Art & Literature

Britain's national icon, Michael Parkinson reads his long-awaited autobiography....

An inspiring, honest and intimate memoir about family, love and rising from the ashes.

Catherine Gray took a whole year off dating to find single satisfaction. She lifted the lid on the reasons behind the global single revolution....

A quarter of a century after the plane crash that claimed the lives of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren, the magnitude of this tragedy remains fresh. Yet, Carolyn is still an enigmatic figure, a woman whose life in the spotlight was besieged with misogyny and cruelty.

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley....

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life describes his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years....

In this fascinating document, one of Japan's best known - and controversial - writers created what might be termed a new literary form. It is new because it combines elements of many existing types of writing, yet in the end, fits into none of them....

This is the book that changed America....

Never before has a member of the Packer family co-operated with a writer to tell their story. In his biography The Price of Fortune, one of the nation's richest and most psychoanalyzed men opens up in an attempt to make sense of his roller-coaster life....

A celebration of the startling wit and unexpected wisdom of the legendary science fiction author, featuring readings of Douglas Adams’s work, rare archival audio, plus interviews with his most famous friends and fans reflecting on the late author’s legacy.

Stefan Zweig's memoir, The World of Yesterday, recalls the golden age of prewar Europe - its seeming permanence, its promise and its devastating fall with the onset of two world wars....

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, Lucy Worsley has written an Introduction to her Sunday Times Bestselling biography - the book that leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

His second major venture into nonfiction (after Death in the Afternoon, 1932), Green Hills of Africa is Ernest Hemingway's lyrical journal....

What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High priest of art? Court jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse! - their activities....

Long days of boredom in confinement, the general inefficiency of prison bureaucracy and a critically over-stretched prison service. The...

The number-one New York Times best-selling author and illustrator of Smile, Drama, and Sisters comes to Symphony Space with her latest graphic novel....

Upon her mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, Annie Ernaux embarks on a daunting journey back through time, as she seeks to capture the real woman....

Published in their entirety, Sylvia Plath's journals provide an intimate portrait of the writer who was to produce in the last seven months of her life some of the most extraordinary poems of the 20th century....

In the tradition of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Alice Taylor’s To School Through the Fields, Tom Phelan’s We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It is a heartfelt and masterfully written memoir of growing up in Ireland in the 1940s....

In this psychological and cultural portrait, David J. Skal exhumes the inner world and strange genius of the writer who conjured an undying cultural icon....

The Life of the Author: William Shakespeare delivers a fresh and exciting new take on the life of William Shakespeare, offering listeners a biography that brings to the foreground his working life as a poet, playwright, and actor....

You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants...

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works....

A moving portrait of friendship by Elyce Arons as she reflects on her long relationship with Kate Spade, whom she met in college and with whom she cofounded the multi-billion-dollar fashion company as they came of age in 1990s New York.

Brilliantly compiled and edited, and filled with detail and anecdote, Daily Rituals is irresistible, addictive, magically inspiring....

We Might Just Make It After All brings us on the rollercoaster of adventures (and misadventures) that the best friends embarked on, from transferring colleges on a whim, to falling in and out of love with suitors, cramming into roach-infested Hell’s Kitchen apartments, and eventually designing the chic, simple bag that would launch the pair to global fame. Through it all, Katy and Elyce’s friendship remained unshakeable.

Douglas Adams, the legendary author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is one of the most beloved authors of all time. Twenty-five years after his death, his books continue to be read by new generations and his creations along with his ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything being “42”, have seeped deep into public consciousness.

L’Autobiogrammatica che avete tra le mani è un gioco sorprendente e vertiginoso: il racconto di un’esistenza – unica e comune – come la storia di un linguaggio. Esiste un legame segreto tra le due linee sinuose lungo cui si snoda la nostra vita: da una parte l’apprendistato dell’alfabeto, dei nomi, del lessico famigliare, dell’insulto, dello scherzo, delle lingue straniere, dei codici segreti, della poesia; dall’altra l’invadente amore per i genitori, la scuola che è un viaggio nell’ignoto, le seduzioni e dilazioni dell’amicizia e del desiderio, la contrattazione di un posto nel mondo.

Charles Handy is one of the giants of contemporary thought. His books on management – including Understanding Organizations and Gods of Management – have changed the way we view business. His work on broader issues and trends – such as Beyond Certainty and The Second Curve – has changed the way we view society. In his new book, Handy, looking back over a rich and varied life, shares the lessons he has learned along the way. What things really matter? What daily worries should we learn to treat as unimportant? How do we become more accepting of ourselves and of those around us?

