New Releases by Judith Thurman

WINNER OF THE 2023 PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY A collection of essays from Judith Thurman, the National Book Award–winning biographer and New Yorker staff writer. Judith Thurman, a prolific staff writer at The New Yorker for more than two decades, has gathered a selection of her essays and profiles in A Left-Handed Woman. They consider our culture in all its guises: literature, history, politics, gender, fashion, and art, though their paramount subject is the human condition. Thurman is one of the preeminent essayists of our time—“a master of vivisection,” as Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times. “When she’s done with a subject, it’s still living, mystery intact.”

Judith Thurman’s brilliant, National Book Award–winning biography of Isak Dinesen—now with a new foreword by the author A brilliant literary portrait, Isak Dinesen remains the only comprehensive biography of one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Dinesen’s magnificent memoir, Out of Africa, established her as a major twentieth-century author, who was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize. With exceptional grace, Judith Thurman’s classic work explores Dinesen’s life. Until the appearance of this book, the life and art of Isak Dinesen have been—as Dinesen herself wrote of two lovers in a tale—“a pair of locked caskets, each containing the key to the other.” Judith Thurman has provided the master key to them both.

A scandalously talented stage performer, a practiced seductress of both men and women, and the flamboyant author of some of the greatest works of twentieth-century literature, Colette was our first true superstar. Now, in Judith Thurman''s Secrets of the Flesh, Colette at last has a biography worthy of her dazzling reputation. Having spent her childhood in the shadow of an overpowering mother, Colette escaped at age twenty into a turbulent marriage with the sexy, unscrupulous Willy--a literary charlatan who took credit for her bestselling Claudine novels. Weary of Willy''s sexual domination, Colette pursued an extremely public lesbian love affair with a niece of Napoleon''s. At forty, she gave birth to a daughter who bored her, at forty-seven she seduced her teenage stepson, and in her seventies she flirted with the Nazi occupiers of Paris, even though her beloved third husband, a Jew, had been arrested by the Gestapo. And all the while, this incomparable woman poured forth a torrent of masterpieces, including Gigi, Sido, Cheri, and Break of Day. Judith Thurman, author of the National Book Award-winning biography of Isak Dinesen, portrays Colette as a thoroughly modern woman: frank in her desires, fierce in her passions, forever reinventing herself. Rich with delicious gossip and intimate revelations, shimmering with grace and intelligence, Secrets of the Flesh is one of the great biographies of our time. NOTE: This edition does not include a photo insert.

A gathering of essays and profiles representing 20 years of Judith Thurman¿s celebrated writing, particularly her fascination with human vanity, femininity, and ¿women¿s work¿ -- from haute couture to literature to commanding empires. The subjects are iconic (Jackie, the Brontes, Toni Morrison, Anne Frank) and multifarious (tofu and performance art, pornography and propaganda, kimonos and bulimia); all inspire dazzling displays of craft, wit and intelligence. Here we find explorations of voracity: for sex, food, experience, and transcendence; see how writers from Flaubert to Nadine Gordimer have engaged with history; meet eminent Victorians and the greats of fashion. ¿Thurman never fails to provoke, inspire, captivate, and enlighten.¿

Cleopatra''s Nose is an exuberant gathering of essays and profiles representing twenty years of Judith Thurman''s celebrated writing, particularly her fascination with human vanity, femininity, and "women''s work"—from haute couture to literature to commanding empires. The subjects are iconic (Jackie, the Brontës, Toni Morrison, Anne Frank) and multifarious (tofu and performance art, pornography and platform shoes, kimonos and bulimia); all inspire dazzling displays of craft, wit, penetration, and intelligence. Here we find explorations of voracity: hunger for sex, food, experience, and transcendence; see how writers from Flaubert to Nadine Gordimer have engaged with history; meet eminent Victorians and the greats of fashion. Whether reporting on hairstyles, strolling the halls of power, or deftly unpacking novels and their writers, Thurman never fails to provoke, inspire, captivate, and enlighten. Cleopatra''s Nose is an embarrassment of riches from one of our great literary journalists.

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954) fue la primera mujer moderna del siglo XX. Su fascinante vida arranca en la época del decadentismo de finales del siglo XIX y termina en los años cincuenta, rodeada de gatos en un lujoso apartamento de París, después de pasar por los escenarios, ambientes, movimientos artísticos y hechos históricos más destacados de su tiempo: los salones mundanos de la Belle Époque, el ambiente del Lesbos finisecular, el bajo mundo del music-hall y el cabaret, el periodismo y la literatura, las trincheras de la Primera Guerra Mundial, el incipiente arte del cinematógrafo, los felices años veinte, los nazis en París… Sin embargo, a pesar de su celebridad como novelista y de ser una de las personalidades más conocidas de Francia, fue una mujer profundamente reservada y recelosa, que se resistía ferozmente a ser conocida.

Après neuf ans de recherches, c''est le regard d''une féministe américaine qui se pose sur Colette. Elle nous fait découvrir une Colette scandaleuse, féministe, décalée, lesbienne ou travestie, sans honte et sans remord.

Traces the art of motion picture photography from shadow shows a thousand years ago through the magic lantern, projected pictures, the still camera, the perfecting of film, and the first talkies.

Explores in poetry different kinds of losses and the delights of finding.

Imagine how different things might look if you had x-ray eyes or were a sprout inching up out of the ground.

Explores five women poets, ranging from Sappho to Emily Dickinson, through brief biographies and selections of their poetry.

Anything can be funny, depending on how you look at it.