Search results for ""Author Lytton Smith""

How do we react to disaster, to political uprising, to spectacle? With relief missions, donations, and what words? While You Were Approaching the Spectacle But Before You Were Transformed by It, the second book by Lytton Smith, explores the relationship between poetry, news, and the lives of others. Poised between Brecht's critique of empathy and Martha Nussbaum's politics of compassion, this powerful collection plays with direct address and personal testimony as it investigates the relationship between ethics and the aesthetic. Drawing on sources that range from travel guides, BBC reports, contemporary art exhibitions, and sixteenth-century debates about masque, Smith's book offers a range of forms that test the edges of the page, the borders of communication.

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A Guardian 'Top 10 Nature Memoirs' pick 'Poetic and heartful' Guardian Icelandic author and activist Andri Snær Magnason's 'Letter to the Future', an extraordinary and moving eulogy for the lost Okjökull glacier, made global news and was shared by millions. Now he attempts to come to terms with the issues we all face in his new book On Time and Water. Magnason writes of the melting glaciers, the rising seas and acidity changes that haven't been seen for 50 million years. These are changes that will affect all life on earth. Taking a path to climate science through ancient myths about sacred cows, stories of ancestors and relatives and interviews with the Dalai Lama, Magnason allows himself to be both personal and scientific. The result is an absorbing mixture of travel, history, science and philosophy.

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"An Icelandic-punk version of Catcher in the Rye." -- Dallas Morning News "If there were more people like Jon Gnarr the world wouldn't be in such a mess."-- Oliver Sacks The second book in a trilogy chronicling the troubled childhood of international sensation Jon Gnarr, The Pirate revisits his teenage years with sincere compassion and great humor: bullied relentlessly, Jon receives rebellious inner strength through the Sex Pistols and Prince Kropotkin--punk rock and anarchy offer the promise of a better and more exciting life. Jon Gnarr, the most famous comedic actor in Iceland, founded the Best Party, ran for mayor of Reykjavik as a joke and won, and served as mayor of Reykjavik 2010-2014, in the process becoming an international sensation and symbol of true alternatives to the political process worldwide.

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"A beautiful but disturbing portrait of a misfit painfully aware that he's not like anyone else." --NPR Former comedian (and mayor) Jon Gnarr now turns his lens from politics to tell his life story in his literary debut.The Indian is a highly entertaining and bittersweet literary memoir by Jon Gnarr, the world-famous Icelandic comedian and former Mayor of Reykjavik,Iceland, revisiting his troubled childhood. Diagnosed as "retarded" because of his severe dyslexia and ADHD, Gnarr spent time in a "home for retarded children" before getting out, only to find himself subjected to constant bullying, leading the young Gnarr to identify with the Indians against bully cowboys on TV. The Indian is the first book in a trilogy that looks back at Gnarr's childhood and adolescence, providing the unparalleled coming of age story of an outcast who overcame the odds and matured into a world-renowned comedian, actor, writer, and politician. Each book in the trilogy is told with the warmth and humor that defines Gnarr's unique personality, allowing readers of all ages to identify with his story.

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A masterful debut collection by poet Lytton Smith, winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize.

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A young PhD student believes she has uncovered the first professional female artist in Britain. It’s a discovery that could transform her career and reputation. However, in her haste to break new ground, she has made a simple mistake which threatens everything –and she won’t acknowledge her error until it’s far too late. As she goes to ever greater lengths to protect her work from the truth, she begins to lose her grip on her thesis, her life and ultimately her sanity. History. A Mess. is a remarkable exploration of intellectual integrity and denial, and a gripping portrait of academic ambition.

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In The Outlaw, the third and final volume in his acclaimed trilogy, former Reykjavik mayor and comedian Jon Gnarr returns to face the dark teenage years with his signature humor and candor. Raging with music, poetry, life, loneliness, and questions of right and wrong, Jon, a fourteen-year-old punk rock misfit, is sent to boarding school in the Westfjords region of Iceland. There he decides Crass is the only worthy punk band, discovers an unrequited interest in girls, and chooses drugs and self-harm to cope with mental anguish and intense thoughts of alienation and despair. Two years later he returns to Reykjavik, no longer a naive adolescent, and recounts the restless years spent drifting through a life of parties, drugs, and anarchy--until it all fades to black. The Outlaw is the devastating anthem to what it means to grow up, to fit in, and to stand out.

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"Sigurdsson is without a doubt one of the best writers of his generation." —Frettabladid DailyAfter a grueling solo expedition on Vatnajökull Glacier, Austrian toponymist Bernhardt Fingerberg returns to civilization, barely alive, and into the care of Dr. Lassi. The doctor, suspicious of his story, attempts to discover his real motives for venturing into the treacherous wastelands of Iceland—but the secrets she unravels may be more dangerous than they're worth.Ófeigur Sigurðsson (b. 1975) has published six books of poetry and two novels, including Jón (2010), the first Icelandic novel to receive the European Union Prize for Literature.

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