Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Books
University of Chicago Press Waking Phoenix Poets
Book SynopsisOne of our most gifted poets, Sleigh reveals with vigor and delicacy the connections forged between the dead and the living. Waking is a moving narrative of the creation of the self. . . . . it takes a book like Tom Sleigh's Waking to remind us of all that was most innately stirring and necessary about the confessional insurrection. . . . in Waking Sleigh proves himself worthy of spinning gold thread from the straw of sincerity, elevating his so-called confessions from the merely revealing to the durably revelatory.David Barber, Poetry[Sleigh] is a consummate stylist whose formal control and exploitation of convention is graceful and calm. And yet it is from the calm and steady control that some of Sleigh's most emotionally powerful moments are acheived. . . .Waking is one of the strongest collections of poems to appear in the last few years.Michael Collier, Partisan ReviewTom Sleigh's second book of poems, Waking is so fine one can hardly do justice to it in a review. The second poem, 'Ending,' is a remarkable piece of work which introduces the notion of the 'hook'which hooks us to life even while it kills us. It is a presence of painful mortality which haunts the rest of the book.Liz Rosenberg, New York Times Book ReviewWaking handsomely and affirmatively demonstrates its own clean and demanding premise: one's imagination is awakened to life by the burden of mortality. One reads in these poems a view not of the poet's suffering, but of our own temporal joys and sorrows.Jay Meek, Hungry Mind ReviewWith the publication of Waking, his second collection of poems, Tom Sleigh establishes his voice among the strongest of his generation. A poet of subject and craft, his skill allows him to avoid the slackness of much free verse and, at the same time, break free of the stiff old numbers in order to create a spoken language of rhythmic intensity and eloquence. . . . In this book Tom Sleigh's vigilance provides his readers with an invaluable gift: we can wake our lives.Stuart Dischell, Boston Review
£999.99
University of Chicago Press Waking Paper Phoenix Poets
Book Synopsis
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press Walter Benjamin
Book SynopsisOffers a comprehensive introduction to the oeuvre of German Jewish writer, philosopher, and literary critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). This title traces the development of Benjamin's thought chronologically through his writings on philosophy, literature, history, politics, the media, art, photography, cinema, technology, and theology.Trade Review"Steiner's dual focus on text and context offers a fruitful and illuminating introduction to Benjamin's challenging writings." - Paragraph "The book offers much to those long familiar with Benjamin's reception, as well as to those looking for a sound introduction." - Monatshefte"
£999.99
University of Chicago Press Catalogue of Books Journals 18911965 Emersion
Book Synopsis
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press At the Barriers
Book SynopsisMaverick gay poetic icon Thom Gunn (1929-2004) and his body of work have long dared the British and American poetry establishments either to claim or disavow him. This book surveys Gunn's career from his youth in 1930s Britain to his final years in California, from his earliest publications to his later unpublished notebooks.
£999.99
University of Chicago Press Sarahs Choice Paper Phoenix Poets
Book SynopsisIn this, her third collection of poems, Eleanor Wilner revises a number of our culture's central myths; invoking figures as diverse as Briar Rose and Miriam the Prophet, she casts upon their stories, and choices, an enlivening feminist perspective. There is so much that is impressive in Wilner's mature poems. In an era which has been labelled 'The End of History,' she examines history's less obvious lessons. If the past is to teach us, she seems to say, then we must re-invent and re-shape it.--Poetry
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press Andy Warhol Poetry Gossip in the 1960s Paper
Book SynopsisArguing against Andy Warhol's apparently superficial pop image, this study seeks to show that Warhol was deeply engaged with the people around him, and that this was reflected in his art. It looks at the underground culture of poets, artists and film-makers who regularly interacted with Warhol.
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press Making England Western
Book SynopsisThe central argument of Edward Said's Orientalism is that the relationship between Britain and its colonies was primarily oppositional, based on contrasts between conquest abroad and domestic order at home. This book reveals that romanticism provided a way to resist imperial logic about improvement and moral virtue.Trade Review"Saree Makdisi has written a book that in its central line of argument and its detail is thoroughly original and compelling, deeply learned and detailed, erudite and entertaining. His skillful accounts of key romantic writers and detailed knowledge of English social history and place create a vivid picture of social life and conditions that few literary analyses can boast." (David T. Goldberg, University of California, Irvine)"
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press Futurity
Book SynopsisWhen looking at how trauma is represented in literature and the arts, we tend to focus on the weight of the past. In this book, author suggests that this retrospective gaze has trapped us in a search for reason in the madness of the twentieth century's catastrophes at the expense of literature's prospective vision.Trade Review"Using an appealing combination of novels by German and Israeli writers, Amir Eshel produces a powerful and refreshing argument that these texts, which look back at past events, nonetheless point forward to future solutions to the problems they address. Convincing and engaging, Futurity will open the eyes of many readers to an important but often neglected function of literature." (Judith Ryan, Harvard University)"
£999.99
The University of Chicago Press Dirt and Desire
Book SynopsisThe story of southern writing runs along an iron path; an official narrative of a literature about community, place and past, miscegenation, white patriarchy and the epic of race. This text provides an entirely different set of categories through which to understand southern literature and culture.
£999.99
Yale University Press The Iceman Cometh
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewSelected as a 2007 AAUP University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries"We live and die, in the spirit, in solitude, and the true strength of Iceman is its intense dramatic exemplification of that somber reality . . . life, in Iceman, is what it is in Schopenhauer: illusion."—from the foreword by Harold Bloom
£13.95
Random House USA Inc The Zhivago Affair
Book SynopsisThe Zhivago Affair is the dramatic, never-before-told story—drawing on newly declassified files—of how a forbidden book became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West.In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout went to a village outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the manuscript of Pasternak’s only novel, suppressed by Soviet authorities. From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA published a Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands who defied their government to bid him farewell, and his example launched the great tradition of the Soviet writer-dissident. First to obtain CIA files providing proof of the agency
£15.26
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Gross Indecency
Book SynopsisWinner of the Lambda Literary AwardIn this stunning work of theater, Moises Kaufman turns the trials of Oscar Wilde into a riveting human and intellectual drama. In April 1895 Oscar Wilde brought a libel suit against the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his youthful lover, who had publicly maligned him as a sodomite. In doing so, England''s reigning man of letters set in motion a series of events that would culminate in his ruin and imprisonment. For within a year the bewildered Wilde himself was on trial for acts of gross indecency and, implicitly—for a vision of art that outraged Victorian propriety. Expertly interweaving courtroom testimony with excerpts from Wilde''s writings and the words of his contemporaries, Gross Indecency unveils its subject in all his genius and human frailty, his age in all its complacency and repression. The result is a play that will be read and studied for decades to come.
£11.39
Random House USA Inc Fires in the Mirror Crown Heights Brooklyn and
Book SynopsisDerived from interviews with a wide range of people who experienced or observed New York's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires In The Mirror is as distinguished a work of commentary on black-white tensions as it is a work of drama. In August 1991 simmering tensions in the racially polarized Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Crown Heights exploded into riots after a black boy was killed by a car in a rabbi's motorcade and a Jewish student was slain by blacks in retaliation. Fires in the Mirror is dramatist Anna Deavere Smith's stunning exploration of the events and emotions leading up to and following the Crown Heights conflict. Through her portrayals of more than two dozen Crown eights adversaries, victims, and eyewitnesses, using verbatim excerpts from their observations derived from interviews she conducted, Smith provides a brilliant, Rashoman-like documentary portrait of contempo
£13.49
WW Norton & Co The WineDark Sea
Book SynopsisThe sixteenth volume in the Aubrey/Maturin series, and Patrick O'Brian's first bestseller in the United States.Trade Review"I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop." -- E. O. Wilson - Boston Globe"Addictively readable." -- Chicago Tribune"They're funny, they're exciting, they're informative. . . there are legions of us who gladly ship out time and time again under Captain Aubrey." -- The New Yorker"lf Jane Austen had written rousing sea yarns, she would have produced something very close to the prose of Patrick O'Brian." -- Time
£18.04
WW Norton & Co Dear Editor A History of Poetry in Letters
Book SynopsisPoignant, hilarious, and brutally frank, Dear Editor reveals the personalities and untold stories behind the creation of modern poetry.
