Art & Literature

From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture.

An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a modern American classic....

Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation....

Griffin Dunne’s memoir of growing up among larger-than-life characters in Hollywood and Manhattan finds wicked humor and glimmers of light in even the most painful of circumstances....

Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have....

David Sedaris' new collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. It begins with a North Carolina childhood filled with speech-therapy classes...

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow illuminates the full, fascinating, and complex life of the writer long celebrated as the father of American literature, Mark Twain.

A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse.

Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering....

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion explores with electric honesty and passion a private yet universal experience....

She got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world, all alone....

Waiting on the Moon is a treasure trove of vignettes from a legendary musical figure whose career spans more than six decades and is still going strong.

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

Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, delivers the first biography of Robert Crumb—one of the most influential artists of the 20th century—whose iconic, radically frank and meticulously rendered cartoons and comics inspired generations of readers and cartoonists.

From her years as the presidential press secretary to her debates with colleagues on Fox News' The Five, Dana Perino reveals the lessons she's learned that have guided her through life, kept her level-headed, and led to her success, even in the face of adversity....

Renowned, best-selling novelist Chuck Palahniuk takes us behind the scenes of the writing life, with postcards from decades on the road and incredible examination of the power of fiction and the art of storytelling....

Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home is a richly entertaining and illuminating new audiobook about one of the world's favorite novelists....

This courageous and honest trilogy from Tove Ditlevsen, a pioneer in the field of genre-bending confessional writing, explores themes of family, sex, motherhood, abortion, addiction, and being an artist. This program contains all three volumes of her memoirs....

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life describes his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years....

In this widely acclaimed memoir ("Riveting, moving...a wonderful book" The New York Times Book Review), Katharine Graham tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling....

When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution....

If you ever struggle with your connection to God (or whether you even feel connected to a faith at all!), you're not alone. Especially in our modern world, with its relentless, never-ending news cycle, we can all grapple with such questions....

In a sharp, witty, and definitive memoir like no other, iconic trailblazer and legendary journalist Connie Chung delves into her storied career as the first Asian woman to break into an overwhelmingly white, male-dominated television news industry.

From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

In the six lectures of The Great Gatsby at 100, you will join Sheila Liming of Champlain College to revisit the context and culture of the Roaring ‘20s, which inspired the story of the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his disastrous pursuit of Daisy Buchanan. As you’ll discover, while Gatsby is framed as a love story, it’s also a story of the American experience, revealing the unspoken rules of wealth and class and the false promises of self-made success in a world of Old Money privilege.

In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had had “a rough few years.” She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband, John Gregory Dunne. For several months, Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism, adoption, depression, anxiety, guilt, and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter, Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work, which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods.

Robert Crumb is often credited with single-handedly transforming the comics medium into a place for adult expression, in the process pioneering the underground comic book industry, and transforming the vernacular language of 20th-century America into an instantly recognizable and popular aesthetic, as iconic as Walt Disney or Charles Schulz. Now, for the first time, Dan Nadel, a curator and writer specializing in comics and art, shares how this complicated artist survived childhood abuse, fame in his twenties, more fame, and came out the other side intact.

For half a century, Betty Halbreich curated wardrobes and bore witness to the vicissitudes of life as Bergdorf Goodman’s original personal shopper. Of course, visitors to the store were awed by a 96-year-old woman who still held down a nine-to-five, let alone one in the youth-obsessed industry of fashion. But age is only half the story: Betty built that career by giving encouraging yet deeply honest advice. Much of it was about what to wear, but her insight was by no means relegated only to matters of the closet.

American Notes for General Circulation is Dickens' vivid, sharp, engaging account of his 1842 visit to the United States. This travelogue blends keen observations with sharp social commentary, offering Dickens’ reflections on the American landscape, politics, and society. Dickens explores the bustling cities, vast wilderness, and the cultural contradictions of a young nation in its infancy. At once humorous, critical, and insightful, American Notes paints a complex portrait of America during a transformative period.

