Literature: history and criticism Books

Book SynopsisPlaywright, biographer, screenwriter, and critic S. N. Behrman (1893-1973) characterized the years he spent writing for The New Yorker as a time defined by ""feverish contact with great theatre stars, rich people and social people at posh hotels, at parties, in mansions and great estates."" While he hobnobbed with the likes of Mary McCarthy, Elia Kazan, and Greta Garbo and was one of Broadway's leading luminaries, Behrman would later admit that the friendships he built with the magazine's legendary editors Harold Ross, William Shawn, and Katharine S. White were the ""one unalloyed felicity"" of his life.People in a Magazine collects Behrman's correspondence with his editors along with telegrams, interoffice memos, and editorial notes drawn from the magazine's archives - offering an unparalleled view of mid-twentieth-century literary life and the formative years of The New Yorker, from the time of Behrman's first contributions to the magazine in 1929 until his death.

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Book SynopsisA debut collection of poems that question gender and embrace queerness through the natural world of North Carolina. A tender imagining and devastating reckoning, Jennifer Conlon’s debut presents a poetry collection of gender questioning, concerned with the survival of trans and nonbinary kids who live in places that do not allow them to thrive. The speaker of these poems wrestles with and envisions a life beyond their traumatic childhood as a genderqueer child in a small Southern Bible Belt town. Through retelling and reinterpreting moments of sexual shame and religious oppression, while navigating impossible expectations from a gender-binary society, Conlon shows readers that queerness and the natural world are inseparable. In their poems, Conlon comes to reject oppressive patriarchal figures, turning their gaze toward the natural world that catalyzes dreams of possibility, transformation, and safety—wasps protect them, an oak tree contains a new god, and flathead catfish guide them to a newly imagined body. Through thick North Carolina woods, Conlon searches for a language to celebrate queerness, finding it in ponds, hillsides, and within themselves.Taking to Water was selected by Carl Phillips as the winner of the 2022 Autumn House Poetry Prize. Trade Review“The flathead fish—whose sex can be difficult to determine until maturity, which can take years—is a recurring image in Taking to Water. Conlon juxtaposes this with human society’s insistence on assigning sex (and gender, accordingly) to children at birth, as the poems in this arresting book argue for an alternative. . . . In poems of masterful precision and relentless interrogation past the surface of identity into identity’s beautiful complexity, Conlon asks ‘What does it mean to control your own body to con-/tort your own sweetness.’ ‘My gender,’ they argue, ‘is a war between layers,’ going on to say that if rainbow means a spectrum of color, gender is a ‘dispersion of a body / of light.’ Taking to Water is a startling, necessary collection; what Conlon says about gender’s spectrum can also be said for this book: ‘it will move across you do not be afraid.’” -- Carl Phillips, author of Then the War: And Selected Poems"If you aren’t from the southeastern US, chances are good you’ve never heard of noodling. And even if you have heard of it, with a name like noodling, it would be easy to miss the skill, danger, and genuine collaborative attention it requires. Conlon is an expert noodler of the patriarchal church, of family, of the gender binary—all of which is to say, misogynist systems of violence. Yet also with an eye on the world that 'loves them like flowers/mouthing their sun,' this poet is also expert at noodling the heart. 'I read hundreds of fish species/change from girl to boy/and back and forth like this.' Get wet with this water, friends. We are going from 'girl to boy, boy to girl, girlboy / to gold to boygirl to girlgoldboy to boygoldgirl.'" -- TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania and co-editor of Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics"Conlon’s Taking to Water is the most transformative collection of poems I’ve read. When Conlon’s speaker says “let there be life in me / in my own beginning” we are given a home in this affirmation of queer resilience, where self-fulfillment can stretch the landscape until the landscape agrees. Taking to Water captures the search for the ways the world could make room for us, 'make room / for my body & all / that comes with it.' Conlon has given us a sharper, better lyric to inhabit and demand the world with." -- C.T. Salazar, author of "Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking"

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Book SynopsisThe first translation of painter and writer Józef Czapski''s inspiring lectures on Proust, first delivered in a prison camp in the Soviet Union during World War II.During the Second World War, as a prisoner of war in a Soviet camp, and with nothing but memory to go on, the Polish artist and soldier Józef Czapski brought Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time to life for an audience of prison inmates. In a series of lectures, Czapski described the arc and import of Proust’s masterpiece, sketched major and minor characters in striking detail, and movingly evoked the work’s originality, depth, and beauty. Eric Karpeles has translated this brilliant and ­altogether unparalleled feat of the critical imagination into English for the first time, and in a thoughtful introduction he brings out how, in reckoning with Proust’s great meditation on memory, Czapski helped his fellow officers to remember that there was a world apart from the world of the camp. Proust had staked the art of the novelist against the losses of a lifetime and the imminence of death. Recalling that triumphant wager, unfolding, like Sheherazade, the intricacies of Proust’s world night after night, Czapski showed to men at the end of their tether that the past remained present and there was a future in which to hope.

