First U.S. Publication A major literary event--the complete, uncensored journals of SylviaPlath, published in their entirety for the first time. Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in aheavily abridged version authorized by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes.This new edition is an exact and complete tran*ion of thediaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life. Sixtypercent of the book is material that has never before been madepublic, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet's personaland literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both herfrequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down herdemons. The complete Journals of Sylvia Plath is essentialreading for all who have been moved and fascinated by Plath's lifeand work. First U.S. Publication A major literary event--the complete, uncensored journals of SylviaPlath, published in their entirety for the first time. Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in aheavily abridged ve
An absorbing biography of the great leaderwho was the bridge between ancient and modern Europe — the firstmajor study in more than twenty-five years. Charlemagne was an extraordinary figure: aningenious military strategist, a wise but ruthless leader, acunning politician, and a devout believer who ensured the survivalof Christianity in the West. He also believed himself above therules of the church, siring bastards across Europe, and coldlyordering the execution of 4,500 prisoners. Derek Wilson shows howthis complicated, fascinating man married the military might of hisarmy to the spiritual force of the Church in Rome, thereby forgingWestern Christendom. This is a remarkable portrait of Charlemagneand of the intricate political, religious, and cultural world hedominated.
Book De*ion Admired and beloved by movie audiences for over sixty years,four-time Academy Award-winner Katharine Hepburn is an Americanclassic. Now Miss Hepburn breaks her long-kept silence about herprivate life in this absorbing and provocative memoir.A NEW YORKTIMES Notable Book of the YearA Book-of-the-Month-Club MainSelection Amazon.com From Publishers Weekly Beloved actress Hepburn's episodic autobiography spent 24 weekson PW 's hardcover bestseller list and was a BOMC main selection incloth. From Booklist From School Library Journal Katherine Hepburn is, at 84, still the positive, feisty,upper-class lady she portrayed in The Philadelphia Story . Herautobiography, clearly not ghostwritten, tells some stories of herlife but not all--she comes from a class that didn't let it allhang out. Her 27-year affair with Spencer Tracy is discussed withfond memories (the years together were to her ``absolutebliss'')--the idea that it was scandalous at the time doesn't
Jimmy Stewart’s all-American good looks, boyish charm, anddeceptively easygoing style of acting made him one of Hollywood’sgreatest and most enduring stars. Despite the indelible image heprojected of innocence and quiet self-assurance, Stewart’s life wasmore complex and sophisticated than most of the characters heplayed. With fresh insight and unprecedented access, bestsellingbiographer Marc Eliot finally tells the previously untold story ofone of our greatest screen and real-life heroes. Born into a family of high military honor and economic successdominated by a powerful father, Stewart developed an interest intheater while attending Princeton University. Upon graduation, heroomed with the then-unknown Henry Fonda, and the two began afriendship that lasted a lifetime. While he harbored a secretunrequited love for Margaret Sullavan, Stewart was paired with manyof Hollywood’s most famous, most beautiful, and most alluringleading ladies during his extended bachelorhood, among them GingerRogers, Olivi
Frédéric Chopin’s reputation as one of the Great Romanticsendures, but as Benita Eisler reveals in her elegant and elegiacbiography, the man was more complicated than his iconicimage. A classicist, conservative, and dandy who relished his conquestof Parisian society, the Polish émigré was for a while blessed withgenius, acclaim, and the love of Europe’s most infamous womanwriter, George Sand. But by the age of 39, the man whose brilliantcompositions had thrilled audiences in the most fashionable salonslay dying of consumption, penniless and abandoned by his lover. Inthe fall of 1849, his lavish funeral was attended by thousands—butnot by George Sand. In this intimate portrait of an embattled man, Eisler tells thestory of a turbulent love affair, of pain and loss redeemed by art,and of worlds—both private and public—convulsed by momentouschange.
