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Mad Girl's Love Song

by Andrew Wilson

A new biography of Sylvia Plath, a literary icon who continues to haunt, fascinate, and enthrall even now, fifty years after her death On February 25 , 1956, twenty-three-year-old Sylvia Plath walked into a party and immediately spotted Ted Hughes. This encounter--now one of the most famous in all of literary history--was recorded by Plath in her journal, where she described Hughes as a "big, dark, hunky boy." Sylvia viewed Ted as something of a colossus, and to this day his enormous shadow has obscured her life and work. The sensational aspects of the Plath-Hughes relationship have dominated the cultural landscape to such an extent that their story has taken on the resonance of a modern myth. Before she met Ted, Plath had lived a complex, creative, and disturbing life. Her father had died when she was only eight; she had gone out with literally hundreds of men, had been unofficially engaged, had tried to commit suicide, and had written more than two hundred poems. Mad Girl's Love Song chronicles these early years, traces the sources of her mental instability, and examines how a range of personal, economic, and societal factors--the real disquieting muses-- conspired against her. Drawing on exclusive interviews with friends and lovers who have never spoken openly about Plath before and using previously unavailable archives and papers, this is the first book to focus on the early life of the twentieth century's most popular and enduring female poet. Mad Girl's Love Song reclaims Sylvia Plath from the tangle of emotions associated with her relationship with Ted Hughes and reveals the origins of her unsettled and unsettling voice.

Mad Girl's Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted

by Andrew Wilson

In 1956, 23-year-old Sylvia Plath walked into a party and immediately spotted Ted Hughes. This encounter--now one of the most famous in all literary history--began what has become a modern myth. Sylvia viewed Ted as something of a colossus, and to this day his enormous shadow has obscured her life and work. Before she met Ted, Plath had lived a complex, creative, and disturbing life. Her father had died when she was only eight; she had gone out with hundreds of men, had been unofficially engaged, had attempted suicide, and had written more than 200 poems. This book chronicles these early years, traces the sources of her mental instability, and examines how a range of personal, economic, and societal factors conspired against her. Drawing on exclusive interviews with friends and lovers who have never spoken openly about Plath before, and using previously unavailable archives and papers, this is the first book to focus on the early life of the twentieth century's most popular and enduring female poet.

Mad Girl: A Happy Life With A Mixed Up Mind: A celebration of life with mental illness from mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon

by Bryony Gordon

THE NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB 2017 PICKA new Sunday Times bestseller from Bryony Gordon, Telegraph columnist and author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers. For readers who enjoyed Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive and Ruby Wax's Sane New World, Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.'I loved it. A brilliant fast and funny and frank look at something that absolutely needs to be talked about in this way' Matt HaigBryony Gordon has OCD.It's the snake in her brain that has told her ever since she was a teenager that her world is about to come crashing down: that her family might die if she doesn't repeat a phrase 5 times, or that she might have murdered someone and forgotten about it. It's caused alopecia, bulimia, and drug dependency. And Bryony is sick of it. Keeping silent about her illness has given it a cachet it simply does not deserve, so here she shares her story with trademark wit and dazzling honesty.A hugely successful columnist for the Telegraph, a bestselling author, and a happily married mother of an adorable daughter, Bryony has managed to laugh and live well while simultaneously grappling with her illness. Now it's time for her to speak out. Writing with her characteristic warmth and dark humour, Bryony explores her relationship with her OCD and depression as only she can.Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.

Mad Girl: A Happy Life With A Mixed Up Mind: A celebration of life with mental illness from mental health campaigner Bryony Gordon

by Bryony Gordon

THE NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB 2017 PICKA new Sunday Times bestseller from Bryony Gordon, Telegraph columnist and author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers. For readers who enjoyed Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive and Ruby Wax's Sane New World, Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.'I loved it. A brilliant fast and funny and frank look at something that absolutely needs to be talked about in this way' Matt HaigBryony Gordon has OCD.It's the snake in her brain that has told her ever since she was a teenager that her world is about to come crashing down: that her family might die if she doesn't repeat a phrase 5 times, or that she might have murdered someone and forgotten about it. It's caused alopecia, bulimia, and drug dependency. And Bryony is sick of it. Keeping silent about her illness has given it a cachet it simply does not deserve, so here she shares her story with trademark wit and dazzling honesty.A hugely successful columnist for the Telegraph, a bestselling author, and a happily married mother of an adorable daughter, Bryony has managed to laugh and live well while simultaneously grappling with her illness. Now it's time for her to speak out. Writing with her characteristic warmth and dark humour, Bryony explores her relationship with her OCD and depression as only she can.Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.

