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Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life

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The ebook Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life has been waiting on me awhile to open it and I felt July was an appropriate month to start it.

I believe there are times when a person reaches a celebrity that they are no longer viewed as human. This book shows us the human factor of Ernest Hemingway.

We know Hemingway was an ardent hunter who served in the military and enjoyed being outdoors.

In this book, we learn of his concern for his parents in the way to tries to explain to them about his process of writing, and closes out his letters Love Ernie.

We get a look-see at his potential titles for his books and see his proper use of communication in addressing employers. We view him jotting things down on a pad of paper and we are aware his writing was highly recommended.

I love the way this book is compiled! It is a beautiful collection of documents and photographs. It's an intimate mixing of memorabilia such as what you would find stored away in old scrapbooks or a box of family heirlooms. Many of the photographs included have no captions. And I like this, as it allows the reader to draw their own conclusions.

This book is for Hemingway enthusiasts and may indeed inspire readers to revisit Hemingways work.

I reviewed this wonderful book for Net Galley.
http://lorisbookloft.blogspot.com/2018/07/ernest-hemingway-artifacts-from-life.html

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A unique bio of this literary legend, one that adds greatly to the understanding of “Papa.” The author was invited by the Hemingway family to manage his literary estate, so had access to a treasure trove of 11,000 photos, 6000+ letters and an array of memorabilia. A beautifully curated segment is included in this book, giving a glorious peek at Hemingway’s life in a fashion not otherwise possible. 5 of 5 stars

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine. Pub Date 23 Oct 2018. ErnestHemingwayArtifactsFromALife #NetGalley

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Michael Katakis has gifted readers with an intimate, intriguing glimpse into the life of one of America's most recognized writers. In his book Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life, the readers is granted access to photos, letters, post cards, and lists the writer collected or saved throughout his life. These items are now part of the Ernest Hemingway Collection housed at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and not easily accessible to the average Hemingway aficionado. These personal pieces of Hemingway's life provide insights, but leave so many questions as well. Who are these people in the photos? What were their connections to Hemingway?
The book has a scrapbook layout, and creates almost a voyeuristic air, letting us peel back the curtain, but wanting more details.

Hemingway's narcissistic, poor husband material self is on display here, but also is his devotion to his sons. Raconteur, braggart, lover, fighter, son, father, husband. Whichever you most identify Hemingway as, there's no denying the pull of his personality and larger than life presence. This photographic exploration of Hemingway is a fascinating piece of work, covering a man who must have been a real piece of work himself.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance reader copy, for which I provided my honest review.

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I so enjoyed this look into the life of Ernest Hemingway. In looking at the things that he touched, the places he journeyed to, and even his personal daily thoughts, one comes to the man behind the myth.

It was a wonderful experience to read the forward by his son, and the afterword by his grandson. The images presented were another glimpse into his life. Hemingway lived life to the fullest. He was many things over his lifetime, and this book is a fitting tribute to this icon of American literature.

Thank you to Michael Katakis, Scribner, and NetGalley for a copy of this most impreesive book.

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This is a truly beautiful book that brings part of the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library to your fingertips. I feel the need to begin this review by explaining how the book came into my life. In May of 2018, I was granted access by the publisher to an advance digital copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review. I immediately downloaded the digital copy and began perusing the photos, and when I saw the artifacts laid out in print, I realized the heaviness and the importance of what I was reviewing. At that time, it was too soon after my father's death and the grief I experienced in taking care of his belongings. I expect that anyone who has had the experience of looking through the artifacts of a departed person will understand the depth of feelings they bring up. When a person is not there to tell their own story, but you see the letters, souvenirs, photos, postcards, and all of the seemingly insignificant papers that they leave behind - there is something beautiful about seeing that part of them and putting together the mystery of a person's lifetime.

Due to the amount of biographies and personal information available, one would assume that Ernest Hemingway's lifetime is less of a mystery to us than someone who is not such a well known public figure. I think that's part of the beauty of this book. It is not a wealth of information about Ernest Hemingway - there are certainly more comprehensive biographies and in-depth information available. The magic comes from seeing so many photos of Hemingway and his family through all stages of his life. The candid look at personal letters he wrote, the clear recreation of news clippings and scrapbook pages, and so many tiny parts of his life that remain to tell his story and give us a glimpse of what was once important to him. It is a very human way of looking at a well-known, larger-than-life personality.

I mentioned before that I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher, however, that is not the same book that I am currently reviewing. After the book was published, I purchased a hardcover copy and read it cover to cover, allowing ample time to marvel over all of the images and artifacts. Most of the handwritten items were also transcribed, but I read the original handwriting nonetheless, just in case there may be some extra meaning or emphasis that could be lost in the transcription.

