Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Art & Literature

Agatha Christie was not only the biggest selling writer of detective stories the world has ever known, she was also a mystery in herself, giving only the rarest interviews, declining absolutely to become any sort of public figure and a mystery too in the manner in which she achieved her astonishing success. HRF Keating, a crime novelist and respected reviewer of crime fiction, brought together a dozen distinguished writers from both sides of the Atlantic to throw light on this double mystery.

Published in 1913, My Childhood is the first in an autobiographical trilogy by the Russian writer and five-time Nobel Prize-nominee Maxim Gorky. Painfully moving in places, the book tells of the experiences of a young boy who goes to live with his grandparents following the death of his father. Gorky’s depiction of 19th-century Russia through the eyes of his younger self is remarkable. As he recalls memories of his youth, contrasting themes and emotions are revealed, from barbaric joy to dark gloom, genuine cruelty and saint-like forbearance.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin, read by Jill Balcon and David Shaw Parker. Paradox ruled Thomas Hardy's life. His birth was almost his death; he became one of the great Victorian novelists and reinvented himself as one of the 20th-century's greatest poets; he was an unhappy husband and a desolate widower; and he wrote bitter attacks on the English class system yet prized the friendship of aristocrats.

Laura Cumming reveals her passion for the art of the Dutch Golden Age and her determination to lift up the reputation of Fabritius. She reveals the Netherlands, where - wandering the narrow streets of Amsterdam, driving across the flatlands, or pausing at a quiet waterfront - she encounters the rich reality behind the shining beauty of Vermeer and Rembrandt, Hals and de Hooch. She shares too her relationship with her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming, who had his own deep connection to Dutch painting, and who taught her about colour, light and the rewards of looking deeply.

When she was in her mid-thirties, Marian Evans transformed herself into George Eliot - an author celebrated for her genius as soon as she published her debut novel. During those years she also found her life partner, George Lewes - writer, philosopher and married father of three. After 'eloping' to Berlin in 1854 they lived together for twenty-four years: Eliot asked people to call her 'Mrs Lewes' and dedicated each novel to her 'Husband'. Though they could not legally marry, she felt herself initiated into the 'great experience' of marriage.

Kerry Hudson is proudly working class but she was never proudly poor. The poverty she grew up in was all-encompassing, grinding and often dehumanising. Always on the move with her single mother, Kerry attended nine primary schools and five secondaries, living in B&Bs and council flats. She scores eight out of ten on the Adverse Childhood Experiences measure of childhood trauma. Twenty years later, Kerry’s life is unrecognisable. She’s a prize-winning novelist who has travelled the world. She has a secure home, a loving partner and access to art, music, film and books..

Born and raised in West Lothian, Brady pursued a career in journalism after university, though always had an interest in comedy. After reaching the final of "So You Think You're Funny" at the Edinburgh Fringe, Brady launched her stand-up career and has since appeared on panel shows. Brady knew she was autistic as a teenager, but was told she couldn't be, as she was good at making eye contact and had a boyfriend. After finally getting a diagnosis in 2021, Brady has now penned her autobiography, Strong Female Character, which details the struggles she faced growing up with autism.

Merging dreams and dailies, Pathemata recounts the narrator’s tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss – the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life.

In this first of six volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life.

Josiah was 19 with the world at his feet when things changed. Without warning, the new university student's mental health deteriorated to the point that he planned his own death. His mother, bestselling author Amanda Prowse, found herself grappling for ways to help him, with no clear sense of where that could be found. This is the book they wish had been there for them during those dark times.

Audiobook queen Juliet Stevenson joins Robin Morgan in the Audible Studios to discuss her latest audio project, her career as an audiobook narrator, and the books that have inspired her.

"La nostra lingua manca di parole per esprimere questa offesa, la demolizione di un uomo". Con ostinazione e pacatezza, Primo Levi non ha mai smesso di cercare le parole per raccontare l'atrocità della deportazione e del campo di sterminio di Auschwitz, in cui venne internato dal febbraio 1944 al 27 gennaio 1945. Parole di testimonianza sconvolgente e di grande potenza narrativa che vengono qui accolte e restituite ad alta voce da Roberto Saviano.

Set against the rugged backdrop of Klovharun, a barren skerry in the Gulf of Finland, ´Notes from an Island´ invites you into the intimate world of Tove Jansson and her partner, graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä, known affectionately as "Tooti."Aided by Brunstroem, an unconventional fisherman, Jansson races against time and the elements to build a cabin that would serve as their sanctuary for thirty summers. A declaration of the beauty of solitude, Notes from an Island is a touching homage to a mature love nurtured by the raw beauty of shifting seascapes.

At once a beautifully poetic memoir and an exploration of the various ways we live in the world, A Language Older Than Words explains violence as a pathology that touches every aspect of our lives and indeed affects all aspects of life on Earth. This chronicle of a young man's drive to transcend domestic abuse offers a challenging look at our worldwide sense of community and how we can make things better.

Across six revealing lectures, Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson will introduce you to one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and divisive writers in Flannery O’Connor and the Scandal of Faith. Beginning with an overview of her brief but remarkable life, Professor Wilson will then take you through an exploration of themes in O’Connor’s work and the hallmarks of her literary style. You’ll get a clearer picture of O’Connor’s historical and geographical context while digging into how her stories can transcend time and place.

Artist. Public intellectual. Political activist. James Baldwin was all of these and more. Raised in the slums of Depression-era Harlem in New York City, Baldwin would become an author and activist of international renown—one whose legacy has continued long beyond his death in 1987. Who was James Baldwin? How did he become the master of multiple literary genres and a champion for some of the era’s most notable political and social causes? And how is his influence still being felt today?

Bryce Courtenay was one of Australia's highest-selling and most-loved authors as well as a larger-than-life character. From his first book, The Power of One, he captivated readers. With his third, the non-fiction title April Fool's Day, he captured their hearts. Many of his fans would have thought they knew him, and they did - they knew the version of him that he wanted to present to the world. Bryce's son Adam also knew that version. And he knew the Bryce the rest of the world only glimpsed, or never saw at all.

One of the most famous of all literary dogs, Flush was the golden cocker spaniel belonging to Elizabeth Barrett. In this charming and heartfelt biography, Viginia Woolf tells his story: his early days as Miss Mitford's puppy running across the fields in wild abandon and fathering another, then the years spent in his invalid mistress' bedroom in Wimpole Street.

Shields and Salerno illuminate most brightly the last 56 years of Salinger’s life: a period that, until now, had remained completely dark to biographers. Provided unprecedented access to diaries, letters, legal records, and secret documents, listeners will feel they have, for the first time, gotten beyond Salinger’s meticulously built-up wall. The result is the definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures of the 20th century.

Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a listen of Guggenheim's life that will enthrall enthusiasts of 21st-century art as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs.