Biography: writers Books

Book SynopsisA searing, triumphant story. A testament to the tenacity of the human spirit as well as a beautiful ode to an iconic figure' IRENOSEN OKOJIELetters to Gil is Malik Al Nasir's profound coming of age memoir the story of surviving physical and racial abuse and discovering a new sense of self-worth under the wing of the great artist, poet and civil rights activist Gil Scott-Heron.Born in Liverpool, Malik was taken into care at the age of nine after his seafaring father became paralysed. He would spend his adolescence in a system that proved violent, neglectful, exploitative, traumatising and mired in abuse. Aged eighteen, he emerged semi-literate, penniless with no connections or sense of where he was going until a chance meeting with Gil Scott-Heron.Letters to Gil will tell the story of Malik's empowerment and awakening while mentored by Gil, from his introduction to the legacy of Black history to the development of his voice through poetry and music. Written with lyricism and power, it is a frank and moving memoir, highlighting how institutional racism can debilitate and disadvantage a child, as well as how mentoring, creativity, self-expression and solidarity helped him to uncover his potential.Trade Review‘A searing, triumphant story. A testament to the tenacity of the human spirit as well as a beautiful ode to an iconic figure’Irenosen Okojie ‘An incredible story, one that will have you jaw-dropped in disbelief at the cruelty meted out to Malik as a boy but also uplifted by his courageous, irrepressible exuberance, by his determination to defy the shitty hand he was dealt after he was put into the care system. And at the centre of this remarkable story stands the towering figure of Gil Scott-Heron …This is an intensely powerful and vivid memoir … When a book like Letters to Gil comes along, you are reminded of how indomitable the human spirit can be and how light can emerge from darkness, and joy from pain’Jamie Byng ‘Letters to Gil [is] part of a growing corpus of Black British memoir that confronts difficult subjects … It is also a tribute to artists who blend creative expression with fearless political commentary, such as the hip-hop artists Mos Def, Nas and the members of Public Enemy. With this brave memoir, Al Nasir can be counted among them’TLS ‘So compelling … Given the magnetism that he clearly displays I only hope that he will find time to be a new leader for the UK jazz movement … Voices such as his are certainly needed. His story is a wake-up call’Marlbank ‘Tells the story of his life – including his brutal treatment in care homes as a child –and his friendship with the musician-poet [Gil Scott-Heron]. His candid, eye-opening story includes a joyously uplifting tale of the time he accompanied Scott-Heron to meet Stevie Wonder’Independent, Books of the Month ‘A harrowing yet ultimately heartening memoir, Letters to Gil transcends the purely personal to make an important contribution to the burgeoning science of public history, championed by the likes of David Olusoga’London Jazz News ‘Get this book and read it… Superb’ The Grooved Review

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Book SynopsisTrade Review‘Black Girl, No Magic is a gorgeous essay collection: each piece of writing is a gem thanks to Kim's willingness to lay bare the truest parts of her lived experience and ground them in political realities. This book is a glowing achievement by one of the best essayists of her generation’ Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff ‘Kimberly's writing is witty, fresh and full of life’ Liv Little ‘In this engaging series of essays McIntosh takes aim at respectability politics with precision and humour. Every essay is a hit’ Dr Annabel Sowemimo ‘Kim’s writing is a joy. Her honesty and humour, her insights and observations invite us to be our whole selves, the good, the bad, the messy and the beautiful. Kim’s take on sex, British politics, mental health, intimacy, and race are some of the truest words I’ve read on these issues in a long time. You can see your real self in Kim’s words. And guess what? It doesn't feel too frightening. A delicious and wonderfully written collection’ Derek Bardowell, author of No Win Race & Giving Back ‘I can’t recommend more highly… it’s one of those books that I just want to press in the hands of everybody… no matter who you are it will make you interrogate your identity… it’s really entertaining, it’s very frank, and funny’ Damian Barr, Literary Salon Podcast

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Book SynopsisAn intimate look at Elie Wiesel, author of the seminal Holocaust memoir Night and recipient of the Nobel Peace PrizeTrade Review“[A] judicious and well-crafted portrait of this remarkable man.”—Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph“Perceptive. . . . Fair-minded throughout. . . . [Wiesel’s] legacy compels us to bear witness in his absence and continue to confront the silence.”—Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal“An extremely incisive biography. . . . The book makes for excellent reading, bringing insight into a man who kept the memory of the Holocaust and its victims in the public spotlight.”—Jay Levinson, Jewish TribuneFinalist for the 73rd National Jewish Book Award, Biography category, sponsored by the Jewish Book CouncilCHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2023“A necessary and moving biography of a-once-in-a-generation historic figure and irreplaceable moral teacher.”—Cynthia Ozick, author of Antiquities and Other Stories“Joseph Berger has performed a small miracle in offering us this moving, meticulously researched, judicious, and learned biography of Elie Wiesel who willed himself to transcend personal tragedy and bear witness in the hope that humanity might learn from the horrors of the past.”—David Nasaw, author of The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War

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Book SynopsisIn his critically acclaimed bestseller Rain of Gold, Victor Villase-or brought his mother''s family vividly to life. In Wild Steps Of Heaven, he turns to his father''s family, the Villase-ors. Against a vivid backdrop of love and war, magic and heroism, the author breathes life into his father''s people--and in particular, the Villase-or women*Margarita, the indomitable matriarch who was swept away by Don Juan Jesus Villase-or on the eve of the Mexican revolution*their beautiful daughters, who find strength and endurance in their mother''s faith, and searing passion amidst the turmoil of war. But it is little Juan, the youngest son, through whose eyes this tumultuous saga unfolds. Juan would learn from his brother Jose, a hero of the revolution, how to be a man; and from his beloved mother, how to live and love con gusto y amor. A story of madness and miracles, rage and redemption, In Wild Steps Of Heaven creates a riveting portrait of an extraordin

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisThe first comprehensive biography of this undervalued writer, who was considered 'far and away the best living woman poet' in her day.

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Book SynopsisAn intimate memoir of Stieg Larsson - author of the phenomenally successful Millennium Trilogy, untiring crusader for democracy and equality - who died at the age of fifty in 2004.Trade Review'So who was the real Larsson, and what would he have made of his success? His friend, the journalist and fellow activist Kurdo Baksi, goes some way to answering both in this short but powerful memoir. For Larsson geeks such as myself, the unearthed details of his past and the fond recollections of his ceaseless pursuit of justice are gripping ... [A] moving, well-paced and honest account of Larsson's life' Rosie Swash, Observer.Table of ContentsThe end and a beginning. The first conversation. Expo - blowing the whistle on extremism. Stieg as colleague and journalist. Living under threat. The infiltrator. The sleepless warrior. The feminist compromise. The anti-racist as crime novelist. Successes and setbacks. Farewell. Afterword.

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Book SynopsisChilean-born Renato Trujillo has published several collections of poetry in both Spanish and English. In Rooms he exhumes the floating images of his past -- his mother hanging clothes on the line, the cockroaches and streets of a new and unknown city, the coast of the South Pacific.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A good biography — better, in fact, than what we have about Earle Birney and Gwendolyn MacEwen . . . Patrick Toner treats this rich material judiciously, sympathetically engaged but keeping his distance from the cultlike devotion Nowlan often inspired." * Globe and Mail *"Patrick Toner's contribution to our appreciation of this rare and appealyingly hybrid creature is well worth the read." * National Post *"A pleasure and a revelation. The melancholy but triumphant life of Alden Nowlan has found a perfect chronicler in Patrick Toner. This wonderfully readable biography assembles and clarifies all the elements of love, hate, resentment, and ambition that made up the personality and art of a fine Canadian poet." -- Robert Fulford

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"As rich and diverse and subtle as the most textured piece of literature, a logical and lovely reflection of its extraordinary subject." * Ottawa Citizen *"Smart, honest, insightful." -- Joel Yanofsky * Montreal Gazette *"Insight into a gifted writer and remarkable human being." * Victoria Times-Colonist *

