Book picks similar to
Understanding Tolstoy by Andrew D. Kaufman
non-fiction
authors
dip-in-and-out
literary-biography
Perspective
Ellyse Perry - 2019
Ellyse Perry is among the all-time cricket greats, and the only player, female or male, to represent Australia in both cricket and football World Cups, making her international debut in both sports at the age of 16.PERSPECTIVE is about sitting back from the world you're involved in and evaluating what it means to you. What are the important things that you know make experiences special? What are the things that motivate you? What are the things that give you joy? The things that challenge you but, ultimately, make you a better person? Most importantly, who are the people whose unwavering help and support you couldn't go without?From the lessons of a high-performance athlete's career to appreciating the small things in life, this inspiring illustrated book features stories and reflections from Ellyse's childhood and career on the themes of dreaming, belief, work, resilience, appreciation, opportunity, balance and perseverance - and their importance in everything we do. This empowering book is a unique view from one of Australia's most admired sports stars about what it is to be an elite athlete.
The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
C.S. Lewis - 1964
Lewis' The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval world view, as historical and cultural background to the literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It describes the image discarded by later ages as the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe. This, Lewis' last book, was hailed as the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind.
A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century
Jerome Charyn - 2015
[a] unique meditation/investigation ... Jerome Charyn the unpredictable, elusive, and enigmatic is a natural match for Emily Dickinson, the quintessence of these.” —Joyce Carol Oates, author of Wild Nights! and The Lost LandscapeWe think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in A Loaded Gun, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: the fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged poet who wrote: My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—…Though I than He— may longer liveHe longer must—than I—For I have but the power to kill,Without—the power to die—Through interviews with contemporary scholars, close readings of Dickinson’s correspondence and handwritten manuscripts, and a suggestive, newly discovered photograph that is purported to show Dickinson with her lover, Charyn’s literary sleuthing reveals the great poet in ways that have only been hinted at previously: as a woman who was deeply philosophical, intensely engaged with the world, attracted to members of both sexes, and able to write poetry that disturbs and delights us today.Jerome Charyn is the author of, most recently, Bitter Bronx: Thirteen Stories, I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War, and The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson: A Novel. He lives in New York.
Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of a Friendship
Colin Duriez - 2003
Lewis are literary superstars, known around the world as the creators of Middle-earth and Narnia. But few of their readers and fans know about the important and complex friendship between Tolkien and his fellow Oxford academic C.S. Lewis. Without the persistent encouragement of his friend, Tolkien would never have completed The Lord of the Rings. This great tale, along with the connected matter of The Silmarillion, would have remained merely a private hobby. Likewise, all of Lewis' fiction, after the two met at Oxford University in 1926, bears the mark of Tolkien's influence, whether in names he used or in the creation of convincing fantasy worlds. They quickly discovered their affinity--a love of language and the imagination, a wide reading in northern myth and fairy tale, a desire to write stories themselves in both poetry and prose. The quality of their literary friendship invites comparisons with those of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Cowper and John Newton, and G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc. Both Tolkien and Lewis were central figures in the informal Oxford literary circle, the Inklings. This book explores their lives, unfolding the extraordinary story of their complex friendship that lasted, with its ups and downs, until Lewis's death in 1963. Despite their differences--differences of temperament, spiritual emphasis, and view of their storytelling art--what united them was much stronger, a shared vision that continues to inspire their millions of readers throughout the world.
The Four: A Survey of the Gospels
Peter J. Leithart - 2010
The Four covers everything from running themes within each book to more technical issues like the "synoptic problem." Written for high school students and beyond, this book includes review and thought questions throughout each chapter, as well as a bibliography and scripture index.
The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Their Friends
Humphrey Carpenter - 1978
Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams met regularly to discuss philosophy and read aloud from their works. Carpenter's account brings to life those warm and enchanting evenings where their imaginations ran wild.
Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme
Tracy Daugherty - 2009
He worked as an editor, a designer, a curator, a news reporter, and a teacher. He was at the forefront of literary Greenwich Village which saw him develop lasting friendships with Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Wolfe, Grace Paley, and Norman Mailer. Married four times, he had a volatile private life. He died of cancer in 1989. The recipient of many prestigious literary awards, he is best remembered for the classic novels Snow White, The Dead Father, and many short stories, all of which remain in print today. This is the first biography of Donald Barthelme, and it is nothing short of a masterpiece.
