Literature: history and criticism Books

Book SynopsisKen Kesey (1935-2001) is the author of several works of well-known fiction and other hard-to-classify material. His debut novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was a critical and commercial sensation that was followed soon after by his most substantial and ambitious book, Sometimes a Great Notion. His other books, including Demon Box, Sailor Song, and two children's books, appeared amidst a life of astounding influence. He is maybe best known for his role as the charismatic and proto-hippie leader of the West Coast LSD movement that sparked ""The Sixties,"" as iconically recounted in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. In the introduction to ""An Impolite Interview with Ken Kesey,"" Paul Krassner writes, ""For a man who says he doesn't like to do interviews, Kesey certainly does a lot of them."" What's most surprising about this statement is not the incongruity between disliking and doing interviews but the idea that Kesey could possibly have been less than enthusiastic about being the center of attention. After his two great triumphs, writing played a lesser role in Kesey's life, but in thoughtful interviews he sometimes regrets the books that were sacrificed for the sake of his other pursuits. Interviews trace his arc through success, fame, prison, farming, and tragedy--the death of his son in a car accident profoundly altered his life. These conversations make clear Kesey's central place in American culture and offer his enduring lesson that the freedom exists to create lives as wildly as can be imagined.

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Book SynopsisTimothy Morton explores the foundations of the ecological crisis to reestablish our ties to nonhuman beings and rediscover playfulness and joy. Dark ecology puts us in an uncanny position of radical self-knowledge, illuminating our place in the biosphere and our belonging to a species in a sense that is far less obvious than we like to think.Trade ReviewIn often witty and humorous language, Timothy Morton provides a kind of affective atlas for the human era. The book calls for scholars to recognize the structures of entwinement between (the human) species and ecological phenomena and to develop modes of thought for accommodating them. -- Kate Marshall, University of Notre Dame Dark Ecology is a brave, brilliant interrogation of the presumptions that have driven our approach to the ecological and environmental challenges of our era. Anyone who is willing to ride the rollercoaster of ideas on which Morton takes us will reach the end brimming with new conceptual and intellectual energies with which to face up to our present limits and failures and to shape an alive and joyful future. -- Imre Szeman, University of Alberta Morton is a master of philosophical enigma. In Dark Ecology he treats us to an obscure ecognosis, the essentially unsolvable riddle of ecological being. Prepare to be endarkened! -- Michael Marder, author of The Philosopher's Plant and Pyropolitics Morton commands readers' attention with his free-form style... [Dark Ecology] extends his previous work to offer a seismically different vision of the future of ecology and humankind. Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Beginning After the End The First Thread The Second Thread The Third Thread Ending Before the Beginning Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewPortraits of Japanese geisha most often present these women either as tragic victims of oppressive institutions catering to male sexual desire or as sexually empowered entrepreneurs navigating a harsh reality. In Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale, Nagai Kafu introduces us to an altogether different geisha. Because Komayo's story is not offered as an allegory for a woman's place in a man's world, she emerges as a vivid, complex character fiercely resistant to narrow-minded moralizing and simplistic glorification. Her tale pulls readers into a far more compelling world--that of messy, inconsistent, and irreconcilable human attitudes toward love, sex, power, and performance. -- James Dorsey, Dartmouth College Nagai Kafu's novel is powerfully observed, exposing the tension between the elegant surface of the geisha districts and the sexual hierarchy that unfolds behind closed doors between the geisha and their patrons. Stephen Snyder's sensitive and smooth translation draws the reader into a sometimes outrageous, sometimes alluring world. An important corrective to the romanticized and exoticizing Hollywood versions of the geisha experience. -- Ann Sherif, Oberlin College Now we have a complete translation of Rivalry, Nagai Kafu's novel about the couplings and calculations in the world of geisha. The inclusion of the sexually explicit scenes left out in the prior translation makes this version funnier and infinitely tougher. Komayo's distress in the final chapters can only be comprehended if we know the full demands she faces as a geisha. -- Ken K. Ito, University of Michigan An awesomely economical and incisive writer, Nagai packs this short novel with incident and astonishingly thorough characterizations. Booklist (starred review) This new translation by Snyder... successfully transforms Nagai's Taisho-era Japanese into flowing modern English. Library Journal Snyder is to be thanked both for translating this half-forgotten novel... and for doing it so compellingly. -- Bradley Winterton Taipei TimesTable of ContentsIntroduction 1: Intermission 2: A Real Gem 3: Dayflowers 4: Welcoming Fires 5: A Dream in the Daylight 6: The Actor's Seal 7: Afterglow 8: Crimes in Bed 9: The Autumn Review 10: Box Seat 11: The Kikuobana 12: Rain on an Autumn Night 13: The Road Home 14: Asakusa 15: At the Gishun 16: Opening Day (I) 17: Opening Day (II) 18: Yesterday and Today 19: Yasuna 20: The Morning Bath 21: Turmoil 22: One Thing or Another

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Book SynopsisHeroic women warriors as reflections of social and moral valuesTrade Review"This detailed, exhaustive exploration of Mulan's story from its earliest beginnings to its modern incarnations is essential to anyone interested in cross-cultural children's literature, Asian studies, and modern popular culture. With a lengthy bibliography that includes Chinese sources, it lights the way for future scholarship, and belongs in most academic libraries, especially where children's literature is studied." -Children's Literature Association QuarterlyTable of ContentsContents List of Figures Acknowledgments 1. Prologue 2. Heroic Lineage: Military Women and Lady Knights-Errant in Premodern China 3. From a Courageous Maiden in Legend to a Virtuous Icon in History 4. The White Tiger Mythology: A Woman Warrior's Autobiography 5. One Heroine, Many Characters: Mulan in American Picture Books 6. Of Animation and Mulan's International Fame 7. Epilogue Appendix Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisPersian literature is the jewel in the crown of Persian culture. It has profoundly influenced the literatures of Ottoman Turkey, Muslim India and Turkic Central Asia and been a source of inspiration for Goethe, Emerson, Matthew Arnold and Jorge Luis Borges among others. Yet Persian literature has never received the attention it truly deserves."A History of Persian Literature" answers this need and offers a new, comprehensive and detailed history of its subject. This 18-volume, authoritative survey reflects the stature and significance of Persian literature as the single most important accomplishment of the Iranian experience. It includes extensive, revealing examples with contributions by prominent scholars who bring a fresh critical approach to bear on this important topic.The first volume offers an indispensable entree to Persian literature's long and rich history, examining themes and subjects that are common to many fields of Persian literary study. This invaluable introduction to the subject heralds a definitive and ground-breaking new series.Table of ContentsForeword Chapter 1: Classical Persia n Literature as a Tradition (J. T. P. de Bruijn) 1. Preliminary Remarks 2. Documentation 3. The Birth of a Tradition 4. Writers, Poets, Minstrels and Patrons Writers Poets Minstrels Patronage Alternatives to Court Poetry 5. Religious Inspiration 6. The Transmission of Literature 7. The Individuality of the Writer and the Poet 8. Views on Poetry CHAPTER 2: THE OR IGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LITER ARY PERS IAN (J. Perry) 1. The Fall of Middle Persian and the Rise of Persian 2. The Language Arena, ca. 570-900 3. Pârsi and Dari 4. Arabic and Persian: A Fortunate Conjunction 5. Building a Literary Language 6. Expansion and Standardization 7. Classical Persian Chap er 3: the history of literature (W. Hanaway) Chap ter 4: Prosody : mete r and rhyme (B. Utas) 1. Meter in Persian Poetry 2. Rhyme in Persian Poetry 3. The Pre-Islamic Prosodic Heritage 4. Khalil’s Analysis of Arabic Metrics 5. The Persian Version of the aruz System 6. Scansion 7. Caesura 8. Pitch and Stress 9. Special Features of Persian Rhyme and Verse Forms 10. The robâ’i and the Prosody of Folk Poetry 11. The Role of Meter and Rhyme in PersianPoetical Genres Chapter 5: Traditional Literary Theory: The Arabic Backg round (G. J. Van Gelder) . . . . 1. Arabic Theory and Persian Literature 2. Origins and Early Developments 3. The Scholastic Study of balâgha 4. From Arabic Legacy to Persian Theory 5. The Deficiencies of Arabic Theory Chapter 6: Persian Rhetoric: Elme badi ’and elme bayân (N. Chalisova) 1. The Persian Theory of Rhetoric Embellishment 2. Râduyâni’s Tarjomân al-balâgha 3. Vatvât’s Hadâ’eq al-sehr 4. Shamse Qeys’ Mo’jam 5. The qaside-ye masnu’ 6. Commentaries of the Hadâ’eq 7. Hoseyni’s Badâye’ al-sanâye’ 8. Postclassical Treatises 9. Concluding Remarks Chapter 7: Poetic Imagery (R. Zipoli) Inventory of Persian Poetic Imagery The Natural World Animals Plants and Flowers Precious Substances The Sky, Planets, Stars, and Constellations Other Natural Elements Colors The Measurement of Time The Human World The Body Other Bodily Components Actions and Emotions The Social Context Life at Court War Feasting Games Hunting Fabrics and clothes Perfumes and cosmetics Wounds and medicine Various objects Writing Numbers Characters Places around the Court Countries and Peoples The Cultural Tradition Islam Characters and Motifs Mentioned in the Qor’an Other Characters from the Qor’an Other Characters and Motifs from Islamic Culture Ritual Elements Ancient Persian Traditions Flouting Islamic Values Chapter 8: Genres of Court Literature J. Meisami) Introduction 2. Panegyric and Related Types of Poetry 3. “Informal” Lyrics 4. History 5. Epic and Romance 6. Wisdom Literature; Mirrors for Princes 7. Didactic, Religious and Philosophical Poetry and Prose 8. Epistolography and Works on Style 9. Satire and Humorous Writing 10. Conclusion Chapter 9: Genres of Religious Literature N. Pourjavady) 1. Commentaries on the Qor’an and Stories of the Prophets 2. Manuals 3. Short Works on Mystical States and Stages nd on Spiritual Conduct 4. Hagiographies 5. Sermons 6. Allegories 7. Treatises on Love 8. Didactic and Theoretical Works in Prose 9. Didactic Mathnavis Chapter 10: Ri ddles (G. Windfuhr) 1. Pre-Islamic Period 2. The Islamic Period 3. Loghaz and mo’ammâ 4. Indigenous Tradition and Scholarship 5. Modern Scholarship 6. The Theory of the mo’ammâ 7. Hesabe abjad 8. Târikh 9. The Gnostic-Mystical Factor Appendix Chapter 11: Pre-Islamic Iranian and Indian Influences on Persian Literature (F. de Blois) . 1. Kalile and Demne 2. The Book of Kings 3. The Book of Sendbâd 4. Belawhar and Budhâsaf 5. Vis and Râmin 6. The Letter of Tansar Chapter 12: Hell enistic Influences in Classical Persia n L

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Book SynopsisOn Writing Short Stories, Second Edition, explores the art and craft of writing short fiction by bringing together nine original essays by professional writers and thirty-three examples of short fiction. The first section features original essays by well-known authors--including Francine Prose, Joyce Carol Oates, and Andre Dubus--that guide students through the process of writing. Focusing on the characteristics and craft of the short story and its writer, these essays take students from the workshopping process all the way through to the experience of working with agents and publishers. The second part of the text is an anthology of stories--many referred to in the essays--that give students dynamic examples of technique brought to life.In this second edition, author-editor Tom Bailey brings the text up-to-date with new and revised essays, alongside classic pieces by Robert Coles and Frank Conroy and a foreword by Tobias Wolff.New to This Edition* Includes new and revised essays: Two Table of ContentsForeword by Tobias Wolff ; Preface ; Contributors ; Part One: On Writing Short Stories ; Francine Prose, What Makes a Short Story ; Joyce Carol Oates, Reading as a Writer: The Artist as Craftsman ; Tom Bailey, Character, Plot, Setting and Time, Metaphor, and Voice ; The Voice of Desire: Character ; The Why? Behind the Power of Plot: Shaping the Short Story ; The Lesser Angels of Fiction: Setting and Time ; "The Connectedness of All Living Things": Metaphor ; The Writer's Signature: Voice ; Frank Conroy, The Writer's Workshop ; Antonya Nelson. Whose Story Is It? The Anonymous Workshop ; Robert Boswell After the Workshop: Transitional Drafts ; Andre Dubus, The Habit of Writing. ; Robert Cole, Why Write? Taking on the World ; C. Michael Curtis, Publishers and Publishing ; Part Two: Short Stories ; Guy de Maupassant, The String ; Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Pet Dog ; James Joyce, Eveline ; Yukio Mishima, Patriotism ; Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants ; Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing ; William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily ; John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums ; Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl ; Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge ; John Updike, A & P ; Margaret Atwood, Happy Endings ; Joyce Carol Oates, Heat ; Raymond Carver, Cathedral ; Mark Helprin, North Light ; Jayne Anne Phillips, Wedding Picture, Cheers, Stripper, and The Powder of the Angles, and I'm Yours ; Ron Hansen, Wickedness ; David Leavitt, Braids ; Jumpha Lahiri, A Temporary Matter ; Tom Franklin, Alaska ; Junot Diaz, Nilda ; Rick Bass, The Fireman ; Tom Bailey, Snow Dreams ; Susan Perabo, The Payoff ; Robert Boswell, The Darkness of Love ; ZZ Packer, Brownies ; Andre Dubus, A Father's Story ; Antonya Nelson, Dick ; Susan Mino, Lust ; Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain

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Book SynopsisThis National Book Critics Circle Award is “an entrancing attempt to catch what falls between: the irreducibly personal, messy, even embarrassing ways reading and living bleed into each other, which neither literary criticism nor autobiography ever quite acknowledges (The New York Times). “Stories, both my own and those I’ve taken to heart, make up whoever it is that I’ve become,” Peter Orner writes in this collection of essays about reading, writing, and living. Orner reads and writes everywhere he finds himself: a hospital cafeteria, a coffee shop in Albania, or a crowded bus in Haiti. The result is a book of unlearned meditations that stumbles into memoir.Among the many writers Orner addresses are Isaac Babel and Zora Neale Hurston, both of whom told their truths and were silenced; Franz Kafka, who professed loneliness but craved connection; Robert Walser, who spent the last twenty-three years of his life in a Swiss insane asylum, working at being crazy; and Juan Rulfo, who practiced the difficult art of silence. Virginia Woolf, Eudora Welty, Yasunari Kawabata, Saul Bellow, Mavis Gallant, John Edgar Wideman, William Trevor, and Václav Havel make appearances, as well as the poet Herbert Morris--about whom almost nothing is known.An elegy for an eccentric late father, and the end of a marriage, Am I Alone Here? is also a celebration of the possibility of renewal. At once personal and panoramic, this book will inspire readers to return to the essential stories of their own lives.

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Book SynopsisHistory books typically show Vancouver as a pioneer city built on forestry, fisheries, and tourism, but behind the snow-capped mountains and rain forests, the Vancouver of the first half of the 20th century was a seething mass of corruption. The top job at the Vancouver Police Department was a revolving door with the average tenure for a police chief of just four years. In those early years, Detective Joe Ricci's beat was the opium dens and gambling joints of Chinatown, while LurancyHarris-the first female cop in Canada-patrolled the high-end brothels of Alexander Street. Later, proceeds from rum running produced some of the city's iconic buildings, cops became robbers, and the city reeled from a series of unsolved murders. But Vancouver is more than bookies, brothels, and bootleggers-the city also produced legendary women, world-class entertainers and ground-breaking architecture. Sensational Vancouver is a fully illustrated popular history book about Vancouver's famous and infamous, the ordinary and the extraordinary, filtered through the houses in which they lived. Sensational Vancouver covers legendary women including Elsie MacGill, Phyllis Munday, Nellie Yip Quong and Joy Kogawa; high-end brothels, unsolved murders, and the homes and buildings of artists, architects and entertainers including Frederick Varley, Arthur Erickson, Bryan Adams, and Michael Bublé. Includes a Walking Tour map of historic Strathcona and Chinatown. Praise for At Home with History: "You might call her the Sherlock Holmes of home history. Lazarus's stories bring Vancouver's past back to life." -the Outlook "A mix of old black-and-white street-scene photos, jovial stories, and unique neighbourhood profiles, the book crushes the idea that Vancouver is a city without history." -The Georgia Straight "exceptional incidents in ordinary houses and ordinary people in exceptional houses." -The Vancouver Sun "Lazarus reveals the hidden stories of a number of Vancouver's heritage homes, setting each within the larger context of its neighbourhood bootleggers rub shoulders with financiers, prostitutes with police, murderers with mayors." -The Vancouver Courier

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Book SynopsisThe seminal biography of a great poet, novelist and sacred figure in English writing, Thomas Hardy, from bestselling author Clare Tomalin. ''An extraordinary story, beautifully told. Tomalin is the most empathetic of biographers'' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday Paradox ruled Thomas Hardy''s life. His birth was almost his death; he became one of the great Victorian novelists and reinvented himself as one of the twentieth-century''s greatest poets; he was an unhappy husband and a desolate widower; he wrote bitter attacks on the English class system yet prized the friendship of aristocrats. In the hands of Whitbread Award-winning biographer Claire Tomalin, author of the bestselling Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman, Thomas Hardy comes vividly alive. ''Another triumph for a biographer who goes from strength to strength'' Melvyn Bragg, Guardian, Books of the Year ''Tomalin provides an

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"One of Choice Reviews' Outstanding Academic Titles of 2018""Learned and lengthy . . . Lewis’s deeply researched monograph repays close attention."---Jonathan Bate, Times Literary Supplement"Rhodri Lewis’s absorbing and original Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness is the first major reinterpretation of the play in some time. . . . Lewis’s brilliant analysis here gives fresh meaning to long-familiar if half-understood phrases."---James Shapiro, New York Review of Books"Rhodri Lewis has taken one of the most studied plays of this and earlier centuries, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and turned on their head many of the grand notions we have all had about Shakespeare. Lewis's ideas are breathtakingly original."---Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective"A striking account . . . fresh and compelling." * The Australian Book Review *"Lewis has written a wonderful book: one that breaks free of the 'many confines, wards and dungeons' of the solely scholarly or academic. It’s a volume that all prospective producers of the play should examine assiduously."---Barry Gillard, The Australian"Lewis does a great service to Hamlet scholarship. . . . Highly recommended."---Anthony DiMatteo, Choice"Lewis uses his book as a broad canvas, tracking Shakespeare’s themes and characterizations across a huge number of discursive, visual, and historical examples, not only Ciceronian moral philosophy but also rhetoric and political writing, painting, the early English humanism of Erasmus and More, Philip Sidney, and too many Shakespearean examples to mention."---Henry Turner, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900"It made me look at the play and the character of Hamlet with fresh eyes, and showed me that modern productions of the play ignore or miss a lot of the play's true substance, even though it's right there in the text. Perhaps the main lesson I've learned here when it comes to Hamlet is: Look again – nothing is as it seems."---Pat Reid, Shakespeare Magazine"A work of tremendous erudition, channeling a formidable range of classical and humanist texts as well as contemporary criticism into chapters on Hamlet’s sustained engagement with early modern discourses of selfhood, hunting, cognitive theory, poetics, and moral and speculative philosophy. With highly original but also extensively documented discussions of nearly every line and textual crux, it has the impact of a variorum."---Heather Hirschfeld, Modern Philology"It is an original take on what must be the most written-about play in literary critical history, and the result is an erudite yet absorbing book that is as refreshingly unwilling to patronize the possibilities of Shakespeare's learning as it is willing to uphold the status of his creative genius."---Joe Jarrett, Journal of British Studies"Extraordinary learning and critical insight. . . . Endlessly productive, exciting, and original."---David Bevington, Renaissance Quarterly"A new and startling perspective on a familiar subject. . . . Lewis supports his ground-breaking theories with a critical approach that is both thorough and systematic. . . . His argument certainly convinced this reader."---Bríd Phillips, Parergon"Page for page, this book offers more gripping textual insights than any other book on Hamlet since de Grazia’s. . . . The close readings are beautiful, interesting, and insightful."---Joshua R. Held, Sixteenth Century Journal"Hamlet and the Vision of Darkness is an original and valuable addition to the critical field, and compelling reading for those interested in expanding their understanding of the intersection between early modern drama and contemporary moral philosophy."---Anna Hegland, Symbolism"Bold and impressive. . . . Lewis deserves the gratitude of scholars for his sensitive close readings and contextualizations of those readings. . . . His book, no doubt, will encourage new debates about issues that were previously thought settled."---Benjamin V. Beier, Moreana"The pleasure of reading this book comes not only from being constantly stimulated by the freshness of ideas and the acuity with which they are generated, and by the connections and associations that Lewis establishes, but also from the author’s display of the gift of bridging expansive micro-analysis of the play with compelling macro-analysis of ideas from moral philosophy that underlie the dramatic text."---Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance and Reformation"A major new interpretation of the play."---Vanessa Lim, The Year's Work in English Studies

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Book SynopsisChinese martial arts novels from the late nineteenth century are full of suggestive sounds. Characters curse in colorful dialect accents, and action scenes come to life with the loud clash of swords. Paize Keulemans examines the relationship between these novels and earlier storyteller manuscripts to explain the purpose and history of these sounds.

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Book SynopsisIn 1808 Napoleon invaded Spain and deposed the king. Overnight, Hispanics were forced to confront modernity and look beyond monarchy and religion for new sources of authority. Coronado focuses on how Texas Mexicans used writing to remake the social fabric in the midst of war and how a Latino literary and intellectual life was born in the New World.Trade ReviewReading British colonial writers as the sole founders of American culture lends our history a false sense of teleology, as though we were always going to end up here. One of the greatest strengths of Coronado’s book is its ability to remind us of other paths we might have taken; other worlds different ‘we’s’ might have made… A World Not to Come boldly challenges the dominance of the westward expansion narrative… At once a gripping history, a dizzying synthesis of Enlightenment philosophical currents, and a breathtaking feat of original archival research, his book merits reading by anyone interested in American literature, Latina/o studies, economic history, or Western philosophy. A World Not to Come demands that we recalibrate our sense of what ‘American’ literary history looks like. -- John Alba Cutler * Los Angeles Review of Books *A World Not to Come constitutes an extraordinary contribution to distinct and interconnected lines of scholarly debates engaged with Latin American and trans-hemispheric history. -- Beatriz González-Stephan * S-USIH: Society for U.S. Intellectual History *A World Not to Come is a magnificent first book. Raúl Coronado makes the case that the meeting of Anglos and Mexicans in the Southwest occasioned not only political and military conflict but also epistemological struggle between two different systems of thought. Latinos in the U.S. attempted forge what in hindsight can be seen as a modern social imaginary. The differences between these conflicting visions of an American imaginary are still very much with us and help define the nature of the present interactions between Anglos and Latinos within the boundaries of the U.S. and outside of them. This is a compelling thesis about the need for a ‘transnational’ view of the Americas and the recognition that an undifferentiated history of ‘Latino’ writings cannot easily be extracted from the historical record. Coronado’s argument on both counts should advance significantly our understanding of the relationship between the Anglo and Latin Americas in the nineteenth century. -- Ramón Saldívar, Stanford UniversityIn this brilliantly conceived book, Raúl Coronado turns over the forgotten record of a Texas rebellion, and from it spins an absorbing counter-history of a distinctively Latino tradition of political thought. A World Not to Come will stand as a major contribution to the emergent multilingual portrait of print culture in the U.S., and to the comparative intellectual and literary history of the Americas in general. -- Kirsten Silva Gruesz, University of California, Santa CruzCoronado’s A World Not to Come is already a standard, well on its way to becoming a classic. The comprehensiveness of the research is extraordinary: an extraordinary job, extraordinarily well done. -- Rolena Adorno, Yale UniversityCoronado’s book offers a fascinating alternative history of modernity, one rooted in the forgotten archives of Texas. Well-timed to intervene in contemporary debates on rights theory and sovereignty, Coronado tells the story of how Spanish-American intellectuals of the early nineteenth century took the work of now-forgotten Catholic Reformation thinkers to produce a model of rights based on collective well-being and ‘public happiness.’ The Anglo-American Protestant history of rights suppressed a rich and complex Spanish version, and Coronado finds in these conservative thinkers a revolutionary potential that I believe found fruition in liberation theology in the Americas. -- Carrie Tirado Bramen, University at Buffalo, State University of New YorkIn a work of great originality and breathtaking erudition, Raúl Coronado writes a compelling history of an alternative West, a history spanning continents, oceans, centuries, and genres. The story told in A World Not to Come is the story of modernity itself, inflected through an immense and virtually unstudied archive of Latino writing that the author reads as a fragmented narrative of becoming. This is cultural history of the highest order. -- Anna Brickhouse, University of VirginiaThis is a book about Tejanos and the printing press in the Age of Revolutions. Between 1810 and 1848, Tejanos witnessed momentous sociopolitical, cultural changes and responded by articulating their own peculiar narratives of modernity through the printing press—narratives that both Mexican and U.S. historiographies have erased. Coronado brings these forgotten narratives, poised between utopia and disillusionment, deftly back to life. This is a moving meditation on the making of the first ‘Latino’ public sphere. -- Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, The University of Texas at Austin

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Book SynopsisThe most supportive, easy-to-use and focussed literature guides to help your students understand the texts they are studying at GCSE and A Level Table of Contents Part 1: Introduction Part 2: The Text Part 3: Critical Approaches Part 4: Critical History Part 5: Background Further Reading Literacy Terms

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Book SynopsisFor 2,500 years literature has been condemned in the name of authority, truth, morality and society. But in making explicit what a society expects from literature, anti-literary discourse paradoxically asserts the validity of what it wishes to deny. The threat to literature’s continued existence, William Marx writes, is not hatred but indifference.Trade ReviewLiterature has faced myriad accusations from the powers that be, who have…criticized its immortality, contested its truth value in comparison with science, and attacked the figure of the writer… Paradoxically, it is anti-literary discourse that has created the identity of literature. [William Marx] turns poets and novelists into eternal resistance fighters defending from the margins an art without faith or law, a practice that has no stable definition or real place in society… It is thus a secret war that Marx describes, with humor and erudition worthy of Umberto Eco. * Marianne *If the defenders of literature often admit that they do not know how to define literature, its critics are very happy to take up the charge. Beginning with Plato…William Marx examines four aspects of the vast indictment that has been brought against poetry… The Hatred of Literature is not a judicial appeal, but a reflection on how difficult it is to define an art that, over the centuries, has rejected everything it could have laid claim to and as a result has been forced to fall back on itself. * Le Monde *An in-depth history of literature as it is understood by its most virulent detractors—the age-old purveyors of ‘anti-literature.’ From Plato’s condemnation of poetry to contemporary attempts to ban ‘triggering’ books, literature has long been subjected to intellectual assault by philistines and philosophers alike…In an age in which the study of literature, and the arts in general, seems particularly vulnerable, Marx’s book is exceedingly relevant. -- Andrew Shea * New Criterion *Those who have spent their lives hating literature have done so because it’s always been a threat to the status quo or ruling parties…In his comprehensive and rich examination of how and why literature has always been on trial, Marx’s The Hatred of Literature carefully spells out how the four indictments (Authority, Truth, Morality, and Society) against the form have served to threaten our existence as thinking people and weaken the fabric of society…Marx looks at literature through the eyes of its foes. He weaves in political leaders, philosophers, theologians, and professorial types whose missions often seem to be at odds with the more high-minded pursuits of the form. -- Christopher John Stephens * PopMatters *[Marx’s] book is a sparkling constellation of wit, learning and insight. -- Gary Day * Times Higher Education *Defining literature by its enemies is a neat strategy—and thanks to Marx’s light touch, the book is fun to read. I suspect that Marx secretly likes the attacks he describes with so much relish because they dovetail with his own view of literature as standing in opposition to powerful discourses such as philosophy, science, morality, religion, and social utility. -- Martin Puchner * Public Books *