The extraordinary story of Andrew Jackson—the colorful,dynamic, and forceful president who ushered in the Age of Democracyand set a still young America on its path to greatness—told by thebestselling author of The First American. The most famous American of his time, Andrew Jackson is a seminalfigure in American history. The first “common man” to rise to thepresidency, Jackson embodied the spirit and the vision of theemerging American nation; the term “Jacksonian democracy” isembedded in our national lexicon. With the sweep, passion, and attention to detail that made TheFirst American a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a national bestseller,historian H.W. Brands shapes a historical narrative that’s asfast-paced and compelling as the best fiction. He follows AndrewJackson from his days as rebellious youth, risking execution tofree the Carolinas of the British during the Revolutionary War, tohis years as a young lawyer and congressman from the newly settledfrontier state of Tennessee
Consuelo and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry met in Buenos Aires in1930—she a seductive young widow, he a brave pioneer of earlyaviation, decorated for his acts of heroism in the deserts of NorthAfrica. He was large in his passions, a fierce loner with achildlike appetite for danger. She was frail and voluble, exoticand capricious. Within hours of their first encounter, he knew hewould have her as his wife. Their love affair and marriage would take them from Buenos Airesto Paris to Casablanca to New York. It would take them throughperiods of betrayal and infidelity, pain and intense passion,devastating abandonment and tender, poetic love. The Tale of theRose is the story of a man of extravagant dreams and of the womanwho was his muse, the inspiration for the Little Prince’s belovedrose—unique in all the world—whom he could not live with and couldnot live without.
Michael Jackson: The Making of "Thriller" is an illustratedtribute to the King of Pop and his groundbreaking music video, withnever-before-seen photos of its creation. The book features over200 exclusive, behind-the-scenes photographs of the artist on setduring the 1983 production of the Grammy award winning videodirected by John Landis. Considered to be the most successful project of all time,"Thriller" is beloved the world over, inspiring imitation and acult-like following of millions of fans. Documenting the creationof the most popular and iconic music video of all time, this bookcelebrates the artist and his music at the top of his career. Famed photographer Douglas Kirkland and journalist Nancy Griffinwere the only members of the media allowed on the set of the video.The resulting photos capture Jackson both in high performance modeand relaxing on the set and depict his transformation into thecharacters in the video as well capturing the public and privatefaces of Michael Jackson.
A rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offersincisive insights into his major works, including LOLITA, PNIN,DESPAIR, THE GIFT and others.
This explosive, revelatory history of the early years ofpsychoanalysis shows that the bitterly unresolvable split betweenJung and Freud pivoted around a former patient and lover of Jung'swhose story and own potentially important theoretical contributionsto psychoanalysis were blocked by both men. "A huge scholarly work. . . gripping."--The New York Times.
In this fascinating and meticulously researched book,bestselling historian Arthur Herman sheds new light on two of themost universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century, andreveals how their forty-year rivalry sealed the fate of India andthe British Empire. They were born worlds apart: Winston Churchill to Britain’s mostglamorous aristocratic family, Mohandas Gandhi to a piousmiddle-class household in a provincial town in India. Yet ArthurHerman reveals how their lives and careers became intertwined asthe twentieth century unfolded. Both men would go on to lead theirnations through harrowing trials and two world wars—and becomelocked in a fierce contest of wills that would decide the fates ofcountries, continents, and ultimately an empire. Here is a sweepingepic with a fascinating supporting cast, and a brilliant narrativeparable of two men whose great successes were always haunted bypersonal failure—and whose final moments of triumph wereovershadowed by the loss of what they held
The first account—prodigiously researched, richly detailed—ofthe last remarkable twenty-five years of the life and art of one ofAmerica’s greatest and most beloved musical icons. Much has been written about Louis Armstrong, but most of itfocuses on the early and middle stages of his long career. Now,Ricky Riccardi—jazz scholar and musician—takes an in-depth look atthe years in which Armstrong was often dismissed as a buffoon?ish,if popular, entertainer, and shows us instead the inventiveness anddepth of expression that his music evinced during this time. These are the years (from after World War II until his death in1971) when Armstrong entertained crowds around the world andrecorded his highest-charting hits, including “Mack the Knife” and“Hello, Dolly”; years when he collaborated with, among others, EllaFitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Dave Brubeck; when he recorded withstrings and big bands, and, of course, with the All-Stars, hisprimary performing ensemble for more than
At sixteen, Edward Beauclerk Maurice impulsively signed upwith the Hudson's Bay Company -- the company of GentlemanAdventurers -- and ended up at an isolated trading post in theCanadian Arctic, where there was no communication with the outsideworld and only one ship arrived each year. But he was not alone.The Inuit people who traded there taught him how to track polarbears, build igloos, and survive ferocious winter storms. Helearned their language and became completely immersed in theirculture, earning the name Issumatak, meaning “he who thinks.” In The Last Gentleman Adventurer, Edward Beauclerk Mauricerelates his story of coming of age in the Arctic and transports thereader to a time and a way of life now lost forever.