Alice James is perhaps best known as the sister of Henry James, the novelist, and William James, "the father of American psychology." Few were familiar with Alice's own life—until Jean Strouse's Alice James. This illuminating, insightful biography takes us into the hidden life of this extraordinary woman.

Using previously undiscovered material, Surreal tells the riveting story of Gala Dalí, (1894-1982) who broke away from her cultured but penurious background in pre-Revolutionary Russia to live in Paris with both France’s most famous poet Paul Éluard and Max Ernst. By the time she met the budding artist Salvador Dalí in 1929, Gala was known as the Mother of Surrealism. She rapidly became his mentor and protector, marrying him in 1934 and subsequently engineering their vast fortune.

Joan Didion (December 5, 1934 - December 23, 2021), born in Sacramento, California, was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. Her writing during the 1960s through the late 1970s engaged audiences in the realities of the counterculture of the 1960s, the Hollywood lifestyle, and the history and culture of California.

What happens when magazine editors behave worse than the celebrities they feature? Shock, comedy, and farce, expertly chronicled in Jeremy Murphy's Too Good to Fact Check, a firsthand account of his ten years traveling with stars as the editor of a glossy magazine. In between taking Julianna Marguiles to the Côte d'Azur, Neil Patrick Harris aboard the Orient Express, and LL Cool J to Paris among other locales, the author lived a wild, decadent life that rivaled anyone he was covering, and recounts the most outrageous moments in colorful, candid detail.

DOYLE'S WORLD is no ordinary biography about one of the world's most influential writers. It is instead a work that deciphers in particular the cryptic origins and actual scientific methods used by fiction's most famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes—and a work that provides a detailed look into the psyche and working life of Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The book follows Doyle’s entire illustrious literary career, with emphasis on the Sherlock Holmes mysteries as they evolved from the late 1880s to the early 1900s.

Welcome to Charlie Liebert’s short autobiography, his list of all writings, and his publications including those for other authors.

"Recuerdo la mañana en que conocí a Octavio Paz. Fue el 11 de marzo de 1976, en el Panteón Jardín, cuando un grupo de amigos despedíamos al gran ensayista Daniel Cosío Villegas [...] Me acerqué a él para proponerle la publicación en su revista Plural de un ensayo mío sobre el ilustre liberal recién desaparecido. Días después, mi nombre apareció junto al suyo, pero nunca sospeché que ese vínculo sería permanente."

From the age of twelve, Alison Mau wanted to be a journalist like her father. He was a beer-swilling, straight-talking Aussie who was rough around the edges but could quote passages of Hamlet at will. He taught Ali everything—from how to skin a rabbit and throw a punch to how to craft a sharp sentence—and she craved his validation as she navigated the sexist badlands of Australian print and television journalism through the 1980s and '90s.

From narrowly avoiding a trip in a mobster’s trunk and saving Howard Stern’s life from a murderous fan, to getting beat up by Spike Lee’s bodyguards and having guns drawn on him after spending Christmas with Mark Hamill and his family, Steve Grillo's life is nothing but surreal. Gorilla Parts is a roller coaster ride from blue-collar Canarsie to Manhattan’s most elite VIP rooms; a common-man’s extended glimpse into the last true era of limitless celebrity freedom: Pre-internet New York City.

A detective fiction book set in Westchester County, New York, during the early 20th century. In "Death of a Writer", tensions run high amidst the opulent setting of Valhalla, where the titular character, Valentine Loft, invites a cast of eclectic guests for an evening of intellectual discourse and mystery. When famed author Liam Ronan arrives, anticipation turns to dread when he is found dead in a locked room, his demise sending shockwaves through the group and thrusting Loft into a web of intrigue that will test friendships and reveal dark motives. As Loft and his fiancée Sabine Carson ...

A canceled bestselling author’s highly personal account of his public scandal—a scandal that was reported on the front page of the New York Times and throughout the world.