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Book SynopsisThis book presents an innovative reading of Daoist philosophy that highlights the critical and therapeutic functions of satire and humor. Moeller and D’Ambrosio show how the Zhuangzi expounds the Daoist art of “genuine pretending”: the paradoxical skill of enacting social roles without submitting to them or letting them define one’s identity.Trade Review[The book's] scholarship is first rate and the contribution original and timely. The authors offer genuinely illuminating and original readings of many of the widely discussed parts of the Zhuangzi. -- Barry Allen, McMaster University A highly insightful new reading of the Zhuangzi that is exceptionally sensitive to both philosophical and textual subtleties, highlighting the key theme of genuine pretending-the adoption of multiple roles while maintaining a form of radical flexibility that prevents full identification, thereby allowing all roles to be at once fulfilled and transcended. -- Brook Ziporyn, University of Chicago Divinity SchoolTable of ContentsForeword by Chen GuyingPrefaceIntroduction: A Joker in the Fold1. Sincerity, Authenticity, and Ancient Chinese Philosophy2. The Confucian Regime of Sincerity3. Philosophical Humor and Incongruity in the Zhuangzi4. Smooth Operators: The Arts of Genuine PretendingConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1939, These Poor Hands was an instant best-seller, catapulting its author, B. L. Coombes, to the front rank of proletarian writers. Coombes was born in England, but he lived for decades in the Vale of Neath in south Wales, and as the economic problems of the 1930s deepened, he turned to writing as a way to spread the word about the plight of miners and their communities to a wider world. Presenting the daily lives of miners in documentary fashion, with special attention to the damaging lockouts of 1921 and 1926, These Poor Hands retains the power to astonish readers with its description of the ways that unfettered capitalism can lay waste to human potential.Trade Review'The re-publication of this classic volume is to be warmly welcomed ... For this new edition, two of the most prominent of the younger generation of Welsh historians, Professor Chris Williams of the University of Glamorgan and Dr Bill Jones of Cardiff, join forces to provide the text with a most valuable, highly readable introduction and explanatory glossary notes which are genuinely helpful.' www .gwales.com

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Book SynopsisCarmen Conde is a major figure in twentieth-century Spanish poetry. Though neglected up to now, Mientras los hombres mueren is the most important collection of war poetry to emerge from the Spanish Civil War. It was first published, in a limited edition, in Italy in 1953. Though it has been included in its entirety in anthologies of her work published in Spain in 1967, 1986 and 2007, this is the first free-standing edition since 1953 and the first ever critical edition. The collection was written in 1938-39, in Valencia, then the seat of the Republican Government. In prose poetry densely packed with imagery of nightmarish destruction, Conde gives voice to the experience of women and children suffering bombardment from air and sea, hunger and homelessness, and the loss of husbands, brothers and fathers at the front. The second half of the collection, 'A los niños muertos en la guerra', is an extended elegy for all those children killed in bombing raids during Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroductionNote on this editionSelect bibliographyText and commentariesAppendicesTemas de debate y discusiónSelected vocabulary

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Book SynopsisText in Danish.

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Book SynopsisThe Ethiope, the tawny Tartar, the woman blackamoore, and knotty Africanismsallusions to blackness abound in Renaissance texts. Kim F. Hall''s eagerly awaited book is the first to view these evocations of blackness in the contexts of sexual politics, imperialism, and slavery in early modern England. Her work reveals the vital link between England''s expansion into realms of difference and othernessthrough exploration and colonialism-and the highly charged ideas of race and gender which emerged.How, Hall asks, did new connections between race and gender figure in Renaissance ideas about the proper roles of men and women? What effect did real racial and cultural difference have on the literary portrayal of blackness? And how did the interrelationship of tropes of race and gender contribute to a modern conception of individual identity? Hall mines a wealth of sources for answers to these questions: travel literature from Sir John Mandeville''s Travels to Leo Africanus'

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Book SynopsisSmith recovers a surprising array of discussions about extramarital sexuality, women's financial autonomy, and respectability in ate Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany.Trade ReviewBerlin Coquette is well written—an ever-rarer feature of academic writing, it seems—and well researched (Smith's footnotes are especially impressive).... This is an important contribution to a variety of fields (German studies, gender studies, history, urban studies, and theater/film studies come immediately to mind) and certainly one that will change the way we understand prostitution. * H-Net Reviews *Berlin Coquette is an innovative interdisciplinary work that succeeds in illustrating the complicated nature of the urban German prostitution trade in the years before and after World War I....With the intent of moving beyond the standard dichotomy of victim/villain, Smith uses myriad sources to sketch a vibrant picture of women in Berlin's sex trade from the Kaiserreich to the end of the Weimar Republic. * The Journal of Interdisciplinary History *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Berlin's Bourgeois Whores1. Sex, Money, and Marriage: Prostitution as an Instrument of Conjugal Critique2. Righteous Women and Lost Girls: Radical Bourgeois Feminists and the Fight for Moral Reform3. Naughty Berlin?: New Women, New Spaces, and Erotic Confusion4. Working Girls: White-Collar Workers and Prostitutes in Late Weimar FictionConclusion: Berlin CoquetteBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn aktualisierter Fassung und mit einem Kapitel über die Literatur seit 2000 wird das Standardwerk zur Skandinavischen Literaturgeschichte neu vorgelegt. Das Kompendium beschreibt die Geschichte der Literaturen Dänemarks, Norwegens, Schwedens und Islands; die Literaturen in finnischer, färöischer, samischer und grönländischer Sprache kommen hinzu. In facettenreichen Porträts des literarischen Geschehens werden herausragende Autoren wie Holberg, Ibsen, Strindberg, Lagerlöf, Blixen, Laxness, Lindgren, Tranströmer u.v.a. gewürdigt. Zugleich entsteht ein faszinierendes Panorama der skandinavischen Kulturgeschichte vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart.

