Great Authors

In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton shows us the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Mar-a-Lago, Miami Beach, and other storied sites. It was a time when the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else in America; workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom endured grievous abuses; and the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination. Knowlton also breathes dynamic life into the four forces that made and/or broke Florida in the time.

Two years ago, Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, near the banks of a river that once marked the southern boundary of the legendary Debatable Land. The oldest detectable territorial division in Great Britain, the Debatable Land served as a buffer between Scotland and England. It was once the bloodiest region in the country, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James V. After most of its population was slaughtered or deported, it became the last part of Great Britain to be brought under the control of the state.

In 1926, Henry Beston spent two weeks in a two-room cottage on the sand dunes of Cape Cod. He had not intended to stay longer, but, as he later wrote, "I lingered on, and as the year lengthened into autumn, the beauty and mystery of this earth and outer sea so possessed and held me that I could not go."

On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.

James Boswell forever changed the genre of biography when he painstakingly transformed a scholarly profusion of detail into a perceptive, lifelike portrait of Dr. Samuel Johnson. James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson reveals a man of outsized appetites and private vulnerabilities and is the source of much of what we know about one of the towering figures of English literature.

Most Americans hold basic misconceptions about the Confederacy, the Civil War, and the actions of subsequent neo-Confederates. For example, two thirds of Americans - including most history teachers - think the Confederate States seceded for "states' rights". The 150th anniversary of secession and Civil War provides a moment for all Americans to hear these documents, properly set in context by award-winning sociologist and historian James W. Loewen and coeditor Edward H. Sebesta to put in perspective the mythology of the Old South.

GIFTS FROM GOD DAILY DEVOTIONAL Author Charles Morris has identified eight Gifts from God that you may apply to your life. It is essential to have the correct tool for the proper resolution. Each gift is presented with basic statements to renew your thinking, followed by affirmations and inspirational Scripture that leave no doubt that the source of these divine gifts is our heavenly Father. The overall purpose of human life is to experience God’s gift of salvation and grow in His graces. God’s Word and Divine grace are provided by our Heavenly Father to make such growth natural. GIFTS ...

From the very first book publication in October 1920 to the film release of Death on the Nile in October 2020, this investigation into Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot celebrates a century of probably the world’s favourite fictional detective. This book tells his story decade-by-decade, exploring his appearances not only in the original novels, short stories and plays but also across stage, screen and radio productions.

In 1987, when Hilary Mantel was first published in the London Review of Books, she wrote to the editor, Karl Miller, ‘I have no critical training whatsoever, so I am forced to be more brisk and breezy than scholarly.’ This collection of 20 reviews, essays and pieces of memoir from the next three decades tells the story of what happened next.

With the infected and undead bearing down on your door, how would you face them? If you could choose the ending to your story, what kind of hero will you be? Monty doesn't want the world to end; he likes his life, and the majority of the people within it. He is not, however, going to get a choice in the matter. Mr Classical gives you the story of Montgomery, a proud and independent man that realises perhaps he is neither as proud nor as independent as he first thought, when the citizens of the UK steadily succumb to the zombie virus. Will Monty survive? When he catches a glimpse of what the...

From William Shakespeare and Jane Austen to Gabriel García Márquez and Toni Morrison, Writers explores more than 100 biographies of the world’s greatest writers. Writers introduces key ideas, themes, and literary techniques of each figure, revealing the imaginations, and personalities behind some of the world's greatest novels, short stories, poems, and plays. A diverse variety of authors are covered, from the Middle Ages to present day, providing a compelling glimpse into the lives of the people behind the page.

Through his alcoholism and her mental illness, his career lows and her institutional confinement, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's devotion to each other endured for over 22 years. Now, for the first time, we have the story of their love in the couple's own letters. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda consists of more than 75 percent previously unpublished or out-of-print letters, as well as extensive narrative on the Fitzgeralds' marriage by Fitzgerald scholars Jackson R. Bryer and Cathy W. Barks.

Ten-year-old Pearl Spence is a daydreamer, playing make-believe to escape life in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl in 1935. The Spences have their share of misfortune, but as the sheriff's family, they've got more than most in this dry, desolate place. They're who the town turns to when there's a crisis or a need. Pearl is proud of her loving, strong family, though she often wearies of tracking down her mentally impaired older sister or wrestling with her grandmother's unshakable belief in a God. Then a mysterious man bent on revenge tramps into her town of Red River.

Largely self-taught, with little formal education, Dickens was catapulted to fame at the age of 24 with the publication of The Pickwick Papers in 1836. While some authors have depicted Dickens as a tormented soul or cruel misogynist who compromised his work by pandering to a wide audience, Simply Dickens convincingly shows him as a purposeful, supremely talented, and versatile personality whose popular appeal was central to his achievement.

As much about the life of the city as it is about a life lived, sometimes, in the city, John Banville's "quasi-memoir" is as layered, emotionally rich, witty, and unexpected as any of his novels. Born and bred in a small town a train ride away from Dublin, Banville saw the city as a place of enchantment when he was a child, a birthday treat, the place where his beloved, eccentric aunt lived.

There are few amongst us who have not heard of the great romantic poet William Wordsworth, an artist who has for centuries, enchanted his readers with his eloquent verse and magnificent imagery. As a man who revelled in the beauty of nature, his love of the natural world shines through his stirring words, while all the while he attempted to unveil the hidden magic of the countryside. From the beautiful sites of the Lake District where he spent most of his life to the Scottish Lowlands and beyond, Wordsworth created unforgettable images, which would change people’s vision of rural Britain ...

Are you ready to create, inspire, and lead your own amazing salon team? Salon owners, this book is for you. It equips you with the business smarts you need to build a team of people you love and trust, so you can reap the rewards you deserve: money, time, freedom, and choice.

A spatula-wielding chef saved me from a thief in the dark of night. My publicist demanded I get a fake fiancée to sell my romance story. Ethan, my best friend’s brother—the chef—stepped in as my guardian angel. He needed a fake fiancée to nab a prestigious chef position. I needed a convincing romance for my readers to be motivated to read my book. We faked love at my book signings and his prestigious interview. Unexpected adventures shattered our walls, bringing us dangerously close. Together, we faced ghosts of our pasts and raw heartfelt confessions. I carried guilt over a fire ...

Drawing on previously hidden historical documents and interviews with the long-silent "illegitimate" branch of the family, William J. Mann paints an elegant, meticulously researched, and groundbreaking group portrait of this legendary family. Mann argues that the Roosevelts' rise to power and prestige was actually driven by a series of intense personal contests that at times devolved into blood sport. His compelling and eye-opening masterwork is the story of a family at war with itself, of social Darwinism at its most ruthless.

Winning pitch by "America's Next Great Author" Proof of Concept Joi Miner now a full-length novel! If walls could talk...whew chile the stories they'd tell... Manda Felix is a nurse who loves her job. But the recent loss of a patient took its toll on her. At her husband’s urging, she begins therapy to try to get herself together. She’s willing to do anything to keep her marriage and regain the love that she had for her job. But, it may be too late. Dr. Reginald Felix, M.D. is a man full of his own power, and because of it, he demands perfection in every aspect of his life. When his wife...