Summer in Paris, 1783. The Louvre steps, too hot and no breeze, the air electric with the heady anticipation of a coming storm: the year's Royal Salon. Men and women of every estate are united under art: to love it, to despise it, to gossip endlessly about it. Exhibiting at the Royal Salon was not for the faint of heart, and it was never intended for women. Enter Adélaïde Labille-Guiard . . . Born in Paris in 1749, Adélaïde Labille-Guiard rose from shopkeeper's daughter to an official portraitist of the royal court—only to have her achievements reduced to ash by the French Revolution

The Story Behind "The Man in the Window" is a special inside revelation about the real-life spooky events that inspired the supernatural action horror short story The Man in the Window. James J. Caterino is the author of Night Skies, The Anti-Matter Girl, Cool Stuff, Escape to Nowhere, True Stories, Time Travel Stories, The Girl Out of Time, Ghost Stories, and much more.

With Think & Grow Rich being number 13 among the best-selling books of all time, it is no secret that Napoleon Hill is one of the most successful authors ever. Published in 1937, the book had sold 20 million copies by the time of Hill’s death in 1970. Then, by 2015, 100 million copies had been sold. Hill’s works are the result of Andrew Carnegie commissioning him to compose a “philosophy of individual achievement.” Carnegie was worth 380 million dollars at the time of his death, in 1919. Today, his wealth is estimated to be worth 310 billion dollars, making him the 6th wealthiest person ever.

This is the never-before-told story of a unique time in San Francisco as well as in book industry history, when Bay Area small presses—armed with arrogance and personal computers—took the publishing field. At Foghorn Press, Vicki Morgan was an ambitious woman publisher, young and brash, coming-of-age while quixotically building a book publishing company from scratch with her eccentric brother to help.

La Biblioteca Elena Poniatowska reúne la obra narrativa, ensayística y periodística de una escritora inmersa en la escena cultural iberoamericana. En Ida y vuelta se encuentran algunas de las entrevistas más icónicas de quien convirtió la virtud de escuchar en un arte.

"Ein Glücksfall ausgereifter Erzählkunst" (Rüdiger Görner). In der letzten Erzählung Stefan Zweigs – sie erschien nur wenige Monate vor seinem Freitod im Exil in Brasilien – treffen bei einem Schachspiel auf einem Passagierdampfer die Kontrahenten auch völlig unterschiedlicher Kulturen aufeinander. Der Großmeister Czentovic, machtbewußt, mit schlichtem Gemüt und nur an Bereicherung interessiert, steht dem rätselhaften Dr. B. gegenüber, der als ehemaliger Vermögensverwalter des österreichischen Adels und Klerus, in Gefangenschaft der Nationalsozialisten geriet.

Una nueva, revolucionaria y muy documentada aportación a los estudios sobre Marcel Proust. Aunque hoy casi nadie lo recuerde, Marcel Proust escribió En busca del tiempo perdido, gracias a una extraordinaria capacidad de percepción que le permitió ver lo que nadie pudo. Sus contemporáneos lo consideraron un "médium despierto" y hablaron de él en términos que hoy lo vinculan a los fenómenos psíquicos. Este hecho —demostrado en las páginas de este estudio— fue silenciado por la crítica literaria... hasta ahora.

Offering answers to those questions and more through a mix of travelogue and social history, A Month of Sundays entertainingly charts the story of what author Daniel Gray argues is the People's Day. Told through Sundays whiled away in places from the Hebrides to Hyde Park – via Sunderland, Scarborough, Liverpool and beyond – Gray's latest book is a charming journey in time and place. A Month of Sundays offers nostalgia, people's history and affectionate, absorbing writing – a book drenched in the scent of gravy and summoning the faint sound of church bells.

Что итальянец может рассказать нам про величайшую русскую поэтессу? Анна Ахматова — та, что, как говорил Иосиф Бродский, "одним только тоном голоса или поворотом головы превращала вас в гомо сапиенс". Женщина, пережившая две мировые войны и ставшая самым популярным голосом России в тяжелые для страны времена. Она страдала, как страдают души, которые, даже сдаваясь, не сдаются. Она не переставала писать, даже когда ее стихи могли передаваться только из уст в уста. В конце жизни она смогла стать тем, кем хотела — величайшей поэтессой своего времени.