Authors Books - Page 8

My Friend Leonard

James Frey

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Riverhead Trade Amazon Marketplace: 118 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 380 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The New York Times bestselling follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller A Million Little Pieces-the heartrending story of a friendship between a newly-sober James and the charismatic, high-living mobster he met in rehab, Leonard.

A Million Little Pieces was the first Oprah Book Club pick by a living author in over two years. It instantly became a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 USA Today bestseller, and a #1 Publishers Weekly bestseller, with over 1.7 million copies in print.

My Friend Leonard picks up right where Pieces leaves off. A New York Times bestseller in its own right before the Oprah pick, My Friend Leonard is James Frey's story of his friendship with Leonard, the larger-than-life mobster who "adopted" James as he left rehab. Leonard, who offers James lucrative-if illegal, mysterious, and slightly dangerous-employment when he needs it. Leonard, of the secret deals, of the surprising passions that belie his violent career choice, of fantastic generosity and ferocious loyalty. Leonard, who has been holding on to some remarkable secrets, and who has invested in their friendship more than James could ever imagine.

My Friend Leonard is, at its core, about the responsibility that comes with loving someone and going out on any number of limbs to care for them. And it is a book that proves that one of the most provocative literary voices of his generation is also one of the most emphatically human.

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life

C. S. Lewis

List Price: $15.95 By: Walker & Co Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $1.39

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Religious
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Authors & Illustrators, A-Z -> ( L ) -> Lewis, C.S.

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 69 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

For C.S. Lewis Devotees Only! 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I love most of what C.S. Lewis writes. I can read the Narnia series over and over, and I adore Till We Have Faces. I find him an incredible philosopher and a brilliant mind and a fantastic writer all 'round.

This book is possibly the dullest thing I have ever forced myself to read.

I wanted to like it; heaven knows it had interesting parts, fascinating things I had never thought of before. I found it valuable for understanding what themes that Lewis meant to convey in all of my favorite books.

Oh, but I could have gone without that long and utterly boring chapter about going to boys' school, being hazed, and interactions with the Bloods; I could barely keep myself in the thing even in the most interesting parts about his childhood. Even his conversion came with little emotional interest. For a second I wanted to say that I was missing something, that I had the problem, but I'm not sure that this is so. It's just... boring. I'm not even sure it's applicable for the person on the brink of accepting Christianity, for intellectually, Lewis is on another plane entirely. What if the reader has never felt this stab of "joy," or at least, experienced it the way Lewis experienced it? I tried to remember such a feeling and, although I remember it, I do not recall it being such a life-changing event.

Furthermore, his conversion didn't seem like such a logical step as much as returning to an old friend, if that makes any sense. I think another reviewer hit the nail on the head when they said they doubted that Lewis ever truly left Christianity to begin with. This isn't to say he didn't become a true atheist -- but it was as though he retained some sort of regard for it, even when was most disdainful of it.

To sum things up, this book is painfully boring, but invaluable for the insight it delivers into Lewis's works of fiction than for the path he took to conversion.

Editorial Review:

In this book Lewis tells of his search for joy, a spiritual journey that led him from the Christianity of his early youth into atheism and then back to Christianity. This book, together with his early diary All My Road Before Me, form the closest thing we have to an autobiography.

Disgrace

J. M. Coetzee

By: Vintage UK Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> African -> Central & South African
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> African -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 339 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Booker AND Noble Prize - Oh C'mon! 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I fully expect for this review to get trashed given the popularity of this book but here it goes anyway. This was at best a mediocre book. Unlike many of the negative reviewers I did not dislike it because it was depressing. The author tries very hard to write a depressing book but I felt little for the characters to be disturbed or to be depressed by their misfortune. That is a big failure for the author. The protagonist is not meant to be a likable character but that is not the problem either. Coetzee simply fails to develop his character or for that matter any of the other characters in the book. They are not believable. Their actions are unconventional, which by itself is not a problem, but the author's lack of explaining and convincing readers leaves readers puzzled.

I noticed that many of the 1-star reviewers rated the book poorly because of the sad emotions it brought on them. Unfortunately for me I cannot even admit to those same emotions. At least they felt something! Yes, it was a depressing book but it lacked depth and hence I did not become too involved in the story. If your goal is to learn a bit more about South Africa I would also recommend looking else where. Skip this one!

