Book picks similar to
Lives of the English Poets : Waller, Milton, Cowley by Samuel Johnson
poetry
nonfiction
english-literature
public-domain
Where the Devil Don't Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers
Stephen Deusner - 2021
The Drive-By Truckers, as they named themselves, grew into one of the best and most consequential rock bands of the twenty-first century, a great live act whose songs deliver the truth and nuance rarely bestowed on Southerners, so often reduced to stereotypes.Where the Devil Don’t Stay tells the band’s unlikely story not chronologically but geographically. Seeing the Truckers’ albums as roadmaps through a landscape that is half-real, half-imagined, their fellow Southerner Stephen Deusner travels to the places the band’s members have lived in and written about. Tracking the band from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, to the author’s hometown in McNairy County, Tennessee, Deusner explores the Truckers’ complex relationship to the South and the issues of class, race, history, and religion that run through their music. Drawing on new interviews with past and present band members, including Jason Isbell, Where the Devil Don’t Stay is more than the story of a great American band; it’s a reflection on the power of music and how it can frame and shape a larger culture.
Letters from Provence
Vincent van Gogh - 1990
It reproduces extensive extracts from his correspondence and is illustrated with his paintings, drawings and facsimile letters. Van Gogh's letters are a testimony to his struggle to survive and work. Here, the combination of letters and illustrations, concentrating on the period when he painted his greatest works, aims to provide an insight into his daily life in Arles and St-Remy, his spiritual torment and the process of artistic creation itself. The author is an "Observer" journalist specializing in the arts, and has published four previous books, including "Young Vincent: The Story of Van Gogh's Years in England".
Above Average: Naval Aviation The Hard Way
D.D. Smith - 2018
D. Smith's personal memoir of his years in naval aviation is more than a ‘I was there’ tale. He captures the myriad of challenges that was Naval Aviation before the Vietnam War. When I arrived in the fleet, D. D. Smith and his compadres were the squadron execs or COs who led us nuggets into the inferno of Vietnam… A huge tip of the hat to D.D. Smith. This book will appeal to every naval aviator or NFO of whatever era. Highly recommended.” But the book is much more. It is a cleverly written and refreshingly honest story of the author’s life and times as he fights his way from rural Minnesota to the blazing skies over North Vietnam. Commander Smith flew 138 combat missions and made more than 800 carrier arrested landings. As the Navy’s first Chief Test Pilot, his tests in the F-14 led to the first EVER flat spin in a Tomcat – and it nearly killed him. No swaggering bravado here; this is a fresh, insightful look at life, luck and guts – in Vietnam and beyond.
A Book of Remarkable Criminals
Henry Brodribb Irving - 1918
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
The Mirror of the Sea
Joseph Conrad - 1906
Discussing it, he called the book "a very intimate revelation. . . . I have attempted here to lay bare with the unreserve of a last hour's confession the terms of my relation with the sea, which beginning mysteriously, like any great passion the inscrutable Gods send to mortals, went on unreasoning and invincible, surviving the test of disillusion, defying the disenchantment that lurks in every day of a strenuous life; went on full of love's delight and love's anguish, facing them in open-eyed exultation without bitterness and without repining, from the first hour to the last."
In My Life: A Music Memoir
Alan Johnson - 2018
In fact music hasn't just accompanied his life, it's been an integral part of it.In the bestselling and award-winning tradition of This Boy, In My Life vividly transports us to a world that is no longer with us - a world of Dansettes and jukeboxes, of heartfelt love songs and heart-broken ballads, of smoky coffee shops and dingy dance halls. From Bob Dylan to David Bowie, from Lonnie Donnegan to Bruce Springsteen, all of Alan's favourites are here. As are, of course, his beloved Beatles, whom he has worshipped with undying admiration since 1963.But this isn't just a book about music. In My Life adds a fourth dimension to the story of Alan Johnson the man.
NR Narayana Murthy: A Biography
Ritu Singh - 2013
He is the founder of Infosys, a global software consulting company which he started with six other professionals and a seed capital of Rs. 10,000 in 1981. Not only did NRNM lead it to become a top ranking Information Technology company in the world, he also showed that it is possible to do business ethically and achieve success without bending any laws or making compromises.This book takes you through the fascinating journey of a seventeen year old who had to sacrifice his entry into the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology because his father did not have money to pay his fees, and who ultimately came up in life to head a global Information Technology company. NRN Murthy had no money, no family backing, but just a quiet gritty determination, and faith in what he believed was the future of business. The one constant factor throughout his life journey has been the adherence to the values he imbibed from his family, which he has personally and professionally lived by-hard work, fairness, decency, honesty, transparency, striving for excellence and belief in meritocracy. It is on the bedrock of these values that Infosys continues to stand firm and prosper despite the fact that NRN stepped down as CEO in 2002.Iconic leader, living legend, one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time-NRN is all this and more. A man who set new standards of business growth and corporate governance. Written by Ritu Singh, the author of President Pratibha Patil, this book will surely inspire all the readers.