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Book SynopsisA fresh, provocative look at the link between poetry and Christianity, both as it relates to the Bible itself as well as to Christian and religious life, by an accomplished scholar. The Bible is full of poems. In the Old Testament, there are the Psalms and the Song of Songs, the great exhortations and lamentations of the Prophets, and passages of poetry woven in throughout. In the New Testament, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven with poetic epithets such as “a treasure hid in a field,” calling the Son of God “the true vine,” “the light of the world,” “the good shepherd,” and “the way, the truth, and the life.” The Gospels reverberate with allusions to the poetry of the Old Testament; the last book of all is Revelation, a visionary poem. The Bible, in other words, asks to be read poetically from start to end, and yet readers have rarely considered what that might mean, much less heeded that call.In The Bible and Poetry, the poet and scholar Michael Edwards reshapes our understanding of the Bible and religious belief, arguing that poetry is not an ornamental or accidental feature but is central to both. He speaks personally of his early, unanticipated, transformative encounters with scripture. He offers close, insightful, and resonant readings of biblical passages. Poetry, as he sees it, is the vital and necessary medium of the Creator’s word, and the truth of the Bible is not a question of precepts and propositions but of a direct experience of its poetry, its power.

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Book SynopsisIn this spiritual sequel to his influential Reading for the Plot, Peter Brooks examines the dangerously alluring power of storytelling.“There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can defeat it.” So begins the scholar and literary critic Peter Brooks’s reckoning with today’s flourishing cult of story. Forty years after publishing his seminal work Reading for the Plot, his important contribution to what came to be known as the “narrative turn” in contemporary criticism and philosophy, Brooks returns to question the unquestioning fashion in which story is now embraced as an excuse or explanation and the fact that every brand or politician comes equipped with one. In a discussion that ranges from The Girl on the Train to legal argument, Brooks reminds us that among the powers of narrative is the power to deceive.

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Book SynopsisAn original investigation into the reading strategies and uses of books by Jews in the Soviet era. In The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf, Marat Grinberg argues that in an environment where Judaism had been all but destroyed, and a public Jewish presence routinely delegitimized, reading uniquely provided many Soviet Jews with an entry to communal memory and identity. The bookshelf was both a depository of selective Jewish knowledge and often the only conspicuously Jewish presence in their homes. The typical Soviet Jewish bookshelf consisted of a few translated works from Hebrew and numerous translations from Yiddish and German as well as Russian books with both noticeable and subterranean Jewish content. Such volumes, officially published, and not intended solely for a Jewish audience, afforded an opportunity for Soviet Jews to indulge insubordinate feelings in a largely safe manner. Grinberg is interested in pinpointing and decoding the complex reading strategies and the specifically Jewish uses to which the books on the Soviet Jewish bookshelf were put. He reveals that not only Jews read them, but Jews read them in a specific way. Trade Review“[An] informative, engagingly written work that . . . pairs thorough research with the personal reading experiences of the author and those close to him.” * Los Angeles Review of Books *“Grinberg’s The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf is mandatory reading for students of Soviet and Jewish history. There is also much in it for the larger Jewish reading public for whom Soviet Jews remain a paradox, a story that is not merely of survival, but also of fashioning a durable path to Jewishness uniquely their own.” * Jewish Journal *“This academic book offers deep insights into decades of Soviet Jewish culture, considering how they read, and what they wrote, all under the deep blanket of repression.” * Bookishly Jewish *“As Grinberg shows in his book The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf, Soviet Jews had a deep interest in books on Jewish topics. Their bookshelf was quite wide. Here were Russian translations of Yiddish and Hebrew, of world fiction, original works of Soviet authors, popular historical and philosophical books, and even the anti-Zionist propaganda since it also contained bits of useful information. . . . Particularly interesting is Grinberg’s ingenious analysis. . . . of the works of the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.” * Forward *“Undoubtedly—as Grinberg states—we can and should talk about the existence of Soviet Jewish culture which, although very heterogeneous, was nevertheless capable of struggling to organize, recreate, and preserve its own Jewish self. The author of the book has therefore achieved his goal—to break the silence around Wiesel’s silent Jews.” * Iudaica Russica *“Grinberg conveys with special power the way in which Soviet Jews embraced the Russian literary tradition. . . . We live in an age when totalitarian ways of thinking are on the rise and anti-Semitism has again begun to flourish. If we are to combat these trends, we must understand them.” * Gary Saul Morson, Mosaic Magazine *“Soviet Jews were the People of the Book. Denied all access to Scripture, they turned their bookshelves into major memory sites, fashioning a personal and collective identity out of historical fiction, science fiction, poetry, children’s verse, memoirs, travelogues, translations from Yiddish and modern Hebrew, and even anti-Zionist propaganda. Here is the untold story of their ongoing, multigenerational struggle for self-determination as told by a native son with great clarity, thoroughness, and empathy. Were this not enough, Marat Grinberg has also redefined Jewish literature as that which a living polity has rescued through conscious acts of creative rereading.” -- David G. Roskies, Sol & Evelyn Henkind Emeritus Professor of Yiddish Literature and Culture, The Jewish Theological Seminary“What made Soviet Jews Jewish? Superbly researched and lucidly argued, The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf makes a convincing case for the formation of a unique Soviet Jewish identity through subversive and generative reading practices. The eponymous bookshelf, an important material and intellectual feature of the Soviet Jewish home, was capacious enough to hold a variety of texts, from Leon Feuchtwanger’s sweeping historical novels, to Alexandra Burshtein’s and Lev Kassil’s coming-of-age tales, and the Strugatsky brothers’ science fiction. Soviet Jews mined the contents of the shelf for references to Jewishness—overt and oblique, empowering and disparaging—to bolster a sense of selfhood and peoplehood. Over and above making a significant scholarly contribution, Grinberg’s book bears witness to a community’s heroic struggle to survive against impossible odds.” -- Helena I. Gurfinkel, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville“Marat Grinberg’s original and engaging study locates the core of Russian-Jewish identity not in a particular language or religious faith, but in a canon of treasured books, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and a practice of reading ‘between the lines.’ Along the way, he offers provocative new interpretations of Soviet and non-Soviet classics alike.” -- Adrian Wanner, Pennsylvania State UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: There’s “there, there”Chapter One: Lion Feuchtwanger – the Soviet Jewish ScriptureChapter Two: The Core: Salvage FragmentsChapter Three: “Translated from Jewish”: Read and UnreadChapter Four: The Bottom Shelf: Between the Lines of “Reactionary” Judaism and Anti-ZionismChapter Five: Signs of the Times: Yuri Trifonov and the Strugatsky BrothersEpilogue: Perestroika and BeyondNotesBibliography

