Best Selling Books by Truman Capote

El último libro publicado en vida de Truman Capote. Música para camaleones, un libro que Truman Capote presenta como una obra de literatura documental, bucea con implacable lucidez en la poesía y el horror de la vida; es el espléndido resultado de una necesidad de comunicación directa entre lector y materia narrativa, que Truman Capote buscó febrilmente para conseguir una escritura «sencilla y límpida como un arroyo de montaña». Una prosa en la que pudiera mantenerse al margen del tema tratado, sin influir con su estilo, juicios y opiniones. En palabras suyas: hacer del lector un observador o, mejor aún, el testigo de una experiencia verdadera que, contada bajo tal óptica, resultara mucho más subyugante que si el autor la interpretase al modo clásico. El libro está dividido en tres partes. En primer lugar, seis breves piezas iniciales de magistral concepción y ejecución. Luego, una novela corta, «Ataúdes tallados a mano», lleva a sus últimas consecuencias el enfoque testimonial de A sangre fría y relata la espeluznante historia de Quinn, un psicópata solipsista que se dedica a asesinar macabramente a los jurados que en un juicio han votado en su contra. Finalmente, siete «Conversaciones y retratos», entre los cuales destacan el magistral texto en el que Capote acompaña a una asistenta en «un día de trabajo» limpiando domicilios, la estremecedora entrevista a un maníaco asesino recluido en San Quintín, la agridulce y famosa semblanza de Marilyn Monroe y, desde luego, el desgarrador autorretrato del autor y su imaginario gemelo, en el que afirmó: «Soy alcohólico. Soy drogadicto. Soy homosexual. Soy un genio.»

Història d'un crim monstruós convertit en obra d'art gràcies a l'ofici i a la sensibilitat del narrador, aquesta «novel·la de no-ficció» descriu, amb tant de detall que és a la ratlla de la morbositat -però sense ultrapassar-la mai-, la vida de dos psicòpates des de la seva infantesa fins a l'acompliment de la pena a què són condemnats.Truman Capote va dedicar sis anys seguits de treballs i investigacions a A sang freda, que es traslladaria aviat al cinema i li donaria notorietat mundial. Després d'aquesta novel·la, Capote es veuria incapaç d'acabar cap altre llibre.

A story of two sisters and their cousin.

Mrs. H.T. Miller, a widow comfortable with her solitary existence, is frightened by a mysterious young girl who keeps appearing at her front door.

In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Capote learned of the quadruple murder before the killers were captured, and he traveled to Kansas to write about the crime. He was accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee, and they interviewed residents and investigators assigned to the case and took thousands of pages of notes. Killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith were arrested six weeks after the murders and later executed by the state of Kansas. Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. Herbert "Herb" Clutter was a prosperous farmer in western Kansas. He employed as many as 18 farmhands, who admired and respected him for his fair treatment and good wages. His two elder daughters, Eveanna and Beverly, had moved out and started their adult lives; his two younger children, daughter Nancy, 16, and son Kenyon, 15, were in high school. Clutter's wife Bonnie had reportedly been incapacitated by clinical depression and physical ailments since the births of her children, although this was later disputed by her brother and other family members, who maintained that Bonnie's depression was not as debilitating as portrayed in the book. Two ex-convicts recently paroled from the Kansas State Penitentiary, Richard Eugene "Dick" Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, robbed and murdered Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon in the early morning hours of November 15, 1959. A former cellmate of Hickock's, Floyd Wells, had worked for Herb Clutter and told Hickock that Clutter kept large amounts of cash in a safe. Hickock soon hatched the idea to steal the safe and start a new life in Mexico. According to Capote, Hickock described his plan as "a cinch, the perfect score." Hickock later contacted Smith, another former cellmate, about committing the robbery with him.In fact, Herb Clutter had no safe and transacted essentially all of his business by check. After driving more than 400 miles across the state of Kansas on the evening of November 14, Hickock and Smith arrived in Holcomb, located the Clutter home, and entered through an unlocked door while the family slept. Upon rousing the Clutters and discovering there was no safe, they bound and gagged the family, and continued to search for money, but found little of value in the house.

Gekürzte und bearbeitete Nacherzählung des klassischen Kurzromans von Truman Capote als Englischlektüre, Niveau A2+, in der Reihe "Penguin Readers" bei Klett. In der durch die Verfilmung mit Audrey Hepburn bestens bekannten Geschichte geht es um die exzentrische und lebenslustige Holly Golightly, die im New York der 1940er-Jahre wohlhabenden Männern den Kopf verdreht. An schlechten Tagen hebt sie ihre Laune mit einem Besuch beim Juweliergeschäft Tiffany. Mit Glossar, Aktivteil (Lösungen auf der Verlagswebsite), und kostenlosen Audiodateien zum Download.