Survival In Auschwitz

Primo Levi

Amazon Price: $11.20 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Touchstone Amazon Marketplace: 263 new & used starting at $2.18

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> Jewish
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> Holocaust

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

We had to read this book for a World History class I took in college. I was taking 5 classes at the time, so you can imagine how much reading I had to do on a daily basis. I read this book in ONE sitting (very unusual for me). I could not put it down! I laughed. I cried. I read it again! I recommend this book to EVERYONE!

Direct and Powerful 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Mr. Levi's ability to recount his experience with such emotional clarity allowed me to take in a piece of this dark chapter in European history that I might not have been able to otherwise, given the immensity of the horror. I look forward to reading the other two books he wrote on Auschwitz. Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and "Italian citizen of Jewish race," was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi's classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit, Survival in Auschwitz remains a lasting testament to the indestructibility of the human spirit. Included in this new edition is an illuminating conversation between Philip Roth and Primo Levi never before published in book form.

The Prince of Frogtown

Rick Bragg

Amazon Price: $16.32 List Price: $24.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $11.26

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: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this final volume of the beloved American saga that began with All Over but the Shoutin’ and continued with Ava’s Man, Rick Bragg closes his circle of family stories with an unforgettable tale about fathers and sons inspired by his own relationship with his ten-year-old stepson.

He learns, right from the start, that a man who chases a woman with a child is like a dog who chases a car and wins. He discovers that he is unsuited to fatherhood, unsuited to fathering this boy in particular, a boy who does not know how to throw a punch and doesn’t need to; a boy accustomed to love and affection rather than violence and neglect; in short, a boy wholly unlike the child Rick once was, and who longs for a relationship with Rick that Rick hasn’t the first inkling of how to embark on. With the weight of this new boy tugging at his clothes, Rick sets out to understand his father, his son, and himself.

The Prince of Frogtown documents a mesmerizing journey back in time to the lush Alabama landscape of Rick’s youth, to Jacksonville’s one-hundred-year-old mill, the town’s blight and salvation; and to a troubled, charismatic hustler coming of age in its shadow, Rick’s father, a man bound to bring harm even to those he truly loves. And the book documents the unexpected corollary to it, the marvelous journey of Rick’s later life: a journey into fatherhood, and toward a child for whom he comes to feel a devotion that staggers him. With candor, insight, tremendous humor, and the remarkable gift for descriptive storytelling on which he made his name, Rick Bragg delivers a brilliant and moving rumination on the lives of boys and men, a poignant reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.

The Last American Man

Elizabeth Gilbert

List Price: $24.95 By: Viking Adult Amazon Marketplace: 54 new & used starting at $2.21

Buy at Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 96 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In The Last American Man, acclaimed journalist and fiction writer Elizabeth Gilbert offers a fresh cultural examination of contemporary American male identity and the uniquely American desire to return to the wilderness.

Gilbert explores what pushed men to settle the frontier West in the nineteenth century and delves into the history of American utopian communities. But her primary focus is on the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway, who left his comfortable suburban home at the age of seventeen to move into the Appalachian Mountains, where for the last twenty years he has lived off the land.

Conway's romantic character challenges all our assumptions about what it means to be a man today; he is a symbol of much that we feel our men should be, but rarely are. From his example, Gilbert delivers an intriguing exploration into the meaning of American manhood and-from the point of view of a woman-refracts masculine American identity in all its conflicting elements. Like Jon Krakauer's national bestseller Into the Wild, this book will find an enthusiastic audience among women, readers of American history, and those interested in nature and the wild.

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana

Haven Kimmel

List Price: $21.95 By: Doubleday Amazon Marketplace: 24 new & used starting at $1.29

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Family & Childhood
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 200 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965 in Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of three hundred people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. In this witty and lovingly told memoir, Kimmel takes readers back to a time when small-town America was caught in the amber of the innocent postwar period--people helped their neighbors, went to church on Sunday, and kept barnyard animals in their backyards.

To three-year-old Zippy, it made perfect sense to strike a bargain with her father to keep her baby bottle--never mind that when she did, it was the first time she'd ever spoken. In her nonplussed family, Zippy has the perfect supporting cast: her beautiful yet dour brother, Danny, a seeker of the true faith; her sweetly sensible sister, Lindy, who wins the local beauty pageant; her mother, Delonda, who dispenses wisdom from the corner of the couch; and her father, Bob Jarvis, who never met a bet he didn't like.

Whether describing a serious case of chicken love, another episode with the evil Edythe across the street, or the night Zippy's dad borrowed thirty-six coon dogs and a raccoon to prove to the complaining neighbors just how quiet his two dogs were, Kimmel treats readers to a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and shy as she navigates the quirky adult world surrounding Zippy.

