Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000 Books

Book SynopsisAlongside a selection of photographs and Plath's own line-drawings, the editors masterfully contextualise what the pages disclose.This selection of early correspondence marks the key moments of Plath's adolescence, including childhood hobbies and high school boyfriends;

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Book SynopsisDerick Thomson Ruaraidh MacThòmais was one of the most prolific and influential Scottish Gaelic poets of the twentieth century. His work pushed forward the boundaries of Gaelic poetry, taking it from its traditional heartlands in the Highlands and Islands to Scotland''s Lowland cities, Glasgow in particular. He was the first poet to use free verse consistently in Gaelic, and his poems, both in terms of form and content, had a profound influence on following generations of Gaelic writers.Petra Johana Poncarová's SCOTNOTE examines Thomson's life and work, and his historical, political, cultural and personal influences. It is an ideal introduction for senior school pupils and students of all ages.

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Book SynopsisA tale of murder, loss and romance in the mist of Niagara Falls: it is the crowning achievement of Joyce Carol Oates's career to date.A man climbs over the railings and plunges into Niagara Falls. He''s a newly-wed, and his bride has been left behind in the honeymoon suite the morning after their wedding. For two weeks, Ariah, the deserted bride, waits by the side of the roaring waterfall for news of her husband''s recovered body. During her vigil, an unlikely new love story begins to unfold when she meets a wealthy lawyer who is transfixed by her strange, otherworldly gaze. So it all begins, in the 1950s, with the dark foreboding of the Falls as the sinister background to the tragedy.From this cataclysmic event unfurls a drama of parents and their children; of secrets and sins; of lawsuits, murder and, eventually redemption. As Ariah's children learn that their past is enmeshed with a hushed-up scandal involving radioactive waste materials, they must confront not only their personal history but America's murky past: the despoiling of the American landscape and the corruption and greed of the massive industrial expansion of the 1950s and 1960s.This novel of tremendous sweep and pace is about the American family in crisis but also about America itself in the mid-20th century. This book alone places Joyce Carol Oates definitively in the company of the Great American Novelists.Trade Review'Eminently readable and though full of heart is utterly heartbreaking.' Vogue 'Oates offers a shrewd, often chilling analysis of an unhappy marriage…[she] deftly widens her focus to…Niagara, corrupt and dangerously polluted.' Sunday Times 'If you only read one new novel this autumn, make it this… you'll be hooked within pages' Mail on Sunday '…engaging…compelling…a flair for the minutiae of character…' Guardian 'The Falls is a swirling cataract of invention, and a mesmerising read.' Daily Telegraph

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Book SynopsisThe Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy.   A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition   Collects Captain America Comics #1 (1941); the Captain America stories from Tales of Suspense #59, #63-68, #75-81, #92-95, #110-113 (1964-1969); “Captain America…Commie Smasher” from Captain America #78 (1954). It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.   Drawing upon multiple comic book series, thisTrade Review“A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.”—Publishers Weekly“Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post“Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans—initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too—found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That’s how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why—or else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby—or his successor on “Captain America,” Jim Steranko—barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper—unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.”—Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker

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Book SynopsisThe Penguin Classics Marvel Collection presents the origin stories, seminal tales, and characters of the Marvel Universe to explore Marvel’s transformative and timeless influence on an entire genre of fantasy.   A Penguin Classics Marvel Collection Edition   Collects Fantastic Four #52-53 (1966); Jungle Action #6-21 (1973-1976). It is impossible to imagine American popular culture without Marvel Comics. For decades, Marvel has published groundbreaking visual narratives that sustain attention on multiple levels: as metaphors for the experience of difference and otherness; as meditations on the fluid nature of identity; and as high-water marks in the artistic tradition of American cartooning, to name a few.   The Black Panther is not just a super hero; as King T’Challa, he is also the monarch of the hidden African nation of Wakanda. Combining the strength and stealth of his namesake with a creative scientific Trade Review“A groundbreaking example of comics representation in literature.”—Publishers Weekly“Penguin provides introductory essays; superb analyses by the series editor, Ben Saunders; and extensive bibliographies.”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post“Stories become classics when generations of readers sort through them, talk about them, imitate them, and recommend them. In this case, baby boomers read them when they débuted, Gen X-ers grew up with their sequels, and millennials encountered them through Marvel movies. Each generation of fans—initially fanboys, increasingly fangirls, and these days nonbinary fans, too—found new ways not just to read the comics but to use them. That’s how canons form. Amateurs and professionals, over decades, come to something like consensus about which books matter and why—or else they love to argue about it, and we get to follow the arguments. Canons rise and fall, gain works and lose others, when one generation of people with the power to publish, teach, and edit diverges from the one before ... A top-flight comic by Kirby—or his successor on “Captain America,” Jim Steranko—barely needed words. You could follow the story just by watching the characters act and react. Thankfully, Penguin volumes do justice to these images. They reproduce sixties comics in bright, flat, colorful inks on thick white paper—unlike the dot-based process used on old newsprint, but perhaps truer to their bold, thrill-chasing spirit.”—Stephanie Burt, The New Yorker

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Book SynopsisFocusing on the most recent triad of Italian poetic genius--Umberto Saba, Giuseppe Ungaretti, and Eugenio Montale--Joseph Cary guides us through the first few decades of twentieth-century Italy.

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Book SynopsisSituating literature and anthropology in mutual interrogation, Miller's...book actually performs what so many of us only call for. Nowhere have all the crucial issues been brought together with the sort of critical sophistication it displays. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. . . . a superb cross-disciplinary analysis. Y. Mudimbe

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Book SynopsisExplores a new development in contemporary poetry: the repurposing of other people's words in order to make new works, by framing, citing, and recycling already existing phrases, sentences, and even full texts. This book concludes with a discussion of Kenneth Goldsmith's conceptualist book "Traffic".