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Book SynopsisShelter in Text examines how writing can create, illuminate, and complicate ideas about dwelling, belonging, or finding safe harbour.

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Book Synopsis`The title of journalist is probably very noble, but I lay no real claim to it. I am, I think, a novelist and a musical composer manque: I make no other pretensions ...' (Anthony Burgess). Despite his modest claims, Anthony Burgess was an enormously prolific journalist. During his life he published two substantial collections of journalism, Urgent Copy (1968) and Homage to Qwert Yuiop (1986); a posthumous collection of occasional essays, One Man's Chorus, was published in 1998. These collections are now out of print, and Burgess's journalism, a key part of his prodigious output, has fallen into neglect. The Ink Trade is a brilliant new selection of his reviews and articles, some savage, some crucial in establishing new writers, new tastes and trends. Between 1959 and his death in 1993 Burgess contributed to newspapers and periodicals around the world: he was provocative, informative, entertaining, extravagant, and always readable. Editor Will Carr presents a wealth of unpublished and uncollected material.

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Book Synopsis**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024**'Enthralling and exuberant ... Here is a wonder-book for word-lovers' Jeanette Winterson‘A lively, entertaining, and illuminating read. I loved it’ Susie DentWhat do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common?They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary.The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite institutions and Victorian men. But the Dictionary didn't just belong to the experts; it relied on contributions from members of the public. By 1928, its 414,825 entries had been crowdsourced from a surprising and diverse group of people, from astronomers to murderers, naturists, pornographers, suffragists and queer couples.Lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie dives deep into previously untapped archives to tell a people's history of the OED. Here, she reveals, for the first time, the full story of the making of one of the most famous books in the world - and celebrates the extraordinary efforts of the Dictionary People.** A Financial Times, TLS and Daunt Books Book of the Year 2023 **'Utterly fascinating, entertaining, astonishing and as clever as a box of monkeys ... I completely love it' Joanna Lumley'Full marks to Sarah Ogilvie... guaranteed to grab those of us obsessed with books, language and mystery' Financial Times'[An] astonishing book' Sunday Times'Touching ... The oddities [of language] enliven the book' Observer *Book of the Day*'[An] affectionate and accomplished book' TLS'Engaging' Spectator'Marvellous, witty and wholly original' Alan Rusbridger'Glorious and surprising' Richard Ovenden, Bodley's Librarian and author of Burning the Books‘A fascinating and delightful exploration of the Victorian world … Wonderful’ Nicola Shulman, TLS PodcastTrade ReviewSarah Ogilvie has brought to centre stage a gallery of remarkable characters quite as astonishing, hilarious, terrifying and beguiling as any found in Dickens. The “ordinary” people who helped create the Oxford English Dictionary reveal themselves to be anything but ordinary. At the back of it all we are reminded that words themselves are not abstract units of meaning, they are every bit as alive, elusive and enchanting as the people who devote themselves to their study. The Dictionary People serves also, incidentally, as a marvellous record of the incidentals, the daily details, manners and modes of 19th century life. An unmissable wonderful achievement. -- Stephen FryProof that not only do our words have extraordinary lives, but so do the people who have documented them for us. A lively, entertaining, and illuminating read. I loved it -- Susie DentUtterly fascinating, entertaining, astonishing and as clever as a box of monkeys... I am bowled over by Sarah Ogilvie's book and every home should have a copy. I completely love it * Joanna Lumley *Who knew such mysteries lay behind the Oxford English Dictionary? This is a fascinating, unique and original book which uncovers the people behind the words. A jaw-dropping cross-section of society are revealed for the first time in all their complexity * Janina Ramirez, author of Femina *Exquisitely written ... A lively, funny book full of eccentrics * Jamaica Kincaid *Enthralling and exuberant, Sarah Ogilvie tells the surprising story of the making of the OED. Philologists, fantasists, crackpots, criminals, career spinsters, suffragists, and Australians: here is a wonder-book for word-lovers * Jeanette Winterson *I love words and I cherish my OED ... having the background of it explained was fascinating * Val McDermid *Astonishing * Kathryn Hughes, The Sunday Times *Fascinating * Observer *'An erudite and vivid exploration of the origins of the OED in the first crowdsourcing of contributions from thousands of individuals - including murderers, lunatics and cannibals. Marvellous, witty and wholly original' * Alan Rusbridger *

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Book SynopsisScholars in disciplines from architecture and the fine arts, to the various branches of history and social studies, will find this study timely given contemporary European controversies over what constitutes national identity and what parts are played by race, philosophy and religion, economics, immigration, and invasion. Many major European national identities barely predate the nineteenth century and were shaped not just by wars, philosophies, industrial change, and governmental policies, but also by artistic manipulation of how people perceived public spaces: landscapes, cityscapes, religious and cultural structures, museums, and monuments commemorating conflict. Among the most masterful manipulators of the day were popular nineteenth-century French and British novelists, who gave famous buildings a special prominence in their writing. Some, like Victor Hugo are still read and respected by scholars. Others, like Alexandre Dumas, though still widely read, are undervalued by contemporary critics. Still others, like William Harrison Ainsworth, a prolific English writer, are all but forgotten. These three writers authored architectural novels which gave major ancient Gothic buildings a new and portable cultural presence well beyond their physical location. During these revolutionary times, when national symbolism was being questioned and challenged, the threatened rupture with the past was admirably addressed through their art.

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Book SynopsisFrank and refreshing, Brigitte Reimann’s collected diaries provide a candid account of life in socialist Germany. With an upbeat tempo and amusing tone, I Have No Regrets contains detailed accounts of the author’s love affairs, daily life, writing, and reflections. Like the heroines in her stories, Reimann was impetuous and outspoken, addressing issues and sensibilities otherwise repressed in the era of the German Democratic Republic. She followed the state’s call for artists to leave their ivory towers and engage with the people, moving to the new town of Hoyerswerda to work part-time at a nearby industrial plant and run writing classes for the workers. Her diaries and letters provide a fascinating parallel to her fictional writing. By turns shocking, passionate, unflinching, and bitter—but above all life-affirming—they offer an unparalleled insight into what life was like during the first decades of the GDR.Trade Review“Her work deserves a much wider reading public outside Germany, where she remains best known for her ambiguously autobiographical final novel Franziska Linkerhand...The eight years of irregular diary entries that make up I Have No Regrets, edited in German by Angela Drescher and now translated into English by Lucy Jones, are a welcome introduction to Reimann’s work.” * Times Literary Supplement *“Reimann left behind a string of novels and several years’ worth of diaries that shed vivid light on life in East Germany from the 1950s to the 1970s. This volume picks up her story shortly after a suicide attempt following a miscarriage.” -- Charlie Connelly * The New European *

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Book SynopsisA German twist on an Anglophone tradition, Science Fiktion provides a disturbing vision of the future from the other side of the Berlin Wall. When a young reader once asked Franz Fühmann if he considered his work to be science fiction, he was quick to deny it: he wanted nothing to do with the genre. As he began writing the stories that make up this volume, however, he found himself coming around to the idea of a hybrid genre—what he calls in German Saiäns-Fiktschen, "science fiktion" with a k. In seven interlocking stories, Science Fiktion offers a steampunk takedown of the logic of the Cold War. In this imagined future, two nations compete for global dominance: Uniterr, an exaggeration of the Eastern Bloc, in which personal freedom is curtailed and life regulated with cartoonish strictness; and Libroterr, in which the decadence of the West has been pushed beyond all reason. The stories follow three young citizens of Uniterr: Jirro, a young neutrinologist whose life is forever changed by a year spent abroad in Libroterr; Janno, a causologist condemned to a life of mediocrity in Uniterr’s bureaucracy for the briefest of impure thoughts; and Pavlo, an inventor and a drunkard, whose mind pushes against the limits of what his world allows. Through these three lives, Fühmann gradually unfolds the contours of their bizarre world in a master class of understated world-making. As the reader is swept up in the madness of Libroterr’s predator ads (which grab you on the street) and Uniterr’s mandatory mind readings, Fühmann’s dark comedy from the last century comes to seem all the more prescient in ours.

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Book SynopsisPlaywright Harold Pinter, singer-songwriters Bob Dylan, David Gray, and Ian Curtis, of 1970s band Joy Division, would appear to have little in common as artists. But delve beneath the surface and amazing similarities suddenly reveal themselves. The form of their work might differ, yet the content is remarkably consistent. Who would have thought, for instance, that that quintessential Pinter play, The Caretaker, and Dylan song “Visions of Johanna” deal with the same subject? Similarly, Dylan, Curtis and Gray all describe a similar spiritual journey in their song-writing, however different their songs might appear on a first hearing. Artists, in fact, shows how the artists featured in this book all have the same mind-set, one that’s not new - Shakespeare shared it, too - but one which is spreading fast in the modern world. This is a must-read for any fan who is interested in seeing the meaning behind the words, any words, of a great artist.

