Search results for ""Author Davida"

Euro 2016 will forever have a special place in the hearts and memories of Wales football supporters, especially the tens of thousands who travelled to France and filled the stadiums with song, joy and colour as they proudly took their place in the spectacular 'Red Wall'. Bryn Law, author of the acclaimed Zombie Nation Awakes, was one of those passionate fans who fulfilled a life-long dream of following the Wales national team to a major tournament and 'Don't Take Me Home' is his diary of that magical month that gripped the whole nation. From arranging time off work to organising travel, accommodation and the all-important match tickets - as well as trying to explain to his patient and long-suffering family that he couldn't be sure exactly when he'd be back - Bryn perfectly describes the steep, tricky and expensive learning-curve faced by thousands of Welsh fans as he criss-crossed France by plane, car, camper van, tram and bus, desperate not to miss a match whilst enjoying the company of his friends and fellow fans. In 'Don't Take Me Home' Welsh fans can relive every game of the Euro 2016 experience from a supporter's perspective. Everyone has their own favourite memory of the tournament and Bryn lovingly recalls every game on that joyful journey: from the amazing scenes in Bordeaux to the 'chin up' disappointment of Lens; the perfect performance in Toulouse to the Celtic party in Paris; and from the sheer euphoria of Lille to the pride and au revoir in Lyon. Bryn Law's emotional, humorous yet insightful diary explains why Welsh fans - whenever they are asked about their experiences at Euro 2016 - smile, wipe away a tear and say 'It was the best month of my life': 'Don't Take Me Home'.

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The illustrated classic of an inspired woman and her flower garden on Appledore Island. Celia Thaxter’s small garden with hollyhocks and poppies and scarlet flax was much admired by friends, neighbors, and visitors to the island off the coast of Portland, Maine. There, she wrote this collection of remembrances and gardening advice that was originally published in 1894, shortly before her death. It has never been out of print since.In vivid prose, Thaxter captures the stretching stems and blossoming flowers in moods ranging from bitter defeat—delivered by unrelenting slugs—to the exultant triumph of birdsong and bursting blooms. Any gardener will understand and take heart from Thaxter’s philosophical outlook. “I am fully and intensely aware,” she writes, “that plants are conscious of love and respond to it as they do to nothing else.”Many artists found inspiration in Celia Thaxter’s garden including the American impressionist, Childe Hassam, who provided this enduring book’s many full-page paintings and chapter head decorations. This book is perfect for anyone passionate about flowers and the many trials and triumphs of gardening.

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A literary humor classic—fractured biographical moments from the lives of great writers and composers.This is a collection of mostly imagined encounters between literary figures and their real or imagined family members, friends, and bitter enemies. In Howard Moss’s satirical voice and Edward Gorey’s twenty-five deadpan illustrations, we see Jane Austen wielding artful passive aggression and Sense and Sensibility galleys, the Alcott girls sculpting fudge, the rise of Emily Dickinson’s ruthless witch hazel business, among other delights.Perfect for those who love literature too much to hold it closely to actual facts.

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“French cooking for Americans was never the same after Clémentine came into our kitchens . . . This tale of a cook taught us that we, too, could turn out a splendid home-style French meal in our very own American kitchens.”—Julia ChildWhen Clémentine in the Kitchen first appeared in 1943, it immediately captivated American readers, and a new edition, revised by Narcisse Chamberlain, taught a generation of cooks that French family cooking could easily flourish in their own kitchens. Written by the artist Samuel Chamberlain under the pen name Phineas Beck, it recounts the gastronomic adventures of the Beck/Chamberlain family during the decade that their beguiling Burgundian cook Clémentine produced wonderful French meals for them, both in France and in their New England home in Marblehead.This edition includes a delicious collection of more than 170 traditional recipes—classic dishes, regional specialties, and much that is useful for special occasions: filets de sole au vin blanc, boeuf à la mode, endives braisées. But the most compelling are plain and old-fashioned. These are the dishes that identify the Clémentine family style, a style so French, so civilized, so knowing in its use of ingredients that it cannot become impractical or ever go out of date.

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A young boy finds his calling as the chef of a fancy restaurant in this read-aloud picture book. Comfort food indeed! Eating outrageously fine cuisine is the sole activity that stops this young lad from screaming incessantly. But one fateful night, when his parents accidentally burn dinner, the boy’s temper flares and he begins to yell. Tired of all the noise, Mom and Dad relinquish all cooking responsibilities, leaving it all up to him. E voilà! The boy so enjoys cooking that he sings instead of screams, and finds that he is so talented that his parents open a restaurant with the boy as head chef.But life in the kitchen of an acclaimed and busy restaurant is not easy, so when the boy begins to make mistakes, will his penchant for earsplitting noise ruin everything?Witty text and clever illustrations combine to create a silly yet serious picture book for readers of all ages which teaches kids that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, especially when you’re singing. The New York Times wrote, “Ackerman and Dalton (The Lonely Phone Booth) have cooked up something witty and, as an example of the parental art of redirecting, perhaps inadvertently wise.”

