345 results for "Autobiography"

Many paths to peace: the political memoirs of Norman Rothfield

Rothfield, Norman
Autobiography of this notable peace campaigner, focusing on his political and social activities. Discusses his work to foster peace in the Middle East and his involvement with many organisations working in the interests of peace and social justice, such as the Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism. Gives an account of his interactions with many political leaders and also provides a record of post-war left-wing political movements in Australia. Includes index. The author is the founder of the journal 'Paths to Peace'.
Yarraford Publications 1997 213 pages

A woman wanders through life and science

Koprowska, Irena
Irena Koprowska's autobiography illuminates the struggles of a young immigrant woman to combine family responsibilities and a demanding medical career. Irena Koprowska's autobiography chronicles the life and struggles of an immigrant woman who successfully pursued a career while raising a family. In the process, she became an award-winning physician, professor, and research pioneer at a time in history when it was believed a woman's place was in the home. Born in Warsaw in 1917, Irena Koprowska was married, pregnant, and a physician by the age of twenty-two. Forced to flee the Nazis, first in Poland and then in France, she fled to Brazil in 1940. Four years later she immigrated to the United States. Unable to speak English, she started her academic career as a volunteer at the Department of Pathology at Cornell University Medical College. During the years of her subsequent Research Fellowships at Cornell University Medical College, she worked with George N. Papanicolaou, inventor of the Pap smear. The two co-authored a case report of the earliest diagnosis of lung cancer by a sputum smear. Eight years later, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Pathology at State University of New York Downstate Medical College and went on to become the first woman physician to become a full professor at Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital (now known as Hahnemann University) in Philadelphia. Later she joined the faculty of Temple University Medical School where, upon her retirement in 1987, she became Professor Emerita. She was recognized as "Woman Physician of the Year" by a Gold Medicus award of the Polish American Society in 1977 and received the Papanicolaou Award of the AmericanSociety of Cytology in 1985.
State University of New York Press 1997-01-01 306 pages

The devil at large

Jong, Erica
Erica Jong, the author of Fear of Flying, was a correspondent and friend of Henry Miller for the last decade of his life. In this blend of biography, autobiography, scholarship and polemic, she sets out to re-evaluate Miller's work and to rescue him from charges of misogyny and titillation. The book contains Jong's own correspondence with Miller, and also examines the background to the diaries of Anais Nin.
Vintage 1994 340 pages

Clips from a life

Norden, Denis
Classic stills from the life of one of Britain's most cherished entertainers. This is the extraordinary life story of comic legend Denis Norden, told in momentary snapshots by the master British comedian himself. Containing reminiscences of a career stretching back to the golden age of the radio, through the heyday of cinema and the early pioneering days of television comedy, 'Clips From a Life' showcases Denis Norden's creative genius at its very best. Told with Denis' hallmark flashes of brilliant humour and sharp observation, the extraordinary life of this enduring humorist is unravelled through his private recollections of the ways things used to be, back then. Denis' school-day musings, dry witticisms, and old-time sayings unearthed from days gone by, combined with remembrances of collaborations with famous figures of the day, from Eric Sykes to Bill Fraser, will sweep you back instantaneously to the magical gags, lively characters and laughter of the past. Flitting between Denis' East End childhood and early career in Variety as a cinema manager for the Hyams Brothers, to his post-war work as a scriptwriter on the groundbreaking radio shows 'Take It From Here' and 'In All Directions', to the phenomenally successful television comedy 'Whack-O!' (all written with long-term collaborator Frank Muir), to his years as a solo writer, performer, and presenter on programmes such as the much-loved 'It'll Be Alright on the Night', it is easy to see how Denis' comic appeal has endured for decades, to make him one of the greatest British writers and performers to date. Brimming with Denis's unique wit and personal warmth, this is a rich and compelling mix of anecdote and autobiography from a very special entertainer.
Harper Perennial 2009 358 pages