Mad Kings & Queens: History's Most Famous Raving Royals

by Alison Rattle Allison Vale

A frank and fascinating history of forty of Europe’s most loony, deluded, and downright dangerous monarchs.In Mad Kings & Queens co-authors Alison Rattle and Allison Vale reveal a legion of kings and queens who have abused the pedestal of power in spectacular style. The respectability of the royal position is well and truly tossed aside by the whimsy and wanton depravity of these mad European monarchs, including:The queen who murdered her husband with a red-hot spit.The bloodthirsty monarch who impaled tens of thousands of his subjects.The vampiric ruler who bathed in the blood of young women.The king of excess who beheaded his wives.Mad Kings and Queens explores seven hundred years of royal eccentricity, detailing a catalogue of madness and exploring the finer intricacies of royal breeding that lay at its root.

Mad Madame LaLaurie: New Orleans' Most Famous Murderess Revealed (True Crime Ser.)

by Lorelei Shannon Victoria Cosner Love

The truth behind the legend of New Orleans&’ infamous slave owner, madwoman, and murderess, portrayed in the anthology series, American Horror Story. On April 10, 1834, firefighters smashed through a padlocked attic door in the burning Royal Street mansion of Creole society couple Delphine and Louis Lalaurie. In the billowing smoke and flames they made an appalling discovery: the remains of Madame Lalaurie&’s chained, starved, and mutilated slaves. This house of horrors in the French Quarter spawned a legend that has endured for more than one-hundred-and-fifty years. But what actually happened in the Lalaurie home? Rumors about her atrocities spread as fast as the fire. But verifiable facts were scarce. Lalaurie wouldn&’t answer questions. She disappeared, leaving behind one of the French Quarter&’s ghastliest crime scenes, and what is considered to be one of America&’s most haunted houses. In Mad Madame Lalaurie, Victoria Cosner Love and Lorelei Shannon &“shed light on what is fact and what is purely fiction in a tale that&’s still told nightly on the streets of New Orleans&” (Deep South Magazine).

Mad Mary: A Bad Girl from Magdala, Transformed at His Appearing

by Liz Curtis Higgs

Come meet the genuine Mary Magdalene of the Bible -- not the scarlet-draped legend -- and follow her one-of-a-kind story of deliverance and dedication, despair and declaration. Like my previous "Bad Girls" books, "Mad Mary" begins with the fictional journey of Mary Margaret Delaney, a bad woman-or was it madwoman? -- adrift in contemporary Chicago, desperate for someone to save her from herself. Once Mary Delaney's story has prepared our hearts for learning, we'll leave the Windy City and go verse by verse through Mary of Magdala's ancient biblical tale, tossing aside modern misconceptions as we embrace the real Mary M. Prepare to be amazed by this eye-opening sister who was transformed twice when You-Know-Who showed up and spoke her name.

Mad Mitch's Tribal Law: Aden and the End of Empire

by Aaron Edwards

Aden, 20 June 1967: two army Land Rovers burn ferociously in the midday sun. The bodies of British soldiers litter the road. Thick black smoke bellows above Crater town, home to insurgents who are fighting the British-backed Federation government. Crater had come to symbolise Arab nationalist defiance in the face of the world’s most powerful empire. Hovering 2,000 ft. above the smouldering destruction, a tiny Scout helicopter surveys the scene. Its passenger is the recently arrived Commanding Officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Mitchell. Soon the world’s media would christen him ‘Mad Mitch’, in recognition of his controversial reoccupation of Crater two weeks later.Mad Mitch was truly a man out of his time. Supremely self-confident and debonair, he was an empire builder, not dismantler, and railed against the national malaise he felt had gripped Britain’s political establishment. Drawing on a wide array of never-before-seen archival sources and eyewitness testimonies, Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law tells the remarkable story of inspiring leadership, loyalty and betrayal in the final days of British Empire. It is, above all, a shocking account of Britain’s forgotten war on terror.

