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By Stith Thompson. 2022
The son of a farmer, Stith Thompson was born near Bloomfield, Kentucky...After receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1914,…
Thompson began his teaching career at the University of Texas at Austin, later teaching at Colorado College and then at the University of Maine. Finally, he went to Indiana University, where he established his prominence as a folklorist. Thompson was instrumental in establishing folklore studies in the United States, legitimizing it as an academic discipline and placing it on a firm empirical foundation....Thompson gained international recognition for his writings, which were praised for both their scholarship and their style. It has been written of his work that "[it] is not dry, attenuated, dull, pedantic...for Mr. Thompson has...unspoiled direct appreciation of the zest and flavor of the best in traditional literature" ( N.Y. Times Book Review)."Thompson believed the folktale to be an important and living art, underlying all literary narrative forms. Most of all he wanted to acquaint readers with most of the great folktales of the world, not only for their own interest as stories, but as elements of culture. He writes about the nature and form of the folktale, gives an account of tales from Ireland to India, devotes a special section to the North American Indian tales and myths, and another to the methods of collecting, classifying, studying folktales as a living art. He found them rich and varied sources of entertainment and wisdom. So much is to be found in them, he said, that the talents of literary critics, historians, anthropologists, psychologists, linguists are all necessary. Study of the folktale involved 'more talents than one man can easily possess.' Stith Thompson came close to possessing them." --Los Angeles TimesBy Eli Cranor. 2022
'A searing and stunningly poignant study in what makes us and what breaks us' S. A. Cosby, New York Times…
bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland'A gripping novel about rage and trauma, redemption and damnation, football and family' Steph ChaFriday Night Lights with a Southern Gothic twist - a powerful debut noir for fans of S. A. Cosby and Megan Abbott.In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his unstable mother's abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy's bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy-save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.Then Billy's abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs.WINNER OF THE PETER LOVESEY FIRST CRIME NOVEL CONTEST A USA Today Best Book of the Year (So Far)An Amazon Editor's PickCrimeReads Most Anticipated Books of 2022New York Post Top Reads for the Week'Southern noir at its finest, a cauldron of terrible choices and even more terrible outcomes' The New York Times Book ReviewBy Eli Cranor. 2022
'A searing and stunningly poignant study in what makes us and what breaks us' S. A. Cosby, New York Times…
bestselling author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland'A gripping novel about rage and trauma, redemption and damnation, football and family' Steph ChaFriday Night Lights with a Southern Gothic twist - a powerful debut noir for fans of S. A. Cosby and Megan Abbott.In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his unstable mother's abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, but when his savagery crosses a line, he faces suspension.Without Billy Lowe, the Denton Pirates can kiss their playoff bid goodbye. But the head coach, Trent Powers, who just moved from California with his wife and two children for this job, has more than just his paycheck riding on Billy's bad behavior. As a born-again Christian, Trent feels a divine calling to save Billy-save him from his circumstances, and save his soul.Then Billy's abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs.WINNER OF THE PETER LOVESEY FIRST CRIME NOVEL CONTEST A USA Today Best Book of the Year (So Far)An Amazon Editor's PickCrimeReads Most Anticipated Books of 2022New York Post Top Reads for the Week'Southern noir at its finest, a cauldron of terrible choices and even more terrible outcomes' The New York Times Book ReviewBy Simon Scarrow, T. J. Andrews. 2019
Part three in the new Roman pirate series of novellas from the Sunday Times bestselling authors Simon Scarrow and T.…
J. Andrews.AD 25. As Roman naval squadrons patrol the Adriaticum, a young pirate captain hunts for prey. But his most dangerous enemy may be on his own side ...The young pirate Telemachus has impressed Captain Bulla with his courage and skill, and has been made captain of a small ship, Galatea, with his loyal friend Geras as first mate. Their target: the trade routes of the northern Adriaticum, with the promise of rich and easy pickings. But the exhilaration of command quickly fades as Telemachus and his men struggle to find any ships worth looting. Supplies are running low, and mutiny is brewing. Suspecting treachery by his arch enemy Hector, whose own ship was dispatched to other waters, Telemachus fears not only for his crew, but for his dream of rescuing his brother Nereus from slavery. When Telemachus learns of a rich cargo ship at anchor, he senses his chance for glory. A fortune in ivory and spices is in sight. There's a catch, though: the port is host to an auxiliary garrison of the Roman army. Only the most reckless captain would dare target this prey. Telemachus will need to call on all his cunning and survival skills if he is to win the day, avert mutiny, and exact his revenge on his tormentor ...The full novel of PIRATA is available now.(P)2019 Headline Publishing Group LtdBy Lev Shestov. 2022
This vintage book contains a collection of essays written by the influential Russian philosopher, Lev Isaakovich Shestov. One of the…
most delicate and individual of modern Russian critics, Shestov was a radical empiricist and proto-existentialist thinker who integrated literary theory and philosophical thought in a masterful way that inspired such minds as Camus, Dostoyevsky, Deleuze, D. H. Lawrence, and Bataille. Included in this collection are the essays: "Anton Chekhov", "The Gift of Prophecy", "Penultimate Words", and "The Theory of Knowledge".-Print ed.By David Grubb. 2022
A DREAM OF KINGS is a novel of Civil War Days; an intense, lyric projection of Tom Christopher’s growth to…
manhood, and a deeply moving love story.Tom Christopher is an orphan, raised by his Aunt Sarah in a West Virginia river town. He shares a strange, lonely childhood with a girl whom Sarah Holmbrook has also taken in, Cathie. Through their early years these two children are sustained by their dream of a glowing God-like figure who never appears in the novel and yet pervades it—Abijah, Cathie’s father, who has told the little girl that he will some day return a King. As Tom Christopher grows older, he comes more and more into conflict with Cathie, he is possessed by a feeling so powerful and so agonizingly unfamiliar that he believes it must be hate. At length he flees from his aunt’s house, eventually to soldier under Stonewall Jackson, and through the violent months of war the redoubtable figure of Stonewall becomes one and the same, in Tom’s mind, with King Abijah. The Tome is wounded, and when Stonewall Jackson dies he deserts.Tom Christopher returns home, returns to find Cathie, and they realize they are in love and have always been. Because even Cathie has given up hope, finally, of Abijah, they have nothing now but each other...There are a number of things about this book that make it extraordinary: the strong flavor of the period and the utterly convincing account of Civil War soldering, the fascinating gallery of secondary characters like Aunt Sarah, the lyric beauty of Mr. Grubb’s prose. But the signal, unifying achievement is the emotional drive of A DREAM OF KINGS, the intensity of feeling that sweeps the reader through a profound experience."Novelist Grubb...has now attempted what might have been a commonplace story...but...he writes with such emotional conviction and lyric intensity that the book emerges as an authentic and haunting experience."—Time MagazineBy Simon Scarrow, T. J. Andrews. 2019
PIRATA - the action-packed novel of pirates in the Roman Empire in AD 25. Across the seas of the Adriaticum,…
pirates face mortal danger from wild storms, fight to hold their own against merciless rival pirates, and wrangle amongst themselves over hard-won treasure. While the Roman navy hunts them down ...(P)2019 Headline Publishing Group LtdBy Irwin Shapiro. 2018
This wonderful book is a collection of nine tall tales from America by renowned children’s author Irwin Shapiro: Pecos Bill,…
Anthony and the Mossbunker, Old Stormalong, Johnny Appleseed, Davy Crockett, the Yaller Blossom o’ the Forest, Sam Patch’s Last Leap, Paul Bunyan, John Henry and Joe Magarac the Steel Man.Illustrated throughout by Al Schmidt.By Jethro Soutar, Ernesto Mallo. 2005
This is not simply a triumph of style it is both a reflection on a time of bloodshed and…
a raw vision of human misery -Guillermo Saccomanno winner of the Argentine National Literature Prize This man knows He knows about guns knows about women knows about dead bodies But above all he knows how to narrate -Ana Mar a Shua author of El peso de la tentaci nSuperintendent Lascano is a detective working under the shadow of military rule in Buenos Aires in the late 1970s Sent to investigate a double murder he arrives at the crime scene to find three bodies Two are clearly the work of the Junta s death squads murders he is forced to ignore the other one seems different The trail leads Lascano through a decadent Argentina a country poisoned to its core by the tyranny of the regime The third corpse turns out to be that of Biterman moneylender and Auschwitz survivor When Lascano digs too deep he must confront Giribaldi an army major quick to help old friends but ruthless in dealing with dissenters such as Eva the young militant with whom Lascano is falling in love Born in 1948 Ernesto Mallo is a published essayist newspaper columnist screenwriter and playwright He is a former anti-Junta militant who was pursued by the dictatorship Needle in a Hay Stack is his first novel and the first in a trilogy with superintendent Lascano The first two are being made into filmsBy Cardinal Francis Spellman. 2017
First published in 1951, this is the simple, heart-warming story of a baby left by its mother in a great…
cathedral in New York, and of the man who found it. Opening immediately after World War I, the story centers on Paul Taggart, a returned soldier, who had lost an arm in the war and who also carried on his face a disfiguring scar. It was at Christmas time that Paul entered the cathedral and there, in the crib, discovered Peter, the small helpless foundling who was to mean so much to him in the future…A compassionate, moving story.By Gore Vidal. 2016
When a mortician appears on television to declare that death is infinitely preferable to life, he sparks a religious movement…
that quickly leaves Christianity and most of Islam in the dust. Gore Vidal's deft and daring blend of satire and prophecy, first published in 1954, eerily anticipates the excesses of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and the Heaven's Gate suicide cult.By Elise Levine. 2016
Medical-textbook illustrator Marilyn draws her husband, technical diving expert Rand, and her best friend Jane into a complex triangle of…
desire, loss, and guilt. Jane’s death on a dive with Rand causes Marilyn to spin out of control in a pattern of escalating risk-addiction. Marilyn drags Rand with her, endangering them both in their private underwater version of hell.This book, which was first published in 1925, is a transcription of an informal account by Katy Leary of her…
thirty years’ service to the household of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), the 19th century American writer, humourist, entrepreneur, publisher and lecturer, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, who became world-famous for novels such as Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).It was Mark Twain who suggested that the faithful Katy tell the world all she knew about him. Her reminiscences were locked away in her memory until Miss Mary Lawton, who had known Mr. and Mrs. Clemens for many years, persuaded Katy to reveal them. Katy Leary began to talk and, pencil in hand, Miss Lawton recorded while the old servant poured forth the inimitable words in which she related many a chapter as yet unknown to those outside the family circle.A fascinating read.By Thomas B. Costain. 2017
A magnificent historical romance chronicling the adventures of the fabulous Le Moyne Family of Montreal who became the heroes of…
French Canada and founded the storied city of New Orleans.“Beyond [a] brief record of [the Le Moyne brothers’] achievements and the vital statistics in the archives at Montreal, what is known of the ten stout brothers? What manner of men were they? Were they typical of the French-Canadian people of this early period, brave, resolute, devout, light-hearted?“To deal with them as characters in a novel, therefore, is a task approaching that of the scientist who tries to reconstruct a monster of prehistoric times with nothing more to go on than a broken rib and a fragment of jawbone. The result is certain to raise doubts in the minds of historians who are skeptical necessarily of anything stemming from the imagination. In my opinion, nevertheless, the only way to tell the saga of the Le Moynes, and to attempt the rescue of these remarkable brothers from the oblivion into which they have sunk, is to set down their story in the guise of historical fiction.” (Thomas B. Costain, Introduction)By Cid Ricketts Sumner. 2017
Have you ever thought how our modern world with all its artificial devices, its complicated ways, and its false gods…
would seem to you if you were suddenly moved into the midst of it after having grown up in the old-fashioned way without knowing anything else? If you could look at our world with fresh eyes, wouldn’t it give you a whole new perspective on life and help you to rediscover its true values? Well, Tammy, the lovable young girl you’ll meet in these pages, does just that.Before things began to happen, you see, Tammy had lived all her seventeen years on a Mississippi shantyboat. It was a very simple, quiet, isolated life she had had with her grandparents. But then, after Pete Brent was rescued from the river, things changed, and Tammy found herself at Brenton Hall, where there were some marvelous contrivances and concoctions and also some curious ideas and customs and ways of speaking. Life wasn’t so simple for Tammy any more. In fact, Pete’s mother, Professor Brent, Pete himself, the lovely Barbara, Aunt Renie, and Ernie (especially Ernie) posed many problems.But Tammy, a most unusual and most enduring creature, came through with flying colours. And her story—a warm, lively, engaging story—is the kind that makes you laugh aloud, perhaps stirs a tear or two as well, and along with the entertainment, brings inspiration, a fresh perspective through which you may find strength and a new peace of mind.By Cid Ricketts Sumner. 2017
