Bruno Schulz
Bruno Schulz is a master prose stylist. His narrative paths are conversely crooked and confounding, leading the reader into neighbourhoods of paradox and uncertainty.
Riddle of the Sands
Published in 1903, Erskine Childers's The Riddle of the Sands predicted the threat of war with Germany and was so prescient in its identification of the British coast's defensive weaknesses that it influenced the siting of new naval bases. The writing is gripping and it's a marvel that Childers manages to make the minutiae of sailing and navigation so engrossing. Although Riddle was an instant bestseller, Childers never wrote another novel, concentrating instead on military strategy manuals before entering politics and eventually becoming a fervent Irish nationalist.
A Journey to Mount Athos
A Journey to Mount Athos is a book in which an adolescent boy sails to the remote monasteries and hermitages of Mount Athos. His spiritual and erotic wanderings in the picturesque surroundings of the Holy Mountain take both the author and the reader on a journey of self-discovery. Augiéras described Athos as a place where you find everything within yourself, and the experiences in this book as a sojourn in the Land of the Spirits according to the strictest Buddhist or Pythagorean Orthodoxy.
Alice B. Toklas
The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, first published in 1954, is one of the bestselling cookbooks of all time. Written by Alice B. Toklas, writer Gertrude Stein's life-partner, Toklas wrote this book as a favor to Random House to make up for her unwillingness at the time to write her memoirs, in deference to Stein's 1933 book about her, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. This work is as much of an autobiography as it is a cookbook, in that it contains as many personal recollections as it does recipes. The most famous culinary experiment contained therein is a concoction called Hashish Fudge. Made from spices, nuts, fruit, and Cannabis, Hashish Fudge quickly became a sensation in its own right.
Remy Charlip
Remy Charlip was a dancer and children's books author.
Sukumar Ray
Sukumar Ray was a Bengali humorous poet, story writer and playwright. As perhaps the most famous Indian practitioner of literary nonsense, he is often compared to Lewis Carroll.
Grantland Rice
Grantland Rice was an early 20th-century American sportswriter known for his elegant prose. In 1930 he started a nationally syndicated column that would eventually appear in 100 newspapers. His expressive writing helped to raise sports players to heroic status. He often compared the challenges of sports to mythic stories and the greater human condition. Rice frequently delved into the greater social and personal meaning of sports.
Hart Crane
Hart Crane was an American poet. Finding both inspiration and provocation in the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that is difficult, highly stylized, and very ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, The Bridge, Crane sought to write an epic poem in the vein of The Waste Land that expressed something more sincere and optimistic than the ironic despair that Crane found in Eliot's poetry. In the years following his death at the age of 32, Crane has come to be seen as one of the most influential poets of his generation.
Jun’ichirō Tanizaki
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author, one of the major writers of modern Japanese literature, Some of his works present a rather shocking world of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions; others, less sensational, subtly portray the dynamics of family life in the context of the rapid changes in 20th-century Japanese society.
Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima was a Japanese author, poet and playwright, also remembered for his ritual suicide by seppuku.