Showing titles in Authors

James Boswell forever changed the genre of biography when he painstakingly transformed a scholarly profusion of detail into a perceptive, lifelike portrait of Dr. Samuel Johnson. James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson reveals a man of outsized appetites and private vulnerabilities and is the source of much of what we know about one of the towering figures of English literature.

"Was, um Himmels willen, hat mich bloß ins gleißende Scheinwerferlicht getrieben, mitten unter die Showwölfe? Eigentlich bin ich doch mehr der gemütliche, tapsige Typ und überhaupt keine Rampensau. Warum wollte ich also bereits im zarten Kindesalter mit aller Macht "berühmt werden"? Und wieso hat das dann tatsächlich geklappt? Nun, vielleicht einfach deshalb, weil ich es meiner Oma als sechsjähriger Knirps genau so versprechen musste.

La viva voce dell'intellettuale più lucida e appassionata del nostro tempo torna a visitarci per una formidabile resa dei conti sul potere, il femminismo, la fede, la letteratura. Ma soprattutto sulle dieci vite che ha vissuto con incantata sfacciataggine, senza paura, ripercorse oralmente nell'unica autobiografia organica possibile per una che ha attraversato il mondo correndo scalza, bruciando luminosamente ogni tappa. Alla vigilia di una morte che l'ha trovata gioiosa come una martire capace di cantare mentre avanza verso i leoni, Michela Murgia ha trascorso una settimana a raccontarsi a Beppe Cottafavi.

When ABC News' Good Morning America asked its viewers to write essays describing true-life experiences, the network never imagined receiving more than 20,000 pages of inspiring stories. After a panel of best-selling authors and editors chose three finalists, America was given the opportunity to vote on which aspiring author's story would be published. This audiobook is the result of the most ambitious search ever conducted to publish an extraordinary life story.

In 1845, after years of literary and emotional struggle, friend and colleague Ralph Waldo Emerson invited Thoreau to build a cabin on his land near Walden Pond, the location of which became Thoreau's inspiration. Walden records the doctrines of transcendentalism that he lived, supported, and for which he became famous. He focuses on the concept of self-knowledge and encourages all people to find some way to learn more about themselves and the world around them. Thoreau is remembered as a major American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.

كتابنا اليوم عن صاحب المقامات الأشهر، بديع الزمان الهمذاني الذي ولد وعاش في القرن الرابع الهجري، وهو عصر بلغت فيه الكتابة العربية درجة لا مزيد عليها من علو الصنعة والتأنق والبراعة، وبزغت شمس كُتاب كبار كابن العميد والصاحب ابن عباد والصابي والمهلبي وقابوس والخوارزمي وغيرهم. وكان من أبرز كتاب ذلك العهد بديع الزمان، الذي يقول عنه الثعالبي:

Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life is the first work to explore the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and show how this passion came to be reflected in her work.

Pippa Malmgren is a market economist, high-tech entrepreneur, and former presidential advisor. She has launched a video series called Fifty Shades of Economics which explores economics in an accessible way, and is the author of the new book Signals; The Breakdown of the Social Contract and the Rise of Geopolitics, which she discusses in this exclusive Audible Sessions interview.

John Keats died 200 years ago, in February 1821. F. Scott Fitzgerald defined a decade that began 100 years ago, the Jazz Age. In this biography, prizewinning author Jonathan Bate recreates these two shining, tragic lives in parallel. Not only was Fitzgerald profoundly influenced by Keats, titling Tender Is the Night and other works from the poet’s lines, but the two lived with echoing fates: both died young, loved to drink, were plagued by tuberculosis, were haunted by their first love and wrote into a new decade of release, experimentation and decadence.

Mark Dawson is the USA Today best-selling author behind the John Milton, Beatrix Rose and Soho Noir thrillers. He's just released the tenth novel in the John Milton series, Blackout, which sees the disgruntled former assassin thrown into a gruesome Filipino prison with revenge on his mind. Known as both an entertaining writer and savvy entrepreneur, Mark Dawson is a self-published success story, after he first published through Amazon in 2013.

Joy Harjo, the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic, and wise follow-up to Crazy Brave, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry with the power to unearth the truth and demand justice.

Celebrity chef and author Prue Leith joins Robin Morgan in the Audible Studios to discuss her latest book. Born in South Africa, Prue Leith started her professional life running a catering business before opening a Michelin-starred restaurant and a cookery school. She then went on to become a household name as a journalist and television broadcaster. Over the last few years, she has enjoyed life as an author, having written cookery books, her memoirs, and works of fiction.

Gay icon, great poet, leather daddy, eccentric professor, English, American, biker, non-driver, drug addict, hedonist, intellectual, enigmatic, friendly, Everyman, one-of-a-kind, brother, roommate, HIV-negative, paradigmatic AIDS writer, Nazi belt wearer, Jeff Dahmer scholar, Guggenheim Genius, secret philanthropist, Formalist, Existentialist, prolific letter writer, some-sort-of-an-angel...Thom Gunn was all of these and more... But hovering above these figures lay the memory of his mother.

Alle wollen alt werden, niemand will alt sein. Der Widerspruch ist absurd, das Leiden daran real. Wie lernen wir, so gut wie möglich damit zurechtzukommen? Geht das, alt werden und ein erfülltes Leben führen? Mit ihren über 80 Jahren hat sich Elke Heidenreich mit dem Altwerden beschäftigt. Herausgekommen ist dabei ein Buch, wie nur sie es schreiben kann. Persönlich, ehrlich, doch nie gnadenlos, mit einem Wort: lebensklug. Sie denkt über ihr eigenes Leben nach, und das heißt vor allem, über ihre Beziehungen zu anderen Menschen. Im Alter trägt man die Konsequenzen für alles, was man getan hat.

Two Lives tells the remarkable story of Vikram Seth's great uncle and aunt. His great uncle, Shanti, left India for medical school in Berlin in the 1930s and lodged with a German Jewish family. In the household was a daughter, Henny, who urged her mother "not to take the blackie". But a friendship developed and each managed to leave Germany and found their way to Britain as the Nazis rose to power.

Throughout Maya Angelou’s life, from her childhood in Stamps, Arkansas, to her world travels as a bestselling writer, good food has played a central role. Preparing and enjoying homemade meals provides a sense of purpose and calm, accomplishment and connection. Now in Hallelujah! The Welcome Table, Angelou shares memories pithy and poignant—and the recipes that helped to make them both indelible and irreplaceable.

In A Girl's Story, Annie Ernaux revisits a night 50 years earlier when she found herself submerged and controlled by another person's desire and willpower. It was the summer of 1958, the year she turned 18, and the man she had given herself to had moved on. She'd submitted her will to his and then found that she was a slave without a master.

Aside from being one of the greatest political essayists in the English language and author of two of the most famous books in 20th century literature, George Orwell was a man of many fascinating contradictions, someone who liked to go against the grain because he believed that was where the truth usually lay. George Orwell: English Rebel takes us on a journey through the many twists and turns of Orwell's life and thought.

Arthur Miller's plays have held the world's stages for almost half a century. Among them are Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and All My Sons, which have been read and performed countless times across the world. His memoir, Timebends, shows that the life of the man is as compelling as his plays. With passion, wit and candour, Miller recalls his childhood in Harlem and Brooklyn in the 1920s and the Depression; his successes and failures in the theatre and in Hollywood; the formation of his political beliefs....

Joining us in the Audible Studios to talk about his debut novel, One Enchanted Evening, is ballroom dancer, singer and television presenter Anton Du Beke. Best known as a professional dancer on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing since the show’s conception in 2004, Du Beke has also been a familiar face on British shows such as Hole in the Wall and has now published his debut novel, One Enchanted Evening. Anton Du Beke talks to us about how he created the book, how Strictly has evolved over the years and if everyone really can dance.