Showing results by publisher "University Press Audiobooks" in Art & Literature

Ayn Rand and her philosophical school, Objectivism, have had a considerable influence upon American popular culture, yet the true story of her life and work has yet to be told. In this book, Jeff Walker debunks the cult-like following that developed around the author of the classics Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead - a cult that persists even today.

A decade and a half before surprising the world with a book of Civil War poetry, Herman Melville was already confident of what was “poetic” in his prose. As Hershel Parker demonstrates in this book, Melville was steeped in poetry long before he called himself a poet. Here Parker, the dean of Melville studies, gives a compelling, in-depth account of how one of America’s greatest writers grew into the vocation of a poet. 

Had Upton Sinclair not written a single book after The Jungle, he would still be famous. But Sinclair was a mere 25 years old when he wrote The Jungle, and over the next 65 years, he wrote nearly 80 more books and won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He was also a filmmaker, labor activist, women’s rights advocate, and health pioneer on a grand scale. This new biography of Sinclair underscores his place in the American story as a social, political, and cultural force, a man who more than any other disrupted and documented his era in the name of social justice.

Samuel Clemens first encountered the Bermuda Islands in 1867 on a return voyage from the Holy Land and found them much to his liking. One of the most isolated spots in the world, Bermuda offered the writer a refuge from his harried and sometimes sad existence on the mainland, and this island paradise called him back another seven times. Clemens found that Bermuda’s beauty, pace, weather, and company were just the medicine he needed, and its seafaring culture with few connections to the outside world appealed to his love of travel by water.

Sylvia Plath: A Literary Life examines the way Plath made herself into a writer. Close analysis of Plath's reading and apprenticeship writing both in fiction and poetry sheds considerable light on Plath's work in the late 1960s. In this updated edition, there will be discussion of the aftermath of Plath's death including the publication of her Collected Poems edited by Ted Hughes which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982. Biographies of Plath will be examined along with the publication of Hughes's Birthday Letters.

In this engaging and deeply informed audiobook, Stephen Knight looks at the different manifestations of Robin Hood at different times and places in a mythic biography with a thematic structure. The best way to get at the essence of the Robin Hood myth, Knight believes, is in terms not of chronological and generic progression but of the purposes served by heroes.

Pulling Down the Barn eloquently recalls author Anne-Marie Oomen's personal journey as she discovers herself an outsider on her family farm located in western Michigan's Oceana County, in the township of Elbridge - a couple hundred acres in the middle of rural America. Written as a series of heartfelt interlocking narratives, this collection of essays portrays the realities of farm life: haying, picking asparagus and cherries, the machinery of tractors and pickers.

An essential document of the first American war of the new century. During this journey into war, Rodgers and his crew embraced the dangers, the numbing fatigue, and the moments of stark fear of the young armored cavalrymen they lived with twenty-four hours each day, an experience that created for them the lifelong bond that only soldiers serving together under fire share.

Linda Wagner-Martin brings a wealth of new information to this detailed portrait of Hemingway and his world, concentrating particularly on his friendships with women and the history of his four marriages.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) was an American original - a luminous literary theorist, an erratic genius, and an analyst par excellence of human obsession and compulsion. The scope of his literary achievements and the dramatic character of Poe's life have drawn readers and critics to him in droves. And yet, upon his death, one obituary penned by a literary enemy in the New York Daily Tribune cascaded into a lasting stain on Poe's character, leaving a historic misunderstanding.

Walter's Perspective provides a unique glimpse into the rough-and-tumble Chicago news business as seen through the eyes of one of its legendary players. From his first news job working as a legman to his later role as a news anchor and political commentator, Jacobson battled along the front lines of an industry undergoing dramatic changes.

When Gerald Eskenazi started reporting, sports journalism had a different look than it does today. Eskenazi gives a behind-the-scenes look into the journalistic techniques that go into crafting a story, as well as the pitfalls reporters fall into. There are cautionary tales of journalistic excess, as well as moments of triumph such as the time Eskenazi got Joe Namath to open up to him by admitting he was a sportswriter who knew nothing about football. Along the way, Eskenazi discusses interviewing other reluctant subjects and writing under the intense pressure of a deadline.

Jack the Ripper was probably the first serial killer to appear in a large metropolis at a time when the general populace was literate and the press was a force for social change. The press was also partly responsible for creating many myths surrounding the Ripper. Robin Odell's Ripperology is the first study to present a sequential history of literary investigations of Jack the Ripper's crimes and to address the seven principal phases of Ripper speculations....

Since 1968, Garry Trudeau (b. 1948) has brought his brand of political satire to bear on public figures, movie stars, heads of state, and even on himself. Trudeau has also advocated for artists' rights and challenged industry norms while keeping a decidedly low profile. In Garry Trudeau: Doonesbury and the Aesthetics of Satire, Kerry D. Soper traces the contribution of this groundbreaking artist. Trudeau is arguably the premier American political and social satirist of the last forty years. Amazingly, he achieved this on the comics page, rather than the editorial page.

Walt Kelly (1913-1973) is one of the most respected and innovative American cartoonists of the twentieth century. His long-running Pogo newspaper strip has been cited by modern comics artists and scholars as one of the best ever. Cartoonists Bill Watterson ( Calvin and Hobbes), Jeff Smith ( Bone), and Frank Cho ( Liberty Meadows) have all cited Kelly as a major influence on their work. We Go Pogo is the first comprehensive study of Kelly's cartoon art and his larger career in the comics business.

Most Polish Jews who survived the Second World War did not go to concentration camps, but were banished by Stalin to the remote prison settlements and Gulags of the Soviet Union. Less than ten percent of Polish Jews came out of the war alive-the largest population of Jews who endured-for whom Soviet exile was the main chance for survival. Ellen G. Friedman's The Seven, a Family Holocaust Story is an account of this displacement.

For over 25 years, award-winning journalist Henry Bradsher reported stories from around the world. In this lively and engaging account, Bradsher recounts episodes from a distinguished career that took him to the Himalayas, the jungles of Bhutan, Kremlin caviar receptions, China's Forbidden City, and the battlefields of Vietnam. Throughout, Bradsher emphasizes the unpredictability of a correspondent's life and the strains, perils, and privileges of standing witness to momentous world events.

At a time when people must work harder than ever to stand out from the crowd, the word creativity can seem vague and overused. But what exactly is creativity? Adrian McKerracher travels from Vancouver to Havana to Buenos Aires, leading listeners on a journey to discover poignant new insights into a life of letters.

For nearly 20 years Robert H. Phelps ran interference for, cheered on, and sometimes scolded star reporters and top editors at The New York Times. Starting his editing career at the desk of the Providence Journal-Bulletin, Phelps joined The New York Times as a copy editor, eventually serving as the Times news editor for the Washington bureau. Along the way he struggled with balancing his moral ideals and his personal ambition. In this compelling memoir, Phelps interweaves his personal and professional experiences with some of the most powerful stories of the era.

Reed joined the New York Times in 1965 and was quickly thrust into the chaos of the Selma, Alabama protest movement and the historical interracial march to Montgomery. His story then moves from days of racial violence to the political combat of Washington. Reed covered the Johnson White House and the early days of the Nixon administration as it wrestled with the competing demands of Black voters and southern resistance to a new world.