The curious story of the unlikely relationship between a champion boxer and a celebrated man of letters.Gene Tunney, the world heavyweight-boxing champion from 1926 to 1928, seemed an unusual companion for George Bernard Shaw, but Shaw, a world-famous playwright, found the Irish-American athlete to be "among the very few for whom I have established a warm affection." The Prizefighter and the Playwright chronicles the legendary -- but rarel...

Irish migrants in new communities: Seeking the Fair Land? comprises the second collection of essays by these editors exploring fresh aspects and perspectives on the subject of the Irish diaspora. This volume, edited by Máirtín Ó Catháin and Mícheál Ó hAodha, develops many of the oral history themes of the first book and concentrates more on issues surrounding the adaptation of migrants to new or host environments and cultures. These new places often have a jarring effect, as well as a welc...

**A singular, warm-hearted, and inspiring look at life from beloved writer, critic, and pundit Roger Ebert—and the inspiration for the award-winning documentary."A captivating, moveable feast." —New York Times Book Review"Thoughtful, entertaining, and emotional." —Entertainment Weekly**Roger Ebert was the best-known film critic of his time. He began reviewing films for the Chicago Sun-Times in1967, and was the first film critic ever to win...

In 1957, when a young Midwestern woman landed a job at The New Yorker, she didn’t expect to stay long at the reception desk. But stay she did, and for twenty-one years she had the best seat in the house. In addition to taking messages, she ran interference for jealous wives checking on adulterous husbands, drank with famous writers at famous watering holes throughout bohemian Greenwich Village, and was seduced, two-timed, and proposed to by a few of the magazine’s eccentric luminaries. Thi...

The acclaimed biography of the unconventional, nearly forgotten Kennedy sister who charmed the world and broke with her family for love.Rose and Joe Kennedy's children were the embodiment of ambitious, wholesome Americanism. Yet even within this group of overachievers, the irrepressible Kathleen stood out. Lively, charismatic, and blessed with graceful athleticism, the alluring socialite known as Kick effortlessly made friends and stole hearts.When her father...

This entertaining guide reveals the unusual origins of typical contemporary terms, from A-OK to Top Dog and beyond.So many of the phrases we use day-to-day seem perfectly clear to us despite having no idea where they came from. But in Common Phrases, Max Cryer gives us a deeper understanding of contemporary English by tracing their journeys from new concept to common coinage.The former host of Today, Jane Pauley, claims to have coined the ...

In a witty and elegant autobiography that takes up where his bestelling Palimpsest left off, the celebrated novelist, essayist, critic, and controversialist Gore Vidal reflects on his remarkable life.Writing from his desks in Ravello and the Hollywood Hills, Vidal travels in memory through the arenas of literature, television, film, theatre, politics, and international society where he has cut a wide swath, recounting achievements and defeats, friends and enemies made (and sometim...

With his stunning looks and swashbuckling onscreen panache Errol Flynn was by all appearances the quintessential movie star who had it all. But Flynn's manicured Hollywood persona did little to hide his insatiable appetites off-screen - the binge drinking, brawling and womanising that would forever cement his place as a film legend. In this hard-hitting study, bestselling show business biographer David Bret traces the life and loves of the actor and man.It was Flynn's natural chari...

A witty and addictively readable day-by-day literary companion.At once a love letter to literature and a charming guide to the books most worth reading, A Reader's Book of Days features bite-size accounts of events in the lives of great authors for every day of the year. Here is Marcel Proust starting In Search of Lost Time and Virginia Woolf scribbling in the margin of her own writing, "Is it nonsense, or is it brilliance?" Fictional events that take place within...

John Montague was a boisterous enigma. In the 1930s, he was called “the world's greatest golfer” by famed sportswriter Grantland Rice. He could drive the ball 300 yards and more, or he could chip it across a room into a highball glass. He played golf with everyone from Howard Hughes and W. C. Fields to Babe Ruth and Bing Crosby. Yet strangely, he never entered a professional tournament or allowed himself to be photographed. Then, a Time magazine photographer snapped his picture wi...

Roger Angell, the acclaimed New Yorker writer and editor, returns with a selection of writings that celebrate a view from the tenth decade of an engaged, vibrant life.Long known for his range and supple prose (he is the only writer elected to membership in both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters), Angell won the 2015 American Society of Magazine Editors’ Best Essay award for “This Old Man,” which forms a centerpiece for ...

The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.America is an enormous frosted cupcake in the middle of millions of starving people.Critics are like pigs at the pastry cart.Describing something by relating it to another thing is the essence of metaphorical thought. It is one of the oldest activities of humankind—and one of the most impressive when done skillfully. Throughout history, many masters of metaphor have crafted observations that are so spec...