- Table View
- List View
Punished: A Mother’s Cruelty. A Daughter’s Survival. A Secret That Couldn’t Be Told
by Vanessa Steel‘Punished’ is the inspiring true story of an unusual little girl, Vanessa, whose childhood was devastated by torture and abuse at the hands of her sadistic mother. Vanessa was nearly destroyed until she discovered a secret that ultimately saved her life.
Puppy Chow Is Better Than Prozac: The True Story of a Man and the Dog Who Saved His Life
by Bruce GoldsteinMeet Bruce Goldstein: unemployed and recently dumped, this twenty-something New Yorker had fallen into such a deep depression he needed to call his mother just to get out of bed in the morning. In the downward spiral of bipolar disorder, neither therapy nor medication could help him shake his rapid mood swings, his fear of dying, or the voice of Satan, who first visited him one sunny day in Central Park.Then comes Ozzy, an exuberantly life-affirming black Lab puppy who launches Bruce on a surprising, uproarious journey of complete canine interdependence. Ozzy helps Bruce heal through the most unexpected source: the love of a good dog.
Puppy Chow Is Better Than Prozac: The True Story of a Man and the Dog Who Saved His Life
by Bruce GoldsteinTo Bruce Goldstein-an edgy, twenty-something New Yorker trying to make his mark in advertising-just waking up in the morning was an ordeal. Underemployed and recently dumped, he was well into the downward spiral of bipolar disorder. Even with therapy, lithium, Paxil, Wellbutrin, and Prozac, he could not shake his rapid mood swings, his fear of dying, or the voice of Satan, who first visited him one sunny day in Central Park. Then came Ozzy, a black Labrador pup (named after metal's "Prince of Darkness") who leads Bruce toward recovery through complete, canine dependence. From the depths of his despair to a life remade, Bruce shows how learning to care for, train, and love the hilariously loyal Ozzy provided him with the structure and focus he needed to heal.
The Pursuit of Laughter: Essays, Reviews and Diary
by Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley (Diana Mosley)'Roar with laughter.' Laura Thompson 'The dazzling beauty with a poison pen... wit pervades her writings.' Anne de Courcey, Daily Mail Criti Choice 'When she wielded her elegant stiletto, it was to unmask an ego... brightly and sharply illuminated.' Valerie Grove, The Times Wickedly funny, gossipy, carefree, intimate and revealing, this selection of Diana Mitford's writings publishes for the first time the articles and diary she wrote for the amusement of her close circle of friends, as well as her hilarious articles for the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail, Express and Evening Standard. Included is the only portrait Diana Mitford wrote of her husband Sir Oswald Mosely, and the last interviews she gave in 2002 and 2003 in Paris to the writer Duncan Fallowell.
The Queen’s Sorrow: A Novel
by Suzannah DunnA queen brought low by love compromised and power abused – the tragedy of Mary Tudor.
Quine in Dialogue
by W. V. QuineOver the course of his life, W. V. Quine, one of the twentieth century’s great philosophers, engaged and inspired, interviewed and critiqued countless scholars, critics, and students. The qualities that distinguished him in any discussion are on clear display in this volume, which features him in dialogue with his predecessors and peers, his critics and students. The volume begins with a number of interviews Quine gave about his perspectives on twentieth-century logic, science and philosophy, the ideas of others, and philosophy generally. Also included are his most important articles, reviews, and comments on other philosophers, from Rudolf Carnap to P. F. Strawson. The book, which contains many previously unpublished manuscripts, concludes with a selection of small pieces, written for a broader public, that give a glimpse of the philosopher’s wide interests, his sense of humor, and his warm relations to friends. The result is a wide-ranging, in-depth, and finely nuanced portrait of the humanity underlying this great twentieth-century thinker’s philosophy.
Read My Heart (Text Only): Dorothy Osborne And Sir William Temple, A Love Story In The Age Of Revolution (text Only)
by Jane DunnFrom the bestselling author of ‘Elizabeth and Mary’, the remarkable love story of Dorothy Osborne and Sir William Temple, set against the turbulence and romance of 17th-century England. [Note that the family trees contained in this ebook are best viewed on a tablet.]