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Book SynopsisProvocative essays explore the poetry and political economy of life in Canadaâs rural West.Trade Review"Roger Epp...offers a thoughtful collection of essays, in We Are All Treaty People, on what it means to live in the rural west....There were powerful things going on in the rural west at one time, and Epp, in these essays, shows that power can be taken back and not left to our cities, or to faraway governments." Bill Robertson, The StarPhoenix, May 9, 2009"Dr. Epp has just published a book entitled We Are All Treaty People: Prairie Essays, a very readable collection of personal remembrances mixed with historical overviews of radical prairie politics and the relationship between First Nations people in western Canada and the settlers and their descendants. At core, it¹s a book that reminds us of the importance of place in defining who we are as a people, something frequently lost in the noise of urban centres. It's a call back to the land and to rural Alberta." Ken Davis, CKUA Radio, May 17, 2009 (Hear the radio interview at: http://www.box.net/shared/rxbbp9vas5)"Roger Epp lives on the margin of a margin in two different ways. First of all, he's in Canada, which the US considers a margin, and second, he's on the prairies, which Canada considers marginal. The other way is more personal. Epp is a Mennonite, a community of conscience as defined by Stanley Fish in Hobbs' way as from conscire, to know in concert with another -- a consensus. His vocation is teaching and administering at a small university, Augustana, that was originally defined as a faith community, but is now attached to the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, the largest city in Alberta. Yet the students are mostly from small prairie towns. The sum of these marginalities has put Epp dead center in some of the most serious issues of our times about the safety and adequacy of our food.. Epp handles all this with friendly but dense prose.. If I were writing a prairie sermon, as I used to do, I would start on page 161 where Epp lists rural values: independence (not being bio-serfs to corporations and being able to cope on one's own in a practical sense), neighbourliness (pitching in for the other guy), 'good' work (as opposed to opportunism), rootedness, nature, mystery and gratitude, and community... [Epp] commends to us the daily, small initiatives and coalitions between concerned parties that eventually mount up to cultural revolution without bloodshed." Mary Strachan Scriver, The Goose, Spring 2009"Epp writes of his boyhood [on land around Hanley], of the Saskatchewan town that was, and is now, put there by a national policy to populate the West and feed the world, now left to do the best it can while the dictates of a new world economy charge past it. In subsequent essays, Epp, with clear and gentle persuasion, discusses the agrarian movement in Alberta.... He writes of farmers he knows who are passionate about the their work and the land; of the two-sided coin that is 'agrarian radicalism;' of our need to get beyond our Lockean rationale for subduing the land and its inhabitants and enter a phase of reconciliation and renewal.... There were powerful things going on the rural West at one time, and Epp shows that power can be taken back and not left to our cities, or to faraway governments." Bill Robertson, The Edmonton Journal, May 17, 2009"Roger Epp's exquisitely written We Are All Treaty People is about our region, the Prairie West, its landscape, its people, its rural and aboriginal past and present, and the future it might build for itself....We are all treaty people because we live in a state whose primarily distinguishing characteristic--constant negotiation between various peoples and levels of government--was determined by an Aboriginal approach to government, diplomacy and commercial relations. If jurisdictional disputes now seem like power grabs by provincial or (when the Liberals are in power) federal politicians, that's only because we've lost track of how treaty negotiations and renegotiations were and are understood by Indians--as attempts, necessarily contingent, to reach terms fair to everyone involved. Canadians, more than most people, are concerned about fairness." Alex Rettie, Alberta Views, October 2009"This collection of ten conversational essays by a Professor of Political Studies combines a Dreiser-like journalistic style with populist politics and autobiography." Anne Burke, Prairie Journal, November 2009"The book provides a new reflective approach to Western "identity," arguing that in the end all Westerners, particularly those in rural Alberta, become "indigenous" and all that that implies. Roger Epp, the dean of Augustana College of the University of Alberta, sees the people of the West, regardless of origin, as one-all linked through the land. Each of the ten chapters is a unique essay, rooted in memories, driven by connections to the environment. To Epp, an environmentalist, it is a landscape we have all shared in the past and will continue to share in the future. The first two chapters deal with the Mennonite prairie experience of his extended family in Saskatchewan, Oklahoma, and Alberta, from their first immigration at the turn of the century through their often tentative involvement in prairie protest, and then to today. The whole book is, in fact, a very personal engagement with his landscape and being a rural Western Canadian by choice. Chapter 7, "We are All Treaty People," deals with a scholarly reflection on the legal and philosophical perspectives and his very personal view of the treaties based on his sharing of the land with its indigenous peoples. He leads us through his own awareness of the very real occupation of lands that his grandparents considered theirs, but which he now realizes was always very much a part of the Aboriginal community-their landscape and life. And so it goes. Epp reduces the complex intellectual to a subtle reality. His chapter on his own institution, Augustana University College, now a college of the University of Alberta, is particularly insightful. He is aware that to be rural is to be considered "less sophisticated," to be at the periphery of learning, and to be at the periphery of "real society." He argues that universities are an urban "organized assault on parochialism" on rural students, which will ultimate destroy rather then encourage their "critical appreciation" of the world they know. Epp's careful and reflective assessment of rural Alberta, its landscape, its society, and its heritage is a must-read for any urban Canadian wanting to understand this country." Frits Pannekoek, University of Calgary"A descendant of Mennonites who left Oklahoma for the Canadian Prairies, Epp understands the displacement of people and the yearning to belong. His ancestors farmed the land they arrived at and their struggle to survive various calamities and their respect for the spirit of the community are some of the issues he writes about. The author knows his subject well, and his writing is profound, lyrical and caring. As a boy growing up in rural Saskatchewan, Epp was always aware of the land and what it was trying to say, that the land speaks to us more than we realize. If we take care of it, the land will replenish and sustain us; if we abuse it, it will wither and blow away. ... Epp's essays raise important questions and that is good. He has provided us with a powerful tool by writing these essays. The writings give rural communities a voice, one of quiet resistance, but it is a voice that speaks louder than the wind and it is saying 'witaskiwin (living together on the land)' is what we need to be aware of, to believe in (141)." Mary Barnes, Prairie Fire Magazine, February 2010 (See full review at http://tinyurl.com/yen3atn.)"Wallace Stegner...demonstrates the power of the essay as an art form.... Roger Epp, dean of the University of Alberta's Augustana Campus in Camrose and professor of Political Studies, obviously sees the essay in the same light as Stegner as he uses the form to good measure in his [book].... Epp's father's family homesteaded at Eigenheim, SK in 1894 in the land of the Cree and his mother's family settled in Oklahoma in Cheyenne country and the history and future of both areas were heavily influenced by so-called Indian policies in the U.S. and Canada. 'I am, in other words, a product of Indian policy on both sides of the border. My story cannot be told apart from those of Cree and Cheyenne.'.... 'In a very real way, most Canadians exercise a treaty right simply by living where they do. On the prairies, we are all treaty people,' he writes.... Epp is at his best when he moves towards Stegner's approach and looks at the land and his connection to land. His becomes poetic, descriptive and the door opens wide inviting the reader to join him on the sun-baked land he obviously loves so much. But if politics is your bent, Epp is a perceptive commentator with a keen understanding of how the history and politics fit together and affect the lives of people who live on the land. Epp is a calm and careful thinker and his book of essays reflect that, as does his astute use of the essay, which demonstrates the form is alive and well..." Rob Alexander, Rocky Mountain Outlook, March 4, 2010 [Full review at http://tinyurl.com/yhurwdf]"The author, dean of Augustana Campus in Camrose, provides a number of essays on a wide range of topics ranging form personal to historical to literary. A skillful and gifted writer, he blends many of his family's experiences with the unfolding of western history. For example, he tells of growing up in the small town of Hanley and unveils a kind of mystique about small towns. He also tells of the agrarian movement in Alberta and an essay comparing rural and urban life. Behind all the essays is the story of the rural and agricultural West. As for the unusual title, the author explains it this way. 'My claim in this essay is that on these prairies, we are all treaty people - settler and aboriginal. I am not interested in self-flagellation. Rather, it is important to recall a more complex historic relationship than mere conquest and to recast the difficulties of accomodation, memory and reconciliation as the "settler problem," rather than, as the policymakers once put it, the 'Indian problem.'" Alberta History, Summer 2009"The provocative title of Roger Epp's book lives up to its promise. In the series of essays that make up this fine book, Epp explores the history of European immigrants to the prairies, the agreements and relationship with aboriginal peoples which made this history possible and the profound sense of place which informs this history. By using his own personal and family experiences as the narrative framework, Epp offers complex political, social and historical insights in an inviting, accessible way....This book is a 'must read' for prairie people. And it would actually be good if other Canadians read it as well." Nettie Wiebe, St. Andrews College Contact, July 2009"'We Are All Treaty People: History, Reconciliation and the "Settler Problem"' is arguably this book's most provocative essay.... Other essays discuss the political and economic history of the rural West, and more particularly rural Alberta, during the early decades of the twentieth century.... We Are All Treaty People, which also addresses in some detail the many challenges that are now facing rural communities and farm livelihoods, is a welcome addition to the literature." J. William Brennan, Great Plains Quarterly, Summer 2010"It is toward an honest understanding of our complicated interdependencies and conflicting interconnections that Roger Epp offers his rough and tender truths of life in the Canadian prairies. We Are All Treaty People: Prairie Essays is a collection that is simultaneously deeply moving and discomfiting; though carefully researched and elegantly written, its most significant narrative strength comes from its author's perhaps constitutional unwillingness to indulge in the easy obscurantism of mainstream cultural commentary. This is a rare and very welcome quality, one that more contemporary scholarship could profitably emulate." Daniel Heath Justice, Toronto Quarterly, Spring 2011Table of ContentsIntroduction -- A Prairie Accent; The Measure of a River; Oklahoma -- Meditations on Home & Homelessness; Hanley, Saskatchewan; "Their Own Emancipators" -- The Agrarian Movement in Alberta; Statues of Liberty -- The Political Tradition of the Producer; Populists, Patriots & Pariahs; We Are All Treaty People -- History, Reconciliation, & the "Settler Problem"; What is the Farm Crisis? -- Seven Short Commentaries; Two Albertas -- Rural & Urban Trajectories; A University at Home in the Rural; Notes; Index.

