Now, for the first time, the works of America's supreme poet of the imagination are collected in one authoritative volume.

    Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

    In this exuberantly praised book — a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner — David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.

    It is rare that a historian of the Left has managed to retain as much credibility while refusing to let his academic mantle change his beautiful writing style from being anything but direct, forthright, and accessible. Whether his subject is war, race, politics, economic justice, or history itself, each of his works serves as a reminder that to embrace one's subjectivity can mean embracing one's humanity, that heart and mind can speak with one voice. Here, in six sections, is the historian's own choice of his shorter essays on some of the most critical problems facing America throughout its history, and today.

    in between, Nine Gates illumines the nature of originality, translation, the various strategies by which meaning unfolds itself in language, poetry's roots in oral memory and the importance of the shadow to good art.A person who enters completely into the experience of a poem is initiated into a deeper intimacy with life. Delving into the nature of poetry, Jane Hirshfield also writes on the nature of the human mind, perception and experience. Nine Gates is about the underpinnings of poetic craft, but it is also about a way of being alive in the world -- alertly, musically, intelligently, passionately, permeably.In part a primer for the general reader, Nine Gates is also a manual for the working writer, with each "gate" exploring particular strategies of language and thought that allow a poem to convey meaning and emotion with clarity and force. Above all, Nine Gates is an insightful guide to the way the mind of poetry awakens our fundamental consciousness of what can be known when a person is most fully alive.

    A crucial figure in the creation of our national parks system and a far-seeing prophet of environmental awareness who founded the Sierra Club in 1892, he was also a master of natural description who evoked with unique power and intimacy the untrammeled landscapes of the American West. The Library of America’s Nature Writings collects his most significant and best-loved works in a single volume.The Story of My Boyhood and Youth (1913) is Muir’s memoir of growing up by the sea in Scotland, of coming to America with his family at age eleven, and of his early fascination with the natural world. My First Summer in the Sierra (1911) is his famous account of the spiritual awakening he experienced when, in 1869, he first encountered the mountains and valleys of central California, of which he wrote: “Bathed in such beauty, watching the expressions ever varying on the faces of the mountains, watching the stars, which here have a glory that the lowlander never dreams of, watching the circling seasons, listening to the songs of the waters and winds and birds, would be endless pleasure…. No other place has ever so overwhelmingly attracted me as this hospitable, Godful wilderness.”The natural history classic The Mountains of California (1894) draws on half a lifetime of exploration of the High Sierra country to celebrate and evoke the region’s lakes, forests, flowers, and animals, its glaciers, storms, floods, and geological formations, in a masterpiece of observation and poetic description: “After ten years spent in the heart of it … it still seems to me above all others the Range of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain-chains I have ever seen.”Stickeen (1909), Muir’s most popular book, is the affectionate story of his adventure with a dog in Alaska. Rounding out the volume is a rich selection of essays—including “Yosemite Glaciers,” “God’s First Temples,” “Snow-Storm on Mount Shasta,” “The American Forests,” and the late appeal “Save the Redwoods”—highlighting various aspects of his career: his exploration of the Grand Canyon and of what became Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks, his successful crusades to preserve the wilderness, his early walking tour to Florida, and the Alaska journey of 1879.

    The Proper Study of Mankind brings together his most celebrated writing: here the reader will find Berlin's famous essay on Tolstoy, The Hedgehog and the Fox; his penetrating portraits of contemporaries from Pasternak and Akhmatova to Churchill and Roosevelt; his essays on liberty and his exposition of pluralism; his defense of philosophy and history against assimilation to scientific method; and his brilliant studies of such intellectual originals as Machiavelli, Vico, and Herder.

    In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.

    Best of all, he's a gifted writer who possesses a delightfully devilish sense of humor. In these essays, which range widely but mostly focus on the relationships between biology and human behavior, hard and intricate science is handled with a deft touch that makes it accessible to the general reader. In one memorable piece, Sapolsky compares the fascination with tabloid TV to behavior he's observed among wild African baboons. "Rubber necks," notes the professor, "seem to be a common feature of the primate order." In the title essay of The Trouble with Testosterone, Sapolsky ruminates on the links, real or perceived, between that hormone and aggression.Covering such broad topics as science, politics, history, and nature, the author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers writes accessible and interesting essays that explore the human struggle with moral and ethical problems in today's world. 20,000 first printing.

    In addition to his Nobel lecture, the volume includes essays on the condition of exile, the nature of history, the art of reading, and the idea of the poet as an inveterate Don Giovanni, as well as a homage to Marcus Aurelius and an appraisal of the case of the double agent Kim Philby (the last two were selected for inclusion in the annual Best American Essays volume). The title essay is a consideration of the poetry of Robert Frost, and the book also includes a fond appreciation of Thomas Hardy, a "Letter to Horace", a close reading of Rilke's poem "Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes", and a memoir of Stephen Spender. Among the other essays are Mr. Brodsky's open letter to Czech President Vaclav Havel and his "immodest proposal" for the future of poetry, an address he delivered while serving as U.S. Poet Laureate.

    By inviting the reader to explore the imagination's grip on daily life and how one lives in the pressure of that grip, Baxter offers his own perspective on reading and writing contemporary fiction.

    For she believes that the things we treasure, and the world we live in, can all be saved if only we will act. Beginning with an autobiographical essay about the roots of her own activism, Alice Walker then goes on to explore diverse public issues such as single parenthood, freedom of the press, civil rights and religion.

    Air Guitar pioneered a kind of plain-talking in cultural criticism, willingly subjective and always candid and direct. A valuable reading tool for art lovers, neophytes, students and teachers alike, Hickey's book--now in its eighth printing--has galvanized a generation of art lovers, with new takes on Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, Stan Brakhage, Andy Warhol and Perry Mason. In June 2009, Newsweek voted Air Guitar one of the top 50 books that "open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways," and described the book as "a seamless blend of criticism, personal history, and a deep appreciation for the sheer nuttiness of American life."Dave Hickey (born 1939) is one of today's most revered and widely read art writers. He has written for Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum and Vanity Fair among many others.

    Racial imagery and racial representation are central to the organisation of the contemporary world but, while there are many studies of images of black and Asian people, whiteness is an invisible racial position. At the level of racial representation, whites are not of a certain race. They are just the human race, a 'colour' against which other ethnicities are always examined.In White, Richard Dyer looks beyond the apparent unremarkability of whiteness and argues for the importance of analysing images of white people. Dyer traces the representation of whiteness by whites in Western visual culture, focusing on the mass media of photography, advertising, fine art, cinema and television.Dyer examines the representation of whiteness and the white body in the contexts of Christianity, 'race' and colonialism. In a series of absorbing case studies, he discusses the representations of whiteness in muscle-man action cinema, from Italian 'peplum' movies to the Tarzan and Rambo series; shows the construction of whiteness in photography and cinema in the lighting of white and black faces, and analyses the representation of white women in end-of-empire fictions such as The Jewel in the Crown, and traces the disturbing association of whiteness with death, in vampire narratives and dystopian films such as Blade Runner and the Aliens trilogy.

