One day in late 1906, seventy-one-year-old Mark Twain attended a meeting on copyright law at the Library of Congress. The arrival of the famous author caused the usual stir—but then Twain took off his overcoat to reveal a "snow-white" tailored suit and scandalized the room. His shocking outfit appalled and delighted his contemporaries, but far more than that, as Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden shows in this wonderful new biography, Twain had brilliantly staged this act of showmansh...

Big Brother Is Watching You: The words are inextricably associated with the classic dystopian novel 1984 and with its revered author, George Orwell. The Modern Scholar series continues its exploration of great authors with this course from esteemed professor Michael Shelden. In these lectures Orwell, who also penned the epitome of the political satire, Animal Farm, is discussed in full, from his childhood in Henley-on-Thames to his final days.

In his probing and revelatory biography of one of the great prose stylists of the twentieth century, acclaimed biographer Michael Shelden breaks new ground in the evocation of George Orwell’s personal life and in our understanding of his art. Based on original interviews, previously undiscovered letters and documents, and astute literary detective work, Orwell is the major biography of one of the great yet elusive literary figures of our time.Shelden reveals the author of ...

The Lost Generation from Professor Michael Shelden evokes one of the most creative periods in American literature. Paris of the 1920s served as a base for such authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. In these lectures, Professor Shelden details and provides fresh insight into the unending allure of the Lost Generation-and of the literary output that exerts a continuing influence nearly a century later.

Professor of English at Indiana State University and the author of the literary biography Mark Twain: Man in White, Michael Shelden is the perfect candidate to lead this series of lectures on one of the most important - and most influential - of all American authors. From Twain's early history through his landmark achievements and the defining moments of his extraordinary life, Shelden imparts a learned understanding of both the man and his astounding body of work.

In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews—Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish experience, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the New World in 1492.It is a story like no other: an epic of endurance against destruction, of creativity in oppression, joy amidst grief, the affirmation of life against the steepest of odds.This epic of world histo...

Featuring an all-new cover, New York Times bestseller Bill Bryson's irreverent and hilarious travel memoir through the beloved island nation he called home for two decades. From Downing Street to Loch Ness, this is a delightful look at British culture.Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, ...

In the second volume of this magnificently illustrated cultural history, the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews, Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish people from 1492 through the end of nineteenth century.A sweeping work of narrative history, volume two of this epic incorporates the stories of many who seldom figure in Jewish histories: not just the rabbis and the philosophers but a poetess in the ghetto of Venice; a boxer in Ge...

“Vastly informative and vastly entertaining…A scholarly and fascinating book.” —Los Angeles TimesWith dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language.From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can’t), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson explores English grammar and word origins as he tell...

Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+!Navajo Tribal cops Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito, and their mentor, the legendary Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, investigate two perplexing cases in this exciting Southwestern mystery and police procedural from the New York Times bestselling author of Spider Woman’s Daughter.Doing a good deed for a relative off...

In this gritty, white-knuckle crime thriller, Detective Nick Belsey—introduced in the acclaimed The Hollow Man as a shrewd, street-smart cynic who is one of London’s sharpest, but most unprincipled, investigators—is plunged into a perplexing mystery of secrets, danger, and suspense beneath the city’s streets.Trouble once again finds Nick Belsey when he takes a date to an abandoned bomb shelter buried beneath the heart of London. One minute the young woman is there, and the...

The Hugo Award is one of the most prestigious speculative fiction literary awards. Every year, supporting members of WorldCon nominate their favorite stories first published during the previous year to determine the top five in each category for the final Hugo Award ballot. Between the announcement of the ballot and the Hugo Award ceremony at WorldCon, these works often become the center of much attention (and contention) across fandom.But there are more stories loved by the Hugo v...