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Book SynopsisHow can reading be deeply personal yet fundamentally social? Coleman examines philosophical and spiritual aspects of reading.Trade Review"Such is the power of reading that it not only nourishes spirituality and enables us to see beyond the limitations of our own experience; it also reinvigorates our cultural politics, says Coleman. The dialogue shared between an author and those who read can change the ways in which we are in the world and produce people empowered to live for justice and compassion. Through dialogue with poetry, history, memoir and fiction, Daniel Coleman demonstrates how spirituality and social change are supported through the disarmingly simple, yet deeply subversive practice of reading. In Bed with the Word invites us into conversation with an author who approaches the world with interest and generosity, handles words with skill and great care, and eagerly extends an invitation to allow ourselves to be transformed and connected by what we read. I realized it had done its work in me when I found myself making plans to read it aloud with friends. It is a deeply satisfying read." Barbara Mutch, Carey Theological College"Coleman presents vignettes of individuals and their own personal encounters with books at pivotal moments in their lives. A young boy of six in his first days at boarding school, feeling lost and alone, curls up in his bed with the King James Bible to recreate a morning ritual that was modeled by his parents. Even though he does not yet read, he understands the comfort of books. Elsewhere in the world, a curious eight-year-old Trinidadian girl, looking for a hidden cache of sweet treats in her grandmother's linen drawer, discovers instead a book on the 1791 Haitian revolution that explains her own past and determines her eventual emergence as a writer (Dionne Brand) examining the cultural politics of African dislocation and the trauma of slavery. Coleman goes on to present others whose reading encounters have created seismic shifts in their interior worlds and have surfaced back into their daily lives, that have at once become both mirror and ocean." Margaret Anne Fehr, Prairie Books Now, Spring 2009"This issue [of the Colleagues List] begins with a book notice concerning an intriguing volume of spiritual reflection from Daniel Coleman who has taught Canadian & Diasporic literature for many years at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON. Coleman did undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degree work at Regina and the University of Alberta, Edmonton. The son of missionary parents, he grew up in Africa and continues to be strongly influenced in his spiritual writing by his evangelical Protestant background. It is most unusual that a secular university press would consider releasing In Bed with the Word. But the University of Alberta Press, in its wisdom, has seen this book for what it is -- a high quality contribution to literature. Coleman is influenced by colleague Ron Rolheiser who readers of this letter hear from regularly. He is also a reader of the work of Karen Armstrong and several other modern writers from the field of faith. Coleman blends a solid grasp of biblical and theological literature with a strong sense of what appeals to serious modern readers." Canadian Anglicans, Colleagues List (edited by Wayne A. Holst), May 2, 2009"The joy of the independent bookstore, like the joy of the independent music store, is in its ability to feature the new and the unknown. As intuitive as Amazon's 'Customers Who Bought This Might Enjoy That' has become, there will never be a substitute for the 'Staff Picks' section. I enjoyed visiting Audreys Books on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton recently, where I bought Daniel Coleman's In Bed With The Word. Dr. Coleman is my age, roughly, and this book is personal, reflective; it is the kind of book one associates with the seasoned scholars I guess we are becoming (or have now become). In any case, it is neither the kind of book I would expect simply to stumble across on the 'net nor the kind of thing a brick and mortar store would here stock, even our university bookstore. I was happy to give my money to Audreys." Craig Monk, The Classroom Conservative, http://www.craigmonk.com/the_classroom_conservativ/2009/05/bookstore-blues-part-two.html"Reading, according to Daniel Coleman, is more than just becoming engrossed in a story or learning information that will enrich your life. It's a cultural act that has religious ramifications on personal and societal levels. The passage in the [initial] passage was Coleman's older brother, John, and the book he was trying to read was the King James Bible. The author is quick to point out that it was not the Christian text that made the act religious. Rather it was the quiet contemplation, the involvement with a cultural treasure and the act of separating oneself from the world.... For someone who has difficulty becoming engrossed with books, In Bed with the Word had a kind of power over me. His combination of narrative with meditative passages (including songs and historical references) lends the entire work a warm cadence, a rhythmic introspection that leads farther and farther outward from within you.... Interesting anecdotes aside, this is an important book for parents to read in order for them to understand why they should instill the value of books in their own children before they get too old. What better time to do this than at the height of summer when there is a lot of free time to sit around with a good novel. Kids shouldn't be spending the entire summer with video games either, right? Coleman says that it only needs to have words and, despite the title, you don't actually have to be in bed to read them." Scott Hayes, St. Albert Gazette, July 22, 2009"The world is so fast and loud, but how much good would some extra time of peace and mediation do? In Bed with the Word is author Daniel Coleman's claim that the world would be a much better place if people slowed down and stopped to enjoy life, as well as embrace the written word more thoroughly. Calling the modern world a culture of distraction, Coleman makes many interesting points through his work. In Bed with the Word is a fine and highly recommended piece of social issues writing." Bookwatch, July 2009"In Bed with the Word is...part memoir, part essay, a lyrical text that moves gracefully between citations of Socrates, St. Augustine, Barthes and Derrida, and funny, poignant stories about boarding school in Addis Ababa, or Coleman's professorial misadventures, confronted by the truculent university students of the digital age.... Over the centuries, many religious leaders and philosophers have been wary of reading, seeing it as an escape from reality and community, or a barrier to spiritual engagement. But Coleman sees reading as an act of trust, of caritas, a way of opening yourself to the ideas of others, a path to spiritual transcendence.... For Coleman, books aren't merely a convenient, portable way to transmit doctrine or to spread knowledge. In the very act of reading, he says, we assume a posture of spiritual openness that connects us to something beyond ourselves." Paula Simons, The Edmonton Journal, July 12, 2009"Writing is organized, edited, distilled, argues Coleman. Therefore the attitude we bring to reading is critical. We must assume we have something to learn. From the isolation of the individual, in private, the reader must be open and expectant, willing to go slowly, to be reflective, to long for and be prepared to engage with the other.... If Coleman is correct, some of the people who have the most profound impact on us are people we can never meet or expect to know, yet they are companions, advisors and confidants as we make our journeys through life. This book is a very personal account, encompassing Coleman's own reflections on many varied influences.... Make some quiet time and read In Bed with the Word slowly. The author practises what he preaches. A gentle and reflective approach to this book will reward the thoughtful fellow traveller." Angela Mende, Law Society Journal, October 2009"In a very compelling way, In Bed with the Word is of itself a meditation on reading. The Word, writ large in both a religious and metatextual sense, simultaneously stands for an immeasurable realm of knowing and an emptied out focus of contemplation. Even more than Chris Hedges' Empire of Illusion (to whom Daniel Coleman alluded during his presentation), In Bed with the Word regards the essence and future of literacy in a multimedia world." Donald Officer, Ottawa International Writers Festival, Oct 25, 2009 [Full entry at http://oiwf.squarespace.com/post-your-review/post/922139]"Coleman writes in a flowing style that, while academic, is also engaging and includes moments of quite lovely storytelling in its own right. His discussion of the topic, while dependent on concepts of spirituality coming from St. Augustine and on the purpose of words as signposts, from Derrida, is easily comprehended by a reader who is fascinated by the deeper meanings of the actual practice of reading itself, not just spirituality as evidenced by content of a text. I've really enjoyed this one and have flagged at least 20 passages to reread and ruminate on." Melanie [Full review at: http://www.indextrious.blogspot.com/2009/11/green-books-campaign-in-bed-with-word.html]"By spirituality, Coleman says he means something that clearly flows through our religious impulses and experiences, but it is not identical with them, for it also flows through our psychology and physical sensibility, as well as through our social and political lives. By spirituality, he means a drive or energy in ourselves that is outward-reaching, that is a kind of longing to be meaningfully connected. Coleman means what finally moves us, what propels our actions and sparks our imaginations....Thus, spirituality is the way we live out our relationships with our environment and with other people, as well as with our secret selves." SirReadALot.org, April 2009"It was lunch on a rainy Thursday afternoon. Cool and foggy, this was the sort of day you would picture for October, the sort that makes you want to curl up by the fire with cocoa, a warm blanket, and a good book, sentiments echoed in the opening remarks of the speaker of the day, Daniel Coleman, as he set out to address the room of avid readers on the value of reading. For each member of the audience, reading is treasured for a different reason, but what connected us all was the passion for the written word.... But much as my own personal reading interests were invested in the talk, it was my role as an educator that really made this event a 'must-attend' for me." Melanie Barclay, November 2009 [For full blog entry, see http://oiwf.squarespace.com/melanie-barclay/2009/11/8/in-bed-with-the-word.html]"In Bed with the Word: Reading, Spirituality, and Cultural Politics, Coleman's latest book, is not only an appreciation of the act of reading and a meditation on its cultural applications, but also an argument for the kind of spiritual engagement with books that might ordinarily be reserved for holy texts--a sort of lectio divina for secular thought.... In its rejection of what Coleman calls 'commodity culture'...the act of reading is counter-cultural.... In its ability to empower populations, reading is also revolutionary.... Whether we readers will 're-think our relationship to reading...' is uncertain, but in offering us his contemplations, [Coleman] has at least given us cause to consider it." Mark Callanan, The Malahat Review, December 2009"The kind of material that Coleman urges his reader to read is not narrowly specified, though most of his discussion is about literary, religious, mythical, and historical books. Coleman's counsel is somewhat countercultural because books, the old-fashioned kind, not websites or e-books or movies or 'social texts,' are what he has in mind. His fear-which to the present reviewer is amply justified-is that alternative, heavily commodified sources of knowledge are increasingly substituting for book-reading, and that these other sources fail to deliver many of reading's benefits.... In Bed with the Word is bound to find an eager audience among book groups both religious and secular. I hope it also finds an audience in university classrooms..." Stephen Ney, canlit.ca. Canadian Literature, 20 May 2010. [Full review at http://www.canlit.ca/reviews.php?id=15143]"what [Coleman is] interested in here is how the physical posture of reading opens us up to spirituality, in whatever form we might find it-and Coleman, who quotes from St. Augustine as nimbly as from Eastern thinkers and Bob, his "red-bearded Buddhist postman," is extremely ecumenical in his tastes. And like a Buddhist practising yogic meditation, Coleman takes readers through the physical steps of reading and shows how each one opens us up to new levels of understanding....In Bed with the Word, a brilliant little volume, is exactly the type of book that will make you better for having read it, and that is reason enough in itself to get back in bed and, to quote St. Augustine, 'Take up and read.'" Sarah Ligon, new trail, Autumn 2009"Most avid readers don't need much by way of motivation for what they do. Still, In Bed with the Word, a thoughtful meditation on reading by Daniel Coleman, provides good reasons to keep reading. Coleman considers what's going on in the practice of reading, and posits it as both countercultural and spiritually beneficial. He doesn't present a romanticized view of reading, however. People can be damaged by it (even by the 'Good Book'). And, he says, 'readers can be insufferable.' But what's both countercultural and spiritual about reading is its slowness, its emphasis on critical alertness, and its way of humility. 'The desire to read emphasizes a basic generosity toward the Other that is the condition of all language.'" Dora Dueck, borrowing bones, May 31, 2010 [Full post at http://doradueck.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/]"In Bed with the Word argues that reading can yield benefits in the realms of both spirituality and cultural politics. Coleman's book succeeds in giving clear and logical explanation about these benefits, and because of its undogmatic and meditative tone it invites and enables the reader to experience what Coleman is commending more generally for book-readers.... In Bed with the Word is bound to find an eager audience among book groups both religious and secular. I hope it also finds an audience in university classrooms..." Stephen Ney, Canadian Literature 206, Autumn 2010"We are very good at understanding, analyzing, and deconstructing what texts say, but we are much less inclined to explore how religious people touch, hold, mark, underline, cut, copy, carry, discuss, highlight, and dog-ear those texts (to explore, in short, how people read). Onto such fertile interpretive ground, Daniel Coleman's brief, but rich, reflection on reading charts several intellectual pathways that scholars can follow in studying this dense cultural practice.... Drawing upon literary theory, classical theology, social history, and personal anecdote, Coleman argues that reading creates a kind of internal interpretive space that becomes filled with the inescapable paradoxes of the human experience.... Between isolation and community, presence and absence, and meaning and mystery is a chasm that reading, again paradoxically, 'emphasizes and bridges' (72). And the ways in which reading emphasizes and bridges these tensions, Coleman continues, are inextricably spiritual and political.... In Bed With the Word is recommended reading for anyone who is personally or academically interested in reading's enduring social importance." Christopher D. Cantwell, Newberry Library, The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, July 2011 [doi:10.3138/jrpc.23.2.251]"Coleman is a storyteller. He writes with an ease that brings to life his stories of pilgrim-readers on the path to personal and social transformation. Infused with creativity and playfulness, Coleman's arguments are also carefully crafted. He draws on the work of figures such as Plato, Augustine and Derrida to validate his points. He provides a fair assessment of reading, acknowledging the instances where it has been used to suppress and/or exclude.... Coleman has succeeded in presenting an original exploration of reading as a catalyst for personal and socio-political transformation.... The book would be an excellent addition to upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses that examine spirituality, culture and social change. With its evocative examples and array of perspectives, it should provoke interesting and challenging class discussions." Lauren Michelle Levesque, Studies in Religion 40(4)"In Bed with the Word" isn't for everyone, but it'll become a touchstone for an awful lot of people. Spiritual readers will adore this book, I think, meaning 'spiritual' in its conventional sense as approximately the same as 'religious,' but non-believing readers who spend some time with it, deliberately vulnerable and open to its conversation, may become its biggest fans. I can't recommend this book strongly enough, to anyone interested in the practice or value of reading." book addiction, [Full blog post at http://bit.ly/SBiyT9]"Daniel’s little gem of a book gets into many of my favourite things – the posture of reading and reflection; the function of slowness in thinking; the difference between criticism and what Daniel calls discernment; the spiritual (not to say religious) significance of reading; and the necessity of good reading turning to moral action. "In Bed with the Word" is a provoking and affirming read... [It is] the sort of book that I have come to call a meditation, something like Gaston Bachelard’s "The Poetics of Space", Michel de Certeau’s "The Practice of Everyday Life", or (closer in time and space) Tim Lilburn’s "Going Home"." [Full article at https://halmagazine.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/letters-%E2%80%A2-daniel-coleman-jeremy-luke-hill/] -- Jeremy Luke Hill * HA&L Magazine *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ix one | Reading & Longing 2 two | Reading as Counterculture 18 three | Posture 42 four | The Structure of Absence 64 five | Eating the Book 96 References 129 Index 133

