Best of
Biography-Memoir

1989

No Compromise


Melody Green - 1989
    Who better to tell Keith Green's story than the woman who shared his life and mission?his wife, Melody. At the time Keith and two of their children were killed in a tragic plane crash, Melody was pregnant and had a one?year?old child at home. She inherited Keith's musical legacy of published and unpublished songs and his private journals, which she has put together in this extremely personal biography of Keith.

Ezra Taft Benson: A Biography


Sheri Dew - 1989
    Not a perfect man, nor a man who hasn’t faced and even struggled with mortality’s challenges. But a man of conviction and courage. A man who has remained true to the principles in which he deeply believes. A man who has responded to assignments within the gospel kingdom that have demanded total commitment and faith in the Lord. This is a man who has faced hardships, has worked to overcome personal shortcomings, has had triumphs, and through it all, has turned his life completely over to the Lord.” —Sheri DewThis is the story of Ezra Taft Benson, thirteenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.It is the saga of a farm boy who loved the land and the Lord – a plough boy who became a prophet. It tells of his romance and marriage to a “city girl,” Flora Amussen, a young woman who had more faith in him than he had in himself. He is a family man, the father of six and the eldest of eleven brothers and sisters.This is the story of the most formally educated president of the Church. He received a bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, a master’s degree from Iowa Sate University, and did post-graduate work at the University of California. He subsequently wrote several books, received many honorary degrees, and delivered thousands of addresses.It is the story of a man who, after working with rural people in various capacities, became the first Latter-day Saint to serve in the cabinet of the president of the United States – eight years as Secretary of Agriculture in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower. His fight to help the farmers of America be free and prosperous marked him as a man of conviction who stood by his principles despite enormous political pressures.Ezra Taft Benson is a man of God. Twice he served as a stake president and twice as president of the European Mission. At the close of World War II he served a mission of mercy, ministering to the spiritual and temporal needs of destitute Latter-day Saints in Europe.When he came to the office of president of the Church in November 1985, he had known more heads of state and was perhaps the most widely traveled of any prophet in this dispensation. He had served forty-two years as an apostle, including twelve years as president of the Quorum of the Twelve.The Lord tutored him well for his call as a prophet. There was divine design in his life that prepared him for the new and heavy tasks that lay ahead.

Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale by the Step-Sister of Anne Frank


Eva Schloss - 1989
    Like many jews they fled to Amsterdam where they hid from the Nazis until they were betrayed and arrested in 1944. Eva was 15 years old when she was sent to Auschwitz - the same age as her friend Anne Frank. Together with her mother she endured the daily degradation that robbed so many of their lives - including her father and brother. After the war her mother married Otto Frank, the only surviving member of the Frank family. Only now, 40 years later has Eva felt able to tell her story.

Wonderland Avenue: Tales of Glamour and Excess


Danny Sugerman - 1989
    Excessive, scandalous, comic, cautionary and horrifying, it chronicles the 60s dream gone-to-rot and the early life of a Hollywood Wild Child who was just brilliant at being bad.

