The Unknown Poe


Edgar Allan Poe - 1980
    Essays (in translation) by Charles Baudelaire Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Valéry, & André Breton shed light on Poe’s relevance within European literary tradition.These are the arcana of Edgar Allan Poe: writings on wit, humor, dreams, drunkenness, genius, madness, and apocalypse. Here is the mind of Poe at its most colorful, its most incisive, and its most exceptional.Edgar Allan Poe's dark, melodic poems and tales of terror and detection are known to readers everywhere, but few are familiar with his cogent literary criticism, or his speculative thinking in science, psychology or philosophy. This book is an attempt to present his lesser known, out of print, or hard to find writings in a single volume, with emphasis on the theoretical and esoteric. The second part, "The Friend View," includes seminal essays by Poe's famous admirers in France, clarifying his international literary importance.America has never seen such a personage as Edgar Allan Poe. He is a figure who appears once an epoch, before passing into myth. American critics from Henry James to T. S. Eliot have disparaged and attempted to explain away his influence to no end, save to perpetuate his fame. Even the disdainful Eliot once conceded, "and yet one cannot be sure that one's own writing has not been influence by Poe.""Edgar Allan Poe was and is a turbulence, an anomaly among the major American writers of his period, an anomaly to this day. He both amazed and antagonized his contemporaries, who could not dismiss him from the first rank of writers, though many felt his work to be morally questionable and in dubious taste, and though he scourged them in print regularly in the course of producing a body of criticism that is sometimes flatly vindictive and often brilliant." —Marilynne Robinson, The New York Times Review of BooksEdgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), born in Boston, Massachusetts, was an American poet, writer, editor, and literary critic. He is well known for his haunting poetry and mysterious short stories. Regarded as being a central figure of Romanticism, he is also considered the inventor of detective fiction and the growing science fiction genre. Some of his most famous works include poems such as "The Raven," "Annabel Lee," and "A Dream Within a Dream"; tales such as "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of Red Death," and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

Majestic


Whitley Strieber - 1989
    An explosion of light and sound made the sheep wail, the chickens squawk, and the children scream. And then the ranchers heard a noise they thought could only have come from the devil himself.For forty years, Majestic Agency director Wilfred Stone helped the CIA pretend the landing never happened. Then his conscience got the better of him.This is the real story, told to reporter Nicholas A. Duke by the guilt-racked shell of the man who once worked tirelessly to cover it all up. It is a truth so terrifying that Whitley Strieber had to call it fiction.

Film / Genre


Rick Altman - 1998
    It connects the roles played by industry critics and audiences in making and re-making genre. In a critique of major voices in the history of genre theory from Aristotle to Wittgenstein, Altman reveals the conflicting stakes for which the genre game has been played. Recognizing that the very term "genre" has different meaning for different groups, he bases his genre theory on the uneasy competitive yet complimentary relationship among genre users and discusses a range of films from "The Great Train Robbery" to "Star Wars", and from "The Jazz Singer" to "The Player".

Alice in Wonderland High


Rachel Shane - 2015
    Her parents are environmental activists whose cringeworthy public protests might involve chaining themselves to a fence and pleading with passersby to “Save the World. Save Alice!” It’s not that Alice doesn’t believe there’s work to be done. But after a petition to start a farmers’ market meets with more snickers than signatures, she figures she should shut up instead of speak out. At least, that is, until she can find something that feels real. Then along comes Whitney Lapin, a girl who speaks in cryptic riddles and spends her free time turning abandoned warehouses into beautiful gardens. Charismatic Whitney leads Alice on a rabbit trail into the underground—a.k.a. secret society—of Wonderland High.Curiouser and curiouser. Alice is in wonderland! Even though Whitney’s group of teenage environmental vigilantes operates on the wrong side of the law, with them, Alice is finally free to be herself. She stomps on her good-girl image by completing a series of environmental pranks to impress the new group: flooding the school and disguising a pig as a baby in order to smuggle it out of a testing facility. She wants to trust them, and she especially wants to trust (or maybe kiss) Chester Katz—a boy with a killer smile, a penchant for disappearing, and a secret that will really turn Alice’s world backwards. But then one of the young vigilantes tries to frame Alice for all the pranks, and she must figure out their secret before she ends up in front of a jury that’s screaming, “Off with her head!”

500 Great Books by Women


Erica Bauermeister - 1994
    Organized by such themes as Art, Choices, Families, Growing Old, Growing Up, Places and Homes, Power, and Work, this reference book presents classic and contemporary works, from Lady Nijo's thirteenth-century diaries to books by authors including Toni Morrison, Alice Hoffman, Nadine Gordimer, and Isabel Allende. With annotated entries that capture the flavor of each book and seven cross-referenced indexes, 500 Great Books by Women is a one-of-a-kind guide for all readers and book lovers that celebrates and recommends some of the very best writing by women.

The Word Pretty


Elisa Gabbert - 2018
    Combining elements of criticism, meditation, and personal essay, this book reveals a poet’s attention turned to subjects from translation to aphorism, from unreliable memory to beauty and the male gaze.

Pian Pian


Haesin Young
    The location of these “imprints” is unique to the individual, but the meaning behind the letters is the same. Sooha’s happens to be located in a – ahem – very private location. The chances of actually uniting with one’s soulmates is rather slim, but that hasn’t stopped Sooha. Not only does he believes he will find his, but he has refused to enter into any other relationship until then. But lately his handsome boss chef Calix has had him feeling some feels “down there...” He thought he was alone in these feelings until the chef suddenly started showing interest in him. Could the tides be finally changing for our innocent Sooha?