THE FORTUNE TELLER TOLD HER—“YOU AIN’T DONE LIVING YET!”In A View from the Hill, popular author of novels such as…
Ann Singleton (1938) and But the Morning Will Come (1949), Cid Ricketts Sumner, paints a vivid picture of a woman’s mature years made rich by living life to the fullest in a series of brief essays on friendship, love, and finding new interests.By François Mauriac, Gerard Hopkins. 2017
Francois Mauriac, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 1952, was famous for his subtle character portraits of the French…
rural classes and for depicting their struggles, aspirations and traditions. The Woman of the Pharisees, which was first published in English in 1946 and became one of Mauriac’s most accomplished novels, is a penetrating evocation of the moral and religious values of a Bordeaux community. In Brigitte, we see how the ideals of love and companionship are stifled in the presence of a self-righteous woman whose austere religious principals lead her to interfere—disastrously—in the lives of others. One by one the unwitting victims fall prey to the bleakness of her “perfection.” A conscientious schoolteacher, a saintly priest, her husband and stepdaughter and an innocent schoolboy are all confronted with tragedy and upheaval. But the author’s extraordinary gift for psychological insight goes on to show how redeeming features inevitably surface from disaster. The unfolding drama is seen through the discerning eye of a young Louis—Brigitte’s stepson—whose point of view is skillfully blended into the mature and understanding adult he later becomes.“Mauriac is one of the greatest novelists.”—The New York TimesBy Hesketh Pearson. 2017
‘You are a genuine soaker in Shakespeare, and have not read him as a task. You have him by heart.’—Bernard…
Shaw wrote in a letter to Hesketh Pearson.Before he became a well-known biographer, Hesketh Pearson was an actor. Few facts are known about Shakespeare, but with an actor’s eye and a supreme self-confidence Pearson has drawn a recognisable portrait of Shakespeare the man—even telling us the colour of his hair and of his predilection for black-haired women. The plays and poems are assessed in the search to discover and build up a picture of Shakespeare’s character. Pearson has included an anthology of his favourite lines and passages.By Arthur Schnitzler, Horace Samuel. 2017
This English translation of Arthur Schnitzler’s “Der Weg ins Freie” (1908) was first published in 1913 and is one of…
only two novels—the other being “Therese” (1928)—by the Viennese author, who was better known for his short stories and plays, including “Reigen” (“Round Dance”), known to most English-speaking readers as “La Ronde.”“The Road to the Open” tells the story of the aristocratic young composer Georg von Wergenthin-Recco who has talent but lacks the drive to get down to work and spends most of his time socializing with members of the assimilationist, artistically sensitive Jewish bourgeoisie of Vienna and other non-Jews like himself who enjoy their company. A love affair with a Catholic lower middle class girl, combined with the author’s authentic descriptions of the milieu, the arts, the psychology of love, and the anti-Semitism that was coming to dominate so much of life and politics in the Austria-Hungary of the time, make this novel a classic.“One of the most important, representative, revelatory works of Austria at the turn of the century….The best English version of the novel.”—Marc A. Weiner, Indiana University“In Arthur Schnitzler the two strands of Austrian fin-de-siècle culture, the moralistic and the aesthetic, were present in almost equal proportions. Small wonder that Freud hailed Schnitzler as a ‘colleague’ in the investigation of the ‘underestimated and much-maligned erotic.’”—Carl Schorske, author of Fin-de-Siècle ViennaBy John Cowper Powys. 2017
A Glastonbury Romance is generally esteemed the greatest of John Cowper Powys’s six major novels, the other five being Wolf…
Solent, Weymouth Sands, Maiden Castle, Owen Glendower and Porius. On its original publication in 1932, the late J. D. Beresford wrote, “I believe that A Glastonbury Romance is one of the greatest novels in the world, to be classed with Tolstoy’s War and Peace.” C. S. Forester regarded it as “one of the most significant and notable books of the century,” Hugh Walpole thought that, “with the single exception of Thomas Hardy, no English novelist of the last thirty years has evoked the very stuff of the English ground with the power and the poetry which Mr. Powys has at command,” and Sir Gerald Barry summed it up as “really a tremendous boo. It makes the competent little novels that week by week are hailed as ‘masterpieces’ look silly. In searching for comparisons, one finds oneself using such names as Hardy or Hamsun….In breadth, rhythm, and intensity A Glastonbury Romance has something of the mighty pantheism of Rubens.”