Straight To Hell examines ten case histories of suicide in the 20th century. These acts of self-annihilation, committed by artists, writers, and philosophers, stand as the final testaments of individuals whose vision would ultimately drive them to oblivion. Contributors including cultural historian Stephen Barber, journalist Jack Sargeant and film-maker Peter Whitehead look back in detail on the enigmatic, often bizarre suicides of: Yukio Mishima, Mark Rothko, Harry Crosby, Guy Debord, Pier...

Includes the essay "Notes on Camp," the inspiration for the 2019 exhibition Notes on Fashion: Camp at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of ArtAgainst Interpretation was Susan Sontag's first collection of essays and is a modern classic. Originally published in 1966, it has never gone out of print and has influenced generations of readers all over the world. It includes the groundbreaking essays "Notes on Camp" and "Against Interpretation," as...

Completely revised and updated to include the most up-to-date selections, this is a bold and bright reference book to the novels and the writers that have excited the world's imagination. This authoritative selection of novels, reviewed by an international team of writers, critics, academics, and journalists, provides a new take on world classics and a reliable guide to what's hot in contemporary fiction. Featuring more than 700 illustrations and photographs, presenting quotes from individ...

“Writing is spooky,” according to Norman Mailer. “There is no routine of an office to keep you going, only the blank page each morning, and you never know where your words are coming from, those divine words.” In The Spooky Art, Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it. Addressing the reader in a conversational tone, he draws on the best of more than fifty years of his own criticism, advice, and deta...

This, the second of three volumes of Susan Sontag's journals and notebooks, begins where the first volume left off, in the middle of the 1960s. It traces and documents Sontag's evolution from fledgling participant in the artistic and intellectual world of New York City to world-renowned critic and dominant force in the world of ideas with the publication of the groundbreaking Against Interpretation in 1966.As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh follows Sontag thro...

Fearless, iconic poet, novelist, and feminist Erica Jong offers a fascinating in-depth appreciation of the controversial life and work of American literary giant Henry MillerHenry Miller ( Tropic of Cancer) and Erica Jong ( Fear of Flying) are true literary soul mates. Both authors have been, in equal measure, lauded for their creative genius and maligned for their frank treatment of human sexuality. So who better than Erica Jong to offer an expert...

'Generous, enjoyable and well informed.' Observer**'500 expertly potted plots and personal comments on a wide range of pop and proper prose fiction.' The Times___________________________________________________________Ranging all the way from Aaron's Rod to Zuleika Dobson, via The Devil Rides Out and Middlemarch, literary connoisseur and sleuth John Sutherland offers his very pers...

We all have a story to tell - whether it is a story of a migrant childhood, a difficult past, adopting a child, riding a bike across India, or simply a contemplative year in a garden. With these stories we make sense of ourselves and the world around us.Memoir - writing about an aspect of a life rather than a whole life - expresses and shapes these stories within us so that the writing becomes more than a record, it becomes a creative journey.Drawing on Patti's extensive te...

Hilarious and trenchant, Reliable Essays collects the most memorable works of criticism and travel writing from well-loved author and broadcaster, Clive James. With an introduction by Julian Barnes.'[An] intellectual as well as a joker, a wise man as well as a wit' – ObserverWhether discussing arts, politics or culture, Clive James opens up new avenues for thought whilst never being less than wonderfully entertaining. From...

The sixth volume of the diary of "one of the most extraordinary and unconventional writers of [the twentieth] century" ( The New York Times Book Review).Anaïs Nin continues "one of the most remarkable diaries in the history of letters" with this volume covering more than a decade of her midcentury life ( Los Angeles Times). She debates the use of drugs versus the artist's imagination; portrays many famous people in the arts; and recounts her visit...

An alternative autobiography of the well-loved actor and man of the theatre, winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography.In My Life in Pieces Simon Callow retraces his life through the multifarious performers, writers, productions and events which have left their indelible mark on him.The story begins with Peter Pan – his first ever visit to the theatre – before transporting us to southern Africa and South London, where Callow spent much of h...

'Damn, all my cheating secrets revealed. In book form' Stephen FryWhich philosopher had the maddest hairstyle? Which novelist drank 50 cups of black coffee every day? What on earth did Simone de Beauvoir see in Jean-Paul Sartre?How to Sound Cultured offers a wry and yet profoundly useful look inside the mirrored palaces of high culture. Covering such inscrutable characters as Heidegger, Montaigne, Kahlo and Lévi-Strauss (apparently not just a designer of jean...