ELT & Literary Studies Books

Book SynopsisCarol J. Adams is the author of numerous books, including The Sexual Politics of Meat, Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals, and The Pornography of Meat. Her work is the subject of two recent anthologies, Defiant Daughters: 21 Women of Art, Activism, Animals, and The Sexual Politics of Meat and The Art of the Animal: 14 Women Artists Explore The Sexual Politics of Meat, in which a new generation of feminists, artists, and activists respond to Adams' groundbreaking work. Lori Gruen is William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University, USA, where she is also a professor of Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and coordinates Wesleyan Animal Studies. Her work lies at the intersection of ethical theory and ethical practice, with a particular focus on ethical issues that impact those often overlooked in traditional ethical investigations, e.g. women, people of color, non-human animals. She is the authTrade ReviewCarol J. Adams and Lori Gruen are two of the leading scholars in the field of animal studies. This is a pathbreaking book with current, relevant, and important insights for the entire field. It should be required reading for anyone concerned with animals, feminism, or the environment – which is to say, everyone. * Vasile Stanescu, Associate Professor of Communication Studies & Theatre, Mercer University, USA *This is a breakthrough collection of updated influential essays in the field and fresh and diverse animal-centered analyses addressing urgent questions of climate, care, and affect. Adams and Gruen have curated a superb text for readers new to ecofeminist thought as well as seasoned scholars. * Maneesha Deckha, Professor and Lansdowne Chair, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Canada *Climate justice requires attention to the historical roots of our environmental crises, and transformative philosophies to help foster liberation, respect for other animals, and a flourishing Earth. The multicultural conversation woven together in this brilliant volume shows why ecofeminist praxis is crucial for understanding the manifold harms of oppression, and nurturing more powerful ethics of resistance, caring, and solidarity. * Christine J. Cuomo, Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies, University of Georgia, USA *With the growing interest in intersectional theories there has been a recent, renewed interest in ecofeminism. This book rises to meet this demand in the form of a collection of essays, which answers the concern of essentialism by embracing a wide range of scholarly voices from the field ... engaging and mind-opening ... a must-read for both feminists and also, no doubt, for meat-eaters. * Anna Maguire, U.S. Studies Online [on the 1st edition] *This provocative new anthology is to be warmly welcomed for the diversity of its voices and the breadth of its critical analyses and agenda. Ecofeminism encompasses theory and lived experience at the multiple and sometimes contested intersections of gender identity, disability rights, race, and animal advocacy. * Martin Rowe, Author of The Polar Bear in the Zoo: A Speculation [on the 1st edition] *The past three decades or so have seen the publication of a fair number of collections presenting feminist perspectives on human-animal relations. So when coming to a new volume that walks this well-traversed terrain, it's hard not to approach it with the thought that there had really better be something new here. Happily, Ecofeminism delivers the fresh goods. … What the collection as a whole conveys, primarily, is the roots-in-the-dirt entanglement of the various strands of social life with human and nonhuman animals. With animal studies now making the transition from applied ethics to social philosophy, Ecofeminism makes worthy contributions to an emerging and exciting literature. * Jason Wyckoff, Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy [on the 1st edition] *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Preface Carol J. Adams (Independent Scholar, USA) and Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University, USA) 1. Ecofeminist Footings Carol J. Adams (Independent Scholar, USA) and Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University, USA) Part 1 Affect Introduction to Affect 2. Caring to Dialogue: Feminism and the Treatment of Animals Josephine Donovan (University of Maine, USA) 3. Compassion and Being Human Deane Curtin (Gustavus Adolphus College, USA) 4. Ecology is a Sistah's Issue Too Shamara Shantu Riley (Independent Scholar) 5. Joy Deborah Slicer (University of Montana, USA) 6. Eros and the Mechanisms of Eco-Defense pattrice jones (Independent Scholar and Co-founder of Vine Sanctuary, USA) 7. Interdependent Animals: A Feminist Disability Ethics of Care Sunaura Taylor (University of California at Berkeley, USA) 8. Facing Death and Practicing Grief Lori Gruen (Wesleyan University, USA) Part 2 Context Introduction to Context 9. Inter-Animal Moral Conflicts and Moral Repair: A Contextualized Ecofeminism Approach in Action Karen S. Emmerman (University of Washington, USA) 10. Michael Vick, Race, and Animality Claire Kim (University of California at Irvine, USA) 11. Caring Cannibals: Testing Contextual Edibility for Speciesism Ralph Acampora (Hofstra University, USA) 12. Ecofeminism and Veganism: Revisiting the Question of Universalism Richard Twine (Edge Hill University, UK) 13. Why a Pig? A Reclining Nude Reveals the Intersections of Race, Sex, Slavery, and Species Carol J. Adams (Independent Scholar, USA) 14. Toward New EcoMasculinities, EcoGenders, and EcoSexualities Greta Gaard (University of Wisconsin-River Falls, USA) Part 3 Climate Introduction to Climate 15. Pussy Panic versus Liking Animals: Tracking Gender in Animal Studies Susan Fraiman (University of Virginia, USA) 16. Black Feminist Ecological Thought: A Manifesto Chelsea Mikael Frazier (Cornell University, USA) 17. The Animals Call It: Climate Crisis, Gender Crisis, and Ecofeminist Listening Fiona Probyn-Rapsey (University of Wollongong, Australia) 18. Global Atmospheres of Exploitation: Shifting Terrains of Othering in Ecofeminist Kathryn Gillespie (University of Kentucky, USA) and Yamini Narayanan (Deakin University, Australia) 19. Maximum Plunder: The Global Context and Multiple Threats of Animal Agriculture Mia MacDonald (Policy Analyst, Executive Director and Founder of Brighter Green, USA) 20. Upsetting Boundaries: Trans Queer Interspecies Ecofeminisms Leah Kirts (Freelance Writer and Activist, USA) References Index