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Book SynopsisOffers a fresh and nuanced account of the rise of Jewish nationalism and the subsequent creation of Israel. Following Marcel Proust's heirs, Beckett and Genet, and a host of Middle Eastern writers, artists, and filmmakers, this title traces the shifting dynamic of memory and identity across the crucial cultural links between Europe and Palestine.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOdd Girls reverberates with the powerful voices of people speaking for themselves... Faderman empowers her subject; instead of allowing lesbian lifestyles to be defined from the outside, her voice and those of other women transcend destructive stereotypes and misconceptions. Odd Girls offers a lucidly written and moving narrative of lesbian culture and community during its formative years. The Village Voice Fascinating... poignant and moving... Odd Girls is full of facts and wonderful details that readers may not have encountered, things that are a pleasure to learn and that seem valuable to know. Los Angeles Times Book Review One has to respect the tenacity of Lillian Faderman for making sense of the evolution of lesbian life in twentieth-century America... This is a remarkable social history... Her study attains the depth and evenhandedness of a scholarly classic. -- Susan Brownmiller The Washington Post Book World An important and challenging work for lesbians and heterosexuals alike... Odd Girls is a key work, the point of reference which all subsequent studies of twentieth-century lesbian life in the United States will begin. San Francisco Examiner Faderman's sweeping, mesmerizing prose accentuates the magnificent scholarship in this definitive account of lesbian life in the past 100 years... Faderman has combined her talent and experience to accomplish this wonder. -- Barbara Grier Lambda Book Report Nothing odd about Odd Girls--it combines clear prose with meticulous research. This book is an important contribution to understanding America and its people in our time. -- Rita Mae Brown, author of Rubyfruit Jungle A grand narrative synthesis of the cultural, social, and political history of lesbian life since the late nineteenth century... Engaging and deeply moving stories. New York Times Book Review A splendid, uplifting achievement. The IndependentTable of ContentsContents Introduction 1. "The Loves of Women for Each Other": "Romantic Friends" in the Twentieth Century 2. A Worm in the Bud: The Early Sexologists and Love Between Women 3. Lesbian Chic: Experimentation and Repression in the 1920s 4. Wastelands and Oases: The 1930s 5. "Naked Amazons and Queer Damozels": World War II and Its Aftermath 6. The Love that Dares Not Speak Its Name: McCarthyism and Its Legacy 7. Butches, Femmes, and Kikis: Creating Lesbian Subcultures in the 1950s and '60s 8. "Not a Public Relations Movement": Lesbian Revolutions in the 1960s Through '70s 9. Lesbian Nation: Creating a Women-Identified-Women Community in the 1970s 10. Lesbian Sex Wars in the 1980s 11. From Tower of Babel to Community: Lesbian Life in the 1980s Epilogue: Social Constructions and the Metamorphoses of Love Between Women Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewCarroll's outstanding study is both a scholarly and an engaging reading of this appealing French-Algerian thinker. Library Journal [A] timely study of Camus' writings. -- Lewis Jones Financial Times Weekend Magazine [Carroll's] re-reading of Camus is not only insightful and provocative, but also reminds us of the enduring relevance of Camus's voice. -- Susan Tarrow Modern & Contemporary France An exceptional book. -- Ralph Schoolcraft III South Central Review Carroll's study will surely become the definitive work on Camus for years to come. -- Janice Gross French ReviewTable of ContentsPreface. A Voice from the Past Acknowledgments Introduction. "The Algerian" in Camus 1. The Place of the Other 2. Colonial Borders 3. Exile 4. Justice or Death? 5. Terror 6. Anguish 7. Last Words Conclusion. Terrorism and Torture: From Algeria to Iraq Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThere is a grain of truth in almost everything [Logan] writes. -- Jordan Davis Times Literary Supplement Logan's prose is polished, witty, authoritative, and courageous... Highly recommended. Choice The latest installment in William Logan's prolonged and rambunctious assault on the state of American poetry. -- Mark Ford New York Times Book Review One of the wittiest and most astute poet-critics of our-or any-generation... A work of devilish wit, arrogance, insight, and intellect.The Dark Horse -- Rory Waterman The Dark Horse Who's the Best Poetry Critic in America? His name I can mention. William Logan. -- James Wolcott Arguably the most industrious and notorious poet-critic to brandish that hyphen like a knife between his teeth since his acknowledged master Randall Jarrell... He often comes off as nothing so much as the Dirty Harry of the poetry beat. -- David Barber, New York Times Book ReviewTable of ContentsAcknowledgments The Bowl of Diogenes; or, The End of Criticism Verse Chronicle: Out on the Lawn Verse Chronicle: Stouthearted Men The Most Contemptible Moth: Lowell in Letters Forward Into the Past: Reading the New Critics Verse Chronicle: One If by Land Verse Chronicle: The Great American Desert The State with the Prettiest Name Elizabeth Bishop Unfinished Elizabeth Bishop's Sullen Art Verse Chronicle: Jumping the Shark Verse Chronicle: Victoria's Secret Attack of the Anthologists The Lost World of Lawrence Durrell Hart Crane Overboard On Reviewing Hart Crane The Endless Ocean of Derek Walcott The Civil Power of Geoffrey Hill Verse Chronicle: God's Chatter Verse Chronicle: Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Luff Pynchon in the Poetic Back to the Future (Thomas Pynchon ) Verse Chronicle: The World Is Too Much with Us Verse Chronicle: Valentine's Day Massacre The Forgotten Masterpiece of John Townsend Trowbridge Frost at Midnight Interview by Garrick Davis Permissions Books Under Review Index of Authors Reviewed

