The Best Literary Biographies & Memoirs 2025

1. Pre-Owned Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: An American Woman's Life Hardcover

Linda Wagner-Martin's Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald is a twenty-first century story. Using cultural and gender studies as contexts, Wagner-Martin brings new information to the story of the Alabama judge's daughter who, at seventeen, met her husband-to-be, Scott Fitzgerald. Swept away from her stable home life into Jazz Age New York and Paris, Zelda eventually learned to be a writer and a painter; and she came close to being a ballerina. An evocative portrayal of a talented woman's professional and emotional conflicts, this study contains extensive notes and new photographs.

ISBN-10: 1403934037 ISBN-13: 9781403934031 Our books are pre-loved which means they have been read before. We carefully check all our books and believe them to be in good condition. If you're not completely satisfied please get in touch & we'll be happy to help.

2. I Have Heard You Calling in the Night, (Paperback)

T homas Healy was a drunk, a fighter, sometimes a writer, often unemployed, no stranger to the police. His life was going nowhere but downhill. Then one day he bought a pup--a Doberman. He called him Martin. Gradually man and dog became unshakable allies, the closest of comrades, the best of friends. They took long walks together, they vacationed together, they even went to church together. Martin, in more ways than one, saved Thomas Healy's life. Written with unadulterated candor and profound love, this soulful memoir gets at the heart of the intense bond between people and dogs.

I Have Heard You Calling in the Night, (Paperback) Author: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 9780156033718 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2007-09-01 Page Count: 224

3. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961

The extraordinary untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous secret life in espionage A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A finalist for the William E. Colby Military Writers' Award IMPORTANT (Wall Street Journal) - FASCINATING (New York Review of Books) - CAPTIVATING (Missourian) A riveting international cloak-and-dagger epic ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the liberation of Western Europe, wartime China, the Red Scare of Cold War America, and the Cuban Revolution, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy reveals for the first time Ernest Hemingway's secret adventures in espionage and intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s (including his role as a Soviet agent code-named Argo), a hidden chapter that fueled both his art and his undoing. While he was the historian at the esteemed CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime American intelligence officer, former U.S. Marine colonel, and Oxford-trained historian, began to uncover clues suggesting Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in mid-twentieth-century spycraft -- a mysterious and shocking relationship that was far more complex, sustained, and fraught with risks than has ever been previously supposed. Now Reynolds's meticulously researched and captivating narrative looks among the shadows and finds a Hemingway not seen before (London Review of Books), revealing for the first time the whole story of this hidden side of Hemingway's life: his troubling recruitment by Soviet spies to work with the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, followed in short order by a complex set of secret relationships with American agencies. Starting with Hemingway's sympathy to antifascist forces during the 1930s, Reynolds illuminates Hemingway's immersion in the life-and-death world of the revolutionary left, from his passionate commitment to the Spanish Republic; his successful pursuit by Soviet NKVD agents, who valued Hemingway's influence, access, and mobility; his wartime meeting in East Asia with communist leader Chou En-Lai, the future premier of the People's Republic of China; and finally to his undercover involvement with Cuban rebels in the late 1950s and his sympathy for Fidel Castro. Reynolds equally explores Hemingway's participation in various roles as an agent for the United States government, including hunting Nazi submarines with ONI-supplied munitions in the Caribbean on his boat, Pilar; his command of an informant ring in Cuba called the Crook Factory that reported to the American embassy in Havana; and his on-the-ground role in Europe, where he helped OSS gain key tactical intelligence for the liberation of Paris and fought alongside the U.S. infantry in the bloody endgame of World War II. As he examines the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's block and mental decline (including paranoia) that plagued him during the postwar years -- a period marked by the Red Scare and McCarthy hearings. Reynolds also illuminates how those same experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his life and perhaps contributing to his suicide. A literary biography with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life, work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.

The extraordinary untold story of Ernest Hemingway's dangerous secret life in espionage A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A finalist for the William E. Colby Military Writers' Award "CAPTIVATING" (Missourian) - "IMPORTANT" (Wall Street Journal) - "FASCINATING" (New York Review of Books) A riviting international cloak-and-dagger epic ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the liberation of Western Europe, wartime China, the Red Scare of Cold War America, and the Cuban Revolution, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy reveals for the first time Ernest Hemingway's secret adventures in espionage and intelligence during the 1930s and 1940s (including his role as a Soviet agent codenamed "Argo"), a hidden chapter that fueled both his art and his undoing. While he was the historian at the esteemed CIA Museum, Nicholas Reynolds, a longtime American intelligence officer, former U.S. Marine colonel, and Oxford-trained historian, began to uncover clues suggesting Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ernest Hemingway was deeply involved in mid-twentieth-century spycraft -- a mysterious and shocking relationship that was far more complex, sustained, and fraught with risks than has ever been previously supposed. Now Reynolds's meticulously researched and captivating narrative "looks among the shadows and finds a Hemingway not seen before" (London Review of Books), revealing for the first time the whole story of this hidden side of Hemingway's life: his troubling recruitment by Soviet spies to work with the NKVD, the forerunner to the KGB, followed in short order by a complex set of secret relationships with American agencies. Starting with Hemingway's sympathy to antifascist forces during the 1930s, Reynolds illuminates Hemingway's immersion in the life-and-death world of the revolutionary left, from his passionate commitment to the Spanish Republic; his successful pursuit by Soviet NKVD agents, who valued Hemingway's influence, access, and mobility; his wartime meeting in East Asia with communist leader Chou En-Lai, the future premier of the People's Republic of China; and finally to his undercover involvement with Cuban rebels in the late 1950s and his sympathy for Fidel Castro. Reynolds equally explores Hemingway's participation in various roles as an agent for the United States government, including hunting Nazi submarines with ONI-supplied munitions in the Caribbean on his boat, Pilar; his command of an informant ring in Cuba called the "Crook Factory" that reported to the American embassy in Havana; and his on-the-ground role in Europe, where he helped OSS gain key tactical intelligence for the liberation of Paris and fought alongside the U.S. infantry in the bloody endgame of World War II. As he examines the links between Hemingway's work as an operative and as an author, Reynolds reveals how Hemingway's secret adventures influenced his literary output and contributed to the writer's block and mental decline (including paranoia) that plagued him during the postwar years -- a period marked by the Red Scare and McCarthy hearings. Reynolds also illuminates how those same experiences played a role in some of Hemingway's greatest works, including For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea, while also adding to the burden that he carried at the end of his life and perhaps contributing to his suicide. A literary biography with the soul of an espionage thriller, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy is an essential contribution to our understanding of the life, work, and fate of one of America's most legendary authors.

