cracking, drug-addled cartoon character. This book reclaims him for what he truly was: a fearless opponent of corruption and fascism, one who sacrificed his future well-being to fight against it, rewriting the rules of journalism and political satire in the process. This skillfully told and dramatic story shows how Thompson saw through Richard Nixon's treacherous populism and embarked on a life-defining campaign to stop it.

This short volume has turned out to be merely a handful of recollections of well-remembered times and stories - some probably misremembered, too - and a few people who have played a crucial part in my life. And some confessions: I have never before tried to write about my doll phobia, for instance, or about the effect synaesthesia has had over the years. I can only hope that this collection of stories from times past might give some idea of a mostly happy life that has gone, and is going, much too fast.

"If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber ranch, it must be the sort of life which I have not read of in books or experienced in person," wrote Mark Twain, and now you can share in that experience. The beloved American humorist spent seven years on a "pleasure trip" through the untamed wilderness of Nevada. Twain intended to spend three months touring silver mines, but the lure of rough terrain and comfortable clothes proved irresistible - as will this vibrant travelogue.

John le Carré led a life entirely constructed of secrets—not just in his first career, as a British spy and agent runner during the height of the Cold War or in his second, as a world-renowned writer of espionage fiction, but also in his personal involvements. He guarded his private life with fierce determination, fending off all would-be biographers until his ninth decade, when he finally relented and permitted his life story to be written. But there was still one element that he insisted be excluded, even then: the women.

The memoir covers La Plante's entire life, from her youth growing up in Merseyside to studying at RADA alongside Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt. It explores "the exasperation [La Plante] felt at the limited roles available for female actors" - something that led to her writing "Widows" and "Prime Suspect" for television.

Drawing from the author's original, uncensored journals, Fire follows Anaïs Nin's journey as she attempts to liberate herself sexually, artistically, and emotionally. While referring to her relationships with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and author Henry Miller, as well as a new lover, the Peruvian Gonzalo More, she also reveals that her most passionate and enduring affair is with writing itself.

His books have sold millions and include classics like Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Yet C. S. Lewis was not always a literary giant of Christian faith. How did he evolve from staunch atheism to become one of the most beloved and renowned Christian authors of our time?