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The selected letters of ralph ellison
By Ralph Ellison. 2019
A radiant collection of letters from the renowned author of Invisible Man that trace the life and mind of a…
giant of American literature, with insights into the riddle of identity, the writer&’s craft, and the story of a changing nation over six decades A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK These extensive and revealing letters span the life of Ralph Ellison and provide a remarkable window into the great writer&’s life and work, his friendships, rivalries, anxieties, and all the questions about identity, art, and the American soul that bedeviled and inspired him until his death. They include early notes to his mother, written as an impoverished college student; lively exchanges with the most distinguished American writers and thinkers of his time, from Romare Bearden to Saul Bellow; and letters to friends and family from his hometown of Oklahoma City, whose influence would always be paramount. These letters are beautifully rendered first-person accounts of Ellison&’s life and work and his observations of a changing world, showing his metamorphosis from a wide-eyed student into a towering public intellectual who confronted and articulated America&’s complexitiesLet me tell you what i mean
By Joan Didion. 2021
From one of our most iconic and influential writers: a timeless collection of mostly early pieces that reveal what would…
become Joan Didion's subjects, including the press, politics, California robber barons, women, and her own self-doubt. These twelve pieces from 1968 to 2000, never before gathered together, offer an illuminating glimpse into the mind and process of a legendary figure. They showcase Joan Didion's incisive reporting, her empathetic gaze, and her role as "an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time" ( The New York Times Book Review ). Here, Didion touches on topics ranging from newspapers ("the problem is not so much whether one trusts the news as to whether one finds it"), to the fantasy of San Simeon, to not getting into Stanford. In "Why I Write," Didion ponders the act of writing: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means." From her admiration for Hemingway's sentences to her acknowledgment that Martha Stewart's story is one "that has historically encouraged women in this country, even as it has threatened men," these essays are acutely and brilliantly observed. Each piece is classic Didion: incisive, bemused, and stunningly prescient. Bestseller.More deadly than the male: masterpieces from the queens of horror
By Graeme Davis. 2020
Deadly anniversaries: celebrating 75 years of Mystery Writers of America
By Marcia Muller. 2020
Mystery Writers of America presents a collection of crime and mystery stories from some of the best contemporary authors, all…
of whom have been invited to put their own unique spin on what it means to recognize a certain day or event every yearWell-read black girl: Finding our stories, discovering ourselves
By Glory Edim. 2018
An inspiring collection of essays by black women writers, curated by the founder of the popular book club Well-Read Black…
Girl, on the importance of recognizing ourselves in literature. Remember that moment when you first encountered a character who seemed to be written just for you? That feeling of belonging remains with readers the rest of their lives—but not everyone regularly sees themselves on the pages of a book. In this timely anthology, Glory Edim brings together original essays by some of our best black women writers to shine a light on how important it is that we all—regardless of gender, race, religion, or ability—have the opportunity to find ourselves in literature. Contributors include Jesmyn Ward ( Sing, Unburied, Sing ), Lynn Nottage ( Sweat ), Jacqueline Woodson ( Another Brooklyn ), Gabourey Sidibe ( This Is Just My Face ), Morgan Jerkins ( This Will Be My Undoing ), Tayari Jones ( An American Marriage ), Rebecca Walker ( Black, White and Jewish ), and Barbara Smith ( Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology ) Whether it's learning about the complexities of femalehood from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, finding a new type of love in The Color Purple, or using mythology to craft an alternative black future, the subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club–turned–online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women's writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselvesHomo irrealis: Essays
By Andr©♭ Aciman. 2021
This program includes an introduction read by the author. The New York Times –bestselling author of Find Me and Call…
Me by Your Name returns to the essay form with his collection of thoughts on time, the creative mind, and great lives and works. Irrealis moods are the set of verbal moods that indicate that something is not actually the case or a certain situation or action is not known to have happened . . . André Aciman returns to the essay form in Homo Irrealis to explore what the present tense means to artists who cannot grasp the here and now. Irrealis is not about the present, or the past, or the future, but about what might have been but never was—but could in theory still happen. From meditations on subway poetry and the temporal resonances of an empty Italian street, to considerations of the lives and work of Sigmund Freud, Constantine Cavafy, W. G. Sebald, John Sloan, Éric Rohmer, Marcel Proust, and Fernando Pessoa, and portraits of cities such as Alexandria and St. Petersburg, Homo Irrealis is a deep reflection of the imagination's power to shape our memories under time's seemingly intractable hold. A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and GirouxGenius & anxiety: How jews changed the world, 1847-1947
By Norman Lebrecht. 2019
This lively chronicle of the years 1847–1947—the century when the Jewish people changed how we see the world—is "[a] thrilling…
and tragic history...especially good on the ironies and chain-reaction intimacies that make a people and a past" ( The Wall Street Journal ). In a hundred-year period, a handful of men and women changed the world. Many of them are well known—Marx, Freud, Proust, Einstein, Kafka. Others have vanished from collective memory despite their enduring importance in our daily lives. Without Karl Landsteiner, for instance, there would be no blood transfusions or major surgery. Without Paul Ehrlich, no chemotherapy. Without Siegfried Marcus, no motor car. Without Rosalind Franklin, genetic science would look very different. Without Fritz Haber, there would not be enough food to sustain life on earth. What do these visionaries have in common? They all had Jewish origins. They all had a gift for thinking in wholly original, even earth-shattering ways. In 1847, the Jewish people made up less than 0.25% of the world's population, and yet they saw what others could not. How? Why? Norman Lebrecht has devoted half of his life to pondering and researching the mindset of the Jewish intellectuals, writers, scientists, and thinkers who turned the tides of history and shaped the world today as we know it. In Genius & Anxiety , Lebrecht begins with the Communist Manifesto in 1847 and ends in 1947, when Israel was founded. This robust, magnificent, beautifully designed volume is "an urgent and moving history" ( The Spectator , UK) and a celebration of Jewish genius and contributionBig: Stories about Life in Plus-Sized Bodies
By Christina Myers. 2020
Pop culture stereotypes, shopping frustrations, fat jokes and misconceptions about health are all ways society systemically rejects large bodies. BIG…
is a collection of personal and intimate experiences of plus-sized women, non-binary and trans people in a society obsessed with thinness. Revealing insights that are both funny and traumatic, surprising and challenging, familiar and unexpected, 26 writers explore themes as diverse as self perception, body image, fashion, fat activism, food, sexuality, diet culture, motherhood and more. These stories offer a closer look at what it means to navigate a world designed to fit bodies of a certain size (sometimes literally) and, in turn, invite readers to ask questions about?and ultimately reconsider?our collective and individual obsession with women?s bodies. Contributors include Dr. Rohini Bannerjee, Amanda Scriver, Cassie Stocks, Jo Jefferson, Layla Cameron, Rabbit Richards, Sonja Boon, Simone Blais, Tracy Manrell and other writers from across Canada, the US, and the UK.Figure it out: essays
By Wayne Koestenbaum. 2020
Through a collection of intimate reflections (on art, punctuation, eyeglasses, color, dreams, celebrity, corpses, porn, and translation) and assignments that…
encourage pleasure, attentiveness, and acts of playful making, poet, artist, critic, novelist, and performer Wayne Koestenbaum enacts twenty-six ecstatic collisions between his mind and the world. A subway passenger's leather bracelet prompts musings on the German word for "stranger." Montaigne leads to the memory of a fourth-grade friend's stinky feet. Koestenbaum dreams about a handjob from John Ashbery, swims next to Nicole Kidman, reclaims Robert Rauschenberg's squeegee, and apotheosizes Marguerite Duras as a destroyer of sentences. He directly proposes assignments to listeners: "Buy a one-dollar cactus, and start anthropomorphizing it. Call it Sabrina." "Describe an ungenerous or unkind act you have committed." "Find in every orgasm an encyclopedic richness... Reimagine doing the laundry as having an orgasm, and reinterpret orgasm as not a tiny experience, temporally limited, occurring in a single human body, but as an experience that somehow touches on all of human history. "Figure It Out is both a guidebook for, and the embodiment of, the practices of pleasure, attentiveness, art, and play from "one of the most original and relentlessly obsessed cultural spies writing today" (John Waters)Burnt tongues
By Dennis Widmyer, Chuck Palahniuk. Richard Thomas. 2020
This collection of transgressive stories has been compiled through a rigorous nomination and vetting process and hand-selected by Chuck Palahniuk,…
author of Fight Club, as the best of The Cult workshop.These stories run the gamut from horrific and fantastic to humorous and touching, but each leaves a lasting impression. Some may say even a scarTraditional Qabalistic sources (or Cabalistic, or, indeed, Kabbalistic-listen to this book to find out what the difference is...we know you've…