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Book SynopsisDie Leopoldina-Ausgabe ist die erste vollständige historisch-kritische und kommentierte Ausgabe von Goethes naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften. Sie ist systematisch gegliedert und ediert die Texte mit den zugeordneten Materialien und ergänzt um zeitgenössische Zeugnisse. Die Ausgabe zeigt zudem Verbindungen auf, die zwischen Goethes naturwissenschaftlichem und literarischem Werk sowie zu den geistigen und wissenschaftlichen Strömungen seiner Zeit bestehen. Sie ersetzt die zweite Abteilung der Weimarer Sophienausgabe von Goethes Schriften nach neuen, editionsphilologischen Standards und ist ein grundlegendes Arbeitsinstrument auf dem neuesten Stand der Forschung für alle, die sich mit Goethes Schriften und der Naturforschung seiner Zeit befassen. Die abgeschlossene Ausgabe umfasst insgesamt 11 Text- und 18 Kommentarbände sowie zwei Registerbände.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAt long last, this treasure trove of seventy-three letters written by Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi to her exiled sons is now fully available to Anglophone readers. Scholars of Renaissance Italy and early modern women have long recognized the importance of Strozzi’s letters, but until now only selections have been published in translation. Given the growing interest in women’s epistolary practices as well as the continuing fascination with Renaissance Florence, this translation makes an especially welcome contribution to the Other Voice series, and will almost certainly enlarge Strozzi’s historical footprint for students and scholars alike. Sharon Strocchia Professor, Department of History, Emory College of Arts and Sciences"At long last, this treasure trove of seventy-three letters written by Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi to her exiled sons is now fully available to Anglophone readers. Scholars of Renaissance Italy and early modern women have long recognized the importance of Strozzi’s letters, but until now only selections have been published in translation. Given the growing interest in women’s epistolary practices as well as the continuing fascination with Renaissance Florence, this translation makes an especially welcome contribution to the Other Voice series, and will almost certainly enlarge Strozzi’s historical footprint for students and scholars alike." -- Sharon Strocchia, Emory College of Arts and SciencesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments xvIntroduction1. The Other Voice 12. The Life of Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi: The Intersection ofPrivate and Public Domains 63. Alessandra and the Genre of the Familiar Letter 164. Writing as a Mother 185. The Afterlife of the Letters 236. A Note on the Translation and Edition 25Alessandra Macinghi Strozzi: Letters to Her Sons 29Abbreviations 245Weights and Measures 246Currency 247Times of Day 248Florentine Dating 248Bibliography 249Index 269

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Book SynopsisAs much as dogs, cats, or any domestic animal, horses exemplify the vast range of human-animal interactions. Horses have long been deployed to help with a variety of human activitiesfrom racing and riding to police work, farming, warfare, and therapyand have figured heavily in the history of natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. Most accounts of the equine-human relationship, however, fail to address the last few centuries of Western history, focusing instead on pre-1700 interactions. Equestrian Cultures fills in the gap, telling the story of how prominently horses continue to figure in our lives, up to the present day. Kristen Guest and Monica Mattfeld place the modern period front and center in this collection, illuminating the largely untold story of how the horse has responded to the accelerated pace of modernity. The book's contributors explore equine cultures across the globe, drawing from numerous interdisciplinary sources to show how horses have unexpectedl

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Book SynopsisThe second book in Seagull's ambitious series of Georg Trakl's works, Sebastian Dreaming was the second, and final, collection prepared for publication by Trakl himself. Published after his death, it was perhaps even tied to it: forced into a military hospital by the psychological trauma of his World War I experiences, the Austrian poet requested that his publisher send him proofs of the book. He waited a week, and then overdosed on cocaine. A century later, the book appears for the first time in English. While a number of its poems have been included in other collections, translator James Reidel argues that this particular book deserves to stand on its own and be read as one piece, as Trakl intended. Only by doing this can we begin to see Trakl in his proper time and place, as an early modern poet whose words nonetheless continue to exert a powerful hold on us while we make our way through a new, uncharted century.

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Book SynopsisProvides a more complete history of the zombie than has ever been told, explaining how the myth's migration to the New World was facilitated by the transatlantic slave trade, and reveals the real-world import of storytelling, reminding us of the power of myths and mythmaking, and the high stakes of appropriation and homage.Trade Review"Simply put, this is a tremendous—even epic—study of the zombie in a range of literary, cinematic, political, and popular contexts. A groundbreaking work!" -- Aviva Briefel * Bowdoin College *"This meticulously researched and exhaustive study is an invaluable offering to both Haitian and humanist scholarship. The historical depth and cultural breadth call attention to the zombie's impact as real social phenomenon and as provocative metaphor for the human condition." -- Kaiama L. Glover * author of Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon *Table of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsA Note on OrthographyIntroduction: Zombie Dialectics1 Slavery and Slave Rebellion: The (Pre)History of the Zombi/e2 “American” Zombies: Love and Theft on the Silver Screen3 Haitian Zombis: Symbolic Revolutions, Metaphoric Conquests, and the Mythic Occupation of History4 Textual Zombies in the Visual ArtsEpilogue: The Occupation of MetaphorFilmographyNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"With a fan's instincts and a scholar’s passion, Ian Gordon delivers a highly readable and insightful treatment of the comic book and cinematic Superman, the most American of superheroes." -- Viet Thanh Nguyen * Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Sympathizer *"This is the most thoughtful and thoroughly researched study about one of the most iconic characters of the last century. Ian Gordon – Superman expert – has produced a stellar book on Superman: his history and significance in popular culture; his cross-media and cross-generational reach; and his continued mythic significance for global culture. This is a must read for academics and fans alike!" -- Angela Ndalianis * author of Batman: Myth and Superhero *"This startling new study brings a new perspective and shows us Superman as a process: a shared, and often fought-over, element of American culture. The next time I teach on Superman, or superheroes in general, this will be my go-to book." -- Charles Hatfield * author of Alternative Comics *"Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon is an interesting read and well worth the time for any Superman fan interested in the character’s past, his growth, his icon status and his success over the years." * supermanhomepage.com *Included in The Top 75 Community College Titles: September Edition "This is not just another superhero study; it is one of the most comprehensive, well-thought-out analyses of the Man of Steel. Concisely packed, this book covers all dimensions of Superman: mythos, history, ideology and morality, object of nostalgia, production, authorship, ownership, audiences, and brand. Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon is extraordinarily rich, the analysis is meticulously conceived and implemented, and the writing is clear and interesting, spiced with anecdotes, asides, and quotes." -- John Lent, Temple University * Choice360 *"Gordon’s Superman will be most useful in the undergraduate classroom – it leaves plenty of room for instructors to flesh out the material as they see fit, making it a good textbook candidate in a variety of first- or second-year courses in disciplines such as Cultural Studies, American Studies and Media Studies." * Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics *"Highly recommended for scholars, nerds, and casual fans." * The Journal of American Culture *"The book is not only a crucial new resource for anyone interested in the history of Superman, but also an important contribution for the way it situates comics in general, and superheroes specifically, within a broader culture." * The Journal of Comics and Culture *"Gordon displays his considerable skills as a media historian...[A] fine book." * Inks *"Superman at 80," by Karen McCally * University of Rochester *"For a real insider look at what makes Superman tick be sure to pick up a copy of this book. It looks like superman will be around for a very long, long time." * Collector's Corner *"A fun read that can appeal to the casual reader as well as academic scholars and students. His thread of 'iconic status' is woven throughout the book to tie all of the chapters together well. As a result, this book offers a solid overview of the history of Superman while approaching the material with some new insight and interesting examples that will appeal to a variety of readers looking to learn more about not only the Man of Steel—but why his character has thrived for over 80 years." * Journal of American Culture *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Superman: The Persistence of an American Icon 1 Superman Mythos and History 2 Ideology and Morality 3 Superman: The Object of Nostalgia 4 Production, Authorship, and Ownership 5 Readers and Audiences 6 Superman the Brand and Beyond Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Mobilizing disparate resources in lyric poetry, personal reflection, and queer theory, Michael Snediker argues for an optimism not reducible to hope and not opposed to knowledge. Queer Optimism demands that we think again about enjoyment, pain, personhood, and whether and how we live our theories. It’s a challenging book of fresh perspectives and previously unwritable sentences." —Rei Terada, author of Looking Away:Phenomenality and Dissatisfaction, Kant to Adorno"Queer Optimism is a major—potentially paradigm-shifting—work in queer theory. I cannot remember the last time I learned so much from reading a work of literary criticism." —Tim Dean, Director of the Humanities Institute, University at Buffalo (SUNY)