Speeches and Writings 1859–1865


Abraham Lincoln - 1989
    His addresses at Gettysburg and at his inaugurals, his presidential messages and public lectures, are an essential record of the war and have forever shaped the nation’s memories of it. This Library of America volume collects writings from 1859 to 1865 and contains 555 speeches, messages, proclamations, letters, memoranda, and fragments. They record the words and deeds—the order to resupply Fort Sumter, the emancipation of the slaves held in the Confederacy, and proposals to offer the South generous terms of reconstruction—by which he hoped to defend and preserve the Union.The speeches and letters Lincoln wrote in 1859 and 1860 show his unyielding opposition to the spread of slavery and his canny appraisals of the upcoming election in which he was to win the presidency. His victory triggered the secession that he would oppose in his First Inaugural, with its appeal to logic, history, and “the better angels of our nature.”Lincoln’s wartime writings record the nearly overwhelming burdens of office during a fratricidal war, and the added burden of self-seeking Cabinet members, military cliques, and a bitter political opposition. He was savagely criticized both for being too harsh and for being too mild. He ordered the blockade of ports, suspended habeas corpus, jailed dissenters, and applauded Sherman’s devastating march to the sea; at the same time he granted clemency to individual Union deserters and releases to Confederate prisoners. “I expect to maintain this contest until successful,” he declared, and toward that end he was prepared, not without his characteristic drolleries, to suffer the paradoxes of leadership in a nation at war with itself. His writings here include pleas to his own party to spare him their patronage feuds and to generals that they act more resolutely in the field. The struggles that taxed his physical endurance also tempered his prose style, as evidenced in the nobility of his state papers, his sparse words at Gettysburg, and his poignant letter to Mrs. Bixby, consoling her for the deaths of her sons in battle.In a message to Congress in December 1862, Lincoln wrote of the fiery trial through which the nation was passing: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.” By 1865, he was ready to offer the nation his view of the Almighty’s purposes and did so in his Second Inaugural Address with a beauty, clarity, and severity unsurpassed in American letters. Soon after, he fell to an assassin’s bullet, joining six hundred thousand of his countrymen killed in the war. He became part of what he called “the cherished memory of the loved and lost,” all those who had died that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”

Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud


Shaun Considine - 1989
    They worked together once, in the film Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, but their real-life dislike of one another transcended even the antagonism depicted in the film.

The Real Frank Zappa Book


Frank Zappa - 1989
    Along the way, Zappa offers his inimitable views on many things such as art, politics and beer.

From Beirut to Jerusalem


Ang Swee Chai - 1989
    This new edition, twenty years after the Zionist terrorism in Shabra and Shatila which killed thousands of Palestinian civilians, is a tribute to the ongoing struggle against Zionist occupation in the Holy Lands.

Journal 1970-1986


Andrei Tarkovsky - 1989
    

When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace


Le Ly Hayslip - 1989
    When Heaven and Earth Changed Places is the haunting memoir of a girl on the verge of womanhood in a world turned upside down.The youngest of six children in a close-knit Buddhist family, Le Ly Hayslip was twelve years old when U.S. helicopters landed in Ky La, her tiny village in central Vietnam. As the government and Viet Cong troops fought in and around Ky La, both sides recruited children as spies and saboteurs. Le Ly was one of those children. Before the age of sixteen, Le Ly had suffered near-starvation, imprisonment, torture, rape, and the deaths of beloved family members—but miraculously held fast to her faith in humanity. And almost twenty years after her escape to America, she was drawn inexorably back to the devastated country and family she left behind. Scenes of this joyous reunion are interwoven with the brutal war years, offering a poignant picture of Vietnam, then and now, and of a courageous woman who experienced the true horror of the Vietnam War—and survived to tell her unforgettable story.

The Girl with the White Flag


Tomiko Higa - 1989
    There, as some of the fiercest fighting of the war rages around her, she must live alone, with nothing to fall back on but her own wits and daring. Fleeing from encroaching enemy forces, searching desperately for her lost sisters, taking scraps of food from the knapsacks of dead soldiers, risking death at every turn, Tomiko somehow finds the strength and courage to survive.Many years later she decided to tell this story. Originally intended for juvenile readers, it is sure to move adults as well, because it is such a vivid portrait of the unintended civilian casualties of any war.

It's Always Something


Gilda Radner - 1989
    I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned the hard way that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end."The world fondly remembers the many faces of Gilda Radner: the adamant but misinformed Emily Litella; the hyperkinetic Girl Scout Judy Miller; the irrepressibly nerdy Lisa Loopner; the gross-out queen of local network news, Rosanne Rosannadanna. A supremely funny performer, Gilda lost a long and painful struggle in May 1989 to "the most unfunny thing in the world"--cancer. But the face she showed the world during this dark time was one of great courage and hope. "It's Always Something is the story of her struggle told in Gilda's own remarkable words--a personal chronicle of strength and indomitable spirit and love undiminished by the cruel ravages of disease.This is Gilda, with whom we laughed on Saturday Night Live: warm, big-hearted, outrageous, and real. This is Gilda's last gift to us: the magnificent final performance of an incomparable entertainer whose life, though tragically brief, enriched our own lives beyond measure.

Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life


Roxana Robinson - 1989
    "A profoundly human treatment of O'Keeffe and all the people who figured prominently in her life."-- "Los Angeles Times"

Louise Brooks: A Biography


Barry Paris - 1989
    Louise Brooks left Wichita, Kansas, for New York City at age fifteen and lived the kind of life of which legends are made. From her beginnings as a dancer to her years in Hollywood, Berlin, and beyond, she was hailed and reviled as a new type of woman: independent, intellectually daring, and sexually free. In this widely acclaimed, first and only comprehensive biography, Barry Paris traces Brooks's trajectory from her childhood through her fall into obscurity and subsequent "resurrection" as a brilliant writer and enduring film icon.

A Place for Us: A Greek Immigrant Boy's Odyssey to a New Country and an Unknown Father


Nicholas Gage - 1989
    Inthis sequel to the bestselling ELENI Nicholas gage tells the moving story of meeting his father and growing up in Worcester, Mass.

The Stephen King Companion


George Beahm - 1989
    A behind-the-scenes look at his home, family and reviews on his fictional novels. Numerous illustrations.

Smith Wigglesworth: A Man Who Walked With God


George Stormont - 1989
    Stormont writes not to draw attention to the life of his friend but rather to allow modern believers to grasp the spiritual significance of Wigglesworth's life and ministry.

The Reluctant King: The Life and Reign of George VI, 1895-1952


Sarah Bradford - 1989
    After his older brother abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson, the younger George (born Albert) assumed the throne at a crucial time in history, with Hitler and Mussolini allied and Europe moving inexorably towards war. 16 pages of photographs.

Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times


Radu R. Florescu - 1989
    Dreaded by his enemies, emulated by later rulers like Ivan the Terrible, honored by his countrymen even today, Vlad Dracula was surely one of the most intriguing figures to have stalked the corridors of European and Asian capitals in the fifteenth century.

The Wizard of Oz: The Official 50th Anniversary Pictorial History


John Fricke - 1989
    Publication is scheduled to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its theatrical release.

Why Me: The Sammy Davis, Jr. Story


Sammy Davis Jr. - 1989
    has done it. In this sprawling, revealing, lively second autobiography (following the bestseller Yes, I Can , also coauthored with the Boyars) stories of money, sex, violence, drugs, booze, fame, luxury and extravagance spill out relentlessly. Superstardom, admits Davis, has always been his be-all and end-all, and the almost obligatory downside--failed marriages, sickness, age, his own personal IRS auditor--are featured heavily here, along with insider show-biz gossip. More up-tone tales involve life-long buddy and supporter Frank Sinatra, the Rat Pack, the Kennedys, Richard Nixon. At the core of the book is the extraordinary black experience of the last 50 years. Davis became a star in the '40s at a Vegas hotel where he could headline but not sleep. In the '70s, he slept in Lincoln's bed in the White House, guest of the president. Even Mr. Wonderful (Davis's first Broadway smash hit) couldn't top that.

Approaching the Magic Hour: Memories of Walter Anderson


Agnes Grinstead Anderson - 1989
    A widow�s riveting yet poignant memoir of her marriage to a prolific creator, the extremely inspired Gulf Coast artist Walter Anderson, whose splendid art was heightened and enriched by his madness

Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child


Louie Anderson - 1989
    In letters that are poignant and often angry, yet touched with the humor that characterizes his monologues, Dear Dad chronicles Anderson's hard journey from shame and fear to understanding.Anderson's many appearances on The Tonight Show, his specials on HBO and Showtime, and his concerts across the country have won him wide acclaim. But when he found that, despite his considerable success as a comic, he felt no relief from his pain, Anderson entered therapy and joined an Adult Children of Alcoholics group. Only then was he able to break a lifelong pattern of denial.Includes an introduction by Anderson and a selection of letters from Dear Dad readers about their own experiences."Compelling, tender, funny, and well-written. . . . I respect Louie's courage for talking so openly. Writing the book may have helped the writer in his healing process, but it will also assist readers in theirs."--Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More

Papa, My Father: A Celebration of Dads


Leo F. Buscaglia - 1989
    This book reached #7 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

Chronicles of Wasted Time


Malcolm Muggeridge - 1989
    As a journalist he worked around the world on the Guardian, Calcutta Statesman, the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph. In 1953 became editor of Punch, where he remained for four years. In later years he became best known as a broadcaster both on television and radio for the BBC. His other books include Jesus Rediscovered, Christ and the Media, and A Third Testament.