£26.59
WW Norton & Co Townie A Memoir
Book SynopsisWon Book of the Year Adult Non-Fiction—2012 Indie Choice Awards Amazon Best Book of the Month February 2011 An acclaimed novelist reflects on his violent past and a lifestyle that threatened to destroy him—until he was saved by writing.Trade Review"You have to buy Townie." -- The Chronicle of Higher Education"Starred Review. Dubus chronicles each traumatic incident and realization in stabbing detail. So chiseled are his dramatic memories, his shocking yet redemptive memoir of self-transformation feels like testimony under oath as well as hard-hammered therapy, coalescing, ultimately, in a generous, penetrating, and cathartic dissection of misery and fury, creativity and forgiveness, responsibility and compassion." -- Booklist"Starred Review. His compassionate memoir abounds with exquisitely rendered scenes of fighting, cheating, drugging, drinking and loving. A striking, eloquent account of growing up poor and of the making of a writer." -- Kirkus Reviews"[A] harrowing and strange and beautiful book....an important moment in the growing body of Dubus’s work. " -- Boston Globe"In his memoir Townie, Andre Dubus III bravely claims all of the shadows he grew up under—his famous writer father, his parents’ divorce, his newly single mother’s impoverishment, the rough streets of the many working-class New England towns he called home. Fighting saved him for a while; then he put down his fists and picked up a pen. Lucky him, lucky us." -- Elle"[Dubus] is such a solid writer, he redeems the genre. He shows that truth can be as honest as fiction." -- Seattle Times"His ability to describe violence might be unmatched among contemporary writers. He understands the arcane, unspoken vocabulary of how fights start, as well as the bone-crushing details of how they end. But Townie is most memorable for how vulnerable Dubus seems, once he has stripped himself down to the soul for his readers." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch"Dubus writes compellingly of those trying times. Townie is a poignant coming-of-age story told by a man whose raw determination allowed him to endure a boyhood ruled by violence and emerge talented enough to write about it with brutal honesty." -- Miami Herald"Townie has all the rich texture, lucid characterization, compelling conflicts and narrative momentum of the best fiction. It renders heartbreaking, violent, tender and sometimes absurdly comic scenes without a trace of narcissism or sentimentality. From first sentence to last, Dubus employs a dispassionate yet urgent voice. It allows him to do justice to his past and to the people who populated it." -- Cleveland Plain-Dealer"Fans of Dubus’s fiction will thrill to reading his muscular, occasionally lyrical prose rendering his own life." -- Smith Magazine"In this powerful memoir, Andre Dubus III explores the complicated and intense relationships between siblings, mothers and sons, and fathers and sons. Growing up in hardscrabble old mill towns, Dubus learned to fight and survive and ultimately to find his own glorious voice … as Dubus finds his redemptive place in the world at last." -- Ann Hood, author of The Red Thread"Whatever it cost Dubus to bare his soul and write this brutally honest and life-affirming memoir, it is an extraordinary gift to his readers." -- Wally Lamb, author of The Hour I First Believed
£19.94
WW Norton & Co The Big Red Book of Modern Chinese Literature
Book SynopsisA panoramic literary anthology that explores the inner story of China in the twentieth century.Trade Review"Huang is previously the author of a witty and stylish book about Charlie Chan which drew on a variety of artforms – from doggerel verses to B-movies – to reflect on the representation of China in the West. The Big Red Book, which benefits from translations by a Who’s Who of talent, is similarly wide-ranging. And while Huang’s prose choices are relatively conventional, his selections of poems and sketches of their authors are engagingly idiosyncratic." -- The Times Literary Supplement"[A] worthwhile anthology... that manages to combine the established canon with less-well-known selections... [Its] breadth and variety…will, one hopes, encourage new readers to explore more Chinese literature in full translations." -- Julia Lovell - The New York Times Book Review"...a magisterial new volume..." -- The Herald
£27.55
WW Norton & Co The Waste Land A Biography of a Poem
