Search results for ""Author Richard Cohen""

A Spectator Best Book of the Year ‘This book is a wry, critical friend to both writer and reader. It is filled with cogent examples and provoking statements. You will agree or quarrel with each page, and be a sharper writer and reader by the end.’ Hilary Mantel ‘There are three rules for writing a novel,’ Somerset Maugham once said. ‘Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’ So how to bring characters to life, find a voice, kill your darlings, avoid plagiarism (or choose not to), or run that most challenging of literary gauntlets—writing a good sex scene? Veteran editor and author Richard Cohen takes us on a fascinating excursion into the lives and minds of our greatest writers—from Balzac and Eliot to Woolf and Nabokov, through to Zadie Smith and Stephen King, with a few mischievous detours to Tolstoy along the way. In a glittering tour d’horizon, he lays bare their tricks, motivations, techniques, obsessions and flaws.

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Featuring the first-ever English translation of the "Splendid Vision Sutra," a sixth-century Indian Mahayana Buddhist scripture known for its rich ritual magic and worship of bodhisattva-goddesses, this volume explicates the text's cultural significance as a source of extraordinary value, cosmic truth, and existential meaning. The ancient author of the "Splendid Vision Sutra" promises every imaginable reward to those who heed its words and rites, whether one's desire is to become king, enjoy heavenly pleasures for thousands of millennia, or attain the spiritual summit of advanced bodhisattvahood. Richard S. Cohen carefully analyzes this religious rhetoric, developing a heuristic model of "scripture" that extends beyond Buddhist literature. In his framework, a text becomes sacred scripture when a community accepts it as a receptacle of extraordinary value, an authoritative source of cosmic truth, and a guide for meaningful action. While clarifying these points, Cohen untangles the discursive skein through which the "Splendid Vision Sutra" expresses its authority, inspires readers to accept that authority, and promises superior power and accomplishments to those who implement its teachings. Exploring ways of living and reading a text, Cohen draws on Marcel Duchamp's theory of found art, Jerzy Grotowski's idealization of the holy actor, and other formulations, identifying contingencies, uncertainties, and incompleteness in the lived present and its determination of our reception of the past. More than a mere introduction to an important work, The Splendid Vision opens a window into religious experience and practice in contemporary environments as well as in the world of the sutra.

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The art and science of sword fighting goes back almost to the dawn of civilization and has been an obsession for much of mankind throughout recorded history. From the Roman arena to feudal Japan and from the duellists of Europe to the development of modern-day Olympic fencing, Richard Cohen traces the course of swordsmanship with wit and erudition in a fascinating and wonderfully discursive account. Packed with anecdote, superbly written and built on a solid foundation of historical research, this is a tribute to a deadly but beautiful skill, the mastery of which for centuries defined a man.

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MAKING HISTORY is an epic exploration of who writes about the past and how the biases of certain storytellers - whether Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare or Simon Schama - continue to influence our ideas about history (and about who we are) today. In this authoritative and entertaining book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses (such as the writers of the Bible, major novelists, dramatists, journalists and political propagandists) influence what become the accepted records of human experience. Is there, he asks, even such a thing as ''objective'' history? The depth of Cohen''s inquiry and the delight he takes in his subjects includes the practitioners of what he calls ''Bad History,'' those thieves of history who twist reality to glorify themselves and conceal their or their country''s behaviour. Cohen investigates the published works and private utterances of our greatest historical thinkers to discover the age

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Featuring the first-ever English translation of the "Splendid Vision Sutra," a sixth-century Indian Mahayana Buddhist scripture known for its rich ritual magic and worship of bodhisattva-goddesses, this volume explicates the text's cultural significance as a source of extraordinary value, cosmic truth, and existential meaning. The ancient author of the "Splendid Vision Sutra" promises every imaginable reward to those who heed its words and rites, whether one's desire is to become king, enjoy heavenly pleasures for thousands of millennia, or attain the spiritual summit of advanced bodhisattvahood. Richard S. Cohen carefully analyzes this religious rhetoric, developing a heuristic model of "scripture" that extends beyond Buddhist literature. In his framework, a text becomes sacred scripture when a community accepts it as a receptacle of extraordinary value, an authoritative source of cosmic truth, and a guide for meaningful action. While clarifying these points, Cohen untangles the discursive skein through which the "Splendid Vision Sutra" expresses its authority, inspires readers to accept that authority, and promises superior power and accomplishments to those who implement its teachings. Exploring ways of living and reading a text, Cohen draws on Marcel Duchamp's theory of found art, Jerzy Grotowski's idealization of the holy actor, and other formulations, identifying contingencies, uncertainties, and incompleteness in the lived present and its determination of our reception of the past. More than a mere introduction to an important work, The Splendid Vision opens a window into religious experience and practice in contemporary environments as well as in the world of the sutra.

