Download or read book Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin written by Marion Meade and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2005 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lives and times of four extraordinary writers and personalities of the 1920s: Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Edna Ferber.
Download or read book Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin written by Marion Meade and published by Nan A. Talese. This book was released on 2009-08-11 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her exuberant new work, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN, Marion Meade presents a portrait of four extraordinary writers--Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Edna Ferber--whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors embodied the spirit of the 1920s. Capturing the jazz rhythms and desperate gaiety that defined the era, Meade gives us Parker, Fitzgerald, Millay, and Ferber, traces the intersections of their lives, and describes the men (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson, Harold Ross, and Robert Benchley) who influenced them, loved them, and sometimes betrayed them. Here are the social and literary triumphs (Parker's Round Table witticisms appeared almost daily in the newspapers and Ferber and Millay won Pulitzer Prizes) and inevitably the penances each paid: crumbled love affairs, abortions, depression, lost beauty, nervous breakdowns, and finally, overdoses and even madness. These literary heroines did what they wanted, said what they thought, living wholly in the moment. They kicked open the door for twentieth-century women writers and set a new model for every woman trying to juggle the serious issues of economic independence, political power, and sexual freedom. Meade recreates the excitement, romance, and promise of the 1920s, a decade celebrated for cultural innovation--the birth of jazz, the beginning of modernism--and social and sexual liberation, bringing to light, as well, the anxiety and despair that lurked beneath the nonstop partying and outrageous behavior. A vibrant mixture of literary scholarship, social history, and scandal, BOBBED HAIR AND BATHTUB GIN is a rich evocation of a period that will forever intrigue and captivate us.
Download or read book Dorothy Parker written by Marion Meade and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1989-03-03 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marion Meade's engrossing and comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century's most captivating women In this lively, absorbing biography, Marion Meade illuminates both the charm and the dark side of Dorothy Parker, exploring her days of wicked wittiness at the Algonquin Round Table with the likes of Robert Benchley, George Kaufman, and Harold Ross, and in Hollywood with S. J. Perelman, William Faulkner, and Lillian Hellman. At the dazzling center of it all, Meade gives us the flamboyant, self-destructive, and brilliant Dorothy Parker. This edition features a new afterword by Marion Meade.
Download or read book Eleanor of Aquitaine written by Marion Meade and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1991-11-01 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Marion Meade has told the story of Eleanor, wild, devious, from a thoroughly historical but different point of view: a woman's point of view."—Allene Talmey, Vogue.
Download or read book Lonelyhearts written by Marion Meade and published by HMH. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “breezily entertaining” look at the comic couple who hobnobbed with Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman, Bennett Cerf, and other luminaries of their day (The New York Times Book Review). Nathanael West—author, screenwriter, playwright—was famous for two masterpieces: Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, which remains one the most penetrating novels ever written about Hollywood. He was also one of the most gifted and original writers of his generation, a scathing satirist whose insight into the brutalities of modern life proved prophetic. Eileen McKenney—accidental muse, literary heroine—grew up corn-fed in the Midwest and moved to Manhattan’s Greenwich Village when she was twenty-one. The inspiration for her sister Ruth’s stories in the New Yorker under the banner of “My Sister Eileen,” she became an overnight celebrity, and her star eventually crossed with that of the man she would impulsively marry. Together, Nathanael and Eileen had entrée into a social circle that included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Katharine White, and many of the literary, theatrical, and film luminaries of the era. But their carefree, offbeat Broadway-to-Hollywood love story would flame out almost as soon as it began. Now, with “a great marriage of scholarship and gossip” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), this biography restores West and McKenney to their rightful place in the popular imagination, offering “a shrewd portrait of two people who in their different ways were noteworthy participants in American culture during one of its liveliest periods” (Los Angeles Times). “Opens a window onto the lives of writers in 1930s America as they struggled with anxieties, pretensions, temptations and myths that confound our culture to this day.” —Salon.com “The first to fully chronicle and entwine these careening lives, Meade forges an engrossing, madcap, and tragic American story of ambition, reinvention, and risk.” —Booklist, starred review
