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Metamorphoses: In Search of Franz Kafka
By Karolina Watroba. 2024
'A high-spirited, richly informed, and original portrait, a cross between biography, literary analysis and a study in modern canonisation: Karolina…
Watroba is an inspired guide and her book a pleasure to read.' Marina WarnerIn 2024, exactly one hundred years after his death at the age of 40, readers all over the world will reach for the works of Franz Kafka. Many of them will want to learn more about the enigmatic man behind the classic books filled with mysterious courts and monstrous insects. Who, exactly, was Franz Kafka?Karolina Watroba, the first Germanist ever elected as a Fellow of Oxford's All Souls College, will tell Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time and space, travelling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia, whose award-winning novels are in part homages to the great man himself.Metamorphoses is a non-chronological journey through Kafka's life, drawing together literary scholarship with the responses of his readers through time. It is a both an exploration of Kafka's life and an exciting new way of approaching literary history.Conquering the Impossible: My 12,000-Mile Journey Around the Arctic Circle
By Mike Horn. 2005
In August 2002, Mike Horn set out on a mission that bordered on the impossible: to travel 12,000 miles around…
the globe at the Arctic Circle - alone, against all prevailing winds and currents, and without motorized transportation.Conquering the Impossible is the gripping account of Horn's grueling 27-month expedition by sail and by foot through extreme Arctic conditions that nearly cost him his life on numerous occasions. Enduring temperatures that ranged to as low as -95 degrees Fahrenheit, Horn battled hazards including shifting and unstable ice that gave way and plunged him into frigid waters, encounters with polar bears so close that he felt their breath on his face, severe frostbite in his fingers, and a fire that destroyed all of his equipment and nearly burned him alive.Complementing the sheer adrenaline of Horn's narrative are the isolated but touching human encounters the adventurer has with the hardy individuals who inhabit one of the remotest corners of the earth. From an Inuit who teaches him how to build an igloo to an elderly Russian left behind when the Soviets evacuated his remote Arctic town, Horn finds camaraderie, kindness, and assistance to help him survive the most unforgiving conditions.This awe-inspiring account is a page-turner and an Arctic survival tale in one. Most of all, it's a testament to one man's unrelenting desire to push the boundaries of human endurance.For years, The Year's Best Science Fiction has been the most widely read short science fiction anthology of its kind.…
Now, after twenty-one annual collections, comes the ultimate in science fiction anthologies, The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction, in which legendary editor Gardner Dozois selects the very best short stories for this landmark collection. Some notable stories include:"The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Coming of age is a difficult passage for any adolescent, but couple that with the potential to be either sex and you've got a dilemma of seismic proportion. Bringing readers back to the world of her classic and best known novel, The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin creates a compelling and evocative story of transition."The Winter Market" by William Gibson. Called the SF Timothy Leary of our times, Gibson returns to the subject that made him a cultural icon, cyberpunk. People who know what they want are often lauded and honored in this society. But when those people start using others to get it, beware!"Trinity" by Nancy Kress. People have searched for God since the dawn of time, but not until the new millennium did they think to find this celestial being through technology. Since soon after the series began, Kress has been an annual and esteemed contributor to The Year's Best Science Fiction. Contributors include:* Stephen Baxter * Greg Bear * William Bigson * Terry Bisson * Pat Cadigan * Ted Chiang * John Crowley * Tony Daniel * Greg Egan * Molly Gloss * Eileen Gunn * Joe Haldeman * James Patrick Kelly * John Kessel * Nancy Kress * Ursula K. Le Guin * Ian R. MacLeod * David Marusek * Paul McAuley * Ian McDonald * Maureen F. McHugh * Robert Reed * Mike Resnick * Geoff Ryman * William Sander * Lucius Shepard * Robert Silverberg * Brian Stableford * Bruce Sterling * Charles Stross * Michael Swanwick * Steven Utley * Howard Waldrop * Walter Jon Williams * Connie Willis * Gene WolfeWith work spanning two decades, The Best of the Best stands as one of the ultimate science fiction anthologies ever published.[Dis]Connected Volume 2: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise (A [Dis]Connected Poetry Collaboration #2)
