Best of
American

1961

Nobody Knows My Name


James Baldwin - 1961
    Told with Baldwin's characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society, and offers personal accounts of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer and other writers.

Mother Night


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1961
    American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

Kaddish and Other Poems


Allen Ginsberg - 1961
    . .”In the midst of the broken consciousness of mid-twentieth century suffering anguish of separation from my own body and its natural infinity of feeling its own self one with all self, I instinctively seeking to reconstitute that blissful union which I experience so rarely. I took it to be supernatural an gave it holy Name thus made hymn laments of longing and litanies of triumphancy of Self over mind-illusion mechano-universe of un-feeling Time in which I saw my self my own mother and my very nation trapped desolate our worlds of consciousness homeless and at war except for the original trembling of bliss in breast and belly of every body that nakedness rejected in suits of fear that familiar defenseless living hurt self which is myself same as all others abandoned scared to own unchanging desire for each other. These poems almost unconscious to confess the beatific human fact, the language intuitively chosen as in trance & dream, the rhythms rising on breath from belly thru breast, the hymn completed in tears, the movement of the physical poetry demanding and receiving decades of life while chanting Kaddish the names of Death in many worlds the self seeking the Key to life found at last in our self.

Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson's Poems


Emily Dickinson - 1961
    Librarian's Note: this is an alternate edition to ISBN-10 0316184152Though generally overlooked during her lifetime, Emily Dickinson's poetry has achieved acclaim due to her experiments in prosody, her tragic vision and the range of her emotional and intellectual explorations.

The Collected Poems


Theodore Roethke - 1961
    Included are his Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners The Walking, Words for the Wind, and The Far Field.

The Dog Who Came to Stay: A Memoir


Hal Borland - 1961
    Pat, as the dog came to be known, and his raffish travelling companion, a young pup, "were even more unwelcome than the weather," but after a few preliminaries both settled in as members of the Borland household. The pup eventually found his permanent home elsewhere, but Pat became Hal Borland's true companion - and a local legend, the terror of woodchucks for miles around. With his keen sensitivity to the natural world, Borland here recounts, with deep affection and wonder, how a man and his dog can form a magical and unforgettable partnership. First published in 1961, THE DOG WHO CAME TO STAY "will appeal to many sportsmen and to all people who have ever been closely attached to a dog." (The New York Times Book Review)

The Spice-Box of Earth


Leonard Cohen - 1961
    Paperback, pp93, the back cover featuring a photograph of Leonard Cohen by Sophie Baker.

The Children of Sánchez


Oscar Lewis - 1961
    Weaving together their extraordinary personal narratives, Oscar Lewis creates a sympathetic but ultimately tragic portrait that is at once harrowing and humane, mystifying and moving.An invaluable document, full of verve and pathos, The Children of Sánchez reads like the best of fiction, with the added impact that it is all, undeniably, true.

The Winter of Our Discontent


John Steinbeck - 1961
    With Ethan no longer a member of Long Island’s aristocratic class, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards.Set in Steinbeck’s contemporary 1960 America, the novel explores the tenuous line between private and public honesty that today ranks it alongside his most acclaimed works of penetrating insight into the American condition. This edition features an introduction and notes by Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw.

Tell Me a Riddle


Tillie Olsen - 1961
    Henry Award in 1961, the stories have been anthologized over a hundred times, made into three films, translated into thirteen languages, and - most important - once read, they abide in the hearts of their readers.

The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America


Daniel J. Boorstin - 1961
    Boorstin’s prophetic vision of an America inundated by its own illusions has become an essential resource for any reader who wants to distinguish the manifold deceptions of our culture from its few enduring truths.Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Catch-22


Joseph Heller - 1961
    In recent years it has been named to “best novels” lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer.Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he’s assigned, he’ll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller’s masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller’s personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

The Stone Face


William Gardner Smith - 1961
    After a violent encounter with white sailors, Simeon makes up his mind to move to Paris, known as a safe haven for black artists and intellectuals, and before long he is under the spell of the City of Light, where he can do as he likes and go where he pleases without fear. Through Babe, another black American émigré, he makes new friends, and soon he has fallen in love with a Polish actress who is a concentration camp survivor. At the same time, however, Simeon begins to suspect that Paris is hardly the racial wonderland he imagined: The French government is struggling to suppress the revolution in Algeria, and Algerians are regularly stopped and searched, beaten, and arrested by the French police, while much worse is to come, it will turn out, in response to the protest march of October 1961. Through his friendship with Hossein, an Algerian radical, Simeon realizes that he can no longer remain a passive spectator to French injustice. He must decide where his true loyalties lie.

The Blood of the Lamb


Peter De Vries - 1961
    It follows the life of Don Wanderhop from his childhood in an immigrant Calvinist family living in Chicago in the 1950s through the loss of a brother, his faith, his wife, and finally his daughter-a tragedy drawn directly from De Vries's own life. Despite its foundation in misfortune, The Blood of the Lamb offers glimpses of the comic sensibility for which De Vries was famous. Engaging directly with the reader in a manner that buttresses the personal intimacy of the story, De Vries writes with a powerful blend of grief, love, wit, and fury.

Hombre


Elmore Leonard - 1961
    Set in Arizona mining country, Hombre is the tale of a white man raised by Indians, who must come to the aid of people who hate him when their stagecoach is attacked by outlaws.

The Wonderful Adventures of Suzuki Beane


Sandra Scoppettone - 1961
    However, she discovers her parents are as bigoted toward her square friend as his parents are toward her.

