From one of the most gifted writers of our time, a nostalgic account of France, replete with fascinating characters and memorable meals. In this very personal reminiscence, readers glimpse beautiful Dijon against the backdrop of betwe...

New editions of Elspeth Huxley's stirring account of her childhood in Kenya and her novel of the destructive forces of colonization. In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering se...

Based on the diary she kept for years, a candid, revealing autobiography of mystery writer P. D. James retraces her life from her school days in 1930s Cambridge to her membership in the House of Lords and her success as a writer. Repr...

In 1937 during the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Koestler, a German exile writing for a British newspaper, was arrested by Nationalist forces in Málaga. He was then sentenced to execution and spent every day awaiting death—only to be r...

"Having driven across the country to see her brand-new adopted granddaughter, Debra Monroe's mother says the first thing that comes into her head: 'I knew she'd be black, but not this black.' Monroe simply says, 'Mom, there's a b...

In the tradition of Quirk's bestselling Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents (100,000+ copies in print), here are outrageous and uncensored profiles of the world's greatest writers, complete with hundreds of little-known, politically i...

Elizabeth Wurtzel published her memoir of depression, Prozac Nation, to astonishing literary acclaim. A cultural phenomenon by age twenty-six, she had fame, money, respecteverything she had always wanted except that one, true thing: h...

Bestselling author Mary Higgins Clark writes about her early years, beginning with her Bronx childhood during the Depression with her widowed mother, to her own widowhood and the raising of her five children years later. She also writ...

Jeanne Marie Laskas had a dream of fleeing her otherwise happy urban life for fresh air and open space — a dream she would discover was about something more than that. But she never expected her fantasy to come true — unti...

84, Charing Cross Road is a charming record of bibliophilia, cultural difference, and imaginative sympathy. For 20 years, an outspoken New York writer and a rather more restrained London bookseller carried on an increasingly touching ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A haunting, unforgettable mother-daughter story for a new generation—the debut of a blazing new lyrical voiceNAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY Domenica Ruta ...

A publishing correspondent chronicles a year's worth of reading to explore how the world of books intermingled with her relationships, a journey during which she discovered that the books chose her as much as she chose them, came to r...

The tedious steps of the process of awakening the intelligence of a human being deprived of all the ordinary means of communication with her fellows at an age so early that practically no foundation has been laid by normal means--such...

"Hill provides us with a reading list the equal of any degree course."—The Times (London)In pursuit of a book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, forgotten she owned, or wanted ...

Sooner or later, each of us must face the day we develop a disturbing new interest in lawn care; the day we order sauvignon blanc instead of Rolling Rock; the day we refuse to see any concert where we cannot sit down. Sooner or later,...

Newbery Award-winning writer Paula Fox recollects the tragedy of her uringing in this woeful memoir. With an alcoholic father and a mother who aggressively rejected her, Fox was raised by a collection of diversely irresponsible partie...

Consuelo and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry met in Buenos Aires in 1930—she a seductive young widow, he a brave pioneer of early aviation, decorated for his acts of heroism in the deserts of North Africa. He was large in his pass...

Virginia Woolf was one of the most significant novelists of the twentieth century and a leading figure in the Bloomsbury Circle. In her brilliant, experimental novels, among them To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway, she extended the b...

Back in print in an all-new edition, is the engaging and illuminating chronicle of the life of the "Queen of Mystery." Fans of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple and readers of John Curran's fascinating biographies IAgatha Chri...

In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. There have been numerous books about mother and daughter, but none has dealt with this closest of filia...

While recovering from radiation therapy, Suzanne Strempek Shea heard from a friend who was looking for help at her bookstore. Shea volunteered, seeing it as nothing more than a way to get out of her pajamas and back into the world. Bu...

Amy Tan has touched millions of readers with haunting and sympathetic novels of cultural complexity and profound empathy. With the same spirit and humor that characterize her acclaimed novels, she now shares her insight into her own l...

In the States, Nick Hornby is best know as the author of High Fidelity and About a Boy, two wickedly funny novels about being thirtysomething and going nowhere fast. In Britain he is revered for his status as a fanatical football writ...

With classic simplicity and a painter's feeling for atmosphere and detail, Isak Dinesen tells of the years she spent from 1914 to 1931 managing a coffee plantation in Kenya.

An unauthorized biography of J.K. Rowling, the author of the phenomenally popular Harry Potter series. Using newspaper articles, Internet websites, and magazines for its sources, the book covers such topics as Rowling's childhood and ...

My true wife and the best friend I ever had," wrote Ted Hughes after Assia Wevill's 1969 suicide. Long seen as the woman who lured Hughes away from Sylvia Plath, Wevill has remained a mysterious figure. Now, for the first time Ye...

Now available as an audio CD, in Eudora Welty's own voice, or as a book. Eudora Welty was born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. In a 'continuous thread of revelation' she sketches her autobiography and tells us how her family and...

When Aharon Appelfeld was seven years old the Nazis occupied Czernowitz, his hometown. They penned the Jews into a ghetto and eventually sent whoever had not been shot or starved to death on a forced march across the Ukraine to a labo...

An intriguing literary portrait of one of the world's most complex and diverse cities by the renowned author of My Name Is Red interweaves the history of Istanbul with observations and reflections on the city's landmarks, art, people,...

IIt's a perennial source of frustration to Jane Austen's admirers that so little is known about her quiet existence as an unmarried woman seeking an outlet for her ferocious intelligence in genteel, rural England at the turn of the 19...