Biography & Autobiography : Literary

Marge Piercy, a writer who is highly praised as both a poet and a novelist, turns her gaze inward as she shares her thoughts on life and explores her development as a woman and writer. She pays tribute to the one loving constant that has offered her comfort and meaning even as the faces and events in her life have changed -- her beloved cats. With searing honesty, Piercy tells of her strained childhood growing up in a religiously split, working-class family in Detroit. She examines her myriad friendships and relationships, including two painful early marriages, and reveals their effects on her creativity and career. More than a reminiscence of things past, however, Sleeping With Cats is also a celebration of the present and the future, as Piercy shares her views on aging, creativity, and finding a lasting and improbable love with a man fourteen years younger than herself. A chronicle of the turbulent and exciting journey of one artist's life, Sleeping With Cats is a deeply intimate, unforgettable story. more...

Price: $11.95

Albertine Gaur shares with the reader her childhood memories of the period just before, and during, the Second World War in Austria, her homeland. She relives this time of great social and political upheaval, depicting it through the eyes of a childhood as she passes from infancy to adolescence. It is a unique story, full of naïve poignancy, told with a poetic simplicity which helps us have a better understanding of how “events” were seen and interpreted by a young person, struggling with the many diverse problems of “growing up”. Incidentally, the book gives us an insight into child psychology and how children came to terms with fear, horror and violence but were to bear the scars of the trauma throughout their lives. It is a moving narrative, individual but, at the same time, universal in its appeal. She relates a personal drama, often with tragic implications, in which the characters are “ordinary people” but who, in their different ways, portray the very passions and emotions which motivate society. To read about it is an enriching experience. more...

Price: $39.95

“I am woven through your past, as you are through mine—-and both of us through theirs, the sea-peoples’.” Hugo- and Nebula Award-winner Charnas has written a book about humans, her own past, and how our lives have always been intertwined with the creatures of the seas. “Strange Seas” is Charnas’ first nonfiction book, and her first e-book. An investigation into personal questions about herself and her writing grew to encompass not just her past, but the pasts of all of us. “I saw a lot of closed doors inside the house of myself, labeled ‘I don’t care,’ ‘I don’t know,’ and—-the majority—-I don’t remember.’ But one stood open, the one that Miriam’s words had unlatched and flung wide—‘I don’t believe.’ There was no denying what lay beyond. The whales had souls, and I had been a killer of whales.” more...

Price: $8.95

In the spring of 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry left his wife, Consuelo, to return to the war in Europe. Soon after, he disappeared while flying a reconnaissance mission over occupied France. Neither his plane nor his body was ever found. The Tale of the Rose is Consuelo’s account of their extraordinary marriage. more...

Price: $9.95

Passionate, freethinking existentialist philosopher-writers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre are one of the world's legendary couples. Their committed but notoriously open union generated no end of controversy in their day. Biographer Hazel Rowley offers the first dual portrait of these two colossal figures and their intense, often embattled relationship. Through original interviews and access to new primary sources, Rowley portrays Sartre and Beauvoir up close. Tête-à-Tête magnificently details the passion, daring, humor, and contradictions of a remarkably unorthodox relationship. more...

Price: $12.95