Other books that might interest you

• 

  American Crucifixion - The...

  Alex Beam

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  On June 27, 1844, a mob stormed the jail in the dusty frontier town of Carthage, Illinois. Clamorous and angry, they were hunting down a man they saw as a grave threat to their otherwise quiet lives: the founding prophet of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. They wanted blood.At thirty-nine years old, Smith had already lived an outsized life. In addition to starting the Church of Latter-Day Saints and creating his own "Golden Bible"-the Book of Mormon-he had worked as a water-dowser and treasure hunter. He'd led his people to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois, where he founded a city larger than fledgling Chicago. He was running for President. And, secretly, he had married more than thirty women.In American Crucifixion, Alex Beam tells how Smith went from charismatic leader to public enemy: how his most seismic revelation-the doctrine of polygamy-created a rift among his people; how that schism turned to violence; and how, ultimately, Smith could not escape the consequences of his ambition and pride.Mormonism is America's largest and most enduring native religion, and the "martyrdom" of Joseph Smith is one of its transformational events. Smith's brutal assassination propelled the Mormons to colonize the American West and claim their place in the mainstream of American history. American Crucifixion is a gripping story of scandal and violence, with deep roots in our national identity.

  Show book

• 

  The Senecans - Four Men and...

  Peter Stothard

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “This unconventional account of the Margaret Thatcher years by a former editor of the Times . . . mixes reminiscence, gossip, and classical philosophy.” —The New Yorker 
   
  A year after the death of Margaret Thatcher, a young historian arrives to ask Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and former editor of the Times, some sharp questions about his memories of the Thatcher era. During the interview the offices from where he long observed British politics are being systematically flattened by wrecking balls. From the dust and destruction of a collapsing newspaper plant emerge portraits of the Senecans, four of the men who made the Thatcher court so different from that of her successors. As well as love of Britain’s first female Prime Minister they shared strange Latin lessons in a crumbling riverside bar. They took their name from their taste for the work of Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a pioneer writer from Cordoba in Roman Spain, a philosopher, courtier and acquirer of massive wealth from the age of the Emperor Nero. Blending memoir with ancient and modern politics in the manner of his acclaimed diaries, Spartacus Road and Alexandria, Peter Stothard sheds a sideways light on Margaret Thatcher’s “believing age.” In finally identifying his interviewer he also answers questions about his own literary and political journey. 
   
  “[An] artful blend of truth and fiction . . . Stothard’s poetically written, supremely stylish memoir only partly conceals its underlying mission, to insist that antiquity still has urgent things to tell us.” —Emily Gowers, The Guardian 
   
  “This thoughtful and unexpectedly moving memoir . . . brilliantly captures the excitement of the Thatcher years.” —Richard Aldous, The Wall Street Journal

  Show book

• 

  The Maximum Security Book Club -...

  Mikita Brottman

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A riveting account of the two years literary scholar Mikita Brottman spent reading literature with criminals in a maximum-security men’s prison outside Baltimore, and what she learned from them—Orange Is the New Black meets Reading Lolita in Tehran. 
  On sabbatical from teaching literature to undergraduates, and wanting to educate a different kind of student, Mikita Brottman starts a book club with a group of convicts from the Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland. She assigns them ten dark, challenging classics—including Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” and Nabokov’s Lolita—books that don’t flinch from evoking the isolation of the human struggle, the pain of conflict, and the cost of transgression. Although Brottman is already familiar with these works, the convicts open them up in completely new ways. Their discussions may “only” be about literature, but for the prisoners, everything is at stake. 
  Gradually, the inmates open up about their lives and families, their disastrous choices, their guilt and loss. Brottman also discovers that life in prison, while monotonous, is never without incident. The book club members struggle with their assigned reading through solitary confinement; on lockdown; in between factory shifts; in the hospital; and in the middle of the chaos of blasting televisions, incessant chatter, and the constant banging of metal doors. 
  Though The Maximum Security Book Club never loses sight of the moral issues raised in the selected reading, it refuses to back away from the unexpected insights offered by the company of these complex, difficult men. It is a compelling, thoughtful analysis of literature—and prison life—like nothing you’ve ever read before.

  Show book

• 

  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The...

  Charles River Editors

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Mozart once called music “my life”, and indeed few were as naturally gifted at it. Mozart’s memory and genius for music allowed him to compose lengthy works, even full-length operas, without transferring them to paper until he had fully visualized and retained them. He regarded copying as a tedious task, and this caused no small amount of consternation among performers, in particular the orchestra, some of whom received their parts minutes before curtain. This was said to be the case for the premiere of Don Giovanni, where Mozart was furiously scrawling and handing out parts to the overture with the audience in attendance. Surprisingly, these entire works, sometimes hundreds of pages, not penned until they were complete in his mind, usually arrived to the manuscript without a single blemish or change of heart. Mozart’s eccentricities are remembered centuries after his death, to the point that much of his life, illnesses and death have been mythologized, and today a lot of his legacy has been shaped by the manner in which his personality has been depicted in biographical works like Amadeus. 
  In addition to a large and consistently high-level body of work, Mozart represents for some the real beginning of the German lineage to the 20th century, although Ludwig Beethoven, greatly under Mozart’s influence, created much of that transition’s reality. Three of Mozart’s operas are continually in the top 10 works performed around the world, his piano concerti and symphonies are all in the standard repertoire (save for some of the earliest), and his choral works are treasures of the West. The bulk of his reputation was not garnered by breaking with tradition and destroying it but rather by fulfilling it with a greater beauty and naturalness than was possible for any other artist of the time.

  Show book

• 

  Spirit of Place - Letters and...

  Lawrence Durrell

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The definitive collection of travel writings by one of the twentieth century’s best-loved journeyersFrom the moment of his birth, Lawrence Durrell was far from home. A British child in India, he was sent to England to receive an education, and by his early twenties had already tired of his native land. With family in tow, he departed for Greece, and spent the rest of his life wandering the world. He traveled not to sightsee but to live, and made homes in Egypt, France, Yugoslavia, and Argentina. Each time he landed, he rooted himself deep into the native soil, taking in not just the sights and sounds of his new land, but the essential character of the country. In these letters and essays, Durrell exhibits the power of poetic observation that made his travel writing so extraordinary to post–World War II readers. In these pages he reminds us not just of each country’s hidden charms, but of the unique characteristics that persist through the generations.

  Show book

• 

  Sparring with Hemingway - And...

  Budd Schulberg

  • 1
  • 0
  • 0

  Schulberg goes toe to toe with his lifelong passion in this collection of his greatest writings on boxing“As much as I love boxing, I hate it.” So begins screenwriter, novelist, and journalist Budd Schulberg’s collection of essays on the sweet science of bruising, a sport that fueled his literary ambitions and unsettled his conscience from a young age. He gives riveting accounts of classic bouts, such as Rocky Marciano–Archie Moore, Muhammad Ali–George Foreman, and Marvin Hagler–Thomas Hearns. Yet these essays also offer insight into the sport’s sociological significance from a man who covered its highlights and corruption-marred lowlights for decades. Sparring with Hemingway stands as the unparalleled history of boxing’s place in American culture throughout the twentieth century. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Budd Schulberg including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.

  Show book