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Book SynopsisThe polysemous German word Geschlecht -- denoting gender, genre, kind, kinship, species, race, and somehow also more -- exemplifies the most pertinent questions of the translational, transdisciplinary, transhistorical, and transnational structures of the contemporary humanities: What happens when texts, objects, practices, and concepts are transferred or displaced from one language, tradition, temporality, or form to another? What is readily transposed, what resists relocation, and what precipitate emerges as distorted or new? Drawing on Barbara Cassin''s transformative remarks on untranslatability, and the activity of philosophizing in languages, scholars contributing to The Geschlecht Complex examine these and other durable queries concerning the ontological powers of naming, and do so in the light of recent artistic practices, theoretical innovations, and philosophical incitements. Combining detailed case studies of concrete category problems in literature, philosophy,Trade ReviewAs someone who has followed untranslatability for many years, it is with great pleasure that Oscar Jansson and David LaRocca have brought this theme to a point of philosophical sophistication in The Geschlecht Complex—a brilliant, bold, and eccentric work. [...]themselves to a single (but impossibly complex) German word, a range of scholars from different fields of inquiry and analysis have nonetheless produced a collection that signals a new maturity in the approach to untranslatability. In that sense, it may (hopefully) be the first of many such works. This is a collection that bravely attempts to overcome the constraints of traditional scholarship in the hope of generating work that lives up to Apter and Cassin’s invocations to ‘philosophize with languages’. The very form of the book itself challenges and expands a series of preconceptions on this topic. It is a brave, well-rounded, and seismically significant publication insofar as it exercises what previous scholars have only prescribed and envisioned. * Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation Review *Bristling with intellectual energy, The Geschlecht Complex brings together a number of brilliantly original essays and a carefully curated sample of theoretical excerpts in its exploration of the resonances and affordances of a singularly untranslatable notion. The Geschlecht Complex is many things: it is both syllabus and seminar, both a joyful intellectual exchange and a virtuoso homage to the examples of such thinkers/readers as Cassin, Cavell, Apter, and Derrida. Most of all, it is an exuberant performance of the key inspiration driving the thinking of the untranslatable: the conviction that the untranslatable is at once generated and redeemed by passionate ventures of translation-across genres, media, bodies, languages, and disciplines. In all these transpositions, this volume succeeds marvelously. * Pieter Vermeulen, Associate Professor of American and Comparative Literature, University of Leuven, Belgium *Geschlecht by any other name: that multifarious and ultimately untranslatable German word typifying in this volume a complexity and a syndrome alike -- its cultural semantics both vertical for generational kindred and horizontal for genre or kind; lineage on the one hand, typology on the other; now general species or genus, now specified gender. With this book’s erudite roundtable, we are invited to the second, collectively-edited installment of a productive -- make that generative -- seminar once convened to rethink the ramifications of such irresolvable inner difference: less as a definitional crux than as a blocked crossing, where impasse becomes surplus when confronted at the disciplinary interface of philology and philosophy, rhetoric and ontology. Giving new reach to trans-theory, the performative yield of category-hesitation in these essays is abundant, subtle, and bracing. * Garrett Stewart, James O. Freedman Professor of Letters, University of Iowa, USA, and author of The Deed of Reading: Literature * Writing * Language * Philosophy *The Geschlecht Complex is a rare and undoubtedly important book in that it treats categorization as both problem and necessity for the production of knowledge. Indeed, utilizing and developing the notion of the ‘uncategorizable’ as an analytical tool, it collects a multitude of contemporary problems into a stereoscopic perspective (albeit in a non-unitary manner and necessarily hesitant of its own limits) on the age-old aesthetic problem of the sublime and the monstrous -- and furthermore, on the ontological consequences of those seemingly impossible categories. * Isak Hyltén-Cavallius, Chief Editor, Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap/Swedish Journal of Literary Studies, Lund University, Sweden, and Associate Professor of Literary Studies. Linnæus University, Växjö, Sweden *Table of Contents1. Contending with Untranslatable Categories; or, Inducing the Nervous Condition of the Geschlecht Complex (Oscar Jansson, Lund University, Sweden, and David LaRocca, Cornell University, USA) Appendix I: Unfinished Definitions (Jansson/LaRocca) Apter | Cassin | Cavell | Crépon 2. Antitheatricality as Critical Idiom (Caro Pirri, University of Pittsburgh, USA) 3. The Cruel Beast: Settler Sovereignty and the Crisis of American Zoopolitics (Brian W. Nail, Florida State College at Jacksonville, USA) 4. Between the Body and Language: Narratives of the Moving Subject in Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic (Lauren DiGiulio, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA) Appendix II: Indefiniteness, Geschlechtlosigkeit, Undoing (Jansson/LaRocca) Butler | Cassin | Crépon | David-Ménard | Derrida | Deutscher | Heller-Roazen | Irigaray | Malabou | Nancy | Preciado | Sandford | Spillers | Weheliye 5. Collapsing the Gender/Genre Distinction: On Transgressions of Category in Woolf’s Orlando (Oscar Jansson, Lund University, Sweden) 6. Gazing at the Untranslatable Subject: From Velázquez’s Las Meninas to Ellison’s Invisible Man (Richard Hajarizadeh, SUNY Binghamton, USA) 7. From Lectiocentrism to Gramophonology: Listening to Cinema and Writing Sound Criticism (David LaRocca, Cornell University, USA) Appendix III: Genre Unlimited/Genre Ungenred (Jansson/LaRocca) Apter | Barthes | Cavell | Chartier | Crimmins | Croce | Derrida | Jauss | Wells Afterword: Trans-Ontology and the Geschlecht Complex (Emily Apter, New York University, USA) Bibliography Acknowledgments Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThe title of this book, Derivative Lives, alludes to the challenge of finding one's way within the contemporary market of virtually limitless information and claims to veracity. Amid this profusion of options, it is easy to feel lost in spaces of uncertainty where biographical truth teeters between the real and the imaginative. The title thus also points to the prolific market of biographical novels that openly and intentionally play in the speculative space between the real and the fictional. Drawing on theories of risk and uncertainty, Derivative Lives considers the surge in biofiction in Spain and globally, relating literary expression to concepts such as circumstantiality, derivatives, speculation, and game studies.Trade ReviewA brilliant analysis of the Spanish biofictional novel within the wider context of contemporary thought. Virginia Rademacher examines research from both within and beyond the field of literary criticism to show how biofiction as a genre challenges the notion of history as an abstraction or an irretrievable reality by depicting how real people deal with specific historical situations. Rademacher's command of modern history, intellectual currents, and the Spanish bio-novel is indeed impressive. * Bárbara Mujica, author of Frida, Sister Teresa, I Am Venus and Miss del Río *With case studies drawn from some of contemporary Spain’s most exciting writers, this is an original and compellingly theorized exploration of how biofiction works to understand, vex, exploit, or otherwise experiment with questions of uncertainty, identity, and risk in the supermodern present. Rademacher engages playfully and productively with disciplinary discourses emerging from fields such as law, finance and economics—which similarly contend with competing claims to truth and value—and dives deep into the circumstantial and speculative games that authors play when they write fiction about reality. * Samuel Amago, Professor of Spanish, University of Virginia, USA *Considering the rich field of Spanish biofiction in relation to concepts of uncertainty, speculation, and risk in a post-truth age, Rademacher’s Derivative Lives establishes an exciting interdisciplinary nexus. In the course of this study, Rademacher expands the scope and ambition of biofiction studies. * Bethany Layne, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, De Montfort University, UK *Derivative Lives nos ofrece una profunda, amena, necesaria y muy interesante indagación de las borrosas fronteras entre lo real y lo ficticio, en un mundo cada vez más impreciso en donde ni siquiera la propia identidad resulta fiable. Derivative Lives offers us a deep, entertaining, necessary, and very interesting investigation of the blurred borders between reality and fiction, in an increasingly imprecise world where even one’s own identity is not reliable. * Rosa Montero, writer, author of El peligro de estar cuerda (2022) *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction SECTION I The Circumstantial Case: Chasing Criminals/Tracing Traumatic Histories 1. Making the Circumstantial Case: Reasonable Doubt and Moral Certainty in Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis 2. Fugitive Biofictions: Antonio Muñoz Molina’s Like a Fading Shadow and Gabriela Ybarra’s The Dinner Guest SECTION II Speculative Truths and Derivative Fictions 3. Entertaining the What-Ifs in Rosa Montero’s The Madwoman of the House and the Ridiculous Idea of Never Seeing You Again 4. Fraudulent Pasts and Fictional Futures in Javier Cercas’ The Impostor and Adolfo García Ortega’s The Birthday Buyer SECTION III Critical Play in Biofictional Games 5. Playing for Real: Simulated Games of Identity in Lucía Etxebarria’s Courtney and I and Truth is Nothing but a Moment of Falsehood Appendices to Chapter 5 6. Literary Afterlives and Paratextual Play: Elvira Navarro’s The Last Days of Adelaida García Morales and Antonio Orejudos’s The Famous Five and Me Coda: Biofiction’s Antidotes to Post-Truth Endnotes Bibliography Index

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisWe, the Decolonizedis a passionate reflection on the pitfalls of the decolonial venture in postcolonial countries, with particular reference to North Africa. Hélé Béji shows that in many formerly colonized countries, the reality of independence took the form of elusive freedom, widespread disillusionment and the insidious survival of forms of domination bequeathed by former colonial powers. Béji delivers an trenchant critique of decolonization: the saddest of all liberties, because it has not kept its promises. Those who had vanquished colonialism, vindicated civilization and struggled free from the yoke of illegitimate government found themselves ensnared in a new trap, having achieved emancipation without liberation. They remained entangled in a compulsive recycling of colonial impulses. To re-embark on the route to a truly free society, intellectuals and political figures must lead by example in acknowledging the reality of the past, adopting tolerant attitudes towards religions and embracing a new and secular democratic mentality.Béji's important contribution to the decolonial canon will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the politics of decolonization in Africa and the Maghreb and in the Global South more broadly.

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Book SynopsisThis timeless collection brings together three hundred of the most enduringly popular of Aesop’s fables in a volume that will delight young and old readers alike. Here are all the age-old favourites - the wily fox, the vain peacock, the predatory cat and the steady tortoise - just as endearingly vivid and relevant now as they were for their very first audience. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This elegant Macmillan Collector’s Library edition of Aesop's Fables features an afterword by publisher and editor Anna South and illustrations by Arthur Rackham.

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Book SynopsisThis book will provide the first study of how the Gothic engages with ecocritical ideas. Ecocriticism has frequently explored images of environmental catastrophe, the wilderness, the idea of home, constructions of 'nature', and images of the post-apocalypse – images which are also central to a certain type of Gothic literature. By exploring the relationship between the ecocritical aspects of the Gothic and the Gothic elements of the ecocritical, this book provides a new way of looking at both the Gothic and ecocriticism. Writers discussed include Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Dan Simmons and Rana Dasgupta. The volume thus explores writing and film across various national contexts including Britain, America and Canada, as well as giving due consideration to how such issues might be discussed within a global context.Trade Review‘As a platform for the development of a distinct ecoGothic theoretical framework, this volume certainly provides some tantalizing ideas, but equally, it invites further academic study surrounding ‘dark ecology’ as a convention to explore contemporary socio-political anxieties.’Teresa Fitzpatrick, The Dark Arts Journal Volume 3.1 April 2017 -- .Table of Contents1. Introduction: defining the ecoGothic - Andrew Smith and William Hughes 2. Panic, paranoia, and pathos: ecocriticism in the eighteenth-century Gothic novel - Lisa Kröger 3. Monsters on the Ice and global warming: From Mary Shelley and Sir John Franklin to Margaret Atwood and Dan Simmons - Catherine Lanone 4. Algernon Blackwood: nature and spirit - David Punter 5. 'A strange kind of evil': superficial paganism and false ecology in The Wicker Man - William Hughes 6. Bodies on earth: exploring sites of the Canadian ecoGothic - Alanna F. Bondar 7. Margaret Atwood's monsters in the Canadian ecoGothic - Shoshannah Ganz 8. From Salem Witch to Blair Witch: the Puritan Influence on American Gothic nature -Tom J. Hillard 9. 'The Blank Darkness Outside': Ambrose Bierce and wilderness Gothic at the end of the frontier - Kevin Corstorphine 10. Locating subjectivity in the post-apocalypse: the American Gothic journeys of Jack Kerouac, Cormac McCarthy, and Jim Crace - Andrew Smith 11. A Gothic apocalypse: encountering the monstrous in American cinema - Susan J. Tyburski 12. The riddle was the angel in the house: towards an American ecofeminist Gothic - Emily Carr 13. 'Uncanny States': global ecoGothic and the world-ecology in Rana Dasgupta's Tokyo Cancelled - Sharae Deckard Index

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Book SynopsisA sonnet to science presents an account of six ground-breaking scientists who also wrote poetry, and the effect that this had on their lives and research. How was the universal computer inspired by Lord Byron? Why was the link between malaria and mosquitos first captured in the form of a poem? Who did Humphry Davy consider to be an ‘illiterate pirate’? Written by leading science communicator and scientific poet Dr Sam Illingworth, A sonnet to science presents an aspirational account of how these two disciplines can work together, and in so doing aims to inspire both current and future generations of scientists and poets that these worlds are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary in nature.Trade Review‘Illingworth offers six beautifully wrought biographies - finding humour, lyricism and humanity in the lives and work of these six scientist-poets.’ Alice Roberts, author of The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being and presenter of Digging for Britain, Coast and Time Team'This excellent book is a creative collision of Hadron-like proportion, scattering fragments of intellectual curiosity, fluency and unpretentiousness across every page. One of my "discoveries" of 2019.’ Lemn Sissay, MBE'Hard to put down! A fascinating book full of comprehensive biographies showing the development of and influences on the poet scientist, illustrated with generous amounts of poetry!' Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell ‘A wonderfully eclectic and uplifting collection celebrating how some of the most remarkable stories of scientific endeavour are fuelled by poetic imagining, and revealing how the gaps between well-worn facts are often infused with things poetical. Great stuff!’Iain Stewart, Professor of Geoscience Communication, Director, Sustainable Earth Institute, University of Plymouth and Presenter on BBC Science'By focusing on scientists who wrote poetry, A Sonnet To Science dispels the myth that scientists need to be logical and always think scientifically. It shows that poetry was practiced by the first programmer, by the discoverer of electromagnetism, and by a Nobel Prize-winning malaria researcher, so why shouldn’t other scientists dabble in poetry as well?'Eva Amson, Forbes, August 2019'It is a comprehensive work, sensitive to both the sciences and the poetries, and is of itself an exemplar of the importance of science communication.'Public Understanding of Science Blog -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 The romantic scientist: Humphry Davy (1778–1829)2 The metaphysical poet: Ada Lovelace (1815–52)3 The lyrical visionary: James Clerk Maxwell (1831–79)4 The medical metrist: Ronald Ross (1857–1932)5 The reluctant poet: Miroslav Holub (1923–98)6 The poetic pioneer: Rebecca Elson (1960–99) EpilogueIndex