YOU! God's Brand New Idea: Made to Be Amazing
Max Lucado - 2006
Each person is a brand new idea from God. The challenge is to live to the full potential of that idea! The life-directed content appeals to anyone wanting to live to their fullest potential, and the contemporary, retro design along with excerpts from Max Lucado's best-selling books combine to form an attractive and timeless gift.
Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time
Joseph Frank - 2002
Now Frank's monumental, 2500-page work has been skillfully abridged and condensed in this single, highly readable volume with a new preface by the author. Carefully preserving the original work's acclaimed narrative style and combination of biography, intellectual history, and literary criticism, Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time illuminates the writer's works--from his first novel Poor Folk to Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov--by setting them in their personal, historical, and above all ideological context. More than a biography in the usual sense, this is a cultural history of nineteenth-century Russia, providing both a rich picture of the world in which Dostoevsky lived and a major reinterpretation of his life and work.http://press.princeton.edu/titles/897...
The Second Common Reader
Virginia Woolf - 1932
She writes, too, about the life and art of women. Edited and with an Introduction by Andrew McNeillie; Index.
A Curious Guide to London
Simon Leyland - 2014
Brimming with tales of London's forgotten past, its strangest traditions and its most eccentric inhabitants, this book celebrates the unique, the unusual and the unknown. Perfect for tourists, day-trippers, commuters and the millions of people who call London home, this alternative guidebook will make you look at the city in a whole new light.
Blackpink: K-Pop's No.1 Girl Group
Adrian Besley - 2019
The sassiest, most stylish girls around – BLACKPINK!‘Blackpink in Your Area!’ The K-pop girl group are taking their catchphrase literally; they have just finished a sell-out stadium world tour. Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa, all beautiful and supremely talented women in their early 20s, are the hottest thing in pop right now – and they only have a dozen songs!If Blackpink were ever a secret, the secret was out by April 2019, when they headlined Coachella, and their fandom – known as Blinks – suddenly included Ariana Grande and Harry Styles. They are the first female K-pop group to have had four #1 singles on Billboard's World Digital chart, and their single ‘Ddu-Du Ddu-Du’ became the most viewed music video by a K-pop group on YouTube – take that, BTS!This book is the perfect unofficial guide to Blackpink. It relates their days as trainees, their debut, their hits and success in the US, examines the personalities of each of the members and details their choreography, fashion and style triumphs and reveals why they are ‘the only gang to run the game in high heels’.
The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein
Dorothy Hoobler - 2006
The assembled group included the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley; his lover (and future wife) Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; Mary's stepsister Claire Claremont; and Byron's physician, John William Polidori. The famous result was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a work that has retained its hold on the popular imagination for almost two centuries. Less well-known was the curious Polidori's contribution: the first vampire novel. And the evening begat a curse, too: Within a few years of Frankenstein's publication, nearly all of those involved met untimely deaths. Drawing upon letters, rarely tapped archives, and their own magisterial rereading of Frankenstein itself, Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler have crafted a rip-roaring tale of obsession and creation.
Good Old Days My Ass: 665 Funny History Facts & Terrifying Truths about Yesteryear
David A. Fryxell - 2012
From patents that should still be pending to hairdos that attract vermin, these horrors will leave you thankful you didn't have to struggle to live through them. Brace yourself as the truth hits you like an ice-cold Victorian-era shower with enough pressure to knock you unconscious. Get ready to shudder with laughter (or horror) at these funny moments in history that are not to be forgotten.
Tolkien On Fairy-stories
J.R.R. Tolkien - 2008
Tolkien's
On Fairy-stories
is his most-studied and most-quoted essay, an exemplary personal statement of his own views on the role of imagination in literature, and an intellectual tour de force vital for understanding Tolkien's achievement in writing
The Lord of the Rings
.Contained within is an introduction to Tolkien's original 1939 lecture and the history of the writing of On Fairy-stories, with previously unseen material. Here, at last, Flieger and Anderson reveal the extraordinary genesis of this seminal work and discuss how the conclusions that Tolkien reached during the composition of the essay would shape his writing for the rest of his life.