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Book Hotel Florida

    Book Details:
  • Author : Amanda Vaill
  • Publisher : A&C Black
  • Release : 2014-04-24
  • ISBN : 1408833883
  • Pages : 615 pages

Download or read book Hotel Florida written by Amanda Vaill and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2014-04-24 with total page 615 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the rubble of a city blasted by a civil war that many fear will cross borders and engulf Europe, the Hotel Florida on Madrid's chic Gran Via has become a haven for foreign journalists and writers. It is here that six people meet and find their lives changed forever. Ernest Hemingway, his career stalled, his marriage sour, hopes that this war will give him fresh material and a new romance; Martha Gellhorn, an ambitious young journalist hungry for love and experience, thinks she will find both with Hemingway in Spain. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, idealistic and ground-breaking young photographers based in Paris, want to capture history in the making and are inventing moder photojournalism in the process. And Arturo Barea, chief of the Republican government's foreign press office, and Ilsa Kulcsar, his Austrian deputy, are struggling to balance truth-telling with their loyalty to their sometimes-compromised cause - a struggle that places both of their lives at risk. Hotel Florida traces the tangled wartime destinies of these three couples - and a host of supporting characters - living as intensely as they had ever done, against the backdrop of a critical moment in history. It is a narrative of love and reinvention that is, finally, a story about truth, finding it, telling it - and living it, whatever the cost.

Book Hotel Florida  Truth  Love  and Death in the Spanish Civil War

Download or read book Hotel Florida Truth Love and Death in the Spanish Civil War written by Amanda Vaill and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A spellbinding story of love amid the devastation of the Spanish Civil War Madrid, 1936. In a city blasted by a civil war that many fear will cross borders and engulf Europe--a conflict one writer will call "the decisive thing of the century"--Six people meet and find their lives changed forever. Ernest Hemingway, his career stalled, his marriage sour, hopes that this war will give him fresh material and new romance; Martha Gellhorn, an ambitious novice journalist hungry for love and experience, thinks she will find both with Hemingway in Spain. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, idealistic young photographers based in Paris, want to capture history in the making and are inventing modern photojournalism in the process. And Arturo Barea, chief of Madrid's loyalist foreign press office, and Ilsa Kulcsar, his Austrian deputy, are struggling to balance truth-telling with loyalty to their sometimes compromised cause--a struggle that places both of them in peril. Hotel Florida traces the tangled wartime destinies of these three couples against the backdrop of a critical moment in history. As Hemingway put it, "You could learn as much at the Hotel Florida in those years as you could anywhere in the world." From the raw material of unpublished letters and diaries, official documents, and recovered reels of film, Amanda Vaill has created a narrative of love and reinvention that is, finally, a story about truth: finding it out, telling it, and living it--whatever the cost"--

Book Everybody Was So Young

Download or read book Everybody Was So Young written by Amanda Vaill and published by HMH. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller: “A marvelously readable biography” of the couple and their relationships with Picasso, Fitzgerald, and other icons of the era (The New York Times Book Review). Wealthy Americans with homes in Paris and on the French Riviera, Gerald and Sara Murphy were at the very center of expatriate cultural and social life during the modernist ferment of the 1920s. Gerald Murphy—witty, urbane, and elusive—was a giver of magical parties and an acclaimed painter. Sara Murphy, an enigmatic beauty who wore her pearls to the beach, enthralled and inspired Pablo Picasso (he painted her both clothed and nude), Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The models for Nicole and Dick Diver in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, the Murphys also counted among their friends John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Fernand Léger, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter, and a host of others. Far more than mere patrons, they were kindred spirits whose sustaining friendship released creative energy. Yet none of the artists who used the Murphys for their models fully captured the real story of their lives: their Edith Wharton childhoods, their unexpected youthful romance, their ten-year secret courtship, their complex and enduring marriage—and the tragedy that struck them, when the world they had created seemed most perfect. Drawing on a wealth of family diaries, photographs, letters and other papers, as well as on archival research and interviews on two continents, this “brilliantly rendered biography” documents the pivotal role of the Murphys in the story of the Lost Generation (Los Angeles Times). “Often considered minor Lost Generation celebrities, the Murphys were in fact much more than legendary party givers. Vaill’s compelling biography unveils their role in the European avant-garde movement of the 1920s; Gerald was a serious modernist painter. But Vaill also shows how their genius for friendship and for transforming daily life into art attracted the most creative minds of the time.” —Library Journal