Book SynopsisA riveting account of the making of T. S. Eliot’s celebrated poem The Waste Land on its centenary.Trade Review"Hollis delves into the deep background from which ‘The Waste Land’ arose... There is genuine suspense in the air, as Hollis invites us to listen out for murmurs and rumors, in the poet’s letters of long ago." -- Anthony Lane - The New Yorker"Illuminating... Hollis blends rich characterization and historical background to create a vivid picture of the London literary scene... Hollis’s sharp prose sings and is poetic in its own right... This fascinating and brilliantly researched history will delight Eliot’s fans." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)"An authoritative and beautifully written account of the peculiar alchemy that produced the most influential poem of the twentieth century. This is more than the story of T. S. Eliot's genius: Matthew Hollis reveals how the forces of friendship, love, despair, madness, and ambition shaped The Waste Land. Literary history at its finest." -- Heather Clark, author of Red Comet"Hollis succeeds brilliantly in bringing the literary landscape of the 1920s to life … [He] turns a complex process of literary composition into a rattling good story. His criticism is personally engaged...and wonderfully compelling as a result." -- Tristram Fane Saunders - Sunday Telegraph"Hollis combines a poet’s sharp eye for details with a cultural historian’s grasp of atmosphere… The richness of [his] analysis is evident on every page." -- Jason Harding - Financial Times"Like the 434-line poem, this book immerses the reader in the political, social and cultural themes of the day… [Hollis] weaves a rich body of research into a fast-paced narrative." -- Ellen Peirson-Hagger - New Statesman"[Hollis’s] quest is for all the seeds of intellectual and emotional pressure that shaped the poem. Such is the energy and engagement of Hollis in this task that you find yourself rooting for the emergence of the poem along with Eliot and his supporters, willing it into life as the book progresses... The evolution of those pages...have become folkloric among Eliot’s readers, but still Hollis invests them with fresh life." -- Tim Adams - Observer"With elegance, wit and...warmth, [Hollis] tells the story of The Waste Land’s difficult birth... At times the book reads, delightfully, as a group biography of modernism’s bright lights." -- Susannah Goldsborough - Times [UK]"A great work of art takes on a life of its own. This is the strategy equally artful and assessive of Matthew Hollis's superb new study, The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem. The poem is brilliant, infuriating, moody, conflicted, lyrical, fractured, wildly inventive, haunted by tradition, and as full of eroticism as lament. The Waste Land helped to define modernism and lives on vividly into our present day. To tell the life story of this poem, Hollis tells the story of the poet, sometimes minute by minute, conversation by conversation. The moving result as Whitman would say of his own sweeping poetry is that 'who touches this [book] touches a man.'" -- David Baker, author of Whale Fall and professor of English at Denison University
£28.79
WW Norton & Co My AvantGarde Education
Book SynopsisA wry and beautifully observed memoir about coming of age in the era of conceptual art.Trade Review"Moving…capture[s] the era…poetically." -- Peter Plagens - Wall Street Journal"We could all use an avant-garde education. If it's too late for you, please read My Avant-Garde Education. Bernard Cooper is one of the funniest writers I know, and like all the best humor, his work is tinged with the darker streams of life." -- Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers"[Cooper] put[s] together words in a combination of funny scenes, astute observations and moments of quiet poetry… The book is filled with moments…that practically require the reader to stop and savor the sentence again." -- Carolina A. Miranda - Los Angeles Times"A smart and funny coming-into-consciousness narrative of an extraordinary writer, a precise and evocative art-history lesson, and (above all) a persuasive reclamation of the everyday. A beautiful book." -- David Shields, author of Reality Hunger"[O]ne of L.A.’s great cultural critics and memoirists." -- Ed Leibowitz - Los Angeles Magazine"In My Avant-Garde Education, Bernard Cooper delivers a kind of magic. He works in a mode that is so subtle, so ingenious, so deeply rooted in the visceral that it almost defies verbal description.…This book employs the best practices of the best memoirs…By asking, "what is art?" Cooper is really asking, "what is life?" And though he gives us no easy answers, he explores these questions with such insight, humor, and generosity of spirit that we come away not only educated but genuinely enlightened." -- Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion"Alternately funny and touching… Readers interested in conceptualism will especially value these personal reflections during such a critical moment in the recent history of art." -- Publishers Weekly"Bernard Cooper is among my most favorite writers for his fearlessness, his honesty, his grace. He has written eloquently about subjects, many of us can find few words for and now he’s turned his eye onto his own coming of age the world of Cal Arts—an epicenter for art, creativity and a kind of highly intellectual absurdity. Cooper brilliantly captures what it is to awaken to ones creative self and the need to find what is ones own in terms of intellectual and personal identity while making sense of the world that