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24 books with the same feel
Hide books by the same authorJ. R. R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle Earth
Daniel Grotta · 197 pages
Surprisingly little is known about the personal life of the creator of Middle Earth. This man, who was embarrassed by success, lived most of his life as an Oxford scholar in the surrounds of a cloistered academic community. As a child in South Africa, Tolkien was kidnapped by a native and taken into the bush. As a youngster in the industrial city of Birmingham, England, Tolkien was raised by a Cat
Allen Ginsberg: A Biography
Barry Miles · 627 pages
Covering his life from his birth in 1926 to his career as a distinguished poet and professor, this is a biography of the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Barry Miles draws on their long friendship and on Ginsberg's own journals and correspondence to give a full account of his life up to his death in 1997.
Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick
Lawrence Sutin · 352 pages
"With thirty-eight books currently in print and seven of his novels and short stories adapted into blockbuster films, Philip K. Dick is recognized worldwide as one of our time's greatest and most influential novelists. Lawrence Sutin's Divine Invasions, acknowledged by the Dick family as the official Philip K. Dick biography, illuminates the life of the man who loosed the bonds of the science fict
Mary Poppins, She Wrote: The Life of P.L. Travers
Valerie Lawson · 401 pages
A portrait of the English author of the classic children's story traces her long life, the creation of her mysterious and beloved title character, and her tumultuous relationship with Walt Disney.
Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life
Howard Sounes · 309 pages
Locked in The Arms of a Crazy Life is the acclaimed biography of Charles Bukowski, the hard-drinking barfly whose semi-autobiographical books about low-life America made him a cult figure across the globe. Extensive research and unique contributions from friends, family and associates - including Mickey Rourke, Harry Dean Stanton, Robert Crumb, Sean Penn, Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg - as well
Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller
Judith Thurman · 511 pages
Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
John Lahr · 765 pages
Here, celebrated drama critic John Lahr gives intimate access to the mind of one of the most brilliant dramatists of his century, whose plays reshaped the American theater and the nation's sense of itself. This astute, deeply researched biography sheds light on Williams's warring family, his guilt, his creative triumphs and failures, his sexuality and numerous affairs, his misreported death, even
Jane Austen: A Life
Carol Shields · 188 pages
With the same sensitivity and artfulness that are the trademarks of her award-winning novels, Carol Shields explores the life of a writer whose own novels have engaged and delighted readers for the past two hundred years. In Jane Austen, Shields follows this superb and beloved novelist from her early family life in Steventown to her later years in Bath, her broken engagement, and her intense relat
The Private World of Georgette Heyer
Jane Aiken Hodge · 222 pages
The classic biography of Georgette Heyer is, finally, back in print and will delight Heyer fans everywhere. She wrote more than fifty novels, yet her private life was inaccessible to any but her nearest friends and relatives. Lavishly illustrated, and with extracts from her correspondence and references to her work, The Private World reveals a formidable and energetic woman with an impeccable s
Her Husband: Hughes and Plath - A Marriage
Diane Wood Middlebrook · 372 pages
Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
Elizabeth Winder · 265 pages
In May of 1953, a twenty-one-year-old Plath arrived in New York City, the guest editor of Mademoiselle's annual College Issue. She lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended the ballet, went to a Yankees game, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She was supposed to be having the time of her life. But what would follow was, in Plath's words, twenty-six days of pain, parties, and work which, ultimat
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.
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
Jane Austen at Home: A Biography
Lucy Worsley · 387 pages
""Jane Austen at Home offers a fascinating look at Jane Austen's world through the lens of the homes in which she lived and worked throughout her life. The result is a refreshingly unique perspective on Austen and her work and a beautifully nuanced exploration of gender, creativity, and domesticity." - Amanda Foreman, bestselling author of Georgianna, Duchess of Devonshire. On the eve of the two h
The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion
Tracy Daugherty · 700 pages
"In The Last Love Song, Tracy Daugherty, the critically acclaimed author of Hiding Man (a New Yorker and New York Times Notable book) and Just One Catch, delves deep into the life of distinguished American author and journalist Joan Didion in this, the first printed biography published about her life. Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory
Jane Austen: A Life
Claire Tomalin · 358 pages
Tolkien: A Biography
Michael White · 298 pages
Byron in Love
Edna O'Brien · 228 pages
Biographer Edna O'Brien has written an intimate biography that suits her fiery and charismatic subject. She follows Byron from the dissipations of Regency London to the wilds of Albania and the Socratic pleasures of Greece and Turkey, culminating in his meteoric rise to fame at the age of 24 on the publication of Childe Harold. With her prismatic eye and novelistic style, O'Brien captures the spir
Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961
Paul Hendrickson · 532 pages
Paul Hendrickson has delved into the life of Ernest Hemingway and done the seemingly impossible: present him to us in a whole new light. With poetic sensibility, tireless research, and dazzling writing, Hendrickson focuses on the period from 1934 to 1961, from the pinnacle of Hemingway's fame to his suicide.
Hemingway in Love: His Own Story
A.E. Hotchner · 182 pages
"In June of 1961, A.E. Hotchner visited an old friend in the psychiatric ward of St. Mary's Hospital. It would be the last time they spoke: a few weeks later, Ernest Hemingway was released home, where he took his own life. Their final conversation was also the final installment in a story whose telling Hemingway had spread over nearly a decade. Hemingway divulged the details of the affair that des
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.
The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of Three Sisters
Juliet Barker · 1,158 pages
A history of the Brontë family is based on years of research and correspondence by each family member, challenging traditionally accepted portraits of the patriarchal Patrick and revealing Charlotte's ruthless nature.
The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane
William Holtz · 448 pages