The latest generation of titles in this series also features glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.CliffsNotes on Atlas Shrugged is your guide to author Ayn Rand's masterpiece, an impassioned defense of the freedom of man's mind. She shows that without the independent mind, our society would collapse into primitive savagery.Delve into the post-World War II historical context of Atlas Shrugged and the modern implications of its conclusions. Other features that help you study includeCharacter analyses of major playersA character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the charactersCritical essaysA review section that tests your knowledgeA Resource Center full of books, articles, films, and Internet sitesClassic literature or modern modern-day treasure you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides."

    His main target is the all-pervasive figure of the child, which he reads as the linchpin of our universal politics of “reproductive futurism.” Edelman argues that the child, understood as innocence in need of protection, represents the possibility of the future against which the queer is positioned as the embodiment of a relentlessly narcissistic, antisocial, and future-negating drive. He boldly insists that the efficacy of queerness lies in its very willingness to embrace this refusal of the social and political order. In No Future, Edelman urges queers to abandon the stance of accommodation and accede to their status as figures for the force of a negativity that he links with irony, jouissance, and, ultimately, the death drive itself.Closely engaging with literary texts, Edelman makes a compelling case for imagining Scrooge without Tiny Tim and Silas Marner without little Eppie. Looking to Alfred Hitchcock’s films, he embraces two of the director’s most notorious creations: the sadistic Leonard of North by Northwest, who steps on the hand that holds the couple precariously above the abyss, and the terrifying title figures of The Birds, with their predilection for children. Edelman enlarges the reach of contemporary psychoanalytic theory as he brings it to bear not only on works of literature and film but also on such current political flashpoints as gay marriage and gay parenting. Throwing down the theoretical gauntlet, No Future reimagines queerness with a passion certain to spark an equally impassioned debate among its readers.

    Henry, Jack London, and Stephen Crane. Includes multiple stories per author, their most famous short works, along with biographical notes.Complete contents:YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN, by Nathaniel HawthorneTHE CELESTIAL RAILROAD, by Nathaniel HawthorneTHE GREAT STONE FACE, by Nathaniel HawthorneETHAN BRAND, by Nathaniel HawthorneRIP VAN WINKLE, by Washington IrvingTHE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, by Washington IrvingAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF by James Fenimore CooperTHE DAMNED THING, by Ambrose BierceAN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK, by Ambrose BierceTHE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE CASK OF AMONTILLADO, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE PURLOINED LETTER, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE PREMATURE BURIAL, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, by Edgar Allan PoeTHE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, by Bret HarteTHE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, by Bret HartevHANDS, by Sherwood AndersonI’M A FOOL, by Sherwood AndersonTHE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG, by Mark TwainTHE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF CALAVERAS COUNTY, by Mark TwainTHE GIFT OF THE MAGI, by O. HenryTHE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF, by O. HenryTHE COP AND THE ANTHEM, by O. HenryA RETRIEVED REFORMATION, by O. HenryTHE DUPLICITY OF HARGRAVES, by O. HenryTO BUILD A FIRE, by Jack LondonAN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH, by Jack LondonLOVE OF LIFE, by Jack LondonTHE HEATHEN, by Jack LondonTHE PEARLS OF PARLAY, by Jack LondonTHE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY, by Stephen CraneTHE MONSTER, by Stephen CraneTHE BLUE HOTEL, by Stephen CraneAnd don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for Megapack to see the other great entries in this series -- covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, children's literature, and much, much more!

    Set against immense political upheaval, or evoking the intimate struggles between men and women, parents and children, this astonishing collection charts our desire for love, our fragility, and our strength. From the title piece, in which a young biologist conceals his discoveries at a polluted river from a local woman, to the family aided by an enemy in “The Crossing,” to the old man weighing his regrets in “Francis John Jones, 1924–” Seiffert’s acclaimed, refined prose movingly captures the lives of her characters in their most essential, secret moments.

    From Dido to Jane Eyre, the characters of great literature are trying to figure out how to have healthy, happy relationships—with varying degrees of success—just like the rest of us. But the world’s best-known heroes and heroines didn’t go through all their trials and tribulations for naught—and now, thanks to Much Ado About Loving, we can learn from their foibles, misadventures, and eventual triumphs. Much as things have changed since the days when Jane Austen was writing, a lot about love has stayed the same. And so timeless literary classics contain many great lessons about romance that are as relevant today as they ever were. In this unique relationship guide full of humor and pathos, Maura Kelly and Jack Murnighan reflect on the renowned novels that have given them the most insight into their romantic lives. In chapters like Lightbulb in August: How to Have a Clue When He’s Just Not That Into You, they use Faulkner to discuss early warning signs a relationship isn’t going to work out. In Infinite Gesticulating: Why Do Men Talk So Much? they cite David Foster Wallace as an example of the male propensity to bloviate, but also have some suggestions for how to deal with it. Witty, wise and well-read in equal measures, Kelly and Murnighan will appeal to lovers of Candace Bushnell as much as to hard-core literary types with their entertaining, erudite, and engaging style.

    As a novelist and icon, Rushdie has embraced both 'popular' and 'high' culture; reflecting this, the Guide brings together both academic criticism and journalism to investigate the passions and preoccupations of Rushdie's many critics, steering the reader through the inflamed debates and rhetoric surrounding this much admired but controversial author.

    By contrast, Jewish religious leaders in the sixth century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical city of Sodom. When these two traditions collided in Christian Rome during the late empire, the tragic repercussions were felt throughout Europe and the New World.Louis Crompton traces Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain under the Inquisition. But Protestant authorities were equally committed to the execution of homosexuals in the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. The root cause was religious superstition, abetted by political ambition and sheer greed. Yet from this cauldron of fears and desires, homoerotic themes surfaced in the art of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality also flourished in the court intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of England, Queen Anne, and Frederick the Great.Anti-homosexual atrocities committed in the West contrast starkly with the more tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as revealed in poetry, fiction, and art and in the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist priests, scholars, and actors. In the samurai tradition of Japan, Crompton makes clear, the celebration of same-sex love rivaled that of ancient Greece.Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, "Homosexuality and Civilization" is a stunning exploration of a rich and terrible past.

    Carter portrays Proust’s amorous adventures and misadventures from adolescence through his adult years, supplying where appropriate Proust’s own sensitive, intelligent, and often disillusioned observations about love and sexuality. Proust is revealed as a man agonizingly caught between the constant fear of public exposure as a homosexual and the need to find and express love. In telling the story of Proust in love, Carter also shows how the author’s experiences became major themes in his novel In Search of Lost Time.Carter discusses Proust’s adolescent sexual experiences, his disastrous brothel visit to cure homosexual inclinations, and his first great loves. He also addresses the duel Proust fought after the journalist Jean Lorrain alluded to his homosexuality in print, his flirtations with respectable women and high-class prostitutes, and his affairs with young men of the servant class. With new revelations about Proust’s love life and a gallery of photographs, the book provides an unprecedented glimpse of Proust’s gay Paris.

    This volume contains every play written by Joe Orton, who emerged in the 1960s as the most talented comic playwright in recent English history and was considered the direct successor to Wilde, Shaw, and Coward.

    In the cut-throat world of weekly trash mags, Nina thrives on the adrenalin of out-bidding her rivals for scandalous photo sets, scoring exclusive rights to Australia's A-list weddings and having the most influential celebrity managers on speed-dial. But in her personal life, things aren't quite as glossy. Just as she's back on the single scene, all her friends start getting up the duff faster than you can say, 'Welcome to Nappy Valley'. While Nina spends her days managing her magazine's multi-million-dollar budget and stalking Kim Kardashian's every move, they're managing their minuscule maternity leave allowance and stalking their local daycare waiting list. Suddenly she feels like she's being rejected from a club she doesn't even want to join. With a reality TV show in the works and a Facebook feed overflowing with endless baby updates, Nina heads to New York on an impromptu girls' trip to get away from it all - but little does she know that things are about to get a whole lot more complicated...

    Yet the ways in which we live sexuality and intimacy have been profoundly shaped by theories — especially psychoanalytic ones, which have helped to place sexuality and desire at the center of the modern story about what a person is and how her history should be read. At the same time, other modes of explanation have been offered by popular and mass culture. In these domains, sexual desire is not deemed the core story of life; it is mixed up with romance, a particular version of the story of love.In this small theoretical novella-cum-dictionary entry, Lauren Berlant engages love and desire in separate entries. In the first entry, Desire mainly describes the feeling one person has for something else: it is organized by psychoanalytic accounts of attachment, and tells briefly the history of their importance in critical theory and practice. The second entry, on Love, begins with an excursion into fantasy, moving away from the parent-child structure so central to psychoanalysis and looking instead at the centrality of context, environment, and history. The entry on Love describes some workings of romance across personal life and commodity culture, the place where subjects start to think about fantasy on behalf of their actual lives.Whether viewed psychoanalytically, institutionally, or ideologically, love is deemed always an outcome of fantasy. Without fantasy, there would be no love. Desire/Love takes us on a tour of all of the things that sentence might mean.

    The conversations you have; the ideas that burst on you; the kiss that transforms you. And then you grow up, and make a deal with adulthood. A Small Revolution in Germany is about that rapturous moment when ideas, and ideals, and passion crash over one boy’s head. And what happens in the decades afterwards? When you see the overwhelming truth when you are seventeen, why should you ever abandon that truth? Spike is brought into a small, clever group of friends, bursting with a passion for ideas, and the wish to change the world. They smash up political meetings; they paint slogans on walls; they long for armed revolution; they argue, exuberantly, until dawn. In the years to follow, they all change their minds, and go into the world. They become writers, politicians, public figures. One of them becomes famous when she dies. They all change their minds, and make sensible compromises. Only Spike stays exactly as he is, going on with the burning desire for change, in the safe embrace of unconditional love. Alone from the old group, he is the only one who has achieved nothing, and who has never deviated from the impractical shining path of revolution he saw as a teenager. Thirty years on, photographs of the teenage group look like a bunch of celebrated individuals, with only one unknown face in it – Spike.

    Published anonymously in bits and pieces between 1911 and 1920, Corydon first appeared in a signed, commercial edition in France in 1924 and in the United States in 1950, the year before Gide's death. The present edition features the impeccable translation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Howard. In spirited dialogue with his bigoted, boorish interviewer, Corydon marshals evidence from naturalists, historians, poets, and philosophers to support his contention that homosexuality pervaded the most culturally and artistically advanced civilizations, from Greece in the age of Pericles to Renaissance Italy and England in the age of Shakespeare. Although obscured by later critics, literature and art from Homer to Titian proclaim the true nature of relationships between such lovers as Achilles and Patrocles—not to mention Virgil's mythical Corydon and his shepherd, Alexis, constructed union, while the more fundamental, natural relation is the homosexual one. "My friends insist that this little book is of the kind which will do me the greatest harm," Gide wrote of his Corydon. In these pages, contemporary readers will find a prescient and courageous treatment of a topic that has scarcely become less controversial.

    A. Richards (1893-1979) was one of the great polymaths of the twentieth century. He is best known, however, as one of the founders of modern literary critical theory. Richards revolutionized criticism by turning away from biographical and historical readings as well as from the aesthetic impressionism. Seeking a more exacting approach, he analyzed literary texts as syntactical structures that could be broken down into smaller interacting verbal units of meaning. Practical Criticism, first published in 1929, is a landmark volume in demonstrating this method.Practical Criticism was born of an experiment Richards undertook to discern the psychological foundations of reading and interpretation and a means for readers to discover how they think and feel about poetry. He submitted thirteen poems for analysis, without date or author given, to some four hundred of his Cambridge students. Poets of stature went in undifferentiated