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Book SynopsisPoet Alice Major was given a book on relativity at the impressionable age of ten, so she never quite understood why science came to be dismissed as reductive or opposite to art. She surveys the sciences of the past half-century -- from physical to cognitive to evolutionary -- to shed light on why and how human beings create poems, challenging some of the mantras of postmodern thought in the process. Part memoir, part ars poetica, part wonder-journey, Intersecting Sets is a wide-ranging and insightful amalgam.Trade Review# 5 on the Edmonton Journal's Bestsellers list for the week on January 08, 2012Rattle Magazine published an excerpt from Intersecting Sets in their summer, 2011 issue, #35. http://rattle.com/blog/2012/01/poetry-and-scale-by-alice-major/"Canadian poet Alice Major considers confluences between science and poetry in this lyrical and insightful meditation on perception, language, and creativity. Her motivation, she says, was to bridge the artificial divide between literature and science--the so-called 'two cultures'--that has dominated intellectual life since the Romantics... Drawing on a broad range of scientific inquiry, including neuroscience, mathematics, physics, biochemistry, astronomy, psychology, and botany, Major argues that emotion is central to both poetry and science, and that the cognitive processes of scientists and poets are fundamentally aligned.... Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers." L. Simon, Skidmore College, Choice Magazine, March 1, 2012"Novelist Lynn Coady and poets Tim Bowling, Michael Penny and Alice Major are among a strong field of local finalists who will be vying for this year's Alberta Literary Awards.... Major is a finalist for the top non-fiction prize for Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, her latest release through University of Alberta Press." Richard Helm, Edmonton Journal, April 12, 2012"Until recently, the University of Alberta Press, whose books are beautifully designed by Alan Brownoff, has published mostly Alberta poets such as Alice Major, whose work often takes its inspiration from science. In fact, her most recent book with U of A is a prose work called Intersecting Sects: A Poet Looks at Science ($29.95). Last year the press launched the "Robert Kroetsch Series of creative works," named for the Alberta poet-novelist killed in a road accident last June. This series is broader than its antecedent in that it also includes "creative non-fiction" and publishes some geographical outsiders." George Fetherling, Vancouver Sun, April 5, 2012 [Full article at http://bit.ly/HY2jsC]"For the elegance and precision of its language, the encyclopedic reach of its knowledge, and the daring of its thought, this book is a winner. Every page offers fresh insight and challenging intellectual vistas, yet the text never loses itself in a fog of abstraction. There's always someone or something - a cat named Pushkin, a bird on a credit card, an old man walking, walking, reciting his poems-to ground the conceptual universe in the sensory world. Measured against the writer's intentions and the pleasure it offers to readers, this book is practically perfect." Jury comments, Wilfrid Eggleston Award, WGA."I have not done justice to the delight I felt in reading these essays-it was a joy to take in their looping, fractal structure. Major offers us the pleasure of watching another writer's mind in motion at every scale, from conversation with her cat to theories in cosmology, from the personal questions of why we write or practice science to the evolutionary questions of what makes us human and where language comes from. As a scientist, I wanted to research and debate one question after another. As a poet, I encountered the questions I ask myself, along with wise advice about writing." Robin Chapman, American Scientist."The essays do not form a rigorous argument as to any one "side" but rather range widely and expose the reader to new ideas as they arise in many contexts. I liked this approach, as it provided room for the reader to graze and discover things that they might not even realize they were interested in." The Indextrious Reader."[Alice Major] dissects the principles of science, spreading them on the page alongside elements of poetry. She effectively uses literature as a language for making scientific ideas clearer. And the skill with which she integrates the two points of view demonstrates such careful precision it's hard not to think of her as the smart girl you'd have wanted for your lab partner. Inversely, she also uses the language of science to define poetic concepts.. Anyone who enjoys juxtaposing ideas, or who thinks it might be possible to toss thoughts back and forth from one hemisphere of the brain to the other, probably needs this book. It could well lead to a change in the way you see the world." Heidi Greco, Prairie Fire, July 2012 [Full review at http://bit.ly/MndzG0]"This book isn't a scientific explanation of poetry, but rather, an examination of various concepts in science-from quantum physics to the development of language in the human brain-from the point of view of someone who's deeply fascinated by metaphor, language, and the possibilities that exist. If poets can read this book and have their minds altered by new scientific understanding, a scientist may read this book and gain a deeper appreciation for the nuances of poetry, perhaps even gain an understanding of how the expressiveness of language, and the emotionally laden potential of poetry, can provide a new way of expressing scientific concepts." Alisa Gordaneer, The Malahat Review, Spring 2012Alice Major, an accomplished poet, takes readers through several quasi-technical though thoroughly accessible explorations of topics in popular science. She expresses an ardent distaste for how science and poetry, as perspectives if not practices, are set in opposition to each other. In eleven chapters on everything from scale and symmetry, brain-chemistry, phase changes, black holes, motion, holographic universes, and more, Major makes a compelling case for a renewed rapport between poets and scientists. Distributed by Wayne State U. Press. (Annotation ©2012 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)"... reading the essays inside feels like visiting with a curious, thoughtful friend-one who has always just read something interesting and leaves you with lots of new ideas to consider, a friend who also has her feet on the ground, plenty of experience, and an easy playfulness that makes her company a pleasure.... [G]uided by Major, we readers populate our minds with seemingly disparate elements, energize that space with reason, imagination, and emotion, and listen to the reverberations of whatever collisions ensue. This book is an obvious fit for courses in science writing or creative science writing.... It would make an excellent gift book, too..." SueEllen Campbell, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (2012) [Full article at doi:10.1093/isle/iss093]"There is a myth that scientists and artists live on different planets, which is rubbish.... Alice Major, a Canadian poet, has brought the two worlds together very nicely.... Major's writing is both clear and lyrical. Readers who, perhaps, have never heard of either Mandelbrot sets or dactylic meter will find those and other concepts explained in ways that are entertaining and related to every day life. Running beneath the poetry/science conjunctions is the thread of her father's Alzheimer's disease and his eventual death. The poetry, the science, and the loss of her father come together in one powerful, positive message: this is a beautiful world." Sharon Wildwind, Story Circle Network, December 22, 2012 [Full review at http://www.storycirclebookreviews.org/reviews/intersecting.shtml]".poetry and science go on a date in Intersecting Sets: A Poet Looks at Science by Alice Major." Off the Shelf, Geist, Summer 2012“Intersecting Sets is Major’s completely beguiling exploration of what science and poetry might have to say to one another…. I genuinely found this a breathtaking read, sharing everything that makes Major’s poetry such a pleasure to read: rigorously thoughtful, inventive, freewheeling, full of genuine surprises and showing a complete delight in the strangenesses and wonders both of the physical world, and the world of language….” [Full post at http://bit.ly/25SHtqn] -- Katherine Venn * anthonywilsonpoetry.com *Table of ContentsForeword; The Huis and Where They Came From; The Formation of the Hui Zu; The Fate of the Hui During and After the Qing Dynasty; Further Assimilation of Minorities and its effects of Muslims; How the Hui Zu Lives in China; Influential Muslim Personalities; Admiral Zheng He and His Achievements; Contributions of the Chinese Muslims; The Staunchness of the Chinese Muslims.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThis volume offers sixteen original essays that attest to the extraordinary inventiveness and range of modernist autobiography. It examines the ways modernist writers chose to tell their life stories, with particular attention to forms, venues, modes of address, and degrees of truthfulness. The essays are grouped around a set of rubrics that isolate the distinctive character and shared preoccupations of modernist life-writings: questions of ancestry and tradition that foreground the modernists'' troubled relation to their immediate familial as well as cultural past; their emergence as writers whose experiences found expression in untraditional and singular forms; their sense of themselves as survivors of personal and historical traumas; and their burdens as self-chroniclers of loss, especially of self-loss. It will appeal especially to scholars and students of literary modernism and English literature more generally.Trade Review'Written in a professional way and accompanied with references from contemporary literature and photos, the work entitled: Modernism and Autobiography, published under the coordination of Maria DiBattista and Emily O. Wittman at Cambridge University Press in 2014, is not only an interesting research for readers specialised in the investigated topic, but also an useful tool for the contemporary research and a pleasant and useful lecture for everyone who wants to know better the modern literature and to find how the autobiographical research has influenced its evolution.' Iuliu-Marius Morariu, Astra SalvensisTable of ContentsIntroduction Maria DiBattista and Emily O. Wittman; Part I. Ancestries: 1. Edmund Gosse's Father and Son: a nervous history Francis O'Gorman; 2. The 'fascination of what I loathed': science and self in W. B. Yeats's autobiographies Rónán McDonald; 3. Writing at sea: Conrad's Personal Record of 'my life', and 'my two lives' Michael Levenson; 4. Two Henrys: James and Adams as autobiographers Lee Mitchell; 5. Spaces of time: Virginia Woolf's life-writing Elizabeth Abel; Part II. Emerging: 6. Travel writing as modernist autobiography: Evelyn Waugh's Labels and the writing personality Jonathan Greenberg; 7. Queer autobiographical masquerade: Stein, Toklas, and others Barbara Will; 8. Elizabeth Bowen and modernist autobiography Allan Hepburn; 9. 'Leaving the Territory': Ralph Ellison's backward glance Marc Conner; Part III. Surviving: 10. Touching subliterate lives: Indian soldiers, the Great War, and life-writing Santanu Das; 11. The last of Katherine Mansfield Jay Dickson; 12. T. S. Eliot's impersonal correspondence Max Saunders; 13. The real Hem Maria DiBattista; Part IV. Disappearing: 14. 'Death Before the Fact': posthumous autobiography in Jean Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight and Smile Please Emily O. Wittman; 15. Abstraction, impersonality, abstraction Robert Caserio; 16. Name after name: Beckett's secret autobiography Michael Wood.