surrounds." -- A.M. Homes, author of May We Be Forgiven"Bernard Cooper has created another elegantly simple testament to the power of the personal story. This is a riveting, soulful, whimsical, mournful, and triumphantly moving story about that weirdly mysterious process of transferring meaning from life to art, and then back again into life." -- John D’Agata, author of About a Mountain"The paradox of making something from nothing, of threading the maze of reality, is finely illuminated in this honest, articulate, and moving memoir. Through his search for the avant-garde, Bernard Cooper found something rarer, a wisdom grounded in humility before unanswerable questions. In doing so, he has achieved a combination of 'beauty plus pity,' Nabokov's definition of art." -- Phillip Lopate, author of Portrait Inside My Head
£19.94
WW Norton & Co Joy Ride Show People and Their Shows
Book SynopsisA collection of John Lahr’s New Yorker profiles and reviews that are “the nearest we get to modern theatre history” (The Spectator).Trade Review"[Lahr’s] interviews are themselves gleeful illuminations of art and its mysterious process, as he blends vivid details with erudite scrutiny of plays…His passionate arguments are always worth engaging…Lahr creates a book worthy of its title: It is a living celebration of theater itself." -- Caryn James - New York Times Book Review"Incisive, exuberant…. Lahr’s vivid reportage, trenchant insight, and infectious love of the stage will remind readers just how exciting modern theater can be." -- Publishers Weekly"Chatty, learned and wittily opinionated, Lahr’s essays bring us not only his passion for theater, but also his zest for the artistic and creative life." -- San Francisco Chronicle"An important collection." -- Steven Suskin - Huffington Post"An exuberant, entertaining collection." -- Kirkus Reviews"Lahr patiently mines the essence of his subjects—playwrights, directors—with the affection of a fan, the insight of a confidant and the authorial flair of an experienced critic…a delight to read." -- The Economist"John Lahr writes—beautifully—about the theatre and those who make it with an unrivalled blend of enthusiasm, perception, and analytical precision. This book is justly titled—his joy is irresistible." -- Nicholas Hytner"Informed, wide ranging, and charming…the pieces are, without exception, captivating. A must for theatergoers and theater collections." -- Mark Levine - Booklist"Lahr…must be one of the world’s foremost experts on “show people”….[he has] an ability to look past these authors’ mythologies without demeaning their achievements." -- Jonathan Russell Clark - Literary Hub"100 years from now this is where people will look to see what it was like back then. Bravo!" -- John Guare"Anyone interested in the history of the American theater and contemporary drama will applaud these thoughtful and critical pieces." -- Carolyn M. Mulac - Library Journal"Engaging and loquacious company." -- The Guardian"Impressive, entertaining and insightful…so worth reading or worth reading a second time around." -- Michelle Jones - Dallas Morning News
£24.19
WW Norton & Co H.M.S. Surprise
Book Synopsis"The best historical novels ever written." —Richard Snow, New York Times Book ReviewTrade Review"I haven’t read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick O’Brian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldn’t stop." -- E. O. Wilson - Boston Globe"Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars." -- James Hamilton-Paterson - New Republic"A first-rate tale of the sea…I read it with absorption and satisfaction." -- Robertson Davies
£12.34
WW Norton & Co Landscape at the End of the Century Poems
Book Synopsis"Here is the mature work of a poet who has always managed to delight—but who now demands something more of us. He asks us to enter the twenty-first century with open eyes: attentive to the past, eager for the future, naming what we love."--Judith Kitchen, Georgia ReviewTrade Review"Behind Stephen Dunn's obsession with what he calls the ordinary lies an immensely complicated and delicate search for understanding and- I think- for peace... He is a poet of wisdom, and he is a healer and a teacher... The music is perfect as the art is hidden, and some of the poems-'Turning Fifty,' for example-are unbearably beautiful. He is a magnificent poet." -- Gerald Stern
£11.03
WW Norton & Co The Latin Deli Telling the Lives of Barrio Women
Book SynopsisThrough her beautifully lyrical writing, Judith Ortiz Cofer tells us of the women's lives that entangled with hers in El Building in Paterson, New Jersey.Trade Review"This powerful collection of stories, essays, and poems shows a remarkable range, and, like a great singer, Judith Ortiz Cofer knows how to hit all the notes." -- Larry Brown
£12.78
WW Norton & Co The Broken Tower The Life of Hart Crane
Book SynopsisThe first biography of Crane to appear in thirty years, The Broken Tower reads with all the drama of a psychological novel and the inexorable force of a Greek tragedy.