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Book SynopsisStates of Disconnect examines the breakdown of transnationalism through readings of literary texts that express aversion to pairing ideas of China and India. Adhira Mangalagiri proposes the concept of “disconnect”: a crisis of transnationalism perceptible in moments when a connection is severed, interrupted, or disavowed.Trade ReviewHow does one reckon with the conditions of comparison in the act of comparison? Reading twentieth-century Chinese and Hindi texts side by side or against each other, this book offers a fascinating account of literary relations between China and India with invaluable insights on rupture, repulsion, and crisis of understanding. A bold experiment in method. -- Lydia Liu, Columbia UniversityThis deeply inspiring and important book explores the gray zones of literary relations. States of Disconnect subjects the easy pair of India and China to stringent scrutiny and in the process offers a new vocabulary and critical tools for comparative literature in a world full of tension and strife. -- Francesca Orsini, SOAS, University of LondonStates of Disconnect offers a novel approach by exploring how conditions of war, diplomatic breakdown, and international friction factor non-comparability into cross-cultural interpretation and genres of transnational literacy. Mangalagiri puts the brakes on forms of borderless criticism that homogenize distinct knowledge worlds and globalize literary learning without sufficient attention to the politics of difference. -- Emily Apter, New York UniversityDaring to step into a territory where few humanist scholars of China-India relations have tread, Mangalagiri focuses on the ‘disconnect’ and negativity that characterizes a great deal of this relationship in the modern literary realm. She demonstrates persuasively that the first step in literature is to confront and understand the disconnect and imagine the ethical possibilities of the relationship from this fuller understanding. -- Prasenjit Duara, Duke UniversityIn States of Disconnect, Mangalagiri portrays how China and India encountered each other against the global background of war and peace, imperialism and nationalism, and, above all, transculturation and its disavowal. Working against the grain of conventional modernity studies, States of Disconnect probes the ways in which circulation falls short and connectivity stumbles, as well as the options of alternative modernities arising therefrom. -- David Der-wei Wang, Harvard UniversityStates of Disconnect is a pioneering work of scholarship. It shifts the gaze to cultural production and emphasizes the ways in which the acts of writing and reading in both countries, and the views each developed of the other in these cultural practices, did not necessarily follow the prevailing political vicissitudes of the transnational relationship. -- Laura Brueck, author of Writing Resistance: The Rhetorical Imagination of Hindi Dalit LiteratureStates of Disconnect aims at no less than reshaping the paradigm of comparison and supplying a critical vocabulary for a new ethics of transnational relation. * MCLC Resource Center *Deeply serious in its disciplinary-cum-ethical commitments and confident in the possibilities afforded by critical reading [. . .], States of Disconnect is ultimately as inspiring as it is generative. * Critical Inquiry *Table of ContentsNote on Transliteration and TranslationIntroduction1. Anatomy of Antagonism: The Indian Policeman in Chinese Literature2. Revolution Redux: Agyeya’s China Stories3. Dialogue and Its Discontents: 1950s Cultural Diplomacy Untold4. Word and World in Crisis: Hindi Texts of 19625. On Correspondence: Lu Xun and PremchandConclusion: A Comparatist’s Guide to DisconnectAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAn esteemed literary critic shares his final musings on books, his children, and his own impending deathTrade Review"The literary judgments in Latest Readings are as a sound as ever . . . [James’s] credo: 'The critic should write to say not "look how much I’ve read" but "look at this, it’s wonderful."' I submit: reader, look at this book, it’s wonderful."—Philip Collins, Times"Pick up Latest Readings. It’s wonderful."—Michael Dirda, Washington Post"This is the kind of writing we have always appreciated him for: perceptive, acerbic, laconic, witty . . . There is so much to enjoy here, so many infectious enthusiasms."—Sue Gaisford, The Tablet"His qualities are his capacious intelligence, sardonic voice and fondness for wordplay and paradox . . . James has approached the time of his vanishing with grace and good humour, not sentimentality or anger. These essays and poems are death-haunted but radiant with the felt experience of what it means to be alive, even when mortally sick, especially when mortally sick."—Jason Cowley, Financial Times"For those who prefer something more literary, this year’s collection of Clive James’s essays on a variety of literary topics, Latest Readings, is an eye-opener. Mr. James is terminally ill. This is sanity, humor and acuity in the face of death."—Mary Beard, Wall Street Journal"Latest Readings is a plain demonstration that Mr. James remains as learned and as funny as any critic on earth."—Dwight Garner, New York Times“If the [Nobel Prize in Literature] were ever to go to a critic, I’d give it to Clive James. He has so much erudition and high-stepping passion. He writes excellent poems and even better memoirs. He has delivered very good books of translation. He is a polymath. He is also very funny.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times"A collection of beautifully thought-out, piquant essays, some only a few pages, that survey what [James] has been reading with the clock ticking. The results are entirely free of self-pity, and emanate vitality and invention . . . James relishes the limited reading time he has and makes no bones about it, providing sparkling commentary on his old favorites and new discoveries."—Publishers Weekly"With James, one hopes fervently that the finale is only just beginning."—Evening Standard"The author delivers a sign-off of substance . . . The unadulterated love of literature proves infectious and a little humbling."—James Kidd, the Independent"Of one military history [James] observes: 'The text is full of observation, judgement and accurate detail, and those things are always new.' The same might be said of this book."—Daniel Swift, The Spectator". . . there is nothing boastful about James’s insatiable consumption . . . His observations on individual books are acute and sometimes challenging."—Rosemary Goring, Glasgow Herald"His amused, unpretentious, loving commentaries on the books he continues to enjoy are heart-warming and comforting. The volume is a ringing endorsement of the solace of good literature."—Eilis Ni Dhuibhne, Irish Times"As a reader and writer confronting death, Clive James has all the creative energy and charm of a man discovering life. These thoughtful essays are immensely appealing, their tone is beautifully judged. Cleverly, he re-reads in order to measure the past. With this and his recent poetry, he could outlive us all."—Ian McEwan"Clive James is perhaps the most original and distinctive literary-critical voice of the last half-century."—Martin Amis"Clive James, brilliant to the (near) end, turns his readings and re-readings of everyone and everything from Hemingway and Conrad to Patrick O'Brian and Game of Thrones into sharp, funny meditations on—among much else—class, beauty, mimicry, memory, manhood, death (other people's), and life (his own). Long may his dazzling, long farewell continue."—Salman Rushdie"In these farewell marginal notes to a life of bookishness, enthusiasm and playful dissent, Clive James disdains to go gentle or regretfully into Dylan Thomas's good night. He retains his energetic piquancy as he makes one more round of the garden of literary delights. The comparison of one old favourite to a Cord automobile is a signature flourish entirely, typically, his own. We shall miss him, but that rare tone of voice will stay with us."—Frederic Raphael"Clive James's inevitable humor, sanity, erudition, enthusiasm, and crystal keenness are everywhere evident in Latest Readings, but perhaps its greatest grace is the opportunity it gives to feel as if you're spending time in his company, listening and learning for at least a little while longer. If its mini essays (and some not so mini) seem to float from James's mind into yours, it is only because a lifetime of reading, thinking, feeling, and formulating has gone into them, registering the pure, responsive authority of a writer with nothing left to prove but so much left to say."—James Wolcott

