Arts & Literature Books - Page 8

Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism

Jenny McCarthy

Amazon Price: $16.29 List Price: $23.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dutton Adult Amazon Marketplace: 120 new & used starting at $2.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Entertainers
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 283 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

If someone you love is diagnosed with autism, LOUDER THAN WORDS is the first book you should read.

One morning, Jenny McCarthy was having a cup of coffee when she sensed something was wrong. She ran into her two-year-old son Evan’s room and found him seizing. In that moment, Jenny went from being the mother of an average toddler to being in the midst of a medical odyssey. Doctor after doctor misdiagnosed Evan until—after many harrowing, life-threatening episodes later—one amazing doctor discovered that Evan is autistic.

Though Evan finally had a diagnosis, Jenny didn’t know what to do next and she soon found herself alone without any resources except for her determination to help her son. Jenny eventually realized that she’d have to become a detective. She spoke with many doctors, parents, governmental agencies, private foundations, and essentially earned a Phd in “Google Research.” At last, she discovered an intense combination of behavioral therapy, diet, and supplements that became the key to saving Evan from autism. And, now in this book, she creates a roadmap for parents who are concerned about their own child.

Jenny does more than just reveal the winning formula that worked for Evan. Her story shares the frustrations and joys of raising an autistic child and shows how with love and determination a parent can shape their child’s life and happiness.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Vintage Amazon Marketplace: 282 new & used starting at $0.88

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Journalists

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 505 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Disappointing 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have read most of Didion's books and so bought this at a used bookstore without knowing what it was about. Like many of the reviewers before me, the first few chapters describing her husband's death kept me reading, but by the middle of the book I found it a chore to pick up. The content became very repetitive and, as I moved through the pages, utterly hopeless in its tone. Having experienced grief myself and knowing the grasping for some truth that would tell me 'hold on, you will get through this,' I found no such message here and would not recommend this book to anyone grieving the loss of a loved one.

The other issue Didion dealt with at the same time as John's death was their daughter's mysterious illness. Unfortunately this issue gets lost in Didion's grief and there is no real outcome provided in the book. We know that Quintana got out of the hospital but nothing beyond that. The topic is simply dropped with no real emotion expressed by the author.

I feel that for a piece to be worthy of public consumption there ought to be something of value that readers can walk away with. Perhaps as a study of grief, Didion's book could rightfully find its way onto a handful of bookshelves, but as a general reader it is sorely lacking the author's trademark writing charm and expertise. In fact, it is poorly written. There is nothing magical here, except that someone gave the book a wonderful title that belies the meaning the author intended, that she suffered through a year of denial and as of the last page had not recovered from it. Now, almost 4 years after her husband's death, I hope Ms. Didion has found some of the peace she was obviously lacking when she wrote this book.

Editorial Review:

From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage--and a life, in good times and bad--that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Gift from the Sea: 50th Anniversary Edition

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Pantheon Amazon Marketplace: 121 new & used starting at $0.82

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 107 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this inimitable, beloved classic—graceful, lucid and lyrical—Anne Morrow Lindbergh shares her meditations on youth and age; love and marriage; peace, solitude and contentment as she set them down during a brief vacation by the sea. Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh’s musings on the shape of a woman’s life bring new understanding to both men and women at any stage of life. A mother of five, an acclaimed writer and a pioneering aviator, Lindbergh casts an unsentimental eye on the trappings of modernity that threaten to overwhelm us: the time-saving gadgets that complicate rather than simplify, the multiple commitments that take us from our families. And by recording her thoughts during a brief escape from everyday demands, she helps readers find a space for contemplation and creativity within their own lives.

With great wisdom and insight Lindbergh describes the shifting shapes of relationships and marriage, presenting a vision of life as it is lived in an enduring and evolving partnership. A groundbreaking, best-selling work when it was originally published in 1955, Gift from the Sea continues to be discovered by new generations of readers. With a new introduction by Lindbergh’s daughter Reeve, this fiftieth-anniversary edition will give those who are revisiting the book and those who are coming upon it for the first time fresh insight into the life of this remarkable woman.

The sea and the beach are elements that have been woven throughout Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s life. She spent her childhood summers with her family on a Maine island. After her marriage to Charles Lindbergh in 1929, she accompanied him on his survey flights around the North Atlantic to launch the first transoceanic airlines. The Lindberghs eventually established a permanent home on the Connecticut coast, where they lived quietly, wrote books and raised their family.

After the children left home for lives of their own, the Lindberghs traveled extensively to Africa and the Pacific for environmental research. For
several years they lived on the island of Maui in Hawaii, where Charles Lindbergh died in 1974.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh spent her final years in her Connecticut home, continuing her writing projects and enjoying visits from her children and grand-children. She died on February 7, 2001, at the age
of ninety-four.