Download or read book Romantic Outlaws written by Charlotte Gordon and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2016-02-02 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE SEATTLE TIMES This groundbreaking dual biography brings to life a pioneering English feminist and the daughter she never knew. Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley have each been the subject of numerous biographies, yet no one has ever examined their lives in one book—until now. In Romantic Outlaws, Charlotte Gordon reunites the trailblazing author who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the Romantic visionary who gave the world Frankenstein—two courageous women who should have shared their lives, but instead shared a powerful literary and feminist legacy. In 1797, less than two weeks after giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Wollstonecraft died, and a remarkable life spent pushing against the boundaries of society’s expectations for women came to an end. But another was just beginning. Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary was to follow a similarly audacious path. Both women had passionate relationships with several men, bore children out of wedlock, and chose to live in exile outside their native country. Each in her own time fought against the injustices women faced and wrote books that changed literary history. The private lives of both Marys were nothing less than the stuff of great Romantic drama, providing fabulous material for Charlotte Gordon, an accomplished historian and a gifted storyteller. Taking readers on a vivid journey across revolutionary France and Victorian England, she seamlessly interweaves the lives of her two protagonists in alternating chapters, creating a book that reads like a richly textured historical novel. Gordon also paints unforgettable portraits of the men in their lives, including the mercurial genius Percy Shelley, the unbridled libertine Lord Byron, and the brilliant radical William Godwin. “Brave, passionate, and visionary, they broke almost every rule there was to break,” Gordon writes of Wollstonecraft and Shelley. A truly revelatory biography, Romantic Outlaws reveals the defiant, creative lives of this daring mother-daughter pair who refused to be confined by the rigid conventions of their era. Praise for Romantic Outlaws “[An] impassioned dual biography . . . Gordon, alternating between the two chapter by chapter, binds their lives into a fascinating whole. She shows, in vivid detail, how mother influenced daughter, and how the daughter’s struggles mirrored the mother’s.”—The Boston Globe
Download or read book The Unruly Life of Woody Allen written by Marion Meade and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first uncensored, unauthorized biography of a filmmaker who is to his era what Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton were to theirs - & the first biography to investigate all the sensitive subjects both personal & professional that Woody does not talk about.
Download or read book Cheers written by Philip Greene and published by Union Square & Co.. This book was released on 2022-12-06 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philip Greene, winner of the 13th Annual Spirited Award for Best New Book on Drinks Culture, History or Spirits, pairs each day of the year with a cocktail recipe that represents it, along with a toast in celebration! For every day of the year, Cheers! offers delicious cocktail recipes along with a backstory connecting the recipe to a particular day and a toast to raise in celebration. Greene draws on a range of interesting and (usually) fun events, some significant and some trivial, from the pages of history, literature, sports, entertainment, and more. Many of the toasts are classics culled from cocktail and bartending books dating to the nineteenth century, the works of Shakespeare, and other timeless sources. While the book undoubtedly acknowledges the usual noteworthy dates from around the world (New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco de Mayo, etc.), it also features a new twist on standard observances, offering a fresh story, angle, and drink.
