Recommendations based on "Dear Chester, Dear John Letters Between Chester Himes and John A. Williams"

'Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism as I understand it'. Thus wrote Orwell following his experiences as a militiaman in the Spanish Civil War, chronicled in Homage to Catalonia. Here he brings to bear all the force of his humanity, passion and clarity, describing with bitter intensity the bright hopes and cynical betrayals of that chaotic episode: the revolutionary euphoria of Barcelona, the courage of ordinary Spanish men and women he fought alongside, the terror and confusion of the front, his near-fatal bullet wound and the vicious treachery of his supposed allies. A firsthand account of the brutal conditions of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia includes an introduction by Julian Symons in Penguin Modern Classics.

"These funny, filthy, and terrifically smart letters reveal him in a way that no biographer can." -- New York NewsdayGuru of the Beat generation, éminence grise of the international avant-garde, dark prophet, and blackest of satirists, William S. Burroughs has had a range of influence rivaled by few living writers. This volume of his correspondence from 1945 to 1959 vividly documents the personal and cultural history through which Burroughs developed, revealing clues to illuminate his life and keys to open up his texts. More than that, it shows how letter-writing was itself integral to his life and to his fiction.Beginning as surprisingly formal notes from the road to his friends Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, the letters deepen in substance and style. Then, in Tangier, comes a dramatic shift in voice and vision and the explosive, distinctive letters that will become Naked Lunch. Letters were lifelines for Burroughs, the outcast; and works-in-progress for Burroughs, the writer; and, they track his turbulent journey across two decades and three continents. To read them as they were written is to experience a unique merging of life and letters, the extraordinary story of Williams S. Burroughs homme de lettres."Unrelenting impact." -- Los Angeles Reader

If Dickens was nineteenth-century London personified, Herman Melville was the quintessential American. With a historian’s perspective and a critic’s insight, award-winning author Andrew Delbanco marvelously demonstrates that Melville was very much a man of his era and that he recorded — in his books, letters, and marginalia; and in conversations with friends like Nathaniel Hawthorne and with his literary cronies in Manhattan — an incomparable chapter of American history. From the bawdy storytelling of Typee to the spiritual preoccupations building up to and beyond Moby Dick, Delbanco brilliantly illuminates Melville’s life and work, and his crucial role as a man of American letters.

"Four score and seven years ago..." begins Abraham Lincoln's beautiful speech commemorating the three-day battle that turned the tide of the Civil War. The South had been winning up to this point. So how did Union troops stop General Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North? With black-and-illustrations throughout and sixteen pages of photos, this turning point in history is brought vividly to life.

HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics. Three francs will feed you till tomorrow, and you cannot think further than that... As a young man struggling to find his voice as a writer, George Orwell left the comfort of home to live in the impoverished working districts of Paris and London. He would document both the chaos and boredom of destitution, the eccentric cast of characters he encountered, and the near-constant pains of hunger and discomfort. Exposing the grim reality of a life marred by poverty, Down and Out in Paris and London, part memoir, part social commentary, would become George Orwell's first published work.

Rusty Travels Abroad To Fulfil His Dream Of Becoming A WriterRusty Goes To London Is The Fourth Book In Puffin'S New Series Of The Complete Escapades Of Rusty; This Is The First Time That All The Rusty Stories Are Available In Chronological Order. In His Early Twenties Now, Rusty Finally Severs Ties With Dehra And Books A Passage To England, With The Dream Of Writing And Selling His Novel Abroad. First In His Aunt'S House In Jersey, And Then In Rented Lodgings In London, He Works As A Clerk By Day And Writes Away In The Evenings. Eventually The Novel Is Finished And Rusty Even Finds A Publisher. But This, He Discovers, Does Not Mean That His Book Will See The Light Of Day Soon ...While In London, Rusty Has Myriad Adventures, Each More Incredible Than The Last. Strolling Down Baker Street, He Runs Into Sherlock Holmes, Who Gives Him A Few Lessons In Investigative Techniques. At The Victoria And Albert Museum, He Is Accosted By Rudyard Kipling. And Then, Of Course, There Is The Strange Incident At The Chinese Quarter, The Calypso Christmas In His Lodgings, And The Story Of The Vietnamese Girl Vu-Phuong. After Three Years Abroad, However, Rusty Realizes That He Wants To Make India His Permanent Home; All He Really Needs Is A Room Of His Own To Live And Write In, As The Vibrant World That He Has Known And Loved All Along Unfolds Outside. Returning To Dehra, He Renews Some Acquaintances And Makes A Few New Ones, And Settles Into His Role As Full-Time Author. Full Of Interesting Stories And Memorable Characters, Rusty Goes To London Is A Book That Will Delight All Of Ruskin Bond'S Young Fans.

"Gipson again has given us a purely wonderful trunk of Americana, and one of those rare books to be enjoyed on many latitudes of brow elevation."--Chicago Sunday Tribune

“I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t and then tries the short story which is the most demanding form after poetry. And failing that, only then does he take up novel writing.” —William Faulkner   Winner of the National Book Award Forty-two stories make up this magisterial collection by the writer who stands at the pinnacle of modern American fiction. Compressing an epic expanse of vision into hard and wounding narratives, Faulkner’s stories evoke the intimate textures of place, the deep strata of history and legend, and all the fear, brutality, and tenderness of the human condition. These tales are set not only in Yoknapatawpha County, but in Beverly Hills and in France during World War I. They are populated by such characters as the Faulknerian archetypes Flem Snopes and Quentin Compson, as well as by ordinary men and women who emerge so sharply and indelibly in these pages that they dwarf the protagonists of most novels.

George MacDonald Fraser's famous Flashman series appearing for the first time in B-format with an exciting new series style, ready to please his legions of old fans and attract armies of new ones. The Flashman Papers 1849--50 and 1875--1876 Vol. Seven What was Harry Flashman doing on the slopes of the Little Bighorn, caught between the gallant remnant of Custer's 7th Cavalry and the withering attack of Sitting Bull's Braves? He was trying to get out of the line of fire and escape yet again with his life (if not with his honour) intact after setting the American West by its ears. Here is the legendary and authentic West of the Mangas Colorado and Kit Carson, of Custer and Spotted Tail, of Crazy Horse and the Deadwood stage, gunfighters and gamblers, eccentrics, scoundrels and, of course, Indian belles, dusky beauties, enthusiastic widows and mysterious adventuresses; this seventh volume of The Flashman Papers shows the West as it really was. Terrifying

James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, is a noble figure in Scottish history. In this novel, Nigel Tranter tells the fascinating yet desperate story of this gallant nobleman from the initial snub he received from Charles I, the monarch he was to devote his life to serving, through his reluctant involvement in national affairs, to intrigue, violence, treachery, and battle.