Search results for ""Author Richard Ford""

'A masterful writer' - RAYMOND CARVER Over the course of four celebrated works of fiction and almost forty years, Richard Ford has crafted an ambitious, incisive and singular view of American life as lived. Unconstrained, astute, provocative, often laugh-out-loud funny, Frank Bascombe is, here, once more our guide to the great American midway. Now in the twilight of life, a man who has occupied many colourful lives — sportswriter, father, husband, ex-husband, friend, real estate agent — Bascombe finds himself in the most sorrowing role of all; caregiver to his son, Paul, diagnosed with ALS. On a shared winter's odyssey to Mount Rushmore, Frank in typical Bascombe fashion faces down the mortality that is assured each of us, and in doing so confronts what happiness might signify at the end of days. In this memorable novel, Richard Ford puts on display the prose, wit and intelligence that make him one of the world's most acclaimed living writers. Be Mine is a profound, funny, poignant love letter to our beleaguered world. ‘One of the finest achievements of modern American fiction’ The Independent

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In a world where magic has disappeared, rival nations vie for power in a continent devastated by war. When a young farm girl, Livia, demonstrates magical powers for the first time in a century there are many across the land that will kill to obtain her power. The Duke of Gothelm’s tallymen, the blood-soaked Qeltine Brotherhood, and cynical mercenary Josten Cade: all are searching for Livia and the power she wields. But Livia finds that guardians can come from the most unlikely places… and that the old gods are returning to a world they abandoned.

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Richard Ford, who is among the finest of American novelists and short-story writers, edits and introduces this volume. First published by Granta Books in 1992, it became the definitive anthology of American short fiction written in the last half of the twentieth century - an 'exemplary choice' in the words of the Washington Post - with stories by writers such as Eudora Welty, John Cheever and Raymond Carver (and forty others) demonstrating how much memorable power can lie in the briefest narration. Along with The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, this book constitutes an important reflection and judgement of recent American writing - as well as the superb pleasure yielded by the stories themselves.

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‘The god of small stories … A set of polished gems from a master craftsman’ Sunday Times ‘An American master’ Daily Telegraph A woman and man, parted a quarter of a century, reunite in a bar in New Orleans as the St Patrick’s Day parade goes by. A group of friends, all once promising, reunite for dinner when one of their number loses her husband, but the gathering splinters when bitter revelations about their shared past emerge. Two teenage boys sit in a drive-in, the air thick with the scent of gin and popcorn and longing. A visionary collection of luminous stories, imprinting landscape, and great moments in small lives – and of the people we carry with us long after they are gone – Sorry For Your Trouble reconfirms Richard Ford as the master of contemporary American fiction. ‘He writes about human beings and their disappointments with unfailing insight and, while he never mocks his characters, is keenly aware of the absurdity involved in being alive … Exemplary in its nuanced understanding of the relationships between men and women’ Observer

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In these ten stories, Ford mines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West - and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there. A refugee from justice driving across Wyoming with his daughter, an unhappy girlfriend and a stolen Mercedes; a boy watching his family dissolve in a night of tragicomic violence; two men and a woman swapping hard-luck stories in a frontier bar as they try to sweeten their luck. "Rock Springs" is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiselled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace.

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First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. It was more bad instincts and bad luck that lead to Dell Parsons’ parents robbing a bank. They weren’t reckless people, but in an instant, their actions alter fifteen-year-old Dell’s sense of normal life forever. In the days that follow, he is saved before the authorities think to arrive. Driving across Montana, his life hurtles towards the unknown; a hotel in a deserted town, the violent and enigmatic Arthur Remlinger, and towards Canada itself. But, as Dell discovers, in this new world of secrets and upheaval, he is not the only one whose past lies on the other side of the border.

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Marvellously subtle, moving and funny' JOHN BANVILE, OBSERVERWonderfully written in every breath of every sentence' HERMIONE LEE, GUARDIANWistful, bittersweet and often very funny' DAILY TELEGRAPHIt is approaching Thanksgiving weekend and Frank Bascombe has arrived at a state of optimistic pragmatism that he calls the Permanent Period' of life. Epic mistakes have already been made, dreams downsized, and Frank reflects that now at least there are fewer opportunities left in life. But the tranquility he anticipated is not to be. In fact, as Thanksgiving dinner with his children and first wife nears, the Permanent Period proves as full of possibility as life has ever offered.Graceful, expansive and filled with pathos, The Lay of the Land is a modern American masterpiece.