The Bishop's Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright


Tom D. Crouch - 1989
    Using a treasure trove of Wright family correspondence and diaries, Tom Crouch skillfully weaves the story of the airplane's invention into the drama of a unique and unforgettable family. He shows us exactly how and why these two obscure bachelors from Dayton, Ohio, were able to succeed where so many better-trained, better-financed rivals had failed.

The Road from Coorain


Jill Ker Conway - 1989
    At eight, still too small to mount her horse unaided, she was galloping miles, alone, across Coorain, her parents' thirty thousand windswept, drought-haunted acres in the Australian outback, doing a "man's job" of helping herd the sheep because World War II had taken away the able-bodied men. She loved (and makes us see and feel) the vast unpeopled landscape, beautiful and hostile, whose uncertain weathers tormented the sheep ranchers with conflicting promises of riches and inescapable disaster. She adored (and makes us know) her large-visioned father and her strong, radiant mother, who had gone willingly with him into a pioneering life of loneliness and bone-breaking toil, who seemed miraculously to succeed in creating a warmly sheltering home in the harsh outback, and who, upon her husband's sudden death when Jill was ten, began to slide—bereft of the partnership of work and love that had so utterly fulfilled her—into depression and dependency.We see Jill, staggered by the loss of her father, catapulted to what seemed another planet—the suburban Sydney of the 1950s and its crowded, noisy, cliquish school life. Then the heady excitement of the University, but with it a yet more demanding course of lessons—Jill embracing new ideas, new possibilities, while at the same time trying to be mother to her mother and resenting it, escaping into drink, pulling herself back, striking a balance. We see her slowly gaining strength, coming into her own emotionally and intellectually and beginning the joyous love affair that gave wings to her newfound self.Worlds away from Coorain, in America, Jill Conway became a historian and the first woman president of Smith College. Her story of Coorain and the road from Coorain startles by its passion and evocative power, by its understanding of the ways in which a total, deep-rooted commitment to place—or to a dream—can at once liberate and imprison. It is a story of childhood as both Eden and anguish, and of growing up as a journey toward the difficult life of the free.

Education of a Wandering Man


Louis L'Amour - 1989
    Like classic L'Amour fiction, Education of a Wandering Man mixes authentic frontier drama--such as the author's desperate efforts to survive a sudden two-day trek across the blazing Mojave desert--with true-life characters like Shanghai waterfront toughs, desert prospectors, and cowboys whom Louis L'Amour met while traveling the globe. At last, in his own words, this is a story of a one-of-a-kind life lived to the fullest . . . a life that inspired the books that will forever enable us to relive our glorious frontier heritage.

Its Always Something T


Radner - 1989
    I wanted to write a collection of stories, poems and vignettes about things like my toaster oven and my relationships with plumbers, mailmen and delivery people. But life dealt me a much more complicated story..." Gilda Radner died on May 20, 1989, shortly before publication of her book It's Always Something. A month before her death, Gilda entered a Los Angeles recording studio to deliver what would be her final performance -- this remarkable audio autobiography, in which she reveals the inspirational story of her struggles with cancer...a private, personal battle in which the humor and humanity that has touched millions became her most powerful weapon.

City of Lingering Splendour: A Frank Account of Old Peking's Exotic Pleasures


John Blofeld - 1989
    Arriving in 1934, he found a city imbued with the atmosphere of the recent imperial past and haunted by the powerful spirit of the late Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi. He entered a world of magnificent palaces and temples of the Forbidden City, of lotus-covered lakes and lush pleasure-gardens, of bustling bazaars and peaceful bathhouses, and of "flower houses" with their beautiful young courtesans versed in the arts of pleasing men. With a novelists' command of detail and dialogue, Blofeld vividly re-creates the magic of these years and conveys to the reader his appreciation and nostalgia for a way of life long vanished.