The Americanist

Aaron, Daniel
“I have read all of Daniel Aaron’s books, and admired them, but in The Americanist I believe he has composed an intellectual and social memoir for which he will be remembered. His self-portrait is marked by personal tact and admirable restraint: he is and is not its subject. The Americanist is a vision of otherness: literary and academic friends and acquaintances, here and abroad. Eloquently phrased and free of nostalgia, it catches a lost world that yet engendered much of our own.” —Harold Bloom “ The Americanist is the absorbing intellectual autobiography of Daniel Aaron, who is the leading proponent and practitioner of American Studies. Written with grace and wit, it skillfully blends Daniel Aaron’s personal story with the history of the field he has done so much to create. This is a first-rate book by a first-rate scholar.” —David Herbert Donald, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University The Americanist is author and critic Daniel Aaron’s anthem to nearly a century of public and private life in America and abroad. Aaron, who is widely regarded as one of the founders of American Studies, graduated from the University of Michigan, received his Ph.D. from Harvard, and taught for over three decades each at Smith College and Harvard. Aaron writes with unsentimental nostalgia about his childhood in Los Angeles and Chicago and his later academic career, which took him around the globe, often in the role of America’s accidental yet impartial critic. When Walt Whitman, whom Aaron frequently cites as a touchstone, wrote, “I am large, I contain multitudes,” he could have been describing Daniel Aaron—the consummate erudite and Renaissance individual whose allegiance to the truth always outweighs mere partisan loyalty. Not only should Aaron’s book stand as a resplendent and summative work from one of the finest thinkers of the last hundred years, it also succeeds on its own as a first-rate piece of literature, on a par with the writings of any of its subjects. The Americanist is a veritable Who’s Who of twentieth-century writers Aaron interviewed, interacted with, or otherwise encountered throughout his life: Ralph Ellison, Robert Frost, Lillian Hellman, Richard Hofstadter, Alfred Kazin, Sinclair Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, John Crowe Ransom, Upton Sinclair, Edmund Wilson, Leonard Woolf, and W. B. Yeats, to name only a few. Aaron’s frank and personal observations of these literary lights make for lively reading. As well, scattered throughout The Americanist are illuminating portraits of American presidents living and passed—miniature masterworks of astute political observation that offer dazzlingly fresh approaches to well-trod subjects.
University of Michigan Press 2007-02-26 199 pages

The development of Greek biography

Momigliano, Arnaldo
Tracing the growth of ancient biography from the fifth century to the first century B.C., Arnaldo Momigliano asks fruitful questions about the origins and development of Greek biography. By clarifying the social and intellectual implications of the fact that the Greeks kept biography and autobiography distinct from historiography, he contributes to an understanding of a basic dichotomy in the Western tradition of historical writing. The Development of Greek Biography is fully annotated, and includes a bibliography designed to serve as an introduction to the study of biography in general. This classic study is now reissued with the addition of Momigliano's essay "Second Thoughts on Greek Biography" (1971).
Harvard University Press 1993 143 pages

Writing as resistance: four women confronting the Holocaust : Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum

Brenner, Rachel Feldhay
Examines the personal values and philosophies of Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, and Etty Hillesum in relation to the pressures and conditions under which they lived in the Nazi era. All had "strong Christian affinities." Under the challenge of terror they were "Christians by choice, Jews by decree." Each responded to her Jewishness in a distinct way: Stein felt close to the Jews; Weil had a hateful attitude toward them and tried to obliterate herself as a Jew; Frank and Hillesum both affirmed their Jewish identities. In the face of Hitler, each, in her own way, resisted.
Pennsylvania State University Press 1997 216 pages