    For the last couple of years, Fulghum has been traveling the world - from Seattle to the Moab Desert to Crete - looking for a few fellow travelers interested in thinking along with him as he delights in the unexpected: trick-or-treating with your grandchildren dressed like a large rabbit, pots of daffodils blooming in mid-November, a view of the earth from outer space, the mysterious night sounds of the desert, every man's trip to a department store to buy socks, the raucous all-night long feast that is Easter in Greece, the trials and tribulations of plumbing problems and the friendship one can strike up with someone who doesn't share the same language." What on Earth Have I Done?" is an armchair tour of everyday life as seen by Robert Fulghum, one of America's great essayists, a man who has two feet planted firmly on the earth, one eye on the heavens and, at times, a tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Fulghum writes to his fellow travelers, with a sometimes light heart, about the deep and vexing mysteries of being alive and says, "This is my way of bringing the small boat of my life within speaking distance of yours. Hello " "

    Angela Carter is revealed here, anew, as one of the most important thinkers of twentieth-century world literature--and one of its most pungent voices."--Rick MoodyOne of contemporary literature's most original and affecting fiction writers, Angela Carter also wrote brilliant nonfiction. Shaking a Leg comprises the best of her essays and criticism, much of it collected for the first time. Carter's acute observations are spiked with her piercing matter-of-factness, her devastating wit, her penchant for mockery, and her passion for the absurd. Whether discussing films or food, feminism or fantasy, science fiction or sex, Carter consistently explores new territories and overturns old ideas. No cultural icon escapes her scrutiny; as in her fiction, Carter offers glorious evidence of the transforming power of the imagination. From delightfully wicked commentaries on Gone with the Wind, a Japanese fertility festival, and fellow writers, including Lawrence, Lovecraft, Borges, and Burroughs, to enchanting personal essays, Carter shares her thoughts and herself with glee."What a wonderful collection--sharp, funny, too decent for sarcasm but great wit and humanity, an unusual combination. But it makes us miss her, miss laughing with her, that real, intelligent, tough writing woman."--Grace Paley

    But today it is culture that stands at the heart of the American enterprise, mass entertainment the economic dynamo that brings the public into the consuming fold and consolidates the power of business over the American mind. For a decade The Baffler has been the invigorating voice of dissent against these developments, in the grand tradition of the muckrakers and The American Mercury. This collection gathers the best of its writing to explore such peculiar developments as the birth of the rebel hero as consumer in the pages of Wired and Details; the ever-accelerating race to market youth culture; the rise of new business gurus like Tom Peters and the fad for Hobbesian corporate "reengineering"; and the encroachment of advertising and commercial enterprise into every last nook and cranny of American life. With its liberating attitude and cant-free intelligence, this book is a powerful polemic against the designs of the culture business on us all.

    Olson's theories, which made explicit the principles of his own poetics and those of the Black Mountain poets, were instrumental in defining the sense of the postmodern in poetry and form the basis of most postwar free verse.The Collected Prose brings together in one volume the works published for the most part between 1946 and 1969, many of which are now out of print. A valuable companion to editions of Olson's poetry, the book backgrounds the poetics, preoccupations, and fascinations that underpin his great poems. Included are Call Me Ishmael, a classic of American literary criticism; the influential essays "Projective Verse" and "Human Universe"; and essays, book reviews, and Olson's notes on his studies. In these pieces one can trace the development of his new science of man, called "muthologos," a radical mix of myth and phenomenology that Olson offered in opposition to the mechanistic discourse and rationalizing policy he associated with America's recent wars in Europe and Asia.Editors Donald Allen and Benjamin Friedlander offer helpful annotations throughout, and poet Robert Creeley, who enjoyed a long and mutually influential relationship with Olson, provides the book's introduction.

    Davis, and Toni Morrison, argue that we have reached a crisis of democracy represented by an ominous shift toward a renewed white nationalism in which racism is operating in coded, quasi-respectable new forms.

    Delivering a devastating critique of contemporary discourses of American citizenship, she addresses the triumph of the idea of private life over that of public life borne in the right-wing agenda of the Reagan revolution. By beaming light onto the idealized images and narratives about sex and citizenship that now dominate the U.S. public sphere, Berlant argues that the political public sphere has become an intimate public sphere. She asks why the contemporary ideal of citizenship is measured by personal and private acts and values rather than civic acts, and the ideal citizen has become one who, paradoxically, cannot yet act as a citizen—epitomized by the American child and the American fetus. As Berlant traces the guiding images of U.S. citizenship through the process of privatization, she discusses the ideas of intimacy that have come to define national culture. From the fantasy of the American dream to the lessons of Forrest Gump, Lisa Simpson to Queer Nation, the reactionary culture of imperilled privilege to the testimony of Anita Hill, Berlant charts the landscape of American politics and culture. She examines the consequences of a shrinking and privatized concept of citizenship on increasing class, racial, sexual, and gender animosity and explores the contradictions of a conservative politics that maintains the sacredness of privacy, the virtue of the free market, and the immorality of state overregulation—except when it comes to issues of intimacy. Drawing on literature, the law, and popular media, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City is a stunning and major statement about the nation and its citizens in an age of mass mediation. As it opens a critical space for new theory of agency, its narratives and gallery of images will challenge readers to rethink what it means to be American and to seek salvation in its promise.

    Lippard, one of America's most influential art writers, weaves together cultural studies, history, geography, photography, and contemporary public art to provide a fascinating exploration of our multiple senses of place. Expanding her reach far beyond the confines of the art world, she discusses community, land use, perceptions of natures, how we produce the landscape, and how the landscape affects our lives.

    During the past four decades he's reviewed and revised the basic principles of his philosophy many times, sometimes as an exercise in personal growth, but more often in response to individual crisis. Then at fifty, seeking a simplicity to counter the complex thinking of his college years, Fulghum wrote a summary essay professing that all he really needed to know he learned in kindergarten. As he approached his sixtieth year, Fulghum became curious about what in his outlook had changed and what had endured. On review, Fulghum explains, everything he has ever said and thought and written is transparent to him now. As hard as he has tried to speak in his own voice, much of what he's said is neither original nor unique. The best ideas are often old and are continually being revived, recycled, renewed. Wherever his search took him, Fulghum found that someone else has been there before. And more often than not, that person has chosen words Fulghum wishes he had written, using language he can't improve upon. To Fulghum, however, this isn't a discouraging realization. It's a recognition n of companionship, which is an affirming consolation.The confirming statements, quotes, and credos that Fulghum recorded in his journals for years are collected here, representing the most important ideas underlying his living and thinking. They are organized thematically into such chapters as Companions, God, Bene-Dictions, Contra-Dictions, Simplify, and Believe. Each begins with Fulghum's own insightful, introductory words, followed by inspiring passages drawn from a diverse group of sources, from Jerry Garcia to Albert Camus, Dylan Thomas to Franz Kafka. At the end of each chapter, Fulghum offers readers his own personal commentary on the sources--where he was introduced to their words, why he returns to them again and again, and how they may change you.

    Brilliant and witty, his memoir reveals Steiner's thoughts on the meaning of the western tradition and its philosophic and religious premises.

    This acclaimed collection of essays begins with the title essay and a trip to Nevada, where, in the company of a brand inspector, John McPhee discovers that cattle rustling is not just history.

    His early poetry is memorable and moving. His poems and plays of middle age address the human condition with language that has entered our vocabulary for cataclysmic personal and world events. The writings of his final years offer wisdom, courage, humor, and sheer technical virtuosity. T. S. Eliot pronounced Yeats "the greatest poet of our time -- certainly the greatest in this language, and so far as I am able to judge, in any language" and "one of the few whose history is the history of their own time, who are a part of the consciousness of an age which cannot be understood without them." The Yeats Reader is the most comprehensive single volume to display the full range of Yeats's talents. It presents more than one hundred and fifty of his best-known poems -- more than any other compendium -- plus eight plays, a sampling of his prose tales, and excerpts from his published autobiographical and critical writings. In addition, an appendix offers six early texts of poems that Yeats later revised. Also included are selections from the memoirs left unpublished at his death and complete introductions written for a projected collection that never came to fruition. These are supplemented by unobtrusive annotation and a chronology of the life. Yeats was a protean writer and thinker, and few writers so thoroughly reward a reader's efforts to essay the whole of their canon. This volume is an excellent place to begin that enterprise, to renew an old acquaintance with one of world literature's great voices, or to continue a lifelong interest in the phenomenon of literary genius.

    It challenges all our preconceived notions of what it means to be black or white, and what it means to be human.

    H. Lawrence. He wanted, in fact, to write his "Lawrence book." The problem was, he had no idea what his "Lawrence book" would be, though he was determined to write a "sober academic study." Luckily for the reader, he failed miserably.Out of Sheer Rage is a harrowing, comic, and grand act of literary deferral. At times a furious repudiation of the act of writing itself, this is not so much a book about Lawrence as a book about writing a book about Lawrence. As Lawrence wrote about his own study of Thomas Hardy, "It will be about anything but Thomas Hardy, I am afraid-queer stuff-but not bad."

    Their dyaspora, much like a butterfly's fluctuating path, is a shifting landscape in which there is much travel between two worlds, between their place of origin and their adopted land.This compilation of essays and poetry brings together Haitian-Americans of different generations and backgrounds, linking the voices for whom English is a first language and others whose dreams will always be in French and Krey�l. Community activists, scholars, visual artists and filmmakers join renowned journalists, poets, novelists and memoirists to produce a poignant portrayal of lives in transition.Edwidge Danticat, in her powerful introduction, pays tribute to Jean Dominique, a sometime participant in the Haitian dyaspora and a recent martyr to Haiti's troubled politics, and the many members of the dyaspora who refused to be silenced. Their stories confidently and passionately illustrate the joys and heartaches, hopes and aspirations of a relatively new group of immigrants belonging to two countries that have each at times maligned and embraced them.

    

    The author, Major Tony Kern, draws on his extensive flight and crew-training experience in the U.S. Air Force, but his model is invaluable for all pilots, whether military, recreational, or commercial.Kern's work is a breakthrough, and a benchmark.--John J. Nance, author of Blind Trust

    His latest work for Radio 4 was Letter to Daniel, an emotional message to his newborn son.

    Collected here for the first time in one volume are her most influential literary and philosophical essays. Tracing Murdoch's journey to a modern Platonism, this volume includes incisive evaluations of the thought and writings of T. S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvior, and Elias Canetti, as well as key texts on the continuing importance of the sublime, on the concept of love, and the role great literature can play in curing the ills of philosophy. Existentialists and Mystics not only illuminates the mysticism and intellectual underpinnings of Murdoch's novels, but confirms her major contributions to twentieth-century thought.

    Based on her popular column, which ran in lesbian and gay periodicals across the country, this series of fictional comedy/adventures stars femme author Leslea Newman and her beloved butch, Flash.

    A native of Yugoslavia who emigrated to America in his teens, Simic believes that tragedy, comedy, and paradox are the commonplace experiences of an exile's life. In this delightful collection of journal entries, autobiographical essays, criticism, and prose poetry, the poet reveals once again his fondness for odd juxtapositions that reveal hidden and unexpected connections.In the title essay, Simic--whom critic Helen Vendler has called "the best political poet on the American scene"--reflects on his family's experiences of their war-torn homeland during World War II and the frightening familiarity of the recent tragic events in the region. The collection has many hilarious moments, such as Simic's memoir of his first days in New York City as a young poet and painter, impressions from his poet's notebook, and first lines from his unwritten books. The book also contains reflections on dreams, insomnia, and the night sky, and considers the work of poets Jane Kenyon and Ingeborg Bachmann, and of visual artists Saul Steinberg and Holly Wright.Charles Simic's most recent poetry collections are Walking the Black Cat ( 1996), nominated for the National Book Award, and Hotel Insomnia. He has won numerous prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, and a P.E.N. Translation Prize.

    But that doesn't seem to curb her popularity. In addition to her three-times-a-week news-paper column, Twisted, she has published two bestsellers, and hosts Twisted on Sunday, her own weekend radio program, plus Twisted on Friday, a weekly television show.Asiaweek, 13 June 1997, People Selection

    J. Liebling filed with The New Yorker during the Second World War. The magazine sent Liebling to Paris in 1939, hoping that he could replicate in wartime France his brilliant reporting of New York life. Liebling succeeded triumphantly, concentrating on writing the individual soldier's story to illuminate the larger picture of the European theater of the war and the fight for what Liebling felt was the first priority of business: the liberation of his beloved France. The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foundation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hardbound editions of important works of literature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torch-bearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inaugurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.For a complete list of titles, see the inside of the jacket. Despite his ill health and bad eyesight, Liebling went on patrol, interviewed soldiers, fled Paris and returned after D-Day, was shot at in North Africa and bombed in the blitz in London. Into thischaos, as his biographer Raymond Sokolov comments, "he brought himself, a fiercely committed Francophile with a novelist's skill for crystallizing his day-to-day experiences into a profound chronicle of a 'world knocked down.' "

    An irresistible collection of real-life love stories, mixed with Robert Fulghum's own quirky insights and unmistakable homespun observations, True Love tells the many unpredictable tales of love. Here it is: the intriguing story of the woman who marries her mother's high school flame; a man who learns that "old love" and new pajamas are a dangerous mix; a man who miraculously reunites with his first love (after 20 years) on an LA freeway; the touching tale of a husband's love for his wife after her disabling stroke; a 14-year-old's philosophy of looking for love on the boardwalk; the brief moment of connection of a smile shared at a stoplight; and so many more.