Book A Land Remembered

    Book Details:
  • Author : Patrick D Smith
  • Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
  • Release : 2012-10-01
  • ISBN : 1561645826
  • Pages : 286 pages

Download or read book A Land Remembered written by Patrick D Smith and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-10-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. Now this Student Edition in two volumes makes this rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit more accessible to young readers. Patrick Smith tells of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Between is a sweeping story rich in Florida history with a cast of memorable characters who battle wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the Florida swamp. In this volume, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at this side. His parents, Tobias and Emma, scratch a living from the land, gathering wild cows from the swamp and herding them across the state to market. Zech learns the ways of the land from the Seminoles, with whom his life becomes entwined as he grows into manhood. Next in series > > See all of the books in this series

Book Sarajevo   s Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War

Download or read book Sarajevo s Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War written by Kenneth Morrison and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-26 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarajevo’s Holiday Inn on the Frontline of Politics and War charts the rich history of the city’s famous Holiday Inn hotel. Describing in detail the tumultuous events that took place within its walls and in its immediate environs, this book explores the opening of the building in advance of the 1984 Winter Olympics through the early 1990s when the hotel was utilized by political elites through to the siege of Sarajevo, when the hotel became the main base for foreign correspondents. Kenneth Morrison draws upon a plethora of primary and secondary sources, and includes extensive interviews with many participants in the drama that was played out within the confines of the hotel, contextualizing the case of the Holiday Inn by analyzing how hotels are utilized in times of conflict.

Book Seaman Schepps

    Book Details:
  • Author : Amanda Vaill
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2008-02-04
  • ISBN : 9780865652385
  • Pages : 204 pages

Download or read book Seaman Schepps written by Amanda Vaill and published by . This book was released on 2008-02-04 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New in paperback, here is a dazzling survey of the life, times and flamboyant work of one of New Yorks greatest jewelers, Seaman Schepps. Sometimes called Americas court jeweler, Schepps rose to prominence in the 1930s by creating designs that defied all previous ideas of what jewelry should look like. Witty even outrageous and wildly flattering, Scheppss jewelry stood for style more than wealth. Featured on the covers of Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Look, and other magazines, it appealed to an enormous range of clients, from the Duchess of Windsor to Andy Warhol. Today, nearly 25 years after his death, his work has inspired a legion of new collectors, who seek out vintage rings, bracelets, earrings, compacts and lipstick cases, and the firm continues to produce splendid pieces based on the original designs. This book brings Scheppss extraordinary jewelry to a new generation.

Book Franco s Crypt

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jeremy Treglown
  • Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • Release : 2013-08-13
  • ISBN : 1429943424
  • Pages : 338 pages

Download or read book Franco s Crypt written by Jeremy Treglown and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An open-minded and clear-eyed reexamination of the cultural artifacts of Franco's Spain True, false, or both? Spain's 1939-75 dictator, Francisco Franco, was a pioneer of water conservation and sustainable energy. Pedro Almodóvar is only the most recent in a line of great antiestablishment film directors who have worked continuously in Spain since the 1930s. As early as 1943, former Republicans and Nationalists were collaborating in Spain to promote the visual arts, irrespective of the artists' political views. Censorship can benefit literature. Memory is not the same thing as history. Inside Spain as well as outside, many believe-wrongly-that under Franco's fascist dictatorship, nothing truthful or imaginatively worthwhile could be said or written or shown. In his groundbreaking new book, Franco's Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936, Jeremy Treglown argues that oversimplifications like these of a complicated, ambiguous actuality have contributed to a separate falsehood: that there was and continues to be a national pact to forget the evils for which Franco's side (and, according to this version, his side alone) was responsible. The myth that truthfulness was impossible inside Franco's Spain may explain why foreign narratives (For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homage to Catalonia) have seemed more credible than Spanish ones. Yet La Guerra de España was, as its Spanish name asserts, Spain's own war, and in recent years the country has begun to make a more public attempt to "reclaim" its modern history of fascism. How it is doing so, and the role played in the process by notions of historical memory, are among the subjects of this wide-ranging and challenging book. Franco's Crypt reveals that despite state censorship, events of the time were vividly recorded. Treglown looks at what's actually there-monuments, paintings, public works, novels, movies, video games-and considers, in a captivating narrative, the totality of what it shows. The result is a much-needed reexamination of a history we only thought we knew.