America, 2003: A country at war, its shiny veneer beginning to crack. Von Dutch and The Simple Life dominate. And on the cover of every magazine, a twenty-one-year-old pop star named Britney Spears. Tracking her every move for a third-tier gossip rag in Los Angeles was an unknown young writer taking whatever job he could while pursuing his distant literary dreams. He'd instead become an eyewitness to the slow tragedy of a changing nation, represented in spirit by “the coy it-girl at the end of history.”

Step into the vivid, paradoxical world of G. K. Chesterton—where saints dance with skeptics, riddles reveal truth, and the ordinary becomes extraordinary. Best known for his wit and philosophical insight, Chesterton’s poetry is a rich blend of humor, faith, social commentary, and fierce imagination. From the rousing rhythms of “Lepanto” to the introspective depth of “The Ballad of the White Horse”, this curated selection showcases Chesterton’s signature style: playful yet profound, grounded yet soaring.

A fascinating look at the real Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the designer who forever revolutionized the way women look. She was a free spirit, brilliant business woman, and beauty who never found reciprocated love. Madsen, with authority, delves into this fashion doyenne's business and private lives to reveal one woman's extraordinary progress: from orphan to millinery shopkeeper, from lodestar of feminine style to a very rich woman with a closet full of dark secrets.

The Durrells are probably the most celebrated literary family of the 20th century. Gerald turned them into celebrities with his tripartite memoir, beginning with My Family and Other Animals (1956) which told of his experiences with his widowed mother Louisa and three siblings during their time in 1930s Corfu. We know of the Durrells from their own writings and from the image of them created by TV, film and biographical accounts of specific figures. What we do not know is the truth.

Before Americans got their news from television, they got it from LIFE, the weekly magazine that set the standard for photojournalism. In LIFE Story Gerald Moore—a writer and editor who worked at the magazine in the last glory years before TV made it obsolete—recalls the dizzying excitement and glamour of LIFE’s fast-moving, powerful approach to spreading the news. Moore covered the major stories of the late 1960s and early 1970s: LSD, assassinations, the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, the McCarthy campaign, urban riots, the My Lai massacre, and the beginnings of feminism.

We’ve all heard the story about waking up as a cockroach—but what if a crisis turned you into a clam? After the dissolution of her marriage, a writer is transformed into a “clam” via typo after her mother keeps texting her to “clam down.” The funny if unhelpful command forces her to ask what it means to “clam down”—to retreat, hide, close up, and stay silent. Idiomatically, we are said to “clam up” when we can’t speak, and to “come out of our shell” when we reemerge, transformed.

Following the Front is a compilation of WWII dispatches written by Sidney A. Olson for TIME and LIFE magazines, 1944-1945. Olson, who joined Time Inc. in 1939 and served as a senior editor there, asked to be assigned overseas as a war correspondent. In mid-December, 1944, he received his accreditation from the War Department and sailed for London. Attached to the European Theater of Operations (ETO), Olson followed the Allied Forces as they pushed the Nazis back into Germany. He typed up his reports and cabled them to his editors in New York.

A coming-of-age memoir that follows a large, working-class Irish family as it plunges into chaos in the wake of a terminal diagnosis—and the author's own hidden struggle to endure when her sister's disease becomes the dark star around which they all revolve.

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928-February 22, 1987), born Andrew Warhola Jr., was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, and filmmaking. The following recordings are from interviews in 1966 and 1981.

Mary Wollstonecraft is widely hailed as the mother of modern feminism. The book that made her famous, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, is a work of worldwide renown. Yet the range of her achievements as a thinker and writer reach far beyond this text. She was a multi-faceted author, and although the condition of women was a constant preoccupation throughout her life, she wrote on a wide variety of topics and in a range of literary forms, some of which she created herself.

Andy Warhol claimed that he loved being outside a party—so that he could get in. But more often than not, the party was at his own studio, The Factory, where celebrities—from Edie Sedgwick and Allen Ginsberg to the Rolling Stones and the Velvet Underground—gathered in an ongoing bash.