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (PDF)
by Azar NafisiThe inspirational tale of eight women who defied the confines of life in revolutionary Iran through the joy and power of literature. 'That room for all of us, became a place of transgression. What a wonderland it was! Sitting around the large coffee table covered with bouquets of flowers … We were, to borrow from Nabokov, to experience how the ordinary pebble of ordinary life could be transformed into a jewel through the magic eye of fiction.' For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Azar Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail. Shy and uncomfortable at first, they soon began to open up and speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading – ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Washington Square’, ‘Daisy Miller’ and ‘Lolita’ – their Lolita, as they imagined her in Tehran. Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. Azar Nafisi's luminous tale offers a fascinating portrait of the Iran-Iraq war viewed from Tehran and gives us a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in revolutionary Iran. It is a work of great passion and poetic beauty, written with a startlingly original voice.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir In Books (Penguin Modern Classics)
by Azar NafisiEvery Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in the worlds of Lolita, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, gradually they come to share their own stories, dreams and hopes with each other, and, for a few hours, taste freedom. Azar Nafisi's bestselling memoir is a moving, passionate testament to the transformative power of books, the magic of words and the search for beauty in life's darkest moments.
The Reagan I Knew
by William F. Buckley Jr.No two people were more important to American conservatism in the postwar era than William F. Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan. Buckley's writings provided the intellectual underpinnings, while Reagan brought the conservative movement into the White House. They met in 1961 when Reagan introduced a speech by Buckley. When nobody could turn on the microphone, Reagan climbed out a window, walked along a ledge to the locked control room, broke in, and flipped the correct switch. Buckley later described this moment as "a nifty allegory of Reagan's approach to foreign policy: the calm appraisal of a situation, the willingness to take risks, and then the decisive moment leading to lights and sound." For over thirty years, the two men shared jokes and vacations, advised each other on politics, and counseled each other's children. The Reagan I Knew traces the evolution of an extraordinary friendship between two American political giants.
A Real Boy: How Autism Shattered Our Lives - and Made a Family From the Pieces
by Christopher Stevens Nicola StevensWe feel like parents in a fairytale turned to stone by a curse and condemned to stand like statues with our hearts thudding in our chests as our son plays wild games, all alone in the palace. He sees us he knows us, he expects us always to be in our right places - but he has no idea that we are human too. David is eleven years old. He is happy, healthy and affectionate. He loves school, climbing trees and Disney songs. But he's also profoundly autistic.Imagine being, like David, unable to speak more than a few words and unable to express your most basic needs. He is oblivious to danger and blind to other people's emotions, including the pleas of his parents. He is unaware of the chaos that he creates and is completely unmoved by the heartbreak that he causes. This extraordinarily moving account describes the heartbreak, and the unexpected joy, of autism. With raw honesty, Christopher and Nicola Stevens lay bare their experiences, which are by turns harrowing, hilarious, and inspirational.Autism is often depicted as a lonely affliction but, as David's story unfolds, his parents reveal how the condition has given them an unbreakable togetherness; an insight into prejudice, as well as kindness; an understanding of life without words or language; and an intense appreciation of their children. Caring for David is an all-consuming experience...and through it they have learned, most of all, the meaning of unconditional love.
The Real Deal: My Story from Brick Lane to Dragons' Den
by James CaanAfter dropping out of school at just sixteen, James Caan started his business life in a broom cupboard with no qualifications and two pieces of fatherly wisdom: 'observe the masses and do the opposite' and 'always look for opportunities where both parties benefit'. Armed with this advice, natural charm and the Yellow Pages, he built a market-leading business with a turnover of £130 million and swiftly became one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs.From Caan's childhood as a Pakistani immigrant to the phenomenal success of his first company and beyond, The Real Deal traces both his financial and personal achievements. It offers a frank account of what success at thirty really signifies and brings us right up to the present, including his impact on Dragons' Den and what his charity work, from saving a hospital in London to building a school in Lahore, means to him. Ultimately, it is a story of learning what money is really worth, told by one the country's most insightful businessmen.
Reformation Readings of Romans (Romans Through History & Culture)
by R. Ward Holder Kathy EhrenspergerThis volume of essays provides presentations and analyses of several Reformation theologians' interpretations of Romans as a whole or in part, some focusing on one particular interpreter, such as Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Bullinger, and Bucer; others compare and contrast two or more of the major interpreters whether in relation to a particular section of the letter. The commonalities and divergence in the readings are analyzed in relation to and as a reflection of the various social, political and personal circumstances of the Reformers.
Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower
by Christopher BryanAt the end of the 20th century, "postcolonialism" described the effort to understand the experience of those who had lived under colonial rule. This kind of thinking has inevitably brought about a reexamination of the rise of Christianity, which took place under Roman colonial rule. How did Rome look from the viewpoint of an ordinary Galilean in the first century of the Christian era? What should this mean for our own understanding of and relationship to Jesus of Nazareth? In the past, Jesus was often "depoliticized," treated as a religious teacher imparting timeless truths for all people. Now, however, many scholars see Jesus as a political leader whose goal was independence from Roman rule so that the people could renew their traditional way of life under the rule of God. In Render to Caesar, Christopher Bryan reexamines the attitude of the early Church toward imperial Rome. Choosing a middle road, he asserts that Jesus and the early Christians did indeed have a critique of the Roman superpower -- a critique that was broadly in line with the entire biblical and prophetic tradition. One cannot worship the biblical God, the God of Israel, he argues, and not be concerned about justice in the here and now. On the other hand, the biblical tradition does not challenge human power structures by attempting to dismantle them or replace them with other power structures. Instead, Jesus' message consistently confronts such structures with the truth about their origin and purpose. Their origin is that God permits them. Their purpose is to promote God's peace and justice. Power is understood as a gift from God, a gift that it is to be used to serve God's will and a gift that can be taken away by God when misused. Render to Caesar transforms our understanding of early Christians and their relationship to Rome and demonstrates how Jesus' teaching continues to challenge those who live under structures of government quite different from those that would have been envisaged by the authors of the New Testament.
Resistance: Memoirs of Occupied France
by Agnes Humbert Ms Barbara MellorAs the grip of the German Occupation tightened on Paris in the summer of 1940, Agnès Humbert, a respected art historian, took a leap of blind faith and reckless courage. With a handful of her distinguished colleagues at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, she helped to form one of the first organised groups of the French Resistance. The unlikely but highly effective Musée de l'Homme network was also to earn a tragic place in history. In 1941 many of its members, including its charismatic leader Boris Vildé and Agnès herself, were betrayed to the Gestapo and imprisoned. Seven of the men were condemned to death and executed by firing squad. The women were deported to Germany as slave workers. These are the events described with electrifying immediacy by Agnès Humbert in her secret journal, first published in France in 1946 and never before translated into English. With self-deprecating humour and acerbic intelligence, she offers a uniquely personal and candid perspective on this dark and dramatic period, while the striking images that draw her artist's eye add a graphic, cinematic intensity to her diary entries. Refusing even in the grimmest days to surrender her compassion, humanity or talent for spotting the absurd, she writes with a deft touch and sardonic wit that belie the palpable depth of her conviction and outrage.Written with all the immediacy of events just lived, Résistance (first published as Notre guerre in Paris in 1946) stands today as a testament to one woman's indomitable spirit, and as an eloquent tribute to the sacrifice and courage of her comrades who did not survive.
Résistance: A Woman's Journal of Struggle and Defiance in Occupied France
by Barbara Mellor Agnes HumbertAgnès Humbert was an art historian in Paris during the German occupation in 1940. Stirred to action by the atrocities she witnessed, she joined forces with several colleagues to form an organized resistance-very likely the first such group to fight back against the occupation. (In fact, their newsletter, Résistance, gave the French Resistance its name.) In the throes of their struggle for freedom, the members of Humbert's group were betrayed to the Gestapo; Humbert herself was imprisoned. I n immediate, electrifying detail, Humbert describes her resistance against the Nazis, her time in prison, and the horrors she endured in a string of German labor camps, always retaining-in spite of everything-hope for herself, for her friends, and for humanity. Originally published in France in 1946, the book is now translated into English for the first time.
Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents
by Richard Nixon Rick PerlsteinThe first book to present America's most controversial president in his own words across his entire career, this unique collection of Richard Nixon's most important writings dramatically demonstrates why he has had such a profound impact on American life. This volume gathers everything from schoolboy letters to geostrategic manifestos and Oval Office transcripts to create a fascinating portrait of Nixon, one that is enriched by an extensive introduction in which Rick Perlstein puts forward a major reinterpretation of the thirty-seventh president's rise and fall. This anthology includes some of the most famous addresses in American history, from Nixon's "Checkers" speech (1952) and "Last Press Conference" (1962), to the "Silent Majority" speech (1969) and White House farewell. These texts are joined by campaign documents--including the infamous "Pink Sheet" from the 1950 Senate race--that give stark evidence of Nixon's slashing political style. Made easily available here for the first time, these writings give new depth to our understanding of Nixon.
