Best of
Essays

1977

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments


Roland Barthes - 1977
    Rich with references ranging from Goethe's Werther to Winnicott, from Plato to Proust, from Baudelaire to Schubert, A Lover's Discourse artfully draws a portrait in which every reader will find echoes of themselves.

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture


Wendell Berry - 1977
    In it, Wendell Berry argues that good farming is a cultural development and spiritual discipline. Today’s agribusiness, however, takes farming out of its cultural context and away from families. As a result, we as a nation are more estranged from the land—from the intimate knowledge, love, and care of it. Sadly, as Berry notes in his Afterword to this third edition, his arguments and observations are more relevant than ever. We continue to suffer loss of community, the devaluation of human work, and the destruction of nature under an economic system dedicated to the mechanistic pursuit of products and profits. Although “this book has not had the happy fate of being proved wrong,” Berry writes, there are good people working “to make something comely and enduring of our life on this earth.” Wendell Berry is one of those people, writing and working, as ever, with passion, eloquence, and conviction.

Seven Nights


Jorge Luis Borges - 1977
    The incomparable Borges delivered these seven lectures in Buenos Aires in 1977; attendees were treated to Borges erudition on the following topics: Dante's The Divine Comedy, Nightmares, Thousand and One Dreams, Buddhism, Poetry, The Kabbalah, and Blindness.

Holy the Firm


Annie Dillard - 1977
    In Holy the Firm she writes about a moth consumed in a candle flame, about a seven-year-old girl burned in an airplane accident, about a baptism on a cold beach. But behind the moving curtain of what she calls "the hard things -- rock mountain and salt sea," she sees, sometimes far off and sometimes as close by as a veil or air, the power play of holy fire.This is a profound book about the natural world -- both its beauty and its cruelty -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning Dillard knows so well.

Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.: Tales


Eve Babitz - 1977
    in the 1960s in a wildly original, totally unique voice. These stories are time capsule gems, as poignant and startling today as they were when published in the early 1970s. Eve Babitz is not well known today, but she should be. Her first hand experiences in the L.A. cultural scene, translated into haunting fiction, are an unforgettable glimpse at a lost world and a magical time.

Fires: Essays, Poems, Stories


Raymond Carver - 1977
    Two of the stories—later revised for What We Talk About When We Talk About Love—are particularly notable in that between the first and the final versions, we see clearly the astounding process of Carver’s literary development.

Ever Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History


Stephen Jay Gould - 1977
    His genius as an essayist lies in his unmatched ability to use his knowledge of the world, including popular culture, to illuminate the realm of science.Ever Since Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould's first book, has sold more than a quarter of a million copies. Like all succeeding collections by this unique writer, it brings the art of the scientific essay to unparalleled heights.

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu: John Updike on Ted Williams


John Updike - 1977
    Seizing the occasion, he belted a solo home run- a storybook ending to a storied career. In the stands that afternoon was 28-year-old John Updike, inspired by the moment to make his lone venture into the field of sports reporting. More than just a matchless account of that fabled final game, Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu is a brilliant evocation of Williams' competitive spirit, an intensity of dedication that still "crowds the throat with joy." Now, on the 50th anniversary of the dramatic exit of baseball's greatest hitter, The Library of America presents a commemorative edition of Hub Fans, prepared by the author just months before his death. To the classic final version of the essay, long out-of- print, Updike added an autobiographical preface and a substantial new afterword. Here is a baseball book for the ages, a fan's notes of the very highest order.

