Wilder Love

Ideal reading for anyone looking for adventure and romance in unusual settings. Lesley Blanch writes about four strong women in The Wilder Shores of Love. Turning East, away from 19th Century Europe and conventional living, they found emancipation through escape and adventure. Isabel Burton married the Arabist and explorer Richard Burton; they worked together on his translation of A Thousand and One Nights; Jane Digby el-Mezrab (Lady Ellenborough, the society beauty), had four husbands and numerous lovers, including Honoré de Balzac and King Ludwig I of Bavaria. She ended up living in the Syrian desert with a young Bedouin chieftain; Aimée Dubucq de Rivery was a French convent girl who was captured at sea by pirates and became the consort of Sultan Abdul Hamid I; and Isabelle Eberhardt was a Swiss linguist who went to Algeria where she lived among tribesmen in the Sahara, converted to Islam, and dressed as a man. ANAIS NIN — “I read The Wilder Shores of Love by Lesley Blanch and became completely devoted to her writing. It is a book of great vitality, superb storytelling. She is herself Scheherazade telling about four remarkable women. I was fascinated by the charm and with which she tells biographical facts. The four women became my heroines. I read the book several times. My admiration for her was total. The Wilder Shores of Love would have made colourful and entrancing films.” CARSON McCULLERS — “The Wilder Shores of Love is a book of such radiance and strength.” FREYA STARK — “A book as excellent as its title.” WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD — “Love, wanderlust, faraway places – all that Romance implies – make up this delicious book.” NEW YORKER — “Four seething but most enjoyable studies in headlong nonconformity.” DAILY TELEGRAPH — “Enthralling to read.”

I was his weakness. He was my strength. Until I destroyed him.I was infatuated with Shane Wilder since the first time I saw him surfing. But we couldn't be together. Not yet, anyway. I was too young and screwed up. He was too focused on chasing his dream.So we became friends. We met on the rooftop for late-night confessions under the stars. Cruised along the Pacific Coast Highway with the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces.I took photos of all the beautiful and ugly and interesting things, while he traveled the world in search of the perfect waves.I told him I would wait for him. I never meant to lie.I never meant to ruin his life.I. Destroyed. Him. As his star faded, mine burned bright. But as everyone knows, all that glitters is not gold. Now I'm back after seven long years, hoping for a chance to right my wrongs and fix what I've broken. This time I can only hope that loving Shane Wilder will be enough to save him.

Dr. Dan Wilder has spent most of his life either with a nanny or alone. Hes wanted it that way until one morning on rounds, he hears a very captivating voice as he approaches a patients room. Glancing in, he sees a lovely new nurse as she talks to the patient about her husband being killed in Iraq and a dilemma about her small farm and two horses. Dan has always been so fascinated with horses, and immediately wants to know more about this intriguing lady and the problem she faces. His pursuit of her attention is both humorous and endearing, but can he convince her that his love is real?

A pioneer pilgrimage, a tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder, and a hilarious account of butter-churning obsession will make this a sure favorite.

Thornton Wilder is one of America’s greatest writers, and the only author to win Pulitzer Prizes in both fiction and drama. Equally well known for his plays and novels, his unique and diverse body of work also includes essays, journals, lectures, and film and television scripts. In The Thornton Wilder Encyclopedia, Thomas S. Hischak exhaustively covers Wilder’s life and extensive career. Entries not only contain every one of his novels, plays, and scripts, but also his letters, journals, and all other existing works by Wilder, published or unpublished. In addition, this valuable reference features entries on the individuals who worked with Wilder and friends and family members who were a great influence on him. With a biography of Wilder to introduce the work and a chronology and selected bibliography to augment the entries, The Thornton Wilder Encyclopedia is the most comprehensive reference available on one of America’s greatest playwrights and finest novelists.

In this personal book from the star of many beloved and classic film comedies -- from The Producers to Young Frankenstein, Blazing saddles to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- Gene Wilder writes about a side of his life the public hasn't seen on the screen. Kiss Me Like a Stranger is not an autobiography in the usual sense of the word, and it's certainly not another celebrity "tell-all." Instead, Wilder has chosen to write about resonant moments in his life, events that led him to an understanding of the art of acting, and -- more important -- to an understanding of how to give love to and receive love from a woman. Wilder writes compellingly about the creative process on stage and screen, and divulges moments from life on the sets of some of the most iconic movies of our time. In this book, he talks about everything from his experiences in psychoanalysis to why he got into acting and later comedy (his first goal was to be a Shakespearean actor), and how a Midwestern childhood with a sick mother changed him. Wilder explains why he became an actor and writer, and about the funny, wonderful movies he made with Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, and Harrison Ford, among many others. He candidly reveals his failures in love, and writes about the overwhelming experience of marrying comedienne Gilda Radner, as well as what finally had to happen for him to make a true and lasting commitment to another woman. A thoughtful, revealing, and winsome book about life, love, and the creative process, the New York Times bestseller Kiss Me Like A Stranger is one actor's life in his own words.

One of the most accomplished writers and directors of classic Hollywood, Billy Wilder (1906–2002) directed numerous acclaimed films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and Some Like It Hot (1959). Featuring Gene D. Phillips's unique, in-depth critical approach, Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder provides a groundbreaking overview of a filmmaking icon. Wilder began his career as a screenwriter in Berlin but, because of his Jewish heritage, sought refuge in America when Germany came under Nazi control. Making fast connections in Hollywood, Wilder immediately made the jump from screenwriter to director. His classic films Five Graves to Cairo (1943), Double Indemnity (1945), and The Lost Weekend (1945) earned Academy Awards for best picture, director, and screenplay. During the 1960s, Wilder continued to direct and produce controversial comedies, including Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) and The Apartment (1960), which won Oscars for best picture and director. This definitive biography reveals that Wilder was, and remains, one of the most influential directors in filmmaking.

The director and cowriter of some of the world's most iconic films—including Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment—Billy Wilder earned acclaim as American cinema's greatest social satirist. Though an influential fixture in Hollywood, Wilder always saw himself as an outsider. His worldview was shaped by his background in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and work as a journalist in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power, and his perspective as a Jewish refugee from Nazism lent his films a sense of the peril that could engulf any society. In this critical study, Joseph McBride offers new ways to understand Wilder's work, stretching from his days as a reporter and screenwriter in Europe to his distinguished as well as forgotten films as a Hollywood writer and his celebrated work as a writer-director. In contrast to the widespread view of Wilder as a hardened cynic, McBride reveals him to be a disappointed romantic. Wilder's experiences as an exile led him to mask his sensitivity beneath a veneer of wisecracking that made him a celebrated caustic wit. Amid the satirical barbs and exposure of social hypocrisies, Wilder’s films are marked by intense compassion and a profound understanding of the human condition. Mixing biographical insight with in-depth analysis of films from throughout Wilder's career as a screenwriter and director of comedy and drama, and drawing on McBride's interviews with the director and his collaborators, this book casts new light on the full range of Wilder's rich, complex, and distinctive vision.