Fiction: literary and general non-genre

Book SynopsisAn unsung classic of nineteenth-century Russian literature, Karolina Pavlova’s A Double Life alternates prose and poetry to offer a wry picture of Russian aristocratic society and vivid dreams of escaping its strictures.Trade ReviewRich with wit, Pavlova’s only novel is a masterful sendup of high society. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *Karolina Pavlova’s 1848 novel made a splash when it first appeared, and for good reason. It is interesting in form, mixing prose and poetry, and full of sharply ironic insights about Russian society of the day, especially the lives of young women. This beautiful new edition of Barbara Heldt's translation offers the chance to appreciate a work of nineteenth-century Russian literature that deserves attention, the writing of a remarkable poet and author. -- Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore CollegePavlova’s A Double Life is a landmark of nineteenth-century Russian literature. With its multilayered account of a young society woman’s mysterious transformation into a poet, the novella explores a host of social, spiritual, and aesthetic questions. Indispensable, particularly in this revised edition of Barbara Heldt's translation. -- Thomas Hodge, Wellesley CollegePublished in the revolutionary year of 1848, A Double Life traces the awakening of a young noblewoman who by day submits to the prose of high society matchmaking, while at night she is a poet in her dreams of true love. Before Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf, there was Karolina Pavlova. -- Hilde Hoogenboom, Arizona State UniversityOnce banished from the literary canon, this new release of her only novel includes both her prose and poetry that offer astute observations of Russian society. * Christian Science Monitor *A Double Life is an appealing novel, offering a colorful, penetrating portrait of Moscow's high society in those times, especially the lives of the wives and women in it. -- M. A. Orthofer * The Complete Review *A Double Life has plenty to say about how the marriage market deprived young noblewomen of outward agency and constrained their inner lives. . . . Heldt’s translation beautifully conveys the prose narrator’s astringent tone as well as the emotional intensity of the dreamworld’s poetry. -- Katharine Hodgson * Times Literary Supplement *Pavlova’s novel A Double Life shook the Russian literary world when it was published in 1848, earning widespread praise for its revolutionary form and psychological acuity. . . . The slim mixed-genre novel—translated by Barbara Heldt and released this year in a new edition . . . follows the 18-year-old Cecily von Lindenborn as her mother attempts to find her a husband. . . . The book is remarkable for its insights about the workings of internalized oppression. -- Talya Zax * The Atlantic *After all the thick tomes by Fyodors and Leos and Ivans, here we have a slim tale authored by a woman, and that alone should alert us that our old expectations may need to be altered. * Los Angeles Review of Books *This novel, therefore, should be read and reread not as a novelty or a token—a woman’s work in a still overwhelmingly male canon—but as a daring and sophisticated work of nineteenth century Russian prose. * Slavic Review *[An] unsurpassable translation . . . [Heldt] is deeply informed about the novel and its context, and this edition includes her original introduction. She is also a wonderful stylist and brings a fine sense of tone and rhythm to her translation of Pavlova. -- Catherine Ciepiela * Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature *Table of ContentsIntroduction by Barbara HeldtA Double LifeAfterword

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Book SynopsisAn unsung classic of nineteenth-century Russian literature, Karolina Pavlova’s A Double Life alternates prose and poetry to offer a wry picture of Russian aristocratic society and vivid dreams of escaping its strictures.Trade ReviewRich with wit, Pavlova’s only novel is a masterful sendup of high society. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *Karolina Pavlova’s 1848 novel made a splash when it first appeared, and for good reason. It is interesting in form, mixing prose and poetry, and full of sharply ironic insights about Russian society of the day, especially the lives of young women. This beautiful new edition of Barbara Heldt's translation offers the chance to appreciate a work of nineteenth-century Russian literature that deserves attention, the writing of a remarkable poet and author. -- Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore CollegePavlova’s A Double Life is a landmark of nineteenth-century Russian literature. With its multilayered account of a young society woman’s mysterious transformation into a poet, the novella explores a host of social, spiritual, and aesthetic questions. Indispensable, particularly in this revised edition of Barbara Heldt's translation. -- Thomas Hodge, Wellesley CollegePublished in the revolutionary year of 1848, A Double Life traces the awakening of a young noblewoman who by day submits to the prose of high society matchmaking, while at night she is a poet in her dreams of true love. Before Kate Chopin and Virginia Woolf, there was Karolina Pavlova. -- Hilde Hoogenboom, Arizona State UniversityOnce banished from the literary canon, this new release of her only novel includes both her prose and poetry that offer astute observations of Russian society. * Christian Science Monitor *A Double Life is an appealing novel, offering a colorful, penetrating portrait of Moscow's high society in those times, especially the lives of the wives and women in it. -- M. A. Orthofer * The Complete Review *A Double Life has plenty to say about how the marriage market deprived young noblewomen of outward agency and constrained their inner lives. . . . Heldt’s translation beautifully conveys the prose narrator’s astringent tone as well as the emotional intensity of the dreamworld’s poetry. -- Katharine Hodgson * Times Literary Supplement *Pavlova’s novel A Double Life shook the Russian literary world when it was published in 1848, earning widespread praise for its revolutionary form and psychological acuity. . . . The slim mixed-genre novel—translated by Barbara Heldt and released this year in a new edition . . . follows the 18-year-old Cecily von Lindenborn as her mother attempts to find her a husband. . . . The book is remarkable for its insights about the workings of internalized oppression. -- Talya Zax * The Atlantic *After all the thick tomes by Fyodors and Leos and Ivans, here we have a slim tale authored by a woman, and that alone should alert us that our old expectations may need to be altered. * Los Angeles Review of Books *This novel, therefore, should be read and reread not as a novelty or a token—a woman’s work in a still overwhelmingly male canon—but as a daring and sophisticated work of nineteenth century Russian prose. * Slavic Review *[An] unsurpassable translation . . . [Heldt] is deeply informed about the novel and its context, and this edition includes her original introduction. She is also a wonderful stylist and brings a fine sense of tone and rhythm to her translation of Pavlova. -- Catherine Ciepiela * Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature *Table of ContentsIntroduction by Barbara HeldtA Double LifeAfterword

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Book SynopsisA Revolution in Three Acts explores how three vaudeville stars defied the standards of their time to change how their audiences thought about what it meant to be American, to be Black, to be a woman or a man. The writer David Hajdu and the artist John Carey collaborate in this work of graphic nonfiction.Trade ReviewAfter this wonderfully illustrated account, you’ll . . . be able to name three of the best [vaudeville performers], each of whom grappled with Blackness, gender, or sexual identity while entertaining the greedy masses. * Neil Patrick Harris's Wondercade *A wonderful example of the ability of comics to present and bring to life little-known histories—the fact that the creators made it all feel relevant to modern times makes it downright valuable. -- Robert Kirby * The Comics Journal's Best Comics of 2021 *Music critic Hajdu and artist Carey recapture the bygone days of vaudeville, bringing to fresh light and life the stories of three transgressive performers in this entertaining graphic group biography . . . The history is relayed via robust storytelling, combining a little-remembered piece of showbiz history with insights into the ways in which entertainment both reflects and shapes American cultural life and values. * Publishers Weekly *This is an extremely remarkable comic, at once a historical look at the great and hugely popular genre of vaudeville, and a treatment of the margins, racial and gender, that pushed closer to the surface than radio or films would reach before the 1950s . . . The high spirits of these three characters, the visions they had of themselves and the crushing reality of a world unsuited for them, comes home collectively as we follow their lives. * Comics Grinder *Neither revolution nor radical are terms commonly associated with vaudeville. Yet Hajdu and Carey effectively illuminate the significance of three trailblazers who merit such rhetoric and who have been largely forgotten since vaudeville lost its audience to the movies . . . Hajdu’s lively scholarship and critical perspective match Carey’s spirited renderings, which range from ebullience to devastation. A sharp account that brings life and light to a period that has gone dark in popular memory. * Kirkus Reviews *A Revolution in Three Acts is an incredible work of historical scholarship, entertainment, and artistry. * Foreword Reviews *David Hajdu and John Carey’s A Revolution in Three Acts offers a thoroughly engrossing, kaleidoscopic historical portrait of three landmark entertainers: Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, and Julian Eltinge, artists who challenged the presumptive rigidity of racial, gender, and class categories both off the stage as well as on it. With its crisp, vivid, animated narration, it is a book that illuminates the intersecting careers of these pathbreaking performers and the electrifying ways that they each used vaudeville as the space where American identity could be radically reimagined. A page-turner. -- Daphne A. Brooks, author of Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist SoundBrimming with insight and graphic creativity, this is a highly engaging and informative history of three of the most transformative American performers of the early twentieth century: a Black man who subverted blackface by performing in it, a “wild woman” who “didn’t care” about social convention, and a female impersonator who provided beauty advice to multitudes of American women. Hajdu and Carey deftly show us how, rather than being consigned to the margins, they made themselves unlikely stars of the most popular entertainment form of their day: vaudeville, the voice of the city. -- George Chauncey, author of Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940A Revolution in Three Acts is a vivid window into a bygone era of American entertainment. Here is vaudeville and all its comic, dramatic, and tragic dimensions as witnessed in the lives of three of its most pivotal practitioners. David Hajdu and John Carey have not simply crafted an elegy for an art form, they have chronicled the figures whose talent made it great in the first place. -- Jelani Cobb, author of To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop AestheticThree amazing people—Bert Williams, a Black entertainer who pushed the boundaries of minstrelsy; Eva Tanguay, a sexually provocative and funny performer whose best-known song is about not caring what people thought of her; and Julian Eltinge, a cross-dressing vaudevillian who even had his own magazine—are the stars of this entertaining, thought-provoking work of graphic history. -- Roz Chast, author of Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?This vivid book offers the tales and truths of pioneering performers who challenged the rules of race, gender, and sexuality. “Change the joke and slip the yoke,” as Ralph Ellison said. And so they did, remaking American art and history and culture in the process. -- Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland: A MemoirUsing a format as episodic as the unique performance tradition they are depicting, David Hajdu and John Carey introduce readers to three figures who transformed vaudeville and defied the values of their age. Giving voice and images to these remarkable performers and their social and political milieu, we see Bert Williams convert the stereotypes of Blackness in what Frederick Douglass referred to as the ‘pestiferous nuisance’ of blackface minstrelsy into performances that depicted the pathos of Black people’s experience in the racist and segregated US; Julian Eltinge’s cross-dressed delineations of femininity reveal the fluidity and performativity of gender, and Eva Tanguay’s embrace of the Salome character’s sensuality signify ‘new’ women’s rebellion against social constraints. -- Lisa Merrill, author of When Romeo Was a Woman: Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female SpectatorsIn this fabulously illustrated graphic novel, writer David Hajdu and artist John Carey bring to life three of the most enigmatic and unique entertainers of the vaudeville era . . . Although I would say it achieves an even loftier goal — capturing the spirit of vaudeville itself, the stage as a laboratory of cultural experimentation. -- Greg Young * Bowery Boys *Hajdu offers a clear history with humor and research that makes the book fun and informative, with lovely illustrations by Carey. * San Francisco Book Review *[This] book serves up a fun mix of historical fact, art, and fiction. * The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era *

