Showing results for "The English Man" in Art & Literature

Norah Vincent became an instant media sensation with the publication of Self-Made Man, her take on just how hard it is to be a man, even in a man’s world. Following in the tradition of John Howard Griffin (Black Like Me), Vincent spent a year and a half disguised as her male alter ego, Ned, exploring what men are like when women aren’t around. As Ned, she joined a bowling team, took a high-octane sales job, went on dates with women (and men), visited strip clubs, and even managed to infiltrate a monastery and a men’s therapy group.

In George Orwell: The Man and the Mind Behind 1984, Professor Michael Shelden will show you how 1984 presents a plausible reality of thought control and totalitarian power that feels contemporary even as it reflects its own time.

Artist. Public intellectual. Political activist. James Baldwin was all of these and more. Raised in the slums of Depression-era Harlem in New York City, Baldwin would become an author and activist of international renown—one whose legacy has continued long beyond his death in 1987. Who was James Baldwin? How did he become the master of multiple literary genres and a champion for some of the era’s most notable political and social causes? And how is his influence still being felt today?

A brilliant biography of one of India’s greatest poets Mirza Mohammad Asadullah Khan Ghalib began writing poetry in Persian at the age of nine and the pre-eminent poet of the time, Mir, predicted a great future for the precocious genius when he was shown his verse. But success and material...

Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France.

We all carry people inside our heads - actors, leaders, writers, people out of history or fiction, met or unmet, who sometimes seem closer to us than people we know. In The Man Within My Head, Pico Iyer sets out to unravel the mysterious closeness he has always felt with the English writer Graham Greene; he examines Greene’s obsessions, his elusiveness, his penchant for mystery.

A selection of the lively letters between one of the world’s greatest literary critics and the poets, novelists, and scholars he most admired Bringing together a collection of Harold Bloom’s letters to and from eight of his favorite contemporary writers, Heather Cass White provides an...

Bloomsbury presents Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward, read by January LaVoy. _______________ 'A brutal, moving memoir … Anyone who emerges from America’s black working-class youth with words as fine as Ward’s deserves a hearing' – Guardian 'Raw, beautiful and dangerous' – New York Times...

A short, inspirational audiobook from Henry Fraser, a young quadriplegic motivational speaker and artist. Henry Fraser was a 17-year-old sports enthusiast and senior prefect when he broke his spinal cord and was left paralysed from the shoulders down. Life as he knew it was over, and yet, through extraordinary determination and a positive attitude, he has forged a successful career as an inspirational speaker and an artist.

By founding Penguin books and popularizing the paperback, Allen Lane not only changed publishing in Britain, he was also at the forefront of a social and cultural revolution that saw the millions of people given access to what had previously been the preserve of a wealthy few. In Penguin Special, Jeremy Lewis brings this extraordinary era brilliantly to life, recounting how Allen Lane came to launch his Penguins for the price of a packet of cigarettes.

Brought to you by Penguin. FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE EMPTY RAINCOAT AND UNDERSTANDING ORGANISATIONS. Over a span of seven decades, Charles Handy was, variously, a businessman, a writer, a philanthropist and a philosopher. Not even a stroke as he approached the age of 90 dimmed his...

Captured by History is an autobiography like none other, for few historians have interviewed as many men and women who helped shape the most momentous events of our century than John Toland. Here, for the first time, Toland reveals how he found these key players and how he persuaded them to talk to him. From disgraced Japanese generals to the German doctor who nearly succeeded in assassinating Hitler, Toland’s sources are remarkable for what they reveal about their subjects, along with the secrets and stories they would tell no one else. 

Bloomsbury presents The Illuminated Man by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan, read by Roger May and Hilary Maclean, with Nina Allan. This book is about J. G. Ballard. This book is also about death, love and time travel. J. G. Ballard possessed one of the most astonishing imaginations of our age...

Brought to you by Penguin. A searing critique of the crony-capitalist, talent-scraping culture of the Stanford elites, by a brilliant young journalist When seventeen-year old Theo Baker arrived at Stanford University one brisk September morning, its manicured lawns, palm trees and sparkling...

Brought to you by Penguin. The hilarious and piercing memoir about growing up gay in a not-so-gay world. I’m just a man, standing in front of a salad, asking it to be a cake. What do you do when you’re too gay for Pakistan, too Pakistani to be gay in America and you’re ashamed of your body...

Modern Man is a penetrating psychological portrait of a true genius and constant self-inventor, as well as a sweeping tale filled with exotic locales, sex and celebrity (he was a lover of Josephine Baker), and high-stakes projects. In Flint's telling, Corbusier isn't just the grandfather of modern architecture but a man who sought to remake the world according to his vision, dispelling the Victorian style and replacing it with something never seen before.

Brought to you by Penguin. ‘The only dividend of the years’ vanishing, as far as I can see, is that it makes aspects of the past appear more interesting or humorous than they felt at the time.’ In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of...

What can we learn about life, love, and artillery from an 82-year-old man whose favorite hobby is firing his homemade cannons? Visit by visit - often with his young daughters in tow - author Michael Perry is about to find out. Toiling in a shop Perry describes as "an antique store stocked by Rube Goldberg, curated by Hunter Thompson, and rearranged by a small earthquake," Tom Hartwig makes gag shovel handles, parts for quarter-million-dollar farm equipment, and - now and then - batches of potentially "extralegal" explosives.

Featuring an introduction by Neil Gaiman! “J. Michael Straczynski is, without question, one of the greatest science fiction minds of our time.” -- Max Brooks (World War Z) For four decades, J. Michael Straczynski has been one of the most successful writers in Hollywood, one of the few to...

Harvey Kurtzman created Mad, and Mad revolutionized humor in America. Kurtzman was the original editor, artist, and sole writer of Mad, one of the greatest publishing successes of the twentieth century. But how did Kurtzman invent Mad, and why did he leave it shortly after it burst, nova-like, onto the American scene? For this heavily researched biography, Bill Schelly conducted new interviews with Kurtzman’s colleagues, friends, and family, including Hugh Hefner, R. Crumb, Jack Davis, and many others, and examined Kurtzman’s personal archives.