Showing posts with label biographies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label biographies. Show all posts

The Oxford Book of American Short Stories Review

The Oxford Book of American Short Stories
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Are you looking to buy The Oxford Book of American Short Stories? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on The Oxford Book of American Short Stories. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

The Oxford Book of American Short Stories ReviewThis is a solid cross-section of time, authors, style, intent, and soul. I taught this to 50+ teenagers with a high degree of success and corporate enjoyment. The primary downfall of the piece is that Oates comments before each story, sometimes playing the obnoxious neighbor by actually giving away the resolution. Read her comments after you read the story. Otherwise, great work.The Oxford Book of American Short Stories Overview

Want to learn more information about The Oxford Book of American Short Stories?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
Read More...

Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story Review

Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Are you looking to buy Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story ReviewIf anyone could be said to have lived a charmed life, it would be Gerald and Sara Murphy. They were wealthy, artistic and talented, with three beautiful, loving children and a circle of friends who became famous and accomplished in their own right. They gave wonderful parties that are still remembered a half-century later, were generous to those in need, and best of all, Gerald and Sara loved each other deeply, with an affection that grew as they lived their lives to the inevitable, bitter end.

Anyone who has read into the lives of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso and the other expatirot residents of Paris in the 1920s will recognize Gerald and Sara, perhaps unfavorably as hanger-ons who supplied the money the others lived on. That unfair assessment is turned on its head in Amanda Vaill's dual biography of the couple.
The Murphys were more than a bank account who gave parties; celebrity bottom feeders more interested in status than in accomplishments. They were something of an oddity. Both were from wealthy families, yet both wanted more than the family life they craved. Gerald had an eye for art, music and decorating; it was amazing to learn he was first to boost many artists who later became famous; "Grandchildren," he said as he showed them a copy of "Meet the Beatles." "Pay attention. These young men are going to be very, very important."
From their village in the Antibes, which was a backwater when they discovered it, they befriended people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Archibald Macleish, Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett as well, while Gerald became famous in his own right for his finely detailed studies of mechanical devices: a watch, a machine, of a boat deck and smokestacks.
But if there's anything experience teaches us, it's that no one really leads a charmed life. It's all filled with day-to-day worries, irritations, tragedies and, with luck, some glory. But Gerald and Sara came close -- the 20s were their time -- and it's a fine thing to finish a biography of someone and find that you like them even more than before.Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story Overview

Want to learn more information about Everybody Was So Young: Gerald and Sara Murphy: A Lost Generation Love Story?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
Read More...

Autobiography of a Face Review

Autobiography of a Face
Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)
Are you looking to buy Autobiography of a Face? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on Autobiography of a Face. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

Autobiography of a Face Review
When this book came out, it created a sensation, not just for the raw facts of Lucy Grealy's ordeal but even more for the lyrical, insightful point of view from which it was written. Diagnosed at 9 years of age with Ewing's sarcoma, a potentially fatal cancer that attacked her lower jaw, she underwent disfiguring surgery and horrific chemo and radiation that further distorted her appearance. She used, in this memoir, her experience as a springboard from which to soar into passionate examinations of the meaning of truth, beauty, genius, love - all those biggies - and she did it with stunning success. Her background as a poet shines through each paragraph of this seminal book.
But.
Then she died, and although her death was ruled accidental, it's clear she had been on a steady downward spiral through the last couple of years of her life. Ann Patchett's stunning and conflicted story of her 20-year friendship with Grealy (Truth and Beauty) uncovers the raw underbelly of Lucy Grealy's personality, her unending quest to be special, first, best, and most of all, lovable.
To get a fuller picture, one that I feel still isn't quite complete, of this quixotic individual, it's imperative that readers of Grealy's book also read Patchett's.
Autobiography of a Face Overview

Want to learn more information about Autobiography of a Face?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now
Read More...