Whither thou goest

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Beverly Cleary

The New Yorker called Beverly Cleary's first volume of memoirs, A Girl From Yamhill, a warm, honest book, as interesting as any novel. Now the creator of the classic children's stories millions grew up with continues her own fascination story. Here is Beverly Cleary, from college years to the publication of her first book. It is a fascinating look at her life and a writing career that spans three generations, continuing to capture the hearts and imaginations of children of all ages throughout the world.

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John Matteson

An account of the brilliant writer and a fiery social critic Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) who became the leading female figure in the transcendentalist movement, wrote a celebrated column of literary and social commentary for Horace Greeley's newspaper, and served as the first foreign correspondent for an American newspaper. Amid all these strivings and achievements, she authored the first great work of American feminism: Woman in the Nineteenth Century.

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Kennedy Fraser

In the fourteen superb essays collected in this volume - most were published in The New Yorker and Vogue; two appear in print for the first time - Kennedy Fraser explores the uniquely female voice, the uniquely female presence, in literature and art. She reveals how the early sexual experiences of Virginia Woolf and Edith Wharton colored their emotions and their work. She considers the long life in exile of Nina Berberova, with its complicated, intertwining loves and friendships. She shows us Vermeer, unrivalled "in conveying the active, passive, peculiarly feminine inner life" of another time, and Louise Colet, Flaubert's mistress, trying to find a permanent place in his life as well as in his work. Fraser writes engagingly of such survivors as the feminist Germaine Greer, the English naturalist Miriam Rothschild, and the New York haute couture designer Valentina. She observes the havoc Paul Scott and Henri Matisse wreaked on the women and families around them during their very different careers in the arts. Vignettes from her own life - about her garden, about buying meat in New York, about her sister - are interspersed throughout. And the book ends with a remembrance of her days at William Shawn's New Yorker, where she was introduced to the writing life.

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Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien, the author of "The Country Girls" trilogy, "The Light of Evening," and "Byron in Love," portrays the events, people, emotions, and landscape that contributed to her rich and heady life. She is the recipient of the James Joyce Ulysses Medal, and an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.