Image - Music - Text


Roland Barthes - 1977
    His selection of essays, each important in its own right, also serves as ‘the best... introduction so far to Barthes’ career as the slayer of contemporary myths’. (John Sturrock, New Statesman)

Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics & the Visionary Experience


Aldous Huxley - 1977
    Includes letters and lectures by Huxley never published elsewhere. In May 1953 Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescaline. The mystical and transcendent experience that followed set him off on an exploration that was to produce a revolutionary body of work about the inner reaches of the human mind. Huxley was decades ahead of his time in his anticipation of the dangers modern culture was creating through explosive population increase, headlong technological advance, and militant nationalism, and he saw psychedelics as the greatest means at our disposal to "remind adults that the real world is very different from the misshapen universe they have created for themselves by means of their culture-conditioned prejudices." Much of Huxley's writings following his 1953 mescaline experiment can be seen as his attempt to reveal the power of these substances to awaken a sense of the sacred in people living in a technological society hostile to mystical revelations. Moksha, a Sanskrit word meaning "liberation," is a collection of the prophetic and visionary writings of Aldous Huxley. It includes selections from his acclaimed novels Brave New World and Island, both of which envision societies centered around the use of psychedelics as stabilizing forces, as well as pieces from The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, his famous works on consciousness expansion.

The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action


Audre Lorde - 1977
    

The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction


Samuel R. Delany - 1977
    An indispensable work of science fiction criticism revised and expanded

Simone Weil Reader


Simone Weil - 1977
    She confronted the rootlessness of modern life and the death of the spirit in an age of materialism. Her writing was visionary and her vision, radical.Born in France, a contemporary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, Weil inspired T.S. Eliot to say of her, We must simply expose ourselves to the personality of a woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of a saint. Today, nearly sixty years after her death, her work has, perhaps, an even greater immediacy and relevance. This book is a collection of the best of her writings from The Notebooks of Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty and Gravity and Grace.

Das Ornament Der Masse: Essays: Weimar Essays


Siegfried Kracauer - 1977
    In this volume his finest writings on modern society make their long-awaited appearance in English.This book is a celebration of the masses--their tastes, amusements, and everyday lives. Taking up themes of modernity, such as isolation and alienation, urban culture, and the relation between the group and the individual, Kracauer explores a kaleidoscope of topics: shopping arcades, the cinema, bestsellers and their readers, photography, dance, hotel lobbies, Kafka, the Bible, and boredom. For Kracauer, the most revelatory facets of modern life in the West lie on the surface, in the ephemeral and the marginal. Of special fascination to him is the United States, where he eventually settled after fleeing Germany and whose culture he sees as defined almost exclusively by "the ostentatious display of surface."With these essays, written in the 1920s and early 1930s and edited by the author in 1963, Kracauer was the first to demonstrate that studying the everyday world of the masses can bring great rewards. The Mass Ornament today remains a refreshing tribute to popular culture, and its impressively interdisciplinary essays continue to shed light not only on Kracauer's later work but also on the ideas of the Frankfurt School, the genealogy of film theory and cultural studies, Weimar cultural politics, and, not least, the exigencies of intellectual exile.In his introduction, Thomas Levin situates Kracauer in a turbulent age, illuminates the forces that influenced him--including his friendships with Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and other Weimar intellectuals--and provides the context necessary for understanding his ideas. Until now, Kracauer has been known primarily for his writings on the cinema. This volume brings us the full scope of his gifts as one of the most wide-ranging and penetrating interpreters of modern life.

Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying


Adrienne Rich - 1977
    

Reaching Toward the Heights


Richard Wurmbrand - 1977
    What are we willing to suffer for God? In this daily devotional, Pastor Wurmbrand reflects on his intense love for God born during his suffering. These devotions encourage us to elevate our relationship with the Lord.

The Rediscovery of Meaning and Other Essays


Owen Barfield - 1977
    Now this seasoned British thinker.offers a collection of [essays] that reflects the entire range of his interests, including the philosophy of science, physics, biology, psychology, metaphysics, aesthetics, literature, linguistics, and religion.. He is a prophet of the New Consciousness who has been around a long time; and he may well be the most comprehensive and critically incisive of them all." -The Kirkus Reviews