always wondered!) tend to be a bit, er, dry. Lon Milo DuQuette spices up the Qabalah and makes it come alive, restoring the joy of learning the fundamentals of this admittedly arcane system by using simple, amusing anecdotes and metaphors. This account, written psuedepigraphically (fictitiously attributed to a supposed authority), allows DuQuette as Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford to soar to outrageous heights and, when necessary, stand apart from the silliness to highlight the golden eggs of Qabalistic wisdom nested therein. Sure to be a revelation to those who think that learning about the Qabalah needs to be tedious and serious, The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford shows that great truths can be transmitted through the medium of laughter. A supplemental PDF is included with this audiobook. Copy and paste the following link into your browser to retrieve downloadable PDF: https://files.dreamscape.media/pdf/DuQuette_Chicken%20Qabalah_Bonus.pdfRadiant Voices: 21 Feminist Essays for Rising Up Inspired by EMMA Talks
By Carla Bergman. 2019
A collection of essays inspired by EMMA Talks, a speakers’ series committed to amplifying the voices of thinkers, activists, scholars,…
artists, and community builders who are also women-identified, trans, and gender-nonconforming folks.I Saw Three Ships: West End Stories
By Bill Richardson. 2019
“By June, Philip’s view of English Bay, what’s left of it, will be utterly gone. It was always going to…
happen. For years now, it’s been getting harder and harder to see what’s out there. For years now, it’s been getting harder and harder to know what to do.” From one of Canada’s most beloved personalities comes this delightful collection set around Christmastime in Vancouver’s West End neighbourhood. The eight linked stories in Bill Richardson’s I Saw Three Ships take their direction from the seasonal tug-of-war between expectation and disappointment that occurs as the light deepens. The pieces, all irresistibly funny, give shelter to characters whose experiences of transcendence leave them more alienated than consoled. Rosellen, forced to move because her building is slated for demolition, has her last meeting with J.C., the ghost who’s entertained (and sometimes tormented) her for the last forty years. Frances, undergoing chemotherapy, discovers a gorgeous wig that might be made from the hair sold by Della in O. Henry’s ironic short story “The Gift of the Magi.” Bonnie, writing to Peter Gzowski to apprise him of the death of her mother, Gzowski’s biggest fan, settles on the best way to disperse her mother’s ashes. On Christmas Eve, a man whose name happens to be Leonard Cohen becomes the unwitting plaything of Saint Zita of Lucca and walks through Vancouver’s snowy Downtown neighbourhood wearing a wedding gown. These are quirky stories, sometimes twisted, sometimes tender, intended for anyone who’s ever been stuck with their wheels spinning at the corner of Pagan and Holy.Sitting pretty: The view from my ordinary, resilient, disabled body
By Rebekah Taussig. 2020
A memoir-in-essays from disability advocate and creator of the Instagram account @sitting_pretty Rebekah Taussig, processing a lifetime of memories to…
paint a beautiful, nuanced portrait of a body that looks and moves differently than most. Growing up as a paralyzed girl during the 90s and early 2000s, Rebekah Taussig only saw disability depicted as something monstrous (The Hunchback of Notre Dame), inspirational (Helen Keller), or angelic (Forrest Gump). None of this felt right; and as she got older, she longed for more stories that allowed disability to be complex and ordinary, uncomfortable and fine, painful and fulfilling. Writing about the rhythms and textures of what it means to live in a body that doesn't fit, Rebekah reflects on everything from the complications of kindness and charity, living both independently and dependently, experiencing intimacy, and how the pervasiveness of ableism in our everyday media directly translates to everyday life. Disability affects all of us, directly or indirectly, at one point or another. By exploring this truth in poignant and lyrical essays, Taussig illustrates the need for more stories and more voices to understand the diversity of humanity. Sitting Pretty challenges us as a society to be patient and vigilant, practical and imaginative, kind and relentless, as we set to work to write an entirely different storyOsnat and her dove: The true story of the world's first female rabbi
By Sigal Samuel. 2021
Osnat was born five hundred years ago—at a time when almost everyone believed in miracles, but very few believed that…
girls should learn to read. Yet Osnat's father was a great scholar whose house was filled with books. And she convinced him to teach her. Then she in turn grew up to teach others, becoming a wise scholar in her own right, the world's first female rabbi! Some say Osnat performed miracles—like healing a dove who had been shot by a hunter! Or saving a congregation from fire! But perhaps her greatest feat was to be a light of inspiration for other girls and boys, to show that any person who can learn might find a path that none have walked beforeChronicling the Days: Dispatches from a Pandemic (Essential Anthologies Ser. #15)
By Linda M. Morra, Marianne Ackerman, The Quebec Writers' Federation. 2021
Where were you when the pandemic hit? While the shock of COVID-19 was fresh, the Quebec Writers' Federation sent out…
