Secret Lives of Great Authors: What Your Teachers Never Told You About Famous Novelists, Poets, and Playwrights [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Robert Schnakenberg (Author), Mario Zucca (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2008

In the tradition of Quirk's bestselling Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents (100,000+ copies in print), here are outrageous and uncensored profiles of the world's greatest writers, complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright bizarre facts. Consider:

Edgar Allan Poe was kicked out of West Point Military Academy.
Louisa May Alcott was addicted to opium.
W. B. Yeats paid surgeons to transplant monkey glands into his scrotum.
J. R. R. Tolkien slept in his bathroom.
Kurt Vonnegut managed a Saab dealership before hitting the big time.

With chapters on everyone from William Shakespeare to Thomas Pynchon, Secret Lives of Great Authors tackles all the tough questions your teachers were afraid to answer: What's the deal with Lewis Carroll and little girls? Is it true that J. D. Salinger drank his own urine? Why was Ayn Rand such a big fan of Charlie's Angels? The classics were never this much fun in school!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Schnakenberg packages the lives and loves of 41 famous writers into a supermarket-tabloid parody. All rumors, idiosyncrasies, feuds, etc., are fodder for laughs or sarcastic jeers; no event is so tragic as to be exempt. Each biography starts with birth/death dates, nationality, astrological sign, major works, contemporaries and rivals, literary style, and words of wisdom. Because Emily Dickinson wrote her poems in iambic tetrameter, they can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." She may have been a closet lesbian, but was definitely a Sagittarius. J. R. R. Tolkien (Capricorn) was one of the original translators of the Old Testament Books of Jonah and Job of the Jerusalem Bible and also snored so loudly that he was relegated to the bathroom to sleep while his wife remained in the bedroom. Agatha Christie, a Virgo, had a disability called dysgraphia and had to dictate all of her writing. Also, both of her husbands cheated on her. Schnakenberg compares F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to P. Diddy and Lindsay Lohan as King and Queen of the celebrity party circuit, "astounding guests with their outrageous, drunken behavior." He cites Hemingway and Fitzgerald as the Oscar and Felix of America's Lost Generation. Thanks to modern headlines and reality TV, nothing here is particularly shocking, but the author does show that celebrity is celebrity no matter when it occurs. All readers will find at least a few "you have to hear this" tidbits.—Dana Cobern-Kullman, Luther Burbank Middle School, Burbank, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Robert Schnakenbrt is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Quirk Books (April 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594742111
• ASIN: B0032FO664
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How about them Dodgers!, June 12, 2008

By 

R. Russell Bittner "Russell Bittner" (Ellicott City, Maryland, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secret Lives of Great Authors (Paperback)

It's folks like Bob Schnakenberg that make me "proud" to be a resident of this God-forsaken burg. Bob Schnakenberg, and once-upon-a-time Hubert Selby, Jr. But Hubert moved on to L. A. Bob's still with us here in Brooklyn. I'd like him to make a million, but I don't want to lose him to Manhattan -- which is where all "successful" writers seem to end up (pace Paul Auster).

This book rips. It rips with humor and Schadenfreude (never a dull sentiment). It also rips APART -- viz., the real-life reputations of many of our guiding literary lights (never "lites").

I wondered at one point whether Bob had pulled his punches a bit with Richard Wright...but I then moved right on to Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and a few others and forgot all about whether Bob had or hadn't sacked Write adequately.

This book is worth every buck you can scrounge up to buy it. Do yourself a favor: go without a Starbucks for a night or two and splurge.

Russell

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Secret Lives of Great Authors is a fun trip through literary land with great illustrations and prose needing proofreading!, September 1, 2008

By 

C. M Mills "Michael Mills" (Knoxville Tennessee) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secret Lives of Great Authors (Paperback)

The Secret Lives of Great Authors by Robert Schnakenberg is a fun romp through literary land. The book examines the private lives of 41 classic authors from William Shakespeare the amorous playwright of Avon to the weird reclusive author Thomas Pyncheon.
This little book is also fact filled. Among listing the major works of the authors the book examines the quiddities of the great. Among such gems were these:
Lord Byron collected the public hairs of each of his many lovers.
Louise May Alcott had a crush on both Ralph Waldo Emerson and the eccentric Henry David Thoreau (Thoreau's family owned a pencil company for which Thoreau worked).
Franz Kafka refused to drop his shorts at a nudist camp.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was a practical joker including the use of whoopee cushions.
JRR Tolkien had to sleep in the bathroom since his wife hated to hear him snore in bed.
You get the idea! Much of this material is trivial but it does serve the purpose of humanizing these iconic figures. After all they were human!High School students and those just getting immersed in the wonderful world of literature would enjoy these humorously short profiles.
The book is poorly proofread
As an example, Twain could not have given a lecture on flatulence to Queen Elizabeth 1 (1533-1603) who had been dead for centuries before the American Lincoln of our Literature was born in Missouri in 1835. Some words are misspelled. Better editing should be exerted for the next edition.
The book is the companion volume to "The Secret Lives of Great Painters and Sculptors" published by the Quirk Publishing Company.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Queen VICTORIA, not Elizabeth I, September 13, 2009

By 

Lady Readsalot "Book Addict" (Montreal, QC Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Lives of Great Authors (Paperback)

The book lists QUEEN VICTORIA as the Queen that Mark Twain entertained with his story on flatulence. Victoria was born in 1837 and died in 1901. Twain was born in 1835 and died in 1910. It's entirely possible (highly probable, even) that they met during their lifetime. The story concerning the flatulence was SET in 1601 - it's in the title of the story, "[ Date: 1601.] Conversation, as it was the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors". It didn't actually happen in 1601. There is no mention of Twain meeting Elizabeth I in the book I read. Where are people coming up with all this Elizabeth I confusion?

This is such a fun read. It would make a great gift for an English literature teacher/professor - sprinkle some quirky bits of info into lectures and people are sure to perk up.