Showing titles in Authors

When poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn't happen for her. Now in her forties, she sets out to explore the realities of a life lived in the absence of romantic love. Using Joni Mitchell's seminal album Blue - an album that shaped Key's expectations of love - as her guide, she examines the unexpected life she has created for herself.

Joining us at Audible Studios is British advertising executive Rory Sutherland, whose TED talks have been viewed nearly seven million times. He has recently released his book Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense. In many areas of our lives, reason plays an infinitesimal part. We are driven by unconscious desires. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant and the absurd, such as tiny bottles of fragrance. If you want to influence people's choices, you have to bypass reason.

In her spare, stark style, Annie Ernaux documents the desires and indignities of a human heart ensnared in an all-consuming passion. Blurring the line between fact and fiction, an unnamed narrator attempts to plot the emotional and physical course of her two-year relationship with a married foreigner where every word, event, and person either provides a connection with her beloved or is subject to her cold indifference. With courage and exactitude, she seeks the truth behind an existence lived entirely for someone else, and, in the pieces of its aftermath, she is able to find it.

The superstar author makes a stop on his last official book tour to read from and discuss his first adult novel in eight years. In conversation with Erin Morgenstern ( The Night Circus).

Described as both “one of the most important novels ever written” and “the gospel of evil,” 120 Days of Sodom was written by the Marquis de Sade, a notorious eighteenth-century aristocrat who waged a campaign of mayhem and debauchery across France, evaded execution, and inspired the word “sadism,” which came to mean receiving pleasure from pain. Despite all his crimes, Sade considered this work to be his greatest transgression.

Neurologist Ash Ranpura and Buddhist monk Gelong Thubten have recently collaborated with Ruby Wax - comedian, mental health advocate and best-selling author of Frazzled - to produce a new book called How to Be Human: The Manual. In this interview they reveal what they learnt from each other, where they found common ground and where, perhaps, they might disagree. We hear about mindfulness and what science can really tell us about who we are.

Sachchidanand Hirananda Vatsyayan 'Agyeya' is unarguably one of the most remarkable figures of Indian literature. From his revolutionary youth to acquiring the mantle of a (highly controversial) patron saint of Hindi literature, Agyeya's turbulent life also tells a history of the Hindi literary world and of a new nation—spanning as it does two world wars, Independence and Partition, and the building and fraying of the Nehruvian state.

This intellectual biography of Tagore, perhaps the first of its kind, portrays him as a man who was deeply skeptical, self-critical, tormented by conflicts in his inner life, aware of the historical significance of his times and continually interacting with adversaries and friends across the world; someone who built on the heritage of the 19th-century renaissance in India and became one of the makers of the modern Indian mind.

MT, as he is popularly known, is one of the most illustrious writers and film-makers from modern Kerala. His life’s work has won him the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, the National Film Award and the Padma Bhushan, among others. MT grew up in the village of Kudallur in Kerala and his writings constantly evoke the landscape of the years he spent there. Many of the characters in his stories are based on people who lived in this region and the stories themselves often retell incidents that happened there.

لم تكن نهضة اللغة العربية والاهتمام بها حكرا على المفكرين المسلمين، فقد كان لفرسان التجديد اللغوي المسيحي دور بارز في تهذيب اللغة العربية الفصحى ونشرها والمحافظة عليها، في القرن التاسع عشر، الذي شهد انحطاطا كبيرا للغة الضاد وتدهورها وتراجع استعمالها، أمام الإقبال على اللغات الأجنبية، خاصة الإنجليزية والفرنسية، في ظل صعود أوروبا وهيمنتها على العالم العربي.

على خطى والده الشيخ ناصيف اليازجي، عشق ابراهيم كتابة الشعر منذ صباه وقد لازمه هذا العشق حتى ريعان شبابه... ويقال إن إبراهيم، قد تتلمذ على يدي والده، الذي أخذ عنه العلم وسعة الأدب والثقافة والتفقه في اللغة، فضلا على حفظه للقرآن الكريم، باعتبار أن والده، الشيخ ناصيف، كان من حفظة كتاب الله العزيز، مما مكنه من الغوص في بحر اللغة واكتساب فصاحة لم تكن عند أحد غيره من أدباء عصره، رغم أنه كان مسيحيا.

يعدُّ ابن زيدون من أهم شعراء الأندلس في عصره حيث تمتع بمكانة عالية في المجتمع القرطبي بفضل ما أنفق في تعليمه من عناية، وما وهبه الله من ملكة طيبة، وقد تجلّت شاعريته وسنه تقارب العشرين، ذلك أنه عندما توفي القاضي الفقيه ابن ذكوان، ألقى على قبره مرثية بليغة.

يعدُّ ابن قتيبة من النماذج المشهود لها بمكانتها الأدبية والتاريخية في ذلك العصر، كما أنه أحد فقهاء الدين المُلمين بعلوم الفقه وتفسير الحديث المختلفة، وقد مدحه ابن النديم قائلاً عنه: "هو عالم باللغة والنحو وغريب القرآن ومعانيه والشعر والفقه وكثير التصنيف والتأليف".

Vorab zur Persönlichkeit Jean Pauls: Als Busenfreund und Blutsbruder von E.T.A. Hofmann gilt er neben demselben als Enfant Terrible der Romantik und als einziger Mensch seiner Zeit, der sogar Goethes Intellekt ins Wanken brachte, wobei Letzterer nach einem Kennenlernen Jean Pauls anmerkte, dass dieser auf ihn wie ein Mensch vom Mond wirke, aber schließlich die Auseinandersetzung mit dessen Texten nur wohlwollende und respektable Worte der Anerkennung zur Folge hatten.

My Story is an autobiographical book written by Indian author and poet Kamala Das (also known as Kamala Surayya or Madhavikutty). The book was originally published in Malayalam, titled Ente Katha. The book evoked violent reactions of admiration and criticism among readers and critics. It remains to date the best-selling woman's autobiography in India.

Thoreau's classic account of the solitary life, describing his attempts to simplify his life and sort out his priorities by living alone in a cabin beside Walden Pond for nearly two years, is one of the most influential books ever written. The bible of the environmental movement, Walden vividly portrays Thoreau's reverence for nature, and his understanding of the idea that nature is made up of crucially interrelated parts.

Mr. Rushdie, the author of Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, reads from his newest novel, Shalimar the Clown.

Joining us at Audible Studios is Alex Michaelides, a Hollywood screenwriter, who has released his debut thriller The Silent Patient. We spoke about his novel in which a devoted and loving wife suddenly shoots her husband five times, and never speaks another word. We also spoke about his university studies, how they have influenced his writing, his amazing career so far, and his upcoming plans.

Mirza Mohammad Asadullah Khan Ghalib began writing poetry in Persian at the age of nine and the pre-eminent poet of the time, Mir, predicted a great future for the precocious genius when he was shown his verse. But success and material rewards did not come to Ghalib easily, for the times were against him, and he did not suffer fools gladly even if they occupied positions of importance.

In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels, and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyzes some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion, and tragedy.