Showing results for "Life" in Literary History & Criticism

Charming, vibrant, witty and edifying, The Life of Samuel Johnson is a work of great obsession and boundless reverence. The literary critic Samuel Johnson was 54 when he first encountered Boswell; the friendship that developed spawned one of the greatest biographies in the history of world literature. The book is full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization, and paints a vivid picture of 18th-century London, peopled by prominent personalities of the time.

If F. Scott Fitzgerald was the hero of the Jazz Age, Edna St. Vincent Millay, as flamboyant in her love affairs as she was in her art, was its heroine. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Millay was dazzling in the performance of herself. Her voice was likened to an instrument of seduction, and her impact on crowds and on men was legendary. Yet beneath her studied act, all was not well.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, is one of the most recognizable and mysterious figures in the Harry Potter series. As an unscrupulous beetle-like journalist once said, he's "a biographer's dream." Is he omniscient or limited? Is he benevolent or malevolent? What really drove him in the last years of an extraordinary life? Dumbledore dives between the lines of the Harry Potter books to create a portrait of the controversial Headmaster. We find Dumbledore's hand in every seeming coincidence and consider the impossible decisions he had to make.

This is the story of an independent woman who is a model for our time—photographer Toby Molenaar. It begins in Holland during World War II, when her country is decimated by the occupying German army and she is literally left to starve. As a little girl, she learns to be self-sufficient—survival is the order of the day. Courage, indomitable spirit, an open mind, and accountability only to herself are the stuff of this fascinating and inspirational story.

With the release of a flurry of feature and TV films about his life and work, and the publication of new books looking at his correspondence, his boat, and even his favorite cocktails, Ernest Hemingway is once again center stage of contemporary culture. Now, in this concise and sparkling account of the life and work of America's most storied writer, Clancy Sigal, himself a National Book Award runner-up, presents a persuasive case for the relevance of Ernest Hemingway to readers and listeners today.

Have you ever wondered…whether God exists? whether life has meaning? Whether pain and suffering have a purpose? This audiobook is my invitation to sit down with C. S. Lewis and me to think about some of the persistent questions and dilemmas every person faces in life. We’ll explore Lewis’s thoughts on everything from friendships to heaven, from the reasons for faith to the power of stories.

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS POPULAR NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014 A laugh-out-loud true story of the trials and tribulations of being a live-in nanny in 1980s London and inspired a major TV series starring Helena Bonham Carter. ***** In 1982 Nina Stibbe, a 20-year-old from Leicester...

Penguin presents A Life of My Own by Claire Tomalin, read by Dame Penelope Wilton. As one of the best biographers of her generation, Claire Tomalin has written about great novelists and poets to huge success: now, she turns to look at her own life. This enthralling memoir follows her through...

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Charles Dickens: A Life, the major new biography from the highly acclaimed Claire Tomalin, published for the 200th anniversary of his birth. Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a...

Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This audiobook is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her grandmother's garden in a sloping Somerset field, then two successive Oxfordshire gardens of her own and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. It's also a wise, engaging exploration of gardens in literature, from Paradise Lost to Alice in Wonderland.

Shakespeare’s plays and poems remain as beloved in the twenty-first century as they were in the sixteenth. For all the years between us, the world he inhabited was much like our own—afflicted by political turmoil, divisiveness, war, extreme weather, recurrent plagues, the fouling of natural resources on which everyone relied, and discrimination against people who were different. The bard’s remedy for these troubles was to offer respite and inspiration to his audience through his writing.

Meet Nikki Maxwell! She’s starting eight grade in a new school—and her very first diary. In 15 fully dramatized episodes, an animated cast of characters hilariously present Nikki’s Tales from a Not-So-Fabulous Life. Adapted from Rachel Renée Russell’s bestselling series, the Dork Diaries podcast offers family entertainment for longtime fans and those meeting Nikki for the first time. Produced in partnership with Simon & Schuster Audio, this fiction podcast for kids stars longtime Dork Diaries audiobook narrator and award-winning actress Jenni Barber. New episodes land Monday and ...

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is one of the most beloved poets in English. Yet after his death a largely negative image of the man himself took hold; he has been portrayed as a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. Now Larkin scholar James Booth, for seventeen years a colleague of the poet's at the University of Hull, offers a very different portrait. Drawn from years of research and a wide variety of Larkin's friends and correspondents, this is the most comprehensive portrait of the poet yet published.

A collection of The Slavic Literature Pod's daily episodes covering Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate chapter-by-chapter. Episodes have been moved here from our main feed for clarity.Information about the series can be found on our website: https://slaviclitpod.com/lifeandfate24/

Brought to you by Penguin. The first collection of Booker Prize-winning writer Anne Enright's non-fiction writing about culture, literature and her own life For thirty years Anne Enright has been paying attention: casting her lucid and distinctive gaze across the world, literature and her own...

A delightful compendium of musings from the master of life writing, the much-loved Blake Morrison, for those who practise the art of memoir, and those who read it. 'Hallelujah! — now is the perfect time for Morrison’s book On Memoir' THE TIMES 'Lessons in life writing from a master' THE...

The Book of Life - Daily Meditations with KrishnamurtiRead by Peter Saddington with Commentary

Lord Byron was the most celebrated of all the Romantic poets. Troubled, handsome, sexually fluid, disabled, and transgressive, he wrote his way to international fame—and scandal—before finding a kind of redemption in the Greek Revolution. He also left behind the vast trove of thrilling letters (to friends, relatives, lovers, and more) that form the core of this remarkable biography.

Drawing from exclusive interviews and previously unseen archival materials, this one-of-its-kind biography of Hannibal Lecter documents the cannibal’s journey from terrifying villain to unexpectedly adored antihero. This unique biography traces the many lives and crimes of Hannibal Lecter: his...

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust’s life and work - his fiction, letter, and conversations – and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful.