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Let Me Tell You
By Shirley Jackson, Ruth Franklin, Laurence Hyman, Sarah Hyman Dewitt. 2015
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR * From the renowned author of "The Lottery" and…
The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular new volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings. Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces--more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson's children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother's papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson's landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children's games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community--the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson's radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.Praise for Let Me Tell You"Stunning."--O: The Oprah Magazine"Let us now--at last--celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson's heretofore unpublished works--uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life."--Vanity Fair "Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right."--NPR "There are . . . times in reading [Jackson's] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O'Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she's just incomparable."--The Washington Post "Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson's] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson."--The New York Times Book Review"The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength. . . . The whole collection has a timelessness."--The Boston Globe"[Jackson's] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power--she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone's basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination."--USA Today"The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with . . . one of the most original voices of her generation."--The Huffington PostFrom the Hardcover edition.Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings
By Shirley Jackson, Ruth Franklin, Laurence Hyman, Sarah Hyman Dewitt. 2015
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR * From the renowned author of "The Lottery" and…
The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular new volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings.Features "Family Treasures," nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces--more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson's children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother's papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson's landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children's games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community--the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson's radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.Praise for Let Me Tell You"Stunning."--O: The Oprah Magazine"Let us now--at last--celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson's heretofore unpublished works--uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life."--Vanity Fair "Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right."--NPR "There are . . . times in reading [Jackson's] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O'Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she's just incomparable."--The Washington Post "Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson's] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson."--The New York Times Book Review"The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength. . . . The whole collection has a timelessness."--The Boston Globe"[Jackson's] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power--she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone's basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination."--USA Today"The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with . . . one of the most original voices of her generation."--The Huffington PostFrom the Hardcover edition.Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings
By Ruth Franklin, Sarah Hyman Dewitt, Shirley Jackson, Laurence Hyman. 2015
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR * From the renowned author of "The Lottery" and…
The Haunting of Hill House, a spectacular new volume of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writings.Features "Family Treasures," nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Shirley Jackson is one of the most important American writers of the last hundred years. Since her death in 1965, her place in the landscape of twentieth-century fiction has grown only more exalted. As we approach the centenary of her birth comes this astonishing compilation of fifty-six pieces--more than forty of which have never been published before. Two of Jackson's children co-edited this volume, culling through the vast archives of their mother's papers at the Library of Congress, selecting only the very best for inclusion. Let Me Tell You brings together the deliciously eerie short stories Jackson is best known for, along with frank, inspiring lectures on writing; comic essays about her large, boisterous family; and whimsical drawings. Jackson's landscape here is most frequently domestic: dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and homeward-bound commutes, children's games and neighborly gossip. But this familiar setting is also her most subversive: She wields humor, terror, and the uncanny to explore the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community--the pressure of social norms, the veins of distrust in love, the constant lack of time and space.For the first time, this collection showcases Shirley Jackson's radically different modes of writing side by side. Together they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, a sharp, sly humorist, and a powerful feminist. This volume includes a Foreword by the celebrated literary critic and Jackson biographer Ruth Franklin.Praise for Let Me Tell You"Stunning."--O: The Oprah Magazine"Let us now--at last--celebrate dangerous women writers: how cheering to see justice done with [this collection of] Shirley Jackson's heretofore unpublished works--uniquely unsettling stories and ruthlessly barbed essays on domestic life."--Vanity Fair "Feels like an uncanny dollhouse: Everything perfectly rendered, but something deliciously not quite right."--NPR "There are . . . times in reading [Jackson's] accounts of desperate women in their thirties slowly going crazy that she seems an American Jean Rhys, other times when she rivals even Flannery O'Connor in her cool depictions of inhumanity and insidious cruelty, and still others when she matches Philip K. Dick at his most hallucinatory. At her best, though, she's just incomparable."--The Washington Post "Offers insights into the vagaries of [Jackson's] mind, which was ruminant and generous, accommodating such diverse figures as Dr. Seuss and Samuel Richardson."--The New York Times Book Review"The best pieces clutch your throat, gently at first, and then with growing strength. . . . The whole collection has a timelessness."--The Boston Globe"[Jackson's] writing, both fiction and nonfiction, has such enduring power--she brings out the darkness in life, the poltergeists shut into everyone's basement, and offers them up, bringing wit and even joy to the examination."--USA Today"The closest we can get to sitting down and having a conversation with . . . one of the most original voices of her generation."--The Huffington PostFrom the Hardcover edition.The Journal I Did Not Keep: New and Selected Writing
By Lore Segal. 2019
"Segal is a monumental writer, one of the finest of her generation; this lovely collection is a fine introduction to…
her work."—Kirkus Reviews A DEFINITIVE COLLECTION FROM ONE OF AMERICA'S FINEST WRITERS—INCLUDING NEW AND NEVER-BEFORE-COLLECTED WORK From the award-winning New Yorker writer comes this essential volume spanning almost six decades. Admired for “a voice unlike any other” (Cynthia Ozick) and a style both “wry and poignant” (The New Yorker), Lore Segal is a master literary stylist. This volume collects some of her finest work—including new and uncollected writing—and selections from her novels, stories, and essays. From her very first story—which appeared in The New Yorker in 1961—to today, Segal’s voice has been unique in contemporary American literature: Hilarious and urbane, heartbreaking and profound, keen and utterly unsentimental. Segal has often used her own biography as both subject and inspiration: At age ten she was sent on the Kindertransport from Vienna to England to escape the Nazi invasion of Austria; grew up among English foster families; and eventually made her way to the United States. This experience was the impetus for her first novel, Other People’s Houses, and one that she has revisited throughout her career. From that beginning, Segal’s writing has ranged widely across form as well as subject matter. Her flawless prose and light touch belie the rigor and intelligence she brings to her art—qualities that were not missed by the New York Times reviewer who pointedly observed, “though it was not written by a man . . . Segal may have come closer than anyone to writing The Great American Novel.” With this volume comes a long-awaited career retrospective of an important American Writer.The Collapse of Western Civilization
By Erik M. Conway, Naomi Oreskes. 2014
The year is 2393, and a senior scholar of the Second People's Republic of China presents a gripping and deeply…
disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment, the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies, entered into a Penumbral period in the early decades of the twenty-first century, a time when sound science and rational discourse about global change were prohibited and clear warnings of climate catastrophe were ignored. What ensues when soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, drought, and mass migrations disrupt the global governmental and economic regimes? The Great Collapse of 2093.This work is an important title that will change how readers look at the world. Dramatizing climate change in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, this inventive, at times humorous work reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon industrial complex" that have turned the practice of sound science into political fodder. The authors conclude with a critique of the philosophical frameworks, most notably neo-liberalism, that do their part to hasten civilization's demise. Based on sound scholarship yet unafraid to tilt at sacred cows in both science and policy, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature. It includes a lexicon of historical and scientific terms that enriches the narrative and an interview with the authors.The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future
By Naomi Oreskes, Erik Conway. 2014
The year is 2393, and the world is almost unrecognizable. Clear warnings of climate catastrophe went ignored for decades, leading…
to soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, widespread drought and—finally—the disaster now known as the Great Collapse of 2093, when the disintegration of the West Antarctica Ice Sheet led to mass migration and a complete reshuffling of the global order. Writing from the Second People's Republic of China on the 300th anniversary of the Great Collapse, a senior scholar presents a gripping and deeply disturbing account of how the children of the Enlightenment—the political and economic elites of the so-called advanced industrial societies—failed to act, and so brought about the collapse of Western civilization. In this haunting, provocative work of science-based fiction, Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway imagine a world devastated by climate change. Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder. Based on sound scholarship and yet unafraid to speak boldly, this book provides a welcome moment of clarity amid the cacophony of climate change literature.The Science of Middle-earth: A New Understanding of Tolkien and His World
By Arnaud Rafaelian. 2021
The surprising and illuminating look at how Tolkien's love of science and natural history shaped the creation of his Middle…
Earth, from its flora and fauna to its landscapes.The world J.R.R. Tolkien created is one of the most beloved in all of literature, and continues to capture hearts and imaginations around the world. From Oxford to ComiCon, the Middle Earth is analyzed and interpreted through a multitude of perspectives. But one essential facet of Tolkien and his Middle Earth has been overlooked: science. This great writer, creator of worlds and unforgettable character, and inventor of language was also a scientific autodidact, with an innate interest and grasp of botany, paleontologist and geologist, with additional passions for archeology and chemistry. Tolkien was an acute observer of flora and fauna and mined the minds of his scientific friends about ocean currents and volcanoes. It is these layers science that give his imaginary universe—and the creatures and characters that inhabit it—such concreteness. Within this gorgeously illustrated edition, a range of scientists—from astrophysicists to physicians, botanists to volcanologists—explore Tolkien&’s novels, poems, and letters to reveal their fascinating scientific roots. A rewarding combination of literary exploration and scientific discovery, The Science of Middle Earth reveals the hidden meaning of the Ring&’s corruption, why Hobbits have big feet, the origins of the Dwarves, the animals which inspired the dragons, and even whether or not an Ent is possible. Enhanced by superb original drawings, this transportive work will delight both Tolkien fans and science lovers and inspire us to view both Middle Earth—and our own world—with fresh eyes.He: Shorter Writings of Franz Kafka (riverrun editions)
By Franz Kafka. 2020
'Being asked to write about Kafka is like being asked to describe the Great Wall of China by someone who's…
standing just next to it. The only honest thing to do is point.' Joshua Cohen, from his preface to He: Shorter Writings of Franz KafkaThis is a Kafka emergency kit, a congregation of the brief, the minor works that are actually major. Joshua Cohen has produced a frame that refuses distinctions between what is a story, a letter, a workplace memo and a diary entry, also including popular favourites like The Bucket Rider, The Penal Colony and The Burrow. Here we see Kafka's preoccupations in writing about animals, messiah variations, food and exercise, each in his signature style.Cohen's selection emphasises the stately structure of utterly coherent logic, within an utterly incoherent illogical world, showing how Kafka harnessed the humblest grammar to metamorphic power until the predominant effect ceases to be the presence of an unreliable narrator, but the absence of the universe's only reliable narrator. Who is God.A myth-busting, mind-blowing, jaw-dropping and fun-filled expedition through the world of Game of Thrones.Do dragons actually exist? Is it possible…
to crush a person's head with your bare hands?What really happened when royal families interbreed? How does wildfire win wars? Can you really kill someone with molten gold?Award-winning comedian and popular-science writer Helen Keen uncovers the astounding science behind the world's most popular television show. Join Helen as she sifts the fact from fantasy, discovers the truth beneath the togas, and reveals a world more fantastical than Daenerys Targaryen's wildest dreams. So pour yourself a bowl of brown, climb on your beast of burden, and prepare yourself for an amazing adventure. It's time to see the Seven Kingdoms as you have never seen them before.Inventing Iron Man: The Possibility of a Human Machine
By E. Paul Zehr. 2011
Tony Stark has been battling bad guys and protecting innocent civilians since he first donned his mechanized armor in the…
1963 debut of Iron Man in Marvel Comics. Over the years, Stark’s suit has allowed him to smash through walls, fly through the air like a human jet, control a bewildering array of weaponry by thought alone, and perform an uncountable number of other fantastic feats. The man who showed us all what it would take to become Batman probes whether science—and humankind—is up to the task of inventing a real-life Iron Man.E. Paul Zehr physically deconstructs Iron Man to find out how we could use modern-day technology to create a suit of armor similar to the one Stark made. Applying scientific principles and an incredibly creative mind to the question, Zehr looks at how Iron Man’s suit allows Stark to become a superhero. He discusses the mind-boggling and body-straining feats Iron Man performed to defeat villains like Crimson Dynamo, Iron Monger, and Whiplash and how such acts would play out in the real world. Zehr finds that science is nearing the point where a suit like Iron Man’s could be made. But superherodom is not just about technology. Zehr also discusses our own physical limitations and asks whether an extremely well-conditioned person could use Iron Man’s armor and do what he does.A scientifically sound look at brain-machine interfaces and the outer limits where neuroscience and neural plasticity meet, Inventing Iron Man is a fun comparison between comic book science fiction and modern science. If you’ve ever wondered whether you have what it takes to be the ultimate human-machine hero, then this book is for you.What's So Funny?: A Cartoonist's Memoir
By David Sipress. 2022
From a longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist, an evocative family memoir, a love letter to New York City, and a delightful exploration of…
the origins of creativity—richly interleaved with the author&’s witty, beloved cartoons A wry and brilliantly observed portrait of the budding young cartoonist and his Upper West Side Jewish family in the age of JFK and Sputnik. Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his father, the meticulous, upwardly mobile proprietor of Revere Jewelers, and in the face of the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother. With self-deprecation, wit, and artistry, Sipress paints his hapless place in his indelibly dysfunctional family, from the time he was tricked by his unreliable older sister into rocketing his pet turtle out his twelfth-floor bedroom window, to the moment he walks away from a Harvard PhD program in Russian history to begin his journey as a professional cartoonist. In What&’s So Funny?—reminiscent of the masterly, humane recall of Roger Angell and the brainy humor of Roz Chast—Sipress's cartoons appear with spot-on precision, inducing delightful Aha moments in answer to the perennial question aimed at cartoonists: Where do you get your ideas?The Cartoon Guide to Biology
By Larry Gonick, David Wessner. 2019
From New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick and Davidson College biology professor David Wessner comes this comprehensive and humorous…
cartoon guide to topics in biologyDid you faint when your middle school science teacher asked you to dissect a frog? Do you think DNA stands for “Don’t Know the Answer”? Do you still cling to the belief that osmosis was the name of Ozzy Osbourne’s last tour? If you said yes to any of these questions—or even if you didn’t—then you need The Cartoon Guide to Biology. The latest from New York Times bestselling author Larry Gonick—writing with Davidson College biology professor David Wessner—is a hilarious and informative handbook to the science of life. From the inner workings of the cell, to the magic of gene expression, to the Krebs and Calvin cycles, to sexual and asexual reproduction, The Cartoon Guide to Biology uses simple, clear, humorous illustrations to make biology’s most complex concepts understandable and entertaining. Whether you’re peering into the microscope for the first time or brushing up after decades of de-evolution, this book has you covered.Under the Gaze of Angels: Stories
By Said Habib. 2021
Under the Gaze of Angels offers treasured views of family and neighborhood life, native to the Galilee, in the years…
leading up to and following the upheavals of 1948. A collection of four stories, told with simplicity and warmth, they include three set during the time of British mandate rule: &“Zuha and the Book Vendor,&” &“The English Gramophone,&” and &“Yildiz the Turkish Woman.&” These are followed by the book&’s title work, a remembrance that travels from childhood to elder years, pursued by loss. Imagined or recalled in exile, these vivid, evocative mementos quietly disarm the violence that surrounds them, restoring a stolen past to memory under the gaze of angels.Trespassing: Dirt Stories and Field Notes
By Janet Kauffman. 2008
Consider The Lobster: Essays and Arguments
By David Foster Wallace. 2005
Do lobsters feel pain? Did Franz Kafka have a sick sense of humour? What is John Updike's deal anyway? And…
who won the Adult Video News' Female Performer of the Year Award the same year Gwyneth Paltrow won her Oscar? David Foster Wallace answers these questions and more in his new book of hilarious non-fiction. For this collection, David Foster Wallace immerses himself in the three-ring circus that is the presidential race in order to document one of the most vicious campaigns in recent history. Later he strolls from booth to booth at a lobster festival in Maine and risks life and limb to get to the bottom of the lobster question. Then he wheedles his way into an L.A. radio studio, armed with tubs of chicken, to get the behind-the-scenes view of a conservative talkshow featuring a host with an unnatural penchant for clothing that only looks good on the radio. In what is sure to be a much-talked-about exploration of distinctly modern subjects, one of the sharpest minds of our time delves into some of life's most delicious topics.The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World
By Cara Delevingne, Ricky Gervais, Jane Goodall, Scott Snyder, Taika Waititi. 2001
120 inspiring visual stories on environmentalism from key figures, charities, activists, and artists. The Most Important Comic Book On Earth…
is a global collaboration for planetary change, bringing together a diverse team of 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world. Whether it&’s inspirational tales from celebrity names such as Cara Delevingne and Andy Serkis, hilarious webcomics from War and Peas and Ricky Gervais, artworks by leading illustrators David Mack and Tula Lotay, calls to action from activists George Monbiot and Jane Goodall, or powerful stories by Brian Azzarello and Amy Chu, each of the comics in this anthology will support projects and organizations fighting to save the planet and Rewrite Extinction.Brief Histories of Everyday Objects
By Andy Warner. 2016
NOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Hilarious, entertaining, and illustrated histories behind some of life's most common and underappreciated objects…
- from the paperclip and the toothbrush to the sports bra and roller skatesBrief Histories of Everyday Objects is a graphic tour through the unusual creation of some of the mundane items that surround us in our daily lives. Chapters are peppered with ballpoint pen riots, cowboy wars, and really bad Victorian practical jokes. Structured around the different locations in our home and daily life—the kitchen, the bathroom, the office, and the grocery store—award-nominated illustrator Andy Warner traces the often surprising and sometimes complex histories behind the items we often take for granted. Readers learn how Velcro was created after a Swiss engineer took his dog for a walk; how a naval engineer invented the Slinky; a German housewife, the coffee filter; and a radical feminist and anti-capitalist, the game Monopoly. This is both a book of histories and a book about histories. It explores how lies become legends, trade routes spring up, and empires rise and fall—all from the perspective of your toothbrush or toilet.Selected Writings
By Gerard De Nerval. 2006
Poet, visionary, short-story writer and autobiographer, Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) explored the uncertain borderlines between dream and reality, irony and…
madness, autobiography and fiction with his groundbreaking writings. This comprehensive selection of his works includes 'Aurélia', the memoir of his madness; the haunting novella of love and memory 'Sylvie' (considered to be a masterpiece by Proust); the hermetic sonnets of 'The Chimeras'; as well as Nerval's experimental fictions and selections from his correspondence, which demonstrate his lucid awareness of how nineteenth-century psychiatry consigned his fertile imagination to the status of mental illness. Together these pieces confirm Nerval's place as a pioneering modernist, a precursor of the French Symbolists and a vital model for such writers as Marcel Proust, André Breton, Antonin Artaud and Michel Leiris.