The Rebecca Notebook: and Other Memories
Daphne du Maurier - 1981
It has been read all around the world, and in many different languages. The book has been adapted for the theater, film, television, and even opera. Now Daphne du Maurier reveals how it came to be written: its origins, its development, and the directions its plot might have taken. The original outline of the novel is here, as well as the original Epilogue. Daphne du Maurier also reveals how she first came upon Menabilly, the secret house hidden away in Cornish woodland, that was to become the romantic setting of Rebecca: a house which stood derelict, and which she lovingly restored.
Letters Home
Sylvia Plath - 1975
The letters are addressed mainly to her mother, with whom she had an extremely close and confiding relationship, but there are also some to her brother Warren and her benefactress Mrs Prouty. Plath's energy, enthusiasm and her passionate tackling of life burst onto these pages, providing us with a vivid and intimate portrait of a woman who has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of twentieth-century poets. In addition to her capacity for domestic and writerly happiness, however, these letters also hint at Plath's potential for deep despair, which reached its crisis when she holed up in a London flat for the terrible winter of 1963.
Damn! (a Book of Calumny)
H.L. Mencken - 2010
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It's Just the Way It Was: Inside the War on the New England Mob and other stories
Joe Broadmeadow - 2019
Make no mistake about it, it was a war targeting the insidious nature of the mob and their detrimental effect on Rhode Island and throughout New England. Indeed, the book reveals the extensive nature of Organized Crime throughout the United States. From the opening moments detailing a mob enforcer’s near death in a hail of gunfire to the potentially deadly confrontation between then Detective Brendan Doherty and a notorious mob associate, Gerard Ouimette, this book puts you right there in the middle. Most books on the mob tell a sanitized story of guys who relished their time as mobsters. As Nicholas Pileggi, author of “Wiseguys,” put it, “most mob books are the egomaniacal ravings of an illiterate hood masquerading as a benevolent godfather.” This is not that kind of book. This is the story of the good guys. It’s just the way it was.
Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw
Hanadi Falki - 2017
The first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the five-star rank of Field Marshal, Sam Bahadur continues to be the most admired of our Army Chiefs.
Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante
Stephen Cooper - 2000
In the first comprehensive biography of John Fante, one of the great lost souls of twentieth-century literature, Stephen Cooper untangles the enigma of an authentic American original. By turns savage and poetic, violent and full of love, such underground novels as The Road to Los Angeles; Ask the Dust; and Wait Until Spring, Bandini simultaneously reveal and disguise their author. Born in 1909 to poor Italian American parents in Colorado, Fante ventured west in 1930 to become a writer. Eventually settling in Los Angeles' faded downtown area of Bunker Hill, Fante starved between menial Depression-era jobs while writing story after story about the world he knew-full of poverty, hatred, and the madness of love. His first stories were published by H. L. Mencken in the American Mercury, but Fante also made a career in Hollywood working with the likes of Orson Welles and Darryl F. Zanuck. By the time of his death, though, he was nearly forgotten. Fortunately, readers such as Charles Bukowski began to recognize that Ask the Dust stands alongside the best work of Nathanael West and Sherwood Anderson. This exacting and vivid biography will help secure Fante's place in the American literary pantheon.
The Trampling of the Lilies
Rafael Sabatini - 1906
At a young age, Rafael was exposed to many languages. By the time he was seventeen, he was the master of five languages. He quickly added a sixth language - English - to his linguistic collection. After a brief stint in the business world, Sabatini went to work as a writer. He wrote short stories in the 1890s, and his first novel came out in 1902. Sabatini was a prolific writer; he produced a new book approximately every year. He consciously chose to write in his adopted language, because, he said, "all the best stories are written in English." In all, he produced thirty one novels, eight short story collections, six nonfiction books, numerous uncollected short stories, and a play. He is best known for his world-wide bestsellers: The Sea Hawk (1915), Scaramouche (1921), Captain Blood (1922) and Bellarion the Fortunate (1926). Other famous works by Sabatini are The Lion's Skin (1911), The Strolling Saint (1913) and The Snare (1917).
The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms with Observations on Their Habits
Charles Darwin - 1881
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