Catalog Search Results
Literary Reference Center
1) Oscar Wilde
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, but apparently it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost and his autobiography was never written, but his letters reveal him at his spontaneous, sparkling best. Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, yet it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost, his autobiography was never written,...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Four new and revelatory essays by the author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lost Daughter. In 2020, Claire Luchette in O, The Oprah Magazine described the beloved Italian novelist Elena Ferrante as "an oracle among authors." Here, in these four crisp essays, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of...
Author
Language
English
Description
"From New York Times bestselling author Heather Morris comes the memoir of a life of listening to others. In Listening Well, Heather will explore her extraordinary talents as a listener-a skill she employed when she first met Lale Sokolov, the tattooist at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the inspiration for her bestselling novel. It was this ability that led Lale to entrust Heather with his story, which she told in her novel The Tattooist of Auschwitz and...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Samuel Johnson is famously known for single-handedly creating the first recognized dictionary of the English language, just one of many his many renowned accomplishments. The biography of this remarkable writer, dramatist, poet, and moralist was penned by his friend, James Boswell, in 1791. An immediate success upon its publication, this work has come to be considered the greatest biography produced in the English language, and has earned Boswell...
Author
Language
English
Description
"An arresting memoir about what it means to come of age at the center of exultant bloodlines and harrowing bloodshed. Written in a distinctive voice and filled with personality, humor, and pathos, Fruit Punch is a memoir unlike any other, from a one-of-a-kind millennial talent. Growing up in Dallas, Texas, in the 1990s and early 2000s, Kendra Allen had a complicated, loving, and intense family life filled with desire and community but also undercurrents...
Author
Language
English
Description
Edna O'Brien, the author of "The Country Girls" trilogy, "The Light of Evening, " and "Byron in Love, " portrays the events, people, emotions, and landscape that contributed to her rich and heady life. She is the recipient of the James Joyce Ulysses Medal, and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
10) Tono-Bungay
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The story of an apprentice chemist whose uncle's worthless medicine becomes a spectacular marketing success, Tono-Bungay earned H. G. Wells immediate acclaim when it appeared in 1909. It remains a sparkling chronicle of chicanery and human credulity, and is today regarded by many as Wells's greatest novel. As Andrea Barrett observes in her Introduction, "Through its detailed, often brilliant descriptions and powerful imagery, [Tono-Bungay] slyly satirizes...
Author
Language
English
Description
From The Gashlycrumb Tinies to The Doubtful Guest, Edward Gorey's wickedly funny and deliciously sinister little books have influenced our culture in innumerable ways, from the works of Tim Burton and Neil Gaiman to Lemony Snicket. Some even call him the Grandfather of Goth. But who was this man, who lived with over twenty thousand books and six cats, who roomed with Frank O'Hara at Harvard, and was known--in the late 1940s, no less--to traipse around...
Author
Language
English
Description
"The renowned biographer's definitive portrait of a literary titan. Appointed by Philip Roth and granted independence and complete access, Blake Bailey spent years poring over Roth's personal archive, interviewing his friends, lovers, and colleagues, and engaging Roth himself in breathtakingly candid conversations. The result is an indelible portrait of an American master and of the postwar literary scene. Bailey shows how Roth emerged from a lower-middle-class...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins delivers the long awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe.
"In Tibetan Peach Pie, Robbins turns that unparalleled literary sensibility inward, stitching together stories of his unconventional life, from his Appalachian childhood to his globetrotting adventures -- told in his unique voice that combines the sweet and sly, the spiritual and earthy....
Author
Language
English
Description
"Thinking of Ernest Hemingway often brings to mind his travels around the world, documenting war and engaging in thrilling adventures. However, fully understanding this outsized international author means returning to his place of birth. Hidden Hemingway presents highlights from the extraordinary collections in his hometown of Oak Park. Thoroughly researched, and illustrated with more than 300 color images, this impressive volume includes never-before-published...
Author
Language
English
Description
This new biography explores the forces that shaped the interior life of one of the most beloved novelists in the English language. Each chapter begins by evoking an object that conjures up a key moment or theme in Austen's life and work. The woman who emerges is far tougher, more socially and politically aware, and altogether more modern that the conventional picture. The book looks at the biographical influences on her work, as well as her boundless...
Author
Language
English
Description
This memoir by the oral historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good War is “a masterpiece about a life which itself is a sort of masterpiece” (Oliver Sacks).
Chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2007 by the Chicago Tribune, Publishers Weekly, and Playboy, Studs Terkel’s memoir Touch and Go is “history from a highly personal...
Chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2007 by the Chicago Tribune, Publishers Weekly, and Playboy, Studs Terkel’s memoir Touch and Go is “history from a highly personal...
Author
Language
English
Description
"A memoir of Wayne Flynt's friendship with Harper Lee, centered on a collection of letters between Harper Lee, her sisters ... Wayne Flynt, and his wife"--
"The violent racism of the American South drove Wayne Flynt away from his home state of Alabama, but the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's classic novel about courage, community, and equality, inspired him to return in the early 1960s and craft a career documenting and teaching...
Author
Language
English
Description
When Jack Karouac wrote about Zen in Dharma Bums he was echoing the sentiments of the Beat generation, who found in Zen credence for a way of life unencumbered by the limits of "square" society. And it was Alan Watts who first wrote and spoke about Zen and Eastern culture in terms accessible to mainstream Western audiences.
Through his popular radio series Way Beyond the West Alan Watts brought listeners a delightful and practical...
Through his popular radio series Way Beyond the West Alan Watts brought listeners a delightful and practical...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
"A Memoir of Jane Austen is a biography of the novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) published in 1869 by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh. A second edition was published in 1871 which included previously unpublished Jane Austen writings.[1] A family project, the biography was written by James Edward Austen-Leigh but owed much to the recollections of Jane Austen's many relatives. However, it was the decisions of her close friend and sister, Cassandra...
Didn't find it?
Can't find what you are looking for? Suggest a purchase. Submit Request