Search:

Stalking Shakespeare : a memoir of murder, madness, and my search for the poet beneath the paint / by Durkee, Lee,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Following his divorce, down-and-out writer and Mississippi exile Lee Durkee holed himself up in a Vermont fishing shack and fell prey to a decades-long obsession with Shakespearian portraiture. It began with a simple premise: despite the prevalence of popular portraits, no one really knows what Shakespeare looked like. That the Bard of Avon has gotten progressively handsomer in modern depictions seems only to reinforce this point. Stalking Shakespeare is Durkee's fascinating memoir about an obsession gone awry, the 400-year-old myriad portraits attached to the famous playwright, and Durkee's own unrelenting search-via X-ray and infrared technologies--for a lost picture of the Bard painted from real life. As Durkee becomes better at beguiling curators into testing their paintings with spectral technologies, we get a front-row seat to the captivating mysteries plaguing the various portraits rumored to depict Shakespeare. Whisking us backward in time through layers of paint and into the pages of obscure books on the Elizabethans, Durkee takes us from Vermont to Tokyo to Mississippi to DC and ultimately to London to confront the stuffy curators forever protecting the image of the Bard. For his part, Durkee is the adversary they didn't know they had--a writer from Mississippi with nothing to lose--the "Dan Brown of English portraiture." A lively, bizarre, and surprisingly moving blend of biography, art history, and madness, Stalking Shakespeare is as entertaining as it is rigorous and sheds new light on one of history's greatest cultural and literary icons"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616; Dramatists, English;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The Extinction of Irena Rey [electronic resource] : by Croft, Jennifer.aut; cloudLibrary;
From the International Booker Prize-winning translator and Women's Prize finalist, an utterly beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest. Eight translators arrive at a house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace. The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime molds and lichens and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets-and deceptions-of Irena Rey's that they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation and obsession, soon the translators are tangled up in a web of rivalries and desire, threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author herself. This hilarious, thought-provoking debut novel is a brilliant examination of art, celebrity, the natural world, and the power of language. It is an unforgettable, unputdownable adventure with a small but global cast of characters shaken by the shocks of love, destruction, and creation in one of Europe's last great wildernesses.General adult.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Literary; Suspense; Psychological;
© 2024., Bloomsbury Publishing,
unAPI

Also a poet : Frank O'hara, my father, and me / by Calhoun, Ada,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O'Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started forty years earlier. As a lifelong O'Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O'Hara's past, but also her father's, and her own. The result is a groundbreaking and kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with a moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. Also a Poet explores what happens when we want to do better than our parents, yet fear what that might cost us; when we seek their approval, yet mistrust it. In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun offers a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind."
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Calhoun, Ada.; O'Hara, Frank, 1926-1966.; Schjeldahl, Peter.; Art critics; Father and child.; Parent and child.; Poets;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