Download or read book Lives of Lesbian Elders written by J Dianne Garner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-07-16 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold history of lesbian life from those who have lived it! Lives of Lesbian Elders: Looking Back, Looking Forward illuminates the hopes, fears, issues, and concerns of gay women as they grow older. Based on interviews with 62 lesbians ranging in age from 55 to 95, this very special book provides a historical account of the shared experiences of the lesbian community that is so often invisible or ignored in contemporary society. The book gives voice to their thoughts and feelings on a wide range of issues, including coming out, identity and the meaning of life, the role of family and personal relationships, work and retirement, adversity, and individual sources of strength and resilience. Cast off and overlooked at best or victims of scorn and prejudice at worst, lesbians in the twentieth century lived dual lives, their full voices unheard—until now. Lives of Lesbian Elders chronicles the life choices they made and their reasons for making them, set against the contexts of culture, politics, and the social mores of the eras in which they lived. Their stories of courage, resilience, resourcefulness, pride, and independence help restore lesbian history that has been forgotten, distorted, or disregarded and provide the information necessary to meet the future needs of aging lesbians. Lives of Lesbian Elders gives aging lesbians a chance to discuss their thoughts on a variety of topics, including: Coming out “You didn’t talk about it . . . Until two years ago, I never even referred to a lesbian or would I allow the word to pass my lips” “I used to sneak into libraries and read about homosexuality and back in that era, it was not classy . . . it was classified as a disorder of some type” Identity “The only difference between me and anybody else is that I just happen to be sleeping with a woman” “I think I grew up not really knowing who I was and, I think, probably fighting all my life trying to find out who I was” Family “I feel very connected with the lesbian community here . . . I guess I would call that family” “Many years ago, my sister said: ’I think when they’re ready, you need to explain to (the nieces) what a lesbian is, because I want them to hear the correct story . . . I want them to hear what it really is and not all these stupid rumors that go around’” Work “I was going to become a youth minister at one point and it dawned on me in high school that there was no way the church was going to let me work with kids” “I didn’t really finish my career . . . I still have dreams about the military and about not finishing . . . It was my choice, but it wasn’t really my choice” Aging and the Future “I think financing, of course, is a real big problem for lesbian women” “I have a concern that if anything should happen to my partner—in growing older—of being isolated from the gay community” . . . and much more! Lives of Lesbian Elders: Looking Back, Looking Forward also includes appendices that present demographic data on the women who were interviewed for the book, information on historical timelines, and suggested readings on lesbian history. The book is an invaluable addition to the growing collective history of lesbians in the United States.
Download or read book The Ladies of the Corridor written by Dorothy Parker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-04-29 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The blackly comic play about the oppressed lives of women in 1950s New York One of literature's leading humorists, Dorothy Parker drew from the dark side of her imagination to pen The Ladies of the Corridor, a searing drama about women living on their own in a New York residence hotel. Loosely based on Parker's life, and co-written with famed Hollywood playwright Arnaud d'Usseau, The Ladies of the Corridor exposes the limitations of a woman's life in a drama teeming with Parker's signature wit. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book Eyes on the Street written by Robert Kanigel and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major biography of the irrepressible woman who changed the way we view and live in cities, and whose influence is felt to this day. Jane Jacobs was a phenomenal woman who wrote seven groundbreaking books, saved neighborhoods, stopped expressways, was arrested twice, and engaged in thousands of impassioned debates—all of which she won. Robert Kanigel's revelatory portrait of Jacobs, based on new sources and interviews, brings to life the child who challenged her third-grade teacher; the high school poet; the mother who raised three children; the journalist who honed her skills at Architectural Forum and Fortune before writing her most famous book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities; and the activist who helped lead a successful protest against Robert Moses’s proposed expressway through her beloved Greenwich Village.
Download or read book More Book Lust written by Nancy Pearl and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you’re searching for the perfect read for yourself or for a friend, More Book Lust offer eclectic recommendations unlike those in any other reading guide available. In this followup to the bestselling Book Lust, popular librarian, Nancy Pearl, offers a fresh collection of 1,000 reading recommendations in more than 120 thematic, intelligent and wholly entertaining reading lists. For the friend wanting to leave her job: "Living Your Dream" offers good armchair dreaming books about people who have left stodgy jobs to do what they love. Are you a budding chef? "Fiction For Foodies" includes books that sneak in a recipe or two along with a tantalizing plot. For the James Bond wannabe: "Crime is a Globetrotter" features crime novels set in various locations around the world such as Tibet, Sweden, and Sicily. In the book’s introduction, Pearl jokes, “If we were at a twelve-step meeting together, I would have to stand up and say, ‘Hi, I’m Nancy P., and I’m a readaholic.” Booklist magazine plays off this obsession while echoing a sentiment of Nancy Pearl’s fans everywhere: “A self-confessed ‘readaholic,’ Pearl lets us benefit from her addiction. May she never seek recovery.” Indeed.
