false <![CDATA[Mark Twain: A Life]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1161832271m/2970.jpg 2970 5 Mark Twain grew up with America. Born in 1835, he reached adulthood as the country was expanding and threatening to splinter all at once. Along with his towering talent and personality, his timing and instinct for finding the action allowed him to play a major role in pushing the boundaries of American culture and mythology by creating a new approach to literature. "Breaching the ranks of New England literary culture was Clemens's most important achievement (short of his actual works), and a signal liberating event in the country's imaginative history," writes Ron Powers in this dazzling biography. Not only did he observe and chronicle this cultural shift, he participated in it, allowing him to report "from the yeasty perspective of the common man." While still Sam Clemens, he worked as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River and experienced the Wild West of the Nevada Territory as a miner, land prospector, and newspaperman. Later, while still the people's champion, he married into wealth and ran with the moneyed class of the Gilded Age--until his money ran out--and toured the world meeting with the famous and powerful at every stop. He was, as Powers puts it, "the nation's first rock star." But Twain was more than just a writer and Powers strives to cover all sides of this complex man. Employing an approach he calls "interpretive portraiture," he explores Twain's personal relations, temperament, religious skepticism, and psychology as closely as his written work. He discusses Twain's zeal for life along with his "chronic insecurity," and describes how this eternally optimistic and forward-looking man was prone to spells of nihilism and despair. Powers is a talented and lively writer clearly up to the task of covering this American legend, and his book vividly and thoroughly explains why Twain was "<I>the</I> representative figure of his nation and his century." <I>--Shawn Carkonen</I> 2325522 2005 Mark Twain: A Life total:182|5:60|4:73|3:44|2:5|1:0| 182 734 338 32 4 1 false false Fri Feb 20 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 15 11:29:11 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 20 21:11:16 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jul 20 08:26:04 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 20 08:48:42 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:36:55 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:36:55 -0800 2009 Mark Twain: A Life is an audacious undertaking. Twain's singular career was so rich and varied, and his inner life so complicated, that he defies easy categorization. Except for the occasional misstep, Powers pulls it off. He marshaled his own considerable expertise and mined the archives of the Mar...

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