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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Ted Berrigan wrote wonderful poems and experimented brilliantly with various prose forms and strategies. Full of surprises, Get the Money! Collected Prose (1961-1983) will be indispensable to students of Berrigan and the New York School."—David Lehman, series editor, The Best American Poetry"What a gift to have "Get the Money - collected prose (1961-1983)" by Ted Berrigan, just new from City Lights Books. Here we have a large collection of Berrigan's journals, reviews, essays, poems and more! What a pleasure to drop into the whirlwind of creative energy that is Ted's language, Ted's world, at the center of the New York City poetry and art worlds of the 1960s . Grab a pepsi, maybe some desoxyn, and enjoy the ride with Ted and his friends! Meet up with Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Bernadette Mayer, Alice Notley and many more - and remember, as Ted reminds us, "Don't forget to love me." With this book, we won't forget."—Gary Lawless, Owner, Gulf of Maine Bookstore“This, ultimately, is the composite picture that emerges of Berrigan: a maker of poems who listens honestly to his own best work and then continuously listens for the sound of the next kind of poem for as long as the poems will have him.”—Jordan Davis, The Poetry FoundationTable of ContentsAnnotated Table of Contents for Get the Money! Collected Prose 1961–1983 by Ted BerriganTB = Ted Berrigan’60s JOURNALSThe ’60s Journals stem from TB’s first stint living in NYC beginning in 1961; it’s a record of his early days, touching on his earliest breakthroughs as a poet, his relationship with his first wife, Sandy Berrigan, his friendships with the likes of poet Ron Padgett and artist Joe Brainard, who also moved from Tulsa, OK (where TB was going to school on the G.I. Bill after a stint in the army), and his meeting the first-generation poets of the NY School, like Frank O’Hara. A look at his early bohemian life.SOME NOTES ABOUT “C”This is a 1964 account of TB’s influential mimeo magazine “C” and the various lengths to which he went to get it made. Appearances by John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest, James Schuyler, Andy Warhol, Joe Brainard, Alex Katz, Jasper Johns, Bill Berkson, Edwin Denby, Tony Towle, Gerard Malanga, Jim Brodey, Joe Ceravolo, etc.REVIEWS"Art and Literature: An International Review, edited by John Ashbery, Ann Dunn, Rodrigo Moynihan, and Sonia Orwell (#1, March 1964, $2.00)"Cheeky review of the first issue of a well-heeled magazine John Ashbery co-edited in Paris; the two major early perfect-bound journals of the NY School are Art and Literature and Locus Solus."Lines About Hills Above Lakes, Jonathan Williams (Roman Books, $3.00)"Review of a pamphlet by the Jargon Books publisher and New Directions poet that TB suggests you steal rather than buy, given the exorbitant price."Lunch Poems, Frank O’Hara (City Lights Books, $1.25)"Excellent review of City Lights’ homegrown classic."Poems from Oklahoma (Hardware Poets) and The Bloodletting (Renegade Press), Allen Katzman"Review of a now-obscure poet who founded the East Village Other, an alt-weekly."Poems: Aram Saroyan, Richard Kolmar, and Jenni Caldwell (Acadia Press)"A review of a joint publication; Aram Saroyan is the only major figure here (a concrete/minimalist poet and the son of William Saroyan)."In Advance of the Broken Arm, Ron Padgett, w/ cover and drawings by Joe Brainard (C Press)"Review of a mimeo booklet TB himself published under the “C” Press imprint; basically Padgett’s debut volume."Nova Express, William Burroughs (Grove, $5.00)"“Review” that is really a cut-up of Burroughs’ novel, which in itself probably was a cut-up of some variety."Art Chronicle"Round-up of the art shows TB saw and often reviewed for ARTnews."The Anxious Object, Art Today and Its Audience, Harold Rosenberg (Horizon Press, $7.50)"Attack on the critic who coined the phrase “Action Painting,” which is sometimes used instead of “Abstract Expressionism” (the terms refer to the same group of NY abstract painters)."The Doors of Stone, Poems, 1938–1962, F.T. Prince (Rupert-Hart-Davis)"Review of a British poet championed by John Ashbery, among other people."Pavilions, Kenward Elmslie (Tibor de Nagy, $2.00)"Kenward Elmslie (a grandson of Joseph Pulitzer) was an important force in the NY School, lover of Joe Brainard and publisher of Z Press. He is still in print from Coffee House. Elmslie is still alive (93) but is no longer active."Saturday Night: Poems, Bill Berkson (Tibor de Nagy, $2.00)"Review of Bill Berkson’s first book, published by the still-extant NYC art gallery (who also published first books by Ashbery, O’Hara, Guest, Frank Lima, etc.)"New Directions 14, ed. James Laughlin ($1.65)"“Review” of an old issue of New Directions, seemingly written just to talk about James Schuyler’s contribution to it."Peace Eye: Poems, Ed Sanders (Frontier Press, $1.50)"Review of the Beat poet and Fugs founder Ed Sanders; “Peace Eye” was also the name of Sanders’ bookstore in NYC. Ferlinghetti published Sanders’ Poem from Jail as a City Lights pamphlet."Desolation Angels, Jack Kerouac (Coward-McCann)"Review of a later Kerouac novel. Kerouac was a huge influence on TB, who considered himself a “late beat” rather than a NY School poet. TB interviewed Kerouac for the Paris Review."Painter to the New York Poets"Review of a show by figurative painter friend of O’Hara and Ashbery Jane Freilicher; she is the “Jane” frequently referred to in O’Hara poems."Red Power"Review of a figurative NY School painter."Sentences from the Short Reviews"A collage made by Anselm Berrigan of some of the best sentences from TB’s stint as a reviewer for ARTnews."Joe Brainard""Red Grooms"These are the two ARTnews reviews we did include, as they are significant painters associated with the NY School."Alice Neel’s Portraits of Joe Gould"A review of a solo show published in Peter Schjeldahl’s Mother.FRANK O’HARA DEAD AT 40An obituary for O’Hara published in the East Village Other.4 JOURNALS"The Chicago Report"A rollicking letter to Ron Padgett about a roadtrip TB goes on with his friend Harry Fainlight to go see Kenneth Koch read with. Anne Sexton in Chicago in the ’60s."From Journals (1970–1971)""Southampton""Bolinas""Selections from a Journal: 1 Nov 1977 to 17 May 1978"More journal extracts, including TB and Alice Notley’s brief stint in Bolinas with the On the Mesa crowd."On the Road Again, an Old Man"Loose “translation” of Basho poems (TB didn’t know Japanese, so he’s making versions based on previous translations).THE ARRIVAL REPORTAn account of the birth of Edmund Berrigan, which took place in Colchester, UK, while TB was teaching there.LONGER WORKS OF THE MORE ACADEMIC TYPE"Get the Money"A loosely jointed piece written for the East Village Other; poetic goofing around."An Interview with John Cage"“Interview” with John Cage collaged together by TB from various sources, none of whom were John Cage. (TB also hired Dick Gallup to work on it.) Peter Schjeldahl published it in his magazine Mother."Introduction to In by Aram Saroyan"Brief note on an Aram Saroyan volume."Ten Things About the Boston Trip: An Aside to Ron & Tom"Note to Padgett and Tom Clark about a trip to Boston on some poetry business."An Interview with John Ashbery"Also written according to the principles behind the John Cage interview."Brain Damage (Some Notes, and a Case History)"Off-beat bit of creative prose (probably a cut-up of a medical text about the human brain)."Note on Jim Brodey’s Poems & Him"As it says; Brodey is out of print but a known and significant second- or third-generation NY School poet."Introduction for Tom Clark at the Folklore Center"As it says; intro for a reading by Tom Clark."Jim Carroll"Very early piece about the author of The Basketball Diaries."Anne Waldman: Character Analysis"Piece about Anne Waldman (more about her than her poetry). "Maya by Anselm Hollo"Review of longtime Naropa professor and close friend of TB’s Anselm Hollo; Coffee House is prepping a collected Hollo (early stages yet)."A Few Hard Words on Tom Raworth"An introduction for a book by the experimental British poet. "In Time: Poems 1962–68, Joel Oppenheimer (Bobbs-Merrill, $5.95)"Review of poet Joel Oppenheimer (somewhat neglected these days and largely out of print but a familiar name for any serious student of the New American Poetry of the ’60s)."Teaching with the School Teachers"Fascinating piece written as a report to his employers about a workshop he gave for teachers who wanted to teach poetry."Note on Alice Notley, Not Used, for 165 Meeting House Lane, Published by “C” Press in 1971"As it says. "Sensation by Anselm Hollo"Another review of Anselm Hollo (see above)."From The Autobiography of God"Another cut-up? Random piece of creative prose."The NY Jets: A Movie"Written as though a filmscript, just goofing around about the NY Jets."The Life of Turner"Another cut-up? Random piece of creative prose."Words for Joanne Kyger"From a letter to and about Joanne Kyger."Scorpio Birthday"A horoscope."Three Book Reviews""Air by Tom Clark (Harper & Row)""The Poetry Room by Lewis MacAdams (Harper & Row)""Great Balls of Fire by Ron Padgett"Three “reviews” that TB made by collaging lines from the various poems in each book in order to make a new poem."Introduction to Fresh Paint: An Anthology of Younger Poets"As it says; not an anthology that anyone remembers these days but a good example of his generosity to the younger generation."Larry Fagin"Short notice concerning the longtime NY poet and editor."Litany"A collage, largely concerning TB’s friend, the poet Bernadette Mayer (published by New Directions these days)."The Fastest Tongue on the Lower East Side"“Review” largely consisting of a poem collaged from the subject of the review, poet Simon Schuchat."Naropa Workshop Notes"Some poetic notes from a workshop TB taught at Naropa."10 Favorite Books of 1980"Exactly what the title says, just a list."Old Age and Decrepitude"Another general roundup of things TB’s read recently, including Hollo, Padgett, and Schuyler, written for the Poetry Project Newsletter."George Schneeman at Holly Solomon"Review of a gallery show by NY School painter George Schneeman, a close friend of TB’s and the painter of the cover of our book."On Franco Beltrametti"Text for the catalog of one of TB’s artist friends."3 Reviews"Three short paragraphs reviewing The Early Auden, an issue of the Paris Review, and the Am Here Books catalog."Business Personal"A demand for the return of certain notebooks stolen from James Schuyler at the Chelsea Hotel."The Oral History Series Community Documentation Workshop"Interesting piece about a series of pamphlets issued by St. Mark’s Community Documentation Workshop and devoted to the history of the neighborhood."Running Commentary"A general round up of recent poetry publications TB found interesting. "Millenium Dust, Joe Ceravolo"Review of second-generation NY School poet Joseph Ceravolo, whose Collected Poems were published Wesleyan about 10 years ago. Died obscure but considered a significant poet today. "Night Flight by Lita Hornick"Lita Hornick was the publisher of Kulchur, a NY magazine in which several of the pieces from the “Reviews” section were published; TB is reviewing her book about contemporary art."The Beeks"Text from a flyer promoting a punk rock band (poet Steve Carey’s brother Tom Carey was a member)."Public Proclamation & Advertisement of Sale"A funny oddball piece blasting his friend Bernadette Mayer for censoring a poem TB and Alice Notley wrote for the Poetry Project Newsletter. "The White Snake by Ed Friedman"Review of a play by the future longtime director of St. Mark’s Poetry Project."Harry Fainlight: In Memoriam (d. 1982, London)"An obituary for his best friend Harry Fainlight, an oddball minor poet TB would publish his poems in “C” magazine.