4. The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood, (Paperback)

\"A terrific achievement, thoughtful and compelling, smart and original, beautifully written.\" --Nick Hornby \"Astonishing. . . a landmark in Irish nonfiction. . . a masterpiece.\" -- Washington Post A deeply moving and critically acclaimed memoir about a young boy growing up in 1950's Dublin with a German mother and fiercely republican Irish father. Born to an Irish father and German mother, Hugo Hamilton and his brother and sister grew up being just about the only children in 1950's Dublin wearing Aran sweaters and Lederhosen. Their father, a Gaelic speaking Irish nationalist, forbid them from talking to their friends in English. And their mother, a soft-spoken immigrant who escaped late 1930s Nazi Germany, baked German cakes and told wistful stories of a country that no longer existed. For Hugo, childhood seemed like an ongoing struggle to understand what it meant to be \"one of the speckled people\"--his father's phrase to describe \"the New Irish, partly from Ireland and partly from somewhere else.\" A rare and shockingly honest account of a child's attempt to make sense of his family, language and identity, The Speckled People stands among the most fiercely original memoirs to emerge this decade.

The Speckled People: A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood, (Paperback) Author: Harper Perennial ISBN: 9780007156634 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 2004-04-27 Page Count: 298

5. A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics, (Paperback)

Poet and playwright Amiri Baraka is best known as one of the African American writers who helped ignite the Black Arts Movement. This book examines Baraka's cultural approach to Black Power politics and explores his role in the phenomenal spread of black nationalism in the urban centers of late-twentieth-century America, including his part in the election of black public officials, his leadership in the Modern Black Convention Movement, and his work in housing and community development. Komozi Woodard traces Baraka's transformation from poet to political activist, as the rise of the Black Arts Movement pulled him from political obscurity in the Beat circles of Greenwich Village, swept him into the center of the Black Power Movement, and ultimately propelled him into the ranks of black national political leadership. Moving outward from Baraka's personal story, Woodard illuminates the dynamics and remarkable rise of black cultural nationalism with an eye toward the movement's broader context, including the impact of black migrations on urban ethos, the importance of increasing population concentrations of African Americans in the cities, and the effect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the nature of black political mobilization.

A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) and Black Power Politics, (Paperback) Author: University of North Carolina Press ISBN: 9780807847619 Format: Paperback Publication Date: 1999-02-22 Page Count: 400

6. Pre-Owned Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson (Paperback) by Paula Byrne

9780007164592. Pre-Owned: Good condition. Mass-market paperback. Language: English. Glued binding. B-format paperback. Sex, fame and scandal in the theatrical, literary and social circles of late 18th-century England. One of the most flamboyant women of the late-eighteenth century, Mary Robinson's life was marked by reversals of fortune. After being raised by a middle-class father, Mary was married, at age fourteen, to Thomas Robinson. His dissipated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. On her release, Mary quickly became one of the most popular actresses of the day, famously playing Perdita in 'The Winter's Tale' for a rapt audience that included the Prince of Wales, who fell madly in love with her. She later used his copious love letters for blackmail. This authoritative and engaging book presents a fascinating portrait of a woman who was variously darling of the London stage, a poet whose work was admired by Coleridge and a mistress to the most powerful men in England, and yet whose fortunes were nevertheless precarious, always on the brink of being squandered through recklessness, excess and passion.

ISBN: 9780007164592 Condition: Pre-Owned: Good Mass-market paperback Language: English Glued binding. B-format paperback. Sex, fame and scandal in the theatrical, literary and social circles of late 18th-century England. One of the most flamboyant women of the late-eighteenth century, Mary Robinson's life was marked by reversals of fortune. After being raised by a middle-class father, Mary was married, at age fourteen, to Thomas Robinson. His dissipated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtors' prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. On her release, Mary quickly became one of the most popular actresses of the day, famously playing Perdita in 'The Winter's Tale' for a rapt audience that included the Prince of Wales, who fell madly in love with her. She later used his copious love letters for blackmail. This authoritative and engaging book presents a fascinating portrait of a woman who was variously darling of the London stage, a poet whose work was admired by Coleridge and a mistress to the most powerful men in England, and yet whose fortunes were nevertheless precarious, always on the brink of being squandered through recklessness, excess and passion.