Reeve Lindbergh is the author of many books for both adults and children, including the memoirs Under a Wing and No More Words.

A Million Little Pieces

James Frey

List Price: $22.95 By: Nan A. Talese Amazon Marketplace: 64 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1836 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Intense, unpredictable, and instantly engaging, A Million Little Pieces is a story of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation as it has never been told before. Recounted in visceral, kinetic prose, and crafted with a forthrightness that rejects piety, cynicism, and self-pity, it brings us face-to-face with a provocative new understanding of the nature of addiction and the meaning of recovery.

By the time he entered a drug and alcohol treatment facility, James Frey had taken his addictions to near-deadly extremes. He had so thoroughly ravaged his body that the facilityís doctors were shocked he was still alive. The ensuing torments of detoxification and withdrawal, and the never-ending urge to use chemicals, are captured with a vitality and directness that recalls the seminal eye-opening power of William Burroughsís Junky.

But A Million Little Pieces refuses to fit any mold of drug literature. Inside the clinic, James is surrounded by patients as troubled as he is -- including a judge, a mobster, a one-time world-champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute to whom he is not allowed to speak ó but their friendship and advice strikes James as stronger and truer than the clinicís droning dogma of How to Recover. James refuses to consider himself a victim of anything but his own bad decisions, and insists on accepting sole accountability for the person he has been and the person he may become--which runs directly counter to his counselors' recipes for recovery.

James has to fight to find his own way to confront the consequences of the life he has lived so far, and to determine what future, if any, he holds. It is this fight, told with the charismatic energy and power of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, that is at the heart of A Million Little Pieces: the fight between one young manís will and the ever-tempting chemical trip to oblivion, the fight to survive on his own terms, for reasons close to his own heart.

A Million Little Pieces is an uncommonly genuine account of a life destroyed and a life reconstructed. It is also the introduction of a bold and talented literary voice.


From the eBook edition.

The Bell Jar (G K Hall Large Print Perennial)

Sylvia Plath

List Price: $24.95 By: G. K. Hall & Company Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $10.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( P ) -> Plath, Sylvia
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( P ) -> Plath, Sylvia

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 485 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The most famous book you've never read 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

How did I go 34 years without picking up and reading this gem? I'll tell you...It is not included on any public school reading list that I have ever seen and every college literature course that I took (just for fun) never examined Sylvia Plath's writing. Instead I had the misfortune of several lit. courses that focused on less talented modern poets/writers.

In 1963, this book would have been shocking. The main theme is mental disturbia, suicide, losing virginity, (an all out attack on the quiet suburban status quo.)

As I read this book with the jaded perspective of a modern day American citizen, I couldn't shake the overwhelming feeling of innocence this 40 year old story emits.

This book is like a three year old child attempting to shock her parents with something "provocative" but falling short of the parental outrage so desired and ending up with parental amusement.

It is only a sign of the times. In 1963 this story of Esther Greenwood most likely provided the 1-2 punch. (Only a feeling on my part, as I was not around in those days.)

Don't think I am putting this book down in my review. I enjoyed every minute I spent reading this story. There was a time that I would read a book in two days. I haven't done that in several years. Too busy, too tired, too distracted.
I couldn't stop reading the Bell Jar. My laundry, dishes, and vacuuming took a hit on this one. I was tempted to take it to work with me. Thankfully it was not a 1000 page book. I am back to full capacity once again.

I suggest you read this classic and keep one thing in mind, Sylvia Plath based this on her own crack-up in college. It is a heavy thought to me,the reader, knowing that she eventually lost her battle to her mental demons years later while living with her two young children.

Editorial Review:

Autobiographical novel about a brilliant young woman's search for identity and eventual breakdown.

To Hell and Back

Audie Murphy

List Price: $7.98 By: MJF Books Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $7.69

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The classic bestselling war memoir by the most decorated American soldier in World War II, back in print in a trade paperback

Originally published in 1949, To Hell and Back was a smash bestseller for fourteen weeks and later became a major motion picture starring Audie Murphy as himself. More than fifty years later, this classic wartime memoir is just as gripping as it was then.

Desperate to see action but rejected by both the marines and paratroopers because he was too short, Murphy eventually found a home with the infantry. He fought through campaigns in Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. Although still under twenty-one years old on V-E Day, he was credited with having killed, captured, or wounded 240 Germans. He emerged from the war as America's most decorated soldier, having received twenty-one medals, including our highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. To Hell and Back is a powerfully real portrayal of American GI's at war.

All Creatures Great and Small

James Herriot

Amazon Price: $32.97 List Price: $49.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Macmillan Audio Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $23.80

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Medical
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 110 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

These are the stories that catapulted James Herriot to literary fame. When this book was first published, it was merely a simple volume of memoirs by an unknown Scottish veterinarian. But within a year, the book became recognized as a masterpiece. And in the three decades that followed, Dr. Herriot became one of the most universally loved authors of our time.

In this first volume of memoirs, then-newly-qualified vet James Herriot arrives in the small Yorkshire village of Darrowby and he has no idea what to expect. How will he get on with his new boss? With the local farmers? And what will the animals think? This program is filled with hilarious and touching tales of the unpredictable Sigfriend Farnon, Sigfreid's zany brother, Tristan, and Herriot's first encounters with a beautiful girl called Helen.

Now as then, All Creatures Great and Small is full of humor, warmth, pathos, drama, and James Herriot's love of life. His journey across the Yorkshire dales, and his encounters with humans and dogs, cows, and kittens are lovingly told by Christopher Timothy with all the fascination, affection, and joy that suffuses Dr. Herriot's work.

The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits

Les Standiford

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Crown Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $11.46

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

As uplifting as the tale of Scrooge itself, this is the story of how one writer and one book revived the signal holiday of the Western world.

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist.

The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all.

With warmth, wit, and an infusion of Christmas cheer, Les Standiford whisks us back to Victorian England, its most beloved storyteller, and the birth of the Christmas we know best. The Man Who Invented Christmas is a rich and satisfying read for Scrooges and sentimentalists alike.

Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography

David Michaelis

Amazon Price: $24.82 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Amazon Marketplace: 74 new & used starting at $8.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Artists, Architects & Photographers
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 86 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Charles M. Schulz, the most widely syndicated and beloved cartoonist of all time, is also one of the least understood figures in American culture. Now acclaimed biographer David Michaelis gives us the first full-length biography of the brilliant, unseen man behind Peanuts: at once a creation story, a portrait of a native genius, and a chronicle contrasting the private man with the central role he played in shaping the national imagination.

It is the most American of stories: How a barber's son grew up from modest beginnings to realize his dream of creating a newspaper comic strip. How he daringly chose themes never before attempted in mainstream cartoons—loneliness, isolation, melancholy, the unending search for love—always lightening the darker side with laughter and mingling the old-fashioned sweetness of childhood with a very adult and modern awareness of the bitterness of life. And how, using a lighthearted, loving touch, a crow-quill pen dipped in ink, and a cast of memorable characters, he portrayed the struggles that come with being awkward, imperfect, human.

With Peanuts, Schulz profoundly influenced America in the second half of the twentieth century. But the humorous strip was anchored in the collective experience and hardships of the artist's generation—the generation that survived the Great Depression, liberated Europe and the Pacific, and came home to build the prosperous postwar world. Michaelis masterfully weaves Schulz's story with the cartoons that are so familiar to us, revealing how so much more of his life was part of the strip than we ever knew.

Based on years of research, including exclusive interviews with the cartoonist's family, friends, and colleagues, unprecedented access to his studio and business archives, and new caches of personal letters and drawings, Schulz and Peanuts is the definitive epic biography of an American icon and the unforgettable characters he created.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou

Amazon Price: $6.99 List Price: $6.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bantam Amazon Marketplace: 674 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> African-American & Black
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 307 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Charmed but Cautious 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This book provides well-written insight into growing up as a black child during the Depression. Maya Angelou is wonderful with her use of words and imagery. I was greatly reminded of my own childhood and what being a kid really meant. Written in first person, she addresses childhood fears, respect for adults and growing up with such tangible details that she could be her eight-year-old self again.

Angelou's insights into the African-American way of life and religion during a time of national change range from tender to comical. She speaks warmly of her love for her brother and her frustration with the young white girls. It is sweet to see the growing up process taking affect and the experiences of youth shaping her character.

I am somewhat relieved that we were not permitted to read this book back in my high school literature class where many parents were opposed to it. I fear it would have caught me off guard in many respects. Many of the sexual themes running throughout the book are quite heavy and discussed in detail. Both the subjects of rape and teen pregnancy are covered and sex in general is frequently alluded to.

Though I do perceive this as a lovely piece of literature, I would be cautious in offering it to teens and others who may be unprepared for its impact.

Editorial Review:

A phenomenal #1 bestseller that has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three years, this memoir traces Maya Angelou's childhood in a small, rural community during the 1930s. Filled with images and recollections that point to the dignity and courage of black men and women, Angelou paints a sometimes disquieting, but always affecting picture of the people—and the times—that touched her life.