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Book SynopsisDiscover – or rediscover – the major achievements of Chinese culture and civilization. Great Books of China offers concise introductions – each of them accompanied by generous quotation (in English) from the book in question – to sixty-six works in the canon of Chinese literature. The books chosen reflect the chronological and thematic breadth of Chinese literary tradition, ranging from such classics as The Book of Songs and the Confucian Analects, through popular dramas and novels (The Romance of the Western Chamber; The Water Margin), twentieth-century political and biographical works (Quotations from Chairman Mao, the autobiography of the last emperor) and modern novels that are little known in the West (Memories of South Peking, Six Chapters from a Cadre School Life). Frances Wood presents a comprehensive, accessible and richly informative primer for the uninitiated; a box of delights that opens up an entire literary culture to the inquisitive reader.Trade ReviewPRAISE FOR FRANCES WOOD'S CHINA'S FIRST EMPEROR AND HIS TERRACOTTA WARRIORS: 'Fascinating book' Mail on Sunday. 'Wry, concise and authoritative' Times Literary Supplement. '[Wood's] close reading of these sources offers fresh insight' Publishers Weekly. '[An] interesting and informative work' Booklist. 'Wonderfully descriptive' * Library Journal *

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Book SynopsisThis is the fourth volume in the series of Everyman Pocket Poet Love Poems, following the success of Love poems, Erotic Poems and Love Letters. LOVE SONGS AND SONNETS takes a wider view of love, covering all aspects of human relationships, from passionate first love to fianl regret. Includes poems by Shakespere, Donne, Dickinson, Lowell. Larkin, Herbet, Horace, Hardy, Rilke, Auden and Burns - and many more. Published in good time for Valentine's Day 1997.

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Book SynopsisIn the 18th century shotgun weddings were not unusual, but in most cases it wasn't the bride that was holding the gun. So began the stormy marriage between Lord and Lady Grange, a marriage which was to end with Lady Grange's death on the Isle of Skye after 13 years in exile. The daughter of a convicted murderer, Lady Grange's behaviour, such as her fondness for drink, was so outrageous that her sudden disappearance from public life was not considered surprising. But few knew the true story of her disappearance. This book reveals, for the first time, how the unfortunate lady was violently kidnapped and transported to the remote islands off the west coast of Scotland, spending seven years on the island of St. Kilda's. Condemned to a very different lifestyle than she had enjoyed in Edinburgh, and baffled by the strange tongue of the Gaelic West, she still obstinately survived, finally dying in Skye in 1745.Trade Review... a tale of such scandal and drama that it reads almost like a work of fiction. - CATHERINE SALMOND, Edinburgh Evening News... this fascinating account of one of the most beguiling characters in Scotland's history... Despite the unhappy ending, it's a stunning story and Margaret Macaulay has done it full justice. - TREVOR ROYLE, The HeraldYet there's another story of human hardship in [St Kilda]'s history that's been much less analysed - not one of evacuation but of abduction. Not of escape, but of exile. A story of political intrigue, betrayal and personal tragedy. - SUNDAY POST

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Book Synopsis ‘A miracle, an instant classic.’ Slavoj Zizek, philosopher The tragedy is done, the tyrant Macbeth dead. The time is free. But for how long? As Macduff pursues dreams of national revival, smaller lives are seeding. In the ruins of Dunsinane, the Porter tries to keep his three young boys safe from the nightmare of history. In a nunnery deep in Birnam Wood, a girl attempts to forget what she lost in war. Flitting between them, a tortured clairvoyant trembles with the knowledge of what's to come. A collaboration between two of the world's most eminent Shakespeare scholars, "Macbeth, Macbeth" is a unique mix of creative fiction and literary criticism that charts a new way of doing both, sparking a whole new world from the embers of Shakespeare's original tragedy. ”Macbeth, Macbeth” weaves a thread that enrichens the original classic with the manic energy of Tristram Shandy, the grim intensity of Crime and Punishment, and the existential absurdity of Waiting for Godot. 'A thrilling re-imagination of Shakespeare’s darkest play.' Lucy Bailey, theatre director‘Shakespeare, I suspect, would have been delighted.’ Don Paterson, poet

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Book SynopsisWe all consume architecture – it’s the one artform we can’t avoid. So it’s hardly surprising that the finest writers have applied their minds to it. Most of them aren’t architects, but their powers of perception are such that what they say gets under the skin of a building – and gives us a lesson in how to look at architecture. You’ll be entertained and enlightened as you find out why Goethe went from being dismissive of Strasbourg Cathedral to being an awed admirer; why Ruskin was offended by decorated shopfronts; why D.H. Lawrence loved Etruscan temples; why Tom Wolfe ridiculed the Seagram Building; why Vita Sackville-West saw Chatsworth as an alien interloper; why Rose Macaulay was passionate about ruins; And what Evelyn Waugh thought of Gaudí. The answers, and plenty more, are all here. Knowing them will transform the way you see buildings and deepen your understanding of architecture.

