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A Reader on Reading
By Alberto Manguel. 2010
In this major collection of his essays, Alberto Manguel, whom George Steiner has called "the Casanova of reading," argues that…
the activity of reading, in its broadest sense, defines our species. "We come into the world intent on finding narrative in everything," writes Manguel, "landscape, the skies, the faces of others, the images and words that our species create. " Reading our own lives and those of others, reading the societies we live in and those that lie beyond our borders, reading the worlds that lie between the covers of a book are the essence ofA Reader on Reading. The thirty-nine essays in this volume explore the crafts of reading and writing, the identity granted to us by literature, the far-reaching shadow of Jorge Luis Borges, to whom Manguel read as a young man, and the links between politics and books and between books and our bodies. The powers of censorship and intellectual curiosity, the art of translation, and those "numinous memory palaces we call libraries" also figure in this remarkable collection. For Manguel and his readers, words, in spite of everything, lend coherence to the world and offer us "a few safe places, as real as paper and as bracing as ink," to grant us room and board in our passage.The Anthology of RAP
By Adam Bradley. 2010
From the school yards of the South Bronx to the tops of the Billboard charts, rap has emerged as one…
of the most influential cultural forces of our time. InThe Anthology of Rap,editors Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois demonstrate that rap is also a wide-reaching and vital poetic tradition born of beats and rhymes. This pioneering anthology brings together more than three hundred lyrics written over thirty years, from the "old school" to the "golden age" to the present day. Rather than aim for encyclopedic coverage, Bradley and DuBois render through examples the richness and diversity of rap's poetic tradition. They feature both classic lyrics that helped define the genre, including Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" and Eric B. & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend," as well as lesser-known gems like Blackalicious's "Alphabet Aerobics" and Jean Grae's "Hater's Anthem. " Both a fan's guide and a resource for the uninitiated,The Anthology of Rapshowcases the inventiveness and vitality of rap's lyrical art. The volume also features an overview of rap poetics and the forces that shaped each period in rap's historical development, as well as a foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. , and afterwords by Chuck D and Common. Enter theAnthologyto experience the full range of rap's artistry and discover a rich poetic tradition hiding in plain sight.The Double Life Is Twice as Good
By Jonathan Ames. 2009
Wildly original novelist, essayist, and performance artist Jonathan Aames delivers his best collection yet--a hilarious, risquÉ, and loveable selection of…
articles, essays, and fiction, including several previously unpublished pieces.With an HBO pilot based on this collection's centerpiece ("Bored to Death"), his two hilarious novels, The Extra Man and Wake Up, Sir!, in development as films (with screenplays by Mr. Ames), a critically acclaimed graphic novel, The Alcoholic, under his belt, and an ongoing series of literary and not-so-literary stunts, Jonathan Ames has proven himself to be a writer of diverse and stunning talents. In The Double Life Is Twice as Good, fans will be treated to a deft and charming compilation of Ames's journalism, personal essays, and short fiction. Featuring illuminating profiles of Marilyn Manson and Lenny Kravitz, his adventures at a goth festival in the Midwest, a story written for Esquire on a napkin, as well as a comic strip collaboration with graphic artist Nick Bertozzi, Ames's unique style and personality-driven humor shines throughout this wickedly funny collection. Also included is the aforementioned short story, "Bored to Death," a Raymond Chandler-esque tale about a struggling writer-turned-detective who becomes quickly embroiled in the search for a missing college co-ed. Described by The Portland Oregonian as "an edgier David Sedaris," it's no wonder that this comic mastermind's already fervent and dedicated fanbase is continually growing.Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
By H. P. Lovecraft. 1990
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of…
the unknown."--H. P. LOVECRAFT, "Supernatural Horror in Literature". Howard Phillips Lovecraft forever changed the face of horror, fantasy, and science fiction with a remarkable series of stories as influential as the works of Poe, Tolkien, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherworldly terror, whose unspeakable denizens and monstrous landscapes--dread Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, the Plateau of Leng, the Mountains of Madness--have earned him a permanent place in the history of the macabre. In Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a pantheon of horror and fantasy's finest authors pay tribute to the master of the macabre with a collection of original stories set in the fearsome Lovecraft tradition: The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft: The slumbering monster-gods return to the world of mortals. Notebook Found in a Deserted House by Robert Bloch: A lone farmboy chronicles his last stand against a hungering backwoods evil. Cold Print by Ramsey Campbell: An avid reader of forbidden books finds a treasure trove of deadly volumes--available for a bloodcurdling price. The Freshman by Philip José Farmer: A student of the black arts receives an education in horror at notorious Miskatonic University. PLUS EIGHTEEN MORE SPINE-TINGLING TALES!Quarrel & Quandary
By Cynthia Ozick. 2000
In her new collection of essays, Cynthia Ozick, everywhere acclaimed as a critic, novelist, and storyteller, examines some of the…
world's most illustrious writers and their work, tackles compelling contemporary literary and moral issues, and looks into the wellsprings of her own lifelong engagement with literature.She writes--quarrelsomely--about Crime and Punishment, about William Styron's Sophie's Choice, about the Book of Job. She inquires into the subterranean dispositions and quandaries of Kafka and Henry James. She discusses the difficulties inherent in the translation of great books, whether into film or into another language. She explores what she calls "the selfishness of art" and courts controversy with her views on The Diary of Anne Frank and its transformation for the stage. Her reflections on the "rights of history" and the "rights of imagination" tap a profound concern for truth in regard to the Holocaust. She considers the shifting splendors of New York City, past and present. And she revisits her youth more deeply and with more feeling--and comedy--than ever before, in essays that reveal some of the formative experiences of her life as a writer. Quarrel & Quandary is a literary event and a cause for celebration.From the Hardcover edition.Two Towns in Provence
By M. F. K. Fisher. 1964
This memoir of the French provincial capital of Aix-en-Provence is, as the author tells us, "my picture, my map, of…
a place and therefore of myself...just as much of its reality is based on my own shadows, my inventions." A vibrant and perceptive profile of the kinship between a person and a place. M.F.K. Fisher scans the centuries to reveal the ancient sources that clarify the Marseille of today and the indestructible nature of its people A delightful journey filtered through the senses of a profound writer.Meditations from a Movable Chair
By Andre Dubus. 1998
For Andre Dubus, "the quotidian and the spiritual don't exist on different planes, but infuse each other. His is an…
unapologetically sacramental vision of life in which ordinary things participate in the miraculous, the miraculous in ordinary things. He believes in God, and talks to Him, and doesn't mince words. He believes in ghosts . . . He is open to mystery, and of all mysteries the one that interests him most is the human potential for transcendence."So wrote Tobias Wolff seven years ago, about Andre Dubus's Broken Vessels, and that insight describes perfectly the twenty-five pieces in this powerfully moving new collection, a continuation of Dubus's candid, intensely personal exploration into matters of morality, religion, and creativity. Since that first book of essays, written after the 1986 accident that cost him his leg and, for a time, the ability to write, Mr. Dubus has published Dancing After Hours, a unanimously heralded book of stories "at once harrowing and exhilarating" (Time). Here is Dubus on the rape of his beloved sister, his first real job, a gay naval officer, Hemingway, the blessing of his first marriage, his dear friend Richard Yates, his own crippling, lost autumnal pleasures, having sons and grandsons, his first books, meeting a woman who witnessed his accident, the Catholic church, and, of course, his faith. A writer of immense sensitivity, vulnerability, and thoughtfulness--a master at the height of his talent--whose work "is suffused with grace, bathed in a kind of spiritual glow" (New York Times Book Review).A Red Hot Valentine's Day
By Jackie Kessler, Jess Michaels, Megan Hart, Lacy Danes. 2009
Cupid is hot to trot! One fateful weekend at a country estate, a beautiful, well-bred widow is caught between a…
rock and a very hard place when she must choose between two deliciously irresistible lovers...in Lacy Danes's seductive tale of courtship À la mode, Torn Desires. Long-distance lovers Edie and Ty are counting the hours until their scorching Valentine's Day reunion, each titillating the other with steamy letters describing their erotic journeys. And getting there is definitely half the fun in Megan Hart's wickedly wild Get There. Eternal damnation has its perks-especially for a voluptuous succubus who is about to receive a very special, very hot Valentine's Day "gift" from her demon lover...in Jackie Kessler's ode to paranormal passion, Hell Is Where the Heart Is. London's most irresistible rake has one week to prevent the woman he loves from marrying another. And he plans to do so by adeptly employing his most well-practiced arts-seduction...sensation...and erotic love-in Jess Michaels's sumptuous feast of juicy Regency romance, By Valentine's Day.Deliriously Happy
By Larry Doyle. 2011
Do you like dogs? Babies? Baby dogs? Have you ever eaten ice cream or had love troubles? Wish there were…
dirty parts in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this is the book for you. It's all here: This impressively consecutive collection of funny writing by Larry Doyle, the winner of the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor, a former writer for The Simpsons, and the author of I Love You, Beth Cooper, brings together an astonishing range of subjects under the umbrella of hilarious-an umbrella that is your free gift if you order right now. Too late. But you can still take home this enormously entertaining read, featuring writing from the New Yorker, Esquire, and National Lampoon, along with never-before-seen pieces only available in this exclusive offer. Here's what other happy customers had to say: "[Doyle] is, as his credits suggest, wickedly funny." -New York Times Book Review "If Earth ever needs an Interplanetary Humor Ambassador, Larry Doyle's the guy."-Washington PostOther People's Skin
By Tracy Price-Thompson, Taressa Stovall. 2008
In Other People's Skin, Tracy Price-Thompson and TaRessa Stovall, along with fellow authors Elizabeth Atkins and Desiree Cooper, take on…
one of the most controversial topics within the African-American community: the self-hatred caused by intra-racial prejudice and the ongoing obsession with skin tone and hair texture. In other words, the skin/hair thang among black women. It begins with TaRessa Stovall's "My People, My People," in which a successful advertising executive acquires firsthand knowledge of prejudice when her clients insist on using light- rather than dark-skinned models. Next comes Tracy Price-Thompson's award-winning story "Other People's Skin," a tale set in 1970s Louisiana, where a dark-skinned young woman must come to terms with the bigotry of her light-skinned family. "New Birth," by Desiree Cooper reveals the intense roles that money, class, and skin color play in the intra-racial relationship between Catherine, a wealthy, light-skinned lawyer, and Lettie, her dark-skinned house cleaner. Finally, Elizabeth Atkin's "Take It Off" tells the story of a biracial girl who hides her coarse, braided hair from her friends at a mixed-race university in Detroit. Other People's Skin is the most innovative and varied anthology of sisterhood and unity to date. Each novella entertains, challenges, and, most important, offers healing to the reader -- no matter what her race, skin tone, or state of mind.Lit Riffs
By J. T. LeRoy, Jonathan Lethem, Amanda Davis, Touré, Aimee Bender, Neal Pollack, Matthew Miele, Heidi Julavitz, Tom Perrotta, Lester Bangs. 1987
Following in the footsteps of the late great Lester Bangs -- the most revered and irreverent of rock 'n' roll…
critics -- twenty-four celebrated writers have penned stories inspired by great songs. Just as Bangs cast new light on a Rod Stewart classic with his story "Maggie May," about a wholly unexpected connection between an impressionable young man and an aging, alcoholic hooker, the diverse, electrifying stories here use songs as a springboard for a form dubbed the lit riff. Alongside Bangs's classic work, you'll find stories by J.T. LeRoy, who puts a recovering teenage drug abuser in a dentist's chair with nothing but the Foo Fighters's "Everlong" -- blaring through the P.A. -- to fight the pain; Jonathan Lethem, whose narrator looks back on his lost innocence just as an extramarital affair careens to an end -- this to the tune "Speeding Motorcycle" as recorded by Yo La Tengo; and Jennifer Belle, who envisions a prequel to Paul Simon's "Graceland" -- one that takes place at a children's birthday party replete with a real live kangaroo. With original contributions from Tom Perrotta, Nelson George, Amanda Davis, Lisa Tucker, Aimee Bender, Darin Strauss, and many more -- riffing on everyone from Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen to the White Stripes, Cat Power, and Bob Marley -- this is both an astounding collection of short stories and an extraordinary experiment in words and music. Soundtrack available from Saturation Acres Music & Recording Co.Hawthorne: A Life
By Brenda Wineapple. 2003
Handsome, reserved, almost frighteningly aloof until he was approached, then playful, cordial, Nathaniel Hawthorne was as mercurial and double-edged as…
