DescriptionPEN/Hemingway Award-winner Bobbie Ann Mason turns her acumen on one of 20th-century America's most mysterious icons, The King himself. This new biography eschews sensational speculation to paint a thoughtfully researched but wholly felt portrait of the man-child, simultaneously naive and shrewd, who metamorphosed into a hero, one of the most popular and least supported characters in American history. In 1955, at age 20, Elvis provoked his first near-riot when he sang at a baseball park in Jacksonville. Inspired by black gospel quartets and mentored by producer Sam Phillips, Elvis blended hillbilly music with rhythm and blues in a synthesis that defined a new direction for popular music. Mason's book gets at the consciousness of the icon and of the cultural climate that made him one.
DescriptionHere is a brilliant, controversial, and fascinating biography of those who were, in the mid-19th century, at the center of American thought and literature. It was an eclectic cast of characters. At various times in Concord, Massachusetts, three houses…
DescriptionHere is Jim Morrison in all his complexity; singer, philosopher, poet, delinquent, the brilliant, charismatic, and obsessed seeker who rejected authority in any form, the explorer who probed "the bounds of reality to see what would happen". This definitive biography is the work of two men whose empathy and experience with Jim Morrison uniquely prepared them to recount this modern tragedy: Jerry Hopkins, whose famous Presley biography, Elvis, was inspired by Morrison's suggestion; and Danny Sugerman, confidant of and aide to The Doors. Showing you the Lizard King as you've never seen him before, this classic best seller will take you through to the other side.
DescriptionMichelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was recognized in his lifetime as the greatest living artist, creator of a succession of masterpieces in sculpture, fresco painting, and architecture. In all his work, Michelangelo impressed his contemporaries as a forc…
DescriptionInterviews with two of H.G. Wells' grandsons and his granddaughter jump us back in time and flesh out this chronicle of the life of the author who pioneered 20th century science fiction. Between the publication of his classic The Time Machine in 1895 to his death in 1946, he churned out 161 full-length books.
DescriptionThe life of the great playwright, whose works were influenced by his dysfunctional family, which included an insane sister and an alcoholic father. Features interviews with Kim Hunter (Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire ) and Williams' brother, Dakin.
DescriptionOne of the first superstars of literature, the young Dickens lived the life of one of his characters - a tragic, deprived boyhood. With his father confined to debtors' prison, Charles spent a year as a child laborer. Find out how his early pain fueled the ambition of this prolific social writer of Victorian England.
DescriptionA look at the world's greatest detective with an intriguing twist: it assumes Holmes is a real person. Examines such famous cases as The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Final Problem, and includes a 1928 interview with Arthur Conan Doyle.
DescriptionRichmal Crompton's "William" is known even to those who have never read the books featuring his anarchic exploits. For many, the scruffy, adventurous, and exuberant William and his trials and tribulations with the awful Violet Elizabeth and his companions in daring, Ginger, Henry, and Douglas, remain a part of our childhood. But what do we know of his creator, who always shunned the limelight? So shy of fame was she that, owing to her unusual Christian name, many people thought she was, in fact, a man. In this biography, Mary Cadogan provides a portrait of a witty and talented writer, and a celebration of her works.
DescriptionIn the middle of the twentieth century, four American Catholics, working independently of one another, came to believe that the best way to explore the quandaries of religious faith was in writing. The four writers were Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Flannery O'Connor, and Walker Percy. Called the School of the Holy Ghost, for three decades they exchanged letters, ardently read each others' books, and grappled with what one of them called a "predicament shared in common". Paul Elie tells these four writers' story as a pilgrimage from the God-obsessed literary past to the chaos of post-war American life. And it is a story about the ways we look to great books and writers to help us make sense of our experience, about the power of literature to change, and to save, our lives.