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A trilogy of brilliant novels-The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land-that charts the life and times of one of the most beloved and enduring characters in modern fiction.When we meet Frank Bascombe in The Sportswriter, his unguarded voice instantly wins us over and pulls us into a life that has been irrevocably changed-by the loss of a marriage, a career, a child. We then follow Frank, ever laconic and observant, through Independence Day and The Lay of the Land."In Haddam, summer floats over tree-softened streets like a sweet lotion balm from a careless, languorous god, and the world falls in tune with its own mysterious anthems. Shaded lawns lie still and damp in the early a.m." - Independence Day

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Nedra and Viri are a married couple whose favoured life is centred around dinners, ingenious games with their children, enviable friends and near-perfect days passed skating on a frozen river or sunning on the beach. But fine cracks are beginning to spread through the shimmering surface of their life - flaws that will eventually mar the lovely picture beyond repair. Seductive, witty, tender and resonant, Light Years is an exquisite novel of lost lives and the elusiveness of happiness.

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This marvelous collection features stories from some of America’s finest and most respected writers about every outdoorsman’s favorite and most loyal hunting partner: his dog. For the first time, the stories of acclaimed writers such as Tom Brokaw, Howell Raines, Rick Bass, Sydney Lea, Jim Harrison, Tom McGuane, and Chris Camuto, come together in one collection. Hunters and non-hunters alike will recognize in these poignant tales the universal aspects of owning dogs: companionship, triumph, joy, forgiveness, and loss.The hunter’s outdoor spirit meets the writer’s passion for detail in these honest, fresh pieces of storytelling. Here are the days spent on the trail, shotgun in hand with Fido on point—the thrills and memories that fill the hearts of bird hunters. Here is the perfect gift for dog lovers, hunters, and bibliophiles of every makeup. This is a delightful, handsome volume that captures the wild spirit of dogs and those who love them.Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for hunters and firearms enthusiasts. We publish books about shotguns, rifles, handguns, target shooting, gun collecting, self-defense, archery, ammunition, knives, gunsmithing, gun repair, and wilderness survival. We publish books on deer hunting, big game hunting, small game hunting, wing shooting, turkey hunting, deer stands, duck blinds, bow hunting, wing shooting, hunting dogs, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

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Over the course of a decade, French photographer Jean-Luc Bertini traveled the length and breadth of the United States, creating portraits of the unique circumstance of isolation fostered by the country’s geographic circumstances and its espousal of an individualist ethos. Bertini casts his subjects against the vast backdrops of the country, exploring all the nuances of isolation, from solitude to loneliness. This perspective produces an usual and fresh take on America as a nation. In his preface, Richard Ford, author of The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank With You, focuses on the physiognomies of solitude in America: “Looking at his work, we build up an idea of the unique character of American solitudes, in non-binary terms, in which what is ours does not only belong to us.”

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Pulitzer Prize--winning author Richard Ford is a leading figure among American writers of the post--World War II generation. His novel The Sportswriter (1986), along with its sequel Independence Day (1995)--the first novel to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award in the same year--made Frank Bascombe, Ford's suburban Everyman, as much a part of the American literary landscape as John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom. With three other novels, a critically acclaimed volume of short stories, and a trilogy of novellas to his credit, Ford's reputation and his place in the canon is certainly secure. In Conversations with Richard Ford, the first collection of this author's interviews and profiles, editor Huey Guagliardo has gathered together twenty-eight revealing conversations spanning a quarter of a century. These show that Ford is a writer of paradoxes. He was born in the South, but unlike many southern-born writers of his generation he eschews writing set in just one region. When his first novel, A Piece of My Heart (1976), was so often compared to William Faulkner's work, Ford disdained setting another novel in his native South. A recurring question that Ford addresses in these interviews is his view of the role of place in both his fiction and his life. ""I need to be certain that I have a new stimulus,"" he says, explaining his traveling lifestyle. Not wishing to be confined by place in his writing any more than in his own life, Ford rejects the narrow concerns of regionalism, serving notice in several interviews that he is interested in exploring the entire country, that his goal is ""to write a literature that is good enough for America."" Ford also discusses the broader themes of his work, such as the struggle to overcome loneliness, the consoling potential of language, and the redeeming quality of human affection. This American writer talks extensively about his abiding devotion to language and of his profound belief in the power of narrative to forge human connections. Words, Ford says, can ""narrow that space Emerson calls the infinite remoteness that separates people."" The interviews also provide rare glimpses into the personal life of this intriguing and complex man. Ford discusses his fondness for motorcycles, Brittany spaniels, bird hunting, fishing, and Bruce Springsteen. He also talks about his reputation as a ""tough guy,"" shares his political views, and admits to being ""drawn to places where life is a little near the edge."" Huey Guagliardo is a professor and coordinator of English at Louisiana State University at Eunice. He edited Perspectives on Richard Ford (University Press of Mississippi).

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