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Book SynopsisA New York Times Books New & Noteworthy book • A Most-Anticipated Book from BookPage, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Paperback Paris • Glowing reviews and features in Garden & Gun, CNN Philippines, Chapter16, Kirkus Reviews, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and more This fierce collection celebrates the incredible diversity in the contemporary South by featuring essays by twenty-one of the finest young writers of color living and working in the region today, who all address a central question: Who is welcome? Kiese Laymon navigates the racial politics of publishing while recording his audiobook in Mississippi. Regina Bradley moves to Indiana and grapples with a landscape devoid of her Southern cultural touchstones, like Popeyes and OutKast. Aruni Kashyap apartment hunts in Athens and encounters a minefield of invasive questions. Frederick McKindra delves into the particularly Southern history of Beyonce's black majorettes. Assembled by editor and essayist Cinelle Barnes, essays in A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South acknowledge that from the DMV to the college basketball court to doctors’ offices, there are no shortage of places of tension in the American South. Urgent, necessary, funny, and poignant, these essays from new and established voices confront the complexities of the South's relationship with race, uncovering the particular difficulties and profound joys of being a Southerner in the 21st century.Trade ReviewA Measure of Belonging challenges the idea of a monolithic Southern culture." --New York Times Book Review "The South on exhibit here does feel new: polygot, multiracial, small-c catholic, urbanized, unwilling to accomodate or overlook the past but instead primed to confront it head-on, and keen to sift the South's virtues--lovingly--from its flaws." --Garden & Gun "Sharp and witty, this collection shows that there are many different ways to live, breathe, thrive and be a person who belongs in the South." --Bookpage, starred review "Cinelle Barnes has compiled the most diverse portrayal of the contemporary South I've read to date. These beautifully-written, clear-eyed essays present the American South through the eyes of its black and brown voices and expand the reader's view of belonging to or hailing from the region. I love this collection and its depictions complicate the South in ways that mainstream America sometimes refuses to believe about our ugly/beautiful South. A Measure of Belonging is a major contribution to the canon of Southern literature and each of the writers give of themselves fully. It is a book for our times. Welcome to the 21st century!" --Crystal Wilkinson, author of The Birds of Opulence "Totally engaging, this informing, thought-provoking collection is valuable for its vision of a South that is not monolithic."--Publishers Weekly "Across the collection, the writers push against the limits of what we think we know about the South." --Kirkus Reviews "A Measure of Belonging is a stark reminder that, behind the draping magnolias and weeping willows, the south has a loaded history, the effects of which still ripple through today’s society. Cinelle Barnes's anthology is but one call to awareness, a call to artful rebellion." --NewPagesTable of ContentsOsayi Endolyn (Atlanta, GA) Soniah Kamal (Atlanta, GA) Jennifer Hope Choi (Charleston, SC) Kiese Laymon (Oxford, MS) Devi Laskar (Atlanta, GA) M. Evelina Galang (Miami, FL) Tiana Clark (Nashville, TN) Latria Graham (Spartanburg, SC) Aruni Kashyap (Athens, GA) Minda Honey (Louisville, KY) Regina Bradley (Kennesaw, GA) Natalia Sylvester (Austin, TX) Christena Cleveland (San Francisco, CA) Nichole Perkins (Brooklyn, NY) Ivelisse Rodriguez (Whitsett, NC) Gary Jackson (Charleston, SC) Frederick McKendra (Little Rock, AR) Toni Jensen (Fayetteville, AR) Diana Cejas (Durham, NC)

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Book SynopsisGo Beyond the Ban. Rediscover Twain''s Timeless Tale.Part of the Contested Classics Series, this distinctive edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain reinvigorates the timeless classic with a contemporary lens. First published in 1876, Twain''s novel captures the youthful adventures and mischiefs of Tom Sawyer, a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River. This edition not only brings to life the charm and humor of Twain''s writing but also thoughtfully addresses the reasons behind the book''s contested status in modern times.Our editors identify the text that has been challenged and dives deep with annotations on the main reasons for banning The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: Racial Stereotypes and Language: Twain''s portrayal of race and use of racially charged language, particularly in the depiction of the character Jim, has been a significant point of contention, prompting debates about racial sensitivity and historical context. Mischief and Rebellion: Tom Sawyer''s antics and rebellious nature, often seen as promoting bad behavior or disrespect for authority, have been reasons for the book''s challenge, especially in school settings. Societal Critique: The novel''s critique of adult hypocrisy and societal norms, while lauded for its honesty, has also been viewed as problematic for younger readers. Portrayal of Violence and Criminal Activities: Scenes depicting violence and criminal activities, such as grave robbing and murder, have led to concerns about the book''s appropriateness for a young audience. This edition of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is not just a return to the cherished adventures of a young boy but an invitation to understand and discuss the complexities and challenges that have followed the novel into the 21st century. It is an essential read for those who wish to explore how a beloved classic holds up under the scrutiny of contemporary values and debates.

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Book SynopsisYou are a loser. This isn't a personal slight, but an impersonal truth of the species, writes Josh Cohen in this essay about love, literature and politics. Today, no figure in more ridiculed and reviled than the loser. In the wake of recent political upsets, the bruised liberal dreams of winning it all back. Meanwhile a swollen self-help industry continues to grow with a single, seductive promise: read this, and join the ranks of the winners. But being a loser isn't a personal failing; it's an essential part of being human. In this remarkable essay, at once political, philosophical and very funny, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen teaches us to take pride in embracing our inner loser.