Book Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War

Download or read book Hemingway and the Spanish Civil War written by Gilbert H. Muller and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1930s, no event was more absorbing or galvanizing to Ernest Hemingway than the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway was passionately devoted to the cause of the democratically elected Spanish Republic and he spent much of the war reporting from its front lines, producing a deeply political body of work that illuminated the conflict and presaged the world war to come. In the end, his immersive journey into the turbulent world of the Spanish Civil War resulted in For Whom the Bell Tolls, a landmark in American political fiction. This book offers a fresh account of Hemingway’s adventures in Spain during the Civil War, stressing his embrace of radical political action and discourse in defense of the Republic against the forces of Fascism. On the eightieth anniversary of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gilbert H. Muller reconsiders Hemingway as an engaged artist, political actor, and visionary.

Book The Spanish Civil Wars

    Book Details:
  • Author : Mark Lawrence
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2017-02-09
  • ISBN : 1474229425
  • Pages : 265 pages

Download or read book The Spanish Civil Wars written by Mark Lawrence and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2017 This book provides a comparative history of the domestic and international nature of Spain's First Carlist War (1833-40) and the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), as well as the impact of both conflicts. The book demonstrates how and why Spain's struggle for liberty was won in the 1830s only for it to be lost one hundred years later. It shows how both civil wars were world wars in miniature, fought in part by foreign volunteers under the gaze and in the political consciousness of the outside world. Prefaced by a short introduction, The Spanish Civil Wars is arranged into two domestic and international sections, each with three thematic chapters comparing each civil war in detail. The main analytical perspectives are political, social and new military history in nature, but they also explore aspects of gender, culture, nationalism and separatism, economy, religion and, especially, the war in its international context. The book integrates international archival research with the latest scholarship on both subjects and also includes a glossary, a bibliography and several images. It is a key resource tailored to the needs of students and scholars of modern Spain which offers an intriguing and original new perspective on the Spanish Civil War.

Book Last Call at the Hotel Imperial

Download or read book Last Call at the Hotel Imperial written by Deborah Cohen and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE • A prize-winning historian’s “effervescent” (The New Yorker) account of a close-knit band of wildly famous American reporters who, in the run-up to World War II, took on dictators and rewrote the rules of modern journalism “High-speed, four-lane storytelling . . . Cohen’s all-action narrative bursts with colour and incident.”—Financial Times NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • WINNER OF THE GOLDSMITH BOOK PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE PROSE AWARD ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NPR, BookPage, Booklist They were an astonishing group: glamorous, gutsy, and irreverent to the bone. As cub reporters in the 1920s, they roamed across a war-ravaged world, sometimes perched atop mules on wooden saddles, sometimes gliding through countries in the splendor of a first-class sleeper car. While empires collapsed and fledgling democracies faltered, they chased deposed empresses, international financiers, and Balkan gun-runners, and then knocked back doubles late into the night. Last Call at the Hotel Imperial is the extraordinary story of John Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson. In those tumultuous years, they landed exclusive interviews with Hitler and Mussolini, Nehru and Gandhi, and helped shape what Americans knew about the world. Alongside these backstage glimpses into the halls of power, they left another equally incredible set of records. Living in the heady afterglow of Freud, they subjected themselves to frank, critical scrutiny and argued about love, war, sex, death, and everything in between. Plunged into successive global crises, Gunther, Knickerbocker, Sheean, and Thompson could no longer separate themselves from the turmoil that surrounded them. To tell that story, they broke long-standing taboos. From their circle came not just the first modern account of illness in Gunther’s Death Be Not Proud—a memoir about his son’s death from cancer—but the first no-holds-barred chronicle of a marriage: Sheean’s Dorothy and Red, about Thompson’s fractious relationship with Sinclair Lewis. Told with the immediacy of a conversation overheard, this revelatory book captures how the global upheavals of the twentieth century felt up close.

Book The Little Paris Bookshop

Download or read book The Little Paris Bookshop written by Nina George and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monsieur Perdu can prescribe the perfect book for a broken heart. But can he fix his own? Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can't seem to heal through literature is himself; he's still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened. After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself. Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people's lives.