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Book SynopsisColm Tóibín's Lady Gregory's Toothbrush is a beautiful insight into the life of outspoken Irishwoman, Augusta Gregory.A remarkable figure in Celtic history, she was married to an MP and land-owner, yet retained an unprecedented independence of both thought and deed, actively championing causes close to her heart. At once conservative and radical in her beliefs, she saw no conflict in idealizing and mythologizing the Irish peasantry, for example, while her landlord husband introduced legislation that would, in part, lead to the widespread misery, poverty and starvation of the Great Famine. Nevertheless, as founder of the Abbey Theatre, an outspoken opponent of censorship, and mentor, muse, and mother-figure to W. B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory played a pivotal role in shaping Irish literary and dramatic history. Moreover, despite her parents’ early predictions of spinsterhood, she was no matronly figure, engaging in a passionate affair while Trade ReviewBiographical portraits are too often nowadays smudged in a surfeit of words . . . this one is a brilliant illumination. * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisThe first truly continentally representative collection of modern African drama in any language, this Norton Critical Edition includes plays from Egypt, Algeria, the Republic of South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Kenya.

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Book SynopsisContains eighteen original essays by leading Joyce scholars on the eighteen separate chapters of "Ulysses". This book attempts to explore the richness of Joyce's extraordinary novel. It covers Joyce's habit of using, when writing each chapter in "Ulysses", a particular style, tone, point of view, and narrative structure.Trade Review"A landmark in interpretation. . . . Never have Joyce's polytropic techniques been explicated with such thoroughness, sensitivity, and sympathy. The result is an achievement of new perspectives. . . . These writers have achieved the seemingly impossible feat of reading Ulysses afresh. * James Joyce Quarterly *"Some of the best scholars in the field take a fresh look at Joyce's novel. . . . The collection offers much to evoke the interest of even the most jaded Joyce devotee. It should not be overlooked by any serious scholar of Ulysses." * Virginia Quarterly Review *"The essays are remarkably uniform in quality, and consistently reflect a determined effort to move beyond mere explication and develop general notions about the art and meaning of Ulysses through close examination of specific passages within individual chapters. A well planned, effectively executed 'appreciation' in the best sense of the term, this important volume should prove a very valuable addition to any collection serving serious readers of Joyce." * Library Journal *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Abbreviations and Conventions Telemachus by Bernard Benstock Nestor by E. L. Epstein Proteus by J. Mitchell Morse Calypso by Adaline Glasheen Lotus Eaters by Phillip F. Herring Hades by R. M. Adams Aeolus by M. J. C. Hodgart Lestrygonians by Melvin J. Friedman Scylla and Charybdis by Robert Kellogg Wandering Rocks by Clive Hart Sirens by Jackson I. Cope Cyclops by David Hayman Nausicaa by Fritz Senn The Oxen of the Sun by J. S. Atherton Circe by Hugh Kenner Eumaeus by Gerald L. Bruns Ithaca by A. Walton Litz Penelope by Fr. Robert Boyle, S. J.

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Book SynopsisThis work brings together the three volumes of Olson's long poem (originally published in 1960, 1968 and 1975 respectively) in one book.

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Book SynopsisIn North Seamus Heaney found a myth which allowed him to articulate a vision of Ireland - its people, history and landscape. Here the Irish experience is refracted through images drawn from different parts of the Northern European experience, and the idea of the north allows the poet to contemplate the violence on his home ground in relation to memories of the Scandinavian and English invasions which have marked Irish history so indelibly.

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Book SynopsisThis is a revised and enlarged edition. It is designed to help the reader of Eliot's Selected Poems by identifying and explaining the wide and often baffling range of quotations, allusions and references, literary, factual and historical.

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Book SynopsisHe has an affinity with the violence, the balance, the ritual, the grace and the power. He is indestructible.Beautiful Burnout is about the soul-sapping three-minutes when men become gods and gods, mere men. It''s about the second when the guard drops, that moment when the eyes blink and miss the incoming hammer blow.Beautiful Burnout premiered at the Pleasance Forth as part of the Edinburgh International Festival in August 2010 before touring the UK in a co-production between Frantic Assembly and the National Theatre of Scotland.

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Book SynopsisI love fire. Fire is the colour of genius.In this audacious new work, Edna O'Brien gives voice to the women who were central to the life of James Joyce.James Joyce had been my ultimate hero for sixty years, but to paint the canvas of his life was daunting. Therefore I decided to depict him as seen by the key figures in his life - Mother, Wife, Mistress of a fleeting moment, his patron Harriet Weaver and his beloved Daughter Lucia, of whom he said her mind was but a transparent leaf away from his.'Written to celebrate the centenary of Ulysses, Joyce's Women premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in September 2022. This revised edition includes changes made by the author during rehearsals and previews of the play''s first production.

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Book SynopsisMorrison brings her genius to this personal inquiry into the significance of African-Americans in the American literary imagination. Through her investigation of black characters, narrative strategies, and idiom in the fiction of white American writers, Morrison provides a perspective sure to alter conventional notions about American literature.Trade ReviewThis is a major work by a major American author… It is an exuberant exercise, conducted by a writer in her prime who knows that her own work makes steady inroads on the unspeakable. -- Diane Middlebrook * Los Angeles Times *In Playing in the Dark, Morrison explores how the temptation to enslave others instead of embracing freedom has shaded our national literature, and how an acceptance of this truth will enable us to see that literature’s struggles and fears, and so better understand its exuberance… Her wisdom is to locate strength in what appears to be weakness. -- Jane Mendelsohn * Voice Literary Supplement *In this beautifully written, immensely quotable study, Morrison attempts to overturn pervasive critical agendas that ignore racial representations in white texts and thus impoverish literary studies… Morrison’s interest is not to designate texts as ‘racist’ but to read the ways that the ‘racial’ operates. -- Linda Krumholz * Signs *Morrison’s delivery of the distinguished Massey lectures at Harvard in 1990 showed off her prowess as critic, for she brings the indomitable spirit of her fiction to her feelings about literature. In Playing in the Dark, the published lectures, Morrison argues that a black, or Africanist, presence exists throughout the history of American literature, and its understanding is essential to any body of criticism. Identifying what she calls ‘the rhetoric of dread and desire,’ then tracing its manifestations through works by Poe, Cather and Hemingway, Morrison believes that to ignore the presence of race in literature is to rob fiction of its power… But the most telling test of any critical argument, at least for those of us who prefer passion to theory, is whether such speculation will send you back to primary sources. By the time I’d finished Playing in the Dark, the floor around me was littered with Huck Finn and James Baldwin and Faulkner. -- Gail Caldwell * Boston Globe *In three compact and skillful essays, Morrison explores and illumines the gaggle of literary devices—conceits, tropes, metaphors—that have been mostly unconsciously deployed by white writers to refract the rays of blackness through the prism of literary silence, repression or avoidance. Morrison ably applies her therapeutic textual intervention to make these rays visible and to imaginatively envision how an Africanist presence was essential in forming and extending an American national literature… [This is her] impressive debut as a critical intellectual. -- Michael Eric Dyson * Chicago Tribune *A brief and compelling dissection of U.S. fiction. -- Paul Skenazy * San Francisco Chronicle *[Her] thesis is an engaging one, and it becomes more so in a sequence of a few compressed but inspired readings of American works, Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Poe’s Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not, and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. -- Mark Edmundson * Washington Post Book World *Table of Contents1. black matters 2. romancing the shadow 3. disturbing nurses and the kindness of sharks