My year of rest and relaxation / by Moshfegh, Ottessa,author.;
"From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a shocking and tender novel about a young woman's efforts to sustain a state of deep hibernation over the course of a year on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers"--
Subjects: Psychological fiction.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Living the artist's way : an intuitive path to greater creativity : a six-week artist's way program / by Cameron, Julia,author.;
"The first new Artist's Way tool in more than 30 years from "the Queen of Change" (New York Times) author Julia Cameron. In the thirty years following the publication of The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron relied on an essential tool to help her through every juncture in life: writing for guidance. Now, in Living the Artist's Way, Cameron finally shares this method with the world as the fourth main Artist's Way tool. Over the course of six weeks, readers learn how to ask for guidance from a higher power within themselves, and trust the answers they receive. Revealing a more personal and vulnerable side, Cameron describes how she developed confidence in her own guidance and began using it not only to bolster her art, but to make sense of the world. This handbook to seeking and accepting guidance will help readers follow Cameron's path, becoming creatively unblocked, happier, and more productive. Many who try guidance for the first time ask Julia, "What if it's just my imagination?" This book asks, "What if it's not?" Welcome to the creative act of writing for guidance"--
Subjects: Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Creative ability.; Self-actualization (Psychology);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The creative act : a way of being / by Rubin, Rick,author.; Strauss, Neil,author.;
"From the legendary music producer, a savant at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book, many years in the making, that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us. "I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be."--Rick Rubin Many famed music producers, however brilliant, become known for a particular sound which has its day and then ages out. Rick Rubin, on the other hand, is most famous for something else: for creating a strong safe space where artists of wildly different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. To surprise themselves, and thus the world. Rubin's true art is for helping people get out of their own way and commune with the powerful creative signal that is their birthright. Over the years, Rubin has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn't, about what it takes to strike a deep nerve within ourselves. Perhaps above all, he has learned that being an artist isn't about your specific output, it's a relationship to the world. Creativity has a space in everyone's life, and everyone has the opportunity to make that space stronger. Indeed, it may be our most important responsibility. More than five years in the making, The Creative Act is a series of meditations that illuminate the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It is a beautifully generous offering of the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime's work spent in the service of exhilaration and transcendence, distilled into a timeless classic that puts those feelings within closer reach for all of us"--
Subjects: Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.); Creative ability.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The enigma of room 622 : a novel / by Dicker, Joël,1985-author.; Bononno, Robert,translator.; translation of:Dicker, Joël,1985-Énigme de la chambre 622.English.;
"One night in December, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. A police investigation begins without definite end, and public interest wanes with the passage of time. Years later, the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary ingenue, arrives at that same hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Little does Joel know that his expertise in the art of the thriller will come in handy when he finds himself investigating the crime. He'll need a Watson, of course: in this case, that would be Scarlett, the beautiful guest and aspiring novelist from the next room, who joins in the search while he tries to solve another puzzle: the plot of his next book. Meanwhile, in the wake of his father's passing, Macaire Ebezner is set to take over as president of the largest private bank in Switzerland. The succession captivates the news media, and the future looks bright, until it doesn't. The bank's board, including a certain Lev Levovitch-Geneva's very own Jay Gatsby-have other plans, and Macaire's race to the top soon becomes a race against time ... A matryoshka doll of a mystery built with the precision of a Swiss watch. Joel Dicker presents a diabolically addictive thriller where a love triangle, a power struggle, shocking betrayals and dangerous envy play out against the backdrop of a not so quiet Switzerland, where the truth twists and turns into something no reader will see coming. A European phenomenon, Dicker's latest page-turner is his most personal novel yet"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Novels.; Authors; Murder; Resorts; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Bleaker house : chasing my novel to the end of the world / by Stevens, Nell,1985-author.;
"On a frozen island in the Falklands, with only penguins for company, a young would-be writer struggles to craft a debut novel ... and instead writes a funny, clever, moving memoir that heralds the arrival of a fresh new literary talent. Twenty-seven-year-old Nell Stevens was determined to write a novel, but somehow life kept getting in the way. Then came an irresistible opportunity: she won a fellowship to spend three months, all expenses paid, anywhere in the world to research and write a book. Did she choose a glittering metropolis, a romantic village, an exotic paradise? Um, no. Nell chose Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock off the Falklands. There, in a guesthouse where she would be the only guest, she imagined she could finally rid herself of distractions and write her 2,500 words a day. In three months, surely she'd have a novel, right? It's true that there aren't many distractions on Bleaker, other than sheep, penguins, paranoia and the weather. But as Nell gets to work on her novel--a delightful Dickensian fiction she calls Bleaker House--she discovers that an excruciatingly erratic Internet connection and 1100 calories a day (as much food as she could carry in her suitcase, budgeted to the raisin) are far from ideal conditions for literary production. With deft humour, this memoir traces Nell's island days and slowly reveals details of the life and people she has left behind in pursuit of her art. They pop up in her novel, as well, as memoir and novel start to reflect one another. It seems that there is nowhere Nell can run--neither a remote island nor the pages of her notebook--to escape herself. A whimsical, entertaining, thought-provoking blend of memoir and travelogue, laced with tongue-in-cheek writing advice, Bleaker House brilliantly captures the hopes, fears, self-torture and humour of being young and yearning to make a creative life. With winning honesty and wit, Nell's race to finish her book emerges as a fascinating narrative in its own right."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; Stevens, Nell, 1985-; Stevens, Nell, 1985-; Authors, English; Authorship.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The comfort of crows : a backyard year / by Renkl, Margaret,author.; Renkl, Billy,illustrator.;
"In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons-from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring-what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author-and from us."--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Essays.; Personal narratives.; Renkl, Margaret.; Animals.; Backyard gardens.; Natural history.; Nature observation.; Nature.; Seasons.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The enigma of room 622 [text (large print)] : a novel / by Dicker, Joël,1985-author.; Bononno, Robert,translator.; translation of:Dicker, Joël,1985-Énigme de la chambre 622.English.;
"One night in December, a corpse is found in Room 622 of the Hotel Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps. A police investigation begins without definite end, and public interest wanes with the passage of time. Years later, the writer Joel Dicker, Switzerland's most famous literary ingenue, arrives at that same hotel to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his longtime publisher, and begin his next novel. Little does Joel know that his expertise in the art of the thriller will come in handy when he finds himself investigating the crime. He'll need a Watson, of course: in this case, that would be Scarlett, the beautiful guest and aspiring novelist from the next room, who joins in the search while he tries to solve another puzzle: the plot of his next book. Meanwhile, in the wake of his father's passing, Macaire Ebezner is set to take over as president of the largest private bank in Switzerland. The succession captivates the news media, and the future looks bright, until it doesn't. The bank's board, including a certain Lev Levovitch-Geneva's very own Jay Gatsby-have other plans, and Macaire's race to the top soon becomes a race against time ... A matryoshka doll of a mystery built with the precision of a Swiss watch. Joel Dicker presents a diabolically addictive thriller where a love triangle, a power struggle, shocking betrayals and dangerous envy play out against the backdrop of a not so quiet Switzerland, where the truth twists and turns into something no reader will see coming. A European phenomenon, Dicker's latest page-turner is his most personal novel yet"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Large type books.; Novels.; Authors; Murder; Resorts; Secrecy;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI