Showing titles in Art & Literature

Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler has devoted her life to the female body - how to talk about it, how to protect and value it. Yet she spent much of her life disassociated from her own body - a disconnection brought on by her father’s sexual abuse and her mother’s remoteness. “Because I did not, could not inhabit my body or the Earth,” she writes, “I could not feel or know their pain.” But Ensler is shocked out of her distance.

Jean-Paul Sartre is one of the undisputed giants of 20th-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism, combined with his creative and artistic flair, have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high-profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion.

Depravity, redemption, terror, and spiritual deliverance abound in this physically and psychologically complex memoir from the front man of the pioneer punk band True Sounds of Liberty (TSOL). Spanning the extremes between hard-core punk memoir and handbook for recovery and survival, this narrative documents a youth rebellion that changed the world and offered life lessons rooted in 1980s punk culture.

The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of Twain’s death. In celebration of this important milestone, here, for the first time, is Mark Twain’s uncensored autobiography, in its entirety, exactly as he left it. This major literary event offers the first of three volumes and presents Mark Twain’s authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave, as he intended.

Following the death of his little sister and the publication of his New York Times best-selling memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Rod Dreher found himself living in the small community of Starhill, Louisiana, where he grew up. But instead of the fellowship he hoped to find, he discovered that fault lines within his family had deepened. Dreher spiraled into depression and a stress-related autoimmune disease.

In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo, one of our leading Native American voices, details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. She attended an Indian arts boarding school, where she nourished an appreciation for painting, music, and poetry; gave birth while still a teenager; and struggled on her own as a single mother, eventually finding her poetic voice.

In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border. Reyna Grande...

‘Extraordinarily powerful’ Emma Thompson There are a million love stories, and a million stories of addiction. This one is transcendent. Louisa Young met Robert Lockhart when they were both 17. Their stop-start romance lasted decades, in which time he became a celebrated composer and she, an...

This is the remarkable and tragic story of Oscar Wilde, legendary wit and conversationalist, author of perhaps the most perfect comedy in the English language, yet seemingly doomed by his own flawed temperament to suffer at the hands of a censorious and hypocritical society...

From one of the most gifted writers of her generation comes the harrowing and exquisitely written true story of how a family tragedy saved her life. Dani Shapiro was a young girl from a deeply religious home who became the girlfriend of a famous and flamboyant married attorney—her best...

'She has written about her clothes, and given us some scintillating reading. [...] hugely engaging memoir.' - Emily Bearn, The Spectator 'I really loved this book - it's warm, thought-provoking and honest. In the end, I had to ration myself because I didn't want to finish. In these frankly...

When facing a moral dilemma, Isabel Dalhousie--Edinburgh philosopher, amateur detective, and title character of a series of novels by best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith - often refers to the great twentieth-century poet W. H. Auden. This is no accident: McCall Smith has long been fascinated by Auden. Indeed, the novelist, best known for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, calls the poet not only the greatest literary discovery of his life but also the best of guides on how to live.

An Italian Mannerist architect and painter, Giorgio Vasari was acquainted with many of the most famous artists of his day. He is best-known today for his biographies of artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian and Giotto. This recording is read with clarity and authority by Neville Jason.

Christos Tsiolkas spent a year of 'discovery and rediscovery' reading Patrick White. In this passionate and original book, he shows how the Nobel Prize winner's work still speaks to us. In the Writers on Writers series, leading writers reflect on another Australian writer who has inspired and fascinated them. Provocative and crisp, these books start a fresh conversation between past and present, shed new light on the craft of writing, and introduce some intriguing and talented authors and their work.

Stephen King is one of the world's most successful authors, with a long list of hit novels to his name including Carrie, Misery, The Shining and Doctor Sleep. Here he discusses his life, his writing career and his many achievements in a series of interviews from the BBC radio and TV archives.

Axed charts the dramatic decline of the magazine industry in Australia from the million-selling highs of the 1990s to the recent round of mergers, closures and mass-redundancies. What went wrong? Australian magazines once boasted the highest circulation per capita in the world. Former magazine...

Céleste Albaret fut la gouvernante et la seule confidente de Marcel Proust pendant les huit dernières années de son existence, durant lesquelles il acheva l'écriture de son chef-d'œuvre - elle est d'ailleurs une des clefs du personnage de Françoise dans "La Recherche". Jour après jour elle assista dans sa vie, son travail et son long martyre, ce grand malade génial qui se tua volontairement à la tâche.

Sir Laurence Olivier, Lord Mountbatten, and Joyce Carey are just some of the voices heard paying tribute to the elegant star in this audio biography, which is linked by the broadcaster and critic Sheridan Morley.

Extracts from interviews with Coward himself, several of his songs and moments from his plays come together to form a fascinating picture of one of the 20th century's theatre greats.

Read by the author. #1 New York Times Bestseller Guthrie persuasively renders the evolution of a hard-won religious belief that makes room for imperfection and "does not require us to ignore... the sorrows we experience or the unjustness we see but to believe past it." This openhearted offering...

From CNN’s veteran Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, an explosive, first-hand account of the dangers he faces reporting on the current White House while fighting on the front lines in President Trump’s war on truth. In Mr. Trump’s campaign against what he calls “Fake News,”...