Mad Wife: A Memoir

by Kate Hamilton

Submitting to unwanted sex destroyed Kate&’s love for her husband But she considered killing herself before she could imagine leavingIn this electrifying literary memoir, Kate Hamilton deftly traces her complicated journey from loving wife to gaslit victim to furious feminist with an urgent goal: to expose how women are pressured to uphold the institutions of marriage and family, no matter the cost.In the tradition of Know My Name and The Argonauts, Hamilton braids her own story with cultural criticism to argue that we must face the misogyny lurking in the shadows of marriage in the 21st century. She examines the beliefs and conditioning that held her in an increasingly destructive marriage and unflinchingly documents what she did to keep her family together—therapy, unwanted sex with her husband, swinging, affairs, an abortion—without always knowing what she freely chose. And she considers the damage that was done, to herself and others, until she could acknowledge that to save herself and her sons, she had to destroy her marriage.Emotionally intense and timely, Mad Wife interrogates how marriage and the institutions that support it provide the perfect ecosystem for abuse of women and children, endangering their lives and denying them autonomy—all in the service of men&’s desires.

Mad Woman: The hotly anticipated follow-up to lifechanging bestseller, MAD GIRL

by Bryony Gordon

Bryony Gordon presents the long-anticipated follow up to her phenomenal Number One Sunday Times Bestseller, Mad Girl.Ten years on from first writing about her own experiences of mental illness, Bryony Gordon still receives messages about the effects it has on people. Now perimenopausal and well into the next stage of her life, parenting an almost-adolescent, just what has that help - and that connection with other unwell people - taught Bryony about herself, and the society we live in? What has she learned, and why have her views on mental health changed so radically? After coming out the other side of the biggest trauma of our living memory - a global pandemic - existing in a state of perma-crisis has now become our new normal.From burnout and binge eating, to living with fluctuating hormones and the endless battle to stay sober, Bryony begins to question whether she got mental illness wrong in the first place. Is it simply a chemical imbalance, or rather a normal response from your brain telling you that something isn't right? Mad Woman explores the most difficult of all the lesson she's learned over the last decade - that our notion of what makes a happy life is the very thing that's making us so sad.(P)2024 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Mad Woman: The hotly anticipated follow-up to lifechanging bestseller, MAD GIRL

by Bryony Gordon

'Visceral and honest' Telegraph'Bryony Gordon is a terrific, compassionate writer' Elizabeth Day'Bryony writes with such entertaining and brazen candour about mental illness...she really helps people tackle their own stuff. Her writing has helped me before and this will be another hit' Matt HaigTHE HOTLY ANTICIPATED FOLLOW-UP TO SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*, MAD GIRLWhat if our notion of what makes us happy is the very thing that's making us so sad?Ten years on from first writing about her own experiences of mental illness, Bryony Gordon still receives messages about the effect it has on people. Now perimenopausal and well into the next stage of her life, parenting an almost-adolescent, just what has that help - and that connection with other unwell people - taught Bryony about herself, and the society we live in? What has she learned, and why have her views on mental health changed so radically? After coming out the other side of the biggest trauma of our living memory - a global pandemic - existing in a state of perma-crisis has now become our new normal.From burnout and binge eating, to living with fluctuating hormones and the endless battle to stay sober, Bryony begins to question whether she got mental illness wrong in the first place. Is it simply a chemical imbalance, or rather a normal response from your brain telling you that something isn't right? Mad Woman explores the most difficult of all the lessons she's learned over the last decade - that our notion of what makes a happy life is the very thing that's making us so sad.Bestselling author Bryony Gordon is unafraid to write with her trademark blend of compassion, honesty and humour about her personal challenges and demons, which means her books and journalism have had profound impact on readers. She founded the mental health charity, Mental Health Mates, which has become a vast online community.*Bryony Gordon's Mad Girl was a number one Sunday Times bestseller on 12th June 2016.