Book Somewhere

Download or read book Somewhere written by Amanda Vaill and published by Crown. This book was released on 2008-05-06 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the acclaimed Everybody Was So Young, the definitive and major biography of the great choreographer and Broadway legend Jerome Robbins To some, Jerome Robbins was a demanding perfectionist, a driven taskmaster, a theatrical visionary; to others, he was a loyal friend, a supportive mentor, a generous and entertaining companion and colleague. Born Jerome Rabinowitz in New York City in 1918, Jerome Robbins repudiated his Jewish roots along with his name only to reclaim them with his triumphant staging of Fiddler on the Roof. A self-proclaimed homosexual, he had romances or relationships with both men and women, some famous—like Montgomery Clift and Natalie Wood—some less so. A resolutely unpolitical man, he was forced to testify before Congress at the height of anti-Communist hysteria. A consummate entertainer, he could be paralyzed by shyness; nearly infallible professionally, he was conflicted, vulnerable, and torn by self-doubt. Guarded and adamantly private, he was an inveterate and painfully honest journal writer who confided his innermost thoughts and aspirations to a remarkable series of diaries and memoirs. With ballets like Dances at a Gathering, Afternoon of a Faun, and The Concert, he humanized neoclassical dance; with musicals like On the Town, Gypsy, and West Side Story, he changed the face of theater in America. In the pages of this definitive biography, Amanda Vaill takes full measure of the complicated, contradictory genius who was Jerome Robbins. She re-creates his childhood as the only son of Russian Jewish immigrants; his apprenticeship as a dancer and Broadway chorus gypsy; his explosion into prominence at the age of twenty-five with the ballet Fancy Free and its Broadway incarnation, On the Town; and his years of creative dominance in both theater and dance. She brings to life his colleagues and friends—from Leonard Bernstein and George Balanchine to Robert Wilson and Robert Graves—and his loves and lovers. And she tells the full story behind some of Robbins’s most difficult episodes, such as his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his firing from the film version of West Side Story. Drawing on thousands of pages of documents from Robbins’s personal and professional papers, to which she was granted unfettered access, as well as on other archives and hundreds of interviews, Somewhere is a riveting narrative of a life lived onstage, offstage, and backstage. It is also an accomplished work of criticism and social history that chronicles one man’s phenomenal career and places it squarely in the cultural ferment of a time when New York City was truly “a helluva town.”

Book Rick Steves Spain

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rick Steves
  • Publisher : Rick Steves
  • Release : 2022-10-11
  • ISBN : 1641714662
  • Pages : 1094 pages

Download or read book Rick Steves Spain written by Rick Steves and published by Rick Steves. This book was released on 2022-10-11 with total page 1094 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now more than ever, you can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling through Spain. Savor authentic paella, run with the bulls in Pamplona, or relax on Barcelona's beaches: experience it all with Rick! Inside Rick Steves Spain you'll find: Fully updated, comprehensive coverage for planning a multi-week trip to Spain Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from El Escorial and the great mosque of Córdoba to medieval bars serving house-made madroño liqueur How to connect with local culture: Enjoy a flamenco show in Madrid, chat with fans about the latest fútbol match, or meander down winding streets in search of the best tapas Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a glass of sangria Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums Vital trip-planning tools, like how to link destinations, build your itinerary, and get from place to place Detailed maps, plus a fold-out map for exploring on the go Over 1,000 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down Coverage of Barcelona, Basque Country, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, León, Salamanca, Madrid, El Escorial, the Valley of the Fallen, Segovia, Toledo, Granada, Sevilla, Córdoba, Andalucía, Spain's Southern Coast, Gibraltar, Morocco, and more Covid-related travel info and resources for a smooth trip Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Spain. Planning a one- to two-week trip? Check out Rick Steves Best of Spain.

Book Frontline Madrid

    Book Details:
  • Author : David Mathieson
  • Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
  • Release : 2017-02-09
  • ISBN : 1909930520
  • Pages : 239 pages

Download or read book Frontline Madrid written by David Mathieson and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-02-09 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 1936 insurgent Spanish troops organized a military coup to oust the elected Republican government in Madrid. The rebel generals expected to force a quick, clean regime change but they failed. The botched uprising turned into a bloody civil war. Hundreds of thousands died in a bitter conflict which tore the country apart and rapidly turned into the prelude for an even greater conflict yet to come--the Second World War. The siege of Madrid was the key battle of the war. The world watched and waited for the city to surrender as General Franco's Nationalist army, backed by Hitler and Mussolini, closed in on the Spanish capital. But Madrid did not fall. Madrileños fought tooth and nail to defend their city. Helped by volunteers from fifty other countries--the International Brigades--they held out against all the odds until the end of the conflict in 1939. Despite its central role in twentieth-century history, the siege of Madrid is an episode largely hidden from today's visitor. There is no guide to the war sites and few clues for the inquisitive traveller who wants to know more. Frontline Madrid fills that gap. This unique guide book explains what life was like in the city under siege and what happened in the battlefield dramas. The simple to follow maps and diagrams make it easy to visit the frontline sites. The vividly written descriptions bring events and people compellingly to life. The role of prominent individuals, British and American--Orwell, Hemingway, John Cornford is explored. Off the beaten track, from the University district in the city centre to the mountains of Guadarrama less than an hour away, the remains of the war in Madrid can still be found--gun emplacements, bunkers, trenches and occasional debris. Frontline Madrid retraces the footsteps of those who lived through the conflict to take the reader on a tour in time. The usual tourist traps are left far behind to enter the gripping world of a war which shaped modern European history.