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Translated into English for the first time, this is Georges Perec's unique, puzzling, and often imitated memoir. At once an affectionate portrait of mid-century Paris and a daring pointillist autobiography, Georges Perec's / Remember is the last of this essential writer's major works to be translated into English. Consisting of 480 numbered statements, all beginning identically with "I remember," and all limited to pieces of public knowledge - brand names and folk wisdom, actors and illnesses, places and things ("I remember: "When parents drink, children tipple"; "I remember Hermes handbags, with their tiny padlocks"; "I remember myxomatosis") - the book represents a secret key to the world of Perec's fiction. As critic, translator, and Perec biographer David Bellos notes in his introduction to this edition, since its original publication, "It's hardly possible to utter the words je me souviens in French these days without committing a literary allusion." As playful and puzzling as the best of Perec's novels, I Remember began as a simple writing exercise, and grew into an expansive, exhilarating work of art: the image of one unmistakable and irreplaceable life, shaped from the material of our collective past.

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Twelve stories of immigrants who navigate the ancestral past of India as they remake their lives—and themselves—in North America. These are stories of fluid and broken identities, discarded languages and deities, and the attempt to create bonds with a new community against the ever-present fear of failure and betrayal. “The narrative of immigration,” Bharati Mukherjee once wrote, “is the epic narrative of this millennium.” Her stories and novels brilliantly add to that ongoing saga. In the story “The Lady from Lucknow,” a woman is pushed to the limit while wanting nothing more than to fit in. In “Hindus,” characters discover that breaking away from a culture has deep and unexpected costs. In “A Father,” the clash of cultures leads a man to an act of terrible violence. “How could he tell these bright, mocking women,” Mukherjee writes, “that in the darkness, he sensed invisible presences: gods and snakes frolicked in the master bedroom, little white sparks of cosmic static crackled up the legs of his pajamas. Something was out there in the dark, something that could invent accidents and coincidences to remind mortals that even in Detroit they were no more than mortal.” There is light in these stories as well. The collection’s closing story, “Courtly Vision,” brings to life the world within a Mughal miniature painting and describes a light charged with excitement to discover the immense intimacy of darkness. Readers will also discover that excitement, and the many gradations of darkness and light, throughout these pages from the mind of a master storyteller.Darkness is part of Godine’s Nonpareil series: celebrating the joy of discovery with books bound to be classics.

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The celebrated, National Book Award winning, translation of Baudelaire’s masterpiece. “It is the English edition to acquire.”—Washington PostPulitzer Prize winning poet and translator, Richard Howard, gives readers the true voice of Baudelaire in this masterful translation. Charles Baudelaire’s 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) remains powerful and relevant for our time. In “Spleen et idéal,” Baudelaire dramatizes the erotic cycle of ecstacy and anguish—of sexual and romantic love. “Tableaux Parisiens” condemns the crushing effects of urban planning on a city’s soul and praises the city’s anti-heroes including the deranged and derelict. “Le Vin” centers on the search for oblivion in drink and drugs. The many kinds of love that lie outside traditional morality is the focus of “Fleurs du Mal” while rebellion is at the heart of “Révolte.”“Howard’s achievement is such that we can be confident that his Flowers of Evil will long stand as definitive, a superb guide to France’s greatest poet.”—The Nation

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Filled with wit and insight, this is a fascinating tour of Venice from an artist's perspective. The city of Venice has always provided an almost irresistible lure for both writers and artists. Henry James loved it, as did Ruskin, Browning, Pound, and Brodsky. For artists, it has been a compulsory magnet since the time of Bellini and Canaletto. By the 19th century there was hardly an artist of note - Whistler and Turner, Sargent and Prendergas - who was not seduced by the city's charms, history, and aesthetic heritage. For the depiction of Venice by artists, it's a high bar that's been set, but Adam Van Doren, grandson of the Pulitzer prize-winning poet Mark Van Doren, convincingly confronts the competition in this charming memoir, a verbal and visual account of his love affair with the city. His story is personal; like all other artists, he sees the city through his own eyes, but he is also well-informed historically, lacing his tour with information, opinion, and wit.