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Book SynopsisThis volume offers new insight into the breadth of contexts that inform Norman Mailer''s body of work. It examines important literary, critical, theoretical, cultural, and historical frameworks for Mailer''s writing, highlighting the ways his work reflects the concerns of twentieth and twenty-first century America. This book traces Mailer''s literary influences; his contributions to a variety of literary genres; his participation in the American political sphere; the philosophical, religious, and gendered contexts that shape his work; and the iconic American figures he profiled. The book concludes with reflections on Mailer''s literary and cultural legacy, emphasizing his advocacy for literary freedom and the contemporary resonance of his work.Trade Review'… introduces all facets of Mailer's work and directs interested readers to further resources … the book emphasizes the work over the person, so readers will gain a fresh understanding of Mailer's writing … Recommended.' B. Diemert, Choice ConnectTable of ContentsIntroduction Maggie McKinley; Part I. Literary Influences: 1. Early influences Raymond M. Vince; 2. Mailer and Hemingway Linda Wagner-Martin; 3. Friendships and Feuds Matthew Hinton; Part II. Form and Genre: 4. New Journalism Jason Mosser; 5. Essays and Columns Enid Stubin; 6. The Novel Peter Balbert; 7. Criticism Phillip Sipiora; 8. Film Justin Bozung; 9. Modernism Jerry Schuchalter; 10. Postmodernism Scott Duguid; Part III. Political Contexts: 11. Marxism and Malaquais David Anshen; 12. JFK and Political Heroism J. Michael Lennon; 13. The Vietnam War Ann Luppi von Mehren; 14. 1968 Political Conventions Robert Francis Saxe; 15. Left Conservatism Kevin M. Schultz; Part IV. Philosophical and Cultural Contexts: 16. Totalitarianism Erin Mercer; 17. The Hipster Raj Chandarlapaty; 18. Manichaeism and Existentialism Victor Peppard; 19. Technology Walter Lewallen; 20. Violence Maggie McKinley; 21. Race Douglas Taylor; 22. Judaism Mashey Bernstein; Part V. Gender and Sexuality: 23. Masculinity Brad Congdon; 24. The Second Wave Feminist Movement Bonnie Culver; 25. Sex and Sexuality Nicole DePolo; Part VI. Profiles and Literary Biographies: 26. Marilyn Monroe Carl Rollyson; 27. Muhammad Ali Ronald K. Fried; 28. Picasso Linda Patterson Miller; 29. The Criminal Mind: Gary Gilmore and Lee Harvey Oswald Mark Olshaker; Part VII. Mailer's Legacy: 30. Literary Activism Heather Braun; 31. Mailer in Translation Jasna Potocnik Topler; 32. Letters John Whalen-Bridge; 33. Mailer Studies in the 21st Century Robert Begiebing; 34. Political Resonance Gerald R. Lucas; Primary Bibliography; Selected Secondary Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe Harlem Renaissance was the most influential single movement in African American literary history. The movement laid the groundwork for subsequent African American literature, and had an enormous impact on later black literature world-wide. In its attention to a wide range of genres and forms from the roman à clef and the bildungsroman, to dance and book illustrations this book seeks to encapsulate and analyze the eclecticism of Harlem Renaissance cultural expression. It aims to re-frame conventional ideas of the New Negro movement by presenting new readings of well-studied authors, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, alongside analysis of topics, authors, and artists that deserve fuller treatment. An authoritative collection on the major writers and issues of the period, A History of the Harlem Renaissance takes stock of nearly a hundred years of scholarship and considers what the future augurs for the study of ''the New Negro''.Trade Review'Highly recommended.' C. A. Bily, Choice'this is not your grandfather's Harlem Renaissance … At every turn and in every way ... A History of the Harlem Renaissance invites and inspires readers to reconceive and reimagine both the nature and the extent of Black modernist cultural production.' Tim Ryan, StyleTable of ContentsIntroduction: revising a renaissance Rachel Farebrother and Miriam Thaggert; Part I. Re-reading the New Negro: 1. Cultural nationalism and cosmopolitanism in the Harlem renaissance Daniel G. Williams; 2. Making the slave anew: poetry, history, and the archive in New Negro renaissance poetry Clare Corbould; 3. The New Negro among White Modernists Kathleen Pfeiffer; 4. The Bildungsroman in the Harlem renaissance Mark Whalan; 5. The visual image in New Negro renaissance print culture Caroline Goeser; Part II. Experimenting with the New Negro: 6. Gwendolyn Brooks: riot after the New Negro Renaissance Sonya Posmentier; 7. Romans à clef of the Harlem renaissance Sinéad Moynihan; 8. Modernist biography and the question of manhood: Eslanda Goode Robeson's Paul Robeson, Negro Fionnghuala Sweeney; 9. Modernism and women poets of the Harlem renaissance Maureen Honey; 10. Children's Literature of the Harlem Renaissance Katharine Capshaw; Part III. Re-mapping the New Negro: 11. London, New York, and the Black Bolshevik renaissance: radical black internationalism during the New Negro renaissance James Smethurst; 12. Island relations, continental visions, and graphic networks Jak Peake; 13. 'Symbols from within': charting the nation's regions in James Weldon Johnson's God's trombones Noelle Morrissette; 14. Rudolph Fisher: renaissance man and Harlem's interpreter Jonathan Munby; Part IV. Performing the New Negro: 15. Zora Neale Hurston's early plays Mariel Rodney; 16. Zora Neale Hurston, film, and ethnography Hannah Durkin; 17. The pulse of Harlem: African-American music and the New Negro revival Andrew Warnes; 18. The figure of the child dancer in Harlem renaissance literature and visual culture Rachel Farebrother; 19. Jazz and the Harlem renaissance Wendy Martin; 20. Alain Locke and the value of the Harlem: from racial axiology to the axiology of race Shane Vogel; Afterword Deborah E. McDowell.

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Book SynopsisBeautifully designed, intimate and illuminating, the story of Ernest Hemingway’s life though the documents, photographs and miscellany that he kept.

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Book Synopsis''She was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty. I owe her a great deal in leading the way'' Sandi Toksvig''Some people thought her merely bohemian, but others were grateful to have so engaging a role-model'' INDEPENDENTThe superb classic memoir from a dazzlingly eccentric and endlessly fascinating author - a woman very much ahead of her time.Nancy Spain was one of the most celebrated - and notorious - writers and broadcasters of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Hilarious, controversial and brilliant, she lived openly as a lesbian (sharing a household with her two lovers and their various children) and was frequently litigated against for her newspaper columns - Evelyn Waugh successfully sued her for libel... twice. She was also a fantastic crime novelist (and according to the Guardian, one of the 50 best female crime thriller writers of all time) writing with a unique style that marries the acid wit of Dorothy Parker with the intricaTrade ReviewShe was bold, she was brave, she was funny, she was feisty. I owe her a great deal in leading the way -- Sandi ToksvigSome people thought her merely bohemian, but others were grateful to have so engaging a role-model * INDEPENDENT *Nancy's great qualities were her zest for life and her warm, North-country heart * TATLER *It is cruel that all that gaiety, intelligence and vitality should be snuffed out, when so many bores and horrors are left living -- Noel Coward