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Book SynopsisAdvertised in its Prologue as a prequel to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, Fletcher and Massinger’s The False One is the first literary work completely to revolve around the affair between Caesar and Cleopatra. In its deployment of their liaison as a venue for the exploration and criticism of contemporary political manoeuvring and its high-spirited and pungent appropriation of Roman history, the play proves to be one of the most compelling Jacobean dramatizations of the classical past. This Revels Plays edition offers the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of The False One, with a thorough introduction that provides new insights on the date and the theatre of the play’s first performance, examines the playwrights’ reworking of their sources and explores the theatrical potential of a play that has hitherto regrettably been lost to the dramatic repertory.Trade Review'…a major contribution to the editorial history of this drama… an impressive feat of scholarship: a comprehensive edition worthy of an excellent, scholarly series. Lovascio’s edition is not only a significant milestone in the editorial history of the play; it reveals The False One as a drama that bristles with humour and spectacle worthy of performance, and offers wonderful insights into collaborative practises during the period and the presentation of Rome on the Jacobean stage.’Early Modern Literary Studies -- .Table of ContentsList of illustrationsGeneral editors’ prefaceAcknowledgementsAbbreviations and referencesIntroductionDating and authorshipA Blackfriars play?Staging Rome: Republic and empireSourcesThe titleCritical receptionStage historyThe textThe false oneAppendix 1: Latin transcription of passages from Lucan’s Pharsalia cited in the CommentaryAppendix 2: ‘Look out, bright eyes, and bless the air’Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the first work of criticism to reappraise all of this leading transnational author’s film, television, short fiction and novel writing following his award of the Nobel Prize in 2017. Comprising contributions from world-leading Ishiguro scholars as well as new voices, the collection offers chapters devoted to each of the major works, each of which draws out thematic and stylistic connections with his body of work, both literary and filmic. This timely study, following the critical and popular success of his most recent fiction and his recognition by the Nobel committee, is the only comprehensive study of an author at the forefront of world literature.Table of ContentsIntroduction: ‘This is the way it feels to me’: the writings of Kazuo Ishiguro – Kristian Shaw and Peter Sloane1 Diaspora, trauma, spectrality and world literary writing in A Pale View of Hills – Emily Horton2 Eloquence and empathy in A Pale View of Hills and An Artist of the Floating World – Cynthia F. Wong3 Ishiguro's tempered presentational realism and practice – Rebecca Karni4 ‘An inevitable course’: political responsibility in The Remains of the Day – Sara Upstone5 Klara in the junkyard: on loneliness in The Unconsoled – Bruce Robbins6 Novel dysfunction in When We Were Orphans – Andrew Bennett7 Empathy and the ethics of posthuman reading in Never Let Me Go – Peter Sloane8 Nocturnes, hope, and ‘that croony nostalgia music’ – Yugin Teo9 Disinterring the English sublime: haunted atmospherics in The Buried Giant – Kristian Shaw10 Klara and the humans: agency, Hannah Arendt and forgiveness – Robert Eaglestone11 Kazuo Ishiguro’s film and TV scriptwriting – Anni ShenAfterword – Sebastian GroesIndex

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Book SynopsisThrough combinations of instructive prose and incantatory verse, liturgical rituals and herbal recipes, Latinate learning and oral tradition, the Old English remedies offer hope not only for bodily ailments but also for such dangers as solitary travel, swarming bees and stolen cattle. Hybrid healing works from the premise that the tremendous diversity of Old English medical texts requires an equally diverse range of interpretative methodologies. Through a case study approach, this exploration of early medicine offers a series of close readings tailored specifically to individual remedies, drawing from a range of fields including plant biology, classical rhetoric, archaeology, folkloristics and disability studies. Embracing the endless complexity of these Old English texts, Hybrid healing argues that the healing power of individual remedies ultimately derives from a dynamic and unpredictable process that is at once both deeply traditional and also ever-changing.Table of ContentsIntroduction: an Old English poetics of health and healing1 With hope and humility: hybridity as theoretical framework2 Of swords and status: hybridity of metaphor in Ic me on þisse gyrde beluce3 When healers are heroes: hybridity of battle in Wið færstice4 To persuade a plant: hybridity of rhetoric in Harley 5855 Of mandrakes and manuscripts: hybridity of being in Harley 6258B6 On health and hearing: hybridity of environment in Bald’s Leechbook7 From remedies to riddles: hybridity of genre in an Exeter Book riddleConclusion: With empathy and imagination: hybridity in the fieldIndex

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1974, this novel is a semi-autobiographical reflection on the author’s experience of having been the subject of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of A Clockwork Orange in 1971. This is the end of Enderby, Anthony Burgess’s finest comic creation. Dyspeptic and obese, this is the account of his last day as a visiting professor in New York, and his last day on Earth. The Irwell Edition of The Clockwork Testament will provide new information about the genesis of the novel, gleaned from a series of drafts and typescripts recently discovered in the archive of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation (IABF) in Manchester, as well as printing a deleted chapter for the first time in English.Table of ContentsGeneral Editors’ foreword Acknowledgements Introduction THE CLOCKWORK TESTAMENT Appendices 1. French Overture 2. ‘American Policies in Vietnam’ 3. Outlines of three novels 4. Reader’s report on The Clockwork Testament 5. ‘The Nature of Violence’ Notes

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Book SynopsisThis book brings together a range of methodological approaches to highlight royal and elite sexualities the sexualities of rulers, and those who were ruled by their sexualities and how these case studies might contribute to our broader knowledge of premodern gender and sexualities. -- .

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Book SynopsisThe first collection devoted solely to early medieval riddles, Riddles at work showcases recent research in this popular, new field. It brings together studies of Old English and Latin riddles, authors at various stages of their careers and a range of approaches, aiming to map out both the state of the field now and its future directions. -- .

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Book SynopsisA definitive volume expanded and updated to do justice to the four decade career of one of the most important cultural and intellectual thinkers of the 21st century The renowned literary and cultural critic and political thinker Edward Said was one of our era's most provocative and important thinkers. This comprehensive collection of his work, expanded from the earlier Edward Said Reader, now draws from across his entire four-decade career, including his posthumously published books, making it a definitive one-volume source. The Selected Works includes key sections from all of Said's books, including his groundbreaking Orientalism; his memoir, Out of Place; and his last book, On Late Style. Whether writing of Zionism or Palestinian self-determination, Jane Austen or Yeats, or of music or the media, Said's uncompromising intelligence casts urgent light on every subject he undertakes. The Selected Works is a joy for the general reader and an indispensable resource for scholars in the many fields that his work has influenced and transformed.Trade ReviewA writer who helps us to understand who we are and what we must do if we are to aspire to be moral agents, not servants of power -- Noam ChomskyWhat Said stands for - critical intelligence, high art and the preservation of the language - must be at the centre of our lives -- Hanif KureishiI was dependent on his voice ... A necessary voice as well as an eloquent and powerful one. Particularly now, it seems critical that he’d weigh in on things, critique things. He’s sui generis -- Toni MorrisonEdward Said was an intellectual with a passion for justice, and he allowed nothing to deter him in its pursuit -- Archbishop Desmond TutuThe great public intellectual in late twentieth century United States of America -- Cornel WestSaid challenges and stimulates our thinking in every area * Washington Post *Beautifully patterned and passionately argued * New Statesman *Edward Said belongs to that small band of American intellectuals who talk sense (and write beautifully) about the outside world * Guardian *Stimulating, elegant and pugnacious * Observer *No-one studying the relations between the West and the decolonizing world can ignore Mr. Said's work * New York Times Book Review *Said is a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete and political activist, an inspiring role model for a younger generation seeking their cultural identity -- Camille PagliaMagnificently eloquent, lucid, judicious * Guardian *Edward Said helps us to understand who we are and what we must do if we are to aspire to be moral agents, not servants of power -- Noam ChomskyMagisterial -- Terry EagletonOne of the leading thinkers of the age * New York Observer *Probably the best-known intellectual in the world -- Tony Judt * The Nation *

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Book SynopsisJane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall...these fictional masterpieces are all recognised as landmarks of English Literature. Still inspirational and challenging to readers today, upon release in the mid-nineteenth century they caused a veritable sensation, chiefly due to their subject matter and unconventional styles. But the greatest sensation of all came when these books were revealed to be the creations of women. This is the story of those women and of the forces that shaped them into trailblazing writers. From early childhood, literature and the world of books held the attention and sparked the fertile imaginations of the emotionally intense and fascinating Bronte siblings. Beset by tragedy, three outlets existed for their grief and their creative talents; they escaped into books, into the wild moorlands surrounding their home and into their own rich inner lives and an intricate play-world born out of their collective imaginations. In this new study, Catherine Rayner offers a full and fascinating exploration of the formative years of these bright children, taking us on a journey from their earliest years to their tragically early deaths. The Bronte girls grew into women who were unafraid to write themselves into territories previously only visited by male authors. In addition, they tackled all the taboo subjects of their time; divorce, child abuse, bigamy, domestic violence, class, female depression and mental illness. Nothing was beyond their scope and it is especially for this ability and determination to speak for women, the marginalised and the disadvantaged that they are remembered and celebrated today, two hundred years after their births in the quiet Yorkshire village of Haworth. This timely release offers a fresh perspective on a fascinating family and a unique trio of talented and trailblazing sisters whose books will doubtless continue to haunt and inspire for generations to come.

