From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winningbiographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather , comesa superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women ofletters. Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with theimage of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new EdithWharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as herfiction. Born into a wealthy family, Wharton left America as anadult and eventually chose to create a life in France. Her renownednovels and stories have become classics of American literature, butas Lee shows, Wharton's own life, filled with success and scandal,was as intriguing as those of her heroines. Bridging two centuriesand two very different sensibilities, Wharton here comes to life inthe skillful hands of one of the great literary biographers of ourtime.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER “ The Social Network , themuch anticipated movie…adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book TheAccidental Billionaires .” — The New York Times Best friends Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg had spent manylonely nights looking for a way to stand out among HarvardUniversity’s elite, comptetitive, and accomplished studentbody. Then, in 2003, Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard’s computers,crashed the campus network, almost got himself expelled, and was inspired to create Facebook, the socialnetworking site that has since revolutionized communication aroundthe world. With Saverin’s funding their tiny start-up went from dorm room toSilicon Valley. But conflicting ideas about Facebook’s futuretransformed the friends into enemies. Soon, the undergraduateexuberance that marked their collaboration turned into out-and-outwarfare as it fell prey to the adult world of venture capitalists,big money, lawyers.
A majestic literary biography, a truly new, surprisingly freshportrait. -- Newsday A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice National Book Critics Circle Award finalist A biography wholly worthy of the brilliant woman it chronicles. .. . It rediscovers Virginia Woolf afresh." --The Philadelphia Inquirer While Virginia Woolf--one of our century's most brilliant andmercurial writers--has had no shortage of biographers, none hasseemed as naturally suited to the task as Hermione Lee. Subscribingto Virginia Woolf's own belief in the fluidity and elusiveness ofidentity, Lee comes at her subject from a multitude ofperspectives, producing a richly layered portrait of the writer andthe woman that leaves all of her complexities and contradictionsintact. Such issues as sexual abuse, mental illness, and suicideare brought into balance with the immensity of her literaryachievement, her heroic commitment to her work, her generosity andwit, and her sanity and strength. It
In a book that is both biography and the most exciting form ofhistory, here are eighteen years in the life of a man, AlbertEinstein, and a city, Berlin, that were in many ways the definingyears of the twentieth century. Einstein in Berlin In the spring of 1913 two of the giants of modern sciencetraveled to Zurich. Their mission: to offer the most prestigiousposition in the very center of European scientific life to a manwho had just six years before been a mere patent clerk. AlbertEinstein accepted, arriving in Berlin in March 1914 to take up hisnew post. In December 1932 he left Berlin forever. “Take a goodlook,” he said to his wife as they walked away from their house.“You will never see it again.” In between, Einstein’s Berlin years capture in microcosm theodyssey of the twentieth century. It is a century that opens withextravagant hopes--and climaxes in unparalleled calamity. These aretumultuous times, seen through the life of one man who is at oncewitness to and architect of his day--and
An instinctive and magnificent storyteller, Somerset Maughamwas one of the most popular and successful writers of his time. Hepublished seventy-eight books -- including the undisputed classicsOf Human Bondage and The Razor’s Edge -- which sold over 40 millioncopies in his lifetime. Born in Paris to sophisticated parents, Willie Maugham wasorphaned at the age of ten and brought up in a small Englishcoastal town by narrow-minded relatives. He was trained as adoctor, but never practiced medicine. His novel Ashenden, based onhis own espionage for Britain in World War I, influenced writersfrom Eric Ambler to John le Carr?. After a failed affair with anactress, he married another man’s mistress, but reserved hisgreatest love for a man who shared his life for nearly thirtyyears. He traveled the world and spoke several languages. Despite adebilitating stutter, and an acerbic and formal manner, heentertained literary celebrities and royalty at his villa in thesouth of France. He made a fortune from hi
A chance encounter in Spain in 1959 brought young Irishreporter Valerie Danby-Smith face to face with Ernest Hemingway.The interview was awkward and brief, but before it ended somethinghad clicked into place. For the next two years, Valerie devoted herlife to Hemingway and his wife, Mary, traveling with them throughbeloved old haunts in Spain and France and living with them duringthe tumultuous final months in Cuba. In name a personal secretary,but in reality a confidante and sharer of the great man’s secretsand sorrows, Valerie literally came of age in the company of one ofthe greatest literary lions of the twentieth century. Five years after his death, Valerie became a Hemingway herselfwhen she married the writer’s estranged son Gregory. Now, at last,she tells the story of the incredible years she spent with thisextravagantly talented and tragically doomed family. In prose of brilliant clarity and stinging candor, Valerie evokesthe magic and the pathos of Papa Hemingway
Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is a gifted animal scientist who hasdesigned one third of all the livestock-handling facilities in theUnited States. She also lectures widely on autism—because TempleGrandin is autistic, a woman who thinks, feels, and experiences theworld in ways that are incomprehensible to the rest of us. In this unprecedented book, Grandin delivers a report from thecountry of autism. Writing from the dual perspectives of ascientist and an autistic person, she tells us how that country isexperienced by its inhabitants and how she managed to breach itsboundaries to function in the outside world. What emerges in Thinking in Pictures is the document of an extraordinaryhuman being, one who, in gracefully and lucidly bridging the gulfbetween her condition and our own, sheds light on the riddle of ourcommon identity.
Sex, intrigue and adultery in the world of high politics andhuge wealth in late eighteenth-century England. Georgiana, Duchessof Devonshire, was one of the most flamboyant and influential womenof the eighteenth century. The great-great-great-great aunt ofDiana, Princess of Wales, she was variously a compulsive gambler, apolitical savante and operator of the highest order, a drug addict,an adulteress and the darling of the common people. Thisauthoritative, utterly absorbing book presents a mesmerizingpicture of a fascinating world of political and sexual intrigues,grand houses, huge parties, glamour and great wealth -- always onthe edge of being squandered by the excesses and scandals ofindividuals. Georgiana's extraordinary life has now been made intoa major film - starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes - whichis due for release in summer 2008. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Although his popularity is eclipsed by Rembrandt today, PeterPaul Rubens was revered by his contemporaries as the greatestpainter of his era, if not of all history. His undeniableartistic genius, bolstered by a modest disposition and a reputationas a man of tact and discretion, made him a favorite among monarchsand political leaders across Europe—and gave him the perfect coverfor the clandestine activities that shaped the landscape ofseventeenth-century politics. In Master of Shadows, Mark Lamster brilliantly recreates theculture, religious conflicts, and political intrigues of Rubens’stime, following the painter from Antwerp to London, Madrid, Paris,and Rome and providing an insightful exploration of Rubens’s art aswell as the private passions that influenced it.
From the author of the best-selling biography Woody Allen—themost informative, revealing, and entertaining conversations fromhis thirty-six years of interviewing the great comedian andfilmmaker. For more than three decades, Woody Allen has been talkingregularly and candidly with Eric Lax, and has given him singularand unfettered access to his film sets, his editing room, and histhoughts and observations. In discussions that begin in 1971 andcontinue into 2007, Allen discusses every facet of moviemakingthrough the prism of his own films and the work of directors headmires. In doing so, he reveals an artist’s development over thecourse of his career to date, from joke writer to standup comedianto world-acclaimed filmmaker. Woody talks about the seeds of his ideas and the writing of hisscreenplays; about casting and acting, shooting and directing,editing and scoring. He tells how he reworks screenplays even whilefilming them. He describes the problems he has had casting Ameri
Tony Blair is a politician who defines our times. Hisemergence as Labour Party leader in 1994 marked a seismic shift inBritish politics. Within a few short years, he had transformed hisparty and rallied the country behind him, becoming prime ministerin 1997 with the biggest victory in Labour’s history, and bringingto an end eighteen years of Conservative government. He took Labourto a historic three terms in office as Britain’s dominant politicalfigure of the last two decades. A Journey is Tony Blair’s firsthand account of his years inoffice and beyond. Here he describes for the first time his role inshaping our recent history, from the aftermath of Princess Diana’sdeath to the war on terror. He reveals the leadership decisionsthat were necessary to reinvent his party, the relationships withcolleagues including Gordon Brown, the grueling negotiations forpeace in Northern Ireland, the implementation of the biggestreforms to public services in Britain since 1945, and hisrelationships with l
In Unbowed, Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai recountsher extraordinary journey from her childhood in rural Kenya to theworld stage. When Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977,she began a vital poor people’s environmental movement, focused onthe empowerment of women, that soon spread across Africa.Persevering through run-ins with the Kenyan government and personallosses, and jailed and beaten on numerous occasions, Maathaicontinued to fight tirelessly to save Kenya’s forests and torestore democracy to her beloved country . Infused with herunique luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai’s remarkable story ofcourage, faith, and the power of persistence is destined to inspiregenerations to come.
In a brilliant combination of biography, literary criticism,and history, The Bronté Myth shows how Charlotte, Emily, and AnneBronté became cultural icons whose ever-changing reputationsreflected the obsessions of various eras. When literary London learned that Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heightshad been written by young rural spinsters, the Brontés instantlybecame as famous as their shockingly passionate books. Soon aftertheir deaths, their first biographer spun the sisters into apicturesque myth of family tragedies and Yorkshire moors. Eversince, these enigmatic figures have tempted generations ofreaders–Victorian, Freudian, feminist–to reinterpret them, castingthem as everything from domestic saints to sex-starved hysterics.In her bewitching “metabiography,” Lucasta Miller follows thetwists and turns of the phenomenon of Bront-mania and rescues thesethree fiercely original geniuses from the distortions oflegend.
