Notebooks Summary and Reviews

Notebooks
by Tennessee Williams

Notebooks
List Price: $40.00
Our Price: $19.37
You Save: $20.63 (52%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $9.95 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Tennessee Williams
Editor: Margaret Bradham Thornton
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-01-30
ISBN: 0300116829
Number of pages: 856
Publisher: Yale University Press

Book Reviews of Notebooks

Book Review: A treasure trove!
Summary: 5 Stars

I signed this book out of the library knowing I could never be able to work my way through its 800+ pages in three weeks. First, I'm not a big reader of diaries or letters (I find them too vague and elliptical); secondly, it's a massive book. But I have spent the entire morning leafing through it and am finding it mesmerizing. The editor/compiler, Margaret Bradham Thornton, has done an excellent job of providing notes, photographs, facsimile's of handwritten poems and diary entries, and short biographies of the many people--famous, infamous, and unfamous--who passed through Williams's life. Her tone is professional and forthright; she neither dodges nor wallows in discussion of Williams's sexual life. The notebooks are complete in that they contain everything that is known to survive; they cover the periods from 1936 to 1958 and from 1979 to 1981 (Williams died in February 1983). If notebooks are ever found covering the missing years, I hope the Williams estate has the good sense to allow Thornton to edit them.

The format for this book is to run the notebook entries on the right-hand pages and use the facing pages for explanatory notes. The notes are in a smaller type and each page is packed with annotation, such is the generosity of Thornton. Another interesting feature is the inclusion of Williams's own marginal notes. Apparently, he re-read his diaries years later and was not shy about criticizing his earlier self.

I think this book will be of interest to anyone interested in American cultural life in mid-twentieth century, not just in the theater and film, but dance, painting, poetry, fiction, etc. It's amazing how these cultural worlds intersected and collided. This is a book I want to own. I've just ordered it from Amazon and will continue reading my library copy until it arrives. Fascinating stuff!

Authors Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Authors Books
Bloomsbury Recalled ImageBloomsbury Recalled
by Quentin Bell
Columbia University Press; Published: 1997-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.38
Price in other shops: $29.00
William Tyndale: A Biography ImageWilliam Tyndale: A Biography
by David Daniell
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.92
Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America ImageNeither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish America
by Kathleen Ann Myers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops: $45.00
Storm of Steel (Penguin Classics) ImageStorm of Steel (Penguin Classics)
by Ernst Jünger
Penguin Classics; Published: 2004-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $16.00
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life ImageSurprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
by C.S. Lewis
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1995-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.22
Price in other shops: $18.00
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library) ImageRoughing It (The Penguin American Library)
by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.64
Price in other shops: $16.00
Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98 ImageLife Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98
by George Dawson, Richard Glaubman
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.59
Price in other shops: $15.00
Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives) ImageShakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
by Bill Bryson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops: $13.99
The Professor and the Madman CD ImageThe Professor and the Madman CD
by Simon Winchester
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-10-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.47
Price in other shops: $14.95
Alexander Hamilton: A Life ImageAlexander Hamilton: A Life
by Willard Sterne Randall
Harper; Published: 2003-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops: $32.50
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Tennessee Williams in Provincetown ImageTennessee Williams in Provincetown
by David Kaplan
Hansen Publishing Group, LLC; Published: 2006-10-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.12
Price in other shops: $14.95
Tenn at One Hundred: The Reputation of Tennessee Williams ImageTenn at One Hundred: The Reputation of Tennessee Williams
by David Kaplan
Hansen Publishing Group; Published: 2011-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.23
Price in other shops: $29.95
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I: 1920-1945 ImageThe Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, Volume I: 1920-1945
New Directions Publishing Corporation; Published: 2002-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.59
Price in other shops: $21.95
Tennessee Williams: Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America) ImageTennessee Williams: Plays 1957-1980 (Library of America)
by Tennessee Williams
Library of America; Published: 2000-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.18
Price in other shops: $40.00
Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America) ImageTennessee Williams: Plays 1937-1955 (Library of America)
by Tennessee Williams
Library of America; Published: 2000-10-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.89
Price in other shops: $40.00
New Selected Essays: Where I Live (Revised) (New Directions Paperbook) ImageNew Selected Essays: Where I Live (Revised) (New Directions Paperbook)
by Tennessee Williams
New Directions; Published: 2009-04-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.62
Price in other shops: $18.95
Tom: The Unknown Tennesse Williams ImageTom: The Unknown Tennesse Williams
by Lyle Leverich
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.; Published: 1997-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.80
Price in other shops: $35.00
Tennessee Williams' South ImageTennessee Williams' South
WB; Published: 2006; DVD
Best price: $1.78
Price in other shops: $24.99
Collected Stories (A New Directions Book) ImageCollected Stories (A New Directions Book)
by Tennessee Williams
New Directions Publishing Corporation; Published: 1994-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.50
Price in other shops: $23.95
Memoirs ImageMemoirs
by Tennessee Williams
New Directions; Published: 2006-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.75
Price in other shops: $16.95