a call to its members asking for short descriptions of life under lockdown. The response was immediate and heartfelt. Written and posted online between April 6 and May 26 of 2020, these dispatches--including several from the front lines--are first-person stories of hunkering down, gasping for air, facing challenges, getting through. Mainly written from isolation, the pieces present reading and writing as constant themes: trying, failing, being blocked, and finding renewed purpose. Award-winning author Susan Doherty opens the volume with a dramatic account of her own close call: how the man who saved her life unknowingly put her in danger of infection. Poet Rachel McCrum and writer Crystal Chan, who shepherded the project, reflect in their closing remarks on how the experience created community, and delivered unexpected insight into the power and purpose of chronicling our days. This book is a collaborative effort to document a time like no other. The cover image, a re-imagined detail from a seventeenth-century engraving of a plague doctor wearing elaborate personal protective equipment, links our present to a past in which disease was a decisive player. It is a moment we are not likely to forget anytime soon.The penguin book of the modern american short story
By John Freeman. 2021
A selection of the best and most representative contemporary American short fiction from 1970 to 2020, including such authors as…
Ursula K. LeGuin, Toni Cade Bambara, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sandra Cisneros, and Ted Chiang, hand-selected by celebrated editor and anthologist John Freeman. IN THE PAST fifty years, the American short story has changed dramatically. New voices, forms, and mixtures of genres have brought this unique US genre a thrilling burst of energy. This rich anthology celebrates this avalanche of talent. Beginning in 1970, it culls together a half century of powerful American short stories from all genres, including—for the first time in a literary anthology—science fiction, horror, and fantasy, placing writers such as Usula Le Guin, Ken Liu and Stephen King next to some of the often-taught geniuses of the form—Grace Paley, Toni Cade Bambara, Sandra Cisneros, and Denis Johnson. Culling widely, Freeman, the former editor of Granta and now of his own literary annual, brings forward some astonishing work to be regarded in a new light. Often overlooked tales by Dorothy Allison, Charles Johnson, and Toni Morrison will recast the shape and texture of today's enlarging atmosphere of literary dialogue. Stories by Lauren Groff and Ted Chiang raise the spectre of engagement in ecocidal times. Short tales by Tobias Wolff, George Saunders, and Lydia Davis rub shoulders with near novellas by Susan Sontag and Andrew Holleran. This book will be a treasure trove for readers and teachers alikeDear paris: The paris letters collection
By Janice MacLeod. 2021
Be transported to the banks of the Seine, a corner boulangerie, or beneath the Eiffel Tower with these beautifully illustrated…
vignettes of life in the City of Light. What began as a way to fund travel became ten years of a letter subscription service delivering thousands of painted letters to subscribers who delight in fun mail! Eat, Pray, Love meets Claude Monet in this epistolary ode to Paris. What started as a whim in a Latin Quarter café blossomed into Janice MacLeod's yearslong endeavor to document and celebrate life in Paris, sending monthly snippets of her paintings and writings to the mailboxes of ardent followers around the world. Now, Dear Paris collects the entirety of the Paris Letters project: 140 illustrated messages discussing everything from macarons to Montmartre. For readers familiar with the city, Dear Paris is a rendezvous with their own memories, like the first time they walked along the Champs-Élysées or the best pain au chocolat they've ever tasted. But it's about more than just a Paris frozen in nostalgia; the book paints the city as it is today, through elections, protests, and the World Cup—and through the people who call it home. Wistful, charming, surprising, and unfailingly optimistic, Dear Paris is a vicarious visit to one of the most iconic and beloved places in the worldWhen a stranger comes to town
By Michael Koryta. 2021
"Exceptional... This is the best kind of anthology, consistently excellent and inventive." -Publishers Weekly, starred review The latest Mystery Writers…
of America story collection, featuring terrifying tales of encounters with strangers from some of the top bestsellers and award winners in crime fiction It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water.Bookshop mysteries: Five bibliomysteries by bestselling authors
By John Harvey. 2021
Dead Dames Don't Sing by John Harvey: Looking for a big payday but finding big trouble instead, ex-London-cop-turned-private-investigator Jack Kiley…
attempts to uncover the true origins of a controversial, pseudonymously written pulp novel. The Travelling Companion by Ian Rankin: A young Scotsman in Paris is drawn into a shocking mystery that resides within the pages of an unpublished manuscript allegedly penned by Robert Louis Stevenson. Mystery, Inc. by Joyce Carol Oates: When an obsessive collector of bookstores discovers a charming new shop, he decides he must have it at any cost-even if he has to commit murder. Remaindered by Peter Lovesey: For some nefarious reason, the widow and former associates of a slain gangster are determined to keep the Precious Finds Bookstore open following the unfortunate demise of the shop's owner. The Book Thing by Laura Lippman: Private investigator Tess Monaghan must help the irascible proprietor of a Baltimore children's bookstore keep her business afloat by unmasking an elusive and utterly ingenious book thief