    Extracts from the diaries of this Hindi author describing his daily routine and discussing Hindi literature of his times; includes notes from his travelogue.

    Gruchow turns a naturalist's eye on a wilderness of wolves, moose, and loons as he visits national parks and other scenic spots. Drawing on the works of Thoreau and Wendell Berry, he explores the relationship of person to place.

    By exploring such themes as land, language, and self-identity, The Man Made of Words fashions a definition of American literature as it has never been interpreted before.

    Matsuda offers a strikingly insightful look at how our collective experiences of race, class, and gender inform our understanding of law and shape our vision of a more just society.

    F. K. Fisher began reflecting aloud over a large collection of old family photographs, envisioning a scrapbook of people, places, and times past. A Welcoming Life showcases these photographs, with extended anecdotal captions taken from Fisher's published and unpublished writings.

    In a gesture that speaks eloquently of Kline's relationship with the natural world, he scratched the animal gently with his walking stick, and the sleeping creature arched its back with pleasure at the attention.Like its title, this collection of essays on nature, farming, animals, insects, and other topics bespeaks the gentle demeanor and appreciation for nature that shape the author's descriptions of the world around him. Whether sharing his fondness for watching clouds while he rests his horses or for planting flowers in his favorite spot in the woods, David Kline offers a view of life that few of us take time to experience. Scratching the Woodchuck resounds with knowledge, reverence, and a joyful spirit, and to follow Kline's explorations of the landscape and animals around his farm is to sense and come to share his respect for and unity with the earth.

    A liberating feast of authentic blessings, insights, and teachings, brought to life by this acclaimed poet, teacher, and Catholic scholar. The Celtic Wisdom Trilogy includes three full-length sessions: The Inner Landscape Our bodies are mere outlines of a vast and complex interior world, a landscape of contradiction and mystery. The Inner Landscape explores the themes of self-exile and hardship, and the Celtic way of welcoming paradox and finding precious light in the darkest valleys of our inner terrain. The Divine Imagination Too often we remain distanced from what is truly sacred—the world around us and the divine imagination that created it. Here John O'Donohue immerses us in the greatest miracle of Celtic spirituality, namely its tradition of experiencing the divine as a lyrical, tender, creative force not visible, but always present in all things. The Invisible World The ancient Celts sensed an invisible world around them, the great unknown from which they came and the source of eternal wonder in their lives. Through prayer, O'Donohue teaches, we may enter directly into this secret immensity and escape the psychological prisons we create for ourselves. With prayers, blessings, poetry, and teachings.

    From Simon & Schuster, Life and Death by Andrea Dworkin is the unapologetic writing on the continuing war against women.In this important work, Dworken gathers essays published between 1987 and 1995, in which she comments on society's ongoing and tacit approval of aggression against women that often ends in these women losing their lives.

    Now, as more women make animals the subject of their investigations, significant new ideas are emerging--based on the premise that animals are honored co-sharers of the earth. This unprecedented anthology features original stories, essays, meditations, and poems by a vast array of women nature writers and field scientists, including:DIANE ACKERMAN - VIRGINIA COYLE - GRETEL EHRLICH - DIAN FOSSEY - TESS GALLAGHER - JANE GOODALL - TEMPLE GRANDIN - SUSAN GRIFFIN - JOY HARJO - BARBARA KINGSOLVER - URSULA LE GUIN - DENISE LEVERTOV - LINDA McCARRISTON - SUSAN CHERNAK McELROY - RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ - CYNTHIA MOSS - KATHERINE PAYNE - MARGE PIERCY - PATTIANN ROGERS - LINDA TELLINGTON-JONES - HAUNANI-KAY TRASK - GILLIAN VAN HOUTEN - TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS

    And in the contest between the senses, the ear, through which we had previously received all knowledge and the word of God, was conquered by the eye, which would henceforth be king. A new breed of painters aimed to reconcile the world of the senses with that of the mind, and their goal was to conceal themselves in the details and vanish away, like God. A new way of perceiving was born.Anita Albus describes the birth and evolution of trompe-l'oeil painting in oils in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, focusing her attention on works by northern European artists—both major and minor. As a scholar, she stands in the tradition of Panofsky; as a painter, she is able to see things others have not yet perceived; as a storyteller, she skillfully describes abstract notions in a vivid and exciting way. Like the multilayered technique of the Old Masters, her method assumes an ability to distinguish between the different levels, as well as a talent for synthesizing them.The first part of the book is devoted to the visibility of the invisible in the art of Jan van Eyck—his visual effects, perspective, artistic technique, and philosophy. The second and third parts are taken up with descriptions of the genres of "forest landscape," "still life," and "forest floor." In the midst of butterflies, bumblebees, and dragonflies, Vladimir Nabokov emerges as final witness to the survival in literature of all that was condemned to vanish from the fine arts. After a glimpse into the continuing presence of the past and some conjectures as to the future, the book's final part throws fresh light on the colored grains of the hand-ground pigments that were lost when artists' materials began to be commercially manufactured in the nineteenth century.The Art of Arts is thus both a dazzling cultural history and the story of two explosive inventions: the so-called third dimension of space through perspective, and the shockingly vivid colors of revolutionary oil paints. Albus makes abundantly clear how, taken together, these breakthroughs not only created a new art, but altered forever our perception of the world.

    Chosen from more than 350 national, regional, and specialty publications, the 25 pieces embrace the world of sports in all its drama, humanity, and excitement.

    Donald Hall has been writing poems for over fifty years and now stands as one of America's foremost poets. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Robert Frost Medal of the Poetry Society of America, the New England Book Award for nonfiction, and former Poet Laureate of New Hampshire among other honors, Donald Hall gives each listener this gift of words--words painstakingly entwined with passion, energy and love. Prose & Poetry is a tour de force--an intimate convergence of poet, author, and listener.

    Sports, tools, gals, cars, movies, clothes--this book leaves no stone unturned, no pants "unpantsed" in its pursuit of the eternal masculine. The Von Hoffmann brothers' culinary interests, for example, range all the way from "Colon Cleaner Chili" to a greasy Philly cheese steak; the rule of thumb seems to be, if it makes you wince, it's good eating. The primary virtue of The Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness is its willingness to go over the top, and far beyond: there's an extended exegesis of Kubrick's Spartacus, "the manliest movie ever made"; photos of not only the B-17 bomber, but also "the three-tailed devil" (the P-38 Lightning); Zippo lighters; John Ford Westerns; pocket knives; and WD-40. Some might say that the Von Hoffmanns are stuck in adolescence, and they may be right--but where else can you find out who painted that picture of dogs playing poker? (Cassius Marcellus Coolidge).