Book Rick Steves Spain 2017

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rick Steves
  • Publisher : Rick Steves
  • Release : 2016-11-22
  • ISBN : 1631214527
  • Pages : 1118 pages

Download or read book Rick Steves Spain 2017 written by Rick Steves and published by Rick Steves. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 1118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling in Spain. In this guide, you'll find an inviting mix of exciting cities and cozy towns. Explore the lively cities of Madrid, Barcelona, and Sevilla, and follow the Route of the White Hill Towns in Andalucía's sun-drenched countryside. Experience the works of the great masters—from El Greco to Picasso to Dalí—and learn how to avoid the lines at the most popular museums. Self-guided walks lead you through the castles, cathedrals, and villages of this ancient but modern land. End your day with a glass of Rioja wine and a plate of tapas—then join the locals for an evening of flamenco. Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants. He'll help you plan where to go and what to see, depending on the length of your trip. You'll get up-to-date recommendations about what is worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

Book A Dominant Character  How J  B  S  Haldane Transformed Genetics  Became a Communist  and Risked His Neck for Science

Download or read book A Dominant Character How J B S Haldane Transformed Genetics Became a Communist and Risked His Neck for Science written by Samanth Subramanian and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-07-28 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Wall Street Journal's 10 Best Books of 2020 One of the New York Times's 100 Notable Books of 2020 A biography of J. B. S. Haldane, the brilliant and eccentric British scientist whose innovative predictions inspired Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. J. B. S. Haldane’s life was rich and strange, never short on genius or drama—from his boyhood apprenticeship to his scientist father, who first instilled in him a devotion to the scientific method; to his time in the trenches during the First World War, where he wrote his first scientific paper; to his numerous experiments on himself, including inhaling dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and drinking hydrochloric acid; to his clandestine research for the British Admiralty during the Second World War. He is best remembered as a geneticist who revolutionized our understanding of evolution, but his peers hailed him as a polymath. One student called him “the last man who might know all there was to be known.” He foresaw in vitro fertilization, peak oil, and the hydrogen fuel cell, and his contributions ranged over physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, mathematics, and biostatistics. He was also a staunch Communist, which led him to Spain during the Civil War and sparked suspicions that he was spying for the Soviets. He wrote copiously on science and politics in newspapers and magazines, and he gave speeches in town halls and on the radio—all of which made him, in his day, as famous in Britain as Einstein. It is the duty of scientists to think politically, Haldane believed, and he sought not simply to tell his readers what to think but to show them how to think. Beautifully written and richly detailed, Samanth Subramanian’s A Dominant Character recounts Haldane’s boisterous life and examines the questions he raised about the intersections of genetics and politics—questions that resonate even more urgently today.

Book Ernest Hemingway

Download or read book Ernest Hemingway written by Verna Kale and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ernest Hemingway has enjoyed a rich legacy as the progenitor of modern fiction, as an outsized character in literary lore who wrote some of the most honest and moving accounts of the twentieth century, set against such grand backdrops as the bullrings of Spain, the savannahs of Africa, and the rivers and lakes of the American Midwest. In this portrait of the Nobel-prize winner, Verna Kale challenges many of the long-standing assumptions Hemingway’s legacy has created. Drawing on numerous sources, she reexamines him, offering a real-life portrait of the historical figure as he really was: a writer, a sportsman, and a celebrity with a long and turbulent career. Kale follows Hemingway around the world and through his many roles—as a young Red Cross volunteer in World War I, as an expatriate poet in 1920s Paris, as a career novelist navigating the burgeoning middlebrow fiction market, and as a seasoned but struggling writer still trying to draft his masterpiece. She takes readers through his four marriages, his joyous big game expeditions in Africa, and his struggles with celebrity and craft, especially his decades-long attempt at a novel that was supposed to blow open the boundaries of American fiction and upset the very conventions he helped to create. It is this final aspect of Hemingway’s life—Kale shows—that wreaked the greatest havoc on him, taking a steep physical and mental toll that was likely exacerbated by a medical condition that science is only beginning to understand. Concise but insightful, this book offers an acute portrait of one of the most important figures of American arts and letters.