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Book SynopsisA compelling portrait of a beloved poet from one of today''s most acclaimed novelistsIn this book, novelist Colm Tóibín offers a deeply personal introduction to the work and life of one of his most important literary influences—the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. Ranging across her poetry, prose, letters, and biography, Tóibín creates a vivid picture of Bishop while also revealing how her work has helped shape his sensibility as a novelist and how her experiences of loss and exile resonate with his own. What emerges is a compelling double portrait that will intrigue readers interested in both Bishop and Tóibín.For Tóibín, the secret of Bishop''s emotional power is in what she leaves unsaid. Exploring Bishop’s famous attention to detail, Tóibín describes how Bishop is able to convey great emotion indirectly, through precise descriptions of particular settings, objects, and events. He examines how Bishop’s attachment to the Nova Scotia of her childhood, despite her later life in Key West and Brazil, is related to her early loss of her parents—and how this connection finds echoes in Tóibín’s life as an Irish writer who has lived in Barcelona, New York, and elsewhere.Beautifully written and skillfully blending biography, literary appreciation, and descriptions of Tóibín’s travels to Bishop’s Nova Scotia, Key West, and Brazil, On Elizabeth Bishop provides a fresh and memorable look at a beloved poet even as it gives us a window into the mind of one of today’s most acclaimed novelists.Trade ReviewColm Toibin, Inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame 2015 Nominee for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2015, selected by Nicci Gerrard One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2015, selected by Blake Morrison One of The Guardian's Readers' Books of 2015 One of the Irish Times 2015 Readers' Books of the Year One of The New Yorker's Twelve Books Related to Poems, 2015 "Toibin's close readings of Bishop's poems in this deft suite of essays are admirably acute, but what's truly special is that Toibin offers not an elegant study of Bishop's achievements as a poet, but also a shadow account of his own development as a writer, and thus an incidental treatise on the ways writers affect one another's process."--Joel Browner, New York Times Book Review "[The book's] pull on the reader is almost tidal ... it's still impossible for a reader to resist getting sucked into the orbit of Robert Lowell, the rapaciously brilliant and royally messed-up literary lion whom Bishop considered her closest friend. The cat-and-mouse dynamic of Bishop and Lowell's correspondence remains, in Mr. Toibin's telling, as riveting as a series on Netflix or HBO, and probably ought to become one."--Jeff Gordinier, New York Times "The Irish writer's valentine to the Canadian-American poet: a beautiful meditation on shyness, sex, art, and family."--Dan Chiasson, New Yorker "Toibin's little book on Bishop is a writer's exercise in rechristening himself, a second time through with Bishop as his chaperone. The narrative draws us back to moments when the discovery of Bishop, and later of Thom Gunn, drew Toibin forward. This is the kind of beautiful relay that great writers provide for each other, and it gives you hope that some young person somewhere who finds himself in a bind will pick this short book up and find in it not one, but two companions."--Dan Chiasson, New York Review of Books "On Elizabeth Bishop is an engaging introduction to her life and work, and also an essay on the importance of her work in his [Toibin's] life."--Matthew Bevis, London Review of Books "Novelist Toibin (Nora Webster) gives an intimate and engaging look at Elizabeth Bishop's poetry and its influence on his own work... Toibin is also present in the book, and his relationship to Bishop's work and admiration of her style gives the book much of its power. Whether one is familiar with Bishop's life and work or is looking to Toibin to learn more, this book will appeal to many readers."--Publishers Weekly starred review "An admiring critical portrait of a great American poet and a master of subtlety... An inspiring appreciation from one writer to another."--Kirkus Reviews "On Elizabeth Bishop, an unusual mixed-genre critical study/personal memoir by the celebrated Irish novelist Colm Toibin, himself something of a writer's writer, makes a particularly welcome addition to the Princeton University Press Writers on Writers series... Toibin's sense of identification with Bishop allows not only sympathy with her work but his real insight into it... [F]ew critics have dealt more revealingly than Toibin with Bishop's habitual illusion of 'spontaneous' self-correction, her process of thinking aloud on the page... [I]n some essential and large way, Toibin gets Bishop right, and even his quirkiest interpretations illuminate something about both Bishop and himself."--Lloyd Schwartz, Arts Fuse "How does a writer turn life into art? Novelist, poet and critic Colm Toibin's brilliant, compelling book On Elizabeth Bishop does not raise or answer this question directly, but it brings us very close to the moment of alchemy, both in Bishop's work and in his own, showing Princeton University Press' wisdom in establishing the series of writers on writers of which this is a part... Toibin's decision to set the poems in the context of Bishop's life, her friendships and love, and a circle of writers and painters like-minded enough to throw light on her achievement, is an impressive solution to a potentially difficult critical problem."--Elizabeth Greene, Times Higher Education "[I]n Colm Toibin's new book, the Irish novelist explores Bishop's remoteness in ways that both open her poems to the everyday reader and season scholars' broth about her eminence. John Ashbery once called Bishop a 'writer's writer's writer,' and Toibin reveals how this hypothesis has been, in his case, positively true. Though this book is not a biography, it has the uncanny effect of one: In close readings of Bishop's poems and their geographical moorings, Toibin takes us further inside the poet's (and his own) psyche than, perhaps, the archives ever will."--Heather Treseler, Weekly Standard "Bishop is a 20th-century U.S. master poet; Toibin is an Irish fiction writer of today. You might wonder at this pairing. Well, none could pair comfortably with the uneasy, furtive Bishop. Turns out the two have much in common... I just loved this: a writer so open about how his work and life touch another writer's... Little books like this make the world better, teaching us much and inviting more."--John Timpane, Philadelphia Inquirer "In this splendid and perceptive book, Colm Toibin the novelist, has probed the Bishop canon and biography and exquisitely described her work and vision."--Sam Coale, Providence Journal "Toibin's treatment is personal but never self-indulgent, and the book is much more than an appreciation of a poet with whom he has affinities. Beautifully written and deeply felt, this is a penetrating examination of Bishop's aesthetic of stylistic restraint and personal reticence."--Choice "[A] wonderful book."--Lavinia Greenlaw, The Telegraph "An entirely different kind of criticism [On Elizabeth Bishop] reads like a love letter from one writer to another."--Anthony Domestic, Commonweal "A deceptively little, sharp, brilliant book, in which Toibin's understanding and excellent analysis are profound, up close and personal."--Niall MacMonagle, Irish Times "It is not surprising to find, with Colm Toibin's exquisite meditation On Elizabeth Bishop that the masterful Irish novelist is also a critic of considerable acuity. Toibin's sensibility is superbly attuned to that of the formidable Bishop, a poet whose shadow over the crowded landscape of 20th-century American poetry grows longer with every passing year."--Michael Lindgren, Washington Post "I have always been drawn to Bishop's spare poetry, but it was reading Toibin's analysis, which manages to be both a personal reaction and an objective assessment, that helped me to appreciate her fully. Subject and critic can seldom have been as well-matched as they are here, and the insights go in both directions, illuminating Toibin's novels as well as Bishop's poems."--Catherine Peters, RacemeTable of ContentsNo Detail Too Small 1 One of Me 9 In the Village 15 The Art of Losing 30 Nature Greets Our Eyes 41 Order and Disorder in Key West 62 The Escape from History 77 Grief and Reason 96 The Little That We Get for Free 115 Art Isn't Worth That Much 135 The Bartok Bird 162 Efforts of Affection 174 North Atlantic Light 193 Acknowledgments 201 Bibliography 203

