Showing results for "Life!" in Biographical Fiction

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, the first novel Nabokov wrote in English, is a tantalizing literary mystery in which a writer’s half brother searches to unravel the enigma of the life of the famous author of Albinos in Black, The Back of the Moon, and Doubtful Asphodel. A characteristically cunning play on identity and deception, the novel concludes “ I am Sebastian, or Sebastian is I, or perhaps we both are someone whom neither of us knows.”

"I suffered much cruelty as an unmarried mother and I had no recourse when they took my boy away from me. I had no rights, no prospects, no future. Everyone believed I was ruined. But no one knew the secrets of my own childhood, nor could they ever have imagined the dangerous and heretical scheme I would devise to protect and watch over my remarkable son as he grew in to manhood. Some might call me a liar, since all I describe would be impossible for a woman of my station. But that is where my design unfolds...."

The USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time reimagines the pioneering, passionate life of Marie Curie using a parallel structure to create two alternative timelines, one that mirrors her real life, one that explores the consequences for Marie and for science if she’d made a different...

Spanning almost thirty years, My Other Life traces the journey of a fictional Paul Theroux—from young bachelorhood in Africa to his travels between continents, from in and out of marriage through various affairs and multiple means of employment. From his early education at the knee of a highly eccentric uncle until his years as a fledgling novelist in London under the wing of the rapacious Lady Max, this writer of different guises eventually retreats alone to his hometown, where he finds the raw material to begin again.

Working in industry as a Chemical Engineer boring...who says it is? Most people consider working in the Industrial world to be fairly mundane and boring. Well, I am able to contradict that erroneous belief. My forty years in industry have been far from ordinary and unexciting. In fact, those years have been so eventful and exhilarating, I felt compelled to put events, incidents and a plethora of eclectic, fascinating characters into print and write about my career as a Chemical Engineer from the late sixties to the beginning of the eighties.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Marvelous . . . I just had to be there with the Post cereal heiress through every twist and turn.”—Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls “New-money heiress Marjorie Post isn’t content to remain a society bride as she remakes...

A former inmate, who is now an assistant stock broker and a part-time gang counselor, details his life on the inner city streets of Atlanta as a notorious drug dealer, vividly recreating the his struggle to break the cycle and walk the straight and narrow.

Franz Kafka scholars know Felice Bauer, his onetime fiancee, through his Letters to Felice, as little more than a woman with a raucous laugh and a taste for bourgeois comforts. Life After Kafka is her story. The novel begins in 1935 as Felice flees with her children from Hitler's Berlin, following her family and members of Kafka's entourage—including Grete Bloch, Max Brod, and Salman Schocken-as they try to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Years later, a man claiming to be Kafka's son approaches Felice's son in Manhattan and the drama surrounding Kafka's letters to Felice begins.

A beguiling trio of fantastical and farcical anti-fairy tales about a giantess who builds a magical “cottage of one’s own,” battles a silver-scaled sea monster, and defies governesses and gravity alike.

As the child of a German movie producer father who lives in Italy and a beautiful, artistically talented mother who resides in New York, Liliane's life is divided between those two very different worlds. A shy and observant only child with a vivid imagination, Liliane uncovers the stories of family members as diverse as Moses Mendelssohn, Mary Queen of Scots and an early Mexican adventurer, and pieces together their vivid histories, through both World Wars and across continents.

Elizabeth's parents warned her that Alexander Blackwell would not make a dependable husband, and only after eloping with him did she learn they may have been right... After their marriage, the couple finds lodgings in London. Alexander looks for work while Elizabeth learns engraving. Before long, though, Alexander is in the Marshalsea, the notorious debtors' prison, and she is left to fend for herself. Alone and penniless, she has a few things going for her: a skill, an idea, and an acquaintance.

A splendid original tale, Alfred Buber is warm, smart, romantic, but his life is as barren as an ice floe, an embarrassing collage of successes and humiliations that add up to...nothing. He lives as if he has landed in a strange country, nowhere he recognizes. Can an-oh-so respectable Boston lawyer, out of options, out of hope, lonely beyond measure, stray way outside the lines and find love? Can he step into the tawdry dark, and back into the wholesome light, and not be affected? Alfred Buber thinks he can. But the line between his two lives is a thin one.

Inspired by the life and work of Charlotte Salomon, this novel shows an artist intent on pursuing her art against all odds. As a young German-Jewish art student at The Berlin Art Academy during Hitler's rise to power in 1938, Charlotte's first place prize is denied because she is a Jew, her enrollment annulled. After Kristallnacht, she is sent from Berlin into exile with her grandparents.

USA TODAY BESTSELLER A stunning and unexpected portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery, creator of one of literature’s most prized heroines, whose personal demons were at odds with her most enduring legacy—the irrepressible Anne of Green Gables. “Dear old world,” she murmured, “you are very...

It's Real Life: An Alternate History of the Beatles is a multi-cast radio play based on Paul Levinson's story, "It's Real Life," a story about the most popular band in the history of rock & roll music—The Beatles—and WFUV Radio, adapted for audio by Vincent Tese.

María es profesora universitaria en Castellón y una mujer independiente, libre, que se embarca en un viaje a Colombia tras recibir la llamada de su amiga de la infancia, Carmen, una monja oblata que trabaja en un centro en las afueras de Bogotá donde acogen a niños huérfanos o abandonados que han llegado allí tras vivir infancias muy duras. En su visita al centro María conecta de una manera muy intensa con Ava, una niñita que decide adoptar y con la que regresará a España.

The true story of 14-year-old Lucy who survived the concentration camp of Auschwitz. LUCY DEUTSCH (born Lucy Lebovitz in 1930 in a village in the Karpathian mountains) was 14 years old when was deported to the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau with her parents and three siblings. While her mother and two younger siblings went straight to the crematorium, Lucy could escape the gas chamber by pretending to be eighteen years old. Lucy’s strength and faith of a better future ahead helped her to survive the unimaginable cruelty of the Nazi machinery in the concentration camp.

Amelia Earhart disappeared from the world's radar in the 1930s, but she has not been forgotten. Breathe the Sky is a fresh and provocative portrait of the legendary pilot whose courage and charisma have dazzled millions. It is also the first novel to reveal the dark side of Earhart's fame—and the dangerous, madcap course of her final voyage.

John Steinbeck’s first novel, and his only work of historical fiction, is loosely inspired by Sir Henry Morgan, the infamous pirate of the 1650s and 60s. Captain Morgan was a legendary and notorious man who struck terror into the hearts of men, in service of his personal ambitions. He has become obsessed with two thoughts: the beautiful and mysterious woman known as La Santa Roja, and to conquer Panama City (the titular Cup of Gold) away from Spain. Unique in Steinbeck’s oeuvre, this swashbuckling tale is both a historical and fantastical retelling of the life of this legendary Welsh pirate.

A 2025 Audie Awards WINNER | A WOMAN EVOLVE BOOK CLUB PICK | A NORTH CAROLINA READS PICK | A Christy Award WINNER | A 2024 American Fiction Award WINNER | Best Historical Fiction of 2024 (She Reads) | FEATURED IN GMA, WASHINGTON POST, AND ESSENCE | There is only one known queen who truly ruled a...