By Tyler Knott Gregson, Courtney Peppernell, K. Y. Robinson. 2019
This highly-anticipated second volume of poetry and short stories combines the forces of some of the most popular poets of…
current day.[Dis]Connected Volume 2 presents poems and short stories about connection wrapped up in a most unique exercise in creative writing. Follow along as your favorite poets connect with each other; offering their work to the next poet who tells a story based on the concept presented to them.With contributions from: Alicia CookTyler Knott GregsonCourtney PeppernellNoah MilliganKomal KapoorN.L. ShompoleCaitlyn SiehlK. Y. RobinsonRaquel FrancoWilder Following the first book [Dis]Connected, [Dis]Connected Volume 2 is a mixed media presentation of connection and collaboration.Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19
By Garth Stein, Jenna Blum, Kwame Alexander. 2020
"Could there be a timelier gift to quarantined readers...? I doubt it."—The Washington Post"A heartening gathering of writers joining forces…
for community support."—Kirkus Reviews"Connects writers, readers, and booksellers in a wonderfully imaginative way. It's a really good book for a really good cause"—Bestselling author James PattersonALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come.All contributing authors and business partners are donating their share to The Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc), a nonprofit organization that coordinates charitable programs to strengthen the bookselling community.The roster of diverse voices includes Faith Adiele, Kwame Alexander, Jenna Blum, Andre Dubus III, Jamie Ford, Nikki Giovanni, Pam Houston, Jean Kwok, Major Jackson, Devi S. Laskar, Caroline Leavitt, Ada Limón, Dani Shapiro, David Sheff, Garth Stein, Luis Alberto Urrea, Steve Yarbrough, and Lidia Yuknavitch.The overarching theme is how this age of isolation and uncertainty is changing us as individuals and a society."Alone Together showcases the human desire to grieve, explore, comfort, connect, and simply sit with the world as it weathers the pandemic. Jennifer Haupt's timely and moving anthology also benefits the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, making it a project that is noble in both word and deed."—Ann Patchett, Bestselling author, bookseller, and Co-Ambassador for The Book Industry Charitable Foundation[Dis]Connected Volume 1: Poems & Stories of Connection and Otherwise (A [Dis]Connected Poetry Collaboration #1)
By Nikita Gill, Amanda Lovelace, Iain S. Thomas. 2018
Humanity exists in a hyper connected world, where our closest friends, loves and enemies lie but a keyboard stroke away.…
Few know this better than the poets who have risen to the top of their trade by sharing their emotion, opinion and art with millions of fans.What happens when...Poets connect with readers?Poets connect with each other?Poetry connects with short fiction?Combining the forces of some of today&’s most popular and confessional poets, [Dis]Connected presents poems and short stories about connection wrapped up in a most unique exercise in creative writing. Follow along as your favorite poets connect with each other; offering their work to the next poet who tells a story based on the concept presented to them.With contributions from: Amanda LovelaceNikita Gill Iain S. ThomasTrista MateerCyrus Parker R.H. SwaneyPierre Alex JeantyLiam Ryan Yena Sharma Purmasir Canisia LubrinSara BondWith poetry, stories and art, [Dis]Connected is a mixed media presentation of connection and collaboration. Be sure to also read [Dis]Connected Volume Two .Letters to a Young Novelist
By Mario Vargas Llosa. 2003
Mario Vargas Llosa condenses a lifetime of writing, reading, and thought into an essential manual for aspiring writers. Drawing on…
the stories and novels of writers from around the globe-Borges, Bierce, Céline, Cortázar, Faulkner, Kafka, Robbe-Grillet-he lays bare the inner workings of fiction, all the while urging young novelists not to lose touch with the elemental urge to create. Conversational, eloquent, and effortlessly erudite, this little book is destined to be read and re-read by young writers, old writers, would-be writers, and all those with a stake in the world of letters.Westward: 28 Original Stories from Western Writers of America, Inc.