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"This essay collection assesses the stakes and real-world relevance of Nabokov’s writing, from his lectures and short stories to his major novels. It’s a great read if you’re a Nabokov fan, or if you’ve ever wondered, ‘Why did this guy write Lolita?'" * Literary Hub *"These clear and dazzlingly erudite essays offer a superb introduction to the writer’s life and work."---David Herman, Jewish Chronicle"Robert Alter’s new book Nabokov and the Real World presents a fascinating study of the works of Vladimir Nabokov. . . . Alter’s Nabokov and the Real World provides an engaging analysis of Nabokov’s robust body of work and artfully articulates how he weaves a tapestry of linguistic tools, literary devices, nuanced visual descriptions, and empirical classifications to create beautifully crafted stories that help us better to understand the complex spectrum of human existence."---Leonara Cravotta, American Spectator"Alter is one of America’s most distinguished persons of letters. His primary task in Nabokov and the Real World is to dismantle the widely-echoed theory of critics who accuse Nabokov of playing an elaborate literary game—a set of stylistic maneuvers, mannered, overwrought and arch. Alter counters that Nabokov. . .used language to awaken readers to the dense, many-layered, multi-connected reality of which we are part."---David Luhrssen, Shepherd Express"Nabokov and the Real World is a wonderful contribution and . . . [a] beautiful collection."---Erik Eklund, Nabokov Online Journal

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Book SynopsisA memoir of a young boy's unusual travels with his mother. The author recreates his boyhood experiences, relating how he and his mother travelled throughout the United States, and tracing his experiences and changes from young boy to manhood against the background of a violent and wildly optimistic America.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World''s Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of ''the 1950s''. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.Trade ReviewThe 1950s has been transformed in the scholarly literature from a "tranquillized" decade to an almost "tumultuous" one, and therefore is badly in need of a restorative balance. This is the achievement of Martin Halliwell's superb account of a postwar period that, for all of its familiarity, remains tantalizingly elusive. By showing the persistence of the varieties of cultural modernism, he advances the retrospective understanding of a decade that was not merely the lengthened shadow of the Cold War. His book is thoughtful, expansive and engaging. -- Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Studies, Brandeis University, Massachusetts The author has a good command of the variety of cultural forms in the period and has planned the shape and contents of the book thoughtfully. -- Professor Lucy Maddox, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The 1950s has been transformed in the scholarly literature from a "tranquillized" decade to an almost "tumultuous" one, and therefore is badly in need of a restorative balance. This is the achievement of Martin Halliwell's superb account of a postwar period that, for all of its familiarity, remains tantalizingly elusive. By showing the persistence of the varieties of cultural modernism, he advances the retrospective understanding of a decade that was not merely the lengthened shadow of the Cold War. His book is thoughtful, expansive and engaging. The author has a good command of the variety of cultural forms in the period and has planned the shape and contents of the book thoughtfully.Table of ContentsAmerican Culture in the 1950s; Martin Halliwell; Contents;; Illustrations; Case Studies; Acknowledgements; Chronology of 1950s American Culture; Introduction: The Intellectual Context; 1. Fiction and Poetry; 2. Drama and Performance; 3. Music and Radio; 4. Film and Television; 5. The Visual Arts beyond Modernism; Conclusion: Rethinking the 1950s; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisItalian Modernism was written in response to the need for an historiographic and theoretical reconsideration of the concepts of Decadentismo and the avant-garde within the Italian critical tradition. Focussing on the confrontation between these concepts and the broader notion of international modernism, the essays in this important collection seek to understand this complex phase of literary and artistic practices as a response to the epistemes of philosophical and scientific modernity at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first three decades of the twentieth.Intellectually provocative, this collection is the first attempt in the field of Italian Studies at a comprehensive account of Italian literary modernism. Each contributor documents how previous critical categories, employed to account for the literary, artistic, and cultural experiences of the period, have provided only partial and inadequate descriptions, preventing a fuller understanding of the

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Book SynopsisA son’s poignant letter to his father—from the author of The Metamorphosis and The Trial, and one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. • “One of the great confessions of literature.” —The New York Times Book Review Franz Kafka wrote this letter to his father, Hermann Kafka, in November 1919. Max Brod, Kafka’s literary executor, relates that Kafka actually gave the letter to his mother to hand to his father, hoping it might renew a relationship that had lost itself in tension and frustration on both sides. But Kafka’s probing of the deep flaw in their relationship spared neither his father nor himself. He could not help seeing the failure of communication between father and son as another moment in the larger existential predicament depicted in so much of his work. Probably realizing the futility of her son’s gesture, Julie Kafka did not deliver the letter but instead returned it to its author.

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Book SynopsisWritten by a prominent member of the Bloomsbury group, this novel of colonial Ceylon (Sri Lanka) includes a biographical afterword by Sir Christopher Ondaatje, author of Woolf in Ceylon, and a short story, Pearls before Swine, which vividly draws on Woolf's experience as a young District Commissioner.Trade Review"'a superbly dispassionate observation and a great novel' Quentin Bell 'as relevant today as when it first appeared' E F C Ludowyk"

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Book SynopsisFresh perspectives and eye-opening discussions of contemporary American fiction In The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020, a team of distinguished scholars delivers a focused and in-depth collection of essays on some of the most significant and influential authors and literary subjects of the last four decades. Cutting-edge entries from established and new voices discuss subjects as varied as multiculturalism, contemporary regionalisms, realism after poststructuralism, indigenous narratives, globalism, and big data in the context of American fiction from the last 40 years. The Encyclopedia provides an overview of American fiction at the turn of the millennium as well as a vision of what may come. It perfectly balances analysis, summary, and critique for an illuminating treatment of the subject matter. This collection also includes: An exciting mix of established and emerging contributors from around the world discTable of ContentsVolume I About the Editors Contributors Introduction XXX - XXX Volume II XXX - XXX Index

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Book SynopsisToby Widdicombe is Professor of English at the University of Alaska Anchorage, USA. His previous books include Simply Shakespeare (2001).Trade ReviewThe book examines a range of themes and content across Tolkien’s work and life and brings them together in a tidy package. Widdicombe has done a fine job across the book as a whole. * Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA) *J.R.R. Tolkien: A Guide for the Perplexed helps dispel the confusion many students feel when first studying Tolkien’s secondary world. This engagingly written and insightful volume will prove a useful resource in classrooms. -- William Fliss, Tolkien Archivist, Marquette University, United StatesTable of ContentsAcknowledgements Foreword Introduction Chapter 1: Tolkien’s Life and Art Chapter 2: Tolkien’s Legendarium Chapter 3: Tolkien and His Languages Chapter 4: Tolkien on Time Chapter 5: Tolkien on Peoples Chapter 6: Tolkien’s Themes Afterword Appendix A: Tolkien’s Sources Appendix B: Films of the Legendarium Appendix C: The Scholarship on Tolkien References

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Book SynopsisUlrika Maude s Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Bristol, where she also directs the Centre for Health, Humanities and Science. Her publications include Beckett, Technology and the Body (2009), Beckett and Phenomenology (2009) and The Cambridge Companion to the Body in Literature (2015).Mark Nixon is Associate Professor in Modern Literature at the University of Reading, UK. He is Co-Director of the Beckett International Foundation, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Beckett Studies and Co-Director of the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project.Trade ReviewIn the short but excellent ‘Resources’ section, Alex Pestell and Sean Pryor cover key terms from ‘avant-garde’ to ‘vers libre’ - and include valuable summaries of how concepts such as ‘fascism’, ‘primitivism’, ‘race’ and ‘high modernism’ shape how we think about modernist literature - while an extensive annotated bibliography of major works of criticism provides a good grounding for students wishing to explore the subject further. * Times Literary Supplement *The Bloomsbury Companion to Modernist Literature, edited by Ulrika Maude and Mark Nixon, provides fresh insights. By viewing Modernist Literature through the prism of seemingly unrelated disciplines, such as economics, the Theory of Relativity, and neurology, the Bloomsbury Companion … reveals research synergies and provides opportunities for discovery … While geared towards the more advanced researcher, this book would certainly assist those less familiar with Modernist Literature when taking those first steps from casual readership into research. The Bloomsbury Companion to Modernist Literature makes it new and keeps it real. * American Reference Books Annual *[These] assembled essays and resources comprise an impressive array of frequently challenging, illuminating scholarship … [This] Companion does not settle for simply being a guide to existing knowledge, but instead blazes exciting new trails for the rest of us to follow. * Modern Language Review *The book as a whole illustrates superbly what Emily Hayman and Pericles Lewis refer to as “the persistence of modernism". * Recherche Littéraire *Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Contributors 1. Introduction, Ulrika Maude Part I: Defining the Field and Research Issues The Modernist Everyday 2. Anything but a Clean Relationship: Modernism and the Everyday, Scott McCracken 3. Geographies of Modernism, Andrew Thacker 4. Modernism and Language Scepticism, Shane Weller 5. Modernism and Emotion, Kirsty Martin 6. Myth and Religion in Modernist Literature, Michael Bell The Arts and Cultures of Modernism 7. Modernism and Music, Tim Armstrong 8. Modernism and the Visual Arts: Kant, Bergson, Beckett, Conor Carville 9. Modernist Literature and Film, Laura Marcus 10. Modernism and Popular Culture, Lawrence Rainey 11. Modernist Magazines, Faith Binckes 12. Minding Manuscripts: Modernism, Genetic Criticism and Intertextual Cognition, Dirk Van Hulle The Sciences and Technologies of Modernism 13. Einstein, Relativity and Literary Modernism, Paul Sheehan 14. Modernism, Sexuality and Gender, Jana Funke 15. Modernism, Neurology and the Invention of Psychoanalysis Ulrika Maude 16. Modernism, Psychoanalysis and other Psychologies, Laura Salisbury 17. Modernism and Technology, Julian Murphet The Geopolitics and Economics of Modernism 18. Can there be a Global Modernism? Emily Hayman and Pericles Lewis 19. A Departure from Modernism: Stylistic Strategies in Modern Peripheral Literatures as Symptom, Mediation and Critique of Modernity, Benita Parry 20. Modernist Literature and Politics, Tyrus Miller 21. A New Sense of Value: Modernism and Economics, Ronald Schleifer Part II: Resources 22. A to Z of Key Words, Alex Pestell and Sean Pryor 23. Annotated Bibliography, Alexander Howard Chronology Index

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Book SynopsisThe inspiration for the annual Pleasure of Reading PrizeA charming and revealing collection of essays from some of our best-loved writers about the pleasures of reading, with royalties donated to the Give a Book charityIn this delightful collection forty-three acclaimed writers explain what first made them interested in literature, what inspired them to read and what makes them continue to do so. Original contributors include Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard, Melvyn Bragg, A. S. Byatt, Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Gray, Germaine Greer, Alan Hollinghurst, Doris Lessing, Candia McWilliam, Edna O'Brien, Ruth Rendell, Tom Stoppard, Sue Townsend and Jeanette Winterson, while this new edition includes essays from five new writers, Emily Berry, Kamila Shamsie, Rory Stewart, Katie Waldegrave and Tom Wells.Royalties generated from this project will go to Give a Book, www.giveabook.org.uk, a charity set up in 2011 that seeks to get books to places where they will be ofTrade ReviewA wonderful book for those of us that are addicted to print. A compendium of mostly British authors which lead you through their lives of reading. Sue Townsend mentions that she didn't learn to read before the age of eight and that her teacher was a nasty drunk with a face like a dyspeptic badger! * Jack Coleman, ***** on Good Reads *Really enjoyed this book :) And it brought back so many memories of my early years of reading ... reading a book in bed under the covers at night by torch light ... ALWAYS having a book to hand and being told to “Put that book down!” ... getting annoyed if ever a Birthday or Christmas Day passed WITHOUT A NEW BOOK arriving!!! * Alayne, **** on Good Reads *

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Book SynopsisHe expands his examination of possible textual corruption and adds hundreds of new glosses to help scholars, students, and general readers untangle the dense thicket of allusions that crowds every sentence of Joyce's nearly inscrutable masterpiece.Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsConventions and AbbreviationsAnnotations to Finnegans WakeBook IBook IIBook IIIBook IV

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Book SynopsisThis is the brilliant memoir of a man who starts out in Manhattan and comes of age in the skies over Korea, before emerging as one of America's finest authors in the New York of the 1960s. Burning the Days showcases James Salter's uniquely beautiful style with some of the most evocative pages about flying ever written, together with portraits of the actors, directors and authors who later influenced him. It is an unforgettable book about passion, ambition and what it means to live and to write.Trade Review'A wise and sensual memoir. Salter writes his self-portrait by focusing on what has shaped him, by showing what he has loved and admired and feared to become in others. You cannot put it down' Michael Ondaatje‘Salter writes wonderfully of a world most of his readers will never have known’ Observer‘A masterwork of memory, deeply impressive and deeply moving’ Time Out One of the great literary memoirs . . . there is nothing better in English about what it is like to fly' * Spectator *A stylish and moving account of his various incarnations as a fighter pilot, rock climber, screenwriter and novelist . . . written in the heroic language of an American memoir * New Statesman *An extraordinarily gifted composer of prose . . . [a] teller of memorable stories. . . . It isn't often that a writer of superlative skills knows enough about flying to write well about it; Saint-Exupérywas one; Salter is another * New York Times Book Review *He can bestow a powerful aura of glamour and heightened significance to even the most casual encounter . . . entertaining, sharply observed . . . pure and ravishing * The Nation *[His] account of air combat in Korea . . . stands as a masterpiece of battle writing in this century . . . His prose is in flight * Los Angeles Times Book Review *A dazzling book . . . so full of splendid writing that at times the overwhelmed reader may blink like a sleeper awaking to hard light * Philadelphia Inquirer *No man who is even remotely honest with himself can read Burning the Days without envy; no woman of similar truthfulness will fail to find Salter's life deeply romantic -- John Irving * Toronto Globe and Mail *A wonderful book by a sensitive author who is romantic, intelligent, and superbly balanced. It is a serene account of a surprising diversity of experiences, but it is also a history of my time -- Joseph HellerA classic memoir, alive with amazing people, fabulous events, and extraordinary stories of war and love and the great wide world. Through the sheer and sensual force of his writing (and nobodywrites more beautifully), James Salter hasn't only recollected the past, he's reclaimed it -- Michael HerrA magnificent tour-de-force, the pressure of Salter's high romantic soul animates his crisp, rich, neo-classical prose to bring us page after page of narrative magic -- Frank ConroyIf you were to mark every section worth remembering you'd end up with folded corners on every page, scrawls in every paragraph * GQ *Every sentence is fantastic * Observer *It is years since I read a sharper, more arresting autobiography * Spectator *Wonderful * Daily Telegraph *He has written three books that everyone should read before they die: A Sport and a Pastime, Light Years and his recollections, Burning the Days * Independent *

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Book SynopsisThe Methuen Drama Student Edition of Twelve Angry Men is the first critical edition of Reginald Rose's play, providing the play text alongside commentary and notes geared towards student readers.In New York, 1954, a man is dead and the life of another is at stake. A ''guilty'' verdict seems a foregone conclusion, but one member of the jury has the will to probe more deeply into the evidence and the courage to confront the ignorance and prejudice of some of his fellow jurors. The conflict that follows is fierce and passionate, cutting straight to the heart of the issues of civil liberties and social justice. Ideal for the student reader, the accompanying pedagogical notes include elements such as an author chronology; plot summary; suggested further reading; explanatory endnotes; and questions for further study. The introduction discusses in detail the play''s origins as a 1954 American television play, Rose''s re-working of the piece for the stage, and Lumet''s 1957 film versiTrade ReviewIt's not hard to recognise contemporary universal parallels in Rose's play. . . . At the play's heart is a noble belief that truth, justice and the American way are still ideals to aspire to, however much they may sometimes be corrupted. * Herald *Reginald Rose's classic mid-20th-century American drama . . . built around the relentlessly powerful story of a lone juror in a New York murder case * Scotsman *Table of ContentsCHRONOLOGY PLOT COMMENTARY The television play (1954) The stage version (1955) The film version (1957) Genre Characters Social and political context Later productions and critical reception FURTHER READING PLAY TEXT NOTES QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY

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