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Arranged for daily inspiration, wisdom from one of America’s great visionary and philosophical minds.“A chief event of life is that day on which we have encountered a mind that startled us.” A Year with Emerson is a feast of 365 such days. Known throughout the world for his cogent, epigrammatic writing, admired as the “George Washington of American Literature,” his work is even more enriching in bigger doses. Daily almanac entries present the heart of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas and philosophy. Some were written on the very day in which they appear in the book, some are speculations and musings of the season and the natural world, but all are unfailingly wise, still relevant to our modern times.Emerson’s mind ranged across the universe even as he traveled the length and breadth of the United States and Europe. With Emerson as a companion and guide, we meet the ideas and personalities he championed and encountered, from Lincoln to John Muir, from Carlyle to Montaigne, and, of course, the close New England circle of Hawthorne, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and the Alcotts. With company such as this, and the scope of Emerson’s vision, you're sure to encounter rich food for thought every day of the year.

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The fascinating, true, story of baseball’s amateur origins. “Explores the conditions and factors that begat the game in the 19th century and turned it into the national pastime....A delightful look at a young nation creating a pastime that was love from the first crack of the bat.”—Paul Dickson, The Wall Street JournalBaseball’s true founders don’t have plaques in Cooperstown. The founders were the hundreds of uncredited amateurs — ordinary people — who played without gloves, facemasks or performance incentives in the middle decades of the 19th century. Unlike today’s pro athletes, they lived full lives outside of sports. They worked, built businesses and fought against the South in the Civil War.But that’s not the way the story has been told. The wrongness of baseball history can be staggering. You may have heard that Abner Doubleday or Alexander Cartwright invented baseball. Neither did. You may have been told that a club called the Knickerbockers played the first baseball game in 1846. They didn’t. You have read that baseball’s color line was uncrossed and unchallenged until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Nope. You have been told that the clean, corporate 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball’s first professional club. Not true. They weren’t the first professionals; they weren’t all that clean, either. You may have heard Cooperstown, Hoboken, or New York City called the birthplace of baseball, but not Brooklyn. Yet Brooklyn was the home of baseball’s first fans, the first ballpark, the first statistics—and modern pitching.Baseball was originally supposed to be played, not watched. This changed when crowds began to show up at games in Brooklyn in the late 1850s. We fans weren’t invited to the party; we crashed it. Professionalism wasn’t part of the plan either, but when an 1858 Brooklyn versus New York City series accidentally proved that people would pay to see a game, the writing was on the outfield wall.When the first professional league was formed in 1871, baseball was already a fully formed modern sport with championships, media coverage, and famous stars. Professional baseball invented an organization, but not the sport itself. Baseball’s amazing amateurs had already done that.Thomas W. Gilbert’s history is for baseball fans and anyone fascinating by history, American culture, and how great things began.

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A New England Book Award Finalist. “Rich with shining interiors and tactile relationships, delicate human to delicate earth...Poems acting as guides, helping us navigate and remember...”—New York Times Magazine Susan Barba’s collection of poems resembles the spheroid stone of its name; when cracked open, a glittering and fascinating crystalline structure is revealed but the stony sphere she offers us, and the beauty within, is nothing less than the earth.The word “geode” also houses within it “ode,” a praise poem. With both anguish and exaltation, Barba considers our time within the larger scale of deep-time. The species decreasing in number and disappeared and the possibility of human extinction haunt this book, while new generations and the possibility of renunciation of our old ways animate it. There is wonder here as well. She writes...Oak, whose girth exceeds my reach forever I am at your feet, looking up. Here is the world, Barba reminds us, like a ball, in our hands. Poems include “Earthwards,” “Letter from Gaia,” “River,” and “Final Letter of Stone.” geode is for anyone who loves poetry’s uniquely precise and enduring power.

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A woman from New England falls for a charming Scottish landowner only to discover she’s also in a complex relationship with his family’s 400-year-old ancestral estate, The Guynd. Funny and heartwarming, this is the story of a house, a place, and a marriage. Guynd (rhymes with “wind“) is Gaelic for “a high, marshy place.” It’s there that Belinda Rathbone’s memoir takes place after her unlikely marriage and move to pastoral Scotland. There she learns to cope with a grand but crumbling mansion still recovering from the effects of two world wars, an overgrown landscape, a derelict garden, troublesome tenants, local aristocracy, Scottish rituals, and a husband who loathes change.Alternating between enchantment and near despair, Rathbone digs into family and local history in an effort to understand her new surroundings and the ties that bind us through generations. “The book lifts and excels,” wrote The New York Times, “Rathbone nails down a little bit of the Scottish soul in all its stark splendor.” The perfect book for anyone who loves a fish-out-of-water romance and a touching story of home.