his writing. "Deep as Dante," Herman Melville said. Hawthorne himself declared that he was not "one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit" for the public. Yet those who knew him best often took the opposite position. "He always puts himself in his books," said his sister-in-law Mary Mann, "he cannot help it." His life, like his work, was extraordinary, a play of light and shadow.In this major new biography of Hawthorne, the first in more than a decade, Brenda Wineapple, acclaimed biographer of Janet Flanner and Gertrude and Leo Stein ("Luminous"-Richard Howard), brings him brilliantly alive: an exquisite writer who shoveled dung in an attempt to found a new utopia at Brook Farm and then excoriated the community (or his attraction to it) in caustic satire; the confidant of Franklin Pierce, fourteenth president of the United States and arguably one of its worst; friend to Emerson and Thoreau and Melville who, unlike them, made fun of Abraham Lincoln and who, also unlike them, wrote compellingly of women, deeply identifying with them-he was the first major American writer to create erotic female characters. Those vibrant, independent women continue to haunt the imagination, although Hawthorne often punishes, humiliates, or kills them, as if exorcising that which enthralls. Here is the man rooted in Salem, Massachusetts, of an old pre-Revolutionary family, reared partly in the wilds of western Maine, then schooled along with Longfellow at Bowdoin College. Here are his idyllic marriage to the youngest and prettiest of the Peabody sisters and his longtime friendships, including with Margaret Fuller, the notorious feminist writer and intellectual.Here too is Hawthorne at the end of his days, revered as a genius, but considered as well to be an embarrassing puzzle by the Boston intelligentsia, isolated by fiercely held political loyalties that placed him against the Civil War and the currents of his time.Brenda Wineapple navigates the high tides and chill undercurrents of Hawthorne's fascinating life and work with clarity, nuance, and insight. The novels and tales, the incidental writings, travel notes and children's books, letters and diaries reverberate in this biography, which both charts and protects the dark unknowable core that is quintessentially Hawthorne. In him, the quest of his generation for an authentically American voice bears disquieting fruit.From the Hardcover edition.Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976
By Hunter S. Thompson. 2000
Brazen, incisive, and outrageous as ever, Hunter S. Thompson is back with another astonishing volume of his private correspondence, the…
highly anticipated follow-up to The Proud Highway. When that first book of letters appeared in 1997, Time pronounced it "deliriously entertaining"; Rolling Stone called it "brilliant beyond description"; and The New York Times celebrated its "wicked humor and bracing political conviction." Spanning the years between 1968 and 1976, these never-before-published letters show Thompson building his legend: running for sheriff in Aspen, Colorado; creating the seminal road book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; twisting political reporting to new heights for Rolling Stone; and making sense of it all in the landmark Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. To read Thompson's dispatches from these years -- addressed to the author's friends, enemies, editors, and creditors, and such notables as Jimmy Carter, Tom Wolfe, and Kurt Vonnegut -- is to read a raw, revolutionary eyewitness account of one of the most exciting and pivotal eras in American history.The Best Technology Writing 2010
By Julian Dibbell. 2010
The iPad. The Kindle. Twitter. When the Best Technology Writing series was inaugurated in 2005, these technologies did not exist.…
Now they define our 21st-century lives. As Julian Dibbell writes in his introduction to The Best Technology Writing 2010,"The digital is us. Yet for that reason, it is also something more, a lightning rod for our feelings about technology in general. " Whether it is Sam Anderson's giddy but troubled defense of online distractions, David Carr's full-throated elegy to the dying world of pre-digital publishing, Steven Johnson's warm appreciation of Twitter's bite-size contributions to collective human intelligence, or Evan Ratliff's fascinating month-long quest to disappear without a digital trace, many of the essays gathered here register our intense and complicated fascination with digital media. But as Dibbell notes, these essays also remind us that some of the most disruptive and fascinating technologies continue to come from beyond the digital world. Jill Lepore's writing on the politics of breast-feeding gadgetry, Stephen Silberman's investigation of the placebo effect in pharmaceutical testing, Burkhard Bilger reporting on efforts to build a better cook stove for the developing world, and Tad Friend's profile of electric-car developer Elon Musk's efforts to head off environmental catastrophe all invite us to reflect on how many aspects of human experience remain fundamentally unchanged by digital technology. Packed with marvelous essays on technologies old and new,The Best Technology Writing 2010 is an outstanding addition to this "fantastic" (Cory Doctorow), "fascinating" (Chris Anderson) series. The Best Technology Writing 2010includes essays written by: Sam Anderson Burkhard Bilger Joshua Bearman Mark Bowden David Carr Douglas Fox Tad Friend Ben Greenman Vanessa Grigoriadis James Harkin Adam Higginbotham Alex Hutchinson Steven Johnson Kevin Kelly Jill Lepore Alexis Madrigal Javier Marias Mike Massimino Evan Ratliff Daniel Roth Clay Shirky Steve Silberman Annie Trubek Lawrence WeschlerRelative Chronology in Early Greek Epic Poetry
By Øivind Andersen, Dag T. Haug. 2012
This book sets out to disentangle the complex chronology of early Greek epic poetry, which includes Homer, Hesiod, hymns and…