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Book SynopsisThis book demonstrates a new, interdisciplinary approach to life writing about torture that situates torture firmly within its socio-political context, as opposed to extending the long line of representations written in the idiom of the proverbial dark chamber. By dismantling the rhetorical divide that typically separates survivors’ suffering from human rights workers’ expertise, contributors engage with the personal, professional, and institutional dimensions of torture and redress. Essays in this volume consider torture from diverse locations – the Philippines, Argentina, Sudan, and Guantánamo, among others. From across the globe, contributors witness both individual pain and institutional complicity; the challenges of building communities of healing across linguistic and national divides; and the role of the law, art, writing, and teaching in representing and responding to torture.Trade Review“I would strongly recommend this book to anyone working in the field of life narrative. … I am very glad that I did, because it forced me to shift my understanding of the work that I do—for the better, I hope.” (Annie Pohlman, Biography, Vol. 42 (4), 2019)Table of ContentsPart I Torture in Context and Translation 1 Torture: The Catastrophe of a Bond Carlos Alberto Arestivo2 Torture in an Historical Context: Notes from Sudan Mohamed Elgadi3 The Unspeakable Agony of Inflicted Pain: Torture,Betrayal, Redress Robert Francis Garcia4 Translating Trauma, Witnessing Survival Laurie Ball CooperPart II Witnessing Torture and Recovery: Survivors, HealthProfessionals, Institutions 5 The Role of Health Professionals in Torture TreatmentLinda A. Piwowarczyk6 Assessing the Treatment of Torture: BalancingQuantifiable with Intangible Metrics Orlando P. Tizon7 The Little Red Cabinet of Tears: The Impact uponTreatment Providers of Bearing Witness to Torture Judy B. Okawa8 Beyond Institutional Betrayal: When the Professional IsPersonal 111Ellen GerrityPart III Disappearance and Torture, Redress andRepresentation 9 Everardo and the CIA’s Long-Term Torture Practices Jennifer Harbury10 Survivors and the Origin of the Conventionfor the Protection of All Persons from EnforcedDisappearance Patricio Rice11 The Tenacity of Memory: Art in the Aftermathof Atrocity Claudia Bernardi12 Teaching about Torture, or, Reading between the Linesin the Humanities Madelaine Hron13 Legal Appeal: Habeas Lawyers Narrate Guantánamo LifeTerri Tomsky14 Did We Survive Torture? Mansoor AdayfiEpilogue: From Solitude to Solidarity Index

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Book SynopsisThe Winds of the World is a travel book written by means of the well-known British author Talbot Mundy. The book, which got here out in 1917, is a thrilling tale that takes readers on a ride through special places and mysterious cultures. The major character of the story is an American adventurer named James Schuyler Grim. He goes on a risky quest to find out the secrets and techniques and strategies of a hidden metropolis within the Himalayas. Along together with his partner and friend, the mysterious girl referred to as Cigarette, Grim has to deal with risky settings, sneaky enemies, and the mystical unknown. As the story is going on, readers come to be immersed in the wealthy tapestry of the Himalayan vicinity, in which excessive-stakes motion mixes with old traditions and mysterious know-how. In the early 1900s, The Winds of the World is about and deals with themes of exploration, clashes among cultures, and the look for mystery which means. This book suggests how desirable Talbot Mundy is at telling tales; the people and settings are brilliantly defined. The book has movement, thriller, and a journey, which can be all things that readers love approximately Mundy's paintings. It draws readers in with its notable enchantment and the search for hidden secrets and techniques.

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Book SynopsisRobert Lynd's collection of memories, The Book of This and That, is a deliberate compilation of his numerous essay thoughts, skillfully condensed right into a single on hand volume, designed to be low cost for readers of every age. The memories within this anthology captivate with a mix of fascination and quiet attraction, a few unfolding in ways that surprise and others lightly drawing readers into their narratives. Regarded as a classic, this book stands as a repository of Lynd's profound ideas, seamlessly woven collectively for readers to explore. This version of The Book of This and That now not only preserves the timeless essence of Lynd's reflections but additionally introduces a present day contact with an attention grabbing new cowl and a professionally typeset manuscript. The cautious presentation complements the clarity of the gathering, making it inviting for a contemporary target market. Whether readers searching for intriguing testimonies or concept-provoking insights, Lynd's paintings on this edition promises a literary adventure that spans generations, offering something for anybody and reaffirming its repute as a classic for readers to cherish.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisNeil Simon (1927-2018) began as a writer for some of the leading comedians of the day--including Jackie Gleason, Red Buttons, Phil Silvers, and Jerry Lewis--and he wrote for fabled television programs alongside a group of writers that included Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart, Michael Stewart, and Sid Caesar. After television, Simon embarked on a playwriting career. In the next four decades he saw twenty-eight of his plays and five musicals produced on Broadway. Thirteen of those plays and three of the musicals ran for more than five hundred performances. He was even more widely known for his screenplays--some twenty-five in all.Yet, despite this success, it was not until his BB Trilogy--Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and Broadway Bound--that critics and scholars began to take Simon seriously as a literary figure. This change in perspective culminated in 1991 when his play Lost in Yonkers won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.In the twenty-two interviews includ

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Book SynopsisA novel is an act, an intervention, which, most often, the naïve reader takes as a representation. The novel intervenes to modify or correct our conventional notions of a situation and, in the best and most intense cases, to propose a wholly new idea of what constitutes an event or of the very experience of living. The most interesting contemporary novels are those which try—and sometimes manage—to awaken our sense of a collectivity behind individual experience, revealing a relationship between the isolated subjectivity and a class or community. But even if this happens (which is rare), one must go on to find traces of collective praxis hidden away within the awakened feeling of inter-connection. And since it is in the sense of the nation and nationality that collectivity is most often expressed, there is an urgent need to disengage the possibilities of genuine action within these areas.This sweeping collection of essays ranges from the elusive politics of Nort

