For the Love of Letters
For the Love of Letters

Author: John O'Connell

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-01-01

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1476718814

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Remember letters? They were good, weren’t they? The thrill of receiving that battered envelope, all the better for the wait . . . In this richly entertaining book, paper geek John O’Connell puts forward a passionate case for the value of letter-writing in a distracted, technology-obsessed world. Drawing on great examples from the past, he shows that the best letters have much to teach us – Samuel Richardson’s ‘familiar letters’; Wilfred Owen’s outpourings to his mother; the sly observational charms of Jane Austen. And in doing so he reminds us of the kind of letters we would all write if we had the time – the perfect thank-you letter, a truly empathetic condolence letter, and of course the heartfelt declaration of love. Was there a Golden Age of Letters? Why is handwriting so important? Can we ever regain the hallowed slowness of the pre-Twitter era? In answering these questions O’Connell shows how a proper letter is an object to be cherished, its crafting an act of exposure which gives shape and meaning to the chaos of life. *** ‘The nib touches the paper. And instinctively I follow the old formula: address in top right-hand corner; date just beneath it on the left-hand side. My writing looks weird. I hand-write so infrequently these days that I’ve developed a graphic stammer - my brain’s way of registering its impatience and bemusement. What are you doing? Just send an email! I haven’t got all night . . .’

Out of My Bone
Out of My Bone

Author: Joy Davidman

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 2009-06-19

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 080286399X

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Although best known as the wife of C. S. Lewis, Joy Davidman was an accomplished writer in her own right, with several published works to her credit. Out of My Bone tells Davidman s life story in her own words through her numerous letters most never published before and her autobiographical essay "The Longest Way Round." / Gathered and expertly introduced by Don W. King, these letters reveal Davidman's persistent search for truth, her curious, incisive mind, and her arresting, sharply penetrating voice. They chronicle her religious, philosophical, and intellectual journey from secular Judaism to atheism to Communism to Christianity. Her personal engagement with large issues offers key insights into the historical milieu of America in the 1930s and 1940s. Davidman also writes about the struggles of her earlier marriage to William Lindsay Gresham and of trying to reconcile her career goals with her life as mother of two sons. Most poignantly, perhaps, these letters expose Davidman s mental, emotional, and spiritual state as she confronted the cancer that eventually took her life in 1960 at age 45. / Moving and riveting, Out of My Bone reveals anew the singular woman whom Lewis deeply loved and who influenced his later writings, especially Till We Have Faces.

Love Letters for Joy
Love Letters for Joy

Author: Melissa See

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Published: 2023-06-06

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1338875418

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A new LGBTQIA+ romance story by the author of You, Me, and Our Heartstrings. Less than a year away from graduation, seventeen-year-old Joy is too busy overachieving to be worried about relationships. She’s determined to be Caldwell Prep’s first disabled valedictorian. And she only has one person to beat, her academic rival Nathaniel. But it’s senior year and everyone seems to be obsessed with pairing up. One of her best friends may be developing feelings for her and the other uses Caldwell’s anonymous love-letter writer to snag the girl of her dreams. Joy starts to wonder if she has missed out on a quintessential high school experience. She is asexual, but that’s no reason she can’t experience first love, right? She writes to Caldwell Cupid to help her sort out these new feelings and, over time, finds herself falling for the mysterious voice behind the letters. But falling in love might mean risking what she wants most, especially when the letter-writer turns out to be the last person she would ever expect.

The Housekeeper
The Housekeeper

Author: Joy Fielding

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2022-08-16

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0593158938

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A woman hires a housekeeper to care for her aging parents—only to watch as she takes over their lives in this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author Samantha M. Bailey calls “an ingenious master of domestic suspense.” ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Reader’s Digest In the end, I have only myself to blame. I’m the one who let her in. Jodi Bishop knows success. She’s the breadwinner, a top-notch real estate agent. Her husband, Harrison . . . not so much. Once, he had big dreams. But now, he’s a middling writer who resents his wife’s success. Jodi’s father, Vic, now in his late seventies and retired, is a very controlling man. His wife, Audrey, was herself no shrinking violet. But things changed when Audrey developed Parkinson’s ten years ago and Vic retired to devote himself to her care. But while still reasonably spry and rakishly handsome, Vic is worn down by his wife’s deteriorating condition. Exhausted from trying to balance her career, her family, and her parents’ needs, Jodi starts interviewing housekeepers to help care for Audrey and Vic. She settles on Elyse Woodley, an energetic and attractive widow in her early sixties, who seems perfect for the job. While Vic is initially resistant, he soon warms to Elyse’s sunny personality and engaging ways. And Jodi is pleased to have an ally, someone she can talk to and occasionally even confide in. Until . . . She shuts Jodi out. And Audrey’s condition worsens—rapidly. Who is this woman suddenly wearing her mother’s jewelry? What is she after? And how far will she go to get it?

