Literary Biography

From the Nobel Prize-winning novelist and the acclaimed author of My Name is Red—an inspired, thoughtful, and deeply personal book of essays about reading and writing novels. In this fascinating set of essays, based on the talks he delivered at Harvard University as part of the distinguished...

It’s tough being an author these days, and it’s getting harder. But, as Jason Boog shows in a rich mix of history and politics, this is not the first period when writers have struggled to scratch a living. Between accounts of contemporary layoffs and shrinking paychecks for authors and publishing professionals are stories from the 1930s when writers, hard hit by the Great Depression, fought to create unions and New Deal projects like the Federal Writers Project.

Literary legend James A. Michener was “a Renaissance man, adventurous, inquisitive, unpretentious and unassuming, with an encyclopedic mind and a generous heart” (The New York Times Book Review). In this exceptional memoir, the man himself tells the story of his remarkable life and describes...

Che cosa si prova a vivere con la morte come assidua compagna? Per piú di un anno Ilan Fernández, uno dei maggiori narcotrafficanti a livello internazionale, oggi imprenditore di successo, ha raccontato a Giulio Laurenti la sua vita rocambolesca e pericolosa: anzi, le sue due vite. Quelle confessioni sono diventate un romanzo, dalla voce inconfondibile e unica, col timbro della verità definitiva. E la cocaina ci appare sotto una luce che non avevamo mai considerato, frutto come è di uno smercio intriso di morte.

Tess Chakkalakal gives listeners the first comprehensive biography of Charles W. Chesnutt. A complex and talented man, Chesnutt was born in 1858 in Cleveland to parents who were considered "mixed race." Though light-skinned, Chesnutt remained a member of the black community throughout his life. He studied among students at the State Colored Normal School who were formerly enslaved. He became a teacher in rural North Carolina during Reconstruction. His life in the South of those years, the issue of race, and how he himself identified as Black informed much of his later writing.

When Woody Rawls read The Call of the Wild, a classic novel about a stolen mistreated dog and a kindly man, his life was forever changed. Maybe it was because he loved his own dog, or maybe it was because the story reached deep into his heart and stayed there. From then on, Woody was determined to learn to write and become a teller of tales. Woody didn't care that he couldn’t afford pen and paper. He would use a stick in the sand if he had to. Woody trusted his heart and used his imagination to create his stories, which he shared with Rowdy, his trusty hound.

Orlando: A Biography is a groundbreaking English novel by Virginia Woolf that explores English history, gender roles, and sexual politics in a way few books have before or since. Inspired by the life of Woolf's friend and lover Vita Sackville-West—herself an accomplished poet and novelist—the story follows the life of an aristocratic nobleman who changes from man to woman and goes on to live for centuries, meeting all of the most influential and powerful figures in English history.

How is it that Flaubert, the great 19th-century novelist and last of the great French romantics, still seems so very modern? In this stunning biography, Geoffrey Wall investigates why Flaubert and his work, Madame Bovary, exert such a firm hold on the popular literary imagination.

Kendra Allen’s first collection of essays—at its core—is a bunch of mad stories about things she never learned to let go of. Unifying personal narrative and cultural commentary, this collection grapples with the lessons that have been stored between parent and daughter. These parental relationships expose the conditioning that subconsciously informed her ideas on social issues such as colorism, feminism, war-induced PTSD, homophobia, marriage, and “the n-word,” among other things.

Isabel Allende is an informative introduction to the distinguished author. Isabel Allende, one of the world's most widely read Latin American writers, is a Chilean novelest who, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, was strongly influenced by her grandparents. Her vivid fiction, such as The House of the Spirits, blends realism with magical elements and spotlights political and often feminist concerns.

Sie ist die Frau, der man nachsagt, dass sie kein Glück in der Liebe hat. Diejenige, die ihr Leben allein regelt: Die Frau ohne Begleitung. Als die Autorin feststellt, dass auch sie so eine geworden ist - ein weiblicher Langzeit-Single - ist die Erkenntnis ein Schock. Dann eine Befreiung. Und ein Ansporn, nicht nur für eine schonungslose Selbsterkundung, sondern auch für eine überfällige Spurensuche.

When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert of Green Gables, Prince Edward Island, send for a boy orphan to help them out at the farm, they are in no way prepared for the error that will change their lives. The mistake takes the shape of Anne Shirley, a redheaded 11-year-old girl who can talk anyone under the table. Fortunately, her sunny nature and quirky imagination quickly win over her reluctant foster parents. Anne's feisty spirit soon draws many friends - and much trouble - her way.

Best known for his best-selling novel, Babe, which was made into a major motion picture, Dick King-Smith draws on his over 14 years of experience on Woodlands Farm to create this thoughtful and humorous memoir. His time on the farm inspired countless stories as well as the numerous lovable characters found in them. In Chewing the Cud, he candidly talks about what moved him to become a children’s author.

Written seven years before The Town and the City officially launched his writing career, The Sea Is My Brother marks the pivotal point at which Kerouac began laying the foundations for his pioneering method and signature style. The novel chronicles the misadventures of two seamen who at first seem different but are really two sides of the same coin: 27-year-old Wesley Martin, who “loved the sea with a strange, lonely love,” and William Everhart, an assistant professor of English at Columbia College.

A collection of the journals, fiction, and letters of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her.

A tireless champion of the downtrodden, Nelson Algren, one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century, lived an outsider's life himself. He spent a month in prison as a young man for the theft of a typewriter; his involvement in Marxist groups earned him a lengthy FBI dossier; and he spent much of his life palling around with the sorts of drug addicts, prostitutes, and poor laborers who inspired and populated his novels and short stories. Most today know Algren as the radical writer of The Man with the Golden Arm, but award-winning reporter Mary Wisniewski offers a deeper portrait.

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Newbery medalist Jerry Spinelli has penned his early autobiography with all the warmth, humor, and drama of his bestselling fiction. From first memories through high school, including first kiss, first punch, first trip to the principal's office, and first humiliating sports experience, this is not merely an account of a highly unusual childhood. Rather, like Spinelli's fiction, its appeal lies in the accessibility and universality of his life.

I would like to be remembered as someone who made people smile.' One of the great icons of our time, Khushwant Singh, 95, is a man of contradictions. An agnostic who's well-versed in the holy scriptures; a vocal champion of free speech who supported the Emergency; a 'dirty old man' who...

A collection of short stories from The Big Garage on Clear Shot chronicles the offbeat lives of the colorful inhabitants of The End of the Road, a small town in Alaska...