My long journey home

Golden, Lily
The daughter of Oliver Golden, an African American expatriate and agrarian activist of the early 1900's, and Bertha Bialek, youngest daughter of Polish American emigres of Jewish descent, Lily Golden has a special place in history. In this account of her experience, Golden provides a connection between the contemporary and historical relationships of America to Russia. Golden offers a distinctly different and refreshing point of view of the lives and experiences of Russia in her often alluring and romantic, sometimes bitterly painful, yet always vivid and intimate details of her life as a dark-skinned Russian surviving in and struggling against turbulent changes. She brings her tale of a sometimes charmed sometimes challenged existence full circle in her descriptions of her ultimate contact with distant relatives in the United States. Lily Golden allows the reader access into her lifelong revelation that family and community ties are boundless by time and geography.--page 4 of cover.
Third World Press 2002-01-01 211 pages

The secrets of grown-ups: an autobiography

Caspary, Vera
Vera Caspary, the celebrated author of Laura , tells her own story in this captivating autobiography. With a career that spanned from the 1920s through 1970s, one that produced over twenty novels, in addition to her many credits for film and theater, Caspary centered her life around a passion for writing. From her early experiences at an advertisement agency--where she developed a correspondence school and invented its "famed" instructor--to the struggles of being gray-listed in the McCarthy Era, Caspary constantly found a way to turn her creative needs into viable work. Caspary recalls the rest of a full life, too, including her flirtation with communism, travels across Europe, and a marriage. Caspary's skillful writing makes her incredible depictions of people, and the times in which they lived, jump off the page.
Open Road Media 2016-01-26 237 pages

Scapegoat on trial: the story of Mendel Beilis, the autobiography of Mendel Beilis the defendant in the notorious 1912 blood libel in Kiev

Beilis, Mendel
It was the dawn of the twentieth century. A new spirit of freedom, tolerance and hope was sweeping the world, but in reactionary Czarist Russia, a macabre, thoroughly medieval drama was unfolding - a blood libel! A Christian child was found murdered in a suburb of Kiev, and a Jewish factory manager named Mendel Beilis was accused of killing and using his blood for the Passover matzos. This preposterous charge and the arrest and trial of Mendel Beilis, an obviously innocent scapegoat, scandalized the modern world. The battle lines were drawn between the enlightened and the bigoted. Mendel Beilis became more than an innocent man falsely accused. He became a cause celebre, a gallant symbol of the fight against the forces of darkness that would soon engulf the world in a disastrous war. The first edition of Mendel Beilis' autobiography was self-published in New York in 1926 under the title The Story of My Sufferings. This new edition, Scapegoat on Trial: The Story of Mendel Beilis, has been newly annotated and revised to correct the awkwardness of the original translation from the Yiddish. It also features an insightful introduction, which provides an illuminating historical context.
CIS Publishers 1992 260 pages

Harry Harrison! Harry Harrison! it seemed like a good idea at the time

Harrison, Harry
"Recollections of one of the grand masters of science fiction, on his storied career as a celebrated author and on his relationships with other luminaries in the field. This memoir is filled with all the humor and irreverence Harry Harrison's readers have come to expect from the New York Times bestselling author of the uproarious Stainless Steel Rat series. This also includes black and white photos spanning his sixty-year career"--
Tor, A Tom Doherty Associates Book 2014-11-04 351 pages

Confessions of a serial biographer

Freedland, Michael
Confessions of a Serial Biographer is the story (or rather the stories) of a man who has mingled with celebrities since he was a teenage junior newspaper reporter. He has been involved with some of the iconic names of Hollywood and showbiz in general - people like Fred Astaire, Gregory Peck and Andre Previn, all of whom co-operated in his biographies. Then there was a wide spectrum that ranged from Morecambe and Wise to Ella Fitzgerald, to say nothing of Leonard Bernstein and Bob Hope. His most recent biography is a best-selling study of the life of Dean Martin, King of the Road. Here is an autobiography of a biographer of more than 30 books, who, while still at school, was captivated by the voice of a singer called Al Jolson. It is not just a story of smooth, friendly relations with his subjects. James Cagney sued him in the New York courts and Mr Peck tried to stop his book. Freedland won in both cases. But this is also the story of politicians like Harold Wilson, Alec Douglas Home ... and Tony Blair, to whom Michael Freedland gave some early media training. Not least of all, it is the tale of a radio programme called You Don't Have To Be Jewish, which after 23 years became the longest-running regional broadcast in Britain.
Valentine Mitchell 2005 329 pages