    Drawing on prehistory, protohistory, and Gallo-Roman antiquity, the twenty-six essays in this book focus on a particular place or artifact for the relevance inherent in each. A Bronze Age earring or the rippling wave pattern in Massiolite ceramic are more than archival curiosities for Sobin. Instead they invite inquiry and speculation on existence itself: Artifacts are read as realia, and history as an uninterrupted sequence of object lessons.As much travel writing as meditative discourse, Luminous Debris is enhanced by a prose that tracks, questions, and reflects on the materials invoked. Sobin engages the reader with precise descriptions of those very materials and the messages to be gleaned from their examination, be they existential, ethical, or political.An American expatriate living in Provence for the past thirty-five years, Gustaf Sobin shares his enthusiasm for his adopted landscape and for a vertical interpretation of its strata. In Luminous Debris he creates meaning out of matter and celebrates instances of reality, past and present.

    This is the story of the murders, their aftermath, and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable.

    Essays examine classics of children's literature that have been forgotten or neglected over time.

    This appealing anthology, illustrated with Jackson’s sketches and photographs, brings together his most famous essays, significant but less well known writings, articles originally published under pseudonyms, a bibliography of his landscape writings, and introductions that place his work in context."Jackson remains a model for civil discussion of architecture and the landscape."—Michael Leccese, Architecture"[This book] contains several wonderful essays in what is best described as domestic anthropology, including a paean to mobile homes and an investigation of the humble garage. Vintage Jackson."—Witold Rybczynski, Lingua Franca"A large and varied sampler of essays by the late doyen of American cultural geography. . . . Highly recommended for geographers and students of the American scene."—Kirkus Reviews"Horowitz makes the reader appreciate once again the dignity and affection Jackson brought to garages, supermarkets, cemeteries, or the urban grid."—Patricia Leigh Brown, New York Times

    First published in 1997 and illustrated throughout by John Nash, this is a personal, autobiographical view of the changing year, in the hedgerows and fields and in the life of the parish.

    They have been translated into more than fifty languages. His publishers estimate that Engish-more than eight million copies of his first novel Things Fall Apart (1958) have been sold. As a consequence, he is the best known and most widely studied African author. His distinguished books of fiction and nonfiction include No Longer at Ease, Arrow of God, Morning Yet on Creation Day, Christmas in Biafra, and others.Achebe often has been called the inventor of the African novel. Although he modestly denies the title, it is true that modem African literature would not have flowered so rapidly and spectacularly had he not led the way by telling Africa's story from a distinctively African point of view. Many other Africans have been inspired to write novels by his example.The interviews collected here span more than thirty years of Achebe's writing career. The earliest was recorded in 1962, the latest in 1995. Together they offer a representative sample of what he has said to interviewers for newspapers, journals, and books in many different countries. Through his own statements we can see Achebe as a man of letters, a man of ideas, a man of words.As these interviews show, Achebe is an impressive speaker and gifted conversationalist who expresses his ideas in language that is simple yet pungent, moderate yet peppered with colorful images and illustrations. It is this talent for deep and meaningful communication, this intimate way with words, that makes his interviews a delight to read. He has a facility for penetrating to the essence of a question and framing a response that addresses the concerns of thequestioner and sometimes goes beyond those concerns to matters of general interest.People, he says, are expecting from literature serious comment on their lives. They are not expecting frivolity. They are expecting literature to say something important to help them in their struggle with life. This is what literature, what art, is supposed to do: to give us a second handle on reality so that when it becomes necessary to do so, we can turn to art and find a way out. So it is a serious matter.

    It is, in that context, not a book about AIDS but, growing from Shurin's attempt to understand and reach out to those around him, a book of AIDS.

    Offers powerful insight into the portrayal of romantic love by Jean Rhys, Clover Adams, Christina Stead, Willa Cather, Grace Paley, Raymond Carver, Andre Dubus, and others.

    He is credited with almost single-handedly establishing the study of film as an accepted intellectual pursuit, as well as with being the spiritual father of the French New Wave. Bazin at Work is the first English collection of disparate Bazin writings since the appearance of the second volume of What Is Cinema? in 1971. It includes work from Cahiers le cinema (which he founded and which is the most influential single critical periodical in the history of the cinema) and Esprit. He addresses filmmakers including Rossellini, Eisenstein, Pagnol, and Capra and well-known films including La Strada, Citizen Kane, Scarface, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

    She won a place for herself in the New York art world of the 1950s and achieved recognition for her grand yet personal style of painting. That she is not more widely appreciated in the United States is partly because she lived in France during the later decades of her life.

    The author has pursued an alternative lifestyle for more than a quarter of a century, and has written for The Guardian and The Big Issue.

    We live our lives; we tell our stories. It is as natural as breathing. It is as important as breathing, too. History shapes our self-definition and our relationship to community; it locates us in time and place and helps to give meaning to our lives. History can be the vital thread that holds a nation together, as demonstrated most strikingly in the case of Jewish history. Conversely, for women, who have lived in a world in which they apparently had no history, its absence can be devastating. In Why History Matters, Lerner brings together her thinking and research of the last sixteen years, combining personal reminiscences with innovative theory that illuminate the importance of history and the vital role women have played in it. Why History Matters contains some of the most significant thinking and writing on history that Lerner has done in her entire career--a summation of her life and work. The chapters are divided into three sections, each widely different from the others, each revelatory of Lerner as a woman and a feminist. We read first of Lerner's coming to consciousness as a Jewish woman. There are moving accounts of her early life as a refugee in America, her return to Austria fifty years after fleeing the Nazis (to discover a nation remarkable both for the absence of Jews and for the anti-Semitism just below the surface), her slow assimilation into American life, and her decision to be a historian. If the first section is personal, the second focuses on more professional concerns. Included here is a fascinating essay on nonviolent resistance, tracing the idea from the Quakers (such as Mary Dyer), to abolitionists such as Theodore Dwight Weld (the most mobbed man in America), to Thoreau's essay Civil Disobedience, then across the sea to Tolstoy and Gandhi, before finally returning to America during the civil rights movement of the 1950s. There are insightful essays on American Values and on the tremendous advances women have made in the twentieth century, as well as Lerner's presidential address to the Organization of American Historians, which outlines the contributions of women to the field of history and the growing importance of women as a subject of history. The highlight of the final section of the book is Lerner's bold and innovative look at the issues of class and race as they relate to women, an essay that distills her thinking on these difficult subjects and offers a coherent conceptual framework that will prove of lasting interest to historians and intellectuals. A major figure in women's studies and long-term activist for women's issues, a founding member of NOW and a past president of the Organization of American Historians, Gerda Lerner is a pioneer in the field of Women's History and one of its leading practitioners. Why History Matters is the summation of the work and thinking of this distinguished historian.

    But things are not so simple. For while the culture of modernity has spread gradually throughout the West for roughly two hundred years, it accelerated in the 1960s in such a way as to undergo a subtle transformation. Hence the paradox of the world we live in: by all appearances the "rights of man" have emerged triumphant, yet at the same time they have been emptied of substance because of their radicalization. Modern man finds himself isolated and ensnared. By right, his autonomy should strengthen him; but in fact, he has been dispossessed of himself. The great artifice of our time is to give conformism the mask of liberty. Philippe Beneton, a prominent French conservative, has long meditated on Tocqueville, and Equality by Default is quintessentially Tocquevillian in that it does not offer a partisan polemic but rather paints a picture of contemporary life -- a picture that is also a guide for those who have a difficult time "seeing" contemporary liberalism for what it is. Artfully translated by Ralph Hancock, Equality by Default offers a unique and strikingly insightful account of the late-modern mind.