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Book SynopsisThis light-hearted but deeply researched book offers interest and guidance to walkers, social historians and lovers of the Bronte family; their lives and works. Set in and around the town of Haworth it gives a dual introduction to walkers and lovers of literature who can explore this unique area of Yorkshire and walk in the footsteps of those who knew and loved this town and its moorlands two hundred years ago. With guided tours around special buildings as well as outdoor walks and the history of people and places who lived and worked in Haworth over centuries, it offers an insight into life and death in the melee of the Industrial Revolution. Its joint authors have combined their lifelong interests in Victorian literature and social history with writing, walking, photography and cartography and have included quotes from Bronte poetry and novels.

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Book SynopsisErudite and entertaining in equal measure, Somewhere Becoming Rain is a love letter from the much-loved writer Clive James to one of the world’s most cherished poets: Philip Larkin.'This is the finest critic of his generation on the best poet of his lifetime' – The TimesClive James was a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time.The greatness of Larkin's poetry continues to be obscured by the opprobrium attaching to his personal life and his private opinions. James writes about Larkin's poems, his novels, his jazz and literary criticism; he also considers the two major biographies, Larkin's letters and even his portrayal on stage in order to chart the extreme and, he argues, largely misguided equivocations about Larkin's reputation in the years since his death.Through this joyous and perceptive book, Larkin's genius is delineated and celebrated. James argues that Larkin's poems, adored by discriminating readers for over half a century, could only have been the product of his reticent, diffident, flawed, and all-too-human personality.'A collection to savour two-fold – for the genius of Larkin and the playful erudition of James' – Financial TimesTrade ReviewThe brilliance of James’s analysis, his clear-sighted view of Larkin’s solitude and humanity, and the fragile friendship between the two recorded in the book’s final pages, provide a monument to human connection and isolation together. It’s a perfect example of the “almost instinct” Larkin managed to prove “almost true” (hedging his bets to the end) – that what will survive of us is love. -- Andrew Hunter Murray * Guardian *A collection of witty essays by a great critic about a great poet . . . What will survive of Larkin is the work, and this small book is a joyful immersion in it. This is the finest critic of his generation on the best poet of his lifetime * The Times *To read a major critic on a major poet is one of the great pleasures. Clive James’s passion for the work of Philip Larkin, his intense scrutiny which reveals an extraordinary empathy makes Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin an outstanding book. -- Melvyn Bragg * New Statesman, Books of the Year 2019 *This slim collection of Clive James’ writings on Philip Larkin demonstrates both a life-long passion for the poet’s work and a deep critical endeavour to rehabilitate his reputation as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. A collection to savour two-fold – for the genius of Larkin and the playful erudition of James * Financial Times, Best Books of 2019 *This is a tribute to Larkin’s poems. James is good at reminding us why and how they were powerful, multivalent and memorable . . . He is also unusually observant. His parallels between Larkin and Montale are elucidating * TLS *Few contemporary critics display the passionate commitment to the idea of poetry, and to the idea of poetry's centrality to civilized life, that James does -- John Banville * New York Review of Books *One of the most important and influential writers of our time -- Bryan Appleyard * Sunday Times *‘[James] was what you might call a massive Philip Larkin fan. His specific fandom was feverish and absolute – and also, because he was Clive James, deeply considered and beautifully expressed . . . it’s a privilege to look back at Larkin – all of Larkin – through the prism of [James’s] appreciation * Atlantic *Perceptive . . . This volume also allows the reader to delight in James’s own prose, which surely rivals Larkin’s in the wit and insight stakes * The Crack *The late Clive James had much in common with Philip Larkin . . . In verse and prose, both blazed with wit and wrote scores of memorable lines . . . although their work was laced with sadness, few writers since have written with such beauty and gratitude about the world * Review 31 *

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Book Synopsis The powerful story of an art form that has transformed the cultural landscape, by an award-winning poet, professor, and slam champion.'AN ENGAGING HISTORY' New York Times 'A RICH HYBRID OF MEMOIR AND HISTORY' The New Yorker 'A MUST-READ' Roger Robinson 'GALVANISING' Luke Kennard 'CAPTURES LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE' Therí A. Pickens 'MAGNIFICENT' Cornel WestIn 2009, at only twenty years old, Joshua Bennett was invited to recite a poem for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House's Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word. Spike Lee and Saul Williams were in the audience, and it turned out to be the very same event where Lin-Manuel Miranda first performed a work-in-progress that revolutionised musical theatre - Hamilton.Blending memoir and literary analysis, Bennett shows how a handful of visionaries altered modern culture. With passion, wit and erudition, he charts the history of spoken-word poetry, as well as his coming-of-age journey as a writer. From the early influence of Miguel Algarín and the Nuyorican Poets Café to Amanda Gorman's inauguration poem for President Joe Biden, he celebrates the contributions of legendary figures such as Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni and Miguel Piñero, as well as how artists like MF DOOM, Jill Scott and Mos Def were inspired to develop their craft within their shared tradition.Spoken Word illuminates the profound influence that poetry has had everywhere melodious words are heard, from the West End to academia, from the podiums of political protest to cafés, from schools to rooms full of strangers all across the world.Trade ReviewBennett's engaging history of a literary and cultural movement that took hold in many realms - music, theater, film, television and, of course, poetry - tracks its evolution from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe to slam poetry and beyond. * New York Times, Editors’ Choice *Joshua Bennett wasn't on the sidelines observing the spoken word revolution he was in it, and he knew it was too good to be ghettoised, too uncut and raw to be ignored and too fly not to survive. It is rare to find such a nuanced and erudite record from an insider of a culture. A must-read for all interested in poetry, culture and its evolution. * Roger Robinson, author of 'Home is Not a Place' *A galvanising, thoroughgoing history of rare literary quality. Dr Joshua Bennett is courageously personal and honest in his account, but it's a passion which speaks to all of us, and to anyone still finding their voice or the nerve to take that risk, from the back room of the local arts centre to the biggest stages in the world. All written with the detail, lyricism, imagination and intellect of a seasoned poet. I feel more hopeful and excited for having read it. * Luke Kennard, author of 'Notes on the Sonnets' *This marvellous and magnificent book on the recent past and present of Spoken Word touches hearts and minds in a soulful way! Bennett's beautiful prose and powerful stories glow from his early Black Church origins, through his Ivy-league education, grassroots poetic formation to his precious son August Galileo listening to Coltrane! Don't miss this superb laying bare of Black joy and genius! * Dr Cornel West, author of 'Race Matters' and 'Democracy Matters' *Joshua Bennett's memoir and cultural history is a stirring reminder that no other art form is grounded in, and centres, community like spoken word does. I loved reading about how, through care, dedication, and will, spaces were forged that allowed voices from any and everywhere to come, be heard, and develop into some of the most radical and vital truth tellers of our times. * Rishi Dastidar, author of 'Saffron Jack' *Bennett renders this lush history in lively, captivating prose, smoothly transporting us back to the city blocks, bars, cafes and stages these artists traversed and inhabited. Perhaps most endearingly, and what makes this book shine with a refreshing dynamism, is that this history is also his own. Having 'lived out every part of the story' he hopes to tell, he is uniquely qualified to walk readers through the story of spoken word ... This book is not only a thoroughly researched and engrossing history by an accomplished and qualified academic, but also, and perhaps more significantly, a tender and heartwarming narrative of the evolution of an art form from a passionate, charismatic participant who was on the ground, in the audience and on the stage himself * Tas Tobey, The New York Times *Bennett captures lightning in a bottle: not just a few of spoken word's historical touchstones, but glimpses of all that the form has wrought in its various illustrious afterlives ... He clarifies for us that spoken word is no passing fad, swept away by the passage of time. It is, instead, howling wind that deserves our respect for how it transforms everything, leaving the world more exposed, more open, and more beautiful in its wake. * Therí A. Pickens, author of 'Black Madness :: Mad Blackness' *A talented poet in his own right, Bennett turns his attention to tracing the lineage and celebrating the impact of spoken word poetry in the U.S. ... Composed in dynamic, interlocking scenes, the story unfolds effortlessly despite the scholarly rigor and research evident in the writing. . . . Bennett succeeds in his efforts to "reclaim the political ethos and persistent dreaming" of spoken word poetry's bright past and brighter future. * Diego Báez, Booklist *Bennett, a Dartmouth English professor and poet who counts Guggenheim and National Endowment of the Arts fellowships among his many honors, traces the widespread cultural influence of spoken word poetry, from its 20th-century beginnings in New York to its 21st-century proliferation in digital media. . . . . A well-researched, invigorating celebration of a spirited art form. * Kirkus Reviews *Engaging ... While competing with his collegiate slam team at the University of Pennsylvania, Bennett absorbeda powerful lesson from a mentor. He learned that performance poetry could be interpreted as an "insistence on his own survival." That's a ringing endorsement for this art form, and this book. * James Sullivan, The San Francisco Chronicle *A rich hybrid of memoir and history [that] surveys the institutions that have shaped spoken-word poetry for the past five decades . . . Bennett, a poet himself, pays tribute to his literary forebears . . . [and] chronicles the mainstreaming, for better or worse, of a radical tradition * The New Yorker, 'Briefly Noted' *Bennett's book is much more than a history: it's a living poetic meditation on his own life as a poet and the lives of pathbreaking if largely ignored poets who did spoken word even before that moniker had been invented. * Ousmane K. Power-Greene, The Boston Globe *