Daydreams and nightmares

Horowitz, Irving Louis
*Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Biography and Autobiography This is the story of the making of a world-famous sociologist. It is even more the story of a boy hustling to survive. Here in an astonishing and candidly written memoir by one of America's premier social scientists recounting the intensely personal story of his tormented youth in a ghetto within a ghetto. It etches the painful details of a boy's overcoming alienation and isolation in a hostile place in an unloving family. In the 1930s a small remnant community of Eastern European Jewish immigrants still resided in predominantly black Harlem. As shopkeepers trying to make out a marginal existence, Harlem's Jews were a minority within a minority. Into this restricted world the author of this book was born. Irving Louis Horowitz's parents had fled Russia, his father the victim of persecution in the Tsarist army during World War I. The boy's schoolmates were the children of black sharecroppers who had immigrated to the North. Poverty, language, and culture all cut off the Horowitz family from traditional community life, and the stress of a survival existence led to the trauma of a deteriorating family unit. Harlem and its environs, the Apollo and the Alhambra theaters, the Polo Grounds, and Central Park were the stage on which a youngster from this ghetto built a kind of self-reliance at the cost of social graces. The recipient of the National Jewish Book Award for Biography and Autobiography, this new, augmented edition contains the author's reflection of the impact of the Great Depression on Harlem family life.
Transaction 2011-09-01 126 pages

The tongue set free

Canetti, Elias
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: LITERARY. The Tongue Set Free is so beautifully written. It begins wtih an extraordinary image, Canetti's earliest memory. He comes out of a room. A man makes him stick out his tongue; if he talks he will cut it off. Years later Canetti realises that this was his nursemaid's lover, frightening him into silence about their rendezvous. The idea of speaking as the entry into forbidden grown-up life dominates this book. When he is seven his father dies. He is propelled from childhood into adulthood, from his father to his mother, through language. In an extraordinary, cruel episode his mother forces him to learn perfect adult German in three months, to replace her husband as quickly as possible. His tongue is set free: he has won his mother, against brothers , against all lovers. It is the most intense Oedipal relationhsip I have ever seen described and Canetti describes it brilliantly. But it's all extraordinary, and all masterfully written.
Granta 2011 268 pages

Chemistry & art: further adventures of a chemist collector

Bader, Alfred
Alfred Bader's achievements—as the founder of one of the most important companies in its field in the world, as a collector and dealer in Old Master paintings, and as a legendary philanthropist—make for fascinating reading. This book begins where Alfred Bader's first autobiography, Adventures of a Chemist Collector, ended: with the boardroom coup in which he was dismissed from the chemical company he had built up from the ground. Bader now turns his enormous energy to Old Master paintings, in which he had become interested at a young age and in which he by now has the means to invest. The chapters that follow are roughly chronological, with some devoted to particularly meaningful paintings or groups of paintings, memorable auctions, mysteries, or discoveries relating to the artworks in the Bader Collection, while others are dedicated to friends, family, love, religion, charity, and, occasionally, chemistry.
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2008 246 pages

Stalin ate my homework

Sayle, Alexei
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY: FILM, TELEVISION, MUSIC, THEATRE. The Sayles might not have been the only Jewish atheist communist family in Liverpool, but Alexei knew from an early age that they were one of the more eccentric. Born on the day egg rationing came to an end, Alexei was the only child of Joe, an affable trade unionist who led the family on railway expeditions across eastern Europe, and Molly, a hot-tempered red-head who terrified teachers and insisted Alexei see the Red Army Choir instead of the Beatles. Perceptive and hilarious, this is a portrait of a family, a city, a country and a continent going through enormous changes.
Sceptre 2011 304 pages