Pieced together, they form a revealing mosaic of the creative mind. It's like viewing an exhibit from the therapist's couch as each entry delves into the mental anguish that afflicts the artist and affects their art.The scope of the artists covered is as varied as their afflictions. Inside, you will find not just the creators of the darkest of dark literature, music, and art. While it does reveal what everyday problem kept Poe's pen to paper and the childhood catastrophe that kept Picasso on edge, it also uncovers surprising secrets of more unexpectedly tormented artists. From Charles Schultz's unrequited love to J.K. Rowling's fear of death, it's amazing the deep-seeded troubles that lie just beneath the surface of our favorite art.As much an appreciation of artistic genius as an accessible study of the creative psyche, Tortured Artists illustrates the fact that inner turmoil fuels the finest work.

    In the empty days after her son's death, left alone in her grief by her husband, Isabelle Berendon falls in love with the unlikeliest person in the world: her sister-in-law.Self-published by one of President Ronald Reagan's daughters, who does not identify as a lesbian.

    It is a voice thick with the humidity and whirring cicadas of Kentucky, but the poems are dangerous, smelling of the crisp cucumber scent of a copperhead about to strike. Epistolary in nature, and with a novel's arc, Sister is a story that begins with a teen giving birth to a baby girl--the narrator--during a tornado, and in some ways, that tornado never ends. In the hands of a lesser poet, this debut collection would be a standard-issue confession, a melodramatic exercise in anger and self-pity. But melodrama requires simple villains and victims, and there is neither in this richly complex portrait. Ultimately, Sister is more about the narrator's transgressions and failures, more about her relationships to her sister and their mother than about that which divided them. With equal parts sass and sorrow, these poems etch out survival won not with tender-hearted reflections but by smoking cigarettes through fly-specked screens, by using cans of aerosol hair spray as a makeshift flamethrowers, and, most cruelly, by leaving home and trying to forget her sister entirely. From there, each poem is a letter of explanation and apology to that younger sister she never knew.Sister recounts a return to a place that Brown never truly left. It is a book of forgiveness, of seeking what is beyond mere survival, of finding your way out of a place of poverty and abuse only to realize that you must go back again, all the way back to where everything began--that warm, dark nest of mother.

    This series of photography books by designer Oldham highlights remarkable people, places, and spaces and feature essays by noted critics and cultural figures.

    In Dear Dead Person, a cross-section of archetypes—teen sex-addicts, would-be rock stars, religious fanatics, serial murderers, and families who make the Menendezes look like Ozzie and Harriet—go about their twisted business in a prose that's both minimal and anarchic, as American as Raymond Carver, but riven by poetic ruptures that feel like transmissions from the screwed-up part of our collective psyche.

    Recently, however, his own life has become overwhelmed by wrong choices. When a love affair is mysteriously ended by a Post-it note and followed up by a random street assault, Andy locks himself in his Hell's Kitchen apartment. In solitude, he thinks, he might be able to get a grip on his life. But when he is forced to reemerge six months after the attacks of September 11, the city awaiting him is more bewildering than ever and all the people in his world seem to be part of a vast conspiracy.Equal parts noir, French farce, and homage to New York, Suspension is a surprisingly heartfelt novel about learning to live in a world where nearly everything is decided behind our backs.

    It also relates the extraordinary history of the museum's collection, a collection that has enabled the Van Gogh Museum to evolve into a world-renowned centre of knowledge about Van Gogh's work and the art of his time.

    Join Sister Wendy on a journey through Lent, and discover the timeless wisdom to be found in some of the world's greatest paintings.Illustrated in full colour with over forty famous and lesser-known masterpieces of Western art, this beautiful book will lead you into a deeply prayerful response to all that these paintings convey to the discerning eye.'For those who want to appreciate the spirituality behind some of the world's greatest works of art, this book will be hugely inspiring - not only during Lent but at any time of the year.'Dr Janina Ramirez, art historian and broadcaster

    Blake's an ambitious skeptic who thinks true love doesn't exist. Will these two very different women find a spark between them, or will it be a passing glance?Leia is creative and thoughtful, and when a chance encounter with Blake, a stranger, stirs something deep inside her, she believes it is the universe speaking to her soul.Blake, despite her success, feels something is missing from her life but disguises her discontentment with a tough façade, which keeps her from opening her heart.Will Blake and Leia be each other's missing piece, or will it turn out to just be a dream?Join Blake and Leia as they are swept into a journey of self-analysis and soul-searching that could change their perception of love forever.This is lesbian author Abigail Taylor's debut novel and part of the Looking for Love lesfic series.