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Book SynopsisN. Katherine Hayles traces the emergence of what she identifies as the postprint condition, exploring how the interweaving of print and digital technologies has changed not only books but also language, authorship, and what it means to be human.Trade ReviewN. Katherine Hayles presents new explorations of typesetting, scholarly editing, and radical recent book projects, using these to unite aspects of her theories of computation, textual materialities, and (un)thought. The profound insights in Postprint show what print is becoming, not just as a medium or cultural phenomenon, but as cognition. -- Nick Montfort, author of GolemPostprint may be enjoyed simply as a series of well-selected, vividly rendered case studies detailing recent convergences between books, human readers and writers, and computational technologies. But it is much more than that. With her hallmark clarity, Hayles lays out a whole new conceptual framework—the cognitive-assemblage approach—in terms of which postprint may be grasped as a moment of unprecedented symbiosis across cognitive media: the 'becoming computational of books and people together.' -- James F. English, author of The Global Future of English StudiesClaiming that computational media have brought to bear new, nonhuman forms of cognition, Postprint offers a series of compelling examples and showcases an empirical method that will be widely emulated by literary and media studies scholars interested in exploring the history and future of print culture. -- Lee Konstantinou, author of Cool Characters: Irony and American FictionHayles’ book provides a unique framework for understanding print (and postprint) from a fresh perspective. * Americana *Hayles has duly focused our attention on books and how closely we are tied to them, perhaps oneof humanity’s finest technologies. * Publishing Research Quarterly *Table of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgments1. Introducing Postprint2. Print Into Postprint3. The Mixed Ecologies of University Presses4. Postprint and Cognitive Contagion5. Bookishness at the Limits: Resiting the HumanEpilogue: Picturing the AsemicNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"S[oucy]’s translation has great merit. It is more poetic than any current version." * Classics for All *"Soucy’s Commentary gives lavishly helpful guidance to the piecemeal reader, noticing links and making comparisons between different tales. . . . He’s refreshingly sensitive to the way contemporary concerns with sexual and identity politics can feel urgently addressed by the Metamorphoses. Equally refreshing, from the other side, is the fact that as a scholar he feels the value and importance of seeing past attitudes clearly, neither discreetly veiling elements in them that might affront a contemporary sensibility – as many translators have done with divine rapes – nor reading them as if Ovid were our contemporary and saw life as we do." * The High Window *Table of ContentsContents List of Illustrations Introduction Translator’s Note METAMORPHOSES Book 1 Prologue • The First Creation • The Ages of Man • The Gigantomachy • Lycaön • The Deluge • Deucalion and Pyrrha • The Second Creation: Python • Apollo and Daphne • Io, Part 1 • Argus: Pan and Syrinx • Io, Part 2 • Phaëthon, Part 1 Book 2 Phaëthon, Part 2 • The Heliads and Cygnus • Callisto • The Raven and the Crow • Ocyrhoë • Battus • The Envy of Aglauros • Europa Book 3 Cadmus and the Dragon’s Teeth • Actaeon • Semele • Tiresias • Echo and Narcissus • Pentheus and Acoetes Book 4 The Daughters of Minyas, Part 1 • Pyramus and Thisbe • The Loves of the Sun • Hermaphroditus and Salmacis • The Daughters of Minyas, Part 2 • Athamas and Ino • Cadmus and Harmonia • Perseus, Atlas, and Andromeda • Perseus and Medusa Book 5 Perseus and Phineus • Proetus and Polydectes • Pyreneus and the Muses • The Pierides, Part 1 • The Rape of Proserpine • Arethusa • Lyncus and Triptolemus • The Pierides, Part 2 Book 6 Arachne and Minerva • Niobe • Latona and the Lycians • Marsyas • Pelops • Tereus, Procne, and Philomela • Boreas and Orithyia Book 7 Medea • Theseus • The War with Minos • The Myrmidons • Cephalus and Procris Book 8 Scylla and Nisus • The Minotaur • Daedalus • The Calydonian Hunt • Althaea and Meleäger • Acheloüs • Baucis and Philemon • Mestra and Erysichthon • Acheloüs and Hercules, Part 1 Book 9 Acheloüs and Hercules, Part 2 • The Death of Hercules • Lucina and Galanthis • Dryope and Lotus • Iolaüs and Themis • Byblis and Caunus • Iphis and Ianthe Book 10 Orpheus and Eurydice • Cyparissus • Ganymede and Hyacinth • The Cerastae, the Propoetides, and Pygmalion • Myrrha • Venus and Adonis Book 11 The Death of Orpheus • Midas • Peleus and Thetis • Daedalion and Chione • The Wolf of Psamathe • Ceÿx and Alcyone • Aesacus Book 12 The Greeks at Aulis • The House of Rumor • Achilles and Cygnus • Caenis Becomes Caeneus • The Centauromachy • Hercules and Periclymenus • The Death of Achilles Book 13 The Judgment of Arms • The Sorrows of Hecuba • Memnon • The Daughters of Anius • Galatea, Acis, and Polyphemus • Scylla and Glaucus, Part 1 Book 14 Scylla and Glaucus, Part 2 • The Sibyl of Cumae • Polyphemus • Ulysses and Circe • Picus and Canens • The Crew of Diomedes • The Apotheosis of Aeneas • Pomona and Vertumnus • The Apotheoses of Romulus and Hersilie Book 15 Hercules and Croton • Pythagoras • Egeria and Hippolytus • Cipus • Aesculapius • The Apotheosis of Julius Caesar • Epilogue Commentary Appendix: Text and Translation Notes Acknowledgments Selected Bibliography Glossary of Names and Places About the Translator

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