A hysterical new novel from the author of What's Wrong with Dorfman? Once a gangly teenager in oversized clothes, Plato G. Fussell is now handsome and independently wealthy. But inside he's still a bundle of neuroses and anxieties, with a tendency to engage in moronic word games in the presence of beautiful women. In the midst of working on his definitive ten-volume biography of Millard Fillmore, Plato finds himself dodging his vile ex-wife, trying to please his demanding elderly mother by inquiring weekly about the state of her bowels, and attempting to remain verbally coherent while courting a young woman whom he meets after her errant Frisbee connects with his cranium. As Plato blunders on in search of true love, romance, and an acceptable degree of worldwide cleanliness, he discovers that loving someone and knowing them needn't go hand-in-hand.

Ziff: A Life? is the latest tour de force by an extraordinary novelist with explosive verbal energy and intelligence, sexual sensibility, and drive, who has been acclaimed by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and Wallace Stegner. Who is Arthur Ziff? One of our greatest living writers or an impertinent provocateur? A true literary master or a clever tactician who seduces the reading public? It is narrator Danny Levitan’s job to find out who Ziff really is, in a compelling novel about the writing life that is at once comic and provocative, producing a memorable reading experience. Sensational publishing and serious literature collide when Levitan, a has-been writer, is offered a hefty advance to write a biography of Ziff, the scourge of myriad Jewish-American readers and a titan among the world’s literary giants. For years, Ziff has been sharing secrets, manuscripts, and sexual escapades with his longtime and less successful friend Danny. But, old friendships aside, Ziff hardly welcomes an incendiary study of his life, and is determined to thwart Danny, with legal roadblocks and personal humiliation. Danny must decide whether to accept the advance and risk the rollercoaster of recriminations that will surely follow. He recounts with humor and often wrenching anguish his journey of discovery into the land of Ziff, and the hard-won truths he finds there—original insights into a man who has crafted his novels, often savagely, from the lives of his friends, including Danny’s life. An unabashed look at the ruthless forging of literary careers and a heady brew of books within a book, Ziff: A Life? will enthrall readers of great fiction everywhere and anyone eager for a peek through the keyhole of contemporary literary celebrity.

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.

Two friends grow up in a North London Jewish suburb. David is bright, parent-pleasing and obviously destined for great things. But somehow he ends up earning peanuts in a Suffolk bookshop while his devious and wayward friend Jack, becomes rich and famous as a TV chat-show host. When Jack dies, his widow and publisher commission David to write his biography; after all, dependable David can be relied upon not to dish the dirt about the sex, the drugs and the women. David however soon realises that it's finally time he stopped doing what is expected of him. Instead he must write the true story of the forty year friendship that has dominated his life and then maybe he'll get Jack out of his system. But what David soon finds is that he can never be completely free of Jack...

From the internationally best-selling author Daniel Kehlmann, a provocative and wickedly funny novel about two unpredictable menone an artist and the other a journalist, who together embark on an unexpected adventure with uproarious results. Sebastian Zollner's failure as a journalist is matched only by his personal failures: his girlfriend is moving in a new lover before Sebastian even knows he's been dumped. Searching for the break that will redeem him in the eyes of his peers, he heads off on a wild goose chase into the mountains to interview the eccentric, legendary painter Manuel Kaminski, with the hope of writing his biography. Kaminski is going blind and is living in seclusion with his daughter. He could be working on his next masterpiece or easing into his final days, and his inconsistent career raises the question of whether he has been a fraud or a genius. His artistic reputation hinges on any number of factors but most prominently on a definitive biography. Enter Zollnerwho has no intention of writing a puff piece. He's out to dig dirt and to force Kaminski to confront the legacy of his work. But the secrets he uncovers will lead Kaminski, and Zollner himself, to places neither of them ever expected to go. With edgy wit and intelligence, Daniel Kehlmann dives into the problems of what is "truth" in our celebrity-crazed times and embraces the energy and humanity that lie beneath the pretensions of the art and journalistic worlds. A firecracker of a novel. From the Hardcover edition.

Yvonne Kapp, best known today for her biography of Eleanor Marx, was a remarkable woman whose life spanned virtually the entire twentieth century. "Time Will Tell" charts her life: 'enfant terrible' in London, the literary editor of "Vogue" in France in the late 1920s, work for anti-fascist refugee committees in 1930s' London, research for the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the British Medical Research Council, then, in her later years, work as a translator and a biographer. Kapp is a gifted writer on the details of family life and a fine recorder of shifting political and cultural patterns. Accounts of the many encounters she had with various important figures--Quentin Bell, Rebecca West, Paul Robeson, John Heartfield, Melanie Klein and Herbert Morrison, to name only a few--are expertly woven into the fascinating story of her own life. This is the autobiography of a woman who took issue with the dominant political movements of her age, with Fascism and with Communism, while at the same time reflecting on the changing cultural and political climate in Britain during her lifetime.

Yvonne Kapp, best known today for her biography of Eleanor Marx, was a remarkable woman whose life spanned virtually the entire twentieth century. "Time Will Tell" charts her life: 'enfant terrible' in London, the literary editor of "Vogue" in France in the late 1920s, work for anti-fascist refugee committees in 1930s' London, research for the Amalgamated Engineering Union and the British Medical Research Council, then, in her later years, work as a translator and a biographer. Kapp is a gifted writer on the details of family life and a fine recorder of shifting political and cultural patterns. Accounts of the many encounters she had with various important figures--Quentin Bell, Rebecca West, Paul Robeson, John Heartfield, Melanie Klein and Herbert Morrison, to name only a few--are expertly woven into the fascinating story of her own life. This is the autobiography of a woman who took issue with the dominant political movements of her age, with Fascism and with Communism, while at the same time reflecting on the changing cultural and political climate in Britain during her lifetime.