    But after he came along...She changed. There's not one aspect of her life that he didn't steal from her. Now she thrives off control. Needs it, even. Why shouldn't she after all she's been through? Right when she's spiraling beyond the point of no return, a new Lieutenant gets hired to lead up the SVU unit across the hall. Will this woman be the one thing that can save Roma Raine from herself? Or will Roma be the thing that breaks her instead? Mature readers only. Book 1 of 3. An angsty HEA.

    Now cohosts Dr. Pinsky and Adam Carolla have written a complete guide for their vast audience, giving a generation that's never been afraid to ask everything they need to know.

    Harley attributes her success to her unwavering resolve to maintain professional boundaries with her clients. Of course, her cool demeanor and charming smile don’t hurt. But when Harley meets her newest client, she not only loses her cool, she wavers.Tessa Pearson is one of Boston’s most acclaimed wedding photographers. And although she has a talent for capturing love on film, she has no desire to be in a relationship. She’s happily committed to her bachelorette lifestyle. Tessa’s best friend, however, has other plans for her.The last thing Tessa wants is to work with a dating coach. Harley is Tessa’s worst nightmare: prying, overly confident, and guarded. Yet somehow she’s become the star of Tessa’s fantasies.The last thing Harley wants is to waste her efforts on someone who doesn’t want to date. Tessa is jaded, stubborn, and uncooperative. So why can’t Harley stop thinking about her?All Harley has to do is her job. All Tessa has to do is play along. But the more time they spend together, the more blurry the lines between work and play become.

    Consent is a must. Safety is paramount. No judgment of anyone or whatever the desire. Other than that?Prepare to give your soul to the Devil, because you’re in her playground now.Bree sees Hellfire as her permanent escape. A place where she can forget her old relationships and seek out new, temporary pleasures. Yet when she sees the woman of her dreams on the night of a big key party, Bree knows she must have her – even if for only tonight.Yet Amelia isn’t a woman who gives her heart as easily as she gives her body. Fresh from a heartbreaking divorce, she’s in Hellfire to get back in the dating game, convinced that a night of senseless fun with a stranger will erase her sadness.When Bree ends up in her dream girl’s room, Amelia is more than surprised. They both like women, but there is something about this encounter that is new to them both. For Amelia, it’s her first taste of a real romance with another woman. For Bree, it’s the first inkling that true love might be real after all.It helps that Bree possesses the perfect key for Amelia’s closely-guarded handcuffs…

    Sirius Black is an immature twenty-something, living with a couple of other immature twenty-somethings. Both are obsessed with the same obscure book, which becomes their coping mechanism for navigating their instant and torrid love affair. Life, they discover, is precarious at best, but from each other, they learn how to make it something that’s worth living.

    Like its highly successful companion volumes, Art in Theory, 1815–1900 and Art in Theory, 1900–1990, its primary aim is to provide students and teachers with the documentary material for informed and up-to-date study. Its 240 texts, clear principles of organization and considerable editorial content offer a vivid and indispensable introduction to the art of the early modern period.Harrison, Wood, and Gaiger have collected writing by artists, critics, philosophers, literary figures, and administrators of the arts, some reprinted in their entirety, others excerpted from longer works. A wealth of material from French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Latin sources is also provided, including many new translations.Among the major themes treated are early arguments over the relative merits of ancient and modern art, debates between the advocates of form and color, the beginnings of modern art criticism in reviews of the Salon, art and politics during the French Revolution, the rise of landscape painting, and the artistic theories of Romanticism and Neo-classicism.Each section is prefaced by an essay that situates the ideas of the period in their historical context, while relating theoretical concerns and debates to developments in the practice of art. Each individual text is also accompanied by a short introduction. An extensive bibliography and full index are provided.