    Here are novelists, poets, essayists, humorists, cartoonists, journalists, many of them mothers and grandmothers themselves, authors of different ages and cultures, each writing in her own distinctive voice, reaching into the most personal part of her life to share her secret sorrows, joys, hurt, anger, and understanding in I've Always Meant to Tell You. "What do I tell her? What do I not tell her? What do I wish I had said?" Their letters hold thoughtful, provocative, funny, and sometimes painful revelations - memories and confessions, poems, fables and tales - at once personal and universal, touching and profound.

    The resulting volume is guaranteed to shake the assumptions of readers of every pigmentation and political allegiance.   In What's Going On, McCall adds up the hidden costs of the stereotype of black athletic prowess, which tells African American teenagers that they can only succeed on the white man's terms. He introduces a fresh perspective to the debates on gangsta rap and sexual violence. He indicts the bigotry of white churches and the complacency of the black suburban middle class, celebrates the heroism of Muhammad Ali, and defends the truth-telling of Alice Walker. Engaging, provocative, and utterly fearless, here is a commentator to reckon with, addressing our most persistent divisions in a voice of stinging immediacy.

    His first book, Half The Way Home: A Memoir Of Father And Son, was published in 1986. It was followed by The Mirror At Midnight: A South African Journey, and The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin. The Unquiet Ghost won the Madeline Dane Ross Award of the Overseas Press Club of America, given to "the best foreign correspondent in any medium showing concern for the human condition. Hochschild's work has also won prizes from the World Affairs Council, the Eugene V. Debs Foundation and the Society of American Travel Writers. An anthology of his shorter pieces, Finding The Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels, won the 1998 PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay. Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost: A Story Of Greed, Terror And Heroism. In Colonial Africa was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It, Half The Way Home, and The Unquiet Ghost were all named Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review. His books have been translated into six languages. Besides his books, Hochschild has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, The Nation, and many other newspapers and magazines. He is a former commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Hochschild teaches writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, and has been a guest teacher at other campuses in the U.S. and abroad. In 1997-98, he was a Fulbright Lecturer in India. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Arlie, the sociologist and author. They have two sons.

    Close analysis of individual films such as The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Belly of an Architect and Drowning by Numbers together with a discussion of his latest film The Pillow Book (1996) and recent interviews between Greenaway and Alan Woods about his work, make this book a must for all Greenaway enthusiasts.

    In this new collection Grossman revisits the "Long Schoolroom" of poetic principle--where he eventually learned to reconsider the notion that poetry was cultural work of the kind that contributed unambiguously to the peace of the world. The jist of what he learned--of what his "lessons" taught him--was (in the sentence of Oliver Wendell Holmes): "Where most men have died, there is the greatest interest." According to Grossman, violence arises not merely from the "barbarian" outside of the culture the poet serves, but from the inner logic of that culture; not, as he would now say, from the defeat of cultural membership but from the terms of cultural membership itself.Grossman analyzes the "bitter logic of the poetic principle" as it is articulated in exemplary texts and figures, including Bede's Caedmon and Milton. But the heart of The Long Schoolroom is American, ranging from essays on Whitman and Lincoln to an in-depth review of the work of Hart Crane. His final essays probe the example of postmodern Jewish and Christian poetry in this country, most notably the work of Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsburg, as it searches for an understanding of "holiness" in the production and control of violence.Allen Grossman is author of The Ether Dome and Other Poems: New and Selected, The Sighted Singer: Two Works on Poetry for Readers and Writers (with Mark Halliday), and most recently, The Philosopher's Window. He is Mellon Professor in the Humanities at The Johns Hopkins University.

    Not since the controversy surrounding the advent of the so-called New Wave writers of the 1960s and early 1970s had anyone dared to categorize writers. A work that was originally intended as an homage, to illuminate the works of many of the younger writers in the field, was vilified in numerous fanzine articles and convention panels. But Swanwick's essay was not intended to generate controversy and it remains, beyond the initial conflagration, a thoughtful and insightful look into the science fiction field of the early to mid-1980s. Herein lies the genesis of writers like William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson, Bruce Sterling and James Patrick Kelly. "A User's Guide to the Post Moderns," is published here for the first time since its initial magazine appearance along with "In the Tradition...", Swanwick's elegant assay on the fantasy genre, and a brand new introduction written specially for this collection.

    Offers a collection of mini-essays originally read over National Public Radio that address everyday issues and experiences ranging from summer camp to the mysteries of the universe.

    in geography. It's composed of 52 essays arranged in 12 monthly chapters (ex. in August you'll read about which berries are ripening on the west coast). This engaging book reveals the magic and humour of the natural world and reminds us of our place in it.

    With its incisive readings of hip-hop, film, literature, social unrest, sports, music and the electronic media, Walcott's book not only assesses the role of black Canadians in defining Canada, it also argues strenuously against any notion of an essentialist Canadian blackness. As erudite on the issue of American super-critic Henry Louis Gates' blindness to black Canadian realities as he is on the rap of the Dream Warriors and Maestro Fresh Wes, Walcott's essays are thought-provoking and always controversial in the best sense of the word. They have added and continue to add immeasurably to public debate.

    In this hilarious follow-up to his bestselling Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them, he chronicles the unlikely restoration of an Allis Chalmers tractor nicknamed Woodpecker.

    Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) was a pioneer in Indian art history and in the cultural confrontation of East and West. A scholar in the tradition of the great Indian grammarians and philosophers, an art historian convinced that the ultimate value of art transcends history, and a social thinker influenced by William Morris, Coomaraswamy was a unique figure whose works provide virtually a complete education in themselves. Finding a universal tradition in past cultures ranging from the Hellenic and Christian to the Indian, Islamic, and Chinese, he collated his ideas and symbols of ancient wisdom into the sometimes complex, always rewarding pattern of essays. The Door in the Sky is a collection of the author's writings on myth drawn from his Metaphysics and Traditional Art and Symbolism, both originally published in Bollingen Series. These essays were written while Coomaraswamy was curator in the department of Asiatic Art of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, where he built the first large collection of Indian art in the United States".Coomaraswamy's essays [give] us a view of his scholarship and brilliant insight".--Joseph Campbell"There are many who consider Coomaraswamy as one of the great seminal minds of this century.... This selection of his papers should go into every library".--Kathleen Raine, The [London] Times

    In the tessellated milieu of agendas, visions and revisions we call contemporary Malaysia, Generation, as a collection of independent comments from three members of the country's new generation of writers, is just one more piece in the Malaysian jigsaw puzzle.