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Book SynopsisFrom the outset, Caroline Lamb had a rebellious nature. From childhood she grew increasingly troublesome, experimenting with sedatives like laudanum, and she had a special governess to control her. She also had a merciless wit and talent for mimicry. She spoke French and German fluently, knew Greek and Latin, and sketched impressive portraits. As the niece of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, she was already well connected, and her courtly skills resulted in her marriage to the Hon. William Lamb (later Lord Melbourne) at the age on nineteen. For a few years they enjoyed a happy marriage, despite Lamb''s siblings and mother-in-law detesting her and referring to her as ''the little beast''. In 1812 Caroline embarked on a well-publicised affair with the poet Lord Byron - he was 24, she 26. Her phrase ''mad, bad and dangerous to know'' became his lasting epitaph. When he broke things off, Caroline made increasingly public attempts to reunite. Her obsession came to define much oTrade ReviewA zig-zagging Shakespearean drama, played out in the highest echelons of fashionable Georgian society . . . Fraser packs Lamb's life into short, sharp book which can be devoured in an afternoon. She has an eye for delightful detail which paints a colourful picture of the Georgian world . . . This is an expertly crafted, scholarly book, which not only examines the playful though ultimately tragic life of Caroline Lamb, but celebrates her imperishable spirit too -- Alice Loxton * Daily Telegraph *Sparklingly succinct ... Our Chief of Readable Historians -- Ysenda Maxtone Graham * Times *Characteristically readable, accomplished and in places positively revolutionary ... Fraser shows that she has more élan and attack - or passion and sense - than writers a third her age. Should this be her final sally, it is as inimitable and impressive as anything in her distinguished bibliography -- Alexander Larman * Spectator *Fraser's major achievement is to invest Caroline Lamb's life with a long-overdue sense of proportion ... Fraser writes with charm, empathy and the kind of readability that makes the findings of modern scholarship easier to swallow. And there can be no doubt that her understanding of Caroline owes something to a kind of wisdom derived from her own experience ... A wonderful swansong -- Mark Bostridge * The Oldie *[Fraser is] a meticulous researcher and an agile, vigorous writer . . . She wisely resists any temptation to hold up Lamb as a feminist heroine (which she was not), while acknowledging the constraints placed on her because she was a woman -- Clare McHugh * Washington Post *Fraser approaches Lady Caroline Lamb as an eminent historian of the British era of reform, and a major biographer of complex, victimised women including Mary, Queen of Scots and Marie Antoinette. She privileges the evidence of primary sources to recover Lamb the ambitious, politically informed writer from the sensationalist anecdotes recycled by Byron biographers and historians of her husband's political career . . . Through her determined pursuits of intellectual and sensual experience, Lamb the entitled socialite gained what Fraser recognises as the 'wry self-knowledge' to articulate the paradoxes she inhabited as the early victim of a celebrity culture still blighted by sexual double standards * Irish Times *

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Book Synopsis'Making Darkness Light is an illumination' Adam Phillips'His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs' SpectatorFor most of us John Milton has been consigned to the dusty pantheon of English literature, a grim puritan, sightlessly dictating his great work to an amanuensis, removed from the real world in his contemplation of higher things. But dig a little deeper and you find an extraordinary and complicated human being.Revolutionary and apologist for regicide, writer of propaganda for Cromwell's regime, defender of the English people and passionate European, scholar and lover of music and the arts - Milton was all of these things and more.Making Darkness Light shows how these complexities and contradictions played out in Milton's fascination with oppositions - Heaven and Hell, light and dark, self and other - most famously in his epic poem Paradise Lost. It explores the way such brutal contrasts define us and obscure who we really are, as the author grapples with his own sense of identity and complex relationship with Milton. Retracing Milton's footsteps through seventeenth century London, Tuscany and the Marches, he vividly brings Milton's world to life and takes a fresh look at his key works and ideas around the nature of creativity, time and freedom of expression. He also illustrates the profound influence of Milton's work on writers from William Blake to Virginia Woolf, James Joyce to Jorge Luis Borges.This is a book about Milton, that also speaks to why we read and what happens when we choose over time to let another's life and words enter our own. It will change the way you think about Milton forever.Trade ReviewMaking Darkness Light is elegant, nuanced, and comprehensive. Moshenska gives us a fresh and vivid account of Milton as an individual and a poet while pushing beyond the boundaries of conventional biography. Blending the personal with the historical and the literary, the results are compelling' -- Bart van Es, author of The Cut Out GirlJoe Moshenska's superb new biography of Milton is, like the poetry of his subject, a miracle of form, moving from moments of arresting detail to vast contemplations of time, history, and art, all set within an intimate narrative that is at once deeply embedded in its historical moment and aware of how that history connects through other moments to the present. The result is a stirring and compelling account of how great poetry gets written and gets read -- Edward Wilson-Lee, author of The Catalogue of Shipwrecked BooksMoshenska has written a new kind of literary biography. At once glancingly a memoir, a rivetingly informative biography, and a fascinating reading of Milton as poet, scholar and ordinary man in his everyday life, Making Darkness Light is an illumination. Milton and everything and everybody around him are seen in a quite different, intriguing light. -- Adam Phillips, author of On Kissing, Tickling and Being Bored and Becoming FreudJoe Moshenska is professionally committed to creating a readership for Milton among those for whom Genesis, Virgil, Homer and Tasso are closed books . . . A great imaginative exercise . . . His sympathetic yet challenging account will undoubtedly win Milton new readers - and for that a chorus of Hallelujahs -- A.N. Wilson, SpectatorStrikingly original . . . a poetic tour of 17th-century England . . . Literature lovers of all sorts will find something to savor here -- Publishers WeeklyOxford literature professor Moshenska takes a fresh perspective on John Milton (1608-1674), the art of biography, and the experience of reading . . . An inspired biographical and autobiographical journey -- KirkusMaking Darkness Light is unlike any book on Milton I have ever read. It is often densely erudite, but also richly inventive . . . [its] avoidance of easy certainties is typical of this subtle, challenging book -- John Carey, The Sunday TimesJoe Moshenska . . . is astute in placing music, especially rhythm (a word neither Milton nor Shakespeare used) and its visceral relationship to the body, at the root of this original, penetrating, cleverly constructed and occasionally frustrating biography -- Paul Lay, The TimesTantalisingly different and new...an extraordinary, seductive work of intellectual imagination -- Financial TimesMoshenska . . . brings his own experiences into this searching creative portrait of the visionary English poet. The book . . . comes alive in its alert close readings -- New York TimesMaking Darkness Light is not a conventional biography . . . despite the ambitious and demanding nature of his project, Moshenska writes with humility and agility -- Literary ReviewOf course, anyone looking for a deeper understanding of the facts of Milton's life and the context for his poetry will certainly find what they're looking for here. Making Darkness Light includes not only moments in Milton's life and the landscape of 17th century England as well as close readings of his work. But it's the exploration of what the author describes as one of Milton's deepest occupations, "the place of literature in a life," that sets the book apart. Moshenska has no aspirations to separate the biographer from the biography, and Making Darkness Light is richer for his presence throughout the book -- Jessie Gaynor, Lit Hub Senior EditorMoshenska knows his way around Milton's world... Making Darkness Light privileges us with a peek inside its author's mind in contemplation of such a life and makes a compelling case that it could be told in no other way -- Boston Globe

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Book SynopsisIt has been stated that Charles Dickens began life as a lawyer, got tired of the dull routine, and turned to literature. This is erroneous, for he never had even a chance of becoming a lawyer,  either in the higher grade of outer barrister, or counsel learned in the law, or in the lower, but often more lucrative, class of attorney. As stated in the book, this work attempts to provide an accurate sketch of Charles Dickens literary and personal history stating plain facts, introducing some of his correspondence never before printed, and adding such anecdotes and traits of character to illustrate his double position as a Man of Letters and Man of the People. Within this work, the admiration of the ability of the necessarily rapid tributes to the genius and worth of Mr. Dickens is expressed, which appeared in the American newspapers. In the most aristocratic country in the world, Charles Dickens stood, not merely among but above all his contemporaries as a Man of the People. Scott, Bulwer, Macaulay, Thackeray, and others who taught great truths through the press, either were of high family descent or had received the best education that Universities could bestow. Their writings are crowded with references to the classic authors of their youth. Dickens, son of an obscure Government clerk, whose pedigree no one has cared to trace, received only such an education as, free of cost, every State in our Union bestows upon its children. It has been argued by great scholars, that Shakespeare was familiar not only with classical but modern European literature; but Dickens was master of one language that which is spoken, not alone in his island-home, but in Asia, in Australia, and most of all, in our United States. He knew, and was proud in the knowledge, that for every one reader he had at home, there were fifty here.

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Book SynopsisHans Sachs (1494-1576), while also a cobbler, was the most prolific German author of the 16th century. He was the immediate literary successor in prestige to Hans Folz (died 1513) who thought of himself as a barber. Both lived in the important Bavarian city of Nuremberg. Folz, after about two centuries of performance, began to modernize the art of Master Song, as well as produce rhymed contemporary and satyrical commentary on various topics, including medicine. Sachs followed Folz in further advancing Master Song as well as composing humorous anecdotes, satirical comedies and tragedies, along with biographical and political essays on numerous topics (more than 6,000 in all). Folz was critical of the papacy, and Sachs demonstrated in many verses to be a devout Christian, as well as becoming a strident follower of Luther. However, this book largely focuses on writings that have relevance to medicine both metaphorically and realistically, and especially on how the doctor-patient relationship is depicted. While 16th century therapeutics obviously have little relevance to modern practice, the reader should see similarities with the contemporary idealized doctor-patient relationship. Furthermore, do conflicts that were considered funny five centuries ago elicit similar reactions now?

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Book SynopsisBeacon Lights of History is a 14-volume set first published in 1902. This collection of John Lords lectures spans 6,000 years of European and American history. The first 12 volumes are all Lords work; the 13th was completed from his notes and the 14th is follow-ups by other authors.

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Book SynopsisThis book makes no attempt to fill the place either of a critical study or a definitive biography. The author found it impossible to draw a real portrait of the man without attempting some interpretation of his books and the quotation from them of characteristic passages, for they are the record of his personal attitude towards the problems most intimately affecting his life. Whitman was a man of special and exceptional character.