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Book SynopsisMaria Stepanova is one of the most powerful and distinctive voices of Russia’s first post-Soviet literary generation. The Voice Over brings together two decades of Stepanova’s work, showcasing her range, virtuosity, and creative evolution.Trade Review2021 is the year of Stepanova. * The Guardian *Stepanova's voice is a multipotent anthology of epic, lyric, and pure spell. She turns myth back into memory, heroes into humans, and her country’s rush from one catastrophe to another into language. No translator who reads Stepanova's work thinks, ‘I can do this.’ This is a book prepared by people who believed in a poetic miracle and this miracle happened—to the English language above all. -- Valzhyna Mort, author of Music for the Dead and ResurrectedA volume of Maria Stepanova’s work in English translation is long overdue, but this one, rendered by a dream team of the best translators and poets working today, has been worth the wait. The Voice Over offers a worthy tribute to Stepanova’s multiple achievements: a rich selection of texts from Stepanova’s poetry and translations of Stepanova’s essays, both illuminated by Irina Shevelenko’s expert introduction and commentary, framing Stepanova’s writing with sophistication and insight. -- Kevin M. F. Platt, founder of Your Language My Ear translation symposiumMaria Stepanova is among the most visible figures in post-Soviet culture. * Los Angeles Review of Books *[Stepanova's] work is defined by fluent phrases expressing complex thoughts, the fusing of different styles, a carefree command of all possible metrical feet, and a great sense of empathy. * Poetry International *Stepanova’s brilliance is matched only by her legendary difficulty. Rather than write in free verse, she sticks to the metric strictures of classic syllabotonic Russian poetry and fills traditional forms with a dizzying mix of references and registers, drawing on everything from Slavic folklore to social media. * Poetry Magazine *Stepanova is finally receiving the attention she deserves in the Anglophone world. Subtle and erudite in its treatment of politics and history, her work is a much-needed antidote to the crude depictions of Russia that have filled the English-language media in recent years. * Harper's Magazine *Each book [The Voice Over, In Memory of Memory, and War of the Beasts and the Animals] casts light on the others, revealing overlapping themes. Their simultaneous appearance gives English-speaking readers a singular opportunity to become familiar with a major Russian poet and thinker. * Times Literary Supplement *This ambitious collection provides English-language readers with a systematic introduction to the work of one of Russia’s most important contemporary poets . . . [The] explicit discussion of translation strategies within the volume will give readers a great deal to think about and highlights current trends and points of debate in literary translation. The translations included in this volume are of very high quality and might together make a wonderful primer for a course in literary translation. * World Literature Today *An exceptional introduction to [Stepanova's] work, the product of intensive collaboration, creative endeavour, and serious scholarship . . . essential reading for anybody interested in poetry today and in contemporary Russian culture. * Translation and Literature *Table of ContentsPrefaceBibliographic NoteIntroduction. “Speaking in Voices”: On Maria Stepanova’s Literary Creation, by Irina ShevelenkoPart I: The Here-WorldA Gypski, a Polsk I, a Jewski, a RusskiThe North of sleep. Head’s in a pillow cradleAhoy! Beyond the azure’s tempestAdieu, until one branched floor higherFor you, but the voice of the straitened MuseThe BrideThe PilotThe morning sun arises in the morningAs Danaë, prone in the incarce-chamberIt is certainly time to stopEven bluer than the toilet tiles(a birthday on the train)(half an hour on foot)July 3rd, 2004The Women’s Locker Room at “Planet Fitness”Sarah on the BarricadesThe Desire to Be a RibBus Stop: Israelitischer FriedhofZoo, Woman, MonkeyPart II: Displaced PersonAnd a vo-vo-voice aroseIn the festive sky, impassivable, tinfurledSaturday and Sunday burn like starsIn every little park, in every little squareMom-pop didn’t know himMama, what janitorA train rides down entire RussiaOrdnance was weeping in the openThe A went past, Tram-TraumWell I don’t sing Kupitye papirosnThe light swells and pulses at the garden gateIn the village, in the field, in the forestA deer, a deer stood in that placeThe last songs are assemblingMy dear, my little LibertyThere he lies in his new bed, a band of paper round his headDon’t wait for us, my darlingDon’t strain your sightFour OperasIn Unheard-of SimplicityDisplaced PersonPart III: SpoliaSpoliaWar of the Beasts and the AnimalsToday Before Yesterday (excerpt)After the Dead WaterIntending to LiveAt the Door of a Notnew AgePart IV: Over Venerable GravesThe Maximum Cost of Living (Marina Tsvetaeva)Conversations in the Realm of the Dead (Lyubov Shaporina)What Alice Found There (Alisa Poret)The Last Hero (Susan Sontag)From That Side: Notes on SebaldOver Venerable GravesNotes

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Book SynopsisThe original version of Dreiser's classic novel, in print for the first timeTrade Review"This edition provides an opportunity to follow in close compass Dreiser's process of revision. It captures his point of view at a transitional moment in his career, and it sheds light on his subsequent work."--Times Literary Supplement"This edition provides an opportunity to follow in close compass Dreiser's process of revision. It captures his point of view at a transitional moment in his career, and it sheds light on his subsequent work."--Times Literary Supplement "This is a superb edition: skillfully edited, fully annotated, usefully contextualized. We have been given a new and almost entirely unknown version of The Genius--the text as originally conceived by Dreiser. It now demands our attention and close study."--James L. W. West III, general editor of the Cambridge Fitzgerald Edition"The Genius is one of the most overlooked and underrated of Dreiser's novels, yet it is arguably the key book for students of the writer, offering abundant materials for an understanding of the tensions between art and business and between romance and realism. It is also one of the finest portraits of marriage--and of the passions of marital frustration--in all of literature, as well as an exploration of the supposed sexual privileges of genius. Clare Eby's presentation of this earlier and previously unpublished Genius is a triumph of textual and interpretive scholarship, offering in its accompanying essays and apparatus a meticulous consideration of the similarities and differences between the two texts as well as copious explanatory notes. A great addition to Dreiser scholarship, this original version reminds us again of the fascinating evolution of Dreiser's powerful imagination."--Miles Orvell, author of The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940"A first-rate piece of textual scholarship that provides a vital and valuable new perspective on an important novel."--Leonard Cassuto, Fordham University

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1912, Theodore Dreiser's third novel, "The Financier", captures the ruthlessness and sparkle of the Gilded Age alongside the charismatic amorality of the power brokers and bankers of the mid-nineteenth century. This volume is an edition of "The Financier" to draw on the uncorrected page proofs of the original 1912 version.Trade Review"Roark Mulligan has edited this monumental novel with sensitivity and care. This edition will become the standard edition that readers and scholars will want to consult.”--Clare Virginia Eby, editor of the Dreiser Edition of The Genius and coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to Theodore Dreiser"A richer, considerably more complex version of The Financier by Theodore Dreiser, whose critique of American business practices led reviewers to laud him as the equal of the great European realists. Roark Mulligan's commentary offers a cogent, thorough, and eminently readable exploration of late-nineteenth-century American business practices."--Keith Newlin, editor of A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia"The Financier, in this comprehensive new form, reminds one of the important cultural work literature does to enable readers to peer out at a new century through a haze of economic uncertainty."--Studies in American Naturalism

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Book SynopsisPresents a collection of stories that celebrate an American region too often ignored in discussions about distinctive regional literatureTrade Review"As this fresh anthology proves, there's a mix of writers and sensibilities that inhabit the literary Midwest as to make the term unpredictable." -Stuart Dybek, MacArthur Fellow and author of The Coast of ChicagoTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgments Editors' NoteIntroduction1. Mr. Scary Charles Baxter from Ploughshares2. To Psychic Underworld Dan Chaon from Tin House3. Townie Roderic Crooks from Gulf Coast4. The Amnesiac in the Maze Michael Czyzniejewski from Ninth Letter 5. The Deep Anthony Doerr from Zoetrope6. Circling in the Air David Driscoll from Mississippi Review7. Down to Bone Roxane Gay from Mid-American Review8. Starry Night Lania Knight from Jabberwock Review9. Peter Torrelli Falling Down Rebecca Makkai from Tin House10. In Which a Coffin Is a Bed but an Ox Is Not a Coffin Brenda K. Marshall from Michigan Quarterly Review11. Drunk Girl in Stilettos Lee Martin from The Georgia Review12. The State Bird of Minnesota Charles McLeod from Michigan Quarterly Review13. The Five Points of Performance Christopher Mohar from Southwest Review14. The Baby Glows David James Poissant from The Southern Review15. Splendid, Silent Sun Yelizaveta P. Renfro from Glimmer Train16. Miscarriages Shannon Robinson from Nimrod International Journal17. American Bulldog Chad Simpson from Crab Orchard Review18. Twelve + Twelve Christine Sneed from Glimmer Train19. A Dry Season Ian Stansel from Ecotone20. Schnecks Mark Wisniewski from Alaska Quarterly ReviewContributors

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is Diop's way of digging out of a silent history. * Contemporary Francophone Writers and the Burden of Commitment *Clear-sighted and desperate, speaks relentlessly of Africa bruised at the hands of local and foreign politicians, brutal, greedy, merciless. A brave novel that pulls no punches. -- International Alliance of Independent PublishersA dark, ferocious novel that you won't put down unscathed, and certainly not any more confident in the goodness in the hearts of humankind. -- Maurice Mourier * La Quinzaine Litteraire *Always opinionated, always passionate, and always worth reading. * The Lit Hub *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis is Diop's way of digging out of a silent history. * Contemporary Francophone Writers and the Burden of Commitment *Clear-sighted and desperate, speaks relentlessly of Africa bruised at the hands of local and foreign politicians, brutal, greedy, merciless. A brave novel that pulls no punches. -- International Alliance of Independent PublishersA dark, ferocious novel that you won't put down unscathed, and certainly not any more confident in the goodness in the hearts of humankind. -- Maurice Mourier * La Quinzaine Litteraire *Always opinionated, always passionate, and always worth reading. * The Lit Hub *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2021 Blue Light Books Prize, Rochelle Hurt's The J Girls: A Reality Show is a tribute to the grit and glitter of millennial girlhood, a testament to its dangers and traumas, and an elegy for adolescent friendships.Trade ReviewStartling and familiar, sometimes vulgar, often hilarious, and very sure of itself, The J Girls is, without a doubt, one of the best books I'll read this year. -- Lisa Summe * Cleveland Review of Books *Table of ContentsPreface Cast List Opening Credits: Adoration of the J Girls Episode 1: The J Girls Get HighLess is More Jen's Prayer for Effacement Wifebeaters Middling Thigh High Ode on My Upspeak Commercial Break: Bath & Body Works Pastoral Episode 2: The J Girls Chase TailTo My '81 Chevy Celebrity Weeknight Jen's Prayer for Containment Ode to the C Word The Birth of Anger at the Roller Skating Rink Origins & Outcomes The Cut Felt Round the World Commercial Break: Lip Smacker Fantasia Episode 3: The J Girls Give FacePluralizing Mall Haunts Glitter Ode Demolition Derby Queens Dangling Modifier Ponytail Politic Cunts in Girls' Room oo yay & eye yay Commercial Break: Wet n Wild Romance Episode 4: The J Girls Get Caught (on Camera)Documentary What the Thief Learned to Take Early Jen's Prayer for Exposure Viral Ode to an Empty Womb Mimi Double Negative Commercial Break: Avon Grotesque Episode 5: The J Girls ReunionY2K Confessions Episode 6: The J Girls Cash OutSelfward Silence is Golden— Circular Argument I Could Eat You Up Who Taught You That One? Can I Call You Ellie? McDonald's 4-ever Possessives End Credits: Beatitudes for Meek Girls Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisA collection of short stories from America. It displays a wide range of styles, settings, and themes. It features authors who are former members of the fiction workshop at Indiana University.Trade ReviewThe authors brazenly embrace intimacy and repulsion with alluring ease. Daring is the best description of the collection; engaging is the best reason for them to be read and shared. February 2, 2006 * NUVO *Table of ContentsContentsIntroductionBocce Renée ManfrediSix Ways to Jump Off a Bridge Brian LeungSurrogates Rachel HallIn the Doorway of Rhee's Jazz Joint D. Winston BrownRamone Judy TroyWho's Your Daddy? Bob BledsoeMouthful of Sorrow Dana JohnsonThe Penance Practicum Erin McGrawThree Parting Shots and a Forecast Christie HodgenCasualidades Carolyn AlessioScarlet Mandy SayerWays to Kill a Snapper Gregory MillerSelling the Apartment Danit BrownRelevant Girl Tenaya DarlingtonA Morning for Milk Seamus BoshellPork Chops Eileen FitzGeraldThe Nine Ideas for a Happier Whole Amos MaglioccoStepping in Ms. Cent-Jean's Shoes Crystal S. ThomasDream House Barbara BeanHome Course Advantage Clint McCownAll Saints Day Angela PneumanContributors

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Book SynopsisThe definitive collection of jazz fictionTrade ReviewThough one can find other anthologies of jazz fiction, all acknowledged by the editors, this collection is richer than any of its predecessors. . . . The appealing material collected here captures the ambience of the jazz universe in surprising ways. The best stories are poetic, metaphorical, imagistic, rhythm-based, allusive, and illusive—reflecting respect/adoration for jazz and artistry. . . . Highly recommended.May 2010 * Choice *Carefully chosen and superbly edited by Sascha Feinstein and David Rife, the collection of 32 pieces of short fiction brings together some of the best jazz fiction from the 1920s to the present. . . . these stories virtually swing off the page. December 2009 * Jersey Jazz *Table of ContentsIntroduction1. Don Asher, "The Barrier"2. James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"3. Toni Cade Bambara, "Medley"4. Amiri Baraka, "Norman's Date"5. Amiri Baraka, "The Screamers"6. Frank London Brown, "Singing Dinah's Song"7. Michelle Cliff, "A Woman Who Plays Trumpet Is Deported"8. Wanda Coleman, "Jazz at Twelve"9. Julio Cortázar, "Bix Beiderbecke"10. Julio Cortázar, "The Pursuer"11. Kiki DeLancey, "Swingtime"12. Ralph Ellison, "A Coupla Scalped Indians"13. Rudolph Fisher, "Common Meter"14. Sam Greenlee, "Blues for Little Prez"15. David Huddle, Tenorman: A Novella16. Langston Hughes, "The Blues I'm Playing"17. Langston Hughes, "Old Ghost Revives Atavistic Memories in a Lady of the DAR"18. Phil Kawana, "Dead Jazz Guys"19. Yusef Komunyakaa, "Buddy's Monologue"20. Ellen Jordis Lewis, "Miss Brown to You"21. William Henry Lewis, "Rossonian Days"22. John McCluskey, "Lush Life"23. Bill Moody, "Child's Play"24. James Reed, "The Shrimp Peel Gig"25. Josef škvorecký, "The End of Bull Mácha"26. Terry Southern, "You're Too Hip, Baby"27. Julian Street, "The Jazz Baby"28. Boris Vian, "'Round About Close to Midnight"29. Eudora Welty, "Powerhouse"30. John Edgar Wideman, "The Silence of Thelonious Monk"31. Xu Xi, "Jazz Wife"32. Richard Yates, "A Really Good Jazz Piano"Authors' BiographiesAcknowledgments

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Book SynopsisA young boy's flights of fancy triumph over family tragedyTrade ReviewAlternately funny, entertaining, and heartbreaking, The Swan is a fictional memoir about love, death and what a family can—and cannot—endure. * Publishers Weekly *A surreal study of a grief observed indirectly, The Swan serves as a testament to the unbridled power of childhood vision, even and especially in the wake of tragedy. * Bloom Magazine *This is the principle pleasure of reading The Swan: Cohee delights in word play and humor that points to larger thematic concerns regarding the family's rift in the wake of a child's death. * andrewsbookclub.com *There's something ironic, compelling, and deeply sad about hearing a story of mortality and unspeakable loss unfold in the chirpy, attention-deficit, occasionally hilarious voice of a fourth-grader. . . . The voice isn't a gimmick —it's the point of the book, and it works brilliantly. * www.eastbayexpress.com *Funny, poignant and as endearing as its central character, The Swan is a wholly original tribute to childhood resilience. * San Jose Mercury News *Had Kurt Vonnegut, William Saroyan, J.D. Salinger, Carlos Castaneda, Raymond Carver and James Thurber ever gathered at a writer's workshop to co-author a short novel, the product might well have been The Swan. * Terre Haute Tribune Star *The secret protectors and spymasters who populate Aaron's disintegrating world in Cohee's The Swan are equally funny and heartbreaking. I've already reread this outstanding first novel. * Wapsipinicon Almanac *

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Book SynopsisRhina P. Espaillat, judge of the 2014 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, describes Furious Dusk, David Campos's winning collection, as a work whose five parts trace a son's effortsonly partially successfulto fulfill his father's expectations andperhaps even more difficultunderstand those expectations enough to forgive them. The poet''s reflections are catalyzed by learning of his father's impending death, which, in turn, forces him to examine his father's expectations against his own evolving concept of what it means to be a man.The poems'' speaker sifts through his past to find the speckles of memory that highlight the pressures to fit the mold of masculinity forged both by the Mexican culture of his father and the American culture he inhabits. The problematic norms of both rip the speaker in two directions as he recounts his father's severe parenting, as he explores the inability to father a child, as he witnesses human suffering, as he overeats and confronts the effects oTrade Review“David Campos writes tenderly and with compassion about fathers, sons, and the way we become men. He writes with an original voice and fire about race, identity, and nation. He writes lyrics that skirt tightropes of impossible, beautiful contradictions. David is a Fresno poet, an American poet, a Chicano poet, and more. This is an extraordinary book of grace, I cannot recommend it highly enough.” —Chris Abani, author of Sanctificum and Hands Washing Water“A monster debut collection that refuses to go unnoticed, the same way one cannot divert their eyes from an anatomical dissection. In five deftly crafted sections, we are given an unflinching view of the poet’s own innards; from wrestling with eating disorders to father-son relations, body image, and marriage, the tendons and ligaments of a life are exposed, and the red muscle of reality is left jutting toward you, the reader. Campos’s poetry is a physical experience, a glimmering mirror that forces us to call out our own dark secrets, to be accountable and 'take comfort that we’re alive as animals.' From the same literary stomping grounds and fertile groves that first produced the fearless and prophetic Andrés Montoya himself—emerges this new and necessary breed of luminary voice.” —Tim Z. Hernandez, author of Mañana Means Heaven"This is a fearless poetics—no heroes, no myth-making, no jazzy lingo games. David Campos is intent on one inner phrase: 'I will become the fire.' I applaud David’s first book. It is relentless in wrestling the darkness, reminiscent in some ways of Delmore Schwartz, Joan Larkin, and Victor Martinez. A tour de force, a rare heart of raw light." —Juan Felipe Herrera, California Poet Laureate“The Fresno City College teacher received the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize for 2014 for his collection of poetry, Furious Dusk. Contest judge Rhina P. Espaillat describes Campos’ winning collection as ‘a work whose five parts trace a son’s efforts – only partially successful—to fulfill his father’s expectations and—perhaps even more difficult—understand those expectations enough to forgive them.’” —Fresno Bee"Furious Dusk is an accessible, narrative collection of confessional poems. David Campos is unflinchingly observant of his subjects—highlighting the dark, uncomfortable elements with a commendable specificity. . . . A collection centering on issues of masculinity, machismo, family, cultural expectations, and feelings of inadequacy, Furious Dusk follows the persona's reflective journey upon learning of his father's impending death. . . . [T]his collection shows ambition." —Kenyon Review “Just as Campos felt the need to kill the image that he had of his father as a child to craft his own version of manhood, the pieces dealing with the couple’s struggles with fertility are ‘exaggerated and dramatized’ in a way that dramatizes the emotional toll that such a crisis takes on the relationship. In that way, Campos’ work speaks to a larger truth.” —South Bend Tribune

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Book SynopsisDevelops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature both draws on the print tradition and requires reading and interpretive strategies. Grounding her approach in the evolutionary dynamic between humans and technology, the author argues that neither the body nor the machine should be given absolute theoretical priority.Trade Review“No critic, save N. Katherine Hayles, has the wide grasp of literary criticism, new media history and technology, cyberculture and its philosophical implications, and the interplay between electronic and print imaginative writing. Now, in the five straightforward, readable chapters of *Electronic Literature*, she supplies the tools and builds the contexts necessary for everyone to grasp the importance of her topic and integrate it into her or his own knowledge base. For those new to electronic literature, it provides an intellectual, historical, and technical basis for inserting it into the curriculum; for those familiar with the digital arts and electronic literature, it provides a succinct overview of what has been accomplished in the field and what remains to bring this work from the hands of practitioners and theorists into the classroom. The book and CD package will be snapped up by scholars and students alike.” —Dee Morris, University of Iowa“In Electronic Literature, N. Katherine Hayles has delivered a wonderfully structured synthetic overview of writers, texts, critics, and publication venues for the field of electronic literature. In it, she has managed to articulate a non-canonical canon, a body of work and set of ideas that are flexible rather than fixed, inclusive rather than exclusive.” —Rita Raley, University of California, Santa Barbara“Kate Hayles has been there since the beginning. She helped formulate the field of digital literature. All readers will be charmed by her new book; high school and college literature and art teachers, in particular, will find this book immediately helpful to introducing students to creative writing in a new media mode.” —Thom Swiss, University of Minnesota"Kate Hayles stays with a text, whether electronic or otherwise, like almost no other reader or player, inhabiting each work with care and caring, transforming its material specificity to embodied sense and sensuality rather than a hollow category. In the course of defining a field she has set it abloom and in the process refreshed our imagination." —Michael Joyce, Vassar College“Electronic literature is an emerging literary genre that challenges the traditional understanding of literary criticism and theory. It is this challenge, in part, that is responsible for keeping the emerging genre out of the classroom, and with this work, Hayles means to grant it entry. Drawing on technology-related literary criticism and theory, she creates a new space for electronic literature to be read and understood. She argues that the impact of the digital on modern writing cannot be underestimated.” —Library Journal

