Showing titles in Authors

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 to September 2, 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55). While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings precipitated an avalanche of new books and authors in the genre.

“Warm, witty, imaginative.... This is a rich and winning book.”—The New Yorker Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature’s most compelling and influential authors...

"If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber ranch, it must be the sort of life which I have not read of in books or experienced in person," wrote Mark Twain, and now you can share in that experience. The beloved American humorist spent seven years on a "pleasure trip" through the untamed wilderness of Nevada. Twain intended to spend three months touring silver mines, but the lure of rough terrain and comfortable clothes proved irresistible - as will this vibrant travelogue.

Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy has descriptive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher...

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, Thomas De Quincey's best-known work, is an account of his early life and opium addiction, in prose that is by turns witty, conversational, and nightmarish.

In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures.

C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?

A moving and illuminating memoir about the life of world-famous author and historian Iris ChangIris Chang's best-selling book, The Rape of Nanking, forever changed the way we view the Second World War in Asia. It all began with a photo of a river choked with the bodies of hundreds of Chinese civilians that shock Iris to her core. Who were these people? Why had this happened and how could their story have been lost to history? She could not shake that image from her head.

Between the years of 1762 and 1763, James Boswell kept a journal of his time in London. During his time, he met the renowned writer, moralist, and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, with whom Boswell would form a close relationship. This account, told with much detail and candor, was one of the various journals written by Boswell, but it is the journal that has undergone the least amount of censorship, leading it, and the racy material within, to be deemed a best seller upon publication.

Charles Dickens: A New Biography is an epic, fully immersive portrait of the most celebrated novelist of the Victorian age, stripping away the polished legend to reveal the driven, brilliant, deeply conflicted man behind the greatest stories ever told.

In A Daughter of Isis, Nawal El Saadawi, author of Woman at Point Zero and one of the Arab world’s greatest writers, tells the story of the formative years which shaped an iconic voice in global feminism. In poignant and moving prose we learn about her relationships with her family, her traumatic experience of female genital mutilation at seven years old and escaping suitors at ten and her journey from the rural Egyptian village of her birth to metropolitan Cairo to study medicine.

Georges Simenon's autobiographical notebooks, in which he recorded his observations, experiences, anxieties and 'all the silly ideas that pass through my head', are one of the most candid self-portraits of a writer ever put to paper. Here, as the celebrated author ruthlessly examines his tortuous writing methods, his past, his fame, his intimate relationships and his fears of ageing, the result is an unsparing, often painfully revealing insight into a man trying both to find and to escape himself.

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.

Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France.

New York Times best-selling author and screenwriter Jojo Moyes talks to Audible about her final instalment in the Me Before You series, Still Me. In Still Me, Louisa Clark arrives in New York ready to start a new life, confident that she can embrace this new adventure and keep her relationship with Ambulance Sam alive across several thousand miles. As she tries to keep the two sides of her world together, she finds herself carrying secrets - not all her own - that cause a catastrophic change in her circumstances.

"Was, um Himmels willen, hat mich bloß ins gleißende Scheinwerferlicht getrieben, mitten unter die Showwölfe? Eigentlich bin ich doch mehr der gemütliche, tapsige Typ und überhaupt keine Rampensau. Warum wollte ich also bereits im zarten Kindesalter mit aller Macht "berühmt werden"? Und wieso hat das dann tatsächlich geklappt? Nun, vielleicht einfach deshalb, weil ich es meiner Oma als sechsjähriger Knirps genau so versprechen musste.

“It’s shocking to learn that this is McBride’s first book...Eat Your Mind does everything a good biography should and more” —Los Angeles Times The first full-scale authorized biography of the pioneering experimental novelist Kathy Acker, one of the most original and controversial...

Drawing together a fascinating body of writing from over 14 years of work, Figures in a Landscape ranges from profiles of cultural icons (Oliver Sacks, Elizabeth Taylor, Robin Williams) to intimate personal remembrances, from thrilling adventures in Africa to literary writings from Theroux's rich and expansive personal reading. Collectively these pieces offer a fascinating portrait of the author himself, his extraordinary life and his restless and ever-curious mind.

A Telegraph Book to Read for Autumn 2022 A Times Best Non-fiction Book for Autumn 2022 A Daily Mail Book of the Year 2022 A Waterstones Best Book of 2022: Biography The astonishing new portrait of the master of spy fiction, by the woman he kept secret for almost half his life John le Carré led...

Charles Dickens was a literary giant, second only to Shakespeare in the ranks of England's greatest writers. This extensive biographical collection looks at the man, his novels and his legacy to provide an all-round portrait of the much-loved author.