£16.14
WW Norton & Co Somewhere Towards the End
Book SynopsisWinner of the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography and a New York Times bestseller: a prize-winning, critically acclaimed memoir on life and aging —“An honest joy to read” (Alice Munro).Trade Review"Athill writes…with clarity, calm, and common sense." -- Barbara Fisher - Boston Globe"Life, not death, is her preoccupation…Reflections on old age, rather than on a long life lived are rare…It is rarer still for a woman to write such a book: so Athill’s candor and economic prose on religion, regrets, and sex are invigorating." -- Emma Jacobs - Financial Times"Jean Rhys said that literature was a lake, and what mattered was to contribute to it, even if only a trickle. She contributed a narrow boiling river. Diana Athill has contributed a cool clear burn." -- Carole Angier - Literary Review"A great gift. . . . This is a warm, inspiring book." -- Susan Salter Reynolds - Los Angeles Times"Bracingly frank…joyful rather than grim… she offers clear-eyed wisdom of the grandma-you-wish-you’d-had variety." -- People"To paraphrase Shakespeare, wisdom is bred in neither the heart nor the head, but in the bones that carry us through the decades. A few very talented artists, like Diana Athill, may persuade their old bones to yield up a glimpse or two of what they’ve learned." -- Laura Miller - Salon"There is something terrifically comforting about a nonagenarian writing with clarity, wit and verve about getting old and facing death. . . . [Athill] evokes another grande dame of British letters in her uninhibited lifestyle and no-holds-barred, clarion voice: last year’s Nobel Prize winner, Doris Lessing." -- N. Heller McAlpin - San Francisco Chronicle"Welcome and original." -- Dwight Garner - The New York Times"She writes as a person of wide-ranging learning, a generalist, a lover of men and animals and a garden enthusiast, a person intoxicated with life." -- Erica Jong - The New York Times Book Review"A spry dispatch on the condition of being elderly." -- The New Yorker"Unusually appealing. . . . To readers Athill delivers far more than modest pleasure: Her easy-going prose and startling honesty are riveting, for whither she has gone many of us will go as well." -- Michael Dirda - Washington Post Book World"A perfect memoir of old age—candid, detailed, charming, totally lacking in self-pity or sentimentality and above all, beautifully, beautifully written." -- The Costa Award Judges
£12.34
WW Norton & Co A Journey with Two Maps Becoming a Woman Poet
Book Synopsis“Boland offers encouragement to women poets of the future. . . . Her vivid imagery will beguile many.”—Publishers Weekly, starred reviewTrade Review"Boland . . . discusses the work of women poets that has been important to her, ranging from the little-known Charlotte Mew to the over-exposed Sylvia Plath, in critical essays that connect seamlessly with the personal to create a provocative collection." -- Booklist"[A Journey with Two Maps] attempts to rewrite history in a more fair and truthful manner. Boland’s insights into Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop are exquisite. . . . Boland’s criticism is spooky with hovering ghosts." -- San Francisco Chronicle
£12.34
WW Norton & Co Joy Ride Show People and Their Shows
Book Synopsis"Lahr creates a book worthy of its title: It is a living celebration of theater itself." —Caryn James, New York Times Book ReviewTrade Review"Chatty, learned and wittily opinionated, Lahr’s essays bring us not only his passion for theater, but also his zest for the artistic and creative life." -- San Francisco Chronicle"Of lasting value….Lahr patiently mines the essence of his subjects—playwrights, directors—with the affection of a fan, the insight of a confidant and the authorial flair of an experienced critic…a delight to read." -- The Economist"John Lahr writes—beautifully—about the theatre and those who make it with an unrivalled blend of enthusiasm, perception, and analytical precision. This book is justly titled—his joy is irresistible." -- Nicholas Hytner"An important collection." -- Steven Suskin - Huffington Post"Engaging and loquacious company." -- The Guardian"Impressive, entertaining and insightful…so worth reading or worth reading a second time around." -- Michelle Jones - Dallas Morning News"Lahr…must be one of the world’s foremost experts on “show people”….[he has] an ability to look past these authors’ mythologies without demeaning their achievements." -- Jonathan Russell Clark - Literary Hub"100 years from now this is where people will look to see what it was like back then. Bravo!" -- John Guare
£14.24
WW Norton & Co Never a Lovely So Real The Life and Work of
Book Synopsis“Easily the best biography of the great Nelson Algren, and an extraordinary book in its own right.” —Blake Bailey, author of Cheever: A LifeTrade Review"A deeply researched, moving account of a great writer’s life." -- Russell Banks"Brings [Algren] to life with breathless intensity." -- Deirdre Bair, National Book Award–winning author of Samuel Beckett: A Biography"A work of love and prodigious research and, as such, deserves to be honored." -- Vivian Gornick - New Republic"Scrupulously researched.… One can only hope that efforts of remembrance like Never a Lovely So Real will help to return the author’s star to the literary firmament where it belongs." -- Woody Haut - Los Angeles Review of Books"Absorbing.… [Asher] scrupulously attempts to separate facts from myths… as he explores how a writer who produced prose-poetry of such a high order could now be largely forgotten." -- Susan Jacoby - New York Times Book Review"In the course of making the case for Algren’s neglected work, Asher does something else nearly as valuable, which is to reframe… the life: a life not just entertainingly full of incident but also inspiring and exemplary." -- Jonathan Dee - New Yorker"Never a Lovely So Real has heft and heart, and it displays the sort of respect and loyalty to its subject that the novelist paid to the struggling, real-life people he put into his books." -- Thomas Mallon - Wall Street Journal"A magnificently thorough and sensitive study of one of the great authors in twentieth century America. Nelson Algren, the instinctive rebel, troubled personality, object of liberal and conservative attacks in the Cold War era, rose above it all in his often brilliantly poetic prose. Colin Asher’s engrossing biography explores why Algren spoke for those who could not speak for themselves and demonstrates why we desperately need a voice like his today." -- Paul Buhle, retired senior lecturer, Brown University; author of Marxism in the United States; and coeditor of Tender Comrades"Asher’s book is devotional and beautifully written, seven years in the making, its sentences capturing the very same mix of lyricism and street, hard truths and sentimentality that made Algren himself so special.… It is in some important way the first biography of Algren to be written, because, although it’s technically the fourth or fifth, it’s the first really long one, and it’s the first to let you walk in Algren’s shoes." -- Dan Simon - Nation"Asher is an insightful literary critic, a charming hagiographer, and, occasionally, a reluctant scold.… [Never a Lovely So Real] succeeds in filling the reader with the desire to read Algren’s books." -- Christian Lorentzen - Bookforum
£16.14
WW Norton & Co A Clockwork Orange
Book Synopsis“A brilliant novel . . . a savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds.” —New York Times “Anthony Burgess has written what looks like a nasty little shocker, but is really that rare thing in English letters: a philosophical novel.” —Time
£24.26
WW Norton & Co Death in Venice 0 Norton Critical Editions
Book Synopsis
£16.15
WW Norton & Co Lord Jim A Norton Critical Edition
Book SynopsisThis Norton Critical Edition provides the most authoritative text of Lord Jim yet published; it is based on the definitive third English edition, collated with the periodical version that appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine and with the first English edition.
£20.78
WW Norton & Co Kim
Book SynopsisWritten in 1901, Kim is considered Kipling's finest work, and was a key factor in his being awarded the Nobel Prize.
£17.78
Random House USA Inc Cities of Salt A Novel Vintage International
Book SynopsisBanned in Saudia Arabia, this is a blistering look at Arab and American hypocrisy following the discovery of oil in a poor oasis community.
£16.96
Random House USA Inc This Noble Land My Vision for America
Book SynopsisIn such modern classics as Chesapeake, Centennial, Hawaii, Alaska, and Texas, James A. Michener proved time and again that his understanding of and love for his country was unparalleled. This Noble Land is Michener’s most personal statement about America, an examination of the issues that threaten to fragment and undermine the nation—racial conflict, the widening gulf between rich and poor, the decline of education, the inadequacies of our health care system—as well as a thought-provoking prescription for sustaining our “outstanding success.” Infused with the wisdom and passion of a lifetime, This Noble Land stands as a wake-up call for a troubled era. Praise for This Noble Land “A book-length essay on the often worrying, often inspiring course of America in the nine decades of Michener’s life.”—The Washington Post
£12.59
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Life of D H Lawrence Wiley Blackwell Critical
Book SynopsisComplete with fresh perspectives, and drawing on the latest scholarship and biographical sources, The Life of D.H. Lawrence spans the full range of his intellectual interests and creative output to offer new insights into Lawrence s life, work, and legacy.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations xi Preface xvi Part I Literary Formation, 1885–1912 1 1 Early Voices, September 1885–October 1908 3 2 Literary London, October 1908–April 1910 31 3 ‘A Small but Individual Name’, April 1910–May 1912 49 Part II Un Englished, 1912–1914 79 4 ‘Coming Out Wholesome and Myself’, May 1912–May 1913 81 5 Forging a Career, June 1913–August 1914 106 Part III The Bitterness of the War and its Aftermath, 1914–1919 125 6 ‘The Real Fighting Line’, August 1914–December 1915 127 7 Outlaw, December 1915–April 1918 150 8 ‘Laid Up’, May 1918–November 1919 177 Part IV Europe Again, 1919–1922 197 9 Italy and Sicily, November 1919–December 1920 199 10 End of the Line, January 1921–February 1922 218 Part V New Worlds and Old Worlds, 1922–1925 235 11 Ceylon and Australia, February–August 1922 237 12 On to America, August 1922–November 1923 247 13 Broken Bonds, December 1923–July 1924 270 14 Writing for the Race, August 1924 –September 1925 283 Part VI Returning, 1925–1927 303 15 Understanding, September 1925–April 1926 305 16 Writing and Painting, April 1926–March 1927 319 Part VII ‘Unfailing Courage’, 1927–1930 339 17 Friendship and Isolation, March 1927 –May 1928 341 18 ‘Dropping a Little Bomb in the World’s Crinoline of Hypocrisy’, May 1928–August 1929 363 19 ‘Living on his Spirit’, August 1929 –March 1930 394 Afterword 406 Bibliography 411 Index 420
£80.54
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Reading Postwar British and Irish Poetry
Book SynopsisCombining detailed explorations of both mainstream and experimental poets with a clear historical and literary overview, Reading Postwar British and Irish Poetry offers readers at all levels an ideal guide to the rich body of poetic works published in Britain and Ireland over the last half-century.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments viii 1 Introduction: “Postwar,” “British,” “Irish,” and “Poetry” 1 2 A Brief Historical Survey 19 3 The Literary Landscape 41 4 Histories of Forms 86 5 Poetry of Place 131 6 History and Historiography 161 7 Varieties of the Long Poem 186 8 Subject To, Subject Of 226 9 Anthologies and Groups 276 10 Epilogue: Beyond “British,” “Irish,” and “Poetry” 296 References 312 Index 322
£75.00
The University of Michigan Press Arthur Millers America
Book SynopsisCollects writing by leading international critics and scholars on the theater of the late icon, activist, and playwright, Arthur Miller, and the ways his work reflects the moral equations of his time. This book's essays and interviews treat the breadth of Miller's work, including his early political writings.Trade ReviewEssential. All collections; all levels. Complete with chapter endnotes and works cited, this is a volume every library should have in its collection, - Choice
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press Franz Kafka
Book SynopsisGrapples with the critical and subversive dimension of Franz Kafka’s writings, which is often hidden or masked by the fabulistic character of the work. Löwy’s reading has generated controversy, because of its distance from the usual canon of literary criticism about the Prague writer, but the book has been well received in its original French edition.Trade ReviewThis reading of Kafka so thorough, consistent, and inspired can surprise, but it convinces; not by the aggressive assertion of a thesis, but by the quality of information, the rigor and finesse of listening; in short, by knowledge.- Guy Petitdemange, Etudes, July 2004
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press The Unemployed FortuneTeller
Book Synopsis
£999.99
LUP - University of Michigan Press Ecstatic Occasions Expedient Forms
Book Synopsis
£999.99
LUP - University of Michigan Press Guns and Boyhood in America
Book Synopsis
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press Orphan Factory
Book Synopsis
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press Bardic Deadlines
Book Synopsis
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press Ed Dorn Live
Book SynopsisCollects the commentary of the later years and last days of one of America's most powerful and unique poets. This book synthesizes the author's views on poetic experimentation, the distinction between consciousness and sensibility, and ""heretical"" intellection, which is to say the components of his poetics of aggression.Trade ReviewEd Dorn's achievement has been to create single-handedly a language of public reference, and to have brought within the sphere of expressive language and poetic experience objects and feelings which had been, literally, unimaginable in those terms. It is in this context that he is one of the masters of our contemporary language. - Peter Ackroyd ""Ed was one of the most thoughtful but penetrating thinkers. There was no PollyAnna in him at all. And that's what I liked about him."" - Amiri Baraka
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press Poetry and What is Real
Book Synopsis
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press Edward Albee
Book SynopsisWith discussions of Edward Albee's famous plays, such as ""Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"" and ""Three Tall Women"", as well as his lesser known works, this guide reveals the heart of his drama, highlighting the themes of sex, death, loneliness, and time that have occupied the playwright during his almost fifty years in the theater.
£999.99
The University of Michigan Press SuzanLori Parks
Book SynopsisSuzan Lori-Parks is one of America's most distinctive playwrights. Part of the ""Michigan Major Dramatists"" series, this book offers a guide to Parks' dramatic works. It traces the evolution of Parks' art from her earliest experimental pieces to the hugely popular ""Topdog/Underdog"" to her wide-ranging forays into fiction, music, and film.
£999.99