Thirty years ago, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won both thePulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. A collector’s item inits original edition, it has never been out of print as apaperback. This classic book is now reissued in hardcover, alongwith Theodore Rex, to coincide with the publication of ColonelRoosevelt, the third and concluding volume of Edmund Morris’sdefinitive trilogy on the life of the twenty-sixth President. Although Theodore Rex fully recounts TR’s years in the WhiteHouse (1901–1909), The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt begins with abrilliant Prologue describing the President at the apex of hisinternational prestige. That was on New Year’s Day, 1907, when TR,who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, threw open the doors of theWhite House to the American people and shook 8,150 hands, more thanany man before him. Morris re-creates the reception with suchauthentic detail that the reader gets almost as vivid an impressionof TR as those who attended. One visitor remarked
As an actor, he seduces us with his tough-guy charm. As adirector and producer, he amazes us with his artistry and technicalsavvy. As a Hollywood icon, Clint Eastwood, one of film sgreatest living legends, represents some of the finest cinematicachievements in the history of American cinema. In American Rebel, bestselling author and acclaimed filmhistorian Marc Eliot examines the ever-exciting, often-tumultuousarc of Clint Eastwood s life and career. Unlike pastbiographers, Eliot writes with unflinching candor aboutEastwood s highs and lows, his artistic successes andfailures, and the fascinating, complex relationship between hislife and his craft. Eliot s prodigious research revealshow a college dropout and unambitious playboy rose to fame asHollywood s "sexy rebel," eventually and against all oddsbecoming a star in the Academy pantheon as a multiple Oscar winner.Spanning decades, American Rebelcovers the best ofEastwood s oeuvre, films that have fast become Americanclassics– Fistful of Doll
No writer alive today exerts the magical appeal of GabrielGarcía Márquez. Now, in the long-awaited first volume of hisautobiography, he tells the story of his life from his birth in1927 to the moment in the 1950s when he proposed to his wife. Theresult is as spectacular as his finest fiction. Here is García Márquez’s shimmering evocation of his childhoodhome of Aracataca, the basis of the fictional Macondo. Here are themembers of his ebulliently eccentric family. Here are the forcesthat turned him into a writer. Warm, revealing, abounding in imagesso vivid that we seem to be remembering them ourselves, Living toTell the Tale is a work of enchantment.
Paul Newman, the Oscar-winning actor with the legendary blueeyes, achieved superstar status by playing charismatic renegades,broken heroes, and winsome antiheroes in such revered films as TheHustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, TheVerdict, The Color of Money, and Nobody’s Fool. But Newman was alsoan oddity in Hollywood: the rare box-office titan who cared aboutthe craft of acting, the sexy leading man known for the stayingpower of his marriage, and the humble celebrity who madephilanthropy his calling card long before it was cool. The son of a successful entrepreneur, Newman grew up in aprosperous Cleveland suburb. Despite fears that he would fail tolive up to his father’s expectations, Newman bypassed the familysporting goods business to pursue an acting career. Afterstruggling as a theater and television actor, Newman saw his starrise in a tragic twist of fate, landing the role of boxer RockyGraziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me when James Dean was killedin a car a
Jeanne Marie Laskas had a dream of fleeing her otherwise happyurban life for fresh air and open space — a dream she woulddiscover was about something more than that. But she never expectedher fantasy to come true — until a summer afternoon’s drive in thecountry. That’s when she and her boyfriend, Alex — owner of Marley thepoodle — stumble upon the place she thought existed only in herdreams. This pretty-as-a-picture-postcard farm with an Amish barn,a chestnut grove, and breathtaking vistas is real ... and for sale.And it’s where she knows her future begins. But buying a postcard — fifty acres of scenery — and living onit are two entirely different matters. With wit and wisdom, Laskaschronicles the heartwarming and heartbreaking stories of thecolorful two- and four-legged creatures she encounters onSweetwater Farm. Against a backdrop of brambles, a satellite dish, and sheep,she tells a tender, touching, and hilarious tale about life, love,and the unexpected complic
Here is a multidimensional playland of ideas from the world'smost eccentric Nobel-Prize winning scientist. Kary Mullis islegendary for his invention of PCR, which redefined the world ofDNA, genetics, and forensic science. He is also a surfer, a veteranof Berkeley in the sixties, and perhaps the only Nobel laureate todescribe a possible encounter with aliens. A scientist of boundlesscuriosity, he refuses to accept any proposition based on secondhandor hearsay evidence, and always looks for the "money trail" whenscientists make announcements.
“I had prepared a life plan that included ten years ofwandering, later years studying medicine. . . . All that's in thepast, the only thing that's clear is that the ten years ofwandering might grow longer . . . but it will now be of an entirelydifferent type from the one I dreamed of, and when I arrive in anew country it will not be to go to museums and look at ruins,because that still interests me, but also to join the struggle ofthe people.” – Che Guevara, in a letter to his mother, 1956 Assembled from two separate books written by Che's father, this isa vivid and intimate account of the formative years of an icon.Ernesto Guevara Lynch describes the people and personal events thatshaped the development of his son's revolutionary worldview, fromhis childhood in a bourgeois Argentinian home to the moment hejoined Castro to train for the invasion of Cuba in 1956. It alsoincludes, available for the first time in the United States, Che'sdiary of his trip around Northern Argentina in 1950. YoungChe is