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Book SynopsisA fitful interloper among the Surrealists, the author rejected all forms of dogmatic thought, whether religious, philosophical, aesthetic, or political. He combined his skepticism about Western metaphysics with mystic's effort to maintain intense wakefulness to the present moment and to the irreducible particularity of all objects and experience.

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Book SynopsisIt''s time to recognize Kathy Acker as one of the great postwar American writers. Over the decades readers have found a punk Acker, a feminist Acker, a queer Acker, a kink Acker, and an avant-garde Acker. In Philosophy for Spiders, McKenzie Wark adds a trans Acker. Wark recounts her memories of Acker (with whom she had a passionate affair) and gives a comprehensive reading of her published and archived works. Wark finds not just an inventive writer of fiction who pressed against the boundaries of gender but a theorist whose comprehensive philosophy of life brings a conceptual intelligence to the everyday life of those usually excluded from philosophy''s purview. As Wark shows, Acker''s engagement with topics such as masturbation, sadism, body-building, and penetrative sex are central to her distinct phenomenology of the body that theorizes the body''s relation to others, the city, and technology.Trade Review“In this brilliant reading of one of the late twentieth century's most interesting writers, language ‘messes with flesh’ while ‘logic messes with language,’ transmuting Kathy Acker's sign-worlds into philosophy. I love the fearless way in which McKenzie Wark thinks. I also love the calm voice with which she walks herself (and us) through difficult spaces in theory and memory. Exploring how gender structures writing in ways related to, but ultimately different from, the norms that structure heterosexuality, Philosophy for Spiders radically expands the field of trans girl lit.” -- Sianne Ngai, author of * Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form *“McKenzie Wark’s highly personal sex memoir evolves the growing ‘My Kathy’ genre in trans directions. This impassioned, reasonable, and subjective tribute makes more room for Kathy to live on as the future's own creations.” -- Sarah Schulman, author of * Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987–1993 *"Wark has written a study that not only luxuriates in her brief, passionate love affair with Acker but also attempts to burnish her legacy through a contemporary recontextualization of her work, including a trans reading of Acker’s writings, exploring the ways her fictions abjured gender binaries or even the assumption that her voice emanated from a cis woman. . . . Through Wark’s rereading, Acker is transformed from provocateur porn writer, punk poet, and literary theorist to someone much more resonant: a vulnerable Acker shed of her leather jacket, of her sometimes-bratty persona." -- Alyse Burnside * The Nation *"Don’t be frightened by the word 'theory' in the title: Wark is nothing if not gentle with her reader. This slim book will hook you with both its eroticism and its deep dive into Acker’s art. . . . In addition to being erotic, funny, and bold, the book makes a strong case for Acker’s significance as part of the American literary canon. It left me with an itch to return to Acker’s books; and Wark’s accessibly written analysis will surely invite a new generation of readers to discover Acker for the first time." -- Clare Potter * Women's Review of Books *"This is a formally generous book that avoids classificatory boundaries, happily reflecting many of Acker's iterations. . . . A thought-provoking afterword considers trans writing; like the rest of the book, it is both playful & incisive about gender." -- Declan Fry * ABC Arts *"Philosophy for Spiders provides a novel approach to the scholarship on Acker and asks important questions about academic writing itself. It will be of great interest to readers of both Acker and Wark, and to all those working on trans literature, gender theory, and contemporary literature and culture more broadly." -- Maria Markiewicz * European Journal of American Studies *Table of ContentsPart I. The City of Memory 1 Part II. A Philosophy for Spiders 51 Null Philosophy 53 First Philosophy 61 Second Philosophy 81 Third Philosophy 120 Afterword. Dysphoric 169 Acknowledgments 179 Reading List 187 Index 195

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn engaging, entertaining, unique and simply fascinating read from cover to cover, "Campfire Stories: Tales from America's National Parks" is exceptionally well written, organized and presented, making it an ideal and unreservedly recommended addition to community, college, and university library collections, as well as the personal reading lists of anyone who has ever experienced America's national parks for themselves -- or would like to!--Margaret Lane "Midwest Book Review" Focused on six of our most iconic National Parks, the myths, legends, historical accounts, and essays compiled in [Campfire Stories] are perfect for reading aloud, preferably around a campfire. This well-rounded book presents the spirit of these lands.--Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks A lovely mixture of poetry and prose. Some [stories] are daring tales of rescues, others are relaxed musings on the power of just being in nature's beauty. The book really does belong around a fire. It even begins with tips on how to tell great campfire stories that will captivate your audience. Bring it on your next trip, and read aloud.--Jessi Loerch "Washington Trails Magazine" Campfire Stories: Tales from America's National Parks is a perfect book for, as the title says, telling stories (and poems) in the outdoors around the campfire.... This book truly would make a nice gift for those who love to go camping and for those who enjoy stories. The book is cloth-bound, gift-quality, and will surely be appreciated!--Anne "Kelly's Thoughts on Things" Dave and Ilyssa Kyu's collection of essays, poetry, short stories, and songs, Campfire Stories: Tales from America's National Parks (Mountaineers Books, $21.95), brings together the work of well-known writers like Bill Bryson, Terry Tempest Williams, John Muir, and Isabella Bird with pieces from the oral tradition of indigenous people, and lesser-known chroniclers of nature and adventure.--Erin H. Turner "Big Sky Journal" For those who enjoy stories and the great outdoors, this collection is going to be a real gift. The writing throughout is engaging and the selection of works is diverse and rich.--Rosi Hollinbeck "Tulsa Book Review" If you want a chunk of quick reads, Dave and Ilyssa Kyu have compiled writings by diverse voices about six different national parks that are perfect for telling out loud. The snack-sized readings in Campfire Stories include Terry Tempest Williams' musings about Zion, Isabella Bird's letters to her sister after becoming the first woman to climb Colorado's Longs Peak, and Wabanaki poems about Acadia. It's a great summer skimmer.--Heather Hansman "Outside" The very fetching hardcover Campfire Stories: Tales from America's National Parks ($22) catalogues great stories from parks-goers present and past (many are culled from pioneer diaries, or have been passed down through generations of Indigenous adventurers) with engaging and entertaining things to say about the legends, histories, fauna, and heroes of beloved parks including Acadia, Great Smoky Mountains, Zion, Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, and Yosemite. It's the perfect present for the giftee who loves a good campfire, a good tale, and unique insights into the parks they love.--Katie O'Reilly "Sierra" This is a lovely, well put-together gem of a book. It is not just another collection of ghost stories or tales of killer bears, meant to terrorize youngsters around a campfire, but a mature, reflective look at six of our national parks.--Patrick Cone "National Parks Traveler" This remarkable book is a rousing celebration of our shared heritage as people of the land.--James Edward Mills, author of The Adventure Gap and founder of the Joy Trip Project