War Is Not Just for Heroes rescues the incredible true stories of United States Marine Corps. Written by one marine, Claude R. "Red" Canup, a combat correspondent in the Pacific during World War II, these dispatches and private letters provide insight into the grind of war and ordinary men and women who carried out their duty. Thoughtfully edited and contextualized by a preface and prologue by his daughter, Linda M. Canup Keaton-Lima, War Is Not Just for Heroes combines documentary and biography to provide the human dimensions of those in combat and those who reported out.

Opowieść o Januszu Przymanowskim, który „Rudym 102" zawojował całą Polskę Czy jest choć jeden dorosły Polak, który nie słuchał serialu „Czterej pancerni i pies"? Podczas emisji w peerelowskiej TVP każdego z odcinków wyludniały się ulice i podwórka. Ten popularny cykl zatrzymywał przed ekranami wiele pokoleń, a jego popularność trwa do dzisiaj. Sama książka Janusza Przymanowskiego to także fenomen, i to nie tylko w sensie literackim, ale socjologicznym i kulturowym. Skąd sukces opowieści, w której można znaleźć sporo naiwności, wręcz komiksowych uproszczeń?

Al principio del ventesimo secolo, a seguito di una crisi di colera che devastò Napoli, la giornalista Matilde Serao volle raccontare al mondo il "ventre" della città, quei quartieri popolari abitati da schiere di poveri costretti all'antica e ingegnosa arte del tirare a campare. Città bella ma dimenticata dallo stato sabaudo, la Napoli di inizio '900 era preda di degrado urbano, crimine organizzato e malattie cui il popolo abbandonato faceva fronte attraverso uno sconfinato repertorio di credenze e superstizioni.

Tauchen Sie ein in die faszinierende Welt der Renaissance mit Die Lebensgeschichte von Raffael, meisterhaft erzählt von Alexandre Dumas. Dumas' Erzählkunst lässt die prachtvolle Ära der Renaissance wieder aufleben und entführt den Hörer in die Zeit, in der Kunst und Kultur in Florenz und Rom ihre Blütezeit erlebten. Erleben Sie die Höhen und Tiefen von Raffaels Leben und Karriere, seine bedeutendsten Werke und seinen Einfluss auf die Kunstgeschichte.

La parabola spirituale e umana di Leone XIV, il primo Papa americano della storia. Con la capacità di sintesi del grande giornalista, grazie a un linguaggio semplice ed efficace, Giorgio Dell'Arti ci offre un ritratto a tutto tondo del nuovo pontefice. Dalla laurea in matematica alle prime missioni in Perù, passando per la nomina a Prefetto dei Vescovi e alla fatidica fumata bianca del maggio 2025, la sua vita si dipana come un affresco, ricco di vita e di esperienze.

The Oxford Handbook of George Orwell offers a wide-ranging reconsideration of Orwell's life and work, focusing on the extensive connections between his novels, essays, diaries, columns, letters, and reviews. Sections on Orwell's professional activities, his main literary influences, his politics, his intellectual fixations, his literary contemporaries, and his legacies structure the book, which moves thematically and topically through the full scope of his output.

Shakespeare and the Catholic Faith is not only a biography of William Shakespeare, but more importantly, it’s about William Shakespeare’s faith and how his faith is reflected, not only in his poems and plays but in all the mysterious parts of his life that nobody could make sense of until now.. For example, why did Shakespeare leave Stratford shortly after the birth of twins Judith and Hamnet and live most of his adult life in London when he could’ve just written his plays from the comfort of his own home in Stratford?

¿Se puede vivir de escribir, o se vive para hacerlo? En Dinero y escritura, Olivia Teroba comparte su lúcida mirada sobre las complejidades que implica imaginar una vida centrada en el arte en el mundo contemporáneo. A la vez, se posiciona frente a temas tabúes para quienes se dedican a este oficio, como la economía personal, los premios literarios, las deudas, la somatización y las herencias familiares.

L'autobiographie d'un des plus grands animateurs de télévision ayant accompagné trois générations de français, et une réflexion profonde sur notre rapport au temps.

In questo memoir, Vincenzo Montella compie un'esplorazione profonda della propria esistenza, intrecciando ricordi, relazioni e intenzioni. Attraverso immagini ereditate dalla sua famiglia e create grazie a una ricerca artistica personale, Montella racconta la sua vita e le connessioni significative con artisti di tutto il mondo. Questo viaggio attraverso la memoria e l'arte offre una visione unica e affascinante del suo percorso, invitando il lettore a scoprire la bellezza e la complessità delle esperienze umane. Note biografiche: • Nato a Benevento il 14/7/1952.