Literary Biography

Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' was published when she was 20 years old, but it is more than just a precocious book of early science fiction. In Episode 3 of The Book Club, Amit Varma explains how Shelley fearlessly tackled big themes, and delved as deep into human nature as the best literature of the time. Her book gave birth to many tropes that still exist – and showed an ambition that has since characterised the best writing in a genre she helped create.

A haunting meditation on love, loss, companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark, Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is one of the most important and influential short story collections in contemporary literature. In his entry in the esteemed Bookmarked series, acclaimed author Brian Evenson offers his personal and literary take on this classic Carver collection.

Due interventi e una conversazione libera e amichevole con Susanna Tamaro su di sé, sul rapporto con la scrittura e sui suoi libri, fanno di "Verso casa" un prezioso piccolo compendio che avvicina i lettori ad un'autrice riservata eppure capace di parlare il linguaggio di tutti e soprattutto di illuminare aspetti spesso oscuri nella vita di ciascuno attraverso il semplice ma impegnativo esercizio del conoscere se stessi. Con una nuova introduzione dell'autrice.

Per Antonio Moresco "leggere non è solo leggere, è un incontro e un incrocio forte e rischioso di cromosomi, di corpi, di menti, di sogni". Da una lettura così intensa e fusionale nasce il trascinante dialogo che Moresco intreccia in queste pagine con Susi Pietri, francesista, appassionata studiosa e lettrice, che lo interroga sul suo incontro con Balzac.

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.

'இலக்கிய முன்னோடிகள்' என்ற இந்நூல் 31 இலக்கியவாதிகளைப் பற்றிய தனித்தனிக் கட்டுரைகளின் தொகுப்பு. கு.அழகிரிசாமி எழுதிய 'நான் கண்ட எழுத்தாளர்கள், அறிஞர் வ.ரா. எழுதிய 'தமிழ்ப் பெரியார்கள்', வையாபுரிப்பிள்ளை எழுதிய'தமிழ்ச் சுடர்மணிகள்'என்று இதே பாணியில் அமைந்த சில நூல்கள் முன்னரே தமிழில் உண்டு.

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.

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.

In the summer of 1879, the young writer Robert Louis Stevenson received a telegram from America. Fanny, a dear friend in California, was ill. Stevenson packed his bags and left his home in Scotland. When the steamer reached the east coast of America, his journey had just begun. Stevenson had little money, so he traveled across America the cheapest way: he went by train.

So here I am, delving into the past like Monsieur Poirot, not to solve a mystery, but to try to understand some of the events that have helped define the sort of person I have become. Some of it, naturally, is in the genes; but much of it is in the environment, in the circumstances in which we...

Al nostro secolo è mancata la vocazione di costruire cattedrali. Ma c'è Raymond Isidore che costruì una cattedrale fatta di detriti. E la sorte volle che questo incongruo monumento, oggi considerato un luogo d'arte, sorgesse a Chartres. Dapprima fonditore, poi pulitore di rotaie e alla fine custode di discariche e cimiteri, Raymond Isidore, detto Picassiette, raccolse instancabilmente nella spazzatura frammenti di tazze, piatti e bicchieri, con i quali ricopriva ogni superficie e ogni suppellettile della sua casa.

Ripamonti, chi era costui? Un nome che alle orec­chie dei più non dice granché; o forse risveglia una vaga eco, persa nella nebbia dei ricordi scolastici: una delle fonti dei Promessi sposi - in verità, come sco­pri­remo, la prima e la più importante. In­curiosito da quella che gli ap­pa­riva quasi una damnatio memoriae, Franzosini ha comin­ciato a indagare sui reali motivi per i quali, dopo essere stato un protégé di Federico Borromeo - che lo no­minò Dottore dell'Ambrosiana e lo accolse nel palazzo arci­ve­scovile -, il presbitero-storico abbia subìto, pro­prio da parte del Cardinale, una "fiera per­secuzione", co­stata quat­­tro anni di carcere duro.

A raucous audiobook tour through the world of Mr. Darcy imitations, tailored gowns, and tipsy ballroom dancing The son of a devoted Jane Austen scholar, Ted Scheinman spent his childhood summers eating Yorkshire pudding, singing in an Anglican choir, and watching Laurence Olivier as Mr. Darcy...

Una Marson’s work embodied anti-colonialism, anti-racism, feminism, class politics, and pan-Africanism in the first half of the 20th century. Her poetry and dramatic work symbolically ushered in a new era in Jamaica’s literary landscape, and her efforts in championing early Jamaican literature, as well as her avid support for Caribbean writers in Britain and the region, made her a key proponent of the development of a national and West Indian literary canon.

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 deeply humane new collection by a luminary of Bengali literature A radiant collection of poetry about womanhood, intimacy, and the body politic that together evokes the arc of an ordinary life. Nabaneeta Dev Sen's rhythmic lines explore the joys and agonies of first love, childbirth, and decay...

When Jules Verne was born in 1828, his family had his future planned out for him. They expected him to become a lawyer, but he dreamed of writing. He started out writing more traditional poetry and plays, but then he began to create a new, unconventional kind of fiction. It combined adventure, the modern world of science and invention, and his personal view of the future. With fantastical characters, spaceships to the moon, and deep-sea submarines, his books told of things that would not actually occur for decades.

In 1914 collisions between motor cars and horse-drawn carriages are an everyday occurrence on the streets of Paterson, New Jersey. But when an out-of-control driver smashes into a buggy driven by Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, their lives change forever. Constance, the oldest, demands payment for the damages but quickly realizes that she is dealing with a madman.

"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.

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.