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Book SynopsisFor a whole year on his train to work, Stig Abell read books from across genres and time periods. Then he wrote about them, and their impact on our culture and his own life.The result is a work of many things: a brisk guide to the canon of Western literature; an intimate engagement with writers from Shakespeare to JK Rowling, Marcel Proust to Zora Neale Hurston; a wise and funny celebration of the power of words; and a meditation on mental unrest and how to tackle it. It will help you discover new books to love, give you the confidence to give up on those that you don't, and remind you of ones that you already do.What to Read Next has been written for the reader in all of us.Trade ReviewBeyond splendid . . . a brilliant idea, beautifully realised * Bill Bryson *Far more than a guide, this is a book lover's companion, a wise friend's recommendations, an answer to the question "what to read next" and why. I wish I knew half as much about books as Stig Abell * Kit de Waal *A witty, warm and wonderfully wise celebration of the written word. A huge treat * Lucy Foley *It's like being a member of the best book club ever * Frank Skinner *Stig's books are must-haves. He educates, informs and entertains in equal measure * Dermot O'Leary *This is Abell at his best - frank, funny and fascinating. Did Clive James and Bill Bryson have a secret love child? * Lee Child *A thoroughly enjoyable saunter through some great, and not so great, works of literature * Times Literary Supplement *A book for Christmas and the fireside, but a book also for all days and weathers, even for a chilly morning commuter train - once commuting is back in fashion -- Allan Massie * Scotsman *It is always interesting when an intelligent reader comes fresh to books you have known for a long time . . . the whole book is a lucky dip: put in your thumb, pull out a plum, and relish it. * Yorkshire Post *

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Book SynopsisThis Grammar Guru will solve the world's problems. Or, at least, help you figure out when to use an Oxford comma. The New York TimesPut your English skills to work for you! This book is ideal for intermediate and advanced (CEFR B1-C1) nonnative speakers of English seeking to increase their communication confidence and effectiveness in the workplace. Improve your precision and professionalism so your ideas shine!The book consists of 50 short quizzes which include the most common English errors made by nonnative speakers in professional environments. This fun format allows you to find your own frequent errors and fix them. You will test your skills quickly, daily, and build your language awareness and accuracy in writing and speaking English. Short, clear explanations after each quiz help you improve your knowledge of the grammar rules. Complementing the quizzes are Ellen says boxes with the same practical advice on good communication etiquette and habits that Ellen has been sharing for years with large corporate clients in New York City and beyond. Witty and humorous drawings illustrate confusing language and common misunderstandings. The focus of the exercises is on fixing your grammar and problems with word choice. Examples are pulled from every industry: finance, law, consulting, publishing, real-estate, retail, technology, energy, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, education, advertising, government, insurance, non-profit, and more. Whatever your profession or interest, you will benefit from the exercises contained in this book. If you are just looking to sharpen your English, this book is for you, too.You will be learning from a professional writer with two decades of experience teaching executives in a business setting. A language-learner herself who has studied some two dozen languages, Ellen Jovin has written this book to help motivated working adults advance their business English on their own time and at their own pace.Note that this book reflects global English usage, but spelling is American English.Trade ReviewThis Grammar Guru will solve the world's problems.Or, at least, help you figure out when to use an Oxford comma. -- Katherine Rosman * The New York Times *Lemonade? Psychiatric help from Lucy? This [Grammar Table] stand in NYC will deal with your grammatical problems. -- Steven Pinker * Twitter *

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Book Synopsis'This book is an expression of love... Sublimely conceived and beautifully written' Gerard DeGroot, The Times'Immersive, conversational and intensely visual' Helen Castor------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manuscripts teem with life. They are not only the stuff of history and literature, but they offer some of the only tangible evidence we have of entire lives, long receded.Hidden Hands tells the stories of the artisans, artists, scribes and readers, patrons and collectors who made and kept the beautiful, fragile objects that have survived the ravages of fire, water and deliberate destruction to form a picture of both English culture and the wider European culture of which it is part.Without manuscripts, she shows, many historical figures would be lost to us, as well as those of lower social status, women and people of colour, their stories erased, and the remnants of their labours destroyed.From the Cuthbert Bible, to works including those by the Beowulf poet, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Sir Thomas Malory, Chaucer, the Paston Letters and Shakespeare, Mary Wellesley describes the production and preservation of these priceless objects.With an insistent emphasis on the early role of women as authors and artists and illustrated with over fifty colour plates, Hidden Hands is an important contribution to our understanding of literature and history.Trade ReviewThis is an engaging and beautiful book - the engagement arising from the author's deep commitment to understanding the lives of medieval women and men, and the beauty from her ability to make us see and hear them talking about and living their experiences. It isn't just an introduction to literary manuscripts but also a series of glimpses of the extraordinary diversity of medieval lives. Mary Wellesley has taken jewels from our bibliographic treasures and placed them, carefully and with love, in the palm of the reader's hand -- Ian MortimerMary Wellesley is a born storyteller and Hidden Hands is as good as historical writing gets. Wellesley draws on her deep scholarly knowledge of medieval manuscripts to weave a captivating tale, told through generations of 'tremulous hands' and forgotten artistic geniuses, whose works inform so much of what we know today about the Middle Ages. This is a sensational debut by a wonderfully gifted historian. -- Dan Jones, bestselling author of The Plantagenets and The Templars.Their creators being largely anonymous, Medieval manuscripts tell their own stories in this Decameron of devotion and obsession, encryption and skullduggery, extravagance, destruction, and survival. The result is an unexpectedly swift page-turner on the era when pages were turned slowly. -- Eliot Weinberger, author of Angels & SaintsHidden Hands shines with 'bibliophilic feeling.' With care forensic and literary, Wellesley reveals the traces of their history legible in the pores of the page and in the process provides a page-turner of her own. * Amaranth Borsuk, author of The Book *Mary Wellesley has written a most original book which is at once a vivid personal account of scholarly detective work and a model of how history might be taught now that there is easy electronic access to ancient manuscripts. She traces the precarious survival of the the earliest books, expounds with clarity the methods and purposes of authors, scribes, patrons, annotators and illustrators and speculates with sympathy on their motives. Hands (especially female ones) assume personalities, indeed voices which are recognisable even when alien - and often urgently appealing. -- Nicholas PennyAuthors may write their books, but they don''t make them. Here is the chance to meet the women and men who actually made the cathedrals and palaces of medieval English literature, from the St Cuthbert Gospel to the Luttrell Psalter, from Beowulf to Chaucer. Mary Wellesley tells us about the authors, but more important, she introduces us to the artists, the ink-makers, vellum preparers and pigment grinders - and all the others who contributed their different gifts to these great communal achievements. To read this book is to meet the makers of the English literary middle ages. -- Neil MacGregorHidden Hands is a delight - immersive, conversational, and intensely visual, full of gorgeous illustrations and shimmering description. Mary Wellesley explores the lives of medieval manuscripts, and the men and - importantly - women who made them, with deep learning and unmistakable love. * Helen Castor *It is very seldom you read a book which offers gifts on every page, every paragraph, every sentence. I learned more, and was more delighted, reading Hidden Hands that the last dozen books I read. Her book brings you into the heart's core of literature and I loved it. -- Andrew O'HaganIn an age moving ever more quickly away from the physical book, Hidden Hands conjures up in vivid detail the pleasures of reading and making manuscripts. Mary Wellesley's joy in telling the stories of books long lost and found, and voices forgotten and recovered, is palpable on every page. I finished this book with a burning desire to get back to the archives. -- Ramie Targoff, author of Renaissance WomanMary Wellesley brings early Britain alive with this exciting account of the hidden world of old manuscripts. Far from an arid examination of dusty parchments this is an exhilarating journey of discovery, full of new insights not least, as the title implies , the important but unrecognised role women played in political and religious life. A refreshing and original vision of who we once were. -- David DimblebyWith her richly detailed, personal, multi-layered and unexpected stories about manuscripts and their makers - scribes and patrons, illuminators and parchment-makers - Mary Wellesley brings vividly before us anonymous and forgotten figures, several of them women. Writing con amore, she celebrates the sensuous processes involved and chronicles the vicissitudes of the works' survival: this is a warm, enthralling and original contribution to the history of the book. -- Mariner WarnerA fascinating and brilliantly narrated voyage into the little-known treasure-houses of medieval culture. -- Simon JenkinsFascinating, well-researched and (pardon the pun) illuminating. * The Countryman Mag *It is intensely personal. It wears its learning lightly. It chats easily and informally to the reader. It conveys a mass of arcane but fascinating information... Manuscripts establish a personal bond across the centuries between [the author] and the men and women who made them. Few people have described the experience so eloquently. The range is remarkable... wonderful. * The Spectator *To Wellesley, books are objects, tangible things, a million miles away from Kindles, which are insert. Her taste is not for "the sanitised, ordered blandness of the modern edited text." * The Daily Telegraph *'Highlighting instances in which texts about women were radically recentered on men, Wellesley offers a nuanced glimpse of the shifting nature of the written word' * New Yorker *This is a lovely book, beautifully written and brimming with enthusiasm . . . Wonderful. * Sunday Times (History BOTY) *A georgeously written debut work from a historian of great talent * BBC History Magazine Books of the Year *A jaw-dropping account of . . . medieval manuscripts. * The Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisIn a series of 50 accessible essays, John Sutherland introduces and explains the important forms, concepts, themes and movements in literature, drawing on insights and examples from both classic and popular works.From postmodernism to postcolonialism, William Shakespeare to Jane Austen , 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know is a complete introduction to the most important literary concepts in history.

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Book SynopsisSteve Venright, the true heir to the literary legacy of Henri Michau, Christopher Dewdney and Jorge Luis Borges, is the only surrealist ever to come from Sarnia, Ontario. Spiral Agitator, his fourth book, is a sumptuous assortment of prose poems and visual art from beyond the Turbulated Curtain.

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Book Synopsis“Old Poets is an indispensable jewel.” —Washington Post“An astonishing array of encounters...Hall’s observations are shrewd and generous.” —Boston Globe Intimate portraits of great poets in old age, giving new insight into their work and their lives, and context to the often flawless art created by flawed human beings. The best of themselves endure, and the old poets’ existence and endurance gives readers courage to pursue their own vision. Donald Hall (Essays After Eighty and A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety) knew a great deal about work, about poetry, and about age. Each of those things come together in this unique collection. We hear about Robert Frost as Hall knew him: vain and cruel, a man possessed by guilt. But, as Hall writes, “The poet who survives is the poet to celebrate; the human being who confronts darkness and defeats it is the one to admire. For all his vanity, Robert Frost is admirable: He looked into his desert places, confronted his desire to enter the oblivion of the snowy woods, and drove on.”Hall’s essays are once both intimate portraits and learned treatises. He takes us on a pub crawl through the Welsh countryside with the word-mad Dylan Thomas; to the Faber & Faber office of T. S. Eliot, who had discovered more happiness in age than in youth; to a reading where Robert Frost’s public persona hid the truth; to Brooklyn for lunch with the enigmatic Marianne Moore; and to Italy and for a visit with the notorious Ezra Pound. By the time Hall met them, each poet was, he observed, “old enough to have detached from ongoing poetry, to feel alien to the ambitions of the grandchildren.”Also included are portraits of the poets who taught Hall as a writer: the unfailingly kind Archibald MacLeish and Yvor Winters, from whom he learned the most about poetry. Along the way are observations about many other poets and the literary cultures that sustained them.Contents include: “Vanity, Fame, Love, and Robert Frost,” “Dylan Thomas and Public Suicide,” “Notes on T. S. Eliot,” “Rocks and Whirlpools: Archibald MacLeish and Yvor Winters,” “Marianne Moore: Valiant and Alien,” and “Fragments of Ezra Pound.”For lovers of literature, this is a gorgeous remembrance and likely to compel an immediate visit to the poetry section of the nearest bookstore—as Hall writes, “Their presences have been emblems in my life, and I remember these poets as if I kept them carved in stone.”Trade Review“As a personalized introduction to the leading figures of modernism, no better book exists.”—New York Times “It’s impossible not to love Old Poets...an indispensable jewel...so rich, so packed with ideas and incident, any page reveals gold...”—Washington Post “An astonishing array of encounters...Hall’s observations are shrewd and generous.” —Boston Globe “If Old Poets only preserved Hall’s anecdotes and observations, it would be a fascinating document of literary history. But he is also a keen critic, drawing connections between the writer and his or her work.”—Adam Kirsch, Harvard Magazine“In Old Poets, the late poet Donald Hall opines on everything literary...and readers will vicariously experience outings with eminent poets.”—City Journal“ ‘Curiosity endures, surviving criticism or philosophy,’ affirms poet and critic Hall as he introduces a distinguished gallery of poets—Frost, Thomas, Eliot, Moore, MacLeish, Winters, Pound—with verisimilitude and freshness enough to satisfy readers. The most thorough portrait follows Hall’s relations with Eliot, disclosing a personality rather than a ‘monument’—an unusually humorous and surprisingly ‘American’ poet. And his reminiscences of the lonely, disconcerted Pound may be the book’s most insightful. Although Hall’s voice in these recollections and interviews is quiet, even self-effacing, he writes as a trustworthy and sympathetic witness, one who reveres his subjects: ‘Their presences have been emblems in my life, and I remember these poets as if I kept them carved in stone.’ ”—Publishers Weekly“Reading it again after all these years in this sparkling new edition, I see that Donald Hall’s book of memoirs and opinions, Old Poets, is one of those quirky triumphs of literature that he so admired. It is a great pleasure to read—frank, funny, and entertaining, but also serious and insightful, filled with a sense of mission and vocation. I find it candid, unabashed, and inspiring.”—Edward Hirsch

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed poet and translator Dan Beachy-Quick offers this newest addition to the Seedbank series: a warm, vivid rendering of the earliest Greek intellects, inviting us to reconsider writing, and thinking, as a way of living meaningfully in the world. “We have lost our sense of thinking as the experience that keeps us in the world,” writes Beachy-Quick, and the figures rendered in The Thinking Root—Heraclitus, Anaximander, Empedocles, Parmenides, and others—are among the first examples we have in Western civilization of thinkers who used writing as to record their impressions of a world where intuition and observation, and spirit and nature, have yet to be estranged. In these pages, we find clear-eyed ideas searching for shapes and forms with which to order the world, and to reveal our life in flux. Drawn from “words that think,” these ancient Greek texts are fresh and alive in the hands of Beachy-Quick, who translates with the empathy of one who knows that “a word is its own form of life.” In aphorisms, axioms, vignettes, and anecdotes, these first theories of the world articulate a relationship to the world that precedes our story of its making, a world where “the beginning and the end are in common.” A remarkable collection from one of our most accomplished poets, The Thinking Root renders a primary apprehension of life amidst life, a vision that echoes our gaze upon the stars.Trade ReviewPraise for the Seedbank Series“Milkweed’s Seedbank series is one of the most exciting and visionary projects in contemporary publishing. Taking the long view, these volumes run parallel to the much-hyped books of the moment to demonstrate the possibility and hope inherent in all great literature.”—Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books “Through its cultural-linguistic contribution to narrative diversity, Milkweed's Seedbank series is a vital tool in imagining the futures possible for humanity beyond the anthropocene. Bringing works from Greek, K'iche', German, Russian (and more!) whose authors are deeply rooted in their homelands, each voice encountered has resonated with me on a seemingly cellular level—shifting and changing both who I am and can be. I will continue to press these books into the hands of compassionate readers and cannot wait to share the forthcoming titles in the project!”—Erin Pineda, 27th Letter Books"Milkweed as a publishing house has long been championing literary works both fictitious and true to life centered around culture, nature, and environmentalism. The Seedbank series serves as both a marvelous introduction to the books Milkweed provides and as a collection of essential stories that ought to be on everyone's radar. The words behind these front covers highlight life-changing experiences, knowledge, and ways of life from communities that are seldom otherwise heard from in the publishing world through an authentic cultural lens. What I've read from the Seedbank line is phenomenal, and I look forward to spending time with future works in the series."—Andrew King, Secret Garden BooksPraise for Stone-Garland“As part of the publisher’s ‘Seedbank’ series, aiming to preserve endangered literatures, the poet Beachy-Quick offers a modern gloss on six ancient Greeks.”—New York Times Book Review, “New & Noteworthy Poetry”“Sixth-century BCE Greek lyric poets Alcman, Theognis, Simonides, Anacreon/Anacreonata, Archilochus, and Callimachus are beautifully translated by Beachy-Quick in this memorable and edifying collection, which presents excavated fragments meant to be sung or recited to music . . . This skillfully achieved collection is a necessary contribution to ancient translation.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“[A] thoughtfully collected anthology of poems of the ancients—poems that despite their age sing with a fresh vibrancy. Beachy-Quick is both translator and guide through the stone ruins and his insightful and beautiful introductions to each poet are a joy in and of themselves. Part of Milkweed’s Seedbank Series that aims to preserve and bring ancient, historical, and contemporary works from cultures around the world to readers, Stone-Garland is a collection to cherish.”—Book Riot, “Best Fall 2020 Books in Translation”“To me, every book by Beachy-Quick feels like a beacon amid the chaos of contemporary life . . . [offering] new coordinates to triangulate one’s uncertain position in deep time.”—Srikanth Reddy, BOMB Magazine“Beachy-Quick presents an inspired and intricately-constructed collection . . . [an] enchanting, death-defying project.”—Poetry Daily“Beautiful and understated . . . Beachy-Quick’s translations lean into the elegiac possibilities of these poems and poets. . . . We grow old, as do our voices; we die; the best we can hope for is that the songs we sing will be picked up by others, turned into new forms, given new life, and that, for a moment, something of us might live again.”—Words Without BordersPraise for Of Silence and Song “Responding to the silence from which poetry arises, Beachy-Quick is not afraid to follow the call of thought, wherever it may lead. This book situates itself beyond the noise of the times.”—Robert Pogue Harrison, author of Gardens: An Essay on the Human“You read here that, etymologically, ’consider’ means ‘to examine the stars. To draw the connections between the distant points.’ If that is so, then Of Silence and Song is a clear night sky full of constellations. From the beanfields that Pythagoras would not enter to the verses of her Bible that Dickinson cut out, from his daughter Iris’s fear of the dark to the ‘tenth Muse seldom mentioned,’ from here to heliopause, Beachy-Quick crosses great expanses in this book-length, acutely human consideration, flickering in the hunch that ’question and answer are the same thing—one. . . just the disappearance of the other.’”—Brian Blanchfield, author of Proxies “It’s an exciting thing when a writer of real originality and scope discovers a form that both focuses and liberates his gift. Beachy-Quick is such a writer, and Of Silence and Song is such a book. One doesn’t think to use the word ‘ennobling’ of many works of contemporary art, but this one is.”—Christian Wiman, author of My Bright AbyssPraise for Wonderful Investigations“Wonderful Investigations juxtaposes four essays with three ‘meditations’ and four fable-like ‘tales’ to trace the tension between mind and body, between our inner and our outer lives. A poet, Beachy-Quick is terrific with an image and relies on antecedents here from Plato to Thoreau to give his work a context and a depth.”—Los Angeles Times “Wonderful Investigations is a model of intense observation, of a mind reaching out as far as it can. Always Beachy-Quick seems to write in metaphor, returning to the process of wonder, and why it’s so necessary, and then to the failure of language and poetry to ever truly take us where we want to go. . . . His reader cannot help but feel the same desire for that hazy line—cannot help but want to reach for it as well.”—Ploughshares“This is a book about reading. It offers the kinds of insights into the act that most of us never stop to indulge in, and for that we are eternally grateful. . . . The idea that reading offers a dream world, a parallel one, is familiar. But Beachy-Quick takes this a step farther. Reading before sleep, reading books to children before they go to sleep, is a way to slide gently through a middle place and into forgetting.”—Los Angeles Review of BooksPraise for A Whaler’s Dictionary“Essayistic, inventive, and frequently brilliant.”—Poetry Foundation“This is a rich, profound, fascinating book, the kind that widens the margins of everything we read, making room for new observations, more creative relationships all around: writer/reader, person/book, literature/life.”—Los Angeles Times“Wounded by a book, wounded by the force of idolatrous speech in Moby-Dick, Beachy-Quick has mounted a kind of folly, a nautilus, enclosing the furtive wall of his own lyric sensibility. A Whaler’s Dictionary reminds us why poets must sometimes measure their gifts against the calculus of prose, and why criticism by poets, unlike academic arguments, sometimes produces a flame which stands the test of time.”—Daniel Tiffany, author of Infidel Poetics“This is a major work on the charged relationship that can come into being between text and reader, written by one of America’s most significant young poets.”—Lyn Hejinian, author of My Life“A Whaler’s Dictionary manages to function as an oddly ideal work of criticism, breathing new life into Moby-Dick and showing how the novel subsists as an intricately living thing.”—Virginia Quarterly ReviewTable of ContentsThales, Anaximander, Anaximenes Heraclitus Xenophanes Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles

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Book SynopsisThis new edition of ""Notable American Novelists"" presents biographical sketches and analytical overviews of 145 of the best-known American and Canadian writers of long fiction from the 19th and 20th centuries, arranged alphabetically by name. The set's three volumes survey the novelists, whose works are included in core curricula of high school and undergraduate literature studies. Essays on living authors and all the bibliographies in the articles are updated. About two-thirds of the essays are illustrated with portraits of the writers. ""Notable American Novelists"" features often-studied writers ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Jack London to Joan Didion and J. D. Salinger. Other important nineteenth century figures include Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and George Washington Cable. Among the other major twentieth century writers featured are Sinclair Lewis, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, John Irving, E. L. Doctorow, Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, Vladimir Nabokov, Thomas Pynchon, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, and John Updike. One can also find essays on such widely read and popular authors as Stephen King, James Michener, Louisa May Alcott, Larry McMurtry, and Anne Rice. A major addition to this new edition is the inclusion of Canadian novelists: Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Frederick Philip Grove, Margaret Laurence, Mordecai Richler, and Sinclair Ross. Each essay begins with a presentation of reference information: the novelist's birth and death dates and a list of the writer's principal works of long fiction, with publication dates. ""Other literary forms"" then briefly describes genres other than long fiction in which the writer has worked, and an ""Achievements"" section encapsulates the author's central contribution and notes major honors and awards. The major sections of the text follow: ""Biography"" provides a sketch of the author's life, and ""Analysis"" looks at the novelist's work in detail; this section examines central and well-known works in the author's canon and illuminates the themes and techniques of primary interest to the novelist. The longest section in the article, ""Analysis"" is divided into subsections on the writer's major individual works. Following ""Analysis"" is a categorized list, ""Other major works,"" that provides titles and dates of works the author has written in genres other than long fiction, including plays, poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction. Each essay concludes with an updated, annotated bibliography. All articles are signed by the principal writer and, where applicable, by the updating contributor. Three helpful reference features are included at the end of volume 3: a glossary entitled ""Terms and Techniques,"" a time line of the writers' birthdates, and an index.

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Book SynopsisThe incomparable poetry of Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and his sidekick Shih Te, the rebel poets who became icons of Chinese poetry and Zen, has long captured the imagination of poetry lovers and Zen aficionados. Popularized in the West by Beat Generation writers Gary Snyder and Jack Kerouac, these legendary T?ang era (618?907) figures are portrayed as the laughing, ragged pair who left their poetry on stones, trees, farmhouses, and the walls of the monasteries they visited. Their poetry expressed in the simplest verse but in a completely new tone, the voice of ordinary people. Here premier translator J. P. Seaton takes a fresh look at these captivating poets, along with Wang Fan-chih, another ?outsider? poet who lived a couple centuries later and who captured the poverty and gritty day-to-day reality of the common people of his time. Seaton?s comprehensive introduction and notes throughout give a fascinating context to this vibrant collection.

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Book SynopsisKnown for the wit of her writing, Catherine Cookson was the UK’s most widely read novelist during her lifetime. When her Estate discovered this never-before-published memoir in the attic of her home, it was an astonishing find. Before I Go is the definitive story of her life, in the author’s own candid words. While Cookson had authored previous autobiographies, none have truly touched upon the tragedy and personal anguish she experienced until now. For the first time, she reveals the worst years of her life—her constant battles with illness and a series of devastating miscarriages, the damaging jealousy of her friend and her struggle to be taken seriously as a writer. But what shines through most is her strength in the face of adversity, her deep love for her husband, Tom, the solace she found in her art and her unmistakable character. Before I Go is an inspiring story of resilience and a must for any Cookson fan.

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Book SynopsisPlaywright, biographer, screenwriter, and critic S. N. Behrman (1893-1973) characterized the years he spent writing for The New Yorker as a time defined by ""feverish contact with great theatre stars, rich people and social people at posh hotels, at parties, in mansions and great estates."" While he hobnobbed with the likes of Mary McCarthy, Elia Kazan, and Greta Garbo and was one of Broadway's leading luminaries, Behrman would later admit that the friendships he built with the magazine's legendary editors Harold Ross, William Shawn, and Katharine S. White were the ""one unalloyed felicity"" of his life.People in a Magazine collects Behrman's correspondence with his editors along with telegrams, interoffice memos, and editorial notes drawn from the magazine's archives - offering an unparalleled view of mid-twentieth-century literary life and the formative years of The New Yorker, from the time of Behrman's first contributions to the magazine in 1929 until his death.

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Book SynopsisA debut collection of poems that question gender and embrace queerness through the natural world of North Carolina. A tender imagining and devastating reckoning, Jennifer Conlon’s debut presents a poetry collection of gender questioning, concerned with the survival of trans and nonbinary kids who live in places that do not allow them to thrive. The speaker of these poems wrestles with and envisions a life beyond their traumatic childhood as a genderqueer child in a small Southern Bible Belt town. Through retelling and reinterpreting moments of sexual shame and religious oppression, while navigating impossible expectations from a gender-binary society, Conlon shows readers that queerness and the natural world are inseparable. In their poems, Conlon comes to reject oppressive patriarchal figures, turning their gaze toward the natural world that catalyzes dreams of possibility, transformation, and safety—wasps protect them, an oak tree contains a new god, and flathead catfish guide them to a newly imagined body. Through thick North Carolina woods, Conlon searches for a language to celebrate queerness, finding it in ponds, hillsides, and within themselves.Taking to Water was selected by Carl Phillips as the winner of the 2022 Autumn House Poetry Prize. Trade Review“The flathead fish—whose sex can be difficult to determine until maturity, which can take years—is a recurring image in Taking to Water. Conlon juxtaposes this with human society’s insistence on assigning sex (and gender, accordingly) to children at birth, as the poems in this arresting book argue for an alternative. . . . In poems of masterful precision and relentless interrogation past the surface of identity into identity’s beautiful complexity, Conlon asks ‘What does it mean to control your own body to con-/tort your own sweetness.’ ‘My gender,’ they argue, ‘is a war between layers,’ going on to say that if rainbow means a spectrum of color, gender is a ‘dispersion of a body / of light.’ Taking to Water is a startling, necessary collection; what Conlon says about gender’s spectrum can also be said for this book: ‘it will move across you do not be afraid.’” -- Carl Phillips, author of Then the War: And Selected Poems"If you aren’t from the southeastern US, chances are good you’ve never heard of noodling. And even if you have heard of it, with a name like noodling, it would be easy to miss the skill, danger, and genuine collaborative attention it requires. Conlon is an expert noodler of the patriarchal church, of family, of the gender binary—all of which is to say, misogynist systems of violence. Yet also with an eye on the world that 'loves them like flowers/mouthing their sun,' this poet is also expert at noodling the heart. 'I read hundreds of fish species/change from girl to boy/and back and forth like this.' Get wet with this water, friends. We are going from 'girl to boy, boy to girl, girlboy / to gold to boygirl to girlgoldboy to boygoldgirl.'" -- TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania and co-editor of Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics"Conlon’s Taking to Water is the most transformative collection of poems I’ve read. When Conlon’s speaker says “let there be life in me / in my own beginning” we are given a home in this affirmation of queer resilience, where self-fulfillment can stretch the landscape until the landscape agrees. Taking to Water captures the search for the ways the world could make room for us, 'make room / for my body & all / that comes with it.' Conlon has given us a sharper, better lyric to inhabit and demand the world with." -- C.T. Salazar, author of "Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking"

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Book SynopsisReconsidering the German tendency to define itself vis-à-vis an eastern "Other" in light of fresh debate regarding the Second World War, this volume and the cultural products it considers expose and question Germany's relationship with its imagined East. Germany has long defined itself in opposition to its eastern neighbors: its ideas around cultural prestige and its expressions of xenophobia seem inevitably to return to an imagined eastern "Other." Central to the consideration of such projections is the legacy of the Second World War, the subject of fresh debate since 1989: after four decades of political antagonism and cultural disjuncture, the events of the war on the Eastern Front have been rediscovered by Western audiences and have come to occupy complex, shifting positions in the memory culture of the postsocialist states. However, German ignorance of Eastern European experiences of war and genocide, enduring stereotypes, and prescriptive ideas about remembrance have been major stumbling blocks to the emergence of a transnational memory culture considered just by all parties. Despite mass immigration to Germany from the east and intensive contact between German speakers and its cultures, German-language cultural production continues largely to represent Eastern Europe as unknown, wild, and inaccessible. By contrast, the writers and filmmakers under discussion in the present volume have worked with and against such tropes to put forward alternative perspectives. Like their works, the contributions to this volume place the conflicts and prejudices of the twentieth century into a wider historical perspective, exposing and questioning the nature of Germany's relationship with its imagined East. Contributors: Deirdre Byrnes, Raluca Cernahoschi, Shivani Chauhan, Enikő Dácz, Olha Flachs, Daniel Harvey, Jakub Kazecki, Amy Leech, Paul Peters, Ernest Schonfield, Karolina Watroba.Table of ContentsBetween Estrangement and Entanglement: An Introduction to German Visions of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth (and Twenty-First) Century - Jenny Watson Colonizing a Central European City: Transnational Perspectives on Kronstadt/Brașov/Brassó in the First Half of the Twentieth Century - Enikő Dácz Exile as a Literary-Political Mission: Leo Katz's Antifascist Bukovina Novel Totenjäger (1944) - Olha Flachs Brunnenland: The Image of the Bukovina in Paul Celan - Paul Peters "Auch bei uns im fernen Transsilvanien": The Transylvanian Saxons and the Long Shadow of the Third Reich in the Work of Bettina Schuller - Raluca Cernahoschi Through an Orientalist Lens: Colonial Renderings of Poland in German Cinema after 1989 - Jakub Kazecki The Nazi Ghost and the Sinti Woman in Kerstin Hensel's Bell Vedere (1982) - Ernest Schonfield The Haunted Landscape of Babi Yar: Memory, Language, and the Exploration of Holocaust Spaces in Katja Petrowskaja's Vielleicht Esther (2014) - Deirdre Byrnes "dann hüpfe ich auch, komisch und ungeschickt, wie eine Nadel auf einer abgespielten Platte...": The Ethics and Affects of Translation in Katja Petrowskaja's Vielleicht Esther (2014) - Daniel Harvey Expanding the Nationalgeschichte: Entangled European Memory in Nino Haratischwili and Saša Stanišić - Amy Leech Reading Photographic Images and Identifying Mnemonic Threads of the Post-Memorial Project in Sie kam aus Mariupol (2017) by Natascha Wodin - Shivani Chauhan Navid Kermani's Entlang den Gräben (2018) and Its Readers: Remapping Europe's East - Karolina Watroba