Richard Nixon: Speeches, Writings, Documents (The James Madison Library in American Politics #6)
by Richard NixonThe first book to present America's most controversial president in his own words across his entire career, this unique collection of Richard Nixon's most important writings dramatically demonstrates why he has had such a profound impact on American life. This volume gathers everything from schoolboy letters to geostrategic manifestos and Oval Office transcripts to create a fascinating portrait of Nixon, one that is enriched by an extensive introduction in which Rick Perlstein puts forward a major reinterpretation of the thirty-seventh president's rise and fall. This anthology includes some of the most famous addresses in American history, from Nixon's "Checkers" speech (1952) and "Last Press Conference" (1962), to the "Silent Majority" speech (1969) and White House farewell. These texts are joined by campaign documents--including the infamous "Pink Sheet" from the 1950 Senate race--that give stark evidence of Nixon's slashing political style. Made easily available here for the first time, these writings give new depth to our understanding of Nixon.
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher
by Neil GrossOn his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought.
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher
by Neil GrossOn his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought.
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher
by Neil GrossOn his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought.
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher
by Neil GrossOn his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought.
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher
by Neil GrossOn his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought.
Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher
by Neil GrossOn his death in 2007, Richard Rorty was heralded by the New York Times as “one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers.” Controversial on the left and the right for his critiques of objectivity and political radicalism, Rorty experienced a renown denied to all but a handful of living philosophers. In this masterly biography, Neil Gross explores the path of Rorty’s thought over the decades in order to trace the intellectual and professional journey that led him to that prominence. The child of a pair of leftist writers who worried that their precocious son “wasn’t rebellious enough,” Rorty enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of fifteen. There he came under the tutelage of polymath Richard McKeon, whose catholic approach to philosophical systems would profoundly influence Rorty’s own thought. Doctoral work at Yale led to Rorty’s landing a job at Princeton, where his colleagues were primarily analytic philosophers. With a series of publications in the 1960s, Rorty quickly established himself as a strong thinker in that tradition—but by the late 1970s Rorty had eschewed the idea of objective truth altogether, urging philosophers to take a “relaxed attitude” toward the question of logical rigor. Drawing on the pragmatism of John Dewey, he argued that philosophers should instead open themselves up to multiple methods of thought and sources of knowledge—an approach that would culminate in the publication of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, one of the most seminal and controversial philosophical works of our time. In clear and compelling fashion, Gross sets that surprising shift in Rorty’s thought in the context of his life and social experiences, revealing the many disparate influences that contribute to the making of knowledge. As much a book about the growth of ideas as it is a biography of a philosopher, Richard Rorty will provide readers with a fresh understanding of both the man and the course of twentieth-century thought.
Richard Wright: The Life and Times (Perennial Classics Ser.)
by Hazel RowleyConsistently an outsider—a child of the fundamentalist South with an eighth-grade education, a self-taught intellectual, a black man married to a white woman—Richard Wright nonetheless became the unparalleled voice of his time. The first full-scale biography of the author best known for his searing novels Black Boy and Native Son, Richard Wright: The Life and Times brings the man and his work—in all their complexity and distinction—to vibrant life. Acclaimed biographer Hazel Rowley chronicles Wright’s unprecedented journey from a sharecropper’s shack in Mississippi to Chicago’s South Side to international renown as a writer and outspoken critic of racism. Drawing on journals, letters, and eyewitness accounts, Richard Wright probes the author’s relationships with Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison, his attraction to Communism, and his so-called exile in France. Skillfully interweaving quotes from Wright’s own writings, Rowley deftly portrays a passionate, courageous, and flawed man who would become one of our most enduring literary figures. “Splendid. . . . Richard Wright is well written, prodigiously researched, and nicely paced, a compelling evocation of the man, his craft, and the different worlds through which he moved.”—Michael J. Ybarra, Wall Street Journal “A welcome and illuminating work . . . [Rowley] does an outstanding job. . . . Rich and revealing.”—Megan Harlan, San Francisco Chronicle “A magnificent biography, subtle and insightful. . . . Rowley writes with style and grace, and her research on Wright is prodigious.”—Howard Zinn, The Week