    The aggregate work of America's most honored political columnist is like an improvised tapestry that begins without knowing how it will end. In this collection, themes such as the hubris of government or the inability of human institutions to perfect human nature either by legislative ambition or judicial fiat emerge and braid themselves together. They become a woven figure.And, with a recently elected president who ran to the right of George Bush and appears to be governing to the right of Ronald Reagan, the conservative thread in that tapestry seems finally dominant. But don't think that victory has left Will complacent. His essays are a passionately articulated inventory of what is wrong and inept in this country -- and what is good and worth preserving.

    The journeys proved to be pivotal in both their writing careers. Under the tutelage of their brilliant teacher Constantin Heger, the young authors penned the twenty-eight essays (devoirs) collected for the first time in this volume. Each essay, presented in its original French, is accompanied by an English translation and commentary to establish historical and literary context. Where M. Heger made comments, they are reproduced in full. Nine of the essays have never been published before.Sue Lonoff offers a mine of information on the Brontes and their Brussels experience, exploring why the months in Belgium meant so much to the sisters and how their writing exercises affected their developing prose styles. In an introduction and extensive annotations, Lonoff investigates the Brontes' interests, imaginations, stylistic concerns, and methods of work at this key point in their writing careers. So important was the Brussels experience for Charlotte, Lonoff contends, that she might never have become a major novelist had she missed it. Lonoff's commentary also illuminates the strong reactions each of the sisters had to their mentor and the impact on their lives of their relations with him. For scholars of the Victorian period, women's studies, and English literature, and for general readers interested in the Brontes and women's education of the time, this book is compelling reading.

    A section is devoted to beloved authors from the past, from Jane Austen to Willa Cather and Edith Wharton.

    punk rocker into a universal soldier.  His enemies: slackers and hypocrites.  His mission: to steel your soul and rock your world."Rollins was frontman for the seminal punk band Black Flag, and since 1987 has led the Rollins Band, whose ninth album, Come In and Burn, was just released by DreamWorks.As a spoken-word artist, he regularly performs at colleges and theaters worldwide and has released eight spoken-word audiotapes.  His album Get in the Van won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for 1995.  As an actor, he has appeared in The Chase, Johnny Mnemonic, Heat, and David Lynch's forthcoming film, Lost Highway.  From his days as front man for the band Black Flag and the current Rollins Band to his books and spoken-word audiotapes, Henry Rollins is the music, the attitude, and the voice that takes no prisoners.  In his twelve books, he has led us on a hallucinatory journey through the decades--and his mind--with poems, essays, short stories, diary entries, and rants that exist at "the frayed edges where reality ends and imagination begins" (Publishers Weekly).  For the first time, the best of his legendary, no-holds-barred writings are available.  This collection includes new photos and works from such seminal Rollins books as:High Adventure in the Great OutdoorsArt to Choke HeartsBang!Black Coffee BluesGet in the VanDo I Come Here Often?SolipsistPlus never before released stories and more...

    This wide-ranging volume covers Williams' works, from the early apprenticeship years through to his last play before his death in 1983. In addition to essays on the major plays, the contributors also consider selected minor plays, short stories, poems, and biographical concerns. The Cambridge Companion to Tennessee Williams also features a bibliographic essay surveying the major critical statements on Williams.

    to the last days of "Calvin and Hobbes". Packed with little-known anecdotes about well-known figures, Darwin's Orchestra will delight readers through whimsical connections, fascinating facts, and ironic observation. 100 illustrations.

    G. Wells.

    The critic Harold Bloom has included Kushner's play in his "Western canon" alongside Shakespeare and the Bible, and drama scholar John M. Clum has termed it "a turning point in the history of gay drama, the history of American drama, and of American literary culture." While we might be somewhat wary of the instant canonization that such critical assessments confer, clearly Kushner's play is an important work, honored by the Pulitzer Prize, thought worthy of recognition on "purely aesthetic" grounds at the same time that it has been embraced--and occasionally rejected--for its politics. Kushner's play explicitly positions itself in the current American conflict over identity politics, yet also situates that debate in a broader historical context: the American history of McCarthyism, of immigration and the "melting pot," of westward expansion, and of racist exploitation. Furthermore, the play enters into the politically volatile struggles of the AIDS crisis, struggles themselves interconnected with the politics of sexuality, gender, race, and class. The original essays in Approaching the Millennium explore the complexities of the play and situate it in its particular, conflicted historical moment. The contributors help us understand and appreciate the play as a literary work, as theatrical text, as popular cultural phenomenon, and as political reflection and intervention. Specific topics include how the play thematizes gender and sexuality, race and ethnicity; the postmodern incarnation of the Brechtian epic; AIDS and the landscape of American politics. The range of different international productions of Angels in America provides a rich basis for discussion of its production history, including the linguistic and cultural shifts required in its "translation" from one stage to the next. The last section of Approaching the Millennium includes interviews with Tony Kushner and other key creators and players involved in the original productions of Angels. The interviews explore issues raised earlier in the volume and dialogues between the creative artists who have shaped the play and the critics and "theatricians" engaged in responding to it. Contributors to this volume are Arnold Aronson, Art Borreca, Gregory W. Bredbeck, Michael Cadden, Nicholas de Jongh, Allen J. Frantzen, Stanton B. Garner, Deborah R. Geis, Martin Harries, Steven F. Kruger, James Miller, Framji Minwalla, Donald Pease, Janelle Reinelt, David Román, David Savran, Ron Scapp, and Alisa Solomon. Deborah Geis is Associate Professor of English, Queens College, City University of New York. Steven F. Kruger is Professor and Chair of the Department of English, Queens College, City University of New York.

    The title section, My Half Century, recounts fellow poets and artists Blok, Modigliani, Mandelstam, Gumilyov, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, et al. Also here, Akmatova's illuminating Prose About the Poem, on the genesis of her masterpiece A Poem Without a Hero, ' along with extensive notes and a detailed biographical sketch.

    The heartwarming and tender treasury -- another release in the bestselling Stories for the Heart series from Alice Gray -- includes stories by several of America's most respected and loved Christian communicators. Divided into three sections, "Christmas Treasures," "Once Upon a Christmas Time," and "Christmas Reflections," it's the perfect holiday gift to give or to keep for readers who want to curl up by a crackling fire and renew their faith, hope, and love for the holiday season.Rekindle the warmth of Christmas. Curl up by the fire and warm your heart and soul this holiday season with these wonderful stories. Tender and uplifting, this collection will greatly renew your faith, hope, and love for the Christmas season.From the Hardcover edition.

    A delicious mix of Mowat's much-loved prose stories for readers of all ages.

    Five years later, Gilfillan returns to the genre with a new collection of poetic essays that grew from his travels along the folkloric backroads of Appalachia.

