by A.S. Byatt (2001)
From the award-winning author of Possession comes an ingenious novel about love and literary sleuthing: a dazzling fiction woven out of one man's search for fact.Here is the story of Phineas G. Nanson, a disenchanted graduate student who decides to escape the world of postmodern literary theory and immerse himself in the messiness of "real life" by writing a biography of a great biographer. In a series of adventures that are by turns intellectual and comic, scientific and sensual, Phineas tracks his subject to the deserts of Africa and the maelstrom of the Arctic. Along the way he comes to rely on two women, one of whom may be the guide he needs out of the dizzying labyrinth of his research and back into his own life. A tantalizing yarn of detection and desire, The Biographer's Tale is a provocative look at "truth" in biography and our perennial quest for certainty.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Phillip Lopate
A long-awaited new book on personal writing from Lopate--the celebrated essayist and the director of Columbia University's nonfiction program. He provides the nuts and bolts, offering a refreshing new master class on the craft of the personal narrative, including the personal essay and memoir.
Betty T. Smith
When her husband announces that he has been unfaithful and asks for a divorce after twenty-eight years of marriage, it appears to Betty that her dream has died. However, in the midst of her pain, God gives her a promise of restoration. Clinging to that promise, she chooses to stay faithful until her husband's return, however long it may take. With candor and courage Betty Smith shares her highs and lows, from the courtship, to the birth of her children, to seeing the man she loved walk out the door, and how she weathered the storm by standing on the promises of God. Nothing Wasted is a love story, not just between Betty and her husband, but also between Betty and the God who was always there, always faithful, and who never let her down.
Jack Kerouac
« «Eh bien, l'heure avait pour moi sonné d'incarner le marin ivre sur le front de mer, ou le vagabond sur la route, tout en continuant à étudier et à écrire dans la solitude. Je n'avais rien appris à l'université qui puisse m'aider à devenir un écrivain, et je ne pouvais apprendre mon métier ailleurs que dans mon propre esprit et par mes propres expériences.» Paru en 1968, Vanité de Duluoz est le dernier livre de Jack Kerouac. Mêlant passé et présent, autobiographie et fiction, l'auteur y retrace son adolescence, de ses années de lycée aux débuts du mouvement beat, en passant par la Seconde Guerre mondiale et un voyage épique vers le Groenland. »--
Lucia Raatma
Describes the important roles women held during the Civil War including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, and Elizabeth Van Lew.