Mad Woman: The hotly anticipated follow-up to lifechanging bestseller, MAD GIRL

by Bryony Gordon

'Visceral and honest' Telegraph'Bryony Gordon is a terrific, compassionate writer' Elizabeth Day'Bryony writes with such entertaining and brazen candour about mental illness...she really helps people tackle their own stuff. Her writing has helped me before and this will be another hit' Matt HaigTHE HOTLY ANTICIPATED FOLLOW-UP TO SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER*, MAD GIRLWhat if our notion of what makes us happy is the very thing that's making us so sad?Ten years on from first writing about her own experiences of mental illness, Bryony Gordon still receives messages about the effect it has on people. Now perimenopausal and well into the next stage of her life, parenting an almost-adolescent, just what has that help - and that connection with other unwell people - taught Bryony about herself, and the society we live in? What has she learned, and why have her views on mental health changed so radically? After coming out the other side of the biggest trauma of our living memory - a global pandemic - existing in a state of perma-crisis has now become our new normal.From burnout and binge eating, to living with fluctuating hormones and the endless battle to stay sober, Bryony begins to question whether she got mental illness wrong in the first place. Is it simply a chemical imbalance, or rather a normal response from your brain telling you that something isn't right? Mad Woman explores the most difficult of all the lessons she's learned over the last decade - that our notion of what makes a happy life is the very thing that's making us so sad.Bestselling author Bryony Gordon is unafraid to write with her trademark blend of compassion, honesty and humour about her personal challenges and demons, which means her books and journalism have had profound impact on readers. She founded the mental health charity, Mental Health Mates, which has become a vast online community.*Bryony Gordon's Mad Girl was a number one Sunday Times bestseller on 12th June 2016.

Mad Women

by Jane Maas

Primero el trabajo, luego el marido y después los niños: esas eran las reglas de Jane Maas cuando trabajaba como redactora en una agencia de Madison Avenue en los años sesenta, una época en que las mujeres con hijos eran franca minoría en estos cargos. Abrirse camino en una jungla poblada de caballeros con corbata no fue fácil para la joven Jane: las pocas mujeres publicistas se hacían cargo solo de cuentas pequeñas, percibían salarios menores, estaban sujetas a sufrir acoso sexual y no contaban con herramientas para defenderse más allá de su astucia y voluntad de triunfar.En Madison Avenue la creatividad, el sexo, el alcohol, el tabaco y las fiestas estaban a la orden del día, y Jane Maas evoca, con más humor que nostalgia esos días en que no existían los ordenadores, Internet y la telefonía móvil, cuando el papel carbón campaba a sus anchas y una señorita tenía que llevar guantes y saber sentarse en el taburete de un bar si quería conquistar el mundo.A través de anécdotas insólitas y divertidos chismorreos, Maas recorre su trayectoria profesional y revela cuánto hay de cierto -y de incierto- en la famosa serie de televisión Mad Men.¿Alguien quiere imaginarse paseando por las calles de Manhattan y trabajando al lado de Don Draper? Mad Women es su libro.«Devoré Mad Women de un bocado... y fue delicioso.»Jane Fonda

Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond

by Jane Maas

A New York copywriter reveals what it was like to be a woman in the 1960s male-dominated advertising world depicted in the hit show Mad Men.What was it like to be an advertising woman on Madison Avenue in the ‘60s and ‘70s—that Mad Men era of casual sex and professional serfdom? A real-life Peggy Olson reveals it all in this immensely entertaining and bittersweet memoir.Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: was there really that much sex at the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally “yes.” Her book, based on her own experiences and on countless interviews with her peers, gives the full stories, from the junior account man whose wife almost left him when she found the copy of Screw magazine he’d used to find “a date” for a client, to the Ogilvy & Mather’s annual Boat Ride, a sex-and-booze filled orgy, from which it was said no virgin ever returned intact. Wickedly funny and full of juicy inside information, Mad Women also tackles some of the tougher issues of the era, such as unequal pay, rampant, jaw-dropping sexism, and the difficult choice many women faced between motherhood and their careers.

Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s

by Jonathan Bernstein Lori Majewski

A &“hugely entertaining&” history of the 1980s New Wave music scene told through new interviews with its biggest artists (Rolling Stone). Mad World is a compelling oral history that celebrates the New Wave music phenomenon of the 1980s via new interviews with 35 of the most notable artists of the period. Each chapter begins with a discussion of their most popular song and leads to stories of their history and place in the scene, ultimately painting a vivid picture of this colorful, idiosyncratic time. Mixtape suggestions, fashion sidebars, and quotes from famous contemporary admirers help fill out the fun. Participants include members of Duran Duran, New Order, The Smiths, Tears for Fears, Adam Ant, Echo, and the Bunnymen, Devo, ABC, Spandau Ballet, A Flock of Seagulls, Thompson Twins, INXS, and more. &“One addictive chapter after another.&” —Rob Sheffield, author of Talking to Girls About Duran Duran &“Tells the tale of some of the decade&’s most unforgettable songs . . . in fascinating detail, letting the architects of these memorable records shine a light on how the sound of a generation came to be.&” —The Hollywood Reporter &“The new wave era is often dismissed for its one-hit wonders and silly haircuts, but [Mad World] examines the period with a great deal of love and reverence.&” —Buzzfeed &“A really informative and insightful read.&” —People

Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead

by Paula Byrne

A terrifically engaging and original biography of one of England's greatest novelists, Evelyn Waugh, and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched, and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, Brideshead Revisited. Fans of The Mitfords, D. J. Taylor's Bright Young People, and Alexander Waugh's Fathers and Sons, as well as Anglophiles in general, will find much to savor in Paula Byrne's wonderful Mad World. A major theme of the book and part of its original research relates to Waugh's bisexuality and how this, at the time, criminal offense effected him and his friends. In addition the thread of homosexuality runs continually through the book.

Mad at the World: A Life Of John Steinbeck

by William Souder

Winner of the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2020 in Nonfiction A resonant biography of America’s most celebrated novelist of the Great Depression. The first full-length biography of the Nobel laureate to appear in a quarter century, Mad at the World illuminates what has made the work of John Steinbeck an enduring part of the literary canon: his capacity for empathy. Pulitzer Prize finalist William Souder explores Steinbeck’s long apprenticeship as a writer struggling through the depths of the Great Depression, and his rise to greatness with masterpieces such as The Red Pony, Of Mice and Men, and The Grapes of Wrath. Angered by the plight of the Dust Bowl migrants who were starving even as they toiled to harvest California’s limitless bounty, fascinated by the guileless decency of the downtrodden denizens of Cannery Row, and appalled by the country’s refusal to recognize the humanity common to all of its citizens, Steinbeck took a stand against social injustice—paradoxically given his inherent misanthropy—setting him apart from the writers of the so-called "lost generation." A man by turns quick-tempered, compassionate, and ultimately brilliant, Steinbeck could be a difficult person to like. Obsessed with privacy, he was mistrustful of people. Next to writing, his favorite things were drinking and womanizing and getting married, which he did three times. And while he claimed indifference about success, his mid-career books and movie deals made him a lot of money—which passed through his hands as quickly as it came in. And yet Steinbeck also took aim at the corrosiveness of power, the perils of income inequality, and the urgency of ecological collapse, all of which drive public debate to this day. Steinbeck remains our great social realist novelist, the writer who gave the dispossessed and the disenfranchised a voice in American life and letters. Eloquent, nuanced, and deeply researched, Mad at the World captures the full measure of the man and his work.

