Showing results by publisher "Simon & Schuster Audio" in Literary History & Criticism

One of the greatest horror stories ever written, Frankenstein comes to spellbinding life once again in this tour-de-force performance by the acclaimed director and star of Henry V, Dead Again, and Much Ado About Nothing. The definitive recording of one of the most haunting tales of all time, Kenneth Branagh's performance of Frankenstein is a true audio classic.

Uncover the fascinating and complex women from mythology and folklore with this collection of stories profiling powerful goddesses, mighty queens, and legendary creatures. Get inspired with 50 fascinating stories of powerful female figures from mythologies around the world. From heroines and deities to leaders and mythical creatures, this collection explores figures of myth who can inspire modern listeners with their ability to shape our culture with the stories of their power, wisdom, compassion, and cunning.

Welcome to The Book of Japanese Folklore: a fascinating journey through Japan’s folklore through profiles of the legendary creatures and beings who continue to live on in pop culture today. From the sly kitsune to the orgrish oni and mischievous shape-shifting tanuki, learn all about the origins of these fantastical and mythical creatures. With information on their cultural significance, and how it’s been spun into today’s popular culture, this tome teaches you about the stories and histories of the beings that inspired characters in your favorite movies, animes, manga, and games.

The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.

Here is Hemingway: the adventurer, the reporter, the man! More intimately than all his fiction, Hemingway the reporter reveals Hemingway the man, driving an ambulance through a bullet-barrage or leading guerrilla forces into Paris, always in the thick of the action. Here are his most sensational dispatches, the behind-the-scenes stories that became For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises.

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most beloved works. It is his classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, filled with irreverent portraits of other expatriate luminaries such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein; tender memories of his first wife, Hadley; and insightful recollections of his own early experiments with his craft.

Greek mythology continues to appear in popular movies and books today, but have you ever wondered about where these characters started out? Discover the origins of your favorite characters from Greek mythology with this collection of profiles to tell you who’s who in classical lore! In Greek Mythology, you will discover the backstories of the heroes, villains, gods, and goddesses that enjoy popularity in today’s shows and films.

The glamorous extravagances and devastating lows of her time in Hollywood are revealed as never before in this fresh new biography of Dorothy Parker—from leaving New York City to work on numerous classic screenplays such as the 1937 A Star Is Born to the devastation of alcoholism, a miscarriage, and her husband’s suicide. Parker’s involvement with anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, which led to her ultimate blacklisting, and her early work in the civil rights movement that inspired her to leave her entire estate to the NAACP are also explored as never before.

An assemblage of reflections on the nature of writing and the writer from one the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Throughout Hemingway’s career as a writer, he maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing - that it takes off “whatever butterflies have on their wings and the arrangement of hawk’s feathers if you show it or talk about it”.

Since his creation, Batman has been many things: a two-fisted detective; a planet-hopping gadabout; a campy pop-art sensation; a pointy-eared master spy; and a grim and gritty ninja of the urban night. For more than three-quarters of a century, he has cycled from a figure of darkness to one of lightness and back again; he's a bat-shaped Rorschach inkblot who takes on the various meanings our changing culture projects onto him.

Acclaimed journalist and critic Jason McBride offers a full-scale authorized biography of the pioneering experimental novelist Kathy Acker, one of the most original and controversial figures in 20th-century American literature. Eat Your Mind draws on exclusive interviews with hundreds of Acker’s intimates as well as her private journals, correspondence, and early drafts of her work and offers a thrilling account and a long-overdue reassessment of a misunderstood genius and revolutionary artist.

In this gripping new work, Meghan examines our country’s most intractable problems with clear-eyed honesty instead of exaggerated outrage. With passion, humor, and most importantly, nuance, she tries to make sense of the current landscape - from Donald Trump’s presidency to the #MeToo movement and beyond. In the process, she wades into the waters of identity politics and intersectionality, thinks deeply about the gender wage gap, and tests a theory about the divide between Gen Xers and millennials.

The Book of Virtues is one of the most popular moral primers ever written, an inspiring anthology that helps children understand and develop character—and helps parents teach it to them. Responsibility. Courage. Compassion. Loyalty. Honesty. Friendship. Persistence. Hard work. Self-discipline. Faith. These remain the essentials of good character. The Book of Virtues contains hundreds of exemplary stories offering children examples of good and bad, right and wrong. The updated edition of The Book of Virtues will continue a legacy of raising moral children far into a new century.

Best known for her internationally, multi-million-copy bestselling novel Flowers in the Attic, Cleo Virginia Andrews lived a fascinating life. Born to modest means, she came of age in the American South during the Great Depression and faced a series of increasingly challenging health issues. Yet, once she rose to international literary fame, she prided herself on her intense privacy.

Introduced at a workshop in Boston University led by the acclaimed and famous poet Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton formed a friendship that would soon evolve into a fierce rivalry, colored by jealousy and respect in equal terms.

Smart, hilarious, and incisive, the Liberal Rednecks confront outdated traditions and intolerant attitudes, tackling everything people think they know about the South - the good, the bad, the glorious, and the shameful - in a laugh-out-loud funny and lively manifesto for the rise of a New South. Home to some of the best music, athletes, soldiers, whiskey, waffles, and weather the country has to offer, the South has also been bathing in backward bathroom bills and other bigoted legislation.

Mark Twain founded the American voice. His works are a living national treasury: taught, quoted, and reprinted more than those of any writer except Shakespeare. His awestruck contemporaries saw him as the representative figure of his times, and his influence has deeply flavored the 20th and 21st centuries.

Learn more about your favorite Norse gods, goddesses, and heroes with this collection of profiles that share the real stories behind the characters. With characters from Norse myths coming to life on the big and small screens, and in new and exciting fiction, this guide can give you all the details you need to understand your favorite heroes, villains, and powerful deities. With entries that outline each character’s names, roles, related symbols, and foundational myths, you can get to know the roots of these personas, and better understand the new stories we tell about them today.

It is an irony of our age that a man who rarely reads has unleashed an onslaught of books about his tenure and his time. Dissections of the white working class. Manifestos of political resistance. Works on identity, gender, and migration. Memoirs on race and protest. Revelations of White House mayhem. Warnings over the future of conservatism, progressivism, and of American democracy itself.

Each autumn, in conjunction with the conferring of The National Book Awards in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature, the Board of Directors of the Foundation presents a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. The recipient is a person who has enriched our literary heritage over a life of service, or a corpus of work. The 2003 recipient of this distinguished award was presented to one of the great voices of American literature, Stephen King.