Cul-de-sac
Cul-de-sac

Author: Joy Fielding

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2022-08-09

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1400027012

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A shooting lays bare the secrets harboured by five families in a sleepy suburban cul-de-sac in this riveting psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of All the Wrong Places. Someone in a quiet, unassuming cul-de-sac was shot dead in the middle of the night. Was it Maggie, the perfectionist wife, or Craig, the husband who can't quite live up to her expectations? When Maggie witnessed a shooting and later testified against a killer set free, the couple relocated, putting new pressure on their already strained union. Maggie is constantly looking over her shoulder. She owns a gun, just in case. Was it Nick, a doctor whose family, especially his wife, Dani, must bear the brunt of his ill temper? Nick is an avid hunter, too, and keeps a collection of handguns. Or was it Julia, a recently widowed grandmother? Her grandson is a troublemaker, someone not above stealing from her purse. His friends are equally unsavory. Her son buys her a gun for her protection. And then there's Olivia and her husband, Vic, who has been laid off, forcing Olivia to become the breadwinner. Vic is resentful. And depressed. He's started drinking heavily, and has threatened to shoot himself on several occasions. Or it could be one of the newlyweds, Aiden and Heidi, who are already on the rocks. Aiden refuses to stand up to his intrusive mother. When Heidi befriends Julia's grandson, it sets the stage for a major blow-up. Every house owns a gun. And anyone can be the victim, or the killer.

Love Letters of Great Men
Love Letters of Great Men

Author: Ursula Doyle

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2008-11-25

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 1429920084

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Remember the wonderfully romantic book of love letters that Carrie reads aloud to Big in the recent blockbuster film, Sex and the City? Fans raced to buy copies of their own, only to find out that the beautiful book didn't actually exist. However, since all of the letters referenced in the film did exist, we decided to publish this gorgeous keepsake ourselves. Love Letters of Great Men follows hot on the heels of the film and collects together some of history's most romantic letters from the private papers of Beethoven, Mark Twain, Mozart, and Lord Byron. For some of these great men, love is "a delicious poison" (William Congreve); for others, "a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music" (Charles Darwin). Love can scorch like the heat of the sun (Henry VIII), or penetrate the depths of one's heart like a cooling rain (Flaubert). Every shade of love is here, from the exquisite eloquence of Oscar Wilde and the simple devotion of Robert Browning, to the wonderfully modern misery of the Roman Pliny the Younger, losing himself in work to forget how much he misses his beloved wife, Calpurnia. Taken together, these letters show that perhaps men haven't changed all that much over the last 2,000 years--passion, jealousy, hope and longing still rule their hearts and minds. In an age of e-mail and texted "i luv u"s, this timeless and unique collection reminds us that nothing can compare to the simple joy of sitting down to read a letter from the one you love.

Letters to Sartre
Letters to Sartre

Author: Simone de Beauvoir

Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

Published: 2012-06

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 1611454980

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In these letters, de Beauvoir tells Sartre everything, tracing the extraordinary complications of their triangular love life; they reveal her not only as manipulative and dependent, but also as vulnerable, passionate, jealous, and...

Love Letters to the Dead
Love Letters to the Dead

Author: Ava Dellaira

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0374346682

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“Dear Ava, I loved your book.” —Award-winning actress Emma Watson For fans of Kathleen Glasgow and Amber Smith, Ava Dellaira writes about grief, love, and family with a haunting and often heartbreaking beauty in this emotionally stirring, critically acclaimed debut novel, Love Letters to the Dead. It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more—though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was—lovely and amazing and deeply flawed—can she begin to discover her own path.

Letters from Tove
Letters from Tove

Author: Tove Jansson

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 639

ISBN-13: 1452963827

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A virtual memoir in letters by the beloved creator of the Moomins Tove Jansson’s works, even her famed Moomin books, fairly teem with letters of one kind or another, from messages bobbing in bottles to whole epistolary novels. Fortunately for her countless readers, her life was no different, unfolding as it did in the letters to family, friends, and lovers that make up this volume, a veritable autobiography over the course of six decades—and the only one Jansson ever wrote. And just as letters carry a weight of significance in Jansson’s writing, those she wrote throughout her life reflect the gravity of her circumstances, the depth of her thoughts and feelings, and the critical moments of humor, sadness, and grace that mark an artist’s days. These letters, penned with characteristic insight and wit, provide an almost seamless commentary on Jansson’s life within Helsinki’s bohemian circles and on her island home. Shifting between hope and despair, yearning and happiness, they describe her immersion in art studies and her ascension to fame with the Moomins. They speak frankly of friendship and love, loneliness and solidarity, and also of politics, art, literature, and society. They summon a particular place and time reflected through a mind finely attuned to her culture, her world, and her own nature—all clearly put into biographical and historical context by the volume’s editors, both longtime friends of Tove Jansson—and, in the end, draw a complex, intimate self-portrait of one of the world’s most beloved authors.

King Alice
King Alice

Author: Matthew Cordell

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 25

ISBN-13: 1250224853

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Matthew Cordell, Caldecott Medal-winning author and illustrator of Wolf in the Snow, delivers yet another warm and delightful picture book in King Alice. Alice and her family are stuck indoors on a snowy day. Alice loves to read, and when her dad suggests that she make her own book, she snaps out of her "I'm bored" mode and makes up a story that lasts till the lights go out later that night. Here is a book that celebrates books, reading, and an imaginative way that one family handles being housebound. Praise for Matthew Cordell “Beautifully paced . . . ultimately reassuring.” —Wall Street Journal on Wolf in the Snow “Shows the power of kindness and bravery. Reminiscent of William Steig's Brave Irene, Cordell's book is a perfect choice for the dark days of winter.” —IndieBound on Wolf in the Snow