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

It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.

For much of his life, Mike McRoberts felt burdened by not knowing his own language—te reo Māori. Growing up at a time when te reo was scarcely spoken in daily conversations, and within a mixed-race family with little connection to Māoritanga, his experience mirrored that of many other New Zealanders of his generation. In later years, as a journalist and presenter of Newshub's six o'clock news, his confident television persona masked the anxiety he felt greeting viewers with the simple phrase, 'Kia ora, good evening.'

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

Lesley Pearse didn't publish her first novel until she was 48. Now she has sold over ten million books around the world and is a constant presence on the bestseller chart. A writer of heart-stopping stories, Lesley's books are filled with heroines struggling to make it in a difficult world. Yet this description could apply to Lesley herself. In this, her first ever autobiography, she tells of growing up in an orphanage after her mother's death, her racy twenties in London during the swinging sixties and working as a bunny girl and dressmaker.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight. Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude.

Memoirs from one of the greatest war reporters of our time.Max Hastings grew up with romantic dreams of a life amongst warriors. But after his failure as a parachute soldier in Cyprus in 1963, he became a journalist instead. Before he was 30 he had reported conflicts in Northern Ireland, Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, Cyprus, Rhodesia, India and a string of other trouble spots. His final effort was as a war correspondent during the Falklands War. Going to the Wars is a story of his experiences reporting from these battlefields.

In this book, C.S. Lewis tells of his search for joy, a spiritual journey that led him from the Christianity of his early youth into atheism and then back to Christianity.

In early 2021, popular artist Anna Marie Tendler checked herself into a psychiatric hospital following a year of crippling anxiety, depression and self-harm. In Men Have Called Her Crazy, Tendler recounts her hospital experience as well as pivotal moments in her life that preceded and followed. As the title suggests, many of these moments are impacted by men: unrequited love in high school; the twenty-eight-year-old she lost her virginity to when she was sixteen; the frustrations and absurdities of dating in her mid-thirties; and her decision to freeze her eggs.

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. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.

In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.

Sitting down to write a book about his hero D. H. Lawrence, Geoff Dyer finds himself compelled to write about anything else. He is in fact compelled to do more or less anything else instead of write. In Sicily he is too preoccupied by his hatred of seafood to follow the great writer's footsteps; in Mexico he cannot get beyond a drug-induced erotic fantasy on a nudist beach...and yet, incredibly, this attempt to write a 'sober academic study' reveals the hold Lawrence and his work still exert on us today.

Here is one of the great autobiographies of the English language - exuberant, wonderfully contemporary in spirit, by a man twice as large as life who—he said so himself—had no trouble remembering everything that had ever happened to him and a lot of things besides.

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 June of 1999, Stephen King was hit by a van while walking along the shoulder of a country road in Maine. Six operations were required to save his life and mend his broken body. When he was finally able to sit up, he immediately started writing. This book - part biography, part a collection of tips for the aspiring writer - is the extraordinary result.

Alexandra Fuller tells the idiosyncratic story of her life growing up white in rural Rhodesia as it was becoming Zimbabwe. The daughter of hardworking, yet strikingly unconventional English-bred immigrants, Alexandra arrives in Africa at the tender age of two. She moves through life with a hardy resilience, even as a bloody war approaches. Narrator Lisette Lecat reads this remarkable memoir of a family clinging to a harsh landscape and the dying tenets of colonialism.

Two Lives tells the remarkable story of Vikram Seth's great uncle and aunt. His great uncle, Shanti, left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a German Jewish family. In the household was a daughter, Henny, who urged her mother "not to take the blackie". But a friendship developed and each managed to leave Germany and found their way to Britain as the Nazis rose to power.

This companion to the internationally bestselling series will delve into the creation of Robert Jordan’s masterpiece, drawing from interviews and an unprecedented examination of his unpublished notes. Michael Livingston tells the behind-the-scenes story of who Jordan was (including a chapter that is the very first published biography of the author), how he worked, and why he holds such an important place in modern literature.

In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists.

In 1982 Murakami began running to keep fit. Here he reflects on his running experiences. Equal parts travelogue, training log, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, this is a must-listen for fans of this masterful author and for the increasing number of people who find a similar satisfaction in running.

In the six lectures of The Life and Works of L. M. Montgomery, you’ll join Kate Scarth to delve into five key topics that illuminate the life, work, and legacy of the author sometimes called “the Jane Austen of Canada”: family, place, friendship, creativity, and literature.