Anthony Holden Libri

Anthony Holden, award-winning journalist and biographer, editor of Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, looks back whimsically and wittily on a richly varied, anecdote- and action-packed career.

Anthony Holden's magisterial biography of William Shakespeare, reissued to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the Bard's death.

GROWN MEN AREN'T SUPPOSED TO CRY. But in this fascinating anthology, one hundred men - distinguished in literature and film, science and architecture, theatre and human rights - confess to being moved to tears by poems that haunt them. Representing twenty nationalities and ranging in age from their early 20s to their late 80s, the majority are public figures not prone to crying. Here they admit to breaking down when ambushed by great art, often in words as powerful as the poems themselves. Seventy-five percent of the selected poems were written in the twentieth century, with more than a dozen by women. Their themes range from love in its many guises, through mortality and loss, to the beauty and variety of nature. Three men have suffered the pain of losing a child; others are moved to tears by the exquisite way a poet captures, in Alexander Pope's famous phrase, 'what oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd'. From J.J Abrams to John le Carré, Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Franzen, Daniel Radcliffe to Nick Cave, Ian McEwan to Stephen Fry, Stanley Tucci to Colin Firth, and Seamus Heaney to Christopher Hitchens, this collection delivers private insight into the souls of men whose writing, acting, and thinking are admired around the world.

Following the success of their anthology Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, father-and-son team Anthony and Ben Holden, working with Amnesty International, have asked the same revealing question of 100 remarkable women. What poem has moved you to tears? The poems chosen range from the eighth century to today, from Rumi and Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, W. H. Auden to Carol Ann Duffy, Pablo Neruda and Derek Walcott to Imtiaz Dharker and Warsan Shire. Their themes range from love and loss, through mortality and mystery, war and peace, to the beauty and variety of nature. From Yoko Ono to Judi Dench, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Elena Ferrante, Carol Ann Duffy to Meera Syal, and Joan Baez to Olivia Colman, this unique collection delivers private insights into the minds of women whose writing, acting and thinking are admired around the world.

The works of William Shakespeare are timeless, having as much relevance today as they did in the 16th and 17th centuries. Drawing on Shakespeare's own life, and illustrated with stills from classic movies, this important book explores the timeless passions and pleasures of human life, so vividly and memorably dramatized in his classic plays. Each chapter examines a major theme of Shakespeare's work, such as love and hate, jealousy and revenge, and death and retribution.

The author of Lawrence Olivier and Prince Charles presents a wryly penetrating, provocative history of the Academy Awards, from the first baquet to the 1991 presentations, that is also a scrupulously researched look at how the Oscar has become the plaything of many powerful Hollywood special interst groups. Photos.