catalogues. The preserved corpus of these texts is characterised by a rather uniform language and many recurring themes, thus making the establishment of chronological priorities a difficult task. The editors have brought together scholars working on these texts from both a linguistic and a literary perspective to address the problem. Some contributions offer statistical analysis of the linguistic material or linguistic analysis of subgenres within epic, others use a neoanalytical approach to the history of epic themes or otherwise seek to track the development and interrelationship of epic contents. All the contributors focus on the implications of their study for the dating of early epic poems relative to each other. Thus the book offers an overview of the current state of discussion.Bet Me: The AceThe JokerThe Wildcard
By Catherine Mann, Debra Webb, Joanne Rock. 2007
They don't call Vegas Sin City for nothing. And now that prime tourist season is around the corner, it's time…
to kick some criminal butt. Enter three full-throttle Vegas detectives, ready to eat their undercover assignments alive.... Clarissa Rivers can't believe she's got to play fake maid to weasel her way into some of the city's dirtiest criminal activities. But pretend she's hitched, too? Meanwhile, Kim Wong is all over her undercover sting operation at the Great Wall Casino. Only problem: an old boyfriend's got intel on Kim's secret royal past. And Dorian Byrne is posing as a high-class call girl to take down a sex crimes ring. But what's with her wild-card FBI partner? High-rolling scoundrels better watch their backs this weekend, because one wrong move and all bets are off....In the early 1900s, an indomitable entrepreneurial spirit brought national renown to Tulsa's historic African American community, the Greenwood District.…
This "Negro Wall Street" bustled with commercial activity. In 1921, jealously, land lust, and racism swelled in sectors of white Tulsa, and white rioters seized upon what some derogated as "Little Africa," leaving death and destruction in their wake. In an astounding resurrection, the community rose from the ashes of what was dubbed the Tulsa Race Riot with renewed vitality and splendor, peaking in the 1940s. In the succeeding decades, changed social and economic conditions sparked a prodigious downward spiral. Today's Greenwood District bears little resemblance to the black business mecca of yore. Instead, it has become part of something larger: an anchor to a rejuvenated arts, entertainment, educational, and cultural hub abutting downtown Tulsa.African Americans in Nacogdoches County (Images of America)
By Jeri Mills. 2014
Typical of most communities after the Civil War, Nacogdoches's African Americans had to repurpose their lives by building their own…
communities while they carved a life of survival first and progress second. The images in this book will tell the stories of the first churches and how they became the center of the community. Other images will share information about the early leaders in the community who helped establish educational facilities for "Negroes." Additional images focus on black businesses, and a final set of images will discuss the emerging black middle class and others who played significant roles in Nacogdoches history. Readers of this book will go on a journey, through images, that highlights residents' pains of struggles and gains of triumph.Asian America: A Primary Source Reader
By K. Scott Wong, Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Jason Oliver Chang. 2001
An essential collection that brings together the core primary texts of the Asian American experience in one volume An essential…
volume for the growing academic discipline of Asian American studies, this collection of core primary texts draws from a wide range of fields, from law to visual culture to politics, covering key historical and cultural developments that enable students to engage directly with the Asian American experience over the past century. The primary sources, organized around keywords, often concern multiple hemispheres and movements, making this compendium valuable for a number of historical, ethnic, and cultural study undergraduate programs.Literature from the 'Axis of Evil'
By Words Without Borders. 2006
Subject of a full-length segment on Morning Edition when it first appeared in hardcover, Literature from the "Axis of Evil"…
quickly went to the top of the Amazon bestseller list. Its publication was celebrated by authors including Azar Nafisi and Alice Walker, and the Bloomsbury Review named it a "book of the year."In thirty-five works of fiction and poetry, writers from countries Americans have not been allowed to hear from-until the Treasury Department revised its regulations recently-offer an invaluable window on daily life in "enemy nations" and humanize the individuals living there. The book includes works from Syria, Lybia, the Sudan, Cuba, as well as from Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. As editor Alane Mason writes in the introduction, "Not knowing what the rest of the world is thinking and writing is both dangerous and boring."