Classical Memoirs

Maureen O'Hara is the first book-length biography of the screen legend hailed as the "Queen of Technicolor". Following the star from her childhood in Dublin to the height of fame in Hollywood, film critic Aubrey Malone draws on new information from the Irish Film Institute, production notes from films, and details from historical film journals, newspapers, and fan magazines.

Keith Haring is synonymous with the downtown New York art scene of the 1980s. His artwork - with its simple, bold lines and dynamic figures in motion - filtered in to the world's consciousness and is still instantly recognizable, 20 years after his death.

Maigret sets the record straight and tells the story of his own life, giving a rare glimpse into the mind of the great inspector - and the writer who would immortalise him. 'I can still see Simenon coming into my office the next day, pleased with himself, displaying even more self-confidence, if possible, than before, but nevertheless with a touch of anxiety in his eyes.... He trumpeted these last words as if they were a sensational discovery. Making it seem truer than life, that's the crux of it. Well, I've made you truer than life.'

Written in 1857, this is the autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame rivalled Florence Nightingale's during the Crimean War. Seacole's offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war met with racism and refusal. Undaunted, Seacole set out independently to the Crimea where she acted as doctor and 'mother' to wounded soldiers while running her business, the 'British Hotel'. A witness to key battles, she gives vivid accounts of how she coped with disease, bombardment and other hardships at the Crimean battlefront.

Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life is the first work to explore the origins of Beatrix Potter's love of gardening and plants and show how this passion came to be reflected in her work.

Amit Chaudhuri, novelist, critic, and essayist, is also a musician, trained in the Indian classical vocal tradition but equally fluent as a guitarist and singer in the American folk music style, who has recorded his experimental compositions extensively and performed around the world. A turning point in his life took place when, as a lonely teenager living in a high-rise in Bombay, far from his family's native Calcutta, he began, contrary to all his prior inclinations, to study Indian classical music.

Beethoven imbibed Enlightenment and revolutionary ideas in his hometown of Bonn, where they were fervently discussed in cafes and at the university. Moving to Vienna at the age of 21 to study with Haydn, he gained renown as a brilliant pianist and innovative composer. In that conservative city, capital of the Hapsburg empire, authorities were ever watchful to curtail and punish overt displays of radical political views. Nevertheless, Beethoven avidly followed the meteoric rise of Napoleon.

Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.

In Wild Things, Vanity Fair contributing editor Bruce Handy revisits the classics of every American childhood, from fairy tales to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and explores the back stories of their creators, using context and biography to understand how some of the most insightful, creative, and witty authors and illustrators of their times created their often deeply personal masterpieces.

In 1845 Henry David Thoreau, one of the principal New England Transcendentalists, left the town for the country. Beside the lake of Walden, he built himself a log cabin and returned to nature, to observe and reflect, while surviving on $8 a year. From this experience emerged one of the great classics of American literature, a deeply personal reaction against the commercialism and materialism that he saw as the main impulses of mid-19th century America.

Boswell's biography of his friend and hero Samuel Johnson is an acknowledged classic, full of humorous anecdote and rich characterization. Johnson's complex humanity (his depression, fear of death, intellectual brilliance and rough humor) is set within a vivid picture of 18th century London peopled by personalities of the time.

When reading and writing are the most important things in the world. Jevick, the pepper merchant's son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home - but which his mother calls the Ghost Country. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick's life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. Just as he revels in Olondria's Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl.

Whenever the subject of Lincoln is brought up, it usually produces a mixed response ranging from adoration to excoriation. Back in 1931 when Lincoln the Man appeared, there were few willing to publicly judge Lincoln on the basis of anything less than hagiographic platitudes. That all changed when the famous poet and writer Edgar Lee Masters published Lincoln the Man. This book is less a biography and more of an analysis of Lincoln’s thinking process and political evolution from backwoods lawyer to president of the United States.

James Herriot brings back familiar and much-loved friends, including his partner Siegfried and his most lucrative patient, the delightful Tricki Woo. There are some some new arrivals too, such as the abandoned and terrified mongrol Titch who finds the perfect home with a gruff grocer and feral kittens Olly and Ginny who live in James and wife Helen's back garden. Above all, the veterinary practise in Darrowby is enlivened by a marvelouslly eccentric assistant, Calum Buchanan, who arrives with a pet badger and proceeds to add dogs, owls and a monkey called Mortimer to his growing menagerie.

From Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, Isabella, Lady Trent is known to be the world’s preeminent dragon naturalist. Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation and her prospects to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and how she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever.

Reveals the harrowing story of two mothers, Jude Govreau and Mari Winzen, whose children were brutally killed by a vicious murderer, and recounts their efforts with a lone district attorney to bring the murderer to justice.

Anne of Avonlea follows Anne Shirley from the age of 16 to 18, during the two years that she teaches at Avonlea School.

The book features many of the characters from Anne of Green Gables, including Marilla Cuthbert, Gilbert Blythe, and Diana Barry, and some new ones: Mr. Harrison, Miss Lavendar Lewis, Paul Irving, and the twins Dora and Davy. Anne matures slightly over time, even though she cannot avoid getting into a number of her familiar scrapes.

Victoria Amador utilizes extensive interviews and 40 years of personal correspondence with de Havilland to present an in-depth look at the life and career of this celebrated actress. Amador begins with de Havilland's early life; she was born in Japan in 1916 to affluent British parents who had aspirations of success and fortune in faraway countries, and her theatrical ambitions began at a young age. The book then follows her career as she skyrocketed to star status, becoming one of the most well-known starlets in Tinseltown.

An engaging, moving, and inspiring memoir, The Bee and the Acorn traces the journey of Wallace and her family to the historic Georgia coastal town of Savannah, where they set about creating a new university for the arts. The tiny college would be a radically different kind of institution, buzzing with progressive ideas about what education could be and what it should do for students. Nearly 40 years later, SCAD has become one of the largest and most highly regarded arts universities in the world.

"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?" These famous lines from The Graduate (1967) would forever link Anne Bancroft (1931-2005) to the groundbreaking film and confirm her status as a movie icon. Along with her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in the stage and film drama The Miracle Worker, this role was a highlight of a career that spanned a half-century and brought Bancroft an Oscar, two Tonys, and two Emmy awards. In the first biography to cover the entire scope of Bancroft's life and career, Douglass K. Daniel reveals how, from a young age, Bancroft was committed to challenging herself and strengthening her craft.