Download or read book Modern American Short Story Sequences written by J. Gerald Kennedy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-27 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1995, this book gathers together eleven full-length essays on important American short story sequences of the twentieth century. The introduction by J. Gerald Kennedy elucidates problems of defining the genre, cites notable instances of the form (such as Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio), and explores the implications of its modern emergence and popularity. Subsequent essays discuss illustrative works by such figures as Henry James, Jean Toomer, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, J. D. Salinger, John Cheever, John Updike, Louise Erdrich, and Raymond Carver. While examining distinctive thematic concerns, each essay also considers implications of form and arrangement in the construction of composite fictions that often produce the illusion of a fictive community.
Download or read book A to Z of American Women Writers written by Carol Kort and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2014-05-14 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a biographical dictionary profiling important women authors, including birth and death dates, accomplishments and bibliography of each author's work.
Download or read book Edna Ferber s Hollywood written by J. E. Smyth and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edna Ferber's Hollywood reveals one of the most influential artistic relationships of the twentieth century--the four-decade partnership between historical novelist Edna Ferber and the Hollywood studios. Ferber was one of America's most controversial popular historians, a writer whose uniquely feminist, multiracial view of the national past deliberately clashed with traditional narratives of white masculine power. Hollywood paid premium sums to adapt her novels, creating some of the most memorable films of the studio era--among them Show Boat, Cimarron, and Giant. Her historical fiction resonated with Hollywood's interest in prestigious historical filmmaking aimed principally, but not exclusively, at female audiences. In Edna Ferber's Hollywood, J. E. Smyth explores the research, writing, marketing, reception, and production histories of Hollywood's Ferber franchise. Smyth tracks Ferber's working relationships with Samuel Goldwyn, Leland Hayward, George Stevens, and James Dean; her landmark contract negotiations with Warner Bros.; and the controversies surrounding Giant's critique of Jim-Crow Texas. But Edna Ferber's Hollywood is also the study of the historical vision of an American outsider--a woman, a Jew, a novelist with few literary pretensions, an unashamed middlebrow who challenged the prescribed boundaries among gender, race, history, and fiction. In a masterful film and literary history, Smyth explores how Ferber's work helped shape Hollywood's attitude toward the American past.
Download or read book Anything Goes written by Lucy Moore and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2010-03-04 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fast-paced portrait of the twentieth-century’s fizziest decade, replete with gangsters, flappers, speakeasies and jazz” (Kirkus Reviews). The glitter of 1920s America was seductive, from jazz, flappers, and wild all-night parties to the birth of Hollywood and a glamorous gangster-led crime scene flourishing under Prohibition. But the period was also punctuated by momentous events-the political show trials of Sacco and Vanzetti, the huge Ku Klux Klan march down Washington DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue-and it produced a dizzying array of writers, musicians, and film stars, from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Bessie Smith and Charlie Chaplin. In Anything Goes, Lucy Moore interweaves the stories of the compelling people and events that characterized the decade to produce a gripping portrait of the Jazz Age. She reveals that the Roaring Twenties were more than just “the years between wars.” It was an epoch of passion and change—an age, she observes, not unlike our own. “A varied and dazzling portrait gallery of crooks and film stars, boxers and presidents, each brilliantly delineated and colored in by a historian with a novelist’s relish for human foibles.” —The Sunday Times (London) “Mesmerizing . . . Like the champagne-immersed age she portrays, Moore’s book effervesces with the detail of this fascinating story.” —Juliet Nicholson, Evening Standard (UK) “What a decade it was! What goings-on more violent, subversive and exotic than any of the parties, japes or shenanigans of our own Bright Young Things . . . Moore has knitted the various diverse strands together impressively with an overview of the large cast of characters, events, attitudes, industries and statistics.” —Anne de Courcy, Daily Mail (UK) “Full of anecdote, detail and color. . . . Fluid and elegant.” —Marianne Brace, Independent (UK)
Download or read book Careless People written by Sarah Churchwell and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: London: Virago, 2013
