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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorWill in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
Stephen Greenblatt · 430 pages
"How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare? Stephen Greenblatt enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life - full of drama and pageantry, and also cruelty and danger - could have become the world's greatest playwright. Greenblatt makes inspired connections between an entertainment presented to Queen Elizabeth on a vi
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women
Harriet Reisen · 392 pages
A biography of Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888) that provides a solid description of the life and thoughts of the author most famous for "Little Women" (1968).
Sylvia Plath: A Biography
Linda Wagner-Martin · 282 pages
This new edition of Linda Wagner-Martin's study of Sylvia Plath's literary career includes a chapter discussing posthumous publications, recent biographies, the death of Ted Hughes and the publication of his 'Birthday Letters', as well as an updated bibliography and chronology.
Edith Wharton
Hermione Lee · 866 pages
From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning biographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather, comes a superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women of letters.Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with the image of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction. Born in
The Life of Samuel Johnson
James Boswell · 624 pages
Poet, lexicographer, critic, moralist and Great Cham, Dr. Johnson had in his friend Boswell the ideal biographer. Notoriously and self-confessedly intemperate, Boswell shared with Johnson a huge appetite for life and threw equal energy into recording its every aspect in minute but telling detail. This irrepressible Scotsman was 'always studying human nature and making experiments', and the marv
C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet
Alister E. McGrath · 431 pages
A definitive portrait of the life of C.S. Lewis.
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley
Charlotte Gordon · 649 pages
"Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) and her daughter Mary Shelley (1797-1851) have each been the subject of numerous biographies by top tier writers, yet no author has ever examined their lives in tandem. Perhaps this is because these two amazing women never knew each other--Wollstonecraft died of infection at the age of 38, a week after giving birth to her daughter. Nevertheless their lives were clo
Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart
Claire Harman · 472 pages
"A groundbreaking biography that places an obsessive, unrequited love at the heart of the writer's life story, transforming her from the tragic figure we have previously known into a smoldering Jane Eyre. Famed for her beloved novels, Charlotte Brontë has been known as well for her insular, tragic family life. The genius of this biography is that it delves behind this image to reveal a life in whi
Cheever
Blake Bailey · 784 pages
From the acclaimed author of A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates comes the unforgettable life of John Cheever (1912--1982), a man who spent much of his career impersonating a perfect suburban gentleman, the better to become one of the foremost chroniclers of postwar America. "I was born into no true class," Cheever mused in his journal, "and it was my decision, early in life, to i
Anne Sexton: A Biography
Diane Wood Middlebrook · 488 pages
Explores the relationship between the emotional disturbances of poet Anne Sexton and her works.
Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams
Nick Webb · 370 pages
"Douglas Adams possessed one of the twentieth century's great imaginations. He was clever, funny, prescient, child-like and - to the dismay of some contemporaries - a polymath who combined intellect with a sense of wonder. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was both intimate and cosmic, bleak and funny, frivolous yet philosophical. In 1978 it sneaked out on BBC radio, but news of it cascaded thr
And So it Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life
Charles J. Shields · 513 pages
This book is the first authoritative biography of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a writer who changed the conversation of American literature. In 2006, Charles Shields reached out to Kurt Vonnegut in a letter, asking for his endorsement for a planned biography. The first response was no ("A most respectful demurring by me for the excellent writer Charles J. Shields, who offered to be my biographer"). Unwillin
Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs
Ted Morgan, William S. Burroughs · 659 pages
Describes the life of Burroughs, a renegade author who killed his wife, had his books banned, was educated at Harvard, came from an upper-middle-class family and lived his life as a gay man and heroin addict.
Rough Magic: A Biography of Sylvia Plath
Paul Alexander · 424 pages
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor
Brad Gooch · 448 pages
The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships--with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick,
J.D. Salinger: A Life
Kenneth Slawenski · 457 pages
One of the most popular and mysterious figures in American literary history, J.D. Salinger eluded fans and journalists for most of his life. Now comes a new biography. Filled with new information and revelations garnered from countless interviews, letters, and public records, this work presents his extraordinary life that spanned nearly the entire twentieth century. Kenneth Slawenski explores Sali
The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith
Joan Schenkar · 704 pages
Patricia Highsmith, one of the great writers of 20th Century American fiction, had a life as darkly compelling as that of her favorite "hero-criminal," talented Tom Ripley. In this revolutionary biography, Joan Schenkar paints a riveting portrait, from Highsmith's birth in Texas to Hitchcock's filming of her first novel, Strangers On a Train, to her long, strange, self-exile in Europe. We see he
Genet
Edmund White · 800 pages
A meticulously researched biography of Jean Genet, one of France's most notorious writers. Acclaimed novelist and essayist Edmund White illuminates Genet's experiences in the worlds of crime, homosexuality, politics, and high culture, and gives a compelling analysis of Genet's plays, novels, and essays. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.
Charles Dickens
Jane Smiley · 317 pages
"With the delectable wit, unforgettable characters, and challenging themes that have won her a Pulitzer Prize and national bestseller status, Jane Smiley naturally finds a kindred spirit in the author of such classics as Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol. Because "his novels shaped his life as much as his life shaped his novels," Smiley's Charles Dickens is at once a sensitive profile of th
The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë
Daphne du Maurier · 311 pages
Pursued by the twin demons of drink and madness, Branwell Bronte created a private world that was indeed infernal. This is the biography of the shadowy figure of the "unknown" Bronte.
Daughter Of Earth And Water: A Biography Of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Noel Bertram Gerson