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Book SynopsisExamines a variety of texts from late Enlightenment Germany to provide a nuanced rethinking of women's roles as wives, mothers, and housekeepers, creators of the cultural spaces of the home. Domesticity, a set of practices, emotions, and values culminating in a nourishing emotional and physical ambience - the "feel" of being at home and belonging - connects one's subjective experience to the material environment. In late Enlightenment Germany, writers from Joachim Heinrich Campe and Theodor von Hippel to Sophie La Roche imagined the home as a space where true "humanity" would be realized. The high-stakes cultural formation of domesticity was part of a complex discourse on the pursuit of happiness as a life well lived. As domesticity became a surrogate for the lost religious certainties of the vanishing pre-modern world, an obsessive anxiety concerning its delineation in discourse suggested its importance but also its fragility and the consequences of its failure. Karin A. Wurst examines didactic novels by female authors, autobiographical texts, popular philosophy, advice literature, periodicals, pedagogical tracts, and household manuals in pursuit of a nuanced rethinking of the relationship between women's roles as wives, mothers, and housekeepers and as creators of the cultural spaces of the home. She finds that the high-value imaginary of domesticity encouraged women's agency insofar as they were tasked with turning theoretical ideals into everyday practice. At the same time, her book shows the under-illuminated contribution of women's work to social and political change from within the patriarchal structures of eighteenth-century Germany.Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1: Intimacies of Domestic Life: Love and Marriage Chapter 2: Labor of Love: Mothering as a Dimension of Domesticity Chapter 3: Feeling at Home: The Eloquence of Material Culture in the Home Chapter 4: With Head, Heart, and Hand: Domesticity and Women's Labor Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExplores Sylvia Plath’s enduring interest and active practice in mysticism and the occult from childhood until her tragic death in 1963. Sharing her more than 15 years of compelling research—including analysis of Sylvia Plath’s unpublished calendars, notebooks, scrapbooks, book annotations, and underlinings, as well as published memoirs, biographies, letters, journals, and interviews with Plath and her husband, friends, and family—Plath scholar Julia Gordon-Bramer reveals Sylvia Plath’s enduring interest and active practice in mysticism and the occult from childhood until her tragic death in 1963. She examines Plath’s early years growing up in a transcendentalist Unitarian church under a brilliant, if stern, Freemason father and a mother who wrote her master’s dissertation on the famous alchemist Paracelsus. She reveals Plath’s early knowledge of Hermeticism, how she devoured books on the occult throughout her life, and

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Book SynopsisIn this elegant but pocketable edition in the Ross's Discoveries series, passionate bibliophile Michael Ross has curated his favorite literary quotes spanning a multitude of important life topics from the collection of over 1500 well-read books on his shelves. In Ross's Life Discoveries Michael Ross brings together quotes from such a new perspective even the authors themselves will probably find this book useful and insightful.Trade ReviewPraise for Michael Ross"Truly exceptional and simply stated, Ross's Timely Discoveries is a bibliophile's treasure that is unreservedly and enthusiastically recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community, and academic library Literary Studies collection."―Midwest Book Review"Reading Michael Ross’s collection of quotes along with his comments feels like peeking into another’s diary and finding a relationship with the enclosed contents. Just as elusive time flies from us, so do we adapt to different identities at varied ages. As a consummate reader, the author, intrigued by the changing aspects of time, selects quotes from literature relating to how the present, past, and future are viewed. Take a quote from John Updike, who comments on how paradise always lies in the past or future, but not in the present. It seems the grass is always greener somewhere else. Pithy truisms related to impressions of mutable time, feelings of age, and the value of memory selected from American and British authors grace the pages with insightfully incisive editorial comments. Familiar authors such as Bernard Malamud, Garrison Keillor, Doris Lessing, Oscar Wilde, Elia Kazan, and more serve as the sources. The book’s design is unique; it resembles an old-fashioned hardback classic in pocket-book size with a valentine red binding. The script on the black and white pages is elegantly lettered, and these are interspersed with skillful illustrations of some of the included authors by Cara Lowe. An interesting collection of timely thoughts."―San Francisco Book Review

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Book SynopsisThis collection of Russian short stories from the 21st century includes works by famous writers and young talents alike, representing a diversity of generational, gender, ethnic and national identities. Their authors live not only in Russia, but also in Europe and the US. Short stories in this volume display a vast spectrum of subgenres, from grotesque absurdist stories to lyrical essays, from realistic narratives to fantastic parables. Taken together, they display rich and complex cultural and intellectual reality of contemporary Russia, in which political, social, and ethnic conflicts of today coexist with themes and characters resonating with classical literature, albeit invariably twisted and transformed in an unpredictable way. Most of texts in this volume appear in English for the first time. 21 may be useful for college courses but will also provide exciting reading for anyone interested in contemporary Russia.Table of Contents Nikolai Baitov. Solovyov’s Trick; Silentium. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Evgeny Shklovsky. The Street. Translated by Jason Cieply. Vladimir Sorokin. Smirnov. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Nikolai Kononov. Evgenia’s Genius. Translated by Simon Schuchat. Leonid Kostyukov. Verkhovsky and Son. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Sergei Soloukh. A Search. Translated by Margarita Vaysman and Angus Balkham. Margarita Khemlin. Shady Business. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Elena Dolgopyat. The Victim. Translated by Jason Cieply. Kirill Kobrin. Amadeus. Translated by Veronika Lakotová. Pavel Pepperstein. Tongue. Translated by Bradley Gorski. Aleksandr Ilichevsky. The Sparrow. Translated by Bradley Gorski. Stanislav Lvovsky. Roaming. Translated by Bradley Gorski. Valery Votrin. Alkonost. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Linor Goralik. A Little Stick; 1:38 A.M.; No Such Thing; Come On, It’s Funny; The Foundling; We Can’t Even Imagine Heights Like That; Cyst. Translated by Maya Vinokour. Aleksey Tsvetkov Jr. Priceart. Translated by Sofya Khagi. Lara Vapnyar. Salad Olivier. Polina Barskova. Reaper of Leaves. Translated by Catherine Ciepiela. Arkady Babchenko. Argun. Translated by Nicholas Allen. Denis Osokin. Ludo Logar, or Duck Throat; The New Shoes. Translated by Simon Schuchat. Maria Boteva. Where the Truth Is. Translated by Jason Cieply. Marianna Geide. Ivan Grigoriev. Translated by Simon Schuchat.

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Book SynopsisThe first translation of painter and writer Józef Czapski''s inspiring lectures on Proust, first delivered in a prison camp in the Soviet Union during World War II.During the Second World War, as a prisoner of war in a Soviet camp, and with nothing but memory to go on, the Polish artist and soldier Józef Czapski brought Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time to life for an audience of prison inmates. In a series of lectures, Czapski described the arc and import of Proust’s masterpiece, sketched major and minor characters in striking detail, and movingly evoked the work’s originality, depth, and beauty. Eric Karpeles has translated this brilliant and ­altogether unparalleled feat of the critical imagination into English for the first time, and in a thoughtful introduction he brings out how, in reckoning with Proust’s great meditation on memory, Czapski helped his fellow officers to remember that there was a world apart from the world of the camp. Proust had staked the art of the novelist against the losses of a lifetime and the imminence of death. Recalling that triumphant wager, unfolding, like Sheherazade, the intricacies of Proust’s world night after night, Czapski showed to men at the end of their tether that the past remained present and there was a future in which to hope.

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Book SynopsisA fresh, provocative look at the link between poetry and Christianity, both as it relates to the Bible itself as well as to Christian and religious life, by an accomplished scholar. The Bible is full of poems. In the Old Testament, there are the Psalms and the Song of Songs, the great exhortations and lamentations of the Prophets, and passages of poetry woven in throughout. In the New Testament, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven with poetic epithets such as “a treasure hid in a field,” calling the Son of God “the true vine,” “the light of the world,” “the good shepherd,” and “the way, the truth, and the life.” The Gospels reverberate with allusions to the poetry of the Old Testament; the last book of all is Revelation, a visionary poem. The Bible, in other words, asks to be read poetically from start to end, and yet readers have rarely considered what that might mean, much less heeded that call.In The Bible and Poetry, the poet and scholar Michael Edwards reshapes our understanding of the Bible and religious belief, arguing that poetry is not an ornamental or accidental feature but is central to both. He speaks personally of his early, unanticipated, transformative encounters with scripture. He offers close, insightful, and resonant readings of biblical passages. Poetry, as he sees it, is the vital and necessary medium of the Creator’s word, and the truth of the Bible is not a question of precepts and propositions but of a direct experience of its poetry, its power.

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Book SynopsisIn this spiritual sequel to his influential Reading for the Plot, Peter Brooks examines the dangerously alluring power of storytelling.“There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can defeat it.” So begins the scholar and literary critic Peter Brooks’s reckoning with today’s flourishing cult of story. Forty years after publishing his seminal work Reading for the Plot, his important contribution to what came to be known as the “narrative turn” in contemporary criticism and philosophy, Brooks returns to question the unquestioning fashion in which story is now embraced as an excuse or explanation and the fact that every brand or politician comes equipped with one. In a discussion that ranges from The Girl on the Train to legal argument, Brooks reminds us that among the powers of narrative is the power to deceive.

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