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: Captain Scott - Mad, Bad And Dangerous To Know And Mad, Dogs And Englishmen

by Ranulph Fiennes

Ranulph Fiennes has travelled to the most dangerous and inaccessible places on earth, almost died countless times, lost nearly half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and been awarded a polar medal and an OBE. He has been an elite soldier, an athlete, a mountaineer, an explorer, a bestselling author and nearly replaced Sean Connery as James Bond.In his autobiography he describes how he led expeditions all over the world and became the first person to travel to both poles on land. He tells of how he discovered the lost city of Ubar in Oman and attempted to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole - the expedition that cost him several fingers, and very nearly his life. His most recent challenge was scaling the north face of the Eiger, one of the most awesome mountaineering challenges in the world. Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes OBE, 3rd Baronet, looks back on a life lived at the very limits of human endeavour.'Even readers with a broadly low tolerance for macho heroism will find themselves gripped . . . compelling' - Time Out

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: Updated and revised to celebrate the author's 75th year

by Ranulph Fiennes

Ranulph Fiennes has travelled to the most dangerous and inaccessible places on earth, almost died countless times, lost nearly half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and been awarded a polar medal and an OBE. He has been an elite soldier, an athlete, a mountaineer, an explorer, a bestselling author and nearly replaced Sean Connery as James Bond.In his autobiography he describes how he led expeditions all over the world and became the first person to travel to both poles on land. He tells of how he discovered the lost city of Ubar in Oman and attempted to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole - the expedition that cost him several fingers, and very nearly his life. His most recent challenge was scaling the north face of the Eiger, one of the most awesome mountaineering challenges in the world. Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes OBE, 3rd Baronet, looks back on a life lived at the very limits of human endeavour.'Even readers with a broadly low tolerance for macho heroism will find themselves gripped . . . compelling' - Time Out

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: Updated and revised to celebrate the author's 75th year

by Ranulph Fiennes

Ranulph Fiennes has travelled to the most dangerous and inaccessible places on earth, almost died countless times, lost nearly half his fingers to frostbite, raised millions of pounds for charity and been awarded a polar medal and an OBE. He has been an elite soldier, an athlete, a mountaineer, an explorer, a bestselling author and nearly replaced Sean Connery as James Bond. In his autobiography he describes how he led expeditions all over the world and became the first person to travel to both poles on land. He tells of how he discovered the lost city of Ubar in Oman and attempted to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole - the expedition that cost him several fingers, and very nearly his life. His most recent challenge was scaling the north face of the Eiger, one of the most awesome mountaineering challenges in the world. Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes OBE, 3rd Baronet, looks back on a life lived at the very limits of human endeavour. (P)2007 Hodder & Stoughton Audiobooks

Mad, Bad and Dangerous: The Eccentricity of Tyrants

by Tom Ambrose

A penetrating and incisive study of the fanaticism and foibles of some of history's most illustrious namesFrom Assad to Nero, Gaddafi to Ivan The Terrible, this work attempts a thorough illumination of the minds of some of the most powerful people in history. While leaving some room to describe the amusing incidents and eccentricities associated with a host of men and women of power, it also reaches into the terrifying depths and depravities of minds that shaped the destinies of peoples and nations. Using a unique combination of history, politics, and psychology, this book fully describes how power not only corrupts but deranges.

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats and Joyce

by Colm Toibin

From Colm Tóibín, the formidable award-winning author of The Master and Brooklyn, an illuminating, intimate study of Irish culture, history, and literature told through the lives and work of three men—William Wilde, John Butler Yeats, and John Stanislaus Joyce—and the complicated, influential relationships they had with their complicated sons.Colm Tóibín begins his incisive, revelatory Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know with a walk through the Dublin streets where he went to university—a wide-eyed boy from the country—and where three Irish literary giants also came of age. Oscar Wilde, writing about his relationship with his father, William Wilde, stated: “Whenever there is hatred between two people there is bond or brotherhood of some kind…you loathed each other not because you were so different but because you were so alike.” W.B. Yeats wrote of his father, John Butler Yeats, a painter: “It is this infirmity of will which has prevented him from finishing his pictures. The qualities I think necessary to success in art or life seemed to him egotism.” John Stanislaus Joyce, James’s father, was perhaps the most quintessentially Irish, widely loved, garrulous, a singer, and drinker with a volatile temper, who drove his son from Ireland. Elegant, profound, and riveting, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways these men surface in their work. Through these stories of fathers and sons, Tóibín recounts the resistance to English cultural domination, the birth of modern Irish cultural identity, and the extraordinary contributions of these complex and masterful authors.