    They are collected together here for the first time. Her subjects range broadly and wildly, from Matisse and ?reading women?, to the issue of race in The Bodyguard, from Ray Charles' voice and lyrics to narrative theories, from cat therapy to sex, memory and death. An exceptional writer, Tillman takes the reader on an expansive tour of 20th century life and culture to unearth and enlighten its preoccupations, fears, and obsessions.

    The book brings together film scholars and philosophers in a united commitment to the standards of argumentation that characterize analytic philosophy rather than a single doctrinal approach. The essays address such topics as authorship, emotion, ideology, representation, and expression in film.

    Putting the racial dynamics of feminist interpretation center stage, these essays question such issues as the primacy of sexual difference, the universal nature of psychoanalytic categories, and the role of race in the formation of identity. They offer new ways of approaching African American texts and reframe our thinking about the contexts, discourses, and traditions of the American cultural landscape. Calling for the racialization of whiteness and claiming that psychoanalytic theory should make room for competing discourses of spirituality and diasporic consciousness, these essays give shape to the many stubborn incompatibilities—as well as the transformative possibilities—between white feminist and African American cultural formations.Bringing into conversation a range of psychoanalytic, feminist, and African-derived spiritual perspectives, these essays enact an inclusive politics of reading. Often explosive and always provocative, Female Subjects in Black and White models a new cross-racial feminism.

    In accessible and stirring prose, Walker speaks directly about her own experiences - such as growing up in a deeply religious home, living in the Jim Crow South, marrying and raising a family, and becoming a civil rights activist. These essays also offer Walker's critical perspectives on a wide range of topics, from the role of the black woman artist to the distinctiveness of African American cultural life and to the importance of education in the fight for political change. Maryemma Graham's introduction provides a historical context for the essays, placing Walker's work within the African American literary canon. Walker reflects on the numerous poets and writers she has known over the years, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and Richard Wright. A work of broad general appeal, On Being Female, Black, and Free offers a powerful introduction to the work of an essential American literary figure.

    We have no captive audience. We do not teach. We write to be readable and to engage the interest of what Virginia Woolf called 'the common reader.'"    In a life that spanned almost the entire course of the twentieth century--he was born in 1900 and died in 1997--Sir Victor Pritchett mastered nearly every form of literature: the novel, short fiction, travel writing, biography, criticism, and memoir. Now, Sir Victor's son Oliver has selected representative samples to illustrate the tremendous scope of his father's brilliance. Included in this volume are sections of Pritchett's memoirs, A Cab at the Door and Midnight Oil; his reflections on turning eighty; and an account of a visit to the Appalachians written in 1925. There are also portraits of Dublin, New York, the Amazon, and Spain; selections from the novels Dead Man Leading and Mr. Beluncle; thirteen complete short stories; excerpts from biographies of Turgenev and Chekhov; and critical pieces on Twain, Scott, Dickens, Eliot, Henry James, Tolstoy, Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie, and others.    "Pritchett has lived as a man of letters must, by his pen, and he has done it with a freshness of interest and an infectious curiosity that have never waned," observed novelist Mar- garet Drabble. Taken together with Oliver Pritchett's appreciation of his father, and John Bayley's "In Memoriam," The Pritchett Century stands as the most comprehensive collection of Sir Victor's work available in one volume.The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.From the Hardcover edition.

    Half a century, and over a thousand books later, the name Folio has become synonymous with affordable fine editions — books chosen for their enduring worth, handsomely designed, illustrated and bound, which reflect not just the traditional skills of the book-maker's art but also the tremendous possibilities opened up by new technology. "Folio 50", compiled by the distinguished bibliographer Paul W. Nash, is the first fully descriptive record of the Society's publications over its fifty years to date. It is sumptuously illustrated and contains a history of the Society, essays on Folio's design and production, and the personal reminiscences of writers, artists and Society members. This is a commemorative volume of outstanding usefulness.

    This is the first English translation of another of his important books, Kritiken und Aufsätze zum Film, which collects both film reviews and theoretical essays, most of them written between 1925 and 1940.     As a young man in 1920s Berlin, Arnheim began writing about film for the satirical magazine Das Stachelschwein. In 1928, as the Weimar Republic began to crumble, he joined the intellectual weekly Die Weltbühne as  film critic and assistant editor for cultural affairs. His most important contributions to both magazines are published here, including witty and incisive comments on many of the great classics of the silent and early sound period, such as Buster Keaton’s The General and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. With the advent of Nazism in Germany, Arnheim emigrated first to Italy, where he wrote essays (many included here) for a nascent Enciclopedia del Cinema, and then to England and the United States.    The thirty essays on film theory discuss elements of theory and technique, early sound film, production, style and content, and the relationship of film and the state. The fifty-six critical pieces include Arnheim’s thoughts on the practice of film criticism, his reviews of German, American, French, and Soviet films, and his profiles of Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Felix Bressart, Erich von Stroheim, and others. Also included in the volume are an introduction (newly revised by Arnheim) and a comprehensive bibliography.

    In the spirit of Owsley's effort to expand understanding of the south, this text provides fresh perspectives.

    Originally published in 1978, The Afro-American Woman includes essays that highlight historical experiences common to Black women. The anthology also features essays that focus on early activists Anna J. Cooper, Nannie Burroughs, and Charlotta A. Bass. This book is a long out-of-print, valuable reference source. It was the first written by Black academics which analyzed these women's experiences from a historical and Black nationalist perspective.

    The eighteen contributors to this volume—anthropologists, ethnohistorians, and literary critics—investigate broad cultural and literary aspects of the resulting social and demographic collapse or radical transformation of many Native societies and the gradual opening of the Southeast to European colonization.

    Collection of essays on social subjects, etc.

    But with Ambeth, this act of communing with the dead weight of the past tends to focus on an obsessive, one might even say fetishistic, delight in the details of everyday life. This brings us to (one of the qualities) of Ambeth's essay;: the careful attention they devote tot he common, the overlooked, the ordinary, what we might think of as the splendid basura of the archives: the sari - sari, the tira - tira, the anu-ano, as well as the diumano of the past.

    The anthology draws from a great range of sources, from the leading art magazines and art historical journals to newspapers and news magazines such as the New York Times, Life, and Newsweek. What emerges from this rich cross-section of critical and journalistic commentary is a fascinating view of the tumultuous rise of Pop art and its establishment as a major force in contemporary art. A broad selection of articles traces the emergence of the movement itself in England and America, as seen through the eyes of the working critics of the day. The focus then narrows to present in-depth writings on the four major Pop artists: Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol, along with an examination of many other artists involved in the movement. From reviews of the very first shows of many of these artists to interviews with them, to news stories about their collectors and their lifestyles, Pop Art: A Critical History represents the most complete and coherent record of Pop art yet published. The book concludes with an invaluable chronology of the major '60s exhibitions by Pop artists. Among the contributors are Lawrence Alloway, John Coplans, Donald Judd, Max Kozloff, Gerald Nordland, Peter Plagens, Barbara Rose, Robert Rosenblum, John Russell, Gene Swenson, and Sidney Tillim.