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"The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau" is a one-of-a-kind autobiography. Up until its publication in 1782, only two autobiographies had ever been written, and both were written by devout religious saints. Highly scandalous yet witty in nature, calling Rousseau's work an "autobiography" is a loose categorization of the text, as many of the stories and tales have been proven false, yet Rousseau told the truth about the spirit of his life through...
2) Oscar Wilde
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Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, but apparently it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost and his autobiography was never written, but his letters reveal him at his spontaneous, sparkling best. Wilde the writer is known to us from his plays and prose fiction, yet it was in his conversation that his genius reached its summit. His talk is lost, his autobiography was never written,...
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Samuel Johnson is famously known for single-handedly creating the first recognized dictionary of the English language, just one of many his many renowned accomplishments. The biography of this remarkable writer, dramatist, poet, and moralist was penned by his friend, James Boswell, in 1791. An immediate success upon its publication, this work has come to be considered the greatest biography produced in the English language, and has earned Boswell...
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"The beloved New York Times bestselling author reflects on home, family, friendships and writing in this deeply personal collection of essays"--Provided by publisher.
""Any story that starts will also end." As a writer, Ann Patchett knows what the outcome of her fiction will be. Life, however, often takes turns we do not see coming. Patchett ponders this truth in these wise essays that afford a fresh and intimate look into her mind and heart. At...
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A classic portrait of immigrant life in the early decades of the twentieth century, A Walker in the City is a tour of tenements, subways, and synagogues-but also a universal story of the desires and fears we experience as we try to leave our small, familiar neighborhoods for something new. With vivid imagery and sensual detail-the smell of half-sour pickles, the dry rattle of newspapers, the women in their shapeless flowered housedresses-Alfred...
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Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels of social and psychological insight. She was also well acquainted with many of her era's other literary and public figures, including Theodore Roosevelt....
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Jerzy Kosinski is one of the most important and original writers of our times. Passing By serves as his legacy, a collection of writings that answers many questions about his work and offers a revealing and provocative self-portrait by an author whose life was shrouded in enigma. The man who emerges here has a passion for sport, a quirky sense of fun, an idiosyncratic range of acquaintances stretching from Pope John Paul II to Warren Beatty, and an...
9) Who I am
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The English musician and member of the rock band The Who shares stories from his career in this New York Times–bestselling memoir.
One of rock music's most intelligent and literary performers, Pete Townshend—guitarist, songwriter, editor—tells his closest-held stories about the origins of the preeminent twentieth-century band The Who, his own career as an artist and performer, and his restless life in and out of the public...
One of rock music's most intelligent and literary performers, Pete Townshend—guitarist, songwriter, editor—tells his closest-held stories about the origins of the preeminent twentieth-century band The Who, his own career as an artist and performer, and his restless life in and out of the public...
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National Book Award Finalist: A “beautifully written, deeply felt” memoir about growing up in the American West (Los Angeles Times).
Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged wilderness of western Montana among the sheepherders and denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches. What he deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of land and how it shapes us, but also of the ties to our...
Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged wilderness of western Montana among the sheepherders and denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches. What he deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of land and how it shapes us, but also of the ties to our...
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Español
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Una colección de historias cortas llenas de valores morales y valiosas lecciones de vida. Aunque se centra en las tradiciones y estilos de vida de la gente de una pequeña ciudad siciliana, este libro cubre una variedad de sensaciones basadas en creencias religiosas, mitos, leyendas tradicionales, devoción, fuerza y valor, todas las características que a menudo damos por sentadas o que son algo descuidado en las ciudades más modernas. Se trata...
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This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides recounts their tour of Scotland in 1773. While Johnson focuses on Scotland itself, Boswell is even keener on presenting his friend to the notables of his homeland. Together they form a complete account of a fascinating journey, two intriguing personalities,...
13) Bacon
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This biography of philosopher, scientist, and writer Sir Francis Bacon (1561—1626), part of the “English Men of Letters” series, is an invaluable resource for students of history. Bacon, a highly influential figure in his era, is considered the father of scientific empiricism, and is also believed by some to have written some of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.
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Almost one hundred years after the death of Jane Austen, William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh published Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters. A Family Record (1913). The book lovingly details Jane's birth, childhood, adolescence, and maturity, the everyday minutiae of her life, the circumstances in which she wrote her juvenilia and her six novels, and her early death. Using Jane Austen's own letters, additional letters sent between a...
15) The Gambler
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First published in Russian in 1866, "The Gambler", by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is a gripping narrative of the dangers of gambling. As was common with Dostoyevsky's other writings, he draws upon his own life in a semi-autobiographical way. Dostoyevksy himself suffered from a compulsion to gambling and had to complete "The Gambler" under a strict deadline to pay off his own debts. These first-hand experiences bring a depth of realism to the novel and to...
16) Tono-Bungay
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A chemist's life is transformed by the wonders of selling snake oil in this satire of early–twentieth century capitalism by the author of The Time Machine.
As a young assistant chemist, George Ponderevo rode his uncle's coattails to a great fortune. His uncle Edward's meteoric rise was all thanks to a miraculous patent medicine, Tono-Bungay-which George knew to be nothing more than sugar water. Though it provided none of its promised curative...
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"Here, in these four crisp essays on writing and reading by the internationally bestselling author of My Brilliant Friend and The Lying Life of Adults, Ferrante offers a rare look at the origins of her literary powers. She writes about her influences, her struggles, and her formation as both a reader and a writer; she describes the perils of "bad language" and suggests ways in which it has long excluded women's truth; she proposes a choral fusion...
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Russian novelist and philospher Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is best known for his monumental novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but his reputation as a master of short fiction is richly evident in this unparalleled anthology. Here, in the largest one-volume collection available, are 36 stories of war, intrigue, treachery, murder, moral turmoil, spiritual anguish, and occasional redemption. They include early stories like the famed "Sevastopol" tales...
19) De Profundis
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Oscar Wilde's autobiographical work on suffering, self-realization, and the artistic process De Profundis (Latin for "from the depths") is Oscar Wilde's reconciliation from a life full of pleasure. In 1891 the author began an intimate relationship with the young aristocrat Lord Alfred Douglas, known to his friends as Bosie. This affair led to speculations about Wilde's sexuality just as his career was reaching its apex. Ultimately, Bosie's father,...
20) Simple passion
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WINNER OF THE 2022 NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
A New York Times Notable Book
In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion.
Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her 2 year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a...
A New York Times Notable Book
In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion.
Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her 2 year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a...