<div>Based on the true story of tragic love in twelfth-century France, this &ldquo;garrulous, bustling&rdquo; novel offers &ldquo;the grand old tale, updated for feminist focus&rdquo; (Kirkus Reviews). In twelfth century France, two of Europe&rsquo;s greatest minds met and fell in love. It was a love forbidden by the world around them and eventually they were torn apart from each other. But the spark of it remained smoldering inside the lovers until their death and beyond. Heloise and her tutor, Peter Abelard, share a devotion passionate in its depth and beautiful in its thoughtfulness. They marry, and Heloise bears a son whom she names Astrolabe. However, all of this must be done in secret, for Abelard is forbidden to wed by the church, which considers him a cleric. When the truth of their relationship is exposed, they are separated and punished both in body and soul. Marion Meade weaves history and fiction together in Stealing Heaven, an epic story of one of history&rsquo;s most tragic love affairs. With facts pulled from Heloise&rsquo;s actual love letters, Meade creates a poetic and sensual tapestry of France in the twelfth century. Heloise and Abelard lived beyond their punishment in quiet contemplation of life and God&mdash;Abelard as a monk and Heloise as a nun and the founder of a convent. Her story is one of a brilliant woman, trapped within the confines of her society. But it is also the story of an inspiring love that has lived on throughout history.</div>

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Stealing Heaven

<div>In thirteenth-century France, a female poet endures the chaos of the Albigensian Crusade in this novel by the author of Eleanor of Aquitaine. A holy war is sweeping France, razing cities and destroying the peaceful lives of those considered heretics. Sybille d&rsquo;Astarac, born to pampered luxury, is a gifted female troubadour. But her poems grow dark as the Catholic crusade seeks to eradicate her sect. In the face of massacre, can Sybille survive the Inquisition? Will her love songs? A work of stunning historical fiction, Sybille displays Marion Meade&#39;s pitch-perfect understanding of strong women facing the harsh realities of life in medieval times. As Robin Morgan, author of The Anatomy of Freedom, writes, this book is &ldquo;an inspiration for women and an illumination for all readers.&rdquo;</div>

Sybille

<div>Victoria Woodhull is a historical figure too often ignored and undervalued by historians. Although she never achieved political power, her actions and her presence on the political scene helped begin to change the way Americans thought about the right to vote, particularly women&rsquo;s suffrage, and she set the stage for political emancipations to come throughout the twentieth century. Woodhull was a product of and a revolutionary within the socially conservative Victorian era, which predominated in the United States as much as it did in England. She was an anomaly within her time, an unlikely and unconventional woman. She came from a background of poverty and her careers prior to entering politics included fortune-telling, acting, being a stock broker, journalism, and lecturing on women&rsquo;s rights. She ran for president of the United States in 1872. At that time, she had twice been divorced and she outraged even the feminists of her day by refusing to confine her campaign to the issue of women&rsquo;s suffrage. She advocated a single sexual standard for men and women, legalization of prostitution, reform of the marriage and family institutions, and &ldquo;free love.&rdquo; She shocked a nation largely because her plain-speaking was designed to expose the endemic hypocrisy of &ldquo;respectable&rdquo; people in society. Marion Meade has created a vivid picture of the colorful figure that was Victoria Woodhull, but she also fully portrays the era in which she lived, in all of its truest and often most unflattering colors. She makes the 1870s read in many ways like the 1970s, not just because Victoria Woodhull was far ahead of her own time but also because many people in the present era are still culturally behind the times.</div>

Free Woman

<div>In the early 1970s, the national conversation regarding feminism was very different. Public discussions of womanhood&mdash;single life, marriage, workplace harassment, rights, gripes&mdash;were often channeled through movement spokeswomen and always refracted through the lens of talking to men about men. Little was shared about the chats happening behind closed doors where everyday women talked to women without the threat of men listening in. But, all that changed with the book Bitching. Originally published in 1973, Bitching is journalist and author Marion Meade&rsquo;s deep and insightful investigation into the real dialogue happening inside coffee klatches, consciousness-raising groups, and therapist&rsquo;s sessions. Using excerpts from real taped conversations, Meade presents the frustration, anger, resigned acceptance, and scathing humor that make up the female experience from birth to grave. For the first time, male chauvinist behavior goes fully examined and unexcused, and the roles men force upon women get broken down to their sometimes ridiculous component parts. A snapshot into a key time in the feminist movement, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in how far we have come . . . or how much we have stayed the same.</div>

Bitching

<div>&ldquo;A psychologically nuanced, tough-minded portrait&rdquo; of the New York filmmaker and his relationships with Mia Farrow and Soon-Yi Previn (Publishers Weekly). Writer, director, actor, humorist. Woody Allen stands as one of our era&rsquo;s most celebrated artists. Starting in the 1950s, Allen began crafting a larger-than-life neurotic persona that has since entertained and enlightened millions. In his films, widely thought to be autobiographical explorations of his own comic fears and fixations, Allen carefully controlled the public&rsquo;s view of him as a lovable scamp. But that all came crashing down the day Mia Farrow found a Polaroid on her mantle. What followed was a flurry of sensational headlines and legal battles. His relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, thirty-four years his junior and the step-daughter of his longtime girlfriend, caused shockwaves in the public&rsquo;s perception of the director, yet few biographers and journalists have explored what happened and why. In this, the first deep investigation of Allen&rsquo;s life and the events surrounding his split with Farrow, biographer Marion Meade tracks down dozens of friends, actors, neighbors, and film historians. They open up with insights and details rare in the world of wealth and celebrity. What results is a fascinating portrait of a flawed genius, as adept at constructing his own image as he is at crafting films. Rereleased and updated, this is an unauthorized biography that neither Woody Allen&rsquo;s fans nor his detractors will be able to put down. The revised and updated edition was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal in 2013 by Carl Rollyson, in a roundup of the five best Hollywood biographies.</div>