Tremble


C.D. Wright - 1961
    Wright interweaves familiar, coloquial speech with strikingly inventive language, leaving each poem a distinctive entity, yet interconnected by linked metaphors and images.

The Carpetbaggers


Harold Robbins - 1961
    . . the darker and deadlier their fiery passions grew.

The Pawnbroker


Edward Lewis Wallant - 1961
    But the people who came to be called “survivors” could not avoid their memories. Sol Nazerman, protagonist of Edward Lewis Wallant’s The Pawnbroker, is one such sufferer.At 45, Nazerman, who survived Bergen-Belsen although his wife and children did not, runs a Harlem pawnshop. But the operation is only a front for a gangster who pays Nazerman a comfortable salary for his services. Nazerman’s dreams are haunted by visions of his past tortures. (Dramatizations of these scenes in Sidney Lumet’s 1964 film version are famous for being the first time the extermination camps were depicted in a Hollywood movie.)Remarkable for its attempts to dramatize the aftereffects of the Holocaust, The Pawnbroker is likewise valuable as an exploration of the fraught relationships between Jews and other American minority groups. That this novel, a National Book Award finalist, manages to be both funny and weighty, makes it all the more tragic that its talented author died, at age 36, the year after its publication. The book sold more than 500,000 copies soon after it was published.

Horseman, Pass By


Larry McMurtry - 1961
    In classic Western style Larry McMurtry illustrates the timeless conflict between the modernity and the Old West through the eyes of Texas cattlemen.Horseman, Pass By tells the story of Homer Bannon, an old-time cattleman who epitomizes the frontier values of honesty and decency, and Hud, his unscrupulous stepson. Caught in the middle is the narrator, Homer's young grandson Lonnie, who is as much drawn to his grandfather’s strength of character as he is to Hud's hedonism and materialism. When first published in 1961, Horseman, Pass By caused a sensation in Texas literary circles for its stark, realistic portrayal of the struggles of a changing West in the years following World War II. Never before had a writer managed to encapsulate its environment with such unsentimental realism. Today, memorable characters, powerful themes, and illuminating detail make Horseman, Pass By vintage McMurtry.

Five Of A Kind; The Third Nero Wolfe Omnibus


Rex Stout - 1961
    Includes the novels "The Rubber Band," "In The Best Families," and Three Doors to Death (short story collection: "Man Alive," "Omit Flowers," and "Door to Death").

The Love Poems


Kenneth Patchen - 1961
    

Eight Men


Richard Wright - 1961
    "Eight Men" presents eight stories of black men living at violent odds with the white world around them. As they do in his classic novels, the themes here reflect Wright's views on racism and his fascination with what he called "the struggle of the individual in America.

Masterpieces of World Philosophy


Frank N. Magill - 1961
    That's how Masterpieces of World Philosophy can help you to truly grasp the ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas, Confucius and Camus: it examines and summarizes nearly one hundred influential works through critical essays that focus on their themes and major points. Based on the award-winning, five-volume reference, World Philosophy, each essay explains the historical background of the work, the life of its author, and its influence on modern thought. Alternative views of the philosopher's ideas are provided through reviews of important critical works, and reading lists help you find sources for additional information. With Masterpieces of World Philosophy, the ideas that have shaped our world--from the ancients to the thinkers of our time--are at your fingertips.

The Patriot Chiefs: A Chronicle of American Indian Resistance


Alvin M. Josephy Jr. - 1961
    Hiawatha, King Philip, Pop', Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola, Black Hawk, Crazy Horse, and Chief Joseph each represent different tribal backgrounds, different times and places, and different aspects of Indian leadership. Soldiers, philosophers, orators, and statesmen, these leaders were the patriots of their people. Their heroic and tragic stories comprise an integral part of American history."Josephy tells his nine lives with . . . a cold-blooded historian's perspective, sorrowing for both white man and red."--Time"More than a series of biographical sketches . . . Josephy places his Indian heroes in a broad historical setting and pictures them as fighters for freedom in the American tradition."--The New York Times Book Review

Revolutionary Road


Richard Yates - 1961
    Perhaps they married too young and started a family too early. Maybe Frank's job is dull. And April never saw herself as a housewife. Yet they have always lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. But now that certainty is now about to crumble. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet


Richard Matheson - 1961
    Find out why in this classic horror story of a man who peers out of his airplane window to see a gremlin destroying the wing of the plane.

The Agunah


Chaim Grade - 1961
    

Eight Tales of Terror


Edgar Allan Poe - 1961
    Found in a BottleLigeiaThe Fall of the House of UsherWilliam WilsonThe Mask of the Red DeathThe Imp of the Perverse

How to Build a Better Vocabulary


Maxwell Nurnberg - 1961
    This is the one book that makes you love to learn.

The Cattlemen: From the Rio Grande across the Far Marias


Mari Sandoz - 1961
    The story of the cattle in America and of the men whose ranches reached from the Rio Grande up into the far regions of Montana; from the early Spanish days through the era of far-flung cattle empires through the mid 20th century.

Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic and Humanistic Strains


Paul Oskar Kristeller - 1961
    A revised and enlarged edition of the author's "The Classics and Renaissance Thought." Originally delivered as the Martin classical lectures (Series XV) at Oberlin College.Contents: The Humanist movement -- The Aristotelian tradition -- Renaissance Platonism -- Paganism and Christianity -- Humanism and Scholasticism in the Italian Renaissance -- The Philosophy of man in the Italian Renaissance.Includes bibliography, notes, and index.