By Dale L. Walker. 2013
The American West. Just as America attracted millions to her shores by building upon a foundation of freedom, democracy, and…
a new start, the lands beyond the Mississippi would also attract people from all over the world with visions of opportunity and wide open spaces and provide America with legends and myths that have yet to die.In Westward, the history of the Old American West unfolds in twenty-eight original stories written especially for this unique collection that commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Western Writers of America. Featuring stories handpicked by four-time Spur Award-winning author Dale L. Walker, Westward is a time capsule of the Old American West, from the first horse ever seen by a North American Indian to a man who escaped from the Alamo, from the massacre at Mountain Meadows to Libbie Custer's great secret, from the Apache wars to the California gold rush. And such luminaries of the West as Crazy Horse, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, King Fisher, Doc Holliday, Belle Starr, John Wesley Hardin, and the one black man to accompany the Lewis and Clark expedition are brought to life in these colorful and dramatic tales.Here, the ghosts of the Old West, some already there, others lured to that vast and trackless land of the setting sun, will talk to you in this volume of short stories to be treasured.Includes new short fiction by:Arthur Winfield KnightBill CriderBill GulickC. F. EckhardtCotton SmithDale L. WalkerDan AadlandDon ColdsmithElaine LongEmery L. MehokIvon B. BlumJames ReasonerJanet E. GraebnerJohn JakesJohn V. BreenLenore CarrollLinda SandiferLoren D. EstlemanMatt BraunMichelle BlackOtis CarneyRichard C. HouseRichard S. WheelerRiley FrohRod MillerSusan K. SalzerTroy D. SmithWin BlevinsAt the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.Talking to Strangers: Selected Essays, Prefaces, and Other Writings, 1967–2017
By Paul Auster. 2019
Talking to Strangers is a freshly curated collection of prose, spanning fifty years of work and including famous as well…
as never-before-published early writings, from 2018 Man Booker Prize–finalist Paul Auster.Beginning with a short philosophical meditation written when he was twenty and concluding with nine political pieces that take on such issues as homelessness, 9/11, and the link between soccer and war, the 44 pieces gathered in this volume offer a wide-ranging view of celebrated novelist Paul Auster’s thoughts on a multitude of classic and contemporary writers, the high-wire exploits of Philippe Petit, how to improve life in New York City (in collaboration with visual artist Sophie Calle), and the long road he has traveled with his beloved manual typewriter.While writing for the New York Review of Books and other publications in the mid-1970s, young poet Auster gained recognition as an astute literary critic with essays on Laura Riding, John Ashbery, Samuel Beckett, Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, and others. By the late seventies and early eighties, as the poet was transforming himself into a novelist, he maintained an active double life by continuing his work as a translator and editing the groundbreaking anthology, The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century Poetry. His prefaces to some of these books are included in Talking to Strangers, among them a heart-wrenching account of Stéphane Mallarmé’s response to the death of his eight-year-old son, Anatole.In recent years, Auster has pushed on with explorations into the work of American artists spanning various periods and disciplines: the notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the films of Jim Jarmusch, the writings of painter-collagist-illustrator Joe Brainard, and the three-hit shutout thrown by journeyman right-hander Terry Leach of the Mets. Also included here are several rediscovered works that were originally delivered in public: a 1982 lecture on Edgar Allan Poe, a 1999 blast against New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and one of the funniest introductions a poetry reading ever heard in the state of New Jersey.A collection of soaring intelligence and deepest humanity, Talking to Strangers is an essential book by “the most distinguished American writer of [his] generation . . . indeed its only author . . . with any claim to greatness.” (The Spectator)More than 200,000 words of great crime and suspense fictionEach year, Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of The…
World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, have reached farther past the boundaries of the United States to find the very best suspense from the world over. In this third volume of their series they have included stories from Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom as well as, of course, a number of fine stories from the U.S.A. Among these tales are winners of the Edgar Award, the Silver Dagger Award of the British Crime Writers, and other major awards in the field.In addition, here are reports on the field of mystery and crime writing from correspondents in the U.S. (Jon L. Breen), England (Maxim Jakubowski), Canada (Edo Van Belkom), Australia (David Honeybone), and Germany (Thomas Woertche).Altogether, with nearly 250,000 words of the best short suspense published in 2001, this bounteous volume is, as the Wall Street Journal said of the previous year's compilation, "the best value-for-money of any such anthology."The A-to-Z of the authors should excite the interest of any mystery reader:Robert Barnard • Lawrence Block • Jon L. Breen • Wolfgang Burger • Lillian Stewart Carl • Margaret Coel • Max Allan Collins • Bill Crider • Jeffery Deaver • Brendan DuBois • Susanna Gregory • Joseph Hansen • Carolyn G. Hart • Lauren Henderson • Edward D. Hoch • Clark Howard • Tatjana Kruse • Paul Lascaux • Dick Lochte • Peter Lovesey • Mary Jane Maffini • Ed McBain • Val McDermid • Marcia Muller • Joyce Carol Oates • Anne Perry • Nancy Pickard • Bill Pronzini • Ruth Rendell • S. J. Rozan • Billie Rubin • Kristine Kathryn Rusch • Stephan Rykena • David B. Silva • Nancy Springer • Jac. Toes • John Vermeulen • Donald E. Westlake • Carolyn Wheat. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.Friday Night Chicas: Sexy Stories from La Noche