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Book SynopsisDesigned to help electronic literature move into the classroom, this book addresses its major genres, the challenges it poses to traditional literary theory, and the complex and compelling issues at stake. It develops a theoretical framework for understanding how electronic literature draws on the print tradition.Trade Review“No critic, save N. Katherine Hayles, has the wide grasp of literary criticism, new media history and technology, cyberculture and its philosophical implications, and the interplay between electronic and print imaginative writing. Now, in the five straightforward, readable chapters of *Electronic Literature*, she supplies the tools and builds the contexts necessary for everyone to grasp the importance of her topic and integrate it into her or his own knowledge base. For those new to electronic literature, it provides an intellectual, historical, and technical basis for inserting it into the curriculum; for those familiar with the digital arts and electronic literature, it provides a succinct overview of what has been accomplished in the field and what remains to bring this work from the hands of practitioners and theorists into the classroom. The book and CD package will be snapped up by scholars and students alike.” —Dee Morris, University of Iowa“In Electronic Literature, N. Katherine Hayles has delivered a wonderfully structured synthetic overview of writers, texts, critics, and publication venues for the field of electronic literature. In it, she has managed to articulate a non-canonical canon, a body of work and set of ideas that are flexible rather than fixed, inclusive rather than exclusive.” —Rita Raley, University of California, Santa Barbara“Kate Hayles has been there since the beginning. She helped formulate the field of digital literature. All readers will be charmed by her new book; high school and college literature and art teachers, in particular, will find this book immediately helpful to introducing students to creative writing in a new media mode.” —Thom Swiss, University of Minnesota"Kate Hayles stays with a text, whether electronic or otherwise, like almost no other reader or player, inhabiting each work with care and caring, transforming its material specificity to embodied sense and sensuality rather than a hollow category. In the course of defining a field she has set it abloom and in the process refreshed our imagination." —Michael Joyce, Vassar College“Electronic literature is an emerging literary genre that challenges the traditional understanding of literary criticism and theory. It is this challenge, in part, that is responsible for keeping the emerging genre out of the classroom, and with this work, Hayles means to grant it entry. Drawing on technology-related literary criticism and theory, she creates a new space for electronic literature to be read and understood. She argues that the impact of the digital on modern writing cannot be underestimated.” —Library Journal

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2006 Sullivan Prize, The Irish Martyr is a collection of ten stories by Russell Working, an award-winning fiction writer, Chicago Tribune reporter, and former foreign correspondent. With an impressive imaginative reach, Working peoples his stories with unforgettable characters, giving flesh and bone to issues in the headlines. Ranging widely in voice and place, these stories explore the emotional repercussions of fragile humans caught in often harsh situations beyond their control. That we respond to their pathos and humor, resignation and anger, testifies to Working''s skill as a chronicler of fictive lives that all too clearly resonate with our world. In the Pushcart Prizewinning title story, we meet an Egyptian girl obsessed with an armed Irishman who moves next door to her family''s Sinai beach house. In Help, a man reflects on his career spent receiving multimillion-dollar payments from deposed generals and presidents, while Perjury considers Trade Review"Is there any life that Russell Working cannot imagine? In these powerful, haunting stories, he explores the private lives of Egyptian adolescent girls, a North Korean woman sold to a Chinese farmer, a Russian doctor whose child has been stolen—victims of every time and place, always with singular compassion. Outrage for the world's lost and needy fuels The Irish Martyr, and intelligence and deep love imbue every sentence. This book looks at hard truths, and they will linger in the thoughts of its readers." —Erin McGraw, author of The Good Life"The Irish Martyr is an engaging collection of Russell Working's most intriguing short stories. As a catching insight into Working and his muse's product, The Irish Martyr is collectively an almost invasively detailed and descriptive presentation of style and story unique to this author. Working's greatest release of short stories yet, The Irish Martyr is enthusiastically recommended reading especially for those who have yet to discover the ever engaging literary creative and storytelling style of Russell Working." —The Midwest Book Review"The Irish Martyr is a powerful, brave, and dangerous book that takes us to the borderlands where religion and geopolitics rip apart the lives of ordinary people. These are stories about torture, decapitation, rape, kidnapping, and trafficking in women and babies. They are about men and women caught in the meat-grinder of history, caught between trying to survive as human beings and the vicious tools of dogma, ideology, and greed. Russell Working knows the dark corners of the world, he knows the personal underside of the news stories we have become all too accustomed to seeing on our TV screens. He writes straight from the heart, with a moral indignation that is palpable." —Douglas Glover, author of Elle and The Enamoured Knight"In The Irish Martyr, Russell Working bravely navigates a labyrinthine maze of politics and culture to bring us a searing look at our troubled world. Slava, the long final story in the collection, is a particularly moving account of ethnic hatred and the terrible violence it spawns. If you're not moved by this story, you should have your heart checked to make sure you still have one." —Ed Falco, author of Acid and In the Park of Culture"This is a terrific collection of short stories. . . . Working has a great sense of human life, including misery and problems that people face everyday." —Multicultural Review"Ranging over more of the world and more extreme experience than his readers are likely to know, former foreign correspondent Russell Working sets private dramas against historical events and geopolitical dilemmas. China, the Middle East, Russia, North Korea and other distant places are the settings for Working's American explorations of love, loyalty, suffering both individual and social, and change. In his tour de force, "The World in the First Year of the Wire," Working juxtaposes the cataclysms of World War I and other scenes of far-flung conflict with small-town American life in such a way that all the world's woes and weirdness seem now to set the public terms of experience, replacing earlier expectations of news about the next street over. This is Working's way of showing how public terms change what people actually do in private life. The Irish Martyr is a remarkable response to what is human everywhere." —Reginald Gibbons, author of Sweetbitter"Reading The Irish Martyr, the new collection of stories by Tribune staff reporter Russell Working, is a little like watching CNN's Anderson Cooper: human trafficking, terrorism, prison abuse—the stories on the nightly news make their appearance in these ten works. . . Political and current, Working's stories know few geographic boundaries. . ." —Chicago Tribune“In his ten soulful stories, the author dives headfirst into the murky waters of his characters' damaged but unforgettable lives. . . . With a style that is both poetic and raw, Working gives us characters from different nations, different realities, yet each is so fully realized and universal that it's as if we are sharing their lives—and their hardships—for a brief time.” —St. Anthony Messenger"If Flannery O'Connor had lived to read The Irish Martyr, she would have written Russell Working a letter of appreciation. These stories are instructive and fascinating." David Huddle, author of The Story of a Million Years and La Tour Dreams of the Wolf Girl

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Book SynopsisTo commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the University of Notre Dame Press is proud to publish Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's epic work March 1917, Node III, Book 1, of The Red Wheel. The Red Wheel is Solzhenitsyn's magnum opus about the Russian Revolution.Trade Review"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent many years in the latter part of his long life working on The Red Wheel, a multivolume chronicle of 'the whirlwind of revolution in Russia.' Until now, only two parts of this hugely ambitious work had appeared in English translation, followed by a long hiatus. Now, at last—on the centenary of the Russian Revolution—the first part of another volume has appeared in English, March 1917, with translations of the remainder of the work promised. . . . The Red Wheel—like Solzhenitsyn’s life and work taken whole—is a testament to hope married to determination." —The Christian Century "The February revolution, in Solzhenitsyn’s considered judgment, was a disaster of the first order and not a welcome, democratic eruption in a country ill-prepared for democracy. A reader of March 1917(Node III of The Red Wheel . . .) would be hard put to quarrel with Solzhenitsyn’s judgment. As this great work of history and literature attests, February indeed was the root of all the evils to come and not a brief shining display of Russian democracy. . . . This action-packed account, beautifully translated by Marian Schwartz, tells the story of one moment in which the failure of good men to act made all the difference in the world." —National Review "[I]n the volume translated by Marian Schwartz, March 1917: The Red Wheel, Node III, Book I, the wheel turns. The Russian Revolution begins, and the chapters become shorter, the rhythm no longer adagio but staccato. Solzhenitsyn doesn’t much care about the literary modernism of Western Europe, but he does imitate the kinetic pace of 20th century cinema. . . . In The Red Wheel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn produced a masterpiece, and proved himself a worthy companion of Dostoevsky and rival of Tolstoy." —Law and Liberty "The Red Wheel and The Gulag Archipelago have been called Solzhenitsyn’s two 'cathedrals.' You cannot fully understand the horrors of communism and the history of the 20th century without reading them." —New York Journal of Books "The latest Solzhenitsyn book to appear in English, March 1917, focuses on the great turning point of Russian, indeed world, history: the Russian Revolution. . . . Almost moment by moment, we follow historical and fictional characters from March 8 to March 12, 1917, as chaos unfolds. Although the Kadets think that history must fulfill a story known in advance, Solzhenitsyn shows us a mass of discrepant incidents that fit no coherent narrative." —The New Criterion "March 1917, node III, gives a sketch of the events in St. Petersburg that culminated in the overthrow of the Tsar. Most striking in this segment is the ineptitude of Russia’s ruling class. Although a decent man, Tsar Nicholas was slow to make decisions, fearful of talented people, and incapable of resolving difficult issues. The ministers who exercised executive power were appointed by the Tsar and therefore lacked energy or ability. . . . Solzhenitsyn’s art allows readers to grasp one of the pivotal episodes in history." —James Pontuso, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation Blog "Histories tend to collapse events into a single narrative; Solzhenitsyn insists on plurality. He explodes the Russian Revolution back into myriad voices and parts, disarrayed and chaotic, detailed and tumultuous. Combining historical research with newspaper headlines, street action, cinematic screenplay, and fictional characterization, the book is as immersive as binge-worthy television, no little thanks to this excellent translation that renders its prose as masterful in English as it was in Russian. In March 1917, Solzhenitsyn attempts the impossible and succeeds, evoking a fully formed world through episodic narratives that insist on the prosaic integrity of every life, from tsars to peasants. What emerges is a rich history that’s truly greater than the sum of its parts." —Foreword Reviews “'Many readers know that Solzhenitsyn was unjustly imprisoned by the communist regime and wrote about the camps, which are the result of the [Russian] revolution, but few know that Solzhenitsyn in fact dedicated his life to studying the revolution itself, and its causes,' said Stephan Solzhenitsyn. 'You might say that he caught the last train of departing memory. He was able to interview some of the last living participants of those fateful days in 1917, and of the Russian civil war that followed.'" —The Guardian "The Red Wheel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s epic of World War I and the Russian revolution, belongs to the Russian tradition of vast, densely plotted novels of love and war set during a time of social upheaval. An extended act of author-to-nation communication, this multivolume saga poses the question, 'Where did we go wrong?' and answers it in human and political terms, but with a mystical twist that is unlike anything else in Solzhenitsyn. This translation beautifully conveys the distinctive flavor of Solzhenitsyn’s prose, with its preternatural concreteness of description, moments of surreal estrangement, and meticulous detailing of the nuances of human relationships in the shadow of encroaching chaos. The novel’s reliable, unreliable, and even mendacious character voices, its streams-of-consciousness, and its experimental flourishes possess the same vividness and freshness as they do in Russian. Think Anna Karenina and Doctor Zhivago, with Dostoevsky’s Demons thrown in for good measure." —Richard Tempest, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "In his ambitious multivolume work The Red Wheel(Krasnoye Koleso), Solzhenitsyn strove to give a partly historical and partly literary picture of the revolutionary year 1917. Several of these volumes have been translated into English, but the present volume appears in English for the first time. The translation is very well done and ought to give the reader a better understanding of the highly complex events that shook Russia exactly a century ago." —Richard Pipes, emeritus, Harvard University "There is no doubt that The Red Wheel is one of the masterpieces of world literature, made all the more precious by its relevance to the tragic era through which contemporary history has passed. Moreover, the impulse of revolutionary and apocalyptic violence associated with the age of ideology has still not ebbed. We remain confronted by the fragility of historical existence, in which it is possible for whole societies to choose death rather than life." —David Walsh, Catholic University of America "As the great Solzhenitsyn scholar Georges Nivat has written, Solzhenitsyn is the author of two great 'literary cathedrals,' The Gulag Archipelago and The Red Wheel. The first is the definitive exposé of ideological despotism and all of its murderous works. The Red Wheel is the definitive account of how the forces of revolutionary nihilism came to triumph in the first place. It is a sprawling and fascinating mix of philosophical and moral discernment, literary inventiveness, and historical insight that sometimes strains the novelistic form, but is also one of the great works of moral and political instruction of the twentieth century." —Daniel J. Mahoney, co-editor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings"Progressive historians have whitewashed the Revolution into a 'people’s revolution,' inspired by the benevolent and charismatic Lenin and founded on the humanitarian Marx’s principles of equality. In truth, the Revolution wasn’t even supported by a majority of the proletariat. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s recently translated The Red Wheel: March 1917 . . . [is a] sobering antidote to this naïve view." —Claremont Review of Books"March 1917 is a long, difficult, confusing masterpiece. No great work of literature is easy to read, but this third installment of The Red Wheel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's narrative of the events leading to the Russian Revolution, is remarkable in its complexity. The novel presents a polyphonic kaleidoscope of people, places, and events, some real, some fictitious." —Society Journal"Solzhenitsyn's historical epic The Red Wheel, the author's magnum opus, narrates Russia's transition from monarchy to Soviet rule. . . . The present volume, the first book (of four) of the March 1917 node, narrates the events of the Russian Revolution, notably the overthrow of the Tsar's imperial government and the chaos that resulted among opposition leaders unprepared to lead a country in crisis. . . . The Red Wheel is intimidatingly voluminous, but Solzhenitsyn's stream-of-consciousness style—and the clarity of Schwartz's careful translation—makes for an engaging and dynamic experience, whether reading the novel cover to cover or in individual vignettes." —Choice“Only a great work of art like The Red Wheel can convey the soul of a lawless mob that has lost all sense of measure. . . . This action-packed account, beautifully translated by Marian Schwartz, tells the story of one moment in which the failure of good men to act made all the difference in the world.” –National Review"In the first volume of March 1917, well translated by Marian Schwartz, many haunting passages can be found, such as Nicholas II's confrontation with the icon of Christ following his tormented abdication." —Times Literary Supplement“[Solzhenitsyn] lived with the consequences of this cataclysmic historical moment… [The Red Wheel: March 1917, Node III, Book 2] never allows the reader to imagine they have the full story or a definitive answer about everything that happened during the tumultuous few days. Instead it shows the multitudes affected and their immediate, confused, and ignorant responses.” —Soshi’s Book Blog"[A] translation of the first of . . . four volumes, focused on the initial five days of snowballing street violence, multiplying labor strikes and military mutinies, as well as on the unrelieved hostility of the Duma to a painfully incompetent regime. The fictional elements of the story pale next to the overwhelming drama of the unfolding real historical events." —The Russian Review"Marian Schwartz, a distinguished translator, has rendered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s March 1917 into English in its entirety for the first time. . . . [Her] translation makes Solzhenitsyn more straightforward by occasionally dropping the façade of antiquated language, . . . March 1917 is part of Solzhenitsyn’s Red Wheel, a book series in which he conveys why he views not only the October Revolution, but also its predecessor from February 1917 as disasters for Russia." —The Slavic Review

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“In The Red Wheel, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn produced a masterpiece and proved himself a worthy companion of Dostoevsky and rival of Tolstoy.” —Law and Liberty“Contrary to Tolstoy in War and Peace, Solzhenitsyn means to demonstrate that, at the decisive ‘nodal’ moments of history, the action or inaction of a single individual may have a decisive impact on the course of events.” —National Review“If Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago presented a mindset-changing view of the history of the USSR, the historical novels that make up his epopee The Red Wheel are a counterweight to the heroics of the October Revolution.” —Russian Review“[A] magisterial depiction of the long, slow collapse of the Tsarist regime in which everybody gets a voice, but nobody feels that he or she can prevent the worst of it. Eerily prescient for the binary confusions of the present.” —VoegelinView"This is the principal work of the Nobel laureate’s life, to which Solzhenitsyn dedicated several decades and into which poured all his thoughts about the senseless chaos of the modern and postmodern worlds, all told through the prism of that most contingent of events, the Russian Revolution." —The New Criterion“Solzhenitsyn’s art in this work conveys deep truths, and opportunities lost, in a way that academic history, increasingly torn between ideology, abstruse methodology, and soulless reductionism can rarely if ever do. Art, dramatized history, wisdom about statecraft and the art of politics, and a deep, passionate but measured patriotism find elevated expression in the literary art of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.” —Law and Liberty“Moving from staccato reportage to evocative scenes, the book works as a sort of collage of information, replicating in its stylistic choices the different lenses used to understand history. By combining them into one forceful whole, Solzhenitsyn not only gives us an incredibly vivid sense of the different aspects of the Russian Revolution, but a unique model for how to approach history.” —New York Journal of Books“For most Western historians, the March (February O.S.) Revolution was a glorious, if short-lived, event in the history of an otherwise backward—that is, undemocratic—Russia. Solzhenitsyn did not view it that way. He judged the revolution to have been a catastrophe that prepared the way, within months, for the Bolshevik coup d’état.” —National Review"Solzhenitsyn relives and recreates how it all happened in Russia in the second decade of the twentieth century, and he does not allow this pivot of world events to be bastardized by the clever hindsight of historians and the comfortable value judgments of our time." —The Spectator"The best historians and novelists—and Solzhenitsyn was first and foremost a novelist—narrate history through the eyes and ears of the participants who don’t know the outcome of the events they are observing and participating in. In March 1917, Solzhenitsyn presents events through the characters’ perspectives and perceptions at the time, not in hindsight or years afterward." —Asian Review of Books"This is the third book (of four) of March 1917, a ‘node’ of Solzhenitsyn’s historical epic The Red Wheel. Book 3 takes place between March 16 and 22, at the height of the revolution. . . . The translation remains lively and fresh—no small feat, given the sheer size of the novel, the pace at which it shifts among perspectives, and the depth of detail." —Choice“Despite its relentless focus on political events, The Red Wheel paradoxically instructs that politics is not the most important thing in life. To the contrary, the main cause of political horror is the overvaluing of politics itself. It is supremely dangerous to presume that if only the right social system could be established, life’s fundamental problems would be resolved. Like the great realist novelists of the nineteenth century, Solzhenitsyn believed that.” —The New York Review of BooksTable of Contents1. 16 MARCH, Friday 2. 17 MARCH, Saturday 3. 18 MARCH, Sunday 4. 19 MARCH, Monday 5. 20 MARCH, Tuesday 6. 21 MARCH, Wednesday 7. 22 MARCH, Thursday

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Book SynopsisAhmad Mahmoud sets The Neighbors against the backdrop of the oil nationalization crisis that gripped Iran in the early 1950s. His protagonist, Khaled, a young man from a rundown neighborhood in Ahvaz, a city in southern Iran, becomes involved in the struggle to wrest Iran’s oil industry from the British and, as the result of his political activities, comes to realize that there is more to life than the drudgery and poverty his parents and neighbors have experienced.The Neighbors, published in 1974, cemented Mahmoud’s reputation as a novelist and captured the ethos of a generation—the generation that laid the groundwork for those who continue to struggle for democracy in Iran today. Though the novel received considerable praise and was read widely, its political nature earned the ire of Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime, and the Islamic Republic has objected to its sexually explicit content. This is the first time one of Ahmad Mahmoud’s noTrade Review"Set in the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan in the early 1950s, The Neighbours... is a species of Bildungsroman. The narrator, a teenage working-class boy, seems to echo Mahmoud (1931-2002) in terms of social and economic background and educational achievements. The narrated time covers three to four years during which the Iranian oil industry, formerly run by the British, was nationalized, and the political events connected with this event contribute greatly to the social and emotional maturing of the narrator[...] Summing Up: Recommended" - Choice

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Book SynopsisA classic tale of racial constructions and fluidity

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Book SynopsisIlluminates the plight of a generation of men and women in post-war Vietnam. This book probes the timeless question of how we find ways to live in harmony with the tangled and contradictory compulsions of our own souls.

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Book SynopsisGary Pak has emerged as one of the most important Asian Hawaiian writers of our time. In this new collection, Pak expertly crafts a memorable cast of Hawai''i''s Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Native Hawaiians, amplifying our cross-cultural understanding of Hawaiian life today.The nine short stories in Language of the Geckos and Other Stories paint an array of locals caught up in failed dreams of financial success and romantic fulfillment. Many of these stories deal with issues particular to Native Hawaiian perspectives, while others take slice-of-life glimpses at characters alienated in the land of their birth. Pak''s sure narrative voice shifts deftly between his actors, shading the nuanced voices and interior lives of housewives, mechanics, cabdrivers, aging hippies, and desperate bargirls. Most of these characters speak in the lingua franca of the islands, a highly developed Creole that is commonly called Pidgin English. Also strongTrade Review"Pak’s vivid, sometimes shocking imagery and his emotionally complex characters drive home the underlying themes of the nine stories in this slim volume—unfulfilled dreams, failed, lives, and the loss of hope . . . forcing readers to confront a very different Hawai'i—paradise only to some." * Booklist *"Pak’s accessible prose and compassion for his characters vivify the dilemmas of people hobbled by limited means or racial hierarchies." * Publishers Weekly *"Magical realism, Hawaiian-style." * Los Angeles Times *Table of ContentsLiving with Spirits, Writing as Activism: A Preface A House of Mirrors Language of the Geckos Rebirth Hae Soon's Song An Angel for Guy Matsuzaki The Guest My Friend Kammy Ishamel Reed or Me A Memory for Martin

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Book SynopsisStories to Caution the World is the first complete translation of Jingshi tongyan, the second of Feng Menglong''s three collections of stories which were pivotal in the development of Chinese vernacular fiction. These tales, whose importance in the Chinese literary canon and in world literature is without question, have been compared to Boccaccio''s Decameron and the stories of A Thousand and One Nights.Peopled with scholars, emperors, ministers, generals, and a gallery of ordinary men and women in their everyday surroundings -- merchants and artisans, prostitutes and courtesans, matchmakers and fortune-tellers, monks and nuns, servants and maids, thieves and imposters -- the stories in this collection provide a vivid panorama of the bustling world of imperial China before the end of the Ming dynasty.Feng Menglong collected popular stories from a variety of sources (some dating back centuries) and circulated them via the flourishing seventeenTrade Review"Stories to Caution the World offers the reader plenty to savor. . . . often shrewd and knowing, and never dull, [the translated comments] provide a new element of commentary over and above that built into the stories through the storyteller's manner, and introduce an agreeably unpredictable element that enhances the pleasure of reading Stories to Caution the World." * China Review International *"An important addition to any collection supporting Chinese studies and Asian literature. Highly recommended." * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Translators' Note Chronology of Chinese Dynasties Stories to Caution the World Title Page from the 1624 Edition Preface to the 1624 Edition 1. Yu Boya Smashes His Zither in Gratitude to an Appreciative Friend 2. Zhuang Zhou Drums on a Bowl and Attains the Great Dao 3. Three Times Wang Anshi Tries to Baffle Academician Su 4. In the Hall Halfway-up-the-Hill, the Stubborn One Dies of Grief 5. Lu Yu Returns the Silver and Brings about Family Reunion 6. Yu Liang Writes Poems and Wins Recognition from the Emperor 7. Chen Kechang Becomes an Immortal during the Dragon Boat Festival 8. Artisan Cui's Love Is Cursed in Life and in Death 9. "Li the Banished Immortal" Writes in Drunkenness to Impress the Barbarians 10. Secretary Qian Leaves Poems on the Swallow Tower 11. A Shirt Reunites Magistrate Su with His Family 12. A Double Mirror Brings Fan the Loach and His Wife Together Again 13. Judge Bao Solves a Case through a Ghost That Appeared Thrice 14. A Mangy Priest Exorcises a Den of Ghosts 15. Clerk Jin Rewards Xiutong with a Pretty Maidservant 16. The Young Lady Gives the Young Man a Gift of Money 17. The Luckless Scholar Rises Suddenly in Life 18. A Former Protogee Repays His Patron unto the Third Generation 19. With a White Falcon, Young Master Cui Brings an Evil Spirit upon Himself 20. The Golden Eel Brings Calmity to Officer Ji 21. Emperor Taizu Escorts Jinniang on a One-Thousand-Li Journey 22. Young Mr. Song Reunites with His Family by Means of a Tattered Felt Hat 23. Mr. Le Junior Searches for His Wife at the Risk of His Life 24. Yutangchun Reunites with Her Husband in Her Distress 25. Squire Gui Repents at the Last Moment 26. Scholar Tang Gains a Wife after One Smile 27. Fame Immortals Throw Guanghua Temple into an Uproar 28. Madame White Is Kept Forever under the Thunder Peak Tower 29. Zhang Hao Meets Yingying at Lingering Frangrance Pavilion 30. Wu Qing Meets Ai'ai by Golden Bright Pond 31. Zhao Chun'er Restores Prosperity 32. Du Shiniang Sinks Her Jewel Box in Anger 33. Qiao Yanjie's Concubine Ruins the Family 34. Wang Jiaoluan's One Hundred Years of Sorrow 35. Prefect Kuang Solves the Case of the Dead Baby 36. The King of the Honey Locust Grove Assumes Human Shape 37. Wan Xiuniang Takes Revenge through Toy Pavilions 38. Jiang Shuzhen Dies in Fulfillment of a Love Bird Prophecy 39. The Stars of Fortune, Rank, and Longevity Return to Heaven 40. An Iron Tree at Jingyang Palace Subdues Demons Notes

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Book SynopsisStories that capture our times by “a young author who has already established himself as a unique American voice” (Elle).Trade Review"[An] excellent new collection…[Sayrafiezadeh] writes with a veteran’s swagger and discipline…[T]he collection joins a list that includes Leonard Michaels’s “I Would Have Saved Them if I Could,” Lorrie Moore’s “Like Life” and Charles D’Ambrosio’s “The Dead Fish Museum” as a second book of stories that exceeds and expands upon the promise of the first, confirming the writer as a major, committed practitioner of a difficult form." -- Andrew Martin - The New York Times Book Review"Despite its array of different settings, American Estrangement is thematically and formally cohesive. In addition to its treatment of disconnection and precarity, there is a compelling combination of realism and allegory, and some dystopian flourishes – features that have inspired comparisons with the work of George Saunders." -- Arin Keeble - The Times Literary Supplement"A dark and exhilarating collection." -- David L. Ulin - The Los Angeles Times"Skillful and controlled…[The stories in American Estrangement] speak, at times quite powerfully, to an overriding feeling of cultural and personal loneliness." -- Sam Sacks - The Wall Street Journal"[A] stellar new collection… Sayrafiezadeh is a master… His prose has a rhythm that is startlingly original and an intense quirkiness that catches you unaware." -- Elaine Margolin - Los Angeles Review of Books

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Book SynopsisPresents an annotated translation of the famous "Chin P'ing Mei", an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of His-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. This work, known for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of narrative art.Trade Review"[A] book of manners for the debauched. Its readers in the late Ming period likely hid it under their bedcovers."--Amy Tan, New York Times Book Review Praise for the previous volumes: "[I]t is time to remind ourselves that The Plum in the Golden Vase is not just about sex, whether the numerous descriptions of sexual acts throughout the novel be viewed as titillating, harshly realistic, or, in Mr. Roy's words, intended 'to express in the most powerful metaphor available to him the author's contempt for the sort of persons who indulge in them.' The novel is a sprawling panorama of life and times in urban China, allegedly set safely in the Sung dynasty, but transparently contemporary to the author's late sixteenth-century world, as scores of internal references demonstrate. The eight hundred or so men, women, and children who appear in the book cover a breath-taking variety of human types, and encompass pretty much every imaginable mood and genre--from sadism to tenderness, from light humor to philosophical musings, from acute social commentary to outrageous satire."--Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books "Clearly David Roy is the greatest scholar-translator in the field of premodern vernacular Chinese fiction... The puns and various other kinds of word plays that abound in the Chin P'ing Mei are so difficult to translate that I can't help 'slapping the table in amazement' each time I see evidence of Roy's masterful rendition of them... I recommend this book, in the strongest possible terms, to anyone interested in the novel form in general, in Chinese literature in particular, or in the translation of Chinese literature."--Shuhui Yang, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews "Racy, colloquial, and robustly scatalogical, [this translation] could only have been done now, when our literary language has finally shed its Victorian values. David Tod Roy enters with zest into the spirit and the letter of the original, quite surpassing ... earlier versions."--Paul St. John Mackintosh, Literary Review "Reading Roy's translation is a remarkable experience."--Robert Chatain, Chicago Tribune Review of Books "[B]y virtue of both Roy's decision to translate the cihua version of the novel, and his manner of doing so, we have here an invaluable insight into the material and popular literary world of the late-Ming that will serve as a wonderful resource for students of the various aspects of this fascinating and rapidly changing period of late imperial Chinese history for many years to come."--Duncan Campbell, New Zealand Journal of Asian StudiesTable of ContentsLIST OF I LLUSTRATIONS ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi CAST OF CHARACTERS xiii CHAPTER 41: Hsi-men Ch'ing Forms a Marriage Alliance with Ch'iao Hung; P'an Chin-lien Engages in a Quarrel with Li P'ing-erh 1 CHAPTER 42: APowerful Family Blocks Its Gate in Order to Enjoy Fireworks; Distinguished Guests in a High Chamber Appreciate the Lanterns 19 CHAPTER 43: Because of the Missing Gold Hsi-men Ch'ing Curses Chin-lien; As a Result of the Betrothal Yueh-niang Meets Madame Ch'iao 40 CHAPTER 44: Wu Yueh-niang Detains Li Kuei-chieh Overnight; Hsi-men Ch'ing Drunkenly Interrogates Hsia-hua 65 CHAPTER 45: Li Kuei-chieh Requests the Retention of Hsia-hua; Wu Yueh-niang in a Fit of Anger Curses at Tai-an 81 CHAPTER 46: Rain and Snow Interrupt a Walk during the Lantern Festival; Wife and Concubines Laughingly Consult the Tortoise Oracle 97 CHAPTER 47: Wang Liu-erh Peddles Influence in Pursuit of Profit; Hsi-men Ch'ing Accepts a Bribe and Subverts the Law 129 CHAPTER 48: Investigating Censor Tseng Impeaches the Judicial Commissioners; Grand Preceptor Ts'ai Submits a Memorial Regarding Seven Matters 147 CHAPTER 49: Hsi-men Ch'ing Welcomes Investigating Censor Sung Ch'iao-nien; In the Temple of Eternal Felicity He Encounters an Indian Monk 171 CHAPTER 50: Ch'in-t'ung Eavesdrops on the Joys of Lovemaking; Tai-an Enjoys a Pleasing Ramble in Butterfly Lane 203 CHAPTER 51: Yueh-niang Listens to the Exposition Of The Diamond Sutra; Li Kuei-chieh Seeks Refuge in the Hsi-men Ch'ing Household 221 CHAPTER 52: Ying Po-chueh Intrudes on a Spring Beauty in the Grotto; P'an Chin-lien Inspects a Mushroom in the Flower Garden 255 CHAPTER 53: Wu Yueh-niang Engages in Coition in Quest of Male Progeny; Li P'ing-erh Fulfills a Vow in Order to Safeguard Her Son 289 CHAPTER 54: Ying Po-chueh Convenes His Friends in a Suburban Garden; Jen Hou-ch'i Diagnoses an Illness for a Powerful Family 320 CHAPTER 55: Hsi-men Ch'ing Observes a Birthday in the Eastern Capital; Squire Miao from Yang-chou Sends a Present of Singing Boys 346 CHAPTER 56: Hsi-men Ch'ing Assists Ch'ang Shih-chieh; Ying Po-chueh Recommends Licentiate Shui 374 CHAPTER 57: Abbot Tao Solicits Funds to Repair the Temple of Eternal Felicity; Nun Hsueh Enjoins Paying for the Distribution of the Dharan Sutra 394 CHAPTER 58: Inspired by a Fit of Jealousy Chin-lien Beats Ch'iu-chu; Begging Cured Pork the Mirror Polisher Tells a Sob Story 420 CHAPTER 59: Hsi-men Ch'ing Dashes "Snow Lion" to Death; Li P'ing-erh Cries Out in Pain for Kuan-ko 453 CHAPTER 60: Li P'ing-erh Becomes Ill Because of Suppressed Anger; Hsi-men Ch'ing's Silk Goods Store Opens for Business 489 NOTES 507 BIBLIOGRAPHY 639 INDEX 673

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Book SynopsisPresents a funny retelling of the Arabian Nights and a inspired exploration of the art of storytelling. This title reimagines how Sheherezade saved Baghdad's virgins and her own life through a heroic feat of storytelling - one that kept the Persian king Sharyar hanging in agonizing narrative and erotic suspense for 1001 nights.Trade Review"[Codrescu] isn't offering a retelling of the original Arabic tales, but is presenting an independent story featuring Scheherazade... The stories share some characteristics and plotlines with Arabian Nights but always with a twist or new metaphysical take... Interesting and witty footnotes about translations of the Arabian Nights and the culture of the story are added as a kind of bonus, contributing to the narrative... Codrescu's fans will love this book, and Arabists will be charmed by this new take on the classic."--David Azzolina, Library Journal "Andrei Codrescu, with his trademark mixture of wit and wonder, explores the story of the Arabian Nights, how Sheherazade came to spin her nightly tales, and what they might mean to today's population, infiltrated as we are with access and explanation... Under his scrutiny, Arabian Nights becomes larger than its sum of stories and stretches to encompass the future of humanity, the future of storytelling. Codrescu isn't retelling the Arabian Nights as much as he is reveling in their existence and sharing them with the contagious glee of a boy and his can of worms... An homage to the power of stories, Codrescu's book of Arabian tales will well serve those who have studied the text before and those readers new to it. He is a funny and commanding guide, and his obvious love for the written and spoken word tints every line with a vital hue."--Andi Diehn, ForeWord Reviews "[O]ne of my favourite contemporary writers has released his own take on the perennial classic. Whatever Gets You through the Night is on the one hand a retelling of the Nights, on the other a commentary upon the anthology and a critique of every translation of it into English... Codrescu attempts to liberate these immortal, mischievous and fecund stories from the apparatus of intellectual discourse which has raged around them since they were first written down. He plays with time, character and the frames of the stories themselves, inventing new ways to look at them, repeating elements from one to another, always getting in a joke when he can. Unlike some of the English translators, he embraces the carnality and brutality of the telling. He confronts the misogyny of the tales head on, rather than suppressing them on the grounds of their indecency, and he slyly inserts into this cultural touchstone a description of the gradual suppression and control of women's lives and their movements, their bodies and their minds, which still operates all over the Middle East... Codrescu's book rescues The Arabian Nights from the nursery, where the magic and wonder surely belong but where the reality of adult life has been sacrificed for the comfort of children."--Michel Basilieres, Toronto Star "Codrescu mashes up fiction and criticism, giving us Borgesian fabulation complete with the trappings of scholarship playfully deployed--his Sheherezade is a linguist and narratologist as well as a deft spinner of yarns... Mediaeval Arabia, the present and even a science-fiction future, all swirl around on the page. Anything goes: storytelling is life and freedom for Codrescu as well as for Sheherezade."--Owen Richardson, The Age "Whatever Gets You Through the Night nominally includes only one of the 1,001 stories that, told over several nights by Sheherezade, keep the king curious enough to spare her. But Codrescu's is not so much a retelling as a treatise on or demonstration of the Nights' mechanics; in his hands, this story becomes almost infinite... Like Borges before him, Codrescu shows the borders between fiction and truth to be ragged, if not nonexistent. A kind of linguistic alchemy occurs between word and flesh... Although much of the book is dedicated to, and may be read as, a serious investigation of storytelling and its place in our future (our own iSheherezade), Codrescu never loses sight of the fact that these stories are meant to be 'entertainments' above all."--Jenny Hendrix, San Francisco Chronicle "You may have read the Arabian Nights before, but I promise you have never read it quite like this."--World Book IndustryTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*Framed, pg. v*No Telling Without Retelling, pg. 1*Nostalgia, pg. 2*Search, pg. 12*Sharyar'S Return, pg. 34*Sheherezade Daughter of the Vizir, pg. 46*The Findings: Scroll One, pg. 68*The Fates Speak:, pg. 76*Sheherezade'S Day, pg. 94*King Sharyar'S Day, pg. 101*Sharyar'S Dilemma, pg. 111*In The King'S Absence: Sheherezade.1, pg. 117*"I See It Sometimes," Abd Al-Hakim Said Mirthlessly, pg. 118*Another Day of Royal Prose, pg. 123*And Yet Another Royal Day, pg. 131*The Findings: Scroll Two, In Your Majesty'S Absence, pg. 131*In The King'S Absence: Sheherezade.2, pg. 139*In The King'S Absence: Sheherezade.3, pg. 145*Sharyar'S Day, pg. 154*The Findings: Scroll Three, pg. 155*Failure of the Middle Class, pg. 160*The Problem Of Containment and Why a Baby Won'T Solve It, pg. 169*Bibliography, pg. 177

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Book SynopsisThis is the third book in a new trilogy aimed at 7-9 year old girls in the main.

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Book SynopsisWith this edition of A Saloonkeeper's Daughter, an important and prescient work of American fiction is finally available in English.Trade ReviewAn intriguing book... The novel realistically details middle-class life in the Norwegian-American immigrant community in 1870s Minneapolis. -- Clarence Mondale American Studies International At last available in an English translation, this Norwegian American historical novel... tells the story of the beautiful Astrid, an immigrant who struggles to find her way to independence and faith. Janson was 36 when she came to the U.S., and in this novel she vividly evokes the tough life in Minneapolis and the landscape of Norway and Minnesota... Highly recommended for all libraries. Choice Drude Krog Janson lived an incredibly fascinating life, at the center of which was the struggle for women's rights. This is also true of her first novel, which follows a woman through adversity and struggle in a man's world and a class-conscious culture, until she finds her own identity as a free and independent human being... Today the novel is of interest both for its historical setting and as an early and daring attempt to tell the story of a young woman who has the strength and the courage to choose to live a full life without compromise. The novel may also make you wish to find out more about the author: a very many-faceted and productive woman who had an impact both in Norway and abroad. -- Hans H. Skei Aftenposten (Oslo) A Saloonkeeper's Daughter is fascinating and enjoyable reading... The novel is a lyrical female coming-of-age story, realistically portraying the protagonist's struggles while showing women who create successful intellectual and emotional lives for themselves in a male-dominated society. -- Solveig Zempel Journal of American Ethnic History This strong American novel... is above all else a women's liberation treatise that is universally applicable... It is an interesting and worthwhile reading experience. AvisenTable of ContentsContents: Translator's Preface Introduction A Saloonkeeper's Daughter Notes

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Book SynopsisA nineteenth-century radical women's rights novel that tells the story of a young woman's efforts to earn respect and autonomy as a women's rights lecturerTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChristine: Or Woman's Trials and Triumphs Notes

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Book SynopsisThe outlying humanity that Le Clézio explores in this collection of stories finds its expression in the understanding of children. The world of Mondo and Other Stories is that of a natural world pushed to the margins by complacent, indifferent modernity. Haunting and beautiful, these stories speak to a universal longing for a life beyond the confines and trappings of modern existence.Trade Review"Le Clezio's style is the collection's greatest attraction. Anderson's elegant translation conveys the detailed, physical, fluid, and complex lushness of the language, which may engage and satisfy readers of Garcia Marquez and other master stylists."-Ellen Loughran, Booklist -- Ellen Loughran Booklist "In Le Clezio's fictional universe, the world exists in a prelapsarian state of timeless grace, at least until the inevitably corrupt and destructive world of adults comes crashing in."-Michael Lindgren, Washington Post -- Michael Lindgren Washington PostTable of ContentsMondoLullabyThe Mountain of the Living GodThe WaterwheelDaniel Who Had Never Seen the SeaHazaranPeople of the SkyThe Shepherds

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Book SynopsisWinner of the Western Heritage Award, this beautifully crafted historical novel from one of the West's most popular writers tells the true story of the friendship between Valentine McGillycuddy, a young doctor plucked from his prestigious medical career and newly married wife to serve in the army during the Great Sioux War, and the fearsome chief Crazy Horse.Trade Review“This powerful story is a thinking man’s western, in which action is secondary to O’Brien’s nuanced exploration of character and the tragic dimensions of a morally fraught conflict.”—Publishers Weekly“Draws a vivid portrait of Crazy Horse and gives an interesting, fresh perspective on the Great Sioux War.”—Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove“Impeccably researched.”—New York Times“The Contract Surgeon is an eerie, harrowing novel with terrifying implications. There is the aura that the ghosts of the Sioux made him write this book. It is lucid and harsh, and deftly avoids the sentimentality that mars novels that deal with our first citizens. The Contract Surgeon should bring O’Brien to the wide audience he deserves.”—Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall“A thoughtful work of fiction about historical and psychological frontiers.”—National Public Radio“An intriguing, well-written, down-to-earth medical western.”—BooklistTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsAuthor's NoteIntroductionChronology of EventsThe Contract Surgeon [41 numbered chapters]

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Book SynopsisDan O'Brien's earlier award-winning novel The Contract Surgeon introduced readers to Valentine McGillycuddy, a friend of the great war chief Crazy Horse. The Indian Agent is the riveting sequel to The Contract Surgeon.Trade Review“Well suited to those who like their historical fiction more historical than fictitious.”—Kirkus Reviews“Readers will clamor for a further installment of this well-written, absorbing and deeply affecting story.”—Publishers WeeklyTable of Contents[no TOC; 23 numbered chapters in 7 parts]Part One: The Capital - Winter 1878-1879Part Two: Pine Ridge - Spring 1879Part Three: The Yeoman Sioux - Summer, Fall 1879Part Four: Eastern Politics - 1880-1882Part Five: Outbreak - Fall 1882Part Six: Ghost Dance - 1884-1889Part Seven: Wounded Knee - Winter 1890-1891

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Book SynopsisIn sixteen ferocious short stories, French author Luc Lang encapsulates the brutality of everyday life. Each tale is an admixture of tragedy, comedy, ridicule, and pain. Compassion lurks somewhere, perhaps, but pity is conspicuous by its absence. Lang's curt, agitated prose disassembles daily life with a swift, unflinching hand and examines it with a sharp, analytic eye.Trade Review"A smooth, seamless translation."—Warren Motte, Washington Independent Review of Books“An extraordinary fabulist of subterranean aggression.”—Christine Ferniot, Télérama “Like Francis Bacon, Luc Lang sets out ‘to paint not the horror but the scream.’”—Jean-Claude Lebrun, L’Humanité “[Luc Lang] works with enormous talent on ellipsis and on the unsaid. . . . His electrifying writing presents events in all the banality of their ugliness or sadness: the firing of a good worker injured on the job, the foiled attempts of a superior to wrest sexual favors from a subordinate, the failing memory of an old man. . . . Lang shows the cruelty of the world without ever pronouncing the word ‘cruelty.’”—Les Inrockuptibles From the author: “One day in the early 1990s I heard a news report on the radio. There, in the incandescence of the facts, was a model for fictional narrative. . . . A woman pulls up in the fast lane of a highway and begins to change a wheel, as though on the hard shoulder. Just as she is removing the wheel with the blow-out, she is struck by a fast-moving automobile and killed, borne aloft along with her wheel, her jack, and her car's rear fender—bone, flesh and metal exploding on the hood of the other vehicle. Was she stupid? Was her psychological makeup to blame? Her mental state at that particular moment? Her age? Sex? Family history? Her psycho-socio-historico blah-blah-blah background? Who cares? Only the act matters, in all its madness, all its intensity. . . . The act in itself reveals and illuminates our whole world.”—Luc Lang, Délit de Fiction (Notes for a Poetics of the Novel). Paris: Gallimard, 2011 Table of Contents 1. UP↑ DOWN↓ FRAGILE2. Sniper3. Left4. Initiation5. Private Life6. Flux7. Mad Love8. The Cold Chain9. Sunday10. Air Conditioned11. Escalation12. Face?14. Dodging15. Airbag16. Rendezvous17. The Lord's Day

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Book SynopsisEngineer Bartley Alexander appears to have a happy life in Boston with a successful career and a beautiful wife. He has been commissioned to design the Moorlock Bridge in Canada, the most important project of his career.Trade Review“This scholarly edition does justice to Cather’s notoriously particular production requirements. The material and editorial quality of the book meets very high standards, with the paper, the visual presentation of the words on the page, the rigor of the editing and proofreading, the thoroughness of the notes, and the detailed explanation of editorial decisions all illustrating impeccable scholarship. The historical essay and the illustrations provide useful information. . . . This volume stands as a model of scrupulous, indeed loving, scholarship. It offers a fully elaborated, beautiful text that even Cather, despite her effort to bury the book, might be proud to acknowledge.”—Great Plains Quarterly

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Book SynopsisPresents a prize-winning collection of stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans, US-mainland-born Puerto Ricans, and displaced native Puerto Ricans who are living between spaces while attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines Puerto Rican identity. Amina Gautier’s characters deal with the difficulties of bicultural identities in a world that wants them to choose only one.Trade Review"The 11 linked stories in Gautier's debut collection . . . vividly evoke Puerto Rico's intoxicating, comforting atmosphere—that unbreakable tether binding struggling people in crowded Northeastern U.S. cities to their tropical homeland. . . . Gautier captures the unique experience, and predicament, of Puerto Ricans living in the mainland U.S."—Publishers Weekly"Gautier's linked stories deftly capture her characters' internal struggles for identity and home."—Leah Strauss, Booklist"With a style that feels like a mixture of Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danicat, Gautier is a writer more people should be talking about."—Coleen Muir, Rumpus"Told with respect, grit, and truth, Now We Will Be Happy is a powerful collection about family, identity, and the sacrifices we make in our pursuits of happiness."—Laura Farmer, Cedar Rapids Gazette"Timely as well as beautifully rendered, Gautier's collection breathes life into America's racial and immigrant conflicts, going well below the skin-deep surface of her characters or expose the passions and hopes that unite diverse people."—Sian Griffiths, Georgia Review"Gautier's persistent thematic explorations into the meaning of family and identity make Now We Will Be Happy cohere and resonate in ways that you’ll remember long after the final page."—Leland Cheuk, Kenyon ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsAguanileNow We Will Be HappyBodegaMuñecaHow to Make FlanOnly SonA Wish, Like a Candle, BurnsThe Luckiest Man in the WorldRememberingThe Last HurricanePalabras