Dogma and Preaching


Benedict XVI - 1977
    The new book contains twice as much material as first English edition.Dogma, for many people, is a bad word. For the well-informed believer, it shouldn't be. Dogmas are truths revealed by God, which should enlighten the minds, guide the choices, and gladden the hearts of Jesus' disciples, including pastors, deacons, and lay teachers. But, as Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), notes in the foreword to this book, The path from dogma to proclamation or preaching has become very troublesome. Finding ways to relate the content of the Church's dogmas to everyday life can be challenging for today's preachers and teachers. Some people find the task so daunting that they leave dogma out. As a result, they wind up presenting something other than the Church's faith and speak in their own name, offering perhaps unwittingly merely their own, subjective ideas, rather than the Word of God. In Dogma and Preaching, the theologian and priest Joseph Ratzinger provides (1) a theory of preaching for today; (2) application of this theory to some themes for preaching drawn from the Church's dogmas; (3) meditations and sermons based on the liturgical year and the communion of saints; and (4) some thoughts regarding the decade after the Second Vatican and Christianity's seeming irrelevance. Ratzinger insists that sound preaching should rest on three pillars--Dogma, Scripture, and the Church Today, the contemporary situation in which the Church finds herself. He shows that the proper understanding of the Church, her dogmas, the nature of faith, and the contemporary world allow the proclaimer-believer to remain faithful to the Church's mission and life-changing message.

Journal II, 1957-1969


Mircea Eliade - 1977
    The journal is filled with his work, dreams, memories of his youth, stories of his travels, the reflections of each day.

Matters of Fact and of Fiction


Gore Vidal - 1977
    A major new collection of essays by one of America's most distinguished men of letters, including, among matters of fact, exposures of political dealings from the Adams family through Robert Moses, and, in fiction, Vidal's famous controversial study of some contemporary writers, "American Plastic," and his backward look at Tennessee Williams, "Some Memories of the Glorious Bird."

Harvest Song: Collected Essays and Stories


Meridel Le Sueur - 1977
    The new material enables the reader to fully appreciate the rich diversity of the writings of this 95-year-old midwestern radical and feminist. This volume won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1991.

A Sense of the Future: Essays in Natural Philosophy


Jacob Bronowski - 1977
    This volume extends the process to a further level of insight, and it may be more than suggestive that its final essay is entitled The Fulfillment of Man. Bronowski was an extraordinary teacher precisely because he did not condescend to his audience. He did not talk down to them; he knew how to talk them up to something near his own level, however briefly. He felt that if human beings are taken seriously, they can be led to respond to serious and difficult subjects that relate to the deepest aspects of nature, both beyond and within themselves.A Sense of the Future succeeds brilliantly in this respect, in part because it is a collection of essays that can be read independently as self-contained, delimited presentations; and in part because the book is more than the sum of these individual essays--it is a unified whole in which Bronowski's most abiding concerns are interrelated, juxtaposed, and tested for consistency in various intellectual contexts. The major unifying theme of the work is the intensely creative and human nature of the scientific enterprise--its kinship, at the highest levels of individual achievement, with comparable manifestations of the artistic imagination, and its ethical imperatives, evolved within the community of scientists over the centuries, which both embody and forge the values of civilized life at large. Still, the book's diversity of topics is as striking as the unity of its aim. Among the subjects within the realm of Bronowski's mind that are presented here are the limitations of formal logic and experimental methods, the epistemology of science, the distinctive nature of human language and the human mind, and the bases of biological and cultural evolution.Bronowski also contrasts the findings of science as the here and now of man's understanding with the ongoing activity of science as the open-ended search for truth, and he undertakes to demonstrate that the factual, individual is and the ethical, societal ought can be derived each from the other. A mathematician by training, Bronowski published poetry as well as books on literature and intellectual history. In addition to those mentioned above, The Common Sense of Science and Science and Human Values are among the most widely read of his books. Before his death in 1974, he was for many years a Senior Fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where his formal area of research was concerned with the questions of human specificity and uniqueness. Clearly, his interests ranged far beyond this area, and in many directions.