By Mary Castillo, Caridad Piñeiro, Berta Platas, Sofia Quintero. 2005
Whether they're flirting en espanol, gossiping over mojitos, or dancing with their latest papi chulos, the characters in Friday Night…
Chicas prove that there is nothing quite like a night out with your chicas. Set in New York City, Miami's South Beach, downtown Chicago, and L.A., these four flirty novellas explore dating, marriage, friendship, and sex, through the eyes of four different Latina women. Mary Castillo's Friday Night in L.A.: Isela isn't looking for a one-night stand; she's desperate for one last shot at saving her career. Her ticket is Hollywood's director du jour Tyler Banks, but one major mistake could cost her everything.Caridad Pineiro's Friday Night in South Beach: It's Tori's thirtieth birthday and all she wants is a nice quiet night with her family and friends. However, Tori's friends have other plans and during an overnight casino cruise, Tori finds herself taking the gamble of her life!Berta Platas's Friday Night in Chicago: The once-shy Cali has decided to attend her high school reunion. She slips into her slinkiest Donna Karan and puts on her highest Manolos. After all, she's out to seek revenge, Latina-style. . . Sofia Quintero's Friday Night in New York City: Gladys's friends throw her a bachelorette party at one of NYC's raunchiest male strip joints. They expected a party, but they didn't expect the not-so-blushing bride to disappear with one of the strippers!Yukon Alone: The World's Toughest Adventure Race
By John Balzar. 1999
In the tradition of Into the Wild, John Balzar's Yukon Alone is a story of daring and determination in one…
of nature's harshest, loneliest, and most beautiful places.The Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race is among the most challenging and dangerous of all the organized sporting events in the world. Every February, a handful of hardy souls sps over two weeks racing sleds pulled by fourteen dogs over 1,023 miles of frozen rivers, icy mountain passes, and spruce forests as big as entire states. It's not unusual for the temperature to drop to 40-below or for the night to be seventeen hours long.Why would anyone want to run this race? To find out, John Balzar moved to Alaska months before The Quest began and he spent time in the homes of many of the mushers. Balzar then spent many days and nights on the trail, and the result is a book that not only treats us to a vivid day-by-day account of the grueling race itself but also offers an insightful look at the men and women who have moved to this rugged and beautiful place, often leaving behind comfortable houses and jobs in the lower forty-eight states for the sense of exhilaration they find in their new lives. Readers will also be fascinated by Balzar's account of what goes into the training and care of the majestic dogs who pull the sleds and whose courage, strength, and devotion make them the true heroes of this story. For anyone captivated by the wild north country, this riveting tale of courage and adventure will inspire and entertain.The Artificial Man and Other Stories (Belt Revivals)
By Clare Winger Harris. 2019
A new collection from a trailblazing writer of science fiction. Part of Belt's Revival Series and with an introduction by…
Brad Ricca. Science fiction has historically been seen as a man's game, but from the very beginniStories of Ohio (Belt Revivals)
By William Dean Howells. 2019
Part of Belt's Revivals Series and with a new introduction by Belt Publishing founder, Anne Trubek. A novelist, critic, and…
playwright, William Dean Howells was friends with such luminaries as Mark Twain, Henry James, and OThe Serpents of Paradise: A Reader
By Edward Abbey. 1994
This book is different from any other Edward Abbey book. It includes essays, travel pieces and fictions to reveal Ed's…
life directly, in his own words.The selections gathered here are arranged chronologically by incident, not by date of publication, to offer Edward Abbey's life from the time he was the boy called Ned in Home, Pennsylvania, until his death in Tucson at age 62. A short note introduces each of the four parts of the book and attempts to identify what's happening in the author's life at the time. When relevant, some details of publishing history are provided.The trailblazing book that influenced a generation of writers, and proves that mature reflection needn&’t be lacking in attitude.In the…