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.
Succeeds more than any previous book in bringing Ali into focus. . . as a starburst of energy, ego and ability whose like willnever be seen again.-- The Wall Street Journal "Best Nonfiction Book of the Year"-- Time "Penetrating . . . reveal[s] details that even close followers of[Ali] might not have known. . . . An amazing story." -- The NewYork Times On the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay)stepped into the ring with Sonny Liston, he was widely regarded asan irritating freak who danced and talked way too much. Six roundslater Ali was not only the new world heavyweight boxing champion:He was "a new kind of black man" who would shortly transformAmerica's racial politics, its popular culture, and its notions ofheroism. No one has capturedAli--and the era that he exhilarated and sometimes infuriated--withgreater vibrancy, drama, and astuteness than David Remnick, thePulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin's Tomb (and editor of The New Yorker ). In charting Ali's rise fro
Prize-winning biographer Robert D. Richardson has written thedefinitive biography of the fascinating William James, whose lifeand writing put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy,teaching, and religion—and on modernism itself. A pivotal member ofthe Metaphysical Club, author of The Varieties of ReligiousExperience, and older brother of extraordinary siblings Henry andAlice, William emerges here as an immensely complex man.Richardson’s thought-provoking and utterly moving work, ten yearsin the making, draws on a vast number of unpublished letters,journals, and family records. Through impassioned scholarship,Richardson illuminates James’s hugely influential works: TheVarieties, Principles of Psychology, Talks to Teachers, andPragmatism. Finally, brought richly to life through Richardson’sbrilliant insights, James is given his due as a man whose influenceresonates in innumerable areas of modern life.
Edith Kermit Carow grew up in New York City in the same circlesas did Theodore Roosevelt. But only after TR's first wife died atage twenty-two did the childhood friends forge one of the mostsuccessful romantic and political partnerships in American history.Sylvia Jukes Morris's access to previously unpublished letters anddiaries brings to full life her portrait of the Roosevelts andtheir times. During her years as First Lady (1901-09), Edith KermitRoosevelt dazzled social and political Washington as hostess,confidante, and mother of six, leading her husband to remark, "Mrs.Roosevelt comes a good deal nearer my ideal than I do myself."
does eminem matter? On assignment for his first cover story for Rolling Stone, thevery first national cover story on Eminem, Anthony Bozza met ayoung blond kid, a rapper who would soon take the country by storm.But back in 1999, Eminem was just beginning to make waves amongsuburban white teenagers as his first single, “My Name Is,” wentinto heavy rotation on MTV. Who could have predicted that in a mere two years, Eminem wouldbecome the most reviled and controversial hip-hop figure ever? Orthat twelve months after that, Eminem would sit firmly at thepinnacle of American celebrity, a Grammy winner many times over andthe recipient of an Oscar. did eminem change or did america finally figure him out? Whatever You Say I Am attempts to answer this question and manymore. Since their first meeting, Bozza has been given a level ofaccess to Eminem that no other journalist has enjoyed. In WhateverYou Say I Am, original, never-before-published text from Bozza’sinterviews with Eminem a
In The Aeneid, Vergil's hero fights to claim the king'sdaughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire.Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin givesLavinia a voice in a novel that takes us to the half-wild world ofancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom, untilsuitors come. Her mother wants her to marry handsome, ambitiousTurnus. But omens and prophecies spoken by the sacred springs sayshe must marry a foreigner--that she will be the cause of a bitterwar--and that her husband will not live long. When a fleet ofTrojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia decides to take herdestiny into her own hands. And so she tells us what Vergil didnot: the story of her life, and of the love of her life. Lavinia isa book of passion and war, generous and austerely beautiful, from awriter working at the height of her powers.