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Book SynopsisHunter S. Thompson is best remembered today as a caricature: drug-addled, sharp-witted, and passionate; played with bowlegged aplomb by Johnny Depp; memorialized as a Doonesbury character. In all this entertainment, the true figure of Thompson has unfortunately been forgotten.In this perceptive, dramatic book, Tim Denevi recounts the moment when Thompson found his calling. As the Kennedy assassination and the turmoil of the 60s paved the way for Richard Nixon, Thompson greeted him with two very powerful emotions: fear and loathing. In his fevered effort to take down what he saw as a rising dictator, Thompson made a kind of Faustian bargain, taking the drugs he needed to meet newspaper deadlines and pushing himself beyond his natural limits. For ten years, he cast aside his old ambitions, troubled his family, and likely hastened his own decline, along the way producing some of the best political writing in our history.This remarkable biography reclaims Hunter Thompson for the enigmatic true believer he was: not a punchline or a cartoon character, but a fierce, colorful opponent of fascism in a country that suddenly seemed all too willing to accept it.

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Book SynopsisHarriet Martineau lived an extraordinary literary life. She became a reviewer and journalist in the 1820s when her family’s fortune collapsed; published a best-selling series, Illustrations of Political Economy (1832-34), that made her fame and fortune by the age of thirty; overcame a hearing disability to become a “literary lion” in London society; toured the United States and wrote two founding texts of sociology based on her experiences; explored north Africa and the Middle East to observe non-European societies; wrote “leaders” (editorials) on slavery for the London Daily News during the American Civil War; and commented publicly on matters of politics, history, and religion in an era when women supposedly maintained their place in the sphere of domesticity.This edition of her Autobiography reproduces the original 1877 text, which Martineau composed in 1855 and had printed in anticipation of her death. It includes illustrations of the author and her homes; excerpts from the “Memorials,” added by her editor Maria Chapman; and reviews that praise and critique Martineau’s method as an autobiographer and achievement as a Victorian woman of letters.Trade Review“Words like ‘extraordinary’ and ‘remarkable’ are not misplaced in describing Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography. Controversial throughout her life, she is, in Linda Peterson’s words, ‘a superb storyteller,’ recounting all that happened to her with outspoken directness. In a field dominated by male practitioners, Martineau's uncompromising account of her life, relationships, travels, and illnesses deserves much wider recognition. In this first comprehensively annotated edition of the text since it was originally published in 1877, readers can fully appreciate what made Martineau a compelling teller of her own tale.” — Valerie R. Sanders, University of Hull“Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography is something much more complex than a conventional autobiography. Martineau’s long and elaborate work was self-consciously written in a hybrid form to offer advice and support for many areas of Victorian women’s experience. It considers the spiritual life, illness, education and, most powerfully of all, professional journalism as a way of life. It is an important book, less well known than it should be. This attractive and scrupulously, but unobtrusively, annotated edition by a leading scholar of Victorian women’s life writing brings a major text within reach of all those interested in Victorian women and their public and private lives.” — Brian Maidment, University of SalfordTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionHarriet Martineau: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextAutobiographyAppendix A: Illustrations from the Autobiography (1877)Appendix B: Selections from the Memorials (1877) Private Memorandum (June 1829) Letter from Harriet Martineau to her Mother(22 January 1830) Letter to the Editor of “Men of the Time”(22 March 1856) Obituary, London Daily News (29 June 1876) Appendix C: Contemporary Reviews Margaret Oliphant, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (April 1877) John Morley, Macmillan’s Magazine (May 1877) W.R. Greg, The Nineteenth Century (August 1877) Works Cited and Recommended Reading

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Book SynopsisThe struggles of those called to write, suffering rejection after rejection until finally recognised. This work explores the psychological and archetypal forces at work in the minds and hearts of these men.

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Book Synopsis'Remarkable lives in extraordinary times - a gripping and exceptional literary journey.' Philippe Sands'Alexander Wolff is keen, after a generation of silence, to follow the untold stories wherever they might lead.' Claire Messud, Harpers Magazine'As riveting as the fiction the Wolffs themselves have published, and deeply affecting.' NewsweekIn 2017, acclaimed journalist Alexander Wolff moved to Berlin to take up a long-deferred task: learning his family's history. His grandfather Kurt Wolff set up his own publishing firm in 1910 at the age of twenty-three, publishing Franz Kafka, Émile Zola, Anton Chekhov and others whose books would be burned by the Nazis. In 1933, Kurt and his wife Helen fled to France and Italy, and later to New York, where they would bring books including Doctor Zhivago, The Leopard and The Tin Drum to English-speaking readers.Meanwhile, Kurt's son Niko, born from an earlier marriage, was left behind in Germany. Despite his Jewish heritage, he served in the German army and ended up in an prisoner of war camp before emigrating to the US in 1948. As Alexander gains a better understanding of his taciturn father's life, he finds secrets that never made it to America and is forced to confront his family's complex relationship with the Nazis.This stunning account of a family navigating wartime and its aftershocks brilliantly evokes the perils, triumphs and secrets of history and exile.Trade Reviewan event-filled biography and, along the way, a captivating case study in the challenges faced by refugees attempting to remake a life...as enlightening as it is engaging. * Wall Street Journal *as riveting as the fiction the Wolffs themselves have published, and deeply affecting. * Newsweek *Alexander Wolff is keen, after a generation of silence, to follow the untold stories wherever they might lead. -- Claire Messud * Harpers Magazine *Remarkable lives in extraordinary times - a gripping and exceptional literary journey. -- Philippe Sands[A] poignant portrait...Wolff skillfully contextualizes his father and grandfather's tales with military and political history; details links between Merck and the Nazi regime; and uncovers family secrets, including the existence of his father's illegitimate half-brother. History buffs and literary enthusiasts will be rewarded * Publishers Weekly *An astonishing, compelling, confronting story of a divided family, reaching sharply into the present. -- Tim Bonyhady, author of GOOD LIVING STREETMeticulously researched and beautifully written, Endpapers, at its heart, is an absorbing family history. But it is so much more than that, a haunting exploration of guilt and responsibility, of roots and new beginnings. Filled with stunning literary details that any bibliophile will cherish, this is an intimate and complex portrait of a remarkable family that also tells a wider story of Europe and America in the twentieth century. Endpapers is a treasure - a brave and moving book. -- Ariana Neumann, author of WHEN TIME STOPPEDA powerfully told story of family, honor, love and truth, by a masterful writer who sees across the oceans and through the generations. In Endpapers we see the Wolff family through war and love, detention camps and immigration hearings, kindness and betrayal, occupying a world equal parts Casablanca and Kafka. It is engrossing and entertaining, a book of conscience and remembrance that tells the beautiful truth that so often those who contribute most to the culture and civic life of a place are the outcast and the refugee. -- Beto O'RourkeAlexander Wolff - a writer of superb grace - traces a complex and compelling family history in this deeply absorbing narrative of high culture under threat, of political and moral violence, and the deep wish for what Wolff refers to as Heimkehr or 'homecoming.' Endpapers held me in its spell for days. -- Jay Parini, author of BORGES AND ME: AN ENCOUNTERA stunning and brave book, deep and absorbing. I was enraptured by the story of Kurt, Niko and Alex as they moved through the crosswinds of the twentieth century, from Munich to Princeton, and into the modern world. -- David Maraniss, author of A GOOD AMERICAN FAMILYIn a compelling, frequently thrilling and - if you have an ear for the biting tone of Hitler's exiles - often hilarious book, Alexander Wolff combines biography, memoir and cultural history, rendering them indivisible, and making clear the uncanny and terrifying parallels between Kurt Wolff's day and ours. -- Anthony Heilbut, author of EXILED IN PARADISE and THOMAS MANN[A] revelatory, riveting and deeply moving account of his family's involvement in Germany's recent history. -- Joshua Hammer * New York Review of Books *Table of ContentsPrologue: Prologue Introduction: Introduction 1: Bildung and Books 2: Done with the War 3: Technical Boy and the Deposed Sovereign 4: Mediterranean Refuge 5: Surrender on Demand 6: Into a Dark Room 7: A Debt for Rescue 8: An End with Horror 9: Blood and Shame 10: Chain Migration 11: Late Evening 12: Second Exile 13: Schweinenest 14: Turtle Bay 15: Mr. Bitte Nicht Ansprechen 16: Shallow Draft 17: Play on the Bones of the Dead 18: The End, Come by Itself

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Book SynopsisA quick-paced and engaging biography of Canada''s favourite northern poet, Robert Service. Born in England in 1874 to Scottish parents, Robert William Service was raised to live the practical life of a banker. Although banking proved a useful skill to fall back on from time to time, Service was destined to pursue a life of poetry, travel, and adventure. After landing on the west coast of North America at the age of twenty-one, Service found his way to Yukon, the place that would capture his heart and imagination for years to come. Despite his many adventures in Europe and around the world, Yukon remained a strong influence on the poet until his death in 1958. His best-known works, including The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee, were inspired by his time there. Focusing on his Yukon period, historian Elle Andra-Warner crafts a vivid story of the poet who defined the North for generations of Canadians.

