Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Audio, Inc." in Art & Literature

They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most listeners, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown - until now. In this utterly captivating audiobook, Dr. Elliot Engel, a leading authority on the lives of great authors, illuminates the fascinating and flawed members of literature's elite. In lieu of stuffy biographical sketches, Engel provides fascinating anecdotes.

For 15 years, Eleanor Roosevelt and her handsome doctor, David Gurewitsch, were friends, traveling, entertaining, and eventually buying a townhouse together in Manhattan. Their friendship has always intrigued historians, but not much is known about it. David kept detailed journals and took thousands of photos, but he never publicly discussed their time together.

Frank Harris, a journalist and editor, delighted in Oscar Wilde's genial wit and self-assurance. Wilde's verbal charms evoked Harris' financial and emotional support when Victorian England disdained the playwright for his paganism and imprisoned him for "homosexual offenses". Harris relates the proceedings of Wilde's trial and the malice that sent him to France after release from prison.

As a longtime leader of the Democratic Party and key member of Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, Josephus Daniels was one of the most influential progressive politicians in the country, and as secretary of the navy during the First World War, he became one of the most important men in the world. Before that, Daniels revolutionized the newspaper industry in the South, forever changing the relationship between politics and the news media. Lee Craig, an expert on economic history, delves into Daniels’ extensive archive to inform this nuanced and eminently readable biography, following Daniels’ rise to power in North Carolina and chronicling his influence on 20th-century politics.

Facets of Ayn Rand is based on 48 hours of interviews with Mary Ann and Charles Sures, longtime personal friends of Ayn Rand. Their recollections make vividly real the Ayn Rand they knew so well.

From his rare vantage point as Lewis's student, friend, and professional colleague, Professor John Lawlor recalls Lewis "in his habit as he lived." He offers an unforgettable account of studying under Lewis and an enchanting depiction of undergraduate life at Oxford between the wars. To round out his picture, Professor Lawlor draws on the recollections of other associates of Lewis, including a close comparison with J.R.R. Tolkien.

A Son of the Middle Border is an epic story of the quest for new frontiers during the last half of the nineteenth century, and of the gradual, heartbreaking failure of America's pioneer ideal.

As he was composing what was to become his most enduring and popular book, E. B. White was obeying that oft-repeated maxim: "Write what you know." Helpless pigs, silly geese, clever spiders, greedy rats - White knew all of these characters in the barns and stables where he spent his favorite hours. In The Story of Charlotte's Web, Michael Sims shows how White solved what critic Clifton Fadiman once called "the standing problem of the juvenile-fantasy writer: how to find, not another Alice, but another rabbit hole."

What One Man Said to Another is, on one level, a series of extended conversations between friends. On another, it is a spoken autobiography of Richard Selzer, respected surgeon and writer, as recorded by New York artist and writer Peter Josyph.

Generoso Pope, Sr., an Italian immigrant, arrived in New York in 1906 with only pennies in his pocket. He got a job shoveling sand, but through his intelligence, he worked his way up to become the biggest provider of cement, just as it was becoming the key material for building. Gene Pope, Jr., was his father’s choice to inherit and run the business, but Gene’s mother and two brothers forced him out, and he found himself penniless and on his own. With a loan from his godfather, mobster Frank Costello, Gene bought the New York Enquirer. He renamed it the National Enquirer.

Twenty of the world's greatest novelists live again! The authors take you on a magic carpet to the homes of these titans of literature, and you not only become their intimate friend but you acquire an even greater appreciation of their masterpieces.

Al Silverman, a noted figure in American publishing, has written a wonderful chronicle of book publishing for all who cherish books. The Time of Their Lives is not only a love song to the industry's golden age, an era that began after World War II and lasted for three-plus decades, but it is also a reflection of the tastes and cultural appetites of the American public.

Priscilla Buckley is probably known for her long and admired tenure as managing editor of the conservative political journal National Review, founded in the 1950s by her brother, William F. Buckley, Jr. But in String of Pearls we meet a different Priscilla, young Pitts Buckley, just out of Smith, eager for the next step up from the college paper to "real" journalism.

Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were united not only as man and wife, but also as writers who shared and debated ideas, values, and literary craft.

Lessons at the Halfway Point is a deeply thought-provoking look at one man’s courageous journey to understand life from the perspective of having just turned 40. It is both a wry reflection on the past as well as an optimistic look to a challenging future. Nothing escapes Michael Levine’s critical eye, insightful mind, and often humorous spin on our world and ourselves.

From an acclaimed classicist comes a witty, unusual, and fascinating "biography" of Homer's fictional Bronze Age hero, Odysseus. In this entertaining book, Charles Beye fills out the story of this extraordinary figure while at the same time portraying Odysseus' evolution through the course of a strange and adventuresome life, at times so remote, at times so immediate in the contemporary perspective.

This dramatic story of two men's efforts to save a small Wisconsin daily from obliteration at the hands of the nation's largest newspaper chain brings together startling case histories of the dubious tactics practiced by Gannett and unsparing insights into the newspaper industry.

What are you going to do for the rest of your life? For David Lawrence, Jr., a brilliant newspaper editor and publisher with a distinguished, three-decade-long journalism career who retired in 1999 at the age of 56, the answer in his words was to dedicate his life to a "[N]ewly energized purposefulness: that every child have a real chance to succeed."

The first biography in over thirty years of Condé Nast, the pioneering publisher of Vogue and Vanity Fair and main rival to media magnate William Randolph Hearst. Written with the cooperation of his family on both sides of the Atlantic and a dedicated team at Condé Nast Publications, critically acclaimed biographer Susan Ronald reveals the life of an extraordinary American success story.

Frank Lloyd Wright, designer of some 800 buildings, is widely regarded as the twentieth century's greatest architect - an unconventional genius who transformed both residential and commercial building design with his concept of "organic" architecture. In this charming memoir, Wright the architect and father, "a rebel" and "a jolt to civilization," comes to life through the vivid recollections and firsthand knowledge of his son.