Reportage on Crime: Thirteen Horror Happenings That Hit the Headlines


Quijano de Manila - 1977
    What emerges is the picture of a fascinating decade: the 1960s.

A Way of Seeing


Edith Schaeffer - 1977
    It is a stimulating collection of sixty short essays by a talented woman--one who shared her perceptions of Christian family life in the successful book, What Is a Family? In this book, Edith Schaeffer views the world around her--the experiences of everyday life--pondering their meaning and the lessons to be learned. A Way of Seeing is a kaleidoscope of personal responses to current events, history, God's way, nature's wonders, and humankind's shortcomings. In these miniscule glimpses of daily life, the author considers such basic human concepts as trust, faith, security, death, fear, and love. At all times, "the rich threads from God's Word" are woven into Schaeffer's observations. Here readers will find a challenge to examine their own thoughts and become a "doer" by putting Christ's teachings into daily living. These essays were first written for the magazine Christianity Today. Enthusiastic response from readers prompted Edith Schaeffer to offer her "mental and spiritual food'' in book form. Although short enough to be read during relaxing breaks in the busy daily routine, in each essay readers will gain "a feeling of refreshment and a new train of thought" from an author of broad experience and Christian insight.

The Old Ways


Gary Snyder - 1977
    

Darkness and Scattered Light: Four Talks on the Future


William Irwin Thompson - 1977
    

The Tyrannosaurus Prescription and 100 Other Essays


Isaac Asimov - 1977
    The section on "Science" provides thirteen pieces on the planets; unstable atomic nuclei; Einstein, "the one-man revolution"; and dinosaurs."SciQuest" includes twenty of Asimov's best columns for SciQuest magazine, many of which vividly describe the inspiring struggles of great scientists - William Herschel, Michael Faraday, Joseph Henry, Ernest Rutherford, and others.Asimov's awesome grasp of culture - ancient and modern - is on display in "Foreword by Isaac Asimov."A special treat are two highly personal autobiographical essays, co-authored with his wife, Janet, that reveal the writer to be as eccentric as he is sane, as all-here as he is visionary.

Prejudices: Second Series


H.L. Mencken - 1977
    Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone

Visions Before Midnight


Clive James - 1977
    It needs flannel in lengthy widths, and it's here that Harry and Alan come through like a whole warehouse full of pyjamas) to the 1976 Olympics ('Jenkins has a lot to do' was a new way of saying that our man, of whom we had such high hopes, was not going to pull out the big one). In between we have 'War and Peace' (Tolstoy makes television history), the Royal Wedding (Dimbling suavely, Tom Fleming introduced the scene), the Winter Olympics (unintelligibuhl), the Eurovision Song Contest (The Hook of their song lasted a long time in the mind, like a kick in the knee. You could practically hear the Koreans singing it. 'Waterloo . . .' ), and much more.

Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography (Blackwell's classical studies)


Arnaldo Momigliano - 1977
    This collection of twenty-one carefully selected essays is remarkable both in the depth of its scholarship and the breadth of its subjects. Moving with ease across the centuries, Momigliano supplements powerful readings of writers in the Greek, Jewish, and Roman traditions, such as Tacitus and Polybius, with writings that focus on later historians, such as Vico and Croce. Charmingly written and concise, these pieces range from review essays reprinted from the New York Review of Books to treatises on the nature of historical scholarship. Essays in Ancient and Modern Historiography is a brilliant reminder of Momigliano’s profound knowledge of classical civilization and his gift for deftly handling prose.            With a new Foreword by Anthony Grafton, this volume is essential reading for any student of classics or historiography.

Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Spring 1977 (Asimov's Science Fiction, #1)


George H. ScithersIsaac Asimov - 1977
    DicksonShort Stories"The Doctors' Dilemma" by Martin Gardner"Think!" by Isaac Asimov"Quarantine" by Arthur C. Clarke"The Homesick Children" by Edward D. Hoch"Perchance to Dream" by Sally A. Sellers"Air Raid" by Herb Boehm"Kindertotenlieder or Who Puts the Creamy White Filling in the Krap-Snax?" by Jonathan Fast"Period of Totality" by Fred Saberhagen"The Scorch on Wetzel's Hill" by Sherwood Springer"Coming of Age in Henson's Tube" by William John WatkinsDepartments"Editorial" by Isaac Asimov"On Our Museum: A Preview of the New Smithsonian" by George O. Smith"On Books" by Charles N. BrownIsaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Spring 1977, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Whole No. 1)George H. Scithers, editor

Human Immortality: Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine


William James - 1977
    James sees the individual soul as part of a greater soul, hidden behind the veil of death. And that greater soul, perhaps God, perhaps an essence that defies description, is eternal. James brings together modern science and mysticism to show his audience that the two are not as incompatible as they might have believed. Spiritual seekers, religious individuals, and even skeptics will find this discussion on the possibility of immortality thought-provoking and electric. American psychologist and philosopher WILLIAM JAMES (1842-1910), brother of novelist Henry James, was a groundbreaking researcher at Harvard University and one of the most popular thinkers of the 19th century. Among his many works are Principles of Psychology (1890) and The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature (1902).

The Strife of the Spirit


Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz - 1977
    A selection of Rabbi Steinsaltz's works focusing on the needs of today's spiritual seekers.

The Land of Ulro


Czesław Miłosz - 1977
    A man who was raised a Catholic in rural Lithuania, lived through the Nazi occupation of Poland, and emerged, first in Europe and then in America, as one of our most important men of letters, speaks here of the inherited dilemmas of our civilization in a voice recognizable for its honesty and passion.

Working It Out: 23 Women Writers, Artists, Scientists, and Scholars Talk about Their Lives and Work


Sara RuddickC. Sears - 1977
    23 Women Writers, Artists, Scientists, and Scholars Talk About Their Lives and Work by Sara Ruddick (Editor), J. Green (Contributor), A. Walker (Contributor), T. Olsen (Contributor), Pamela Daniels (Editor), M. Young (Contributor), Adrienne Rich (Contributor), M. Thornton (Contributor) , C. Sears (Contributor), N.V. Mengel (Contributor), C.R. Stimpson (Contributor), E.F. Keller (Contributor), M. Schapiro (Contributor), C. Gilbert (Contributor), M. Stevens (Contributor), D.G. Michener (Contributor), V. Valian (Contributor), C.Y. Yu (Contributor), A. Lasoff (Contributor), K.K. Hamod (Contributor), A. Rorty (Contributor), N. Weisstein (Contributor)

Future in the Present: Selected Writings


C.L.R. James - 1977
    

Chicana Feminist


Martha P. Cotera - 1977
    Essays such as “Our Feminist Heritage” (1973) documented historical Mexican and Mexican American women activists to challenge the notion that feminism was foreign to Mexican American culture. Another essay, “Feminism as We See It” (1972), inspired by the difficulties she faced working with the largely white, middle-class Texas Women's Political Caucus, outlined the differences between Anglo feminists and Chicana feminists while also highlighting their similar political goals. Cotera's critical, politically astute, and often humorous commentary on the topics of feminism, gender roles, coalition politics, and public policy have been germane to contemporary Chicana feminist thought.Read more: Martha Cotera Biography - (b. 1938), Political Association of Spanish-Speaking Organizations http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/3...

At The Sign Of The Lion And Other Essays (1916)


Hilaire Belloc - 1977
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

The Portable Bernard Shaw


George Bernard Shaw - 1977
    Contents:The devil's disciple --Don Juan in hell (from Man and superman) --Pygmalion (with preface) --Heartbreak house (with preface) --In the beginning (with extracts from the preface to Back to Methuselah) --The adventures of the black girl in her search for God --Shakes versus Shav

Reporting: The Rolling Stone Style


Paul Scanlon - 1977
    

Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics


Joseph Cropsey - 1977