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Book SynopsisWhy couldn’t I occupy the world as those model-looking women did, with their flowing hair, pulling their tiny bright suitcases as if to say, I just arrived from elsewhere, and I already belong here, and this sidewalk belongs to me? When her marriage suddenly ends, and a diary documenting her beloved Opa’s escape from Nazi-occupied Netherlands in the summer of 1942 is discovered, Naomi Lewis decides to retrace his journey to freedom. Travelling alone from Amsterdam to Lyon, she discovers family secrets and her own narrative as a second-generation Jewish Canadian. With vulnerability, humour, and wisdom, Lewis’s memoir asks tough questions about her identity as a secular Jew, the accuracy of family stories, and the impact of the Holocaust on subsequent generations.Trade Review"Naomi is an incredibly talented writer and the loveliest of human beings. Her words are thought provoking and genuine. This is her journey to learn about her family history. Knowing who you are and understating where you come from can be a lifelong exploration." -- Andrea Kopylech"Tiny Lights for Travellers starts with a zit, percolating brightly on the nose of our author while she takes the transatlantic flight that begins the book. In a strange, unlikely, funny, unabashed and endearing way, this first image in Naomi K. Lewis's reluctant, almost anti-travel memoir encapsulates much of what her book is about." -- Laurie D. Graham"When Naomi Lewis was a child, no one in her family talked about the fact that her grandfather had escaped Nazi-occupied Europe, largely by foot and through the kindness of strangers. In fact, no one spoke much about that part of their family history, at all.""After her grandfather’s death, when Lewis’s parents were moving her grandmother into an assisted-living facility, they found a yellowed, type-written document: 30 foolscap pages in Dutch, and 30 pages translated into English. It recounted her grandfather’s escape [from Nazi occupation] into southern France. Lewis, a short story writer and novelist, transcribed her grandfather’s journal, and later traced her grandfather’s route, travelling from Amsterdam to Lyon, discovering family secrets along the way.""I just finished reading Tiny Lights for Travellers by Naomi K. Lewis and I can't recommend it enough.... [T]his book is beautifully written, immediate, entertaining, and engrossing."# 8 on Edmonton's Bestselling Books list; Non-fiction, December 01, 2019# 10 on Edmonton's Bestselling Books list; Non-fiction, September 20, 2020"Calgary author Naomi K. Lewis joins educator Abby Wener Herlin in conversation about her well-regarded memoir, Tiny Lights for Travellers. Nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction in 2019, Tiny Lights for Travellers explores her Jewish identity while retracing her grandfather’s escape from the Nazi-occupied Netherlands." [https://www.straight.com/arts/family-stories-run-through-vancouvers-cherie-smith-jcc-jewish-book-festival] -- Charlie Smith * The Georgia Straight *#10 on the Calgary Non-fiction Bestsellers list, May 25, 2023#9 on the Calgary Non-fiction Bestsellers list, June 15, 2023

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Book SynopsisRenowned for his endlessly quotable pronouncements, Oscar Wilde cut a dashing figure in late Victorian London … until his tragic downfall resulting from an ill-judged libel action. We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but also for a “devil’s dictionary” of timeless aphorisms and for the enduring brilliance of plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde's life resembles his early short story, "The Remarkable Rocket", which, rising from nowhere in a shower of sparks, explodes and falls to earth, exclaiming as it goes out, "I knew I should create a great sensation." Merlin Holland expertly traces the arc of his illustrious ancestor's life, from his birth in Dublin in 1854 as Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, to a brilliant career at Oxford University where his reputation for dandyish wit was first honed, through to his conquest of the drawing rooms and theatres of fashionable London, culminating in disgrace and imprisonment at the hands of the Marquess of Queensberry in the most notorious libel trial in English history. Wilde died in penury and obscurity in 1900, yet his reputation today has never been greater. This engaging and innovative short book features a concise biographical essay on Wilde's meteoric career, followed by a Q&A interview based on Wilde's own words and Merlin Holland's unrivalled knowledge of his grandfather's life, work and puckish observations. This sparkling biography does full justice to Oscar Wilde's writerly genius and irrepressible humanity. It offers readers a renewed appreciation for a man who at times scandalised his era as much as he delights our own.

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Book SynopsisBook of the Week on Radio 4, and in the Observer, Sunday Times, Daily Mail and The Week 'Riveting, and immaculately written' Sunday Telegraph 'A superb psychological study of a literary genius' Business Post 'A rounded picture... and gets to Dahl's flawed, human core' Country Life 'Crisply done and well-judged' TLS Roald Dahl was one of the world's greatest storytellers. He conceived his vocation as one as intrepid as that of any explorer and, in his writing for children, he was able to tap into a child's viewpoint throughout his life. He crafted tales that were exotic in scenario, frequently invested with a moral, and filled with vibrant characters that endure in public imagination to the present day. In this brand-new biography, Matthew Dennison re-evaluates the received narrative surrounding Dahl – that of school sporting hero, daredevil pilot, and wartime spy-turned-author – and examines surviving primary resources as well as Dahl's extensive literary output to tell the story of a man who identified as a rule-breaker, an iconoclast and a romantic, both insider and outsider, hero and child's friend.Trade ReviewDevotes a large chunk of his book to Dahl's Norwegian family and schooldays; their combination of warmth, tragedy, inspiration and savagery is brilliantly evoked... [His account] makes you feel grudging admiration for a bully whose self-belief was, in a way, heroic * Sunday Times *Superb psychological study of a literary genius... Matthew Dennison's biography of Roald Dahl manages to peel back the layers of an infamously complex man * Sunday Business Post *Matthew Dennison's streamlined text clips along with an economy befitting Dahl's brusque manner... Dennison presents a rounded picture [...] and gets to Dahl's flawed, human core * Country Life *A well-researched, compact book * Observer *This book is riveting, and immaculately written * Sunday Telegraph *Brace yourself for Dahl mania... Documenting the multi-layered life of Roald Dahl as a creative maverick who created some of the most well-loved characters in literature, this biography reevaluates Dahl by examining his surviving relics * Tatler *A crisply done and well-judged survey of the outline of the life * TLS *[An] impeccably balanced new biography * Mail on Sunday *An intriguing read about a vastly talented but morally weak man * The Anglo-Celt *Dennison recasts the narrative of the daredevil pilot and spy-turned-author as a rule-breaker, romantic and ultimately a child's friend * School House *An elegant new biography... capturing [Dahl’s] grandiose, tragedy-specked life. * The New York Times *

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Book SynopsisDaniel Smith looks behind what we think we know about the well-known sleuth and reveals little-known facts of which every Sherlock aficionado should be aware.Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes has been fascinating generations of readers, watchers and listeners for over 130 years, since he first appeared in print in 1887. Now an internationally renowned cultural icon, his name appears on books, films, television dramas, radio plays, stage adaptations and the rest right across the world and he is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as ‘the most portrayed movie character’ in history. With all this material readily available, one might think there’s not much to find out about Sherlock, but in Sherlock Unlocked, Daniel Smith looks behind what we think we know about the well-known sleuth and reveals little-known facts of which every Sherlock aficionado should be aware. From the eccentric and odd characters to the bizarre plot twis

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Book Synopsis‘The relationship between my grandmother and her mother was very important and indeed crucial to her childhood and the very early days of her writing … So, to have more insight into this particular aspect of my grandmother’s early life is very valuable.’ Mathew Prichard, Agatha Christie’s grandsonVirginia Woolf, Agatha Christie and Sylvia Plath are three of our most famous authors. For the first time this book tells in full the story of the remarkable mothers who shaped them.Julia Stephen, Clara Miller and Aurelia Plath were fascinating women in their own rights, and their relationships with their daughters were exceptional; they profoundly influenced the writers’ lives, literature and attitude to feminism. Too often in the past Virginia, Agatha and Sylvia have been defined by their lovers – Mothers of the Mind redresses the balance by charting the complex, often contradictory, bond between mother and daughter. Drawing on previously unpublished sources from archives around the world and accounts from family and friends of the women, this book offers a new perspective on these iconic authors.Trade Review‘The relationship between my grandmother and her mother was very important and indeed crucial to her childhood and the very early days of her writing … So, to have more insight into this particular aspect of my grandmother’s early life is very valuable.’ MATHEW PRICHARD, Agatha Christie’s grandson‘There have been multiple attempts to investigate the true character of Agatha, but it was a first for the Christie Archive Trust to assist research focused solely on Agatha and her mother’s relationship. Thanks to Rachel’s thorough curation of the evidence this is one particular puzzle we can now consider solved.’ JOE KEOGH, Christie Archive Trust‘This triple biography includes a remarkable and nuanced summation of Aurelia Plath’s life and influence, the first of any consequence that will see print … The author uncovers Aurelia’s early years and reveals the dedication and teamwork required to launch Sylvia Plath’s career.’ CATHERINE RANKOVIC, Aurelia Plath scholar and founder at AureliaPlath.info‘Rachel Trethewey’s meticulous examination of maternal influences on the literary achievements of Virginia Woolf, Agatha Christie and Sylvia Plath culminates in fresh insights about the complex mother–daughter dynamic between Sylvia and Aurelia Plath.’ RICHARD J. LARSCHAN, English Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth'These three portraits beautifully capture the variety and complexity of mother-daughter relationships.' -- The Lady * The Lady *‘Trethewey’s group biography is a revealing study of the vital significance of these mothers for their daughters, and of their vexed relationships.’ – Helen Tyson, Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisCrafted from archives, interviews, memories, and bankers’ boxes of papers sent to the author during the years before her death, Always Someone to Kill the Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson is the portrait of a woman shaped by her times, by her turbulent marriage, by the clarity of genius, and by the moral sense of her Catholic upbringing. With the gentle touch of an old friend, Flahiff provides a poignant insight into the woman, the westerner, and the writer. Best known for the modernist novel, The Double Hook, and her part in creating the literary magazine White Pelican, Watson’s life was as rich and complex as her finest literary creation.

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Book SynopsisAs with many writers, Jim Christy keeps a "source file," notes, scrawled snippets of conversation, observations made on the run, photographs of people known and unknown, scraps of paper with puzzling notes written on them, receipts, matchpacks, and other assorted parapher-nalia that might come in handy for a future story, article, or essay. For Mr. Christy that source file has been an old Peek Frean's tin biscuit box. For nearly forty years the author has thrown-willy-nilly, and with neither rhyme nor reason-such seemingly random items into the box. There has been absolutely no system to it; maybe, the author says, "I thought I'll pay more attention to this later' or, perhaps, I've got to check that one out some day ...give it the attention it deserves." Being a restless traveller, investigative journalist, and raconteur, many of these items have rich and alluring stories attached to them. The Peek Frean's cookie box has provided the essential ingredients for a fascinating assortment of highly entertaining tales.

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Book SynopsisLavishly illustrated with beautiful, evocative watercolors, this record visits dozens of locations influential to the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Saroyan, best known for his play The Time of Your Life. Accompanied by well-documented biographical research, this series of paintings highlights places critical to Saroyan''s life, such as his family''s ancestral home of Bitlis, Armenia; the Fred Finch Orphanage in Oakland, where he spent five years of his early childhood; and the MGM Studios in Los Angeles, where he enjoyed a short and tumultuous career as a screenwriter. The majority of this collection, however, explores the beloved vistas of Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley from which he drew his inspiration -- from the Armenian churches of Fresno to the sprawling vineyards of the surrounding California landscape.

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