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This is the riveling story of a museum director caught in a web of local and international intrigue while secretly pursuing a forgotten Renaissance pointing. On the eve of its centennial celebrations in December 1969, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts announced the acquisition of an unknown and uncatalogued painting attributed to Raphael. Boston's coup made headlines around the world. Soon afterward, an Italian art sleuth began investigating the details of the painting's export from Italy, challenging the museum's right to ownership. Simultaneously, experts on both sides of the Atlantic lined up to debate its very authenticity. While these contests played themselves out on the international stage, the crisis deepened within the museum as its charismatic director, Perry Rathbone, faced the most challenging crossroads of his 30-year career. In her quest for the true story behind this pivotal event in her father's life, Belinda Rathbone delves into the background of the affair as it was reported in the popular press, both questioning the inevitability of its outcome and revealing the power struggle within the museum that led to his resignation. She draws almost entirely from primary source material in various archival collections and over a hundred contemporary and personal interviews. It is lavishly illustrated with full-colour plates and many previously unpublished photographs.

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These are not your ordinary opposites, they are EXTREME! Extremely funny and extremely clever, combining superlatives and opposites. Knights and dragons, castaways and off-hour Santas, dinosaurs and pirates, mimes and scuba divers populate this imaginative universe. And with just two words per page, you and your little one will have more time to linger over the irresistible illustrations and relish this recital of reverse attractions.

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This is a superb collection of stories by Stig Dagerman, one of the most talented writers of Sweden's post-war generation. Stig Dagerman (1923-1954) is regarded as the most talented young writer of the Swedish post-war generation. By the 1940s, his fiction, plays, and journalism had catapulted him to the forefront of Swedish letters, with critics comparing him to William Faulkner, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus. His suicide at the age of thirty-one was a national tragedy. This selection, containing a number of new translations of Dagerman's stories never before published in English, is unified by the theme of the loss of innocence. Often narrated from a child's perspective, the stories give voice to childhood's tender state of receptiveness and joy tinged with longing and loneliness. The title story, "To Kill A Child", is the most famous of Dagerman's short stories and among the most anthologized and oft-read stories in Sweden.

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The selected early poems by Mark Doty including the complete texts of Turtle, Swan and Bethlehem in Broad Daylight for which Mr. Doty has contributed a new introduction.

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Here is a selection of letters, envelopes, and illustrations by an artist who could never resist the temptation of filling his letters to family and friends with enchanting vignettes and sketches, done quickly, humorously and lovingly, with a sure touch for outline, wash and colour that always distinguished his work.

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Anyone who has spent any time messing around with boats — wooden boats in particular — knows that those cunning curves, endless seams, and rotting wood hold more than practical challenges. All boats have histories, some more poignant than others, and few narratives of the past few decades have captured the mystique of a boat’s provenance (in this case Chris Craft) or more touchingly depicted the ties that boats often create between father and son than this classic by Joe Soucheray.

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Thrashin’ Time takes us back to autumn days in North Dakota in 1912, when farmers worked the land with sturdy draft horses and a new-fangled machine called the steam traction engine. The story opens with young Peter’s first look at the engine— blue boiler and red wheels, puffing smoke and hissing steam, gears spinning and rods stroking back and forth— and old Mr. Torgrimson’s wise prediction: “You know, Peter, you’re witnessing the beginning of real scientific farming.”

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A book length series of poems, looking at life in all its imperfections through the viewpoint of an inextinguishable character whose spirit triumphs through humor. Clayfeld, a comic everyman, is the center of these poems about the nature of beauty, sorrow, and art, as well as the potential for happiness. Thwarted continually by ordinary defeats, Clayfeld endures and laughs, loves and remembers.Critic Harold Bloom called poet Robert Pack an heir to Robert Frost and Edwin Arlington Robinson. That heritage is fully apparent in this joyous and exuberant odyssey.

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On fog-shrouded barrier island or deep in winter woods, eighteen essays describe the wild, outer half of Cape Cod. Robert Finch is a vivid witness to our participation, whether as individuals or as communities, in the mysteries of natural experience. As he explains: “One of the primary reasons this place yields so much to me so consistently is that I have invested so much of myself into it, physically, mentally, and emotionally . . . a thousand simple, repeated, physical acts have given this landscape a texture for me so that even its most casual aspect is filled, not with slick charm or abstract nostalgia, but with living, tactile memory.” In these essays, Finch demonstrates once again his profound willingness to ask essential questions. These essays recognize our need for both the human and the nonhuman in our lives; they probe the ambiguities in our response to the terror and beauty of the natural world and the love and aggression we struggle with in our associations with one another. Robert Finch’s remarkable prose offers high entertainment, but also gives us new sympathies for and understanding of both nature and ourselves.

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