Danielle Steele would be hard-pressed to concoct a juicer tale than the scandalous life of 19th-century French writer George Sand (1804–1876), revisited in this perceptive and original biography by novelist Harlan (Footfalls, Watershed). Sand, née Aurore Dupin, left her husband and two children in provincial France and successfully launched herself as a self-supporting writer in Paris, donning men's clothing to ease passage into the professional world and taking a pseudonym to protect her aristocratic family's name.
The language of Masao Maruyama -- From the beginning to the present, and facing the end: The case of one Japanese writer. Japanese writer and Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe delivered the first in a series of lectures established at the Center for Japanese Studies to honor political theorist Masao Maruyama. In a second (unrelated) lecture, “From the Beginning to the Present, and Facing the End: The Case of One Japanese Writer, Oe offers an account of his own development as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction.
William Shakespeare (Bloom's Classic Critical Views)
William Shakespeare is possibly the most revered writer of the English language. This volume offers critical essays examining the human drama in Shakespeare's work, studying his plays, and more. Also included is an informative biography of the Bard, a complete bibliography of his work, and a list of critical work about the writer.
A key figure in the development of American literature, nineteenth-century novelist and short-story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne is perhaps best known for his novels The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun, and The House of the Seven Gables. Also among his major achievements are numerous stories including "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," "Young Goodman Brown," and "The Minister's Black Veil." Hawthorne, perhaps more so than any other writer of his time, continued in the English literary tradition while taking as his subject the early history of New England.
A new picture of the mind is emerging, and explanations now exist for what has so long seemed mysterious. This real understanding of how the biological brain works -- of how we work -- has generated a mood of excitement that is shared in a half-dozen intersecting disciplines. Philosopher Paul Churchland, who is widely known as a gifted teacher and expository writer, explains these scientific developments in a simple, authoritative, and pictorial fashion.