No Regrets: Three Discussions


Dayna TortoriciElizabeth Gumport - 2013
    No Regrets is a set of three transcribed roundtable discussions with 12 participants and moderator Dayna Tortorici about what the women recall from their lives and reading lists in their early twenties.

Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays


Chinua Achebe - 1988
    For Achebe, overcoming Eurocentrism goes hand in hand with eradicating the destructive effects of racism and injustice in Western society. He reveals the impediments that still stand in the way of open, equal dialogue between Africans and Europeans, between blacks and whites, but also instills us with hope that they will soon be overcome.

Madness and Memory: The Discovery of Prions--A New Biological Principle of Disease


Stanley B. Prusiner - 2014
    Prusiner received a Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award for achievement in physiology or medicine. That he was the sole recipient of the award for the year was entirely appropriate, for his struggle to identify the agent responsible for ravaging the brains of animals suffering from scrapie and mad cow disease, and of humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, had been waged largely alone and in some cases in the face of strenuous disagreement.   In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions—infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material—and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced using talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases. Prusiner’s hypothesis, once considered heresy, now stands as accepted science and the basis for developing diagnoses and eventual cures. He closes with a meditation on the legacy of his discovery: What will it take to cure Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s and other devastating diseases of the brain?

Here We Are: My Friendship with Philip Roth


Benjamin Taylor - 2020
    Then he pitched forward into the soup, unconscious. When I entered the examining room twenty minutes after our arrival at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, Philip said, "No more books." Thus he announced his retirement.So begins Benjamin Taylor's Here We Are, the unvarnished portrait of his best friend and one of America's greatest writers. Needless to say, Philip Roth's place in the canon is secure, but what is less clear is what the man himself was like. In Here We Are, Benjamin Taylor's beautifully constructed memoir, we see him as a mortal man, experiencing the joys and sorrows of aging, reflecting on his own writing, and doing something we all love to do: passing the time in the company of his closest friend. Here We Are is an ode to friendship and its wondrous ability to brighten our lives in unexpected ways. Benjamin Taylor is one of the most talented writers working today, and this new memoir pays tribute to his friend, in the way that only a writer can. Roth encouraged him to write this book, giving Taylor explicit instructions not to sugarcoat anything and not to publish it until after his death. Unvarnished and affectionately true to life, Taylor's memoir will be the definitive account of Philip Roth as he lived for years to come.

The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton And Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press


Jeremy Clay - 2013
    HOLIDAYMAKER FIGHTS OFF AFRICAN LION IN WELSH HOTEL ROOMMAN SWALLOWS MOUSE AND DIESWIFE DRIVEN MAD BY HUSBAND TICKLING FEETPALLBEARER KILLED BY COFFIN IN GRAVEYARDLIBERALS EAT DOGFrom the newspaper archives of the British Library, Jeremy Clay has unearthed the long-lost stories that enthralled and appalled Victorian Britain.Within these pages are the riotous farces and tragedies of 19th-century life, a time when life was hard, pleasures short-lived, and gloating over other people’s misfortune a thoroughly acceptable form of entertainment.Deliciously appalling and deliriously funny, The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton will have you, one way or another, in tears …

Liberty or Love!


Robert Desnos - 1927
    Mystery, the marvellous, a city transmuted by love, Sanglot's pursuit of the siren Louise Lame, such are the essential ingredients of this the last masterpiece of early Surrealism to remain untranslated into English. It was originally published in 1924 to immediate and lasting acclaim - except from the public authorities who immediately censored whole sections (here restored). Impossible to describe a novel of such virtuosity and bravura, and one which consistently refuses to behave as one expects, characters appear and vanish according to whim or desire, they walk underwater, nonchalantly accept astounding coincidences. It's a hymn to the erotic, an adventure story darkly illumined by the shades of Sade, Lautreamont and Jack the Ripper, a dream both violent and tender, an obsession, in fact the perfect embodiment of the Surrealist spirit: at once joyful, despairing, and effortlessly scandalous.

Art Deco: The Golden Age of Graphic Art & Illustration


Michael Robinson - 2008
    Divided into three sections – the movement, its fashion and advertising – the reader gains great insight into the artists and innovators that helped popularize the Art Deco movement, such as Georges Barbier, Erté, Cassandre and Paul Colin. While the main focus for this intriguing book is centred on graphic art, numerous examples of other forms of Art Deco are also featured. Nestled among the posters and paintings, sculpture, objets d'art and jewellery assert their similarity, whether through line, form or theme. These echoes serve to show the creativity fertility of the period as styles and ideas traversed artistic media.

Shakespeare Insult Generator: Mix and Match More than 150,000 Insults in the Bard's Own Words (Shakespeare for Kids, Shakespeare Gifts, William Shakespeare)


Barry Kraft - 2014
    This entertaining insult generator and flip book collects hundreds of words from Shakespeare's most pointed barbs and allows readers to combine them in creative and hilariously stinging ways. From "apish bald-pated abomination" to "cuckoldly dull-brained blockhead" to "obscene rump-fed hornbeast," each insult can be chosen at random or customized to fit any situation that calls for a literary smackdown. Featuring an informative introduction on Shakespearean wit, and notes on which terms were coined or only used once by the author in his work, this delightful book will sharpen the tongue of Shakespeare fans and insult aficionados without much further ado.