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Book SynopsisA collection of stories that focus on female subjectivity. It features stories such as: "The Nocturnal Butterflies"; "Shadows in the Shadows"; and, "The Shunammite".Trade Review“Underground River and Other Stories is nothing short of spellbinding. Mostly set in a small town in northwestern Mexico at the beginning of this century, it provides a stunning expression of the erotic perversity found in seemingly ordinary lives. . . . [Arredondo] is one of modern Mexico’s most highly regarded writers. Cynthia Steele’s able translation, the first appearance of Arredondo’s work in English, should secure a new audience for her powerful and distinctive voice.”—Jenny McPhee, New York Times Book Review“Essential reading or anybody who can appreciate a writer’s genius for expressing passion in every shade of the lexical rainbow. The focus is anguish: a subject which touches every life.”—Leslie Cohen, Jerusalem Post“These twelve stories, taken from Inés Arredondo’s three short-story collections and chosen shortly before her death in November 1989, are an excellent and appropriate reflection of the range and depth of her work. . . . . The introduction by Cynthia Steele and foreword by Elena Poniatowska offer helpful insights into Arredondo’s life and an assessment of her work.”—Nuala Finnegan, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies“The fruity, fecund texture of [Arredondo’s] prose, as lushly rendered by Cynthia Steele, marks her unmistakably as a writer of the tropics—one, moreover, who employs the wild and elaborate themes of erotic obsession, excessively passionate love, and depravity often associated with that region. . . . Arredondo’s strengths will doubtless secure for her a posthumous reputation throughout the Americas equal to the one she already enjoys in Mexico.”—Whitney Scott, Booklist“This selection provides a very good introduction to [Arredondo’s] work, fascinating stories that open up a vista of decadence and passion, and relate some of the ways in which our rationality can be overruled by our desires. . . . A rare delight for short story lovers.”—British Bulletin of Publications

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Book SynopsisA political thriller about an assassination plot against Charles de Gaulle; including an introduction that tells the story behind the novel's publication and its lasting ramifications.Trade Review"James D. Le Sueur provides a historical essay appended to the novel wherein he describes the political climate at the time of the efforts to kill de Gaulle, and then a very vivid description of the defamation trial. Taken together, the novel and Le Sueur’s essay provide a riveting recreation of a moment in French history where the dramatic and the ridiculous vied for equal attention."—William Cloonan, South Atlantic Review"Professor James LeSueur . . . does not specialize in spy novels of the 1960s. His domain is more the history of intellectuals. One day, however, in Paris, Pierre Vidal-Naquet told him about an old memory of a forgotten affair: the pulping of an English spy novel, in 1963, following a lawsuit filed by Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle’s complaint was that his role in the novel was that of a villain, a scheming fascist. Le Sueur did some research, tracked down the authors, read their files. And he just brought that little novel back into print in the U.S.: Assassination! July14. In a long, passionate historical essay, Le Sueur tells the story of the trial. And this second part of the book is a more solid and captivating thriller than the slight novel which precedes it. Not only does the essay cast new light on Jacques Soustelle, one of the most enigmatic personages of the postwar period, it also illuminates in formidable fashion the political strife of the time, its pure violence."—Pascal Riché, Libération"An unusual political thriller, first published almost 40 years ago, now looks like a revealing document of France’s deepest postwar crisis . . . You could also read Assassination! for pleasures of a less-erudite kind, summed up by three simple words: grenade-launching dogs."—Scott McLemee, Chronicle of Higher EducationTable of ContentsContents The Beginning Baraka Canine Kamikazes Max Mr. Palk Max Palk Max and Silesia The Minister The Forgotten Forecast The Prefect The Sentence That Never Was The Villains Boudin Bears a Barbouze The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, second edition How Odd of God Famous Last Words Tuesday, July the Tenth Wednesday, July the Eleventh Thursday, July the Twelfth Friday, July the Thirteenth Max Escapes by the Back The Setback Max Must See the Prefect The Telephone Call The Red Cross Max Goes Underground Jacobs among the Jackboots The Prefect Loses Some Sleep The Assassination Breakfast on the Fourteenth Max Puts on his Uniform Salute the Rostrum Assassination The End July the Sixteenth Before the Jackal: The International Uproar over Assassination!

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Book SynopsisAt the beginning of the twenty-first century, Earth is effectively a corporate technocracy, with businesses using advances in science to improve life on the planet. Seeking other planets habitable for the human population, the spaceship Callisto, powered by an antigravitational force known as apergy, embarks on momentous tour of the solar system.

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Book SynopsisFeatures war stories that are arresting, often shocking accounts of the incivilities perpetrated by and on men suddenly confronting their own mortality.This title includes stories such as: 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', 'Chickamauga', 'The Mocking Bird', 'The Coup de Grace', 'Parker Anderson, Philosopher', and other stories.Trade Review"He will remain one of our greatest wits, one of our most uncompromising satirists, the perfecter of two or three new genres."—Clifton Fadiman"Bierce's war stories are. . .arresting, often shocking accounts of the incivilities perpetrated by and on men suddenly confronting their own mortality."—Cathy N. Davidson, author of The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce"[These] striking stories center on subject matter virtually unique in fiction: the awareness of imminent violent death. Perhaps borrowing from his experience of being gravely wounded in the Civil War, [Bierce] wrote upward of a dozen stories in which the protagonist knows he is about to die, usually by hanging or firing squad—or, in a variation, recovers consciousness after being pronounced dead."—Dennis Drabelle, Smithsonian

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Book SynopsisNothing will ever mystify or challenge the Wonder. He masters entire libraries and languages with little effort. No equation, no problem is too difficult to solve. His casual conversations with ministers and philosophers decimate their vaunted beliefs and crush their cherished intellectual ambitions.Trade Review" ... well worth reading; this is a nice edition ... like the other Bison Books reprints this is recommended to all those who are interested in the roots of sf."--interzone, february 2000"Odd that the book which prefaced modern science fiction and fantasy was published a year before the Titanic sank, and odder yet that a Nebraska publisher should refloat the tale of England cricketer Ginger Stott's aberrant son. The yanks must be as much at sea with the legspin as we are with the baseball, but the reason why this classic has resurfaced is clear from the first page ... Good stuff; enough to raise goose-pimples."--Time Out, 8 March 2000 "There is an admirable Edwardian solidity to Bereford's classic of "speculative fiction" that carries a good yarn, sometimes woodenly written, along... Long unavailable, The Wonder is a minor work, but an enjoyable, old-fashioned discovery nonetheless."--The Guardian, 1 July 2000

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Book SynopsisBeneath the earth's surface lies a world of eternal daylight - Pellucidar. Scattered throughout are communities of distrustful humans and the cities of the reptilian, highly evolved Mahars. The authors' discovery of Pellucidar and the struggle to unite the human communities and overthrow the Mahars is a tale of conquest, deceit, and wonder.Trade Review"Students of early science fiction will welcome the University of Nebraska Press's series Bison Frontiers of Imagination."—Times Literary Supplement

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Book SynopsisThis exciting and comprehensive anthologythe first anthology of German women''s fairy tales in Englishpresents a variety of published and archival fairy tales from 1780 to 1900. These authors of these stories used fairy tales to explain their own lives, to teach children, to examine history, and to critique society and the status quo. Powerful and conflicted females are queens, girls on quests, mothers, daughters, magical wisewomen, and midwives to the fairies; they love, hate, murder, save children, fight tyranny, overcome cannibals, and rescue the working poor.Jeannine Blackwell''s introduction places the tales in their historical, social, and critical context, and Shawn C. Jarvis''s afterword presents a thematic analysis of the texts and approaches to reading them in conjunction with other European and American tales.Trade Review"English translations of German fairy tales written by men have existed for years... But German tales by women have been overlooked. This handsome volume neatly fills that gap."-Choice Choice "In this outstanding anthology, the editors/translators present a cross-section of tales by German-speaking women from various walks of life. The opening story ... also the first known fairy tale in German by a woman, was written in 1784 by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia... In general, characters here encounter different interactions and transformations than in the traditional fairy tales. Rather than being the stereotypical submissive types, cast out by the evil stepmother or 'sent out into the world,' many of these female characters actively participate in fantastic and magical experiences."-Library Journal Library Journal "The tales in The Queen's Mirror open a window into the literary culture of nineteenth-century Germany, telling of the quest for romance, wealth, power, justice, and, most importantly, a way home. While women writers produced fairy tales with an astonishing range and play, their work has been effaced by the popular success of the Grimms' fairy tales. With this ambitious archaeological project, Jarvis and Blackwell reclaim stories that are up close and personal, but also culturally symptomatic, broadening our understanding of the anxieties and desires of an earlier era."-Maria Tatar, author of Classic Fairy Tales -- Maria Tatar "An impressive and very useful anthology that bring to light a literature too long in the shadows. The editors have selected engaging and oftentimes remarkable tales that gain resonance through insightful contextualization. The translations are of fluid prose and offer comfortable reading."-Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale StudiesTable of ContentsTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Jeannine Blackwell "The Queen's Mirror: The Historical Context of German Women's Fairy Tales" Prologue: Gisela von Arnim: "The Ghost Lady" Catherine the Great: "The Fairy Tale of Fewei" Lulu Brentano Jordis: "The Lion and the Frog" [Benedikte Naubert]: Velleda, a Magic Novel [Sophie Tieck]: "The Old Man in the Cavern" anon.: "The Giant's Forest" Tian [ps. Caroline von Gunderrode]: "Temora" Bettina von Arnim: "The Queen's Son" Amalie von Helwig: "The Symbols" Anna von Haxthausen: "The Rescued Princess" Caroline Stahl: "The Godmothers" Amalie Schoppe: "The Diligent and Kind Housewife" Agnes Franz: "Princess Rosalieb, A Fairy Tale" Fanny Lewald: "A Modern Fairy Tale" [Louise Dittmar]: "Tale of the Monkeys" Sophie von Baudissin: "The Doll Institute" Gisela von Arnim: "The Nasty Little Pea" "About the Hamster" Marie von Olfers: "Little Princess" Villamaria [ps. Marie Timme]: "The King's Child" Elisabeth Ebeling: "Black and White" Hedwig Dohm: "The Fragrance of Flowers" Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach: The Princess of Banalia Henriette Kuhne-Harkort: "Snow White, Freely Adapted from the Grimms" Carmen Sylva [ps. Elizabeth, Queen of Rumania]: "Furnica, or The Queen of the Ants" Anon.: "The Red Flower" Ricarda Huch: "Pack of Lies" Epilogue: Gisela von Arnim: "Wedding Day" Afterword: Shawn C. Jarvis: "From the Cradle to the Grave: Some Thoughts on Reading these Tales" Permissions and Credits List of Abbreviations Works Cited Notes

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Book SynopsisThis sequel to 'At the Earth's Core' returns to the world of Pellucidar - an exotic, savage land at the centre of our Earth, an untamed wilderness where time stands still.

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