Conversations with Maya Angelou


Jeffrey M. Elliot - 1989
    I had obviously been invented by someone else–by a whole society– and I did't like their invention.All those years in that little town in Arkansas, I learned through the literature. So much that when I later grew to be six feet tall, and at sixteen had a child and was unmarried, years later I decided that this is my world. My grandparents' and great grandparents' and great, great, great grandparents' blood and sweat enriched this soil. So this is my country.The black writer in particular should throw out all of that propaganda and pressure, disbelieve everything one is told to believe and believe everything one is told not to believe. Start with a completely clean slate and decide, "I will put it out."To begin with, if you're black and every model of beauty is either white or dark-skinned black, then it has to create some insecurity in a person like me, who couldn't conform. But I was blessed with the advantage of anger. It was a kind of hauteur. I could withdraw from such plebeian company and stand tall and sneer.

The Man Who Shot Garbo: The Hollywood Photographs of Clarence Sinclair Bull


Clarence Sinclair Bull - 1989
    He was hired by movie mogul Sam Goldwyn in 1920 to photograph publicity stills of the studio's stars. Four years later, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was founded, Bull was appointed as the head of their stills department where he remained throughout his career. During that time he took portraits of the most celebrated Hollywood film stars, however, he is particularly known for his photographs fo Greta Garbo who was almost exclusively photographed by Bull from 1921 to 1941. This book highlights Bull's 40-year career at MGM with nearly 200 of his enduring portraits of filmstars such as Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Vivian Leigh, Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly and Katherine Hepburn. This monograph presents an array of star portraits as well as a history of Hollywood in its heyday. The book will accompany a major exhibition organized by the National Portrait Gallery in collaboration with the John Kobal Collection and American Express.

Surviving Treblinka


Samuel Willenberg - 1989
    Only a mere 70 survived the war. This memoir by one of those survivors, now living in Israel, describes Treblinka from his arrival there in 1942. He illustrates in detail the physical conditions of transport to, and life at, the camp, the brutality of the Nazis and the Ukrainian collaborators and the heroism of the inmates. Willenberg's grisly special duties as one of the camp's labour forces are described, as well his observation of the incongruities of camp life: the orchestra playing music to drown the screams of the dying, the forced community singing to make local inhabitants think that the place was nothing more than a labour camp. It culminates in a description of the organization and execution of the uprising on 2 August 1943, when a small group of prisoners, including Willenberg, succeeded in escaping from the camp after setting fire to it.

God in the Dark: Through Grief and Beyond


Luci Shaw - 1989
    Originally published: Grand Rapids, Mich.: Broadmoor Books, c1989.

Double Feature


Terence Stamp - 1989
    His tales include mixing with stars and Hollywood directors, and meeting Jean Shrimpton, the girl of his dreams.

Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath


John Steinbeck - 1989
    Throughout the time he was creating his greatest work, Steinbeck faithfully kept a journal revealing his arduous journey toward its completion.The journal, like the novel it chronicles, tells a tale of dramatic proportions—of dogged determination and inspiration, yet also of paranoia, self-doubt, and obstacles. It records in intimate detail the conception and genesis of The Grapes of Wrath and its huge though controversial success. It is a unique and penetrating portrait of an emblematic American writer creating an essential American masterpiece.

Beatrix Potter's Letters


Beatrix Potter - 1989
    However, she was a prolific letter-writer. Judy Taylor, author of the biography Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Countrywoman, here presents a collection that reveals the observant, energetic, affectionate and humorous personality that Potter kept hidden from the public. There are picture-letters written to entertain child friends, juxtaposed with serious accounts of botanical research. The publishing process of her children's books is discussed in the correspondence with her editor, Norman Warne, to whom she eventually became engaged. Her life, from 1866 to 1943, covers a period of immense social change. Judy Taylor's selection of letters, linked by annotations, gives an overview of the development of the early 20th century as well as the life story of a remarkable woman.

The Mad Potter of Biloxi: The Art and Life of George E. Ohr


Garth Clark - 1989
    Today the genius of this radical and sophisticated artist has finally been recognized. His thin-walled, paper-light pots, labeled grotesque in his day, are now seen as a tour de force of delicacy and restraint and a stunning exploration of the plasticity of clay. Ruffling, twisting, tearing, and collapsing his fragile pots, Ohr anticipated much of what we take for granted in contemporary art and ceramics.Stunningly illustrated with 140 color images of his most important pieces, this landmark volume, winner of the George Wittenborn Award for outstanding art books from the Art Libraries Society of North America, presents the first major study of Ohr. Beautifully woven together, the text and images confirm a judgment the Mad Potter once passed on himself: "Unequaled! Unrivaled! Undisputed!" he wrote on a sign outside his shop, "Greatest Art Potter on Earth!"

Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy


Dmitri Volkogonov - 1989
    This book, the first of a trilogy written by Volkogonov on Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky, takes advantage of the author's discoveries to reveal much heretofore unknown knowledge about Stalin's reign of terror in the early days of the Soviet Union. Photos.

Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work


Ronald W. Lightbown - 1989
    350 illustrations, 250 in full color.

One Woman's Army: A Black Officer Remembers the WAC


Charity Adams Earley - 1989
    Congress authorized the organization of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later renamed Women's Army Corps) in 1942, and hundreds of women were able to join in the war effort. Charity Edna Adams became the first black woman commissioned as an officer. Black members of the WAC had to fight the prejudices not only of males who did not want women in their "man's army," but also of those who could not accept blacks in positions of authority or responsibility, even in the segregated military. With unblinking candor, Charity Adams Earley tells of her struggles and successes as the WAC's first black officer and as commanding officer of the only organization of black women to serve overseas during World War II. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion broke all records for redirecting military mail as she commanded the group through its moves from England to France and stood up to the racist slurs of the general under whose command the battalion operated. The Six Triple Eight stood up for its commanding officer, supporting her boycott of segregated living quarters and recreational facilities. This book is a tribute to those courageous women who paved the way for patriots, regardless of color or gender, to serve their country.

Jacqueline Du Pre: A Life


Carol Easton - 1989
    Jacqueline du Pré (the subject of the recent film Hilary and Jackie) was the music world's "golden girl," with what appeared to many to be a fairytale career and storybook marriage to Daniel Barenboim. But away from her cello, du Pré was achingly human. As a child, she was isolated by her phenomenal talent. As an adult, she was confined to the rarefied, insular concert world. And during the last fifteen years of her life, she lived in the inexorably shrinking world of the invalid, as multiple sclerosis took its toll. The Baltimore Sun said, Carol Easton tells this extraordinary story "with feeling befitting du Pré's own."

Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life Of Nathaniel Hawthorne


Edwin Haviland Miller - 1989
    Traces the life of the nineteenth-century New England novelist, examines each of his major works, and describes the social and political background of the period.

Mao Tse-Tung and His China


Albert Marrin - 1989
    Traces the life of the revolutionary who led the struggle to make China a Communist nation in 1949 and unleashed the horror of the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960's.

Straight from the Heart: My Life in Politics and Other Places


Ann Richards - 1989
    Ann Richards--keynote speaker of the 1988 Democratic convention and front-runner in the 1990 Texas gubernatorial race--offers a smart, candid look at her life in politics and the struggles she has won.

The Passionate Intellect: Dorothy L. Sayers' Encounter with Dante


Barbara Reynolds - 1989
    Sayers, detective novelist, poet, scholar, playwright and Christian apologist, spent the last fourteen years of her life reading and translating Dante's "Divine Comedy". The first two volumes of her translation, "Hell" and "Purgatory", were published during her lifetime, but when she died in 1957 the third volume, "Paradise", was unfinished. It was completed by her friend Barbara Reynolds. And now Barbara Reynolds has written the first full-length study of this illuminating stage in the creative life of Dorothy Sayers. Drawing on personal reminiscences and unpublished letters, she explores the dynamic impact of Dante upon a mature mind. New light is shed on Dorothy Sayers's personality, her relationship with her friends, her methods of work, and her intellectual and spiritual development. Readers of Dante, no less than readers of Sayers, will find this of interest.

W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance: The Life and Work of an American Photographer


Jim Hughes - 1989
    Photographs.

Perfect Circle: The Story of R.E.M.


Tony Fletcher - 1989
    However, R.E.M. – being R.E.M. – were disinclined to reveal this at the time the book was first published in 1989 and Tony was thus obliged to keep this under his hat. All such restrictions have since been lifted for newer editions, of which there have been several, and this latest incarnation of the book – now retitled Perfect Circle – brings the story to its natural conclusion with R.E.M.’s decision to disband in September, 2011. Discussing fame, fortune and sexuality with the same keen eye he casts on the group's astonishing musical catalogue, Perfect Circle is neither blind fan worship nor jaundiced critical cynicism, but a balanced and thorough telling of one of the most compelling rock stories of our time. Drawing on dozens of interviews with friends, associates and the band members themselves, this is not just the story of one group's rise through cult status, but the story of American alternative rock.

A Year in Provence


Peter Mayle - 1989
    He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.

Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King


Tim Underwood - 1989
    This collection of conversations, ranging from 1973 through 1989, brings the master of horror to life. Like a treasure map, Feast of Fear leads into the private, enthralling world of Stephen King.

The Collected Works of Spinoza, Volume II


Baruch Spinoza - 1989
    This work is accompanied by Spinoza's later correspondence, much of which responds to criticism of the Theological-Political Treatise. The volume also includes his last work, the unfinished Political Treatise, which builds on the foundations of the Theological-Political Treatise to offer plans for the organization of nontyrannical monarchies and aristocracies.The elaborate editorial apparatus--including prefaces, notes, glossary, and indexes--assists the reader in understanding one of the world's most fascinating, but also most difficult, philosophers. Of particular interest is the glossary-index, which provides extensive commentary on Spinoza's technical vocabulary.A milestone of scholarship more than forty-five years in the making, The Collected Works of Spinoza is an essential edition for anyone with a serious interest in Spinoza or the history of philosophy.

The Godwins and the Shelleys: A Biography of a Family


William St. Clair - 1989
    It is in large measure the biography of an era . . . The reader comes away with the feeling that he has witnessed a panorama of intellectual history which transcends the records of individual failures and weaknesses.

And The Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography


Ralph Abernathy - 1989
    Illustrated.

Kazantzakis, Volume 1: Politics of the Spirit


Peter A. Bien - 1989
    Bien demonstrates that politics and religion cannot be separated in Kazantzakis's development. His major concern was personal salvation, but the method he employed to win that salvation was political engagement. Did deliverance lie in nationalism? Communism? Fascism? He eventually rejected each of these possible solutions as morally appalling. Abused by both left and right, he insisted on an "eschatological politics" of spiritual fulfillment.This compelling biography will be essential reading for Kazantzakis scholars and for a wide audience of those who already admire the Greek author's work. In addition, it will provide an introduction to the first three decades of Kazantzakis's career for those who have yet to enjoy such passionate and stirring novels as Zorba the Greek, The Greek Passion, and The Last Temptation of Christ.This first volume provides an introduction to the initial three decades of Kazantzakis's career for those who have enjoyed such vibrant and stirring novels as Zorba the Greek, The Greek Passion, and The Last Temptation of Christ.

Neon Angel


Cherie Currie - 1989
    The author recounts her teenaged years as the lead singer of the all-girl rock band, the Runaways, her career as a movie actress, and her battle with drugs and alcohol.

A Particular Friendship


Dirk Bogarde - 1989
    Intrigued, he wrote back to her and thus began a flood of correspondence that ended with her death in 1972.Selected from Dirk Bogarde's letter, 'A Particular Friendship' reveals the unexpected side of a great actor and film star: a man deeply committed to his home, witty, stringent, observant, some times depressed by the state of Britain or of his work but always razor-sharp with his pen. Sprinkled with reminscences, gossip and cameo portraits of the famous, the letters are a tribute to the relationship between two exceptional people.