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know: The Fathers of Wilde, Yeats, and Joyce

by Colm Toibin

Award-winning author Colm Tóibín turns his incisive gaze to three of the world's greatest writers, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, and James Joyce, and their earliest influences: their fathers."A father...is a necessary evil." Stephen Dedalus in UlyssesIn Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know, Colm Tóibín illuminates not only the complex relationships between three of the greatest writers in the English language and their fathers, but also illustrates the surprising ways they surface in their work. <P><P>From Wilde's doctor father, a brilliant statistician and amateur archaeologist, who was taken to court by an obsessed lover in a strange premonition of what would happen to his son; to Yeats' father, an impoverished artist and brilliant letter-writer who could never finish a painting; to John Stanislaus Joyce, a singer, drinker, and storyteller, a man unwilling to provide for his large family, whom his son James memorialised in his writing, Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know brilliantly combines biography and literary appreciation and is a revealing, personal new look at the lives of three major literary icons.

Madam

by Antonia Murphy

*Now a major international TV series starring Rachel Griffiths and Martin Henderson* A poignant and darkly comedic memoir from a mother who opened an ethical escort agency in small town New Zealand – the only country in the world where sex work is fully legalised – and dared to make a difference. I&’m Antonia, a real-life madam. I&’ve got a blended family of six kids; I spend my mornings packing lunchboxes and my evenings reading bedtime stories. And two days a week, I work as a pimp. Procurer, madam – whatever you want to call it. Personally, I think of myself as a union organiser. For vaginas. An ex-pat from San Francisco, Antonia Murphy is living on a farm in rural New Zealand with her husband and two kids, bored and isolated, when her husband leaves her. Suddenly, she has to figure out how to survive. Upon discovering the decriminalisation of sex work in New Zealand, Antonia&’s mind starts to wander, and she reaches out to the international sex worker community online to learn more about the business. This group of smart, anonymous, sassy women open Antonia&’s eyes to the viability of sex work that safeguards women&’s health and dignity, while providing a clean, shame-free establishment for male clients. Inspired, Antonia decides to open her own agency: The Bach. Over the next three years, she encounters more than she could have imagined: domestic abuse, assault, theft, drugs and a stream of silly, horrific and sometimes touching requests from her clients. She witnesses the ways so many women are trapped – by early pregnancy, lack of education and the constraints of their circumstances. More than anything, she sees fire in the women who choose sex work: they refuse to give up and be poor, even when the odds are stacked against them. In Madam, we follow Antonia through the turbulent years of her agency, as she toils to keep both her business and family afloat, and to keep the women of The Bach safe and thriving as they practice the world's oldest profession.

Madam Ambassador

by Eleni Kounalakis

A helicopter ride to visit troops in the Afghanistan war zone, a tense meeting with the newly elected Prime Minister, and...a wild boar hunt! Eleni Kounalakis was forty-three and a land developer in Sacramento, California, when she was tapped by President Barack Obama to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. During her tenure, from 2010 to 2013, Hungary was a key ally in the U.S. military surge, held elections in which a center-right candidate gained a two-thirds supermajority and rewrote the country's constitution, and grappled with the rise of Hungarian nationalism and anti-semitism.The first Greek-American woman ever to serve as a U.S. ambassador, Kounalakis recounts her training at the State Department's "charm school" and her three years of diplomatic life in Budapest--from protocols about seating, salutations, and embassy security to what to do when the deposed King of Greece hands you a small chocolate crown (eat it, of course!). A cross between a foreign policy memoir and an inspiring personal family story--her immigrant Greek father went from agricultural day laborer to land developer and major Democratic party activist--Madam Ambassador draws back the curtain on what it is like to represent the U.S. government abroad as well as how American embassies around the world function.

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