Art & Literature

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

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.

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

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley....

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....

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....

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.

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.

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....

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

Though Anderson Cooper has always considered himself close to his mother, his intensely busy career as a journalist affords him little time to spend with her....

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.

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

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....

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....

In her moving and insightful new book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history and ours....

In Talking to GOATs, award-winning broadcaster Jim Gray looks back at his four decades of sports reporting from the unparalleled perspective of one of the world’s most respected and skilled interviewers....

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....

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works....

A glittering portrait of the golden age of American department stores and of three visionary women who led them, from the award-winning author of The Plaza.

From rare book dealer and guest star of the hit show Pawn Stars comes an enthralling literary adventure that introduces listeners to the women writers who inspired Jane Austen—and investigates why their books have disappeared from our shelves.

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Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou's path to living well and living a life with meaning....

Bob Dylan's Chronicles: Volume One explores the critical junctions in his life and career....

When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated.

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 1988, a band of University of Wisconsin–Madison undergrads and dropouts began publishing a free weekly newspaper with no editorial stance other than “You Are Dumb.” Just wanting to make a few bucks, they wound up becoming the bedrock of modern satire over the course of twenty years, changing the way we consume both our comedy and our news. The Onion served as a hilarious and brutally perceptive satire of the absurdity and horrors of late twentieth-century American life and grew into a global phenomenon.

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.

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.

The following recording is from the late 1950s.

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.

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.

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

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 ...

Why do people keep deep secrets about their lives and ancestry? In Family Declassified, Katherine Fennelly applies her expertise as a social science researcher to answer this question regarding her maternal grandfather, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant who arrived in the US one hundred years ago.

虐待、いじめ、家庭内暴力、無理心中未遂 毒母との38 年の愛憎を描いた壮絶ノンフィクション

From grinding as an unpaid intern, to becoming a glitzy (but overworked) fashion editor, Christian Allaire writes with feeling about the struggle to find his place—and community—in the highly exclusive world of fashion. And he recounts, with great candour, the difficulty of balancing his ambitions with the often-inaccurate perceptions—including his own—of his culture’s place in the realm of fashion. Full of joy, honesty, adversity, and great clothes, From the Rez to the Runway is a gripping memoir about how to achieve your dreams—and elevate others—while always remaining true to yourself.

Born in post-Depression era Detroit to a stable, Catholic, two-parent household, and heir to the family business, Donald Goines was instead drawn to the streets and to the dangerous lure of The Life. No writer would end up capturing it quite like Goines. He knew the hustle intimately: bootlegging, pimping, drugs, prostitutes, gambling, and prison

タブーなし、忖度なし。知の巨人×日本を代表するジャーナリスト　初対談が実現！戦争を知る最後の世代として、これだけは言っておきたい。戦争体験。高度経済成長期。

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.

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.

James Baldwin (1924–1987) was a pivotal figure of the twentieth century, an influential author, intellectual, and activist who led a celebrated public life—and whose words and image and persona remain current in our culture. Baldwin's many incarnations have reemerged in the digital age as Baldwin's work becomes a touchstone for a new generation. It is the private, vulnerable, and messier Baldwin—the man behind the prophet and the online meme—who is the focus of this book.

"I Know My Classics" is here to help you discover and appreciate the literary treasures that have shaped our culture for centuries. In this comprehensive guide, Pierre Marshesso delves into the essence of the 100 greatest books ever written, providing insightful summaries and author profiles to make you feel like an expert in classic literature. From the epics of Homer to the groundbreaking works of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and beyond, this book offers a journey through the world of timeless stories. In "I Know My Classics!

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

"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.

" Alors que j’achevais la rédaction de ce livre, la cérémonie d’ouverture des Jeux olympiques est venue raviver le feu de ma plume : la France est la victime d’un mémoricide. Une ablation de sa mémoire. Une spoliation, une péremption de ses souvenirs. L’Esprit français a été immolé. Toute ma vie, je me suis battu. Contre un progressisme en quête incessante des figures nouvelles de l’insolite et du fantasque.

What makes a boy tick? Has our view of boys evolved as society has changed? Is boyishness in the genes or learned after birth? John Redwood shares with the reader his experiences as a young boy growing up in post War Britain when boys were told to be boys. With an unusually long memory of childhood stretching for him back into the pram he takes us through what it felt like to be a baby then a boy responding to the adult world around him. Sitting on a chair was an exercise in mountaineering. Trying those first steps instead of crawling fast around the floors were dogged by fears of falling ...

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.