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Book SynopsisThe final installment of John Zorn''s major series of new music theory, with Oren Ambarchi, Peter Blegvad, Annea Lockwood, Henry Threadgill and many moreInitiated in 1997 and now in its tenth and final installment, John Zorn''s acclaimed Arcana series is a major source of new music theory and practice in the 21st century. Illuminating directly via the personal vision and experience of the practitioners themselves, who experience music not from a cool, safe distance, but from the white-hot center of the creative crucible itself, Arcana elucidates through essays, manifestos, scores, interviews, notebooks and critical papers.Over 25 years the ten volumes of Arcana have presented the writings of over 300 of the most extraordinary musical thinkers of our time, who address composing, performing, improvising, touring, collaborating, living and thinking about music from diverse, refreshing and often surprising perspectives. Technical, philoso

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Book SynopsisEssays reflecting on the science of imaginary solutions, from an influential figure in pataphysical thoughtPataphysics: the science of imaginary solutions, of laws governing exceptions and of the laws describing the universe supplementary to this one. Alfred Jarry's posthumous novel, Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician, first appeared in 1911, and over the next 100 years, his pataphysical supersession of metaphysics would influence everyone from Marcel Duchamp and Boris Vian to Umberto Eco and Jean Baudrillard. In 1948 in Paris, a group of writers and thinkers would found the College of 'Pataphysics, still going strong today. The iconoclastic René Daumal was the first to elaborate upon Jarry's unique and humorous philosophy. Though Daumal is better known for his unfinished novel Mount Analogue and his refusal to be adopted by the Surrealist movement, this newly translated volume of writings offers a glimpse of often overlooked DauTrade ReviewIt may be tempting to cast Daumal as a romantic outsider, since he rejected Surrealism - now an orthodoxy of cod-transcendence - instead embracing what would have seemed at the time the conservative spiritualism of Sanskrit scholarship, and which, paradoxically, now seems rather progressive. But in spurning the surrealists' psychoanalytical preoccupations, to tackle head on the hegemony of empiricism, Daumal might also be considered as presaging contemporary comedy, which today is the vehicle of cultural and political critique for the bold. -- Sally O'Reilly * Art Review *

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Book SynopsisThese highly original essays illuminate Virginia Woolf and a selection of other twentieth-century writers and artists. Based on detailed research and presenting previously unpublished texts, pictures, and photographs, they are notable feats of scholarly detective work. Six of them focus on four pivotal members of the Bloomsbury Group – Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, and Roger Fry. Prominent ingredients of their story include art, writing, friendship, love, sex, mental illness, and Greek travel. The five ‘out of Bloomsbury’ essays are about the ‘new’ letters from the novelist Rose Macaulay to the Irish poet Katharine Tynan; the prodigious teenage talents of Dorothy L. Sayers; the remarkable story of Tolkien’s schoolmaster R. W. Reynolds; and the artist Tristram Hillier in Portugal. The collection creates a richly varied and entertaining picture of British culture in the first half of the twentieth century.Longlisted for the William M.B. Berger Prize for British Art History 2022Trade Review'Delightfully written essays packed with revelations.'Robin Simon, editor of The British Art Journal'A wealth of colourful new material.'Odin Dekkers, former editor of English Studies'Fascinating essays.'Mark Hussey, distinguished Bloomsbury scholar'Masterful.'The Times Literary Supplement'A delight from beginning to end.'English Studies'Both instructs and inspires.'Literature Cambridge -- .Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroduction 1 'New' Portraits by Roger Fry of Helen Fry and Vanessa Bell 2 A Complete Strip-off: A Bloomsbury Threesome in the Nude at Studland 3 Clive Bell’s Memoir of Annie Raven-Hill (co-written with Helen Walasek) 4 'Far the Best Holiday for Years': Virginia Woolf’s Second Visit to Greece 5 'Suicidal Mania' and Flawed Psychobiography: Two Discussions of Virginia Woolf 6 Virginia Woolf and 'the Hermaphrodite': A Feminist Fan of Orlando and Critic of Roger Fry 7 'I Am Afraid I Am not Irish': Letters from Rose Macaulay to Katharine Tynan 8 A Teenage Star: The Forgotten Contribution of Dorothy L. Sayers to a Pageant 9 'She Had Quite Unusual Gifts': Dorothy L. Sayers at School10 The Secret Love-Child of an American Civil War Commander: The Strange Story of Tolkien’s Schoolteacher11 'A land pre-eminently to inspire a painter': Tristram Hillier’s first visit to PortugalDetails of original publicationsIndex

