UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · POETRY
Erica Jong
Also known as: Erica Jong, Erica. Jong
Erica Jong (née Mann; born March 26, 1942) is an American novelist, satirist, and poet known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying. The book became famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality and figured prominently in the development of second-wave feminism. The Washington Post said in 2013 that it had sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, while by 2022, The New York Times reported that worldwide sales of the book had increased to over 37 million copies.
There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them.
— from Fear of Flying, 2006
Most acclaimed
Fear of Flying
2006
An uninhibited story of Isadora Wing and her desire to fly free stands as a tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood.
How to Save Your Own Life
1977
Michael Gill's lemons-to-lemonade memoir chronicled his transformative years working at Starbucks after losing his high-powered job, his marriage, and his health (he developed a brain tumor). In response to overwhelming requests from readers who wanted to know how they, too, could weather downturns, he has distilled his lessons into fifteen meaningful lessons, including:Leap...With Faith: Sometimes it pays to leap without looking and say yes without thinking (Gill accepted the Starbucks job immediately, on a whim).Let Yourself...Be Helped: Pride is even more paralyzing than fear.Look...with Respect at Every Individual You See: Gill was raised to avoid eye contact with those who were different, cloistered in a privileged world. Now he realizes the potential in all who cross his daily path.Lose...Your Watch (and Cell Phone and PDA!): Our obsession with productivity produces madness, not gladness.Offering living proof that extraordinary happiness is found in ordinary moments, How to Save Your Own Life provides empowering words and hope for anyone facing a reversal of fortune. True fortune, Gill discovered, lies not in fate but in discovering the innate capacity we all possess to rescue ourselves.
Witches
2007
"September 1613. In Belvoir Castle, the heir of one of England's great noble families falls suddenly and dangerously ill. His body is 'tormented' with violent convulsions. Within a few short weeks he will suffer an excruciating death. Soon the whole family will be stricken with the same terrifying symptoms. The second son, the last male of the line, will not survive. It is said witches are to blame. And so the Earl of Rutland's sons will not be the last to die. Witches traces the dramatic events which unfolded at one of England's oldest and most spectacular castles four hundred years ago. The case is among those which constitute the European witch craze of the 15th-18th centuries, when suspected witches were burned, hanged, or tortured by the thousand. Like those other cases, it is a tale of superstition, the darkest limits of the human imagination and, ultimately, injustice - a reminder of how paranoia and hysteria can create an environment in which nonconformism spells death. But as Tracy Borman reveals here, it is not quite typical. The most powerful and Machiavellian figure of the Jacobean court had a vested interest in events at Belvoir.He would mastermind a conspiracy that has remained hidden for centuries."--Publisher's description.