Having seen both the hardcover version of this book, and a digital copy, I wholeheartedly recommend the hardcover version. To have it in your hands and turn the pages feels only one step removed from having the actual artifacts in your hands. The digital copy has its own benefits as well, but for me, the printed book is worth every penny.

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The author did a great job of writing about a person that is written about frequently and somehow including new information. Due to the in depth research by the author, I found myself wanting to learn more after reading this book and spent time researching online. Definitely recommend this one!

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Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life is a wonderful, comprehensive book about the life of Ernest Hemingway. As someone that enjoys looking through pictures and artifacts, I felt this book was a wonderful tribute to Hemingway and was a thorough account of his life. The book is well written and all of the included artifacts supplement the writing very well. The pictures also add insight into the author's life. I found it fascinating to learn so much about this beloved author and found the book very enjoyable! Highly recommended for everyone who enjoys biography books and has a desire to learn about the life of Ernest Hemingway!
Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the opportunity to read and review this phenomenal book in exchange for an honest review!

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Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life provides a unique and intimate look at the life of one of the literary greats of all time.

Michael Katakis was asked by Patrick Hemingway, Hemingway's middle son, to manage his father's literary estate. As many of Hemingway's books were based on his own life experiences, he was in the habit of keeping everything to aid his memory. As a result, there are 11,000 pictures, over 6,000 letters and a wide variety of memorabilia covering Hemingway's life. Katakis does a phenomenal job of selecting photos, letters, and other artifacts from that collection, and intertwining them with world events happening at the time, and facts about Hemingway's life to create this book. It is one of the best biographies I have ever read. I found it so enthralling, I read it in one sitting.

My thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this exceptional book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed here are my own.

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This is a wonderful book filled with pictures and letters, mementos from Hemingway’s life and I found it really enjoyable to wander through as I got to know a bit about him. Filled with items that give an inside look into him and his life over the years, culled from over eleven thousand pictures, and thousands of letters. Hemingway had been in two world wars and in many foreign countries and had children with two wives. He lived a very full life and as Katakis went through his things, he felt closer to understanding Hemingway’s works to share them in the book. He also grew to know him more through stories told to him by Hemingway’s son Patrick and grandson,


I loved seeing so many pictures of Hemingway and his family. He kept everything and went everywhere for such a slow-travel time in the world before there were jets to fly on, just regular planes, and trains to many places. Reading the correspondence was especially helpful in giving an inside look at him and how he was with friends and family, his sense of humor, etc. My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author Michael Katakis, and the publisher for my fair review.

Scribner 240 pages
Pub: Oct. 23rd, 2018

My BookZone blog:
https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog200.wordpress.com/943

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After reading a fiction book about Ernest Hemingway, I knew I needed to know more about this intriguing man. This book was such a beautiful, intimate view into Hemingway's life. I love nothing more than to read musings from famous writers. While I don't find his work to be my absolute favorite, his life is so incredibly fascinating. This book is a different view to his life and it's definitely worth picking up.

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Michael Katakis did an excellent job researching and writing this biography of Ernest Hemingway. I love the title "Artifacts From a Life" and that is exactly the feel one gets from this reading experience. Katakis includes many letters, photographs, musings, and family writings. Patrick Hemingway, Hemingway’s middle son, was increasing aware of the treasure trove of material his father left to the family. He meet Michael Katakis and they became friends. After his trust and admiration for Michael grew, Patrick asked Michael “if he would be interested in managing his father’s literary estate.” Michael felt it to be a daunting task and turned him down but with much persuading, he finally relented. Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life is the result of Michael Katakis spending nineteen years pouring through the massive amount of artifacts from Ernest Hemingway and listening to Hemingway's family tell stories about his life. Ernest Hemingway was a complicated man. In this biography one gets a sense of his human side which, as in all humans, includes good and not so good. It is a great read for anyone who likes history, biographies, and learning about authors. Even if you are not a big fan of Hemingway you can find it interesting to see this window into his life.

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Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life
by Michael Katakis

Scribner

Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 23 Oct 2018



I am reviewing a copy of Ernest Hemingway Artifacts From A Life through Scribner and Netgalley:


Ernest Hemingway was born on July.21.1899 in Oak Park Illinois which was at the time a Conservative suburb of Chicago. His Father Clarence was a doctor and his Mother Grace Hall Hemingway was a musician and a music teacher.


In 1921 Hemmingway Marries Hadley Richardson, they had planned to go to Italy but after learning Paris is the literary center, and offers cheap living they head to Paris.


In 1923 Hemingway’s first book three stories and ten poems is privately published. Hemingway would go on to meet such big names in literature such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein.

Ernest Hemingway and Hadley would have two children together before they are divorced. And on May.10.1927 Ernest Hemingway married Pauline Marie Pfeiffer. He would later divorce Pauline and marry Martha Gelhorn, followed by a final marriage to Mary Welsh Hemingway.



Included in this book are rare photographs and artifacts of Hemingway's life.


This book includes over four hundred images forewords from his Son Patrick and his grandson Sean as well as Letters to all four of his wives. We learn of his running with the bulls in Spain to the mental illness that would lead to his suicide in 1961.


I give Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from Life five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

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I have always been very interested in the life and writings of Hemingway. This book did not disappoint. I loved that I could get a personal view of Ernest's life though documents, photographs, and other items he kept. His son and grandson contributed to the book as well and I thoroughly enjoyed every page.

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I’ve read a lot of books about Hemingway; the man fascinates me. This collection of letters and photographs coupled with a well-written timeline of events surrounding Hemingway births a more intimate portrait than I could have imagined. Katakis does an amazing job sifting through and expounding upon the artifacts entrusted to him as manager of Hemingway's literary estate. It’s one thing to learn of the life and myth of a man; it’s a much more intimate experience to read through letters he sent to family, friends, and colleagues. If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be on the receiving end of one of Hemingway’s letters, to know how he felt about his work, the works and lives of his friends (Fitzgerald, Stein, and Pound to name a few) and his feelings about his wives, lovers, and family, you won’t find a more illuminating collection than <i>Artifacts from a Life</i>.

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I received a free download of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

BRAVO! What a stunning book, and I know it even lost a bit of its beauty as a .pdf download. My compliments to the author for the amount of time, research, and organization this book required to end up as such an impressive compilation of the "artifacts" of Hemingway's life. What an impressive feat to compile the receipts, letters, scribbles, travel tickets, and photos of a lifetime, and do so with such artistry.

This is DEFINITELY a book I will purchase as gifts for fellow book lovers. You do not have to even be a big fan of Hemingway to enjoy "Artifacts...." I look forward to the official release.

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I have always been fascinated with Papa Hemingway. The legends are many and larger than life. What is true and what is just colorful tale? He was so many things besides a writer. 

I've read many books about the man and his wives and children. Some not so flattering. This author tells the story of his life through his own documents, letters and things he kept for his own reasons. There are photographs documenting his public and private lives, although he seemed to be pretty up front and public about everything he did.

He was driven to be in the middle of the action. To me he seemed to have an insatiable curiosity about everything and every one. The author has done a wonderful job of putting together all of these things and we get a really good look at the life of a man who was bigger than life.

Very Well Done!

Netgalley/ Scribner October 23, 2018

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I received this ebook from Scribner Publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Michael Katakis has created a masterful examination of Ernest Hemingway's life, which is beautifully accentuated by letters, photographs, musings, and family writings. While I am not always a fan of Hemingway's novels, I have always been fascinated by the life he got to lead and the history he got to experience. This work adds to and explores so much that I did not know, and anyone interested in history, literature, biographies, art, language, and Hemingway would be remiss to not read this wonderful edition.

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I would have liked more focus on the history of the actual artifacts instead of the letters which I felt have been done over and over again. ironically i read this book on a cruise to Cuba but I felt it did not let me learn anything more about Hemingway

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I have yet to meet anyone who has not heard of Ernest Hemingway. Most know Hemingway to be the author of four of his most notable novels: The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea. Others may remember Hemingway as the man who set the world record in 1938 for catching seven marlins in one day. While others may recall he was a great big game hunter. Some would say Hemingway was a womanizer who had four wives and multiple lovers. And others would remember Hemingway to be a father, soldier, ambulance driver, expat, etc.. All would be right, as Hemingway was all of these things combined. But foremost of all other things he was an Iconic American Author.

Hemingway aficionados know all of this and are just as familiar with all his writings, whether novel, short story or poetry. We also know that after being nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature (1947, 1950, 1953) he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 for The Old Man and the Sea, and his contribution to contemporary literature. However, what we know about Hemingway, from the novels, short stories and poetry he wrote, or through our college studies, and the biographies that continue to be written about Hemingway is we never really knew Ernest Hemingway. We read we discussed and we surmised, but that was it, until now in Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life by Michael Katakis.

There are times in life when you know some things are meant to be. Patrick Hemingway, Hemingway’s middle son, recognized this after getting to know Michael Katakis and becoming friends. Patrick asked Michael “if he would be interested in managing his father’s literary estate.” After turning Patrick down twice, Michael relented and Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life is the result of Michael Katakis spending nineteen years listening to Patrick’s stories about his father while pouring through the artifacts of Ernest Hemingway's life. The artifacts known as the Hemingway Collection are maintained in a room dedicated to Ernest Hemingway in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, MA. 

The collection represents “over eleven thousand photographs, bullfighting tickets and scraps of paper with lists of books a struggling writer should read. There were airline, train, and steamship tickets… There are letters, thousands of them … that record the goings-on in his and his friend’s lives.” And the list goes on and on.

Many may wonder why President John F. Kennedy’s Presidential Library and Museum would host Ernest Hemingways collections from his life. After all, the two men, from the outside, looking in, seem so polar opposite and ran in very different circles. Sometimes, as in this case, things are not always as they seem. Just as how the author Michael Katakis, the son of an immigrant, fits into the tale of John F. Kennedy and Ernest Hemingway. 

Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life will answer all your questions and leave you feeling as if you have finally met the man Ernest Hemingway. Regardless of how much reading and studying you've done on Hemingway, there was never a clearer picture of the man until now thanks to Michael Katakis. Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life is edited and has an introduction by the manager of the Hemingway estate. And features a forward by Hemingway’s son Patrick and an afterword by Hemingway’s grandson Seán.

What has not been said of this resourceful book that needs to be brought into the light is how Michael Katakis tied the events of the time taking place in Ernest Hemingway’s life to the actual events taking place in the world whether of literary nature or worldly. I found this made an already informative book to be even more didactic, a real historical piece of work worked into an in-depth biography.

As provided by the publisher: “This rich and illuminating book tells the story of a major American icon through the objects he touched, the moments he saw, the thoughts he had every day. Featuring over four hundred dazzling images from every stage and facet of Hemingway’s life, many of them never previously published, this volume is a portrait unlike any other. From photos of Hemingway running with the bulls in Spain to candid letters he wrote to his wives and his publishers, it is a one-of-a-kind, stunning tribute to one of the most titanic figures in literature.

I strongly recommend this book to be read whether you're a scholar or Hemingway fan. The book is full of history, whether it's Hemingway's history, literary history, or world history. Where there is history, there is learning and perspective. 

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From the first Hemingway book I ever picked up, I became an instant fan. As a writer, I studied Hemingway. As one of the influences of contemporary writers, I found him to be brilliant. I could not overlook how times have changed; you can't miss it in this book. I never thought of Ernest Hemingway as a womanizer or sexist. At least he married more of the women he bedded then his friend Pablo Picasso did not marry. However, while reading Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life, specifically when I read Hemingway's letter to Charles Scribner in 1947 upon hearing of Charlie's death I felt Hemingway was in his day a sexist. In the letter, Hemingway writes, “Anyway, he doesn’t have to worry about Tom Wolfe’s chickenshit estate anymore, or handle Louise’s business, nor keep those women writers from building nests in his hat.” 

Sometime between 1921-1922 Gertrude Stein said, “Paris was the place that suited us who were to create the twentieth century literature.” Einstein moved to Paris in 1922 “with letters of introduction to Stein, Ezra Pound, and Sylvia Beach.” “He would later acknowledge that he “learned a lot” from Stein, “though not half as much as he learned from Ezra Pound or one tenth as much as he learned from James Joyce.” When Stein would not write a review for Hemingway’s In Our Time in 1925 as she said stories like Up in Michigan were pornographic and unpublishable, this seemed to be the end of any friendship there may have been. I will admit I googled this, and there are many pages to suggest Ernest Hemingway was a sexist, but he was skillful with pen in hand.

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About the Author: Michael Katakis

From the Publisher: “Michael Katakis is the author of a number of books, including Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life, Despatches (special limited edition), The Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, A Thousand Shards of Glass: There Is Another America, Traveller: Observations From an American in Exile and Photographs and Words (with Kris L. Hardin). He is the editor of Sacred Trusts: Essays on Stewardship and Responsibility and Excavating Voices: Listening to Photographs of Native Americans. His work has been translated into multiple languages and his writing and photography have been collected by a wide range of institutions, including The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC; the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Library in London; and Stanford University’s Special Collections Department. In 1999, Michael was elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He lives in Paris and Carmel.”

Author’s Website:

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I haven't read too many books on Hemingway, but he is one of my favorite authors. I have visited his house in Key West and have always admired him. This is a great biography of the man. and I believe those that have never read anything by the man or have read all his books and biographies will equally love this book. Highly recommend.

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