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Book SynopsisWhen Trisha Low moves west, her journey is motivated by the need to arrive “somewhere better”—someplace utopian, like revolution; or safe, like home; or even clarifying, like identity. Instead, she faces the end of her relationships, a family whose values she has difficulty sharing, and America’s casual racism, sexism, and homophobia. In this book-length essay, the problem of how to account for one's life comes to the fore—sliding unpredictably between memory, speculation, self-criticism, and art criticism, Low seeks answers that she knows she won't find. Attempting to reconcile her desires with her radical politics, she asks: do our quests to fulfill our deepest wishes propel us forward, or keep us trapped in the rubble of our deteriorating world?Trade ReviewWinner of the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction>Winner of the 2019 Believer Book Award in Nonfiction“Slipping smoothly between stylistic registers and across time in a relaxed stream-of-consciousness style, this highly readable, lyrical autobiographical essay promises much for Low’s further excursions into prose.” —Publishers Weekly“A consistently incisive and surprising new work of nonfiction. . . . The frequent meditations on global politics and contemporary works of art never feel like gratuitous digressions but constitute the most reliable pleasures of the text, and serve to deepen what is ultimately an intimate and complex portrait of a life.” —Los Angeles Review of Books“Low embraces the specifics of her own experiences and aesthetics . . . The result is one of the most evocative books you're likely to encounter this year.” —Star Tribune“Inventive, wise, and revelatory . . . a searching interrogation of identity, art, and a desire for a life beyond what we are told is possible.” —Chicago Review of Books“Few works of art. . . . offer as scintillating a vision of what it means to yearn for the comfort of home alongside the utter strangeness and sparkle of irresolution. . . . Low is at home in her electric mind, and we are happy to have been invited in.” —The Believer “Expansive and freeing, like the best kind of daydream.” —Nylon“Offers piercing reflections full of intellectual power and personal resonance. . . . a work that defies normativity in every way, as Low moves with a kind of vulnerable virtuosity from one illuminating entry to the next.” —VICE“Socialist Realism might itself be a parable, in that it dares the reader to interpret it too literally—mistaking the showing of a wound for vulnerability, or uncertainty about political or artistic effects for a lack of commitment – but I count myself among the believers.” —Frieze Magazine“Mostly earnest, always engrossing. . . . This book sees Low struggling mightily, with intention and passion and verve, to accommodate seemingly oppositional impulses.” —Bookforum “A book about what it means to try to fulfill our deepest desires.” —Book Riot“Reading Socialist Realism is like falling into a dream.” —Overland“Like a transgressive Binx Bolling . . . she takes away equally cathartic feelings from the experimental films of Chantal Ackerman as she does from a documentary about One Direction.” —The Rupture “Low writes about her queerness . . . performance art installations that ask identity questions, the socio-economic history of Singapore, and literary analysis of Patricia Highsmith’s novels. To all of these topics, Low applies the full force of her compelling intellect.” —Booklist “In this book-length essay, the problem of how to account for one’s life comes to the fore.” —Cultura Colectiva“It’s a joy to watch Trisha Low’s mind at work in this book as she contemplates utopia, identity, and how art expands her understanding of the world. Low doesn’t just have an idea—she interrogates it, examines it, and cuts it open. Socialist Realism is sharp, inventive, and transformative.” —Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I’m Someone Else “In years like ours, what a relief it is to be allowed into the mind of Trisha Low. With infectious aplomb and zero pandering to the mind games of social grace, Socialist Realism weaves together intimate and moment-defining considerations of heritage, religion, masochism, sexuality, authenticity, utopia, transgressive art, and so much more, laying bare the myriad layers and projections of a persona surrounded by duress and still in search of something more. Equally candid and courageous, this meditation from the dark side of the heart may have arrived in the nick of time.” —Blake Butler Praise for Trisha Low“Trisha Low has been leaving us periodic notes about what we can keep of hers if she should happen to go off the deep end. She’s also been leaving us her email password, her ATM PIN code, and an astonishing amalgamation of amatory fiction, IMs, craft patterns, magic spells, and film noir in which every romantic interest is a MacGuffin. Low says her virtuosic appropriations owe less to conceptual poetics than to her adolescent days of punk vandalism. Never mind if this booty was shoplifted, its stunning, and I promise you’ll want to keep everything she gives you.” —Barbara Browning “Like hands reaching out from the grave in the final scene of Brian Di Palma’s Carrie, Trisha Low’s The Compleat Purge reaches out to beg the question: ‘What’s happened to the real Trisha?’ In Low’s epically eloquent new book, she hands us the keys to a crypt wherein identity is theorized as an act of para-suicide and girlhood a version of being buried alive. The Compleat Purge reframes Freud’s infamous query: ‘What do women want?’ by breathing new life into shifting ideals of feminine identity, sexuality, and erotics before the culturally determined ones land us in a coma.” —Kim Rosenfield“Trisha Low is always dying. Age, place, fictional rendering all are subsumed to an origin already negated. She and her doubles evacuate with unmoving horror their teenage mania, displacing it, emptying the identities about whom its despair circulates. Once, maybe, this Trisha Low generated bodily heat, ate breakfast, loved and desired. No more. The Compleat Purge razes its confessional charms like effigies, foreclosing Low’s final vixi to her own secrets before they too are obliterated in time immemorial. He had gone from her sight, he had not lifted his bowed head, he had not looked back.” —J. Gordon Faylor

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Book SynopsisBOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER • BOSTON.COM BOOKCLUB SELECTION A celebration and meditation on the season for drinking hot chocolate, spotting a wreath on a neighbor’s door, experiencing the change in light of shorter days. All aspects of Winter, from the meteorological to the mythological, are captured in this masterful essay, told in wise and luminous prose that pushes back the dark. Winter begins with the shortest day of the year before nightfall. As in her companion volume, Summer Solstice, the author meditates on both the dark and the light and what this season means in our lives.“Winter tells us,” Nina MacLaughlin says, “more than petaled spring, or hot-grassed summer, or fall with its yellow leaves, that we are mortal. In the frankness of its cold, in the mystery of its deep-blue dark, the place in us that knows of death is tickled, focused, stoked. The angels sing on the doorknobs and others sing from the abyss. The sun has been in retreat since June, and the heat inside glows brighter in proportion to its absence. We make up for the lost light in the spark that burns inside us.” If Winter is a time you love for its memories and traditions, if you love writing that takes your breath away with lyrical leaps across time and space, Winter Solstice is an unforgettable book you’ll cherish.Trade ReviewPraise for Winter Solstice “Arresting . . . MacLaughlin reminds us of our capacity for wonder, heightened in this season of quiet.” —Los Angeles Review of Books “Drawing on myths, memories, meteorology, and more, it makes a perfect companion for a frosty New England night.” —Boston Art Review, a “Holiday Gift Guide” pick “The narrative achieves a deeply cohesive, riveting quality, that at times directly engages the reader in collaboration and intrigue.” —The Brooklyn Rail “This book is beautiful, it’s a book that begs to be read aloud. The language is just gorgeous. There are pieces of it that I’ve returned to over and over again.” —Josh Christie, Maine Public Radio “Nina MacLaughlin returns to celebrate the winter solstice, and delivers a most sensual hymn and harbor for the human ability to feel our way through the darkness towards wise, unexpected connections. This ethereal collection offers us a candle at night—it’s an astonishing gift.” —Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments “Nina MacLaughlin stands shoulder to shoulder with such writers as José Emilio Pacheco and Fleur Jaeggy. In Winter Solstice we are invited into the impending dark, guided through our own, and in the end given just enough light to survive. MacLaughlin’s meditation is both universal and uncommonly distinct. An immense joy to read, Winter Solstice is not so much an essay as it is a vision.” —Matthew Dickman, author of Husbandry “Smart and lyrical—this book makes you feel alive.” —Nicholson Baker, author of The Anthologist

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Book SynopsisA gently powerful memoir about deepening your relationship with your homeland. For the first time in more than twenty-five years, Greg Sarris—whose novels are esteemed alongside those of Louise Erdrich and Stephen Graham Jones—presents a book about his own life. In Becoming Story he asks: What does it mean to be truly connected to the place you call home—to walk where innumerable generations of your ancestors have walked? And what does it mean when you dedicate your life to making that connection even deeper? Moving between his childhood and the present day, Sarris creates a kaleidoscopic narrative about the forces that shaped his early years and his eventual work as a tribal leader. He considers the deep past, historical traumas, and possible futures of his homeland. His acclaimed storytelling skills are in top form here, and he charts his journey in prose that is humorous, searching, and profound. Described as "jewellike" by the San Francisco Chronicle, Becoming Story is also a gently powerful guide in the art of belonging to the place where you live.Trade Review"Sarris recounts the hard-won knowledge of Coast Miwok, Pomo, and other Indigenous peoples. He also imagines a possible future in which at least some Native lands are restored to their pre-contact health and serve as models for what the world might learn from Indigenous peoples, if it’s not too late to put such lessons to use."—M.T. Hartnell, Alta"A fascinating and evocative memoir in essays."—Kirkus, starred review"Sarris gathers from gossip, myth, dreams and science to investigate the imperishable power of story itself and how it helps us locate and claim a sense of home. … In clean, thoughtful prose with jewellike detail—whether pondering Yosemite, his childhood babysitter, a secret cave or the oak tree outside his house—these meditations enchant."—Joan Frank, San Francisco Chronicle"Greg Sarris’s Becoming Story is a thoughtful, poignant collection of essays that feels at once inevitable and serendipitous. Sarris, an accomplished writer […] is exactly the person one would expect to produce such an intimate reflection of modern Native American life, and to reveal the delicate interconnections between his personal story, the story of his people, and the places that have shaped those people since time immemorial."—Rain Taxi"Greg Sarris's resonant memoir explores identities, heritages, and the legacies of places. … The book details California's troubled history of European conquest, Manifest Destiny, and the suppression and subversion of Indigenous ways of life. It laments that the state's mystical, resourceful Indigenous cultures were invaded by Spanish rancheros in the 1800s, after which California's environmental harmony began to suffer. … Testifying to the impacts of people on the land, the powerful memoir Becoming Story lauds the power of language when it comes to leaving tracks for others to follow."—Foreword Reviews"In this powerful memoir-in-essays, Greg Sarris explores questions about home, connection, and belonging in vivid prose that is both humorous and profound."—Laura Schmitt, Electric Literature"Like Oakland author Tommy Orange, Sarris has portrayed Native American life in a non-romantic, realistic way in his past work. Becoming Story maintains this, but also takes on a more dreamlike quality, as Sarris evokes memories from his past and incorporates landscape, weaving them into a whole narrative."—Kary Hess, The Bohemian"In Sarris's latest work, Becoming Story, he invites us into an intimate and communal California Indian world. Part memoir, part history, part ethnography, the work has echoes of Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain. He shares, with refreshing honesty, his family roots—their depths and dislocations, as well as the their strong sinews that the forces of settler colonialism and American genocide could not sever. His narrative reminds us that the roots of our tribal identities "remember" and, ultimately, restore(y) us."—Theresa Gregor, Asst. Prof of American Indian Studies at Cal State University, Long Beach"Sarris’ Northern California landscapes are sacred texts, peopled with elk, pronghorn, osprey, and lizards. Traversing different lives, Becoming Story is a heartfelt contemplation of one man’s decades-long journey of returning home."—San Francisco Book ReviewTable of ContentsContents Seasons Frost Iris Osprey Scar Places Fidel’s Place Bluebelly The Charms of Tolay Lake Regional Park Osprey Talks to Me One Day After the Fall Trees The Ancient Ones If Oprah Were an Oak Tree Ancestors The Last Woman from Petaluma Maria Evangeliste Acknowledgments About the Author

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Book SynopsisWhere there are pigeons, there is resistance. Forget everything you think you know about nature. Fahim Amir’s award-winning book takes pure delight in posing unexpected questions: Are animals victims of human domination, or heroes of resistance? Is nature pristine and defenceless, or sentient and devious? Is being human really a prerequisite for being political? In a world where birds on Viagra punch above their weight and termites hijack the heating systems of major cities, animals can be recast as vigilantes, agitators, and public enemies in their own right. Under Amir’s magic spell, pigs transform from slaughterhouse innocents into rioting revolutionaries, pigeons from urban pests into unruly militants, honeybees from virtuous fuzzballs into shameless centrefold models for eco-capitalism. As paws, claws, talons, and hooves seize the means of production, Being and Swine spirals higher and higher into a heady thesis that becomes more convincing by the minute. At the heart of Amir’s writing is a deep optimism and bracingly fresh reading of Marxist, post-colonial, and feminist theory, building upon the radical scholarship of Donna J. Haraway and others. Contrarian, whip-smart, and wildly innovative, no other book will laugh at your convictions quite like this one.

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Book SynopsisA NEW YORK TIMES NEW & NOTEWORTHY BOOK Good bookshops are questions without answers. They are places that provoke you intellectually, encode riddles, surprise and offer challenges … A pleasing labyrinth where you can’t get lost: that comes later, at home, when you immerse yourself in the books you have bought; lose yourself in new questions, knowing you will find answers. Picking up where the widely praised Bookshops: A Reader’s History left off, Against Amazon and Other Essays explores the increasing pressures of Amazon and other new technologies on bookshops and libraries. In essays on these vital social, cultural, and intellectual spaces, Jorge Carrión travels from London to Geneva, from Miami’s Little Havana to Argentina, from his own well-loved childhood library to the rosewood shelves of Jules Verne’s Nautilus and the innovative spaces that characterize South Korea’s bookshop renaissance. Including interviews with writers and librarians—including Alberto Manguel, Iain Sinclair, Luigi Amara, and Han Kang, among others—Against Amazon is equal parts a celebration of books and bookshops, an autobiography of a reader, a travelogue, a love letter—and, most urgently, a manifesto against the corrosive influence of late capitalism.Trade ReviewPraise for Against Amazon and Other Essays “This is just the sort of book that bibliophiles—to say nothing of bibliomaniacs—will enjoy ... A subtle pleasure for lovers of the printed word, even if they order books from the leviathan.”—Kirkus Reviews “Against Amazon is an optimistic overall take on books, reading and retailing and an attempt to avoid ending up knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.”—Winnipeg Free Press Praise for Jorge Carrión’s Bookshops: A Reader’s History “The perfect merging of love of travel and literature.”—Buzzfeed “[Carrión’s] purpose is to celebrate bookstores. And he does so by wandering the globe in search of those that play—or have played—a special role in the intellectual and social lives of their communities. They become Carrión’s personal mappa mundi.”—New York Times “‘Every bookshop is a condensed version of the world,’ begins Mr. Carrión’s literary and unabashedly sentimental exploration of bookstores around the globe . . . [Carrion] wanders through volume-laden aisles in Athens, Paris, Bratislava, Budapest, Tangier and Sydney, and invokes many other shops, both open and closed, telling stories about writers, readers and literary circles . . . By the end, you may feel poorly read—but well armed with titles and bookshops to visit on your own.”—Wall Street Journal “Carrión explores the fine lines between pilgrimage destination, touristy gimmick, and decent bookshop. This is the perfect book for those who feel compelled to visit every bookstore they see.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Excellent . . . entertaining . . . this quietly intelligent little book speaks volumes.”—Michael Dirda, Washington Post “Sublimely entrancing . . . brilliant . . . [Carrión’s] Borgesian book—it can be opened at any point and read forward, or backwards for that matter—is not at all sad. To read is to travel in time and space, and to travel from bookshop to bookshop is an ecstatic experience for Carrión, a joy he conveys page after page.”— Maclean’s

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Book SynopsisA haunting homage to life and liberty, to society and solitude, and to the binding and unbinding that constitute the weft of our lives. Drawing on materials from across many cultures, Pascal Quignard makes an effort to establish shared human values as the breeding ground for a modern Enlightenment. Considering atheism as a spiritual liberation, suicide as a free act, and the rejection of society as a free choice, the author explores philosophical themes that have run through human civilizationsmost often as heresiesfrom our earliest days. In his search for freedom, Quignard questions the binding dependency of religion, querying how, in a world where all forms of society presuppose that someone (or some collective) is looking over our shoulders, we can be free. These reflections, he implies, are the essential spiritual exercise for our times. Few voices in contemporary French literature are more distinct than that of Quignard. By reading this fragmentary, episodic assemblage of intimate experiences and borrowed tales, we open up a space of liberty, creating for the reader space for meditation and, perhaps, liberation.

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Book SynopsisAs I step out of the conservatory facing North, supported by my pusher, the first that catches my eye is the dying Sycamore which escapes death every year by producing a healthy crop of leaves, but it looks so decrepit that surely it can't pull that trick yet again. -1 April, 2020 In his eighty-eighth year, John Boorman uses his time in lockdown to reflect on the splendour of the surrounding nature of County Wicklow. Coccooning with his daughter and son among the hills of Annamoe, Boorman chronicles his daily walks and observations of the trees on his estate, writing with heightened appreciation of the beauties of his eyrie using only one eye and one finger. Poetry flows from his pen as he sits chairbound among his trees and flora: sycamores, limes, beech, oak, redwood, shrubs and flowers, birdsong and shifting skies are luminously recorded as the world falls silent. With illustrations by Susan Morley, this slim but meditative volume is a remarkable narrative by the creator of The Emerald Forest, Excalibur and Deliverance - a swansong like no other.Trade ReviewReading each entry, a meditative calm descends, and I can almost feel the bark of the twin oak he so lovingly strokes when he visits it, as if greeting an old friend, before sitting on the bench beneath to drift in and out of ruminations and dreaming. -- Susan McKeever * Books Ireland *Reading each entry, a meditative calm descends, and I can almost feel the bark of the twin oak he so lovingly strokes when he visits it, as if greeting an old friend, before sitting on the bench beneath to drift in and out of ruminations and dreaming. -- Susan McKeever * Books Ireland *Delicate, insightful, rich and meditative. -- Hilary A. White * The Independent *

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Book SynopsisArt honours the world, and criticism honours art, even – perhaps especially – when the critic sets out to destroy. The bad review is hardly ever written out of mere spite. In most cases, the motivation is disappointed idealism. Critics are people who love art and who hate to see it traduced. Hence the critic’s sempiternal cry: You’re doing it wrong. What the critic wants is for you to do it better. Since 2008, acclaimed novelist Kevin Power has reviewed almost three hundred and fifty books. Power declares, ‘Even now, cracking open a brand-new hardback with my pencil in my hand, I feel the same pleasure, and the same hope. That’s the great secret: every critic is an optimist at heart.’ Art that thinks and feels at the same time – ‘good art’ – requires explication. The writing of criticism in response to such art is an activity that has taken place since Aristotle first sat down to figure out what made tragedy work. It is in the pursuit of this question – what makes good art ‘good’ – that Kevin Power found his vocation. During a ten-year stint as a regular freelance reviewer for the Sunday Business Post, Power fell in love with the writing of criticism, and with the reading of it, too, particularly by talented novelists who review books on the side. His conclusion is that criticism is absolutely an art. But it is never more so than when practiced by an actual artist. These pieces, ranging from reviews of Susan Sontag to the meaning of Greta Thunberg, apocalyptic politics, and literary theory, represent a decade’s worth of thinking about books; a record of the author’s attempts to honour art, and through art, the world. In The Written World, Power explains how he became a critic and what he thinks criticism is. It begins and ends with a long personal essays, ‘The Lost Decade’, written especially for this collection, about his mental and writing block after publishing Bad Day in Blackrock and his decade-long journey to White City. The pieces gathered by Power are connected by a theme – this is a book about writing, seen from various positions, and about growth as an artist and a critic.Trade ReviewPower is a writer's writer, and this collection of essays and reviews captures his sharp wit and incisive, fair critical eye like no other Dubray Staff Choice (Luke – Dubray Grafton Street, Dublin)Hot Press Book of the Year a remarkably perceptive literary critic and essayist ... The Written World is a testament to Power’s well-deserved status as one of Ireland’s most reliably engaging writers. Oh, and did I mention he’s often hilarious, too? Luke Warde Totally DublinEvery essay here is a pleasure to read ... The light touch with which Power deploys his wide and deep reading is illustrated by his extensive quotation, from the Roman dramatist Terence to Hannibal Lecter. It is a masterclass in and of itself ... his book is metropolitan and cosmopolitan in word and spirit, enlightening and amusing, and across its pages art is happening too. Tom Hennigan, Dublin Review of BooksIn this smart and funny collection of essays and reviews, Kevin Power doles out praise but isn’t afraid to put the boot in ... It should come as no surprise to anyone who has read either of his novels to hear that Power the critic embodies all these qualities — intelligence, good taste, humour and common sense — and that The Written World is criticism worth reading, for enjoyment above any other consideration. Pat Carty, Irish Independent [The Written World] contain[s] essays on criticism itself, authors and their work, society and crises. All are delivered in beautifully wrought sentences, along with a healthy dose of Power's own personal thoughts and experiences ... a joy to read ... His warmth, humour, humanity and intellectual rigour should ensure that this collection finds its place not just on the dusty bookshelves of Trinity College's English Department – but also in the hands of ordinary readers on the 46A bus. Sunday Business PostPrefaced by an unsettlingly frank account of artistic and personal breakdown after the success of his first novel, this glorious collection follows the triumphant publication last year of his second. It marks Power as one of the best, a writer to depend upon. I will read every word he writes. Sunday IndependentHis book reviews are zingy and readable, with a knack for a killer opening ... tremendous fun. Irish Timessearingly honest ... the depth and breadth of Power's scholarship is immense, but it's the fluency and grace of his pen that keeps you reading, even when you disagree with him ... he is one of the country's brightest literary stars. Anne Cunnigham, Meath ChronicleIn prose that glistens with style and intelligence, Power draws on the breadth of his reading and elegantly marshals his arguments … At his best, he proves as adept and illuminating guide through the world of literary criticism. Brendan Daly, Irish ExaminerPower’s logic, his thought-processes, are in general as sumptuously balanced as his sentences, which manage to accommodate some unsettled and unsettling issues without knocking a single word out of place. His piece on Literary Theory (vs. Liberal Humanism) is a masterclass of intellectual poise … [He is] a critic of high integrity. Harry Cochrane, The London MagazineHe delivers punchy, witty and considered opinions on an array of subjects from Greta Thunberg to Norman Mailer. The opening essay on failure, a meditation (sharing personal experience) on how it is hardwired into a writer’s life, should be mandatory reading for anyone hoping to be published. Martina Devlin, Irish IndependentIrish Independent Best Book of 2022Reviewing books at the same time as [Kevin Power] is a very frustrating business because he’s so bloody good at it. Pat Carty, Hot Press

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Book SynopsisRichard Sennett has spent an intellectual lifetime exploring how humans live in cities. In this pair of essays he visits two of the world's greatest cities at crucial moments in their history to meditate on the condition of exile in both geographical and psychic space: the Jewish Ghetto of Renaissance Venice, where state-imposed outsiderdom was translated into a rich community identity; and nineteenth-century Paris, a magnet for political exiles, where the experience of displacement seeped into the city's culture at large.

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Book SynopsisThe lives of people both famous and obscure are filled with moments when their dirty laundry sees daylight. At such times we witness the reversibility of success, of prominence, but also come to terms viscerally with our own most vulnerable selves. We cannot stop watching the scene of shame, identifying with it, absorbing its nearness, relishing our immunity, even as we acknowledge the universality of the human stain, the uneasy predicament of living in our own bodies -

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Book SynopsisThrough interviews conducted with surviving members of Soviet orchestras, through his reading of philosophers, psychoanalysts, and neurologists, Johnson paints a compelling picture of one man's music and its power to validate and sustain another man's life.Trade Review'How Shostakovich Changed My Mind' is one of the most powerful, honest, and profound revelations that exists on what it is that music means and does: it's just an essential document.' - Tom Service, Presenter, Music Matters; '... an intensely readable, highly personal analysis of the major works of a composer, who, Mr. Johnson decides, has recorded a collective experience for an all-inclusive listenership....All great music teeters the edge of madness. This troubled writer makes a convincing case that the music of Dmitri Shostakovich helped to save his mind. In life's crises, he suggests, each of us comes up against an internal siege of Leningrad, and music comes to your relief.' Norman Lebrecht, The Wall Street Journal; 'For Radio 3 presenter and journalist, Stephen Johnson, Shostakovich's music is nothing less than a matter of life and death. Johnson, a tireless and passionate advocate of the man and his works, explores how the fraught music of Shostakovich shepherded the Soviet Union through the dark times of Stalin and the Great Patriotic War - and also helped to pull Johnson, suffering from clinical depression, out of the suicidal depths of despair.' Classical Music Magazine;

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Book SynopsisLees draws on Burroughs' search for an addiction cure to discover a ground-breaking treatment for shaking palsy, and learns how to use the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes to diagnose patients. Lees follows Burroughs into the rainforest and under the influence of yage (ayahuasca) gains insights that encourage him to pursue new lines of pharmacological research and explore new forms of science.Trade Review“Lees takes the reader on an extraordinary journey inside and outside the brain. His deep humanity and honesty shines throughout. The inevitable comparison with the late, great Oliver Sacks is entirely just.” —Raymond Tallis “[Lees’s] book is not just a wonderfully unexpected addition to the Burroughs literature, but an important polemic for more humane and imaginative medical research.” —Phil Baker, The Times Literary Supplement "It is hard to believe that this extraordinary memoir is not fiction, but every word turns out to be rooted in hospital life and literary experience. Andrew Lees is an internationally distinguished neurologist, Britain’s leading Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s expert. Mentored By a Madman is both an exotic memoir and a passionate appeal for a more humane approach to bio-medical research. In associating himself with Burroughs, Professor Lees is arguing that potential breakthroughs in the treatment of neuro-degenerative diseases are most likely to come from a relaxation of the stringent controls surrounding the profession.” —Robert McCrum, The Observer "Yes, do read this book to discover how William S. Burroughs inspired a professional lifetime of brilliant medical research. But read it as well, perhaps even more so, to be reminded of what genuine medical care can and should be…No technical knowledge is required to profit from this marvellous book.” —Canadian Bulletin of Medical History "Mentored by a Madman is the story of Andrew Lees' uncommon career in neurology, with his many scientific insights into movement disorders, his rapport with the past, and his talent for literary expression. Creative inspiration in neuroscience, Lees tells us, can come from unlikely sources—the notebooks of Richard Spruce, great 19th-century botanical explorer of Brazil; and Burroughs, the maverick interpreter of drug experience. There are parallels with the writings of Oliver Sacks, especially when patients enter the narrative. To a greater degree, though, this book inhabits the neurologist's inner world—observing, attending to detail, engaged in detective work." —Peter A. Kempster, Neurology "Mentored by a Madman is an original and interesting book from one of the world's leading experts in the field of movement disorders...The beautiful prose and original contents suggest comparisons with the writings of authors of the calibre of Arthur Conan Doyle, Aldous Huxley, and Oliver Sacks...Surely this is the kind of book that curious readers who are used to thinking outside the box enjoy the most." —The British Journal of Psychiatry "This book encourages us to keep an open mind and to explore both sides of the path…We would recommend the book as an enjoyable reminder of why we practice medicine, why clinical research and medicine complement each other so well, and as a reflection on the endless and fascinating variation of human experience.” —Practical Neurology (UK) "Andrew Lees has written a fascinating and provocative memoir.”— Jon Palfreman, Journal of Parkinson’s Disease “This book is highly recommended to anyone who wants to reimagine the magic of neurology, science, life, the universe and everything." —Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry "A.J. Lees' Mentored by a Madman is a kaleidoscopic mix of his experiences as a neurologist, his private passions and how they have informed his career, as well as his thoughts regarding some of the bureaucracy that limits research and medical practice today. What gives this book such a unique perspective is the part played by the titular 'madman'...It is a rare thing to find a book with such a unique perspective and accompanying content; however, this is exactly what Mentored by a Madman provides...The book is also reminiscent in some ways of the literary work of Oliver Sacks...As well as a personal account of Lees' experiences, this book also serves as a call for more open-mindedness and freedom in our exploration of medical science." —The Lancet

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Book SynopsisThe best fishing writing is never really about fishing, or never only about fishing, and the writers collected in A Twitch Upon the Thread use angling as a way to write about love, loss, faith, and obsession. This is an anthology of fishing writing ranging from medieval times to the present, taking the reader from riverbank to open ocean, from England to New Zealand, from the shore to the depths. Read it and be hooked. Included are contributions from Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Ota Pavel, Arthur Ransome, George Orwell, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and dozens more.Trade Review"This pocket-sized book is perfect for taking with you to read on the riverbank. Jon Day has compiled some of the best fishing writing from the medieval to the present day, and it is presented in a beautiful, cloth-covered volume, enhanced by elegant typesetting." —Alexandra Henton, The Field Magazine "[A] lovely little anthology of writing on the idle pleasure of fishing." —The Idler

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Book Synopsis"I wrote five days a week for a year, no more than a page, writing only for the length of the analytic hour, fifty minutes, following Freud's model of train travel for his theory of free association, acting 'as though, for instance, [you were] a traveller sitting next to the window of a railway carriage and describing to someone inside the carriage the changing views [...] outside'. Many of my women character's names begin with A: their first names; there are few surnames, save those of the secondary male characters. . Some of these women exist or existed, others are from fiction, or write fiction. Some are friends or acquaintances. None are credited but a keen reader could recognise many of them. I invented nothing. I am the aleph."Trade Review"Sharon Kivland is a phenomenal writer, thinker and artist." Ali Smith

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Book SynopsisThis collection brings together leading voices from female writers, artists, commentators and academics to reflect on how devolution has affected them and altered our political and social landscapes. Here,a series of creative and personal responses explore the true impact of devolution on the lives of women living and working in Wales.

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Book SynopsisI awoke from a deep sleep I had taken under the shade of a tree in a field at the outskirts of a dark wood, without remembering how I had gotten there, or, indeed, where it was exactly, I had gotten.'So begins a most unusual odyssey, in which a writer who bears a striking similarity to our author, Gary Raymond allows himself to be led through the many-layered realms of Welsh literature, not by Virgil but by the late Professor Raymond Williams. Taking in the history of Welsh writing in English from the legacy of the bardic tradition to contemporary experimental works, Abandon All Hope introduces Welsh literature in a way it has never been presented before as cutting edge, experimental, vibrant, exciting, intimate, and with a multitude of voices. This voyage into a uniquely Welsh Inferno offers a revolutionary new way to examine and explain literary history, traversing elements of chronology and genre, in a wide-ranging and, above all, highly entertaining manifesto for a new percept

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Book SynopsisThe first English collection of Cros' writings: from treatises on interplanetary communication to a sardonic science of seductionAn indefinable polymath of fin de siècle Paris, Charles Cros made work that was simultaneously grounded in literature and science. The Science of Love and Other Writings brings together for the first time in English all of his literary prose. The collection includes proto-science-fiction stories; prose poems; an essay on methods of communication with other planets; and the patent application written with his brother for a (never-built) notating keyboard. The literary imagination Cros was able to bring into the field of science was matched by the humorous scientific sobriety he introduced into his literature, which he did nowhere so effectively as in the title piece, The Science of Love: depicting a young scientist's painstakingly executed seduction of a woman for the sake of scientific analysis. Also included are stories such

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Book SynopsisThis amazingly wise and nimble collection investigates the horrors inflicted on so-called “witches” of the past. The Witch of Eye unearths salves, potions, and spells meant to heal, yet interpreted by inquisitors as evidence of evil. The author describes torture and forced confessions alongside accounts of gentleness of legendary midwives. In one essay about a trial, we learn through folklore that Jesus’s mother was a midwife who cured her own son’s rheumatism. In other essays there are subtle parallels to contemporary discourse around abortion and environmental destruction. Nuernberger weaves in her own experiences, too. There’s an ironic look at her own wedding, an uncomfortable visit to the Prague Museum of Torture, and an afternoon spent tearing out a garden in a mercurial fit. Her researched material is eye-opening, lively, and often funny. An absolutely thrilling collection.Trade ReviewReading Group Choices, Most Read Books from RGC 2021 Reading Group Choices 2021 Official Selection 2021 Foreword INDIES Finalist for Essays Publishers Weekly, "Books for Short Attention Spans 2021" Entropy, “Best of 2020-2021: Nonfiction Books” The Rumpus, “What to Read When You Want to Celebrate Women’s History” The Rumpus, “What to Read When 2021 Is Just Around the Corner” The Week, "Megan Giddings' 6 Favorite Magical Books" "Part memoir, part cultural criticism, entirely fascinating." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Drawing connections to contemporary social justice issues, philosophy, and feminism, poet and essayist Nuernberger relates a social history of so-called witches across centuries and the globe. In brief, lyrical retellings, she profiles women including Walpurga Hausmännin, a midwife executed for witchcraft in 16th-century Bavaria, and Maria Gonçalves Cajada, convicted of sorcery in 17th-century colonial Brazil. Their stories become a lens on Nuernberger’s own experiences, whether as simple as a walk in the forest, as disturbing as a visit to the Prague Museum of Torture, or as personal as her wedding." —“Books for Short Attention Spans 2021,” Publishers Weekly "This book is a social history, threaded through with folklore, mythology, current events, and glimpses into the author's own marriage. It is a poetic and hypnotic trance of a read." —Booklist "The Witch of Eye turns its gaze on the witches of history and the multiplicity of narratives about their experiences which nearly always drained into one gutter: the official witch trial court transcriptions. Kathryn Nuernberger reminds us that the women’s forced confessions and shouted-down explanations have become the only 'historical' records, but in refusing to accept the voice of a predominantly white male justice system as the singular truth, Nuernberger uses her own experiences—along with contemporary court cases—to offer a voice to those women who also longed to deface the historical record but were not permitted to speak." —"7 Experimental Books Reshaping Historical Narratives," Electric Literature "This is quintessential reading not just for the wannabe witches among us, but for its nuanced telling of a cruel and silenced history. A compendium of pungent and poignant biographical narratives of numerous so-called witches, The Witch of Eye is difficult to put down. Nuernberger deftly weaves memoir with well-researched material to create a fascinating, idiosyncratic intellectual history, plucked from the annals of science, medicine, theology, and feminist and critical theory. . . .you must read The Witch of Eye slowly and with astonishment, not unlike the way you witness the work of a camera placed next to a bud that slowly and inexplicably blossoms before your eyes." —"LANGUAGE IS THE SPELL: KATHRYN NUERNBERGER’S THE WITCH OF EYE," The Rumpus "The breadth of [The Witch of Eye's] exploration is made possible in part due to Nuernberger’s nimble, probing thought, which propels this book as it visits both reality and unreality. Her propensity to question given truths foregrounds the book with wonder as Nuernberger identifies with history’s reported 'witches' for the potential she sees in their alternate, subjective, previously unspoken narratives. Nuernberger’s The Witch of Eye cultivates a space of wonder, a mystical space in which one may co-author reality alongside myth, science, religion, justice, and witchcraft—a space to ponder the well-kept secrets of humanity." —Southeast Review, online "Kathryn Nuernberger's essay collection The Witch of Eye delves into lives both past and present with amazing clarity to share their truths." —Largehearted Boy, online "Meticulously researched." —Monitor Saint Paul, online and print "These essays are rich, dense with information and images, and yet so clear-eyed in their focus and project. Like the hagstones—the naturally-occurring stones with holes, the 'stone monocle' she describes in 'The Eye of the Hagstone'—'they can help you see what is real.'" —Brevity "A beautifully written blend of poetry, nonfiction, and research." —"Megan Giddings' 6 Favorite Magical Books," The Week "The Witch of Eye is a stunning book of essays, at turns contemplative, and vehement in its insistence that we not look away from not only our history, but who we as a society still are today." —Mom Egg Review, online and print "The essays accomplish what essays do best. They dive into these lives to see what the past can reveal about us and our world today. Or as the author says: 'I wonder about … what in each of us is a little bit witch.'" —Reading Group Choices blog “Kathryn Nuernberger is the witch of seeing clearly and telling all the truths at once. Her searing, all-seeing EYE casts a brilliant spell of honesty and power. In language ranging from the meditative to the brutally funny. Nuernberger stitches histories and hexes together, elegantly tracing the threads between how we talk about violence, nature, industry, and culture. This is a collection of wild and astonishing scope—excavating the past in ways that are entirely modern and necessary.” —V. V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage “A magnificent book, full of incidental pleasures, and incidental terrors, and fundamental truths. Nuernberger writes like a Baudelaire who instead of walking across a city can walk across time.” —Rivka Galchen, author of Little Labors “Seething with the historical, the scholarly, and the personal, The Witch of Eye is an igneous cauldron for the witchiest of intellectuals and revolutionaries. Dip in a ladle and pull out the blistering truths of how women are seen, how women see themselves. Nuernberger has mixed this potion with the subtlety of Rachel Cusk and the sharpness of Ágota Kristóf, and the result is a twisting, profound, shape-shifting work of art, an incisive elixir to be consumed again and again.” —Sharma Shields, author of The Cassandra “Kathryn Nuernberger’s investigations of historic witch trials and their contemporary echoes perform linguistic sorcery. In Salem courtrooms and university Title IX panels, the essays in The Witch of Eye interrogate the interrogators, asking what cruelties we allow, revel in, mythologize, turn away from. They stay up late, parsing spells: a walk in the woods, a black toad hung up by its heels, lavender wine. What will make us whole? They root around in centuries of testimony, sorting truth from lies and bravery from cowardice, then haul out the necessary witch, the one we need for survival.” —Kim Todd, author of Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis

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Book SynopsisWhat does it mean to leave your country?Is it possible, by travelling to a New World, to become a new person?A year ago, Jonathan Raban crossed the Atlantic by ship and, like the immigrants before him, made for America. The first of four installments, 'New World' is the story of his journey, a journey in search of a new language, a new name, a new identity. A life.

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Book SynopsisVoltaire, Rousseau, Diderot—of the triumvirate that dominated French letters in the eighteenth century, Diderot was unmatched in the sheer breadth and depth of his interests and ideas. Rameau’s Nephew and D’Alembert’s Dream are dazzling exposés of Diderot’s radical scientific and philosophical thinking. Written in dialogue form, they were too outspoken to be published during the lifetime of one whose ideas earned him enemies as fast as they stimulated new criteria for social progress. Of the two pieces, Rameau’s Nephew was composed over many years, and in form and content it is an explosive cocktail unlike anything in French literature before or since. D’Alembert’s Dream, on the other hand, was committed to paper in a matter of days; a clarion call for the cause of materialist determinism, it too shows Diderot as one of the most advanced thinkers of his age and is a powerful testament to the bizarre and unpredictable genius of its creator.

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Book SynopsisA comprehensive anthology of Swift's writing, including The Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books, writing on politics, religion, and Ireland, as well as a generous selection from his correspondence. Formerly published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition 'a very good selection of Swift's writings' * Denis Donoghue, London Review of Books *

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Book SynopsisIn this funny and perceptive collection, novelist and essayist Robert Cohen shares his thoughts on the writing process and then puts these prescriptions into practice - from how to rant effectively as an essayist and novelist, how to achieve your own style, to the use of reference and allusion in one’s work.Table of Contents 1. The Uncertainty Principle 2. Emblem, Essence 3. The Piano Has Been Drinking 4. Elkin 5. Ain’t That Pretty at All, or Going to the Tigers 6. Refer Madness 7. Living, Loving, Temple-Going 8. A Maker of Mirrors 9. C. and Sardinia 10. Kafka’s Budget Guide to Florence 11. Invisible Ink: A Mystery

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Book SynopsisThis critical anthology of writings by Carlos Monsivais represents a foundational set of texts by an exceptional (yet under-translated) Mexican cultural critic. Fatefully, Faithfully Feminist situates the urgencies of social movements as they developed in real time. The essays span from 1973 to 2008 and analyze the role of women in a patriarchal culture from pre-Colombian times to the present. This critical edition offers extensive annotation and cultural background to understand the cogent, but particularly Mexican, arguments that MonsivÁis makes, many of which are extremely relevant in today's political economy in the U.S. and the world.Trade ReviewThe essays collected in [MisÓgino feminista] are . . . stunning for their style and expression, from a thinker who delves deep into the reality of Mexican society, particularly women's condition, through heartfelt feminist beliefs."——Magdalena Galindo, Debate Feminista"What I like most about this book is its unflagging appeal to intelligence from which it sustains its arguments that, coming from his pen, sounded unquestionable. Feminism, for MonsivÁis, wasn't just a political position. It was undeniable: a question of reason."— —Hortensia Moreno, Debate FeministaTable of Contents Introduction Notes on Translation Prologue by Marta Lamas (2013) Chapter 1. Dreamy, Flirty, And Fiery: Notes On Sexism In Mexican Literature (1973) Chapter 2. A Salute For The Optimist (1978) Chapter 3. But Were There Ever Really Eleven Thousand Machos (1982) Chapter 4. We Don't Want Mother's Day, We Want Revolution! On The New Feminism (1983) Chapter 5. Mexico's Young Women In The International Youth Year (1985) Chapter 6. On Constructing "Feminine Sensitivity" (1987) Chapter 7. Love On (The Eternal Eve Of An Impending ) Democracy (1990) Chapter 8. How One Day Pro-Life Woke Up To The News That They Were Living In A Secular Society (1991) Chapter 9. On Women's representation (1991) Chapter 10. A Crying Lesson (1992) Chapter 11. Let Us Now Praise (1994) Chapter 12. An Open Letter To Nancy CÁrdenas (1994) Chapter 13. The Fourth Papal Visit: The Spectacle Of Faith Fascinated By Its Own Spectacle (1999) Chapter 14. The Second Sex: One Is Not Born A Feminist (1999) Chapter 15. Women in Power (2000) Chapter 16. Bones In The Desert: Listening Through The Eyes Of The Dead Women (2003) Chapter 17. The Saintly, Long-Suffering Mother: The One Who Loved Mexican Cinema Before She Ever Saw It (2004) Chapter 18. Susan Sontag (1933-2004): Imagination and Historical Conscience (2005) Chapter 19. Mexico At The Dawn Of The 21st Century: Globalization, Determinism , and The Spread of Secularism (2006) Chapter 20. Frida Kahlo: The Stages Of Her Renown (2008) Appendix: Bibliography Of Carlos MonsivÁis's Writings In English Translation In Chronological Order

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Book SynopsisThoughtful commentary on a range of subjects from a noted attorney.

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Book SynopsisThe selected essays of James Wood - our greatest living literary critic and author of How Fiction Works'James Wood is a close reader of genius... By turns luscious and muscular, committed and disdaining, passionate and minutely considered' John BanvilleJames Wood is one of the leading critics of the age, and here, for the first time, are his selected essays. From the career-defining 'Hysterical Realism' to his more personal reflections on family, religion and sensibility, Serious Noticing offers a comprehensive overview of his writing over the last twenty years. These essays offer more than a viewpoint - they show how to bring the eye of critical reading to life as a whole.'James Wood is one of literature’s true lovers, and his deeply felt, contentious essays are thrilling in their reach and moral seriousness' Susan SontagTrade ReviewIn the unspooling sentences and paragraphs of the many fine and often seriously dandy essays that follow in this collection . . . Wood shows himself a maestro of tone and inflection. His sustained close attention as he interrogates the writers he loves is genuinely something to behold -- Tim Adams * Observer *The two voices mingling in this collection give a beautiful, moving sense of the stakes of criticism as Wood has practiced it, vigorously, without interruption for 30 years... No modern critic has exerted comparable influence in how we read . . . Wood writes as if enmeshed in the text itself; registering shifts in point of view and perspective with seismographic precision -- Parul Sehgal * The New York Times Book Review *James Wood is one of literature’s true lovers, and his deeply felt, contentious essays are thrilling in their reach and moral seriousness -- Susan SontagLike all good critics, James Wood is a story-teller of the art of reading, recreating the experience on the page for us’ -- Francis SpuffordCritics like James Wood not only help readers to read but especially, perhaps, help the author as well -- Elena FerranteJames Wood is a close reader of genius... By turns luscious and muscular, committed and disdaining, passionate and minutely considered -- John BanvilleThe most urgent and morally demanding critic around -- GuardianAn authentic literary critic, very rare in this bad time… Wood is always urgent, lucid, and interesting -- Harold BloomWood writes more incisively than almost anyone producing criticism today. His ability to transform complex, anxious thought into lucid, exciting prose is everywhere present -- Janet MalcolmJames Wood has been called our best young critic. This is not true. He is our best critic; he thinks with a sublime ferocity… To enter Wood’s mind is to cross a threshold: from the reviewer commonplaces that pass for essay-writing into the intellectual daring that portends literary permanence -- Cynthia Ozick

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Book SynopsisOscar Wilde's early fame ensured that throughout his short life he was written about by many of those he met. He was celebrated - or mocked - as the master of the ingenious epigram, the provocative paradox, the witty aside or the extravagant conceit. In researching his monumental biography of Wilde Matthew Sturgis found, in every major archive, sheets of foolscap in Wilde's distinctive handwriting, setting down a series of unfamiliar epigrams - unpublished try-outs. There were fascinating new discoveries. He uncovered dozens of unfamiliar and previously ungathered anecdotes about Wilde: sidelights on his days in Oxford, London, America and Paris and beyond, by society hostesses, men-about-town, actors, lawyers, minor litterateurs, artists and politicians, diligently setting down his actions, his mannerisms and above all his sayings.The items in this volume are all small additions to the Wilde story: some unfamiliar, others unexpected, they enrich and alter the picture of his life.Trade ReviewWildeana is an intriguing, entertaining miscellany of recollections, letters, descriptions, skits, about Oscar Wilde by his contemporaries, as well as scraps of his own writing. An enlightening collection, perfect for dipping into, for Oscar Wilde fans and newcomers alike. * Tatler (Autumn books roundup) *

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Book SynopsisThe Walled Garden is a unique collection of short essays addressing a wide variety of subjects. From an exploration of the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Federico Fellini to an update on the linguistic theories of Ernest Fenollosa, from a look into the true nature of time and the present moment to a discussion of 'psychic birthplaces', from reflections on Paleolithic caves, poetry and art, The Walled Garden includes the wild, the tamed and the stunningly unusual.

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Book SynopsisThere are few writers about whom opinions diverge so widely as Anthony Powell, whose Dance to the Music of Time sequence is one of the most ambitious literary constructions in the English language. In Different Speeds, Same Furies, Perry Anderson measures Powell's achievement against Marcel Proust's celebrated In Search of Lost Time.The literature on Dance is a drop in the ocean compared to that on Proust. Yet in construction of plot and depiction of character, Anderson ranks Powell above him. How much do particular advantages of this kind matter, and why is Powell an odd man out in English letters? At once so similar and dissimilar, the intricate retrospectives of the two novelists on bohemia and Society, upbringing and mortality, relationships and personality, invite interrelated judgements. The closing chapters of Different Speeds, Same Furies reach beyond their handlings of time to chart the historical novel from Waverley to Underworld, and the breakthrough in epistolatory fiction of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, held together by what its author described as 'a secret chain which remains, as it were, invisible'.Trade ReviewIt is Perry Anderson's achievement that stimulated me to have another go at Proust, even while his original criticism of Anthony Powell was instrumental in provoking yet one more reading of A Dance to the Music of Time. -- William H. Pritchard * Wall Street Journal *

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Book SynopsisFollowing the critical and commercial success of A Literary Tour of Italy, acclaimed novelist Tim Parks presents a new selection of his latest essays on Italian literature, offering a lively, accessible and stimulating diorama of the cultural landscape of Italy.Containing pieces on major figures such as Dante, Machiavelli, Leopardi and Manzoni, as well as articles on some of Italy's best-known modern authors from Pirandello and Pavese to Pasolini, Levi and Calvino, through to more recent writers such as Camilleri, Saviano and Ferrante this book will delight and interest any lover of Italian culture, and confirms Tim Parks as one of the finest and most perceptive essay writers of his generation.

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Book SynopsisRecounting the final days of Arthur, this thirteenth-century French version of the Camelot legend, written by an unknown author, is set in a world of fading chivalric glory. It depicts the Round Table diminished in strength after the Quest for the Holy Grail, and with its integrity threatened by the weakness of Arthur''s own knights. Whispers of Queen Guinevere''s infidelity with his beloved comrade-at-arms Sir Lancelot profoundly distress the trusting King, leaving him no match for the machinations of the treacherous Sir Mordred. The human tragedy of The Death of King Arthur so impressed Malory that he built his own Arthurian legend on this view of the court - a view that profoundly influenced the English conception of the ''great'' King. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout

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Book SynopsisJ.G.Ballard is the author of the novels Crash, Empire of the Sun and Rushing to Paradise. Throughout his career he has also been a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers. This book collects together pieces of his journalism, grouped under themes including science and film.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"A significant collection of Latine women voices across five centuries.… Guzmán succeeds in her presentation of 'a luminous universe of texts that navigate across time and space, genre, styles, and traditions,' and the book does indeed contain 'the wisdom, memory, and DNA, or oral traditions more ancient than time itself.'… A fresh, indispensable look at the wide, multicultural world of Latine women writers." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Book SynopsisAn expansive collection of texts providing insight into the inner life, creativity, and practice of the innovative American artist Anne TruittTrade Review“Anne Truitt has been my lodestar throughout my life as a writer. To hear her voice once more in this exquisite selection of her personal writings is a gift beyond measure. Truitt’s searching intellect, wise heart, and disciplined attention to her own artistic sensitivities are profoundly instructive. This book will interest Truitt scholars and art historians, to be sure, but it really should be required reading for anyone embarking on a creative life.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance“A precedent without peer and an archival treasure, Always Reaching presents the writing and thinking of someone deeply engaged in the art world of her time.”—Suzanne Hudson, University of Southern California

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Book SynopsisPhilip Larkin''s Required Writing, a selection from his miscellaneous prose from 1953-82, was highly praised and enjoyed when it appeared in 1983. Further Requirements gathers together many other interviews, broadcasts, statements and reviews. Some of them date from the period after he had chosen the contents of Required Writing; others come from obscure publications, including some early pieces. This second edition of Further Requirements includes two more essays by Larkin: ''Operation Manuscript'' and his Introduction to Earth Memories by Llewelyn Powys.

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Book Synopsis'Peerless.' Daily Telegraph 'Sprinkled with magic.' Observer'Full of mischief, romance, fun and kindness.' The TimesSoldier, journalist, historian, author of forty books, Jan Morris led an extraordinary life, witnessing such seminal moments as the first ascent of Everest, the Suez Canal Crisis, the Eichmann Trial, the Cuban Revolution and so much more.From reflections on identity and nations to the importance of good marmalade, Allegorizings is the final despatch from one of the greatest chroniclers of the twentieth century.'A precious few [writers] report with wisdom, kindness and intelligence from the end to which we shall all come - travel of a different kind. This is such a book.' Sarah Moss, New York Times'She was one of the most extraordinary people I ever had the luck to meet. Please read her.' Robert MacFarlane

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Book SynopsisThis collection of occasional writing ''reveals a consistency, a subtlety, a creativeness springing from tradition . . . For David Jones every sentence is wrought with artistry; and as compared with the arid conceptual approach of so much academic criticism, his imaginative testing and touching of every theme is nothing less than life-giving.' Kathleen Raine, New StatesmanWritten between the late 1930s and the late 1950s, Epoch and Artist represents those essays that David Jones wished to see preserved in his lifetime. Beginning with his most personal reflections upon Welsh culture, the selection turns next to Jones's thoughts on the position of art and the artist in the twentieth century, concluding with writings on the nature of epoch and European culture and history. As unclassifiable' as his other writings, the volume encompasses a mixture of styles and modes from prose-essays and reviews, to radio broadcasts and letters to periodicals where each item has

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Book Synopsis**QUIETLY HOSTILE - THE HILARIOUS NEW BOOK FROM THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR - IS AVAILABE TO PRE-ORDER NOW**''Irby might be our great bard of quarantine.'' New York TimesIn this painfully funny collection, Samantha Irby captures powerful emotional truths while chronicling the rubbish bin she calls her life. From an ill-fated pilgrimage to Nashville to scatter her estranged father's ashes to awkward sexual encounters to the world's first completely honest job application, and more, sometimes you just have to laugh, even when your life is permanently pear-shaped.''I cannot remember the last time I was so moved by a book. As close to perfect as an essay collection can get.'' Roxane Gay''Hilarious. I love it.'' Candice Carty-Williams''Samantha Irby is stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny.'' Jia TolentinoDon''t miss Samanth

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