Showing titles in Art & Literature

Can we ever really know the truth about our parents? 'For Rory, to read and think about - in the hope it will help him to understand how it really was.' Rory Cellan-Jones knew he was the child of a love affair between two BBC employees. But until his mother died and he found a file labelled 'For Rory' he knew little of its beginning or ending. Or why his peculiarly isolated childhood had so tested the bond between him and Sylvia as she single-parented two sons in a one-bedroom flat, while working full time, through the 1950s and 60s.

In The World of J.R.R. Tolkien, you will join Dr. Dimitra Fimi to delve into Tolkien’s complex and multilayered mythology, examining all these ingredients and more. In these 10 lectures, you will explore and appreciate Middle-earth as medieval, mythological, and modern, a literary creation that was shaped by forces old and new. And you may be surprised to discover just how much of Tolkien’s legendarium was constructed posthumously, with his son Christopher compiling and publishing many of Tolkien’s later works after his death.

'There are certain women,' Truman Capote wrote, 'who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich.' These women captivated and enchanted Capote - he befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. From Barbara 'Babe' Paley to Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister) they were the toast of mid-century New York, each beautiful and distinguished in her own way. For years, Capote had been trying to write what he believed would be his magnum opus, Answered Prayers.

Like millions of others, Louis’ plans were mothballed by the onset of COVID. Unable to escape to the porn sets, prisons and maximum-security psychiatric units that are his usual journalistic beat, he began reporting on a location even more full of pitfalls and hostile objects of inquiry: his own home during a pandemic. Theroux the Keyhole is an honest, hilarious and ultimately heartwarming diary of the weirdness of family life in COVID World.

Twenty years after leaving London, Nina Stibbe is back in town with her dog, Peggy. Together they take up lodging in the house of writer Deborah (Debby) Moggach in Camden for 'a year-long sabbatical'. It’s a break from married life back in Cornwall, or even perhaps a fresh start altogether. Nina is not quite sure yet. Debby does not have many demands – only to water the garden, watch for toads, and defrost the odd pie – so Nina is free to explore the city she once called home.

Meet Agatha Christie, the best-selling novelist in human history. Her writing career spanned six decades, during which time she wrote 66 crime novels, 6 non-crime novels (including romances), and over 150 short stories. Not only was she a phenomenally successful novelist, but she is also the most successful female playwright of all time - her play “The Mousetrap” is the longest-running show in history. As you learn about Christie’s experiences and her storied career, you will better understand how the circumstances of her life shaped her work and vice versa.

Society, films, song lyrics and our parents are adamant that a happy ending has to be couple-shaped. Catherine Gray took a whole year off dating to find single satisfaction. She lifted the lid on the reasons behind the global single revolution, explored the bizarre ways cultures single-shame, detached from 'all the good ones are gone!' panic and debunked the myth that married people are much happier.

Douglas Adams is one of the most celebrated science fiction and comedy writers of his generation. He is best known for the best-selling radio, book, TV, and film series The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, along with Dirk Gently's Detective Agency, episodes of Doctor Who, and his collaborations with members of Monty Python.

The art world is a much dirtier, nastier business than you might expect. Tony Tetro, one of the most renowned art forgers in history, will make you question every masterpiece you’ve ever seen in a museum, gallery, or private collection. Tetro’s “Rembrandts,” “Caravaggios,” “Miros,” and hundreds of other works now hang on walls around the globe.

The Stephen King Companion is an authoritative look at horror author King's personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King expert George Beahm, who has published extensively about Maine's main author, is your seasoned guide to the imaginative world of Stephen King, covering his varied and prodigious output: juvenalia, short fiction, limited edition books, best-selling novels, and film adaptations.

Born to the ranks of the lower English gentry in 1775, Jane Austen led what some have mistakenly described as an ordinary and unremarkable life - a life that ended all too soon at the age of 41. But from this life, Austen drew inspiration for six novels that all rank as literary masterpieces, including the widely beloved Pride and Prejudice. So, what do we really know about Austen’s life and influences?

Reading was so important to Marcel Proust that it sometimes seems he was unable to create a personage without a book in hand. Everybody in his work reads: servants and masters, children and parents, artists and physicians. In this wonderfully entertaining audiobook, scholar and biographer Anka Muhlstein, the author of Balzac’s Omelette, draws out these themes in Proust's work and life, thus providing exciting highlights of some of the finest work in French literature.

Roald Dahl is one of the greatest storytellers of all time. He pushed children's literature into uncharted territory and almost twenty years after his death his popularity continues to grow - worldwide sales of his books have now topped 100 million. The man behind the stories, however, remains an enigma. Dahl was a single-minded adventurer, an eternal child, and his public persona was often controversial.

While tech titans bragged they would 'move fast and break things', Kara Swisher was moving faster and breaking news. Covering the explosion of the digital sector in the early 1990s, she developed a long track record of digging up and reporting the truth of this new world order. Burn Book is part memoir, part history and, most of all, a necessary recounting of tech's most powerful players. This is the inside story we've all been waiting for of modern Silicon Valley and the biggest boom in wealth creation in the history of the world.

In the famous tones of Sir John himself this magnificent autobiography in verse poignantly describes the pains and pleasures of growing up. "Summoned by Bells can hardly help being a landmark....one seems to be living his childhood and boyhood with him." -Stephen Spender

Through extensive research, expert sourcing and interviews with insiders, Britain’s most celebrated investigative biographer, Tom Bower, has unearthed a succession of revelations that give surprising insight into the reality of ‘Brand Beckham’. Exploring the couple’s relationship, and the truth about their football and fashion careers, their finances and their new life in Miami, The House of Beckham unravels the extraordinary reality of the business-savvy cultural icons to tell an engrossing, often astonishing story of money, sex and power.

"If there is any life that is happier than the life we led on our timber ranch, it must be the sort of life which I have not read of in books or experienced in person," wrote Mark Twain, and now you can share in that experience. The beloved American humorist spent seven years on a "pleasure trip" through the untamed wilderness of Nevada. Twain intended to spend three months touring silver mines, but the lure of rough terrain and comfortable clothes proved irresistible - as will this vibrant travelogue.

This is perhaps one of the best-loved of all journals. William Wordsworth's sister, Dorothy, began it in May 1800 and resolved to keep it for a short time. She continued it for nearly three years. In it, she brought the Dove Cottage years to vivid and intimate life. She noted the walks and weather, the friends, country neighbours, and travellers on the roads. She set down accounts of the garden, of Wordsworth's marriage, their concern for Coleridge, and the composition of Wordsworth's poetry.

Joining us at Audible Studios is prominent stage and television actor David Tennant, who has narrated The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells for Audible Studios. The War of the Worlds depicts the arrival of an alien vessel on Horsell Common, in Woking. The initial genial interest in the Martians quickly turns to terror as they emerge with deadly heat rays and power beyond our control and comprehension. Their ruthless disregard for human life leaves humanity under threat of extinction. As the world crumbles, a lone man sets out across the wasteland to find his wife.

We all make mistakes, but starting the Third World War would have been a rather large one. To this day, I still maintain it was not entirely my fault. But I'm getting ahead of myself. During the course of my life, I've barely escaped the wrath of an arms dealer in Hamburg, been strafed by a MiG during the Nigerian civil war, and landed during a bloody coup in Guinea-Bissau.