Diary Biography

Through his alcoholism and her mental illness, his career lows and her institutional confinement, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's devotion to each other endured for over 22 years. Now, for the first time, we have the story of their love in the couple's own letters. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda consists of more than 75 percent previously unpublished or out-of-print letters, as well as extensive narrative on the Fitzgeralds' marriage by Fitzgerald scholars Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks.

These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great writer’s life and work, his friendships, rivalries, anxieties, and all the questions about identity, art, and the American soul that bedeviled and inspired him until his death. They include early notes to his mother, written as an impoverished college student; lively exchanges with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden to Saul Bellow; and letters to friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City.

Muhammad Ali’s daughter captures the legendary heavyweight boxing champion, Olympic Gold medalist, activist, and philanthropist as never before in this candid and intimate family memoir, based on personal recordings he kept throughout his adult life. Athlete. Activist. Champion. Ambassador...

Born at Steventon in 1775, the daughter of a Hampshire clergyman, Jane Austen was the youngest of seven children. She lived a quiet life, moving to Bath, Southampton, Chawton and eventually to Winchester where she died unmarried in 1817 at the age of 42. It is to her elder sister Cassandra that most of her surviving letters are written, and through them, we discover the intimate world of the English gentry.

Wyl Menmuir’s The Draw of the Sea is a beautifully written and deeply moving portrait of the Cornish Coast and the people who make their livings there, examining the ephemeral but universal pull the sea holds over the human imagination. ‘A beautiful portrait of lives shaped by the swell of...

These letters, in the form of a frank and amusing diary, were written by a private in Wellington's army who fought throughout the Napoleonic Wars. Private Wheeler's record covers the Peninsular Campaign, keeping order during the coronation of Louis XVIII (whom he called 'an old bloated poltroon') and his later posting to Corfu.

Richard E. Grant’s life changed almost overnight when he was cast as the lead in Withnail & I in 1986. He kept a diary of the experience, the bestselling With Nails, and now it is published for the first time in audio, read by the author. Funny and revealing, told with trademark candour, join Richard E. Grant on the shoot of a lifetime.

A wonderfully written and engaging teenage memoir: read all about Jacqueline's problems with her family, her first love, her school life and her friends. Read extracts from her real diaries and the stories she wrote as a teenager; learn all about the music and books she loved, her troubled school life and her parents' difficult relationship.

“Ethan Michaeli has a gimlet eye for the people, texture, and contradictions of modern Israel. I’m in awe of his powers of observation and his ability as a modern-day Tocqueville to take us inside one of the most complex and confounding countries in the world."" — Jonathan Alter...

While her father is in hiding after attempts on his life, 12-year-old Cleopatra records in her diary how she fears for her own safety and hopes to survive to become queen of Egypt some day.

Sheila Hancock looked like she was managing old age. She had weathered and even thrived in widowhood, taking on acting roles that would have been demanding for a woman half her age. She had energy, friends, a devoted family, a lovely home. She could still remember her lines. So why, at 89, having sailed past supposedly disturbing milestones—50, 70 even 80—without a qualm, did she suddenly feel so furious? Shocking diagnoses, Brexit and bereavement seemed to knock her from every quarter. And that was before lockdown.

Vermont, 1850s. Bell's Star is a brown Morgan colt with a white star and two white stockings. He was bred for hard work, yet he longs to run free with his human friend, Katie, on his back. But when Star helps rescue a runaway slave girl, his ideas about freedom may change forever. Here is Star's story . . . in his own words.

Since 7 October 2023, both local and international doctors have risked their lives to deliver medical aid to Gaza's population. Dr. Victoria Rose, a senior plastic surgeon at Guy's & St. Thomas', is one of them, completing three tours over the last two years. Keeping diaries as she works in an increasingly devastated city, she reveals the pressures and demands of saving lives in a war zone, and the human stories at the heart of a humanitarian disaster.

This journal of the invasion, a collection of Andrey Kurkov's writings and broadcasts from Kyiv, is a remarkable record of a brilliant writer at the forefront of a twenty-first-century war. Andrey Kurkov has been a consistent satirical commentator on his adopted country of Ukraine. His most recent work, Grey Bees, is a dark foreshadowing of the devastation in the eastern part of Ukraine in which only two villagers remain in a village bombed to smithereens. The author has lived in Kyiv and in the remote countryside of Ukraine throughout the Russian invasion.

This program includes archival recordings of Ernest Hemingway Hemingway's deeply reflective account of his destructive Paris affair and how it affected the legendary life he rebuilt after, as told to his best friend, the writer A.E. Hotchner. In June of 1961, A.E. Hotchner visited an old friend...

George Gordon Byron was born in 1788, the son of the profligate 'Mad Jack' Byron, and succeeded to the title in 1798 moving to the family seat of Newstead Abbey. He attended Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proved to be a poor scholar, preferring boxing, the low life and poetry, publishing his first volume of poems in 1806. In 1809, at 21, he embarked on a grand tour of Europe and on his return to England he married the humourless Annabella Milbanke, who gave birth to his daughter Augusta in 1815.

In this book, I have described the struggles of my college life. I decided to write this book, when, due to lack of friends, I did not get to know about the final semester exams of the university and missed my exams. After many struggles, I gave the final semester exams and wrote my college experiences in this book.

My name is Joseph A. Peragine, and I am a paranoid schizophrenic. On October 22, 2000, I tried to kill myself in a severely hallucinogenic state due to undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. I was suffering from this illness for many years leading up to that day. Every October since I started my recovery in 2000, I reflect on my life and am extremely thankful that I was fortunate enough to have been given a second chance. Every October, I especially make it a priority to tell my family and loved ones how much I love them.

In April of 2004, the long downward spiraling of Amy Bingaman's mental illness could no longer be hidden or ignored much less written off as a side-product of a colorful and quirky character. With no family able to help and no resources, she was involuntarily locked up in the draconian, archaic labyrinth that is the Wyoming Mental Health System. Armed with only a pocket dictionary and any paper she could find to write on, Amy wrote not only as a journal but at times as her only coping mechanism to salvage what was left of a breaking mind in a love/hate relationship with her alter-ego.

On June 6, 2015, David and Jackie Siegel received the call that no parent should ever get. Their beautiful, vibrant, 18-year-old daughter Victoria had died of a drug overdose. The Siegels vowed to do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening to other parents.