No Love Without Poetry: The Memoirs of Marina Tsvetaeva's Daughter


Ariadna Efron - 1989
    Never before translated into English, these memoirs provide the insider’s view of Tsvetaeva’s daughter and "first reader."No Love Without Poetry gives us Efron’s wrenching story of the difficulty of living with genius. The hardships imposed by early twentieth-century Russian political upheaval placed incredible strain on her already fraught, intense relationship with her mother. Efron recounts the family’s travels from Moscow to Germany, to Czechoslovakia, and finally to France, where, against her mother’s advice, Efron decided to return to Russia. Nemec Ignashev draws on new materials, including Efron’s short stories and her mother’s recently published notebooks, to supplement the original memoirs. No Love Without Poetry completes extant historical records on Marina Tsvetaeva and establishes Ariadna Efron as a literary force.

No Star Nights


Anna Egan Smucker - 1989
    in full color by Steve Johnson. "The story of a young girl growing up within the shadows of a great steel mill is eloquently depicted in this insightful, autobiographical picture book. Studded with vibrant imagery, the story subtly emphasizes the loving, caring, respectful relationships within a steelworker's family. Cleanly executed pages, evocative illustrations, and manageable vocabulary make this a unique purchase for a broad age range."—School Library Journal

Hank Greenberg: The Story of My Life


Hank Greenberg - 1989
    The son of Eastern European parents, he rose from the streets of New York to rank among the greatest home-run hitters of the game, and became the first Jewish player to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Along the way he challenged Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season; led the Detroit Tigers to four pennants; fiercely stood up to anti-Semitic slurs, insults, and assaults; and was one of the first major leaguers to enlist in the military at the outbreak of World War II. Hank Greenberg's extraordinary life in baseball-playing with and against Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Charlie Gehringer, Joe DiMaggio, Dizzy Dean, and Bob Feller—combined the uncommon courage, dignity, strength and, to be sure, humor, in the face of formidable odds.

Jean Howard's Hollywood: A Photo Memoir


Jean Howard - 1989
    346 duotone photos.

A Labor of Love: The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson


Ezra Taft Benson - 1989
    In the normal course of things, that assignment would not have been viewed as particularly noteworthy. But conditions in Europe in 1946 were anything but normal, and what became known as his "emergency mission" there would go down in Church annals as one of the most distinctive, demanding, unusual missions in this dispensation. President Benson had been uniquely prepared for this mission. He brought to the assignment years of experience in Washington, D. C., where he had worked at the highest levels of government. He had excellent organizational skills and stamina exceeding that of many men, was a prodigious worker, and possessed deep faith in the overriding power of the Lord Jesus Christ. President Benson went to Europe, leaving his family behind; and for eleven months while, under the Lord's direction, he performed miracles in behalf of Saints an ocean away, Sister Benson did the same in Salt Lake City as she kept their family of six children on an even keel and mustered the energy and time to give her husband as much support as she could from a distance. Though separated by many miles, their relationship sustained each other. The Bensons' letters to and from each other and their journal entries, as well as other official accounts of that period, tell the story of that adventurous but trying year. They also reveal the depth of their convictions to the Lord as well as their devotion to each other. In microcosm, they represent the essence of Ezra Taft and Flora Benson. A Labor of Love: The 1946 European Mission of Ezra Taft Benson is a story about love-the love of a husband and wife for the Lord and for each other, the love of the Saints for their brothers and sisters an ocean away, the love of the Brethren for one of their colleagues away on a demanding assignment, and the love of the Lord for his people.

The Age of Napoleon: Costume from Revolution to Empire, 1789—1815


Katell Le Bourhis - 1989
    

Memoirs of Childhood and Youth in America (1945-1962): The Story of One Western Convert's Quest for Truth


Maryam Jameelah - 1989
    An epistolary memoir of the author's life in the United States.