Theodore Rex is the story—never fully toldbefore—of Theodore Roosevelt’s two world-changing terms asPresident of the United States. A hundred years before thecatastrophe of September 11, 2001, “TR” succeeded to power in theaftermath of an act of terrorism. Youngest of all our chiefexecutives, he rallied a stricken nation with his superhumanenergy, charm, and political skills. He proceeded to combat theproblems of race and labor relations and trust control while makingthe Panama Canal possible and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Buthis most historic achievement remains his creation of a nationalconservation policy, and his monument millions of acres ofprotected parks and forest. Theodore Rex ends with TRleaving office, still only fifty years old, his future reputationsecure as one of our greatest presidents.
The House of Wittgenstein is the grand sagaof a brilliant and tragic Viennese family whose members included afamous philosopher and the world's greatest one-handed classicalpianist. The Wittgenstein family was one of thewealthiest, most talented, and most eccentric in European history,held together by a fanatical love of music yet torn apart by money,madness, conflicts of loyalty, and the upheaval of two world wars.Of the eight children, three committed suicide; Paul lost an arm inthe war and yet stubbornly pursued a musical career; and Ludwig,the odd youngest son, is now regarded as one of the greatestphilosophers of the twentieth century. Alexander Waugh, author ofthe acclaimed memoir Fathers and Sons and himself the offspring ofa famous and eccentric family, tells their baroque tale with anovelistic richness to rival Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks.
No one is better poised to write the biography of JamesHerriot than the son who worked alongside him in the Yorkshireveterinary practice when Herriot became an internationallybestselling author. Now, in this warm and poignant biography, JimWight ventures beyond his father's life as a veterinarian to revealthe man behind the stories--the private individual who refused toallow fame and wealth to interfere with his practice or his family.With access to all of his father's papers, correspondence,manu*s, and photographs--and intimate recollections of thefarmers, locals, and friends who populate the James Herriotbooks--only Jim Wight could write this definitive biography of theman who was not only his father but his best friend.
Poet, journalist, letter-writer, critic, autobiographer,lecturer, folklorist, philosopher: when a man's genius is soamorphous and protean, how can any one biographer hope to encompassit? Yet, miraculously, in this first of two volumes, Richard Holmeshas succeeded in doing so. . . . His masterly book leaves onefeeling that, if there were a single literary giant of the past,other than Shakespeare, whom one was permitted to meet, thenColeridge would be the choice. "The best literary biography since Ellmann'sOscar Wilde." "Dazzling. . . . Here is Coleridge, attractiveand repellant, with all his seductive contradictions: the young manwith his mountainous aspirations, his dreaminess . . . yammeringpoetry, pounding the turnpikes, dominating drawing-rooms; thefoaming genius, messy with metaphysical secretions anduncontrollable speculations. Holmes has not merely reinterpretedColeridge, he has re-created him, and his biography has the aura offiction, the shimmer of an authentic portrait. [This is] abiography
When twentysomething reporter Miranda Kennedy leaves herjob in New York City and travels to India with no employmentprospects, she longs to immerse herself in the turmoil andexcitement of a rapidly developing country. What she quickly learnsin Delhi about renting an apartment as a single woman—it’s next toimpossible—and the proper way for women in India to ridescooters—perched sideways—are early signs that life here is lessWesternized than she’d counted on. Living in Delhi for more than five years, and finding acity pulsing with possibility and hope, Kennedy experiencesfriendships, love affairs, and losses that open a window onto theopaque world of Indian politics and culture—and alter her ownattitudes about everything from food and clothes to marriage andfamily. Along the way, Kennedy is drawn into the lives of severalIndian women, including her charismatic friend Geeta—aself-described “modern girl” who attempts to squeeze herself intothe traditional role of wife and mother; R
Plutarch's Lives, written at the beginning of the secondcentury A.D., is a brilliant social history of the ancient world byone of the greatest biographers and moralists of all time. In whatis by far his most famous and influential work, Plutarch revealsthe character and personality of his subjects and how they ledultimately to tragedy or victory. Richly anecdotal and full ofdetail, Volume I contains profiles and comparisons of Romulus andTheseus, Numa and Lycurgus, Fabius and Pericles, and many morepowerful figures of ancient Greece and Rome. The present translation, originally published in 1683 inconjunction with a life of Plutarch by John Dryden, was revised in1864 by the poet and scholar Arthur Hugh Clough, whose notes andpreface are also included in this edition.