A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatest minds, and greatest books of all time-listed in accessible and succinct form-by one of the world's greatest scholars. From the "Hundred Best Books" to the "Ten Greatest Thinkers" to the "Ten Greatest Poets," here is a concise collection of the world's most significant knowledge. For the better part of a century, Will Durant dwelled upon-and wrote about-the most significant eras, individuals,...

In this no-holds-barred memoir with a foreword by Elizabeth Hardwick, the bestselling author of The Group recalls her early life in New York, revealing the genesis of and genius behind her groundbreaking fiction  Mary McCarthy is a married twenty-four-year-old Communist and critic when this memoir begins. She's disciplined, dedicated, and sexually experimental: At one point she realizes that in twenty-four hours she "had slept with three different...

The book her devoted readers have been waiting for. At last, New York Times bestselling author Kathleen Norris's first continuous narrative, a story of sex, drugs, and poetry. After spending her high school years in Hawaii, Kathleen Norris was woefully unprepared for Bennington College in the 1960s, with its culture of drugs, sex, and bohemianism. But it was also at Bennington that she discovered her great love of poetry, which carried her to New...

Women writers of English and their works