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The Unruly Life of Woody Allen

<div>An American icon, Joseph Frank &ldquo;Buster&rdquo; Keaton is easily acknowledged as one of the greatest filmmakers in early cinema and beyond. His elaborate slapstick made audiences scream with laughter. But, his stone face hid an internal turmoil. In BUSTER KEATON: CUT TO THE CHASE, biographer Marion Meade seamlessly lays out the life and works of this comedy genius who lacked any formal education. &ldquo;Buster&rdquo; made his name as a child of vaudeville, thrown around the stage by his father in a cartoon pantomime of very real abuse. The lessons he carried forward from that experience translated into some of the greatest silent films of all time. Keaton wrote, directed, performed, and edited dozens of features and shorts, including his masterpiece, The General. However, those early scars also led to decades of drinking and mistreatment of women. Keaton saw huge successes, Hollywood sex scandals, years of neglect from studios and audiences, and finally a shaky resurrection that assured his place in Hollywood&rsquo;s film canon. Meticulously researched, this book brings together four years of research and hundreds of interviews to paint a nuanced portrait of a compelling artist. No comedy fan or film buff should miss this insider story of the man behind the stone face. </div>

Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase

<div>The life and times of Helena Blavatsky, the controversial religious guru who cofounded the Theosophical Society and kick-started the New Age movement. Recklessly brilliant, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky scandalized her 19th century world with a controversial new religion that tried to synthesize Eastern and Western philosophies. If her contemporaries saw her as a freak, a charlatan, and a snake oil salesman, she viewed herself as a special person born for great things. She firmly believed that it was her destiny to enlighten the world. Rebelliously breaking conventions, she was the antithesis of a pious religious leader. She cursed, smoked, overate, and needed to airbrush out certain inconvenient facts, like husbands, lovers, and a child. Marion Meade digs deep into Madame Blavatsky&rsquo;s life from her birth in Russia among the aristocracy to a penniless exile in Europe, across the Atlantic to New York where she became the first Russian woman naturalized as an American citizen, and finally moving on to India where she established the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society in 1882. As she chased from continent to continent, she left in her aftermath a trail of enthralled followers and the ideas of Theosophy that endure to this day. While dismissed as a female messiah, her efforts laid the groundwork for the New Age movement, which sought to reconcile Eastern traditions with Western occultism. Her teachings entered the mainstream by creating new respect for the cultures and religions of the East&mdash;for Buddhism and Hinduism&mdash;and interest in meditation, yoga, gurus, and reincarnation. Madame Blavatsky was one of a kind. Here is her richly bizarre story told with compassion, insight, and an attempt to plumb the truth behind those astonishing accomplishments. </div>

Madame Blavatsky

<div>A &ldquo;breezily entertaining&rdquo; look at the comic couple who hobnobbed with Dorothy Parker, S. J. Perelman, Bennett Cerf, and other luminaries of their day (The New York Times Book Review). Nathanael West&mdash;author, screenwriter, playwright&mdash;was famous for two masterpieces: Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust, which remains one the most penetrating novels ever written about Hollywood. He was also one of the most gifted and original writers of his generation, a scathing satirist whose insight into the brutalities of modern life proved prophetic. Eileen McKenney&mdash;accidental muse, literary heroine&mdash;grew up corn-fed in the Midwest and moved to Manhattan&rsquo;s Greenwich Village when she was twenty-one. The inspiration for her sister Ruth&rsquo;s stories in the New Yorker under the banner of &ldquo;My Sister Eileen,&rdquo; she became an overnight celebrity, and her star eventually crossed with that of the man she would impulsively marry. Together, Nathanael and Eileen had entr&eacute;e into a social circle that included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dashiell Hammett, Katharine White, and many of the literary, theatrical, and film luminaries of the era. But their carefree, offbeat Broadway-to-Hollywood love story would flame out almost as soon as it began. Now, with &ldquo;a great marriage of scholarship and gossip&rdquo; (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), this biography restores West and McKenney to their rightful place in the popular imagination, offering &ldquo;a shrewd portrait of two people who in their different ways were noteworthy participants in American culture during one of its liveliest periods&rdquo; (Los Angeles Times). &ldquo;Opens a window onto the lives of writers in 1930s America as they struggled with anxieties, pretensions, temptations and myths that confound our culture to this day.&rdquo; &mdash;Salon.com &ldquo;The first to fully chronicle and entwine these careening lives, Meade forges an engrossing, madcap, and tragic American story of ambition, reinvention, and risk.&rdquo; &mdash;Booklist, starred review</div>

Marion Meade
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Books By Marion Meade (8 Books)

Stealing Heaven

Sybille

Free Woman

Bitching

The Unruly Life of Woody Allen

Buster Keaton: Cut to the Chase

Madame Blavatsky

Lonelyhearts

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Books By Marion Meade (8 Books)

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