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The Sun is so powerful, so much bigger than us, that it is a terrifying subject. Yet though we depend on it, we take it for granted. Amazingly the first book of its kind, CHASING THE SUNis a cultural and scientific history of our relationship with the star that gives us life. Richard Cohen, applying the same mix of wide-ranging reference and intimate detail that won outstanding reviews for By the Sword, travels from the ancient Greek astronomers to modern-day solar scientists, from Stonehenge to Antarctica (site of the solar eclipse of 2003, when penguins were said to sing), Mexico's Aztecs to the Norwegian city of Tromso, where for two months of the year there is no Sun at all. He introduces us to the crucial 'sunspot cycle' in modern economics, the religious dances of Indian tribesmen, the histories of sundials and calendars, the plight of migrating birds, the latest theories of global warming, and Galileo recording his discoveries in code, for fear of persecution. And throughout, there is the rich Sun literature -- from the writings of Homer through Dante and Nietzsche to Keats, Shelley and beyond. Blindingly impressive and hugely readable, this is a tour de force of narrative non-fiction.

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'A huge, fizzing omnium-gatherum of a book . . . marvellous' Daily Telegraph'Witty, wise and elegant . . . a classic of history itself' The Spectator'Grave and witty, suave yet pointed . . . full of energy' Hilary Mantel'An enthralling investigation . . . consistently entertaining' The Times'Epic . . . whatever Cohen writes about he writes about with brio' New YorkerWho writes the past? And how do the biases of storytellers - whether Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare or Simon Schama - influence our ideas about history today?Epic, authoritative and entertaining, Making History delves into the lives of those who have charted human history - professional historians, witnesses, novelists, journalists and propagandists - to discover the agendas that informed their world views, and which in so many ways have informed ours. From the origins of history-writing through to television and the digital age, Making History abounds in captivating figures brought to vivid life, from Thucydides and Tacitus to Voltaire and Gibbon, from Winston Churchill to Mary Beard. Rich in character, complex truths and surprising anecdotes, the result is a unique exploration of both the aims and craft of history-making that will lead us to think anew about our past and ourselves.

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“A very personal remembrance of Nora Ephron’s life and loves, and her ups and downs” (USA TODAY) by her long-time and dear friend Richard Cohen in a hilarious, blunt, raucous, and poignant recollection of their decades-long friendship.Nora Ephron (1941–2012) was a phenomenal personality, journalist, essayist, novelist, playwright, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, and movie director (Sleepless in Seattle; You’ve Got Mail; When Harry Met Sally; Heartburn; Julie & Julia). She wrote a slew of bestsellers (I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman; I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections; Scribble, Scribble: Notes on the Media; Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women). She was celebrated by Hollywood, embraced by literary New York, and adored by legions of fans throughout the world. Award-winning journalist Richard Cohen, wrote this about She Made Me Laugh: “I call this book a third-person memoir. It is about my closest friend, Nora Ephron, and the lives we lived together and how her life got to be bigger until, finally, she wrote her last work, the play, Lucky Guy, about a newspaper columnist dying of cancer while she herself was dying of cancer. I have interviewed many of her other friends—Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Arianna Huffington—but the book is not a name-dropping star turn, but an attempt to capture a remarkable woman who meant so much to so many other women.” With “the nuanced perspective of a confidant” (The Washington Post), She Made Me Laugh “is a fine tribute to a fascinating woman” (Houston Chronicle): “Nora would be pleased” (People, “Book of the Week”).

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Raymond-Raoul Lambert's Diary has been among the most important untranslated records of the experience of French Jews in the Holocaust. Lambert, a leader of the Union of French Jews (UGIF), was, in the words of the historian Michael Marrus, "arguably the most important Jewish official in contact with the Vichy government and the Germans." Lambert's Diary survived the war and was published in France in 1985. It reveals Lambert's efforts to save the Jews in France, particularly the children.

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