American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century

Paula Uruburu

Amazon Price: $17.61 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Riverhead Hardcover Amazon Marketplace: 93 new & used starting at $1.65

Buy at Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The scandalous story of America’s first supermodel, sex goddess, and modern celebrity, Evelyn Nesbit, the temptress at the center of Stanford White’s famous murder, whose iconic life story reflected all the paradoxes of America’s Gilded Age.

Known to millions before her sixteenth birthday in 1900, Evelyn Nesbit was the most photographed woman of her era, an iconic figure who set the standard for female beauty. Women wanted to be her. Men just wanted her. When her life of fantasy became all too real, and her jealous millionaire husband, Harry K. Thaw, killed her lover—celebrity architect Stanford White, builder of the Washington Square Arch and much of New York City—she found herself at the center of the “Crime of the Century” and the popular courtroom drama that followed—a scandal that signaled the beginning of a national obsession with youth, beauty, celebrity, and sex.

The story of Evelyn Nesbit is one of glamour, money, romance, sex, madness, and murder, and Paula Uruburu weaves all of these elements into an elegant narrativethat reads like the best fiction— only it’s all true. American Eve goes far beyond just literary biography; it paints a picture of America as it crossed from the Victorian era into the modern, foreshadowing so much of our contemporary culture today.

Fate is the Hunter

Ernest K. Gann

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 90 new & used starting at $3.14

Buy at Amazon.com

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

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 94 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Read through in few sittings - - 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is one of those books that has a sneak ending - best appreciated by reading through at a steady rate (which only makes sense once the climax of the book is revealed). The stories, anecdotes and tales seem almost trite and mundane - but build to the showdown, for me a life lesson. Flying is revealed for the joy it is, for its wonder, the thrill of a good landing when one has fought the good fight aloft in peril of ending badly. Gann wrote the thing with a purpose - and it wasn't to entertain you. He is like a grandfather with good advice, and he hits you with a zinger to make the point. You will be grateful, either gender, any station, rich or poor.

Bored By Fate 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book reads about as exiting as the monotone drone of a window box fan on a hot sweaty summer night. Gann's style seems didactic to say the least. Muddling through the first chapter I fell asleep and woke up just in time to learn of a near miss in the plane Gann was flying. However in all fairness, most books are written like this, full of details and tangents before coming to the point. Who can get through Moby Dick or Les Miserables without wondering where the authors are going? One should only read books like these if he has a bad case of insomia.

If one is looking for the plot to the movie: Fate Is The Hunter, forget it. This book has almost nothing in common with the excellent screenplay written by Harold Maud except for the title and some flashbacks. Of course it is always a disappointment when the movies don't follow the books, which are usually better than the movies; this case being one of the exceptions.

The paperback book is not an abridged version of the hardcover. So don't try searching for a used copy as I did. It's just a waste of time and money. Quite frankly, I'm sorry I bought the book.

Editorial Review:

"This book is an episodic log of some of the more memorable of (the author's) nearly 10,000 hours aloft in peace and in war. It is also an attempt to define by example his belief in the phenomenon of luck-- that the pattern of anyone's fate is only partly contrived by the individual."--The New Yorker.

Casanova: Actor Lover Priest Spy

Ian Kelly

Amazon Price: $19.11 List Price: $28.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tarcher Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $18.31

Buy at Amazon.com

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

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

Editorial Review:

This vivid biography of “the world’s greatest lover” reveals surprising unknown facets of the man behind the myth.

In Casanova, noted author Ian Kelly traces the life of Giacomo Casanova, a man whose very name is synonymous with sensuality, seduction, and sexual prowess. But Casanova was more than just a great lover, he was also a businessman, diplomat, spy, and philosopher. The author of more than twenty books, including a translation of The Iliad, in his lifetime he visited every European capital city (and was expelled from many). Confidant of many infamous characters—including Madame de Pompadour, Voltaire, and Catherine the Great— Casanova was undoubtedly charismatic. But how exactly did he seduce himself into infamy?

In this richly drawn portrait, Casanova emerges as very much a product of eighteenth-century Venice. He reveled in its commedia dell’arte and Kelly posits that his successes as both a libertine and a libertarian grew from his careful study of its artifice and illusion. Food, travel, sex: Casanova’s great passions are timeless ones, and Kelly brilliantly brings to life in full flavor the grandeur of his exploits, while also articulating the fascinating personal philosophy that inspired the adventurer’s quest to bed all manner of women.

A riveting look at the life of the most legendary lover of all time—this is destined to become the definitive biography of Giacomo Casanova.