beginning when everything was very sexual we talked about our fantasies. She thought about having a guy for some of it. She thought about having a gun. I had gone through a lot to get away from guys so I admit that the thought of going back to them, even for a little adventure, was surprising and disconcerting …Ann Rower&’s first book, If You&’re a Girl, published by Semiotext(e)&’s Native Agents series in 1991 in tandem with Cookie Mueller&’s Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, cemented her reputation as the Eve Babitz of lower Manhattan.Rower was fifty-three years old at the time. Her stories—urtexts of female autofiction—had long been circulating within the poetry and postpunk music scenes. They were unlike anyone else&’s: disarming, embarrassing, psuedoconfessional tales of everyday life dizzily told and laced with dry humor. In If You&’re a Girl, she recounts her adventures as Timothy Leary&’s babysitter, her artistic romance with actor Ron Vawter, and her attempts to evade a schizophrenic stalker.Rower went on to publish two novels: Armed Response (1995) and Lee & Elaine (2002). After the 2002 suicide of her partner, the writer Heather Lewis, Rower stopped writing for almost two decades. And then she picked up where If You&’re a Girl left off. No longer a girl, she produced dozens of stories from her life in New York as an octogenarian.This new, expanded edition includes most of the original book, together with selections from both her novels and her recent writings. If You&’re a Girl is a trailblazing book that manifests Rower&’s influence on a generation of writers, and proves that mature reflection needn&’t be lacking in attitude.In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road
By Allan Weisbecker. 2001
In 1996, Allan Weisbecker sold his home and his possessions, loaded his dog and surfboards into his truck, and set…
off in search of his long-time surfing companion, Patrick, who had vanished into the depths of Central America. In this rollicking memoir of his quest from Mexico to Costa Rica to unravel the circumstances of Patrick's disappearance, Weisbecker intimately describes the people he befriended, the bandits he evaded, the waves he caught and lost en route to finding his friend. In Search of Captain Zero is, according to Outside magazine, "A subtly affecting tale of friendship and duty. [It] deserves a spot on the microbus dashboard as a hell of a cautionary tale about finding paradise and smoking it away."In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road is a Booksense 76 Top Ten selection for September/October.Otherworldly Antarctica: Ice, Rock, and Wind at the Polar Extreme
By Edmund Stump. 2024
With stunning original photographs, an Antarctic scientist and explorer takes us to one of the most sublime, remote, and pristine…
regions on the planet. The interior of Antarctica is an utterly pristine wilderness, a desolate landscape of ice, wind, and rock; a landscape so unfamiliar as to seem of another world. This place has been known to only a handful of early explorers and the few scientists fortunate enough to have worked there. Edmund Stump is one of the lucky few. Having climbed, photographed, and studied more of the continent-spanning Transantarctic Mountains than any other person on Earth, this geologist, writer, and photographer is uniquely suited to share these alien sights. With stories of Stump’s forty years of journeys and science, Otherworldly Antarctica contains 130 original color photographs, complemented by watercolors and sketches by artist Marlene Hill Donnelly. Over three chapters—on the ice, the rock, and the wind—we meet snowy paths first followed during Antarctica’s Heroic Age, climb the central spire of the Organ Pipe Peaks, peer into the crater of the volcanic Mount Erebus, and traverse Liv Glacier on snowmobile, while avoiding fatal falls into the blue interiors of hidden crevasses. Along the way, we see the beauty of granite, marble, and ice-cored moraines, meltwater ponds, lenticular clouds, icebergs, and glaciers. Many of Stump’s breathtaking images are aerial shots taken from the planes and helicopters that brought him to the interior. More were shot from vantages gained by climbing the mountains he studied. Some were taken from the summits of peaks. Many are of places no one had set foot before—or has since. All seem both permanent and precarious, connecting this otherworld to our fragile own.Dans l'ombre du soleil: réflexions sur la race et les récits
By Esi Edugyan. 2023
Que se passe-t-il lorsque nous décidons d'accorder une attention centrale aux hommes et aux femmes jusqu'alors relégués dans les marges…
de nos récits et de nos représentations? À mi-chemin entre l'essai littéraire, le récit de vie et la chronique historique, Dans l'ombre du soleil propose une méditation nuancée et perspicace sur l'identité, l'art et l'appartenance des personnes noiresThe Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
By Joshua Hammer. 2020
A rollicking true-crime adventure about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs—and the wildlife detective determined to…
stop him.On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain&’s Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were fourteen rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales. So begins a tale almost too bizarre to believe, following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions—and Detective Andy McWilliam of the United Kingdom&’s National Wildlife Crime Unit, who&’s hell bent on protecting the world&’s birds of prey. The Falcon Thief whisks readers from the volcanoes of Patagonia to Zimbabwe&’s Matobo National Park, and from the frigid tundra near the Arctic Circle to luxurious aviaries in the deserts of Dubai, all in pursuit of a man who is reckless, arrogant, and gripped by a destructive compulsion to make the most beautiful creatures in nature his own. It&’s a story that&’s part true-crime narrative, part epic adventure—and wholly unputdownable until the very last page.