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Book SynopsisBefore gay decriminalisation in 1993, there was no solid gay or lesbian tradition in Irish writing, due to the political and cultural dominance of a conservative, censorious Catholic ideology that conflated itself with notions of national identity and social respectability. Praised today as a beacon of gay rights, Ireland has become the first nation to legalise same-sex marriage by popular vote in 2015. Significantly, whereas in the recent past there was much silence, stigma and prejudice surrounding homosexuality, now there is a plethora of voices reclaiming equality, visibility and recognition. Yet today's liberal culture still silences aspects of gay and lesbian life which go beyond the parameters of the 'socially acceptable' homosexual. Queer Whispers: Gay and Lesbian Voices in Irish Fiction is the first comprehensive survey of gay and lesbian-themed fiction in Ireland, from the late 1970s until today. The book foregrounds the cultural contribution of Irish writers whose subversive, dissident voices decidedly challenged not only the homophobia and heteronormative values of Catholic Ireland, but also the persistent discrimination of more liberal times. Through the analyses of representative novels and short stories, the book addresses a number of social issues - lesbian invisibility, same-sex parenthood, sexual subcultures, HIV/AIDS and the liberalisation of Ireland, among many others -, considering how these fictions favoured a broader cultural and political awareness of the oppression and silencing of lesbian and gay people over the last decades in Ireland. The writing explored in Queer Whispers consistently exposes the limitations imposed by silence, and, while doing so, articulates a new language of recognition and resilience of the continued struggles faced by queer Ireland. 'Kudos to Jose Carregal for gathering the scattered pieces of LGBT representation in Irish literature from the 1970s and producing an intelligent and insightful analysis. Queer Whispers is a long overdue and crucial study.' - Emma DonoghueTrade Review‘Kudos to José Carregal for gathering the scattered pieces of LGBT representation in Irish literature from the 1970s and producing an intelligent and insightful analysis. Queer Whispers is a long overdue and crucial study.' - Emma Donoghue

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Corngold offers a shrewd and balanced take on a much-studied figure. This sharp, focused work will impress historians and scholars of German literature." * Publishers Weekly *"Corngold documents, in depth and with an excellent eye for detail, [an] important stage in Mann’s American life. . . . The picture of Mann that emerges from his book is rich, multilayered and always fascinating."---Costica Bradatan, Washington Post"[The book] shows how great novelist Thomas Mann fared after fleeing Hitler’s Germany. He understood how German conservatives feared Communism, backed Hitler as a bulwark against the Bolsheviks, and learned too late that the Fuhrer’s fury was as deadly as Stalin’s."---Marvin Olasky, World"This well-written study provides an in-depth account of Thomas Mann’s tenure at Princeton. . . . Corngold’s book is a welcome contribution." * Choice Reviews *"A vivid testimony to the profound disconcertions of a life and mind in transit and offers an immensely insightful account of the intellectual and personal quandaries that preoccupied Thomas Mann in Princeton."---Margarete Tiessen, German History"Absorbing."---Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise

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Book SynopsisThe Letters of Robert Frost, Volume 3 collects 601 letters, covering 1929–1936. The letters chronicle Frost’s negotiation of life as a public figure and as the head of a family enduring tragedy. Fully annotated and accompanied by biographical material, the letters reveal the mind of an artist at the height of his powers.Trade ReviewReading The Letters of Robert Frost is as indispensable as reading the poems, for revealed in these pages are the layers of thinking that buttressed the great poet’s talent. What emerges into view is a fuller individual—at times humane, empathetic, avuncular—whose complexity and art were utterly responsive to the political and aesthetic ferment of his times. -- Major Jackson, author of The Absurd Man and guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2019With every volume of his letters that appears, Frost grows more vivid…We are lucky to have this beautifully edited volume of Frost’s letters, the third of five, from a time when everything in his life broke. -- Dan Chiasson * New York Review of Books *Masterfully edited within an inch of its life…No free verser, [Frost] believed that poetry was ‘measured feet’ but ‘more important still it is a measured amount of all we could say an we would.’ All the more striking, then, are moments in the correspondence when his experience was such that it could not be held back for pressure, but issued rather in words and sentences testing the limits of his measuring. -- William H. Pritchard * Wall Street Journal *[A] monumental enterprise…[We] have many reasons to be grateful to the editors…who have added greatly to our knowledge of the poet’s life, his family ties, and his various friendships—as well, of course, as his thoughts on his own art…These letters do much to cancel the impression given by Frost’s official biographer, Lawrance Thompson, of the poet as a monstrous egotist who drove his son to suicide by crushing his poetic ambitions. -- Gregory Dowling * Los Angeles Review of Books *‘I believe in survival. That is my fundamental doctrine,’ Frost wrote to a friend in 1936. The first two volumes of his letters showed how Frost survived early poverty and obscurity to become a great poet and an American institution. This third volume reveals how his ironic wit and artistic devotion enabled him to survive the personal tragedy of his daughter’s death and the national crisis of the Depression, as well as the more ambiguous perils of fame. -- Adam Kirsch, author of The Modern Element: Essays on Contemporary PoetryHere Frost’s bracingly wide-ranging letters are illuminated. Through notes that capture even the most elusive of references, the editors have produced a book that is impressively thorough, rigorous, and generous—a pleasure to read page by page, event by event. -- Calista McRae, coeditor of The Selected Letters of John BerrymanRobert Frost emerges as a struggling father and a poet at the height of his career in the intimate latest addition to the five-volume collection of his letters…Frost’s fans and anyone with a deep interest in poetry will find this a treasure trove of emotion and insights. * Publishers Weekly *Meticulously edited…A richly detailed portrait of Frost in his own words. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *The man in the letters is very much the man in the poems—flinty, funny, and dark. Despite his classical knowledge and sophistication, he comes across as a rugged individual, unspoiled by niceties of Autocorrect, with a syntax entirely his own. One would never mistake Robert Frost for anyone else. -- David Mason * Hudson Review *

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