Authors - Nonfiction Stars

• Chaucer
  Author: Ackroyd, Peter
  Publisher: Nan Talese $ 19.95 ISBN: 0385507976 Date: 2005
  Kirkus Booklist
  In the first in a new series of brief biographies, bestselling author Ackroyd brilliantly evokes the medieval world of England and provides an incomparable introduction to the great poet, Geoffrey Chaucer's, work.
  Updated 1.18.05
• Bellow: A Biography
  by Atlas, James
  Publisher: Random $ 35 ISBN: 0394585011 Date: 2000
  Kirkus PW LJ
  In this brilliant and long-awaited biography of Nobel Prize-winning author Saul Bellow, Atlas tells the story of a great writer's turbulent life against the backdrop of American 20th-century intellectual history.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Flabuert: A Biography
  Author: Brown, Frederick
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 35 ISBN: 0316118788 Date: 2006
  Kirkus
  From the highly acclaimed author of Zola: A Life comes the definitive biography of Gustave Flaubert on the 150th anniversary of Madame Bovary's publication.
  Updated 2.8.06
• Education of a Felon: A Memoir
  by Bunker, Edward
  Publisher: St Martins $ 25.95 ISBN: 031225315x Date: 2000
  PW
  Spending half of his life behind bars, the reigning champion of prison writers tells his own story of a life lived "close to the bone" (Los Angeles Times).
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  
• Youth: Scenes from a Provincial Life
  Author: Coetzee, J.M.
  Publisher: Viking $ 22.95 ISBN: 067003102x Date: 2002
  Booklist
  Set against the background of the 1960s--Sharpeville, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam--Youth is a remarkable memoir of an artistic and sexual coming of age by the Booker Prize-winning author of Disgrace.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 6.30.02
• Meville: His World and Work
  Author: Delbanco, Andrew
  Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0375403140 Date: 2005
  Kirkus LJ Booklist
  Delbanco traces Melville's growth from bawdy storyteller through the spiritual preoccupations building up to Moby-Dick, and the profound disillusionment of later works as he charts a life that left little evidence in its wake.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 9.17.05
• How Milton Works
  by Fish, Stanley Eugene
  Publisher: Harvard $ 35 ISBN: 0674004655 Date: 2001
  Kirkus LJ
  Surprised by Sin, first published in 1967, established Fish as one of the world's preeminent Milton scholars. The lifelong engagement begun in that work culminates in this book, the magnum opus of a formidable critic and the definitive statement on Milton for our time. - Publisher Marketing.
  
  
• The Letters of Dashiell Hammett
  by Hammett, Dashiell, Layman, Richard, Rivett, Julie Date: 2001
  Publisher: Counterpoint $ 40 ISBN: 1582430810
  Booklist PW
  This literary event features the letters, both private and professional, of Dashiell Hammett, creator of Sam Spade and the father of the hardboiled crime novel. With wit, intelligence, and style, these letters confirm Hammett's extraordinary talent as writer and observer
  
• Myself and the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Lewis Stevenson
  Author: Harman, Claire
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 29.95 ISBN: 0066209846 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  The life of Robert Louis Stevenson is a gripping adventurous story: his travels, his illness, his struggles to become a writer, his relationships with his volatile American wife and stepfamily, and his friendships and quarrels.
  Updated 9.17.05
• Greene on Capri: A Memoir
  by Hazzard, Shirley
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 22 ISBN: 0374166757 Date: 2000
  LJ
  In this intimate portrait, Hazzard highlights Graham Greene's mercurial character, his work and talk, and the extraordinary literary culture that long thrived on the legendary, enchanted island of Capri.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• The Raymond Chandler Papers: Selected Letters and Nonfiction
  by Hiney, Tom (ed)
  Publisher: Atlantic $ 25 ISBN: 0871137860 Date: 2001
  Library Journal Booklist
  A new collection of Chandler's correspondence, much of which has never before been made public, reveals all aspects of the artist's powerful personality and intellectual curiosity. Includes previously unpublished early writings and an abandoned profile of mobster Lucky Luciano.
  
• Time to Be in Earnest: A Fragment of Autobiography
  by James, P.D.
  Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 037541066x Date: 2000
  Kirkus
  Taking to heart Dr. Johnson's advice that, at the age of 77, it was "time to be in earnest, " the acclaimed mystery writer decided to keep a diary. The result is this frank and wonderfully engaging memoir.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• Seducing the Demon: My Life as a Writer
  Author: Jong, Erica
  Publisher: Tarcher $ 22.95 ISBN: 1585424447 Date: 2006
  Kirkus
  Seducing the Demon is the sublime and salacious story of one writer's long and successful career as a poet, novelist, and feminist provocateur. Throughout, Jong is refreshingly direct-whether writing sex scenes, evoking the lure of alcohol and grass in the search for ecstasy, or conforming to the rigid narrative of AA.
  Updated 2.8.06
• Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy
  by Kiernan, Frances
  Publisher: Norton $ 35 ISBN: 0393038017 Date: 2000
  PW Kirkus
  At last, a biography rich in delicious gossip, ironic judgment, and eloquent testimony of Mary McCarthy, one of the most controversial American intellectuals of this century.
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
  by King, Stephen
  Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0684853523 Date: 2000
  Kirkus PW
  Rarely has a book on the craft of writing been so clear, so useful and so entertaining. A series of vivid memories from King's adolescence to his struggling years affords readers a fresh and often funny perspective on the formation of a writer's character. King takes readers through crucial aspects of the writer's art and life, offering practical and inspiring advice on everything from plot and character development to work habits and rejection.
  
• Sinclair Lewis: Rebel from Main Street
  Author: Lingeman, Richard R.
  Publisher: Random $ 35 ISBN: 0679438238 Date: 2002
  Booklist Library Journal
  Bringing to light new correspondence, diaries, and criticism, Lingeman, the much-praised biographer of Theodore Dreiser, paints a sympathetic portrait of an American writer who was, on the inside, the loneliest of men and, on the outside, as gregarious as his creation George F. Babbitt.
  Sinclair Lewis Homepage
  Updated 1.31.02
• Eudora Welty
  Author: Marrs, Suzanne
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 28 ISBN: 0151009147 Date: 2005
  Booklist PW
  In this definitive account of the life of one of the finest writers of the 20th century, Marrs restores Eudora Welty's story to human proportions, tracing Welty's history from her roots in Jackson, Mississippi, to her rise to international stature.
  Updated 6.20.05
• The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
  Author: McKenna, Neil
  Publisher: Basic Books $ 29 ISBN: 0465044387 Date: 2005
  PW
  Oscar Wilde said of himself, "I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my work." Now, for the first time, Neil McKenna focuses on the tormented genius of Wilde's personal life, reproducing remarkable love letters and detailing Wilde's until-now unknown relationships with other men.
  Updated 3.14.05
• Savage Beauty: A Biography of Edna St Vincent Millay
  by Milford, Nancy
  Publisher: Random $ 29.95 ISBN: 039457589X Date: 2001
  Kirkus PW Booklist Library Journal
  Thirty years after the smashing success of Zelda, Milford returns with a stunning second act. Savage Beauty is the portrait of Edna St. Vincent Millay, a passionate, fearless woman who obsessed America even as she tormented herself.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
• Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray
  by Murray, Albert & John F. Callahan (ed)
  Publisher: Modern Library $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375503676 Date: 2000
  LJ Kirkus
  A joyous and important collection of letters between two great American writers who were also dear friends in which they bare their hearts to each other about life, work, and the American scene.
  
• The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
  Author: Reiss, Tom
  Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 1400062659 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  Part history, part cultural biography, and part literary mystery, The Orientalist traces the life of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a bestselling author in Nazi Germany.
  Updated 12.16.04
• Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her
  Author: Rehak, Melanie
  Publisher: Harcourt $ 25 ISBN: 0151010412 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  The brainchild of children's book mogul Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy Drew was brought to life by two women. In a century- spanning story Rehak traces their roles--and Nancy's--in forging the modern American woman.
  Updated 8.15.05
• Elia Kazan: A Biography
  Author: Schickel, Richard
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 29.95 ISBN: 0060195797 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  This electrifying biography by one of America's foremost film scholars combines social, political, and cultural history with a sharp critical evaluation of Kazan's protean career.
  Updated 9.17.05
• Bruce Chatwin
  by Shakespeare, Nicholas
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 35 ISBN: 0385498292
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26 ISBN: 0060194979
  PW
  Award-winning novelist Nicholas Shakespeare offers a masterful biography of Bruce Chatwin, one of the most charismatic and elusive literary figures of our time.
  
• February House
  Author: Tippins, Sherill
  Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 061841911x Date: 2005
  Booklist
  Tippins reveals the story of an extraordinary experiment in communal living--involving the young but already iconic writer Carson McCullers and burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee--in a house at 7 Middagh Street in Brooklyn during 1940 and 1941.
  Updated 1.18.05
• Malraux: A Life
  Author: Todd, Olivier
  Publisher: Random $ 35 ISBN: 0375407022 Date: 2005
  Kirkus Booklist
  Writer and French government minister Andr Malraux was renowned as a Renaissance man of the 20th century. Now, the author of the acclaimed biography Albert Camus examines Malraux's life, in which fact competes with his subject's previously little-known mythomania.
  Updated 1.18.05
• Letters to a Young Novelist
  Author: Vargas Llosa, Mario
  Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 16 ISBN: 0374119163 Date: 2002
  Library Journal Kirkus
  In the tradition of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, Mario Vargas Llosa condenses a lifetime of writing, reading, and thought into an essential manual for aspiring writers, revealing in the process his deepest beliefs about the world of letters.
  Updated 4.1.02
• Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams
  Author: Webb, Nick
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 25.95 ISBN: 0345476506 Date: 2005
  Kirkus
  The only authorized biography of the beloved, bestselling creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy--to be released as a feature film in June 2005 from Walt Disney Pictures.
  Suggested Reading: If You Like Douglas Adams
  Updated 12.27.04
• Hans Christian Anderson: The Life of a Storyteller
  by Wullschlager, Jackie
  Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0679455086 Date: 2001
  LJ
  This first major biography of Hans Christian Andersen draws upon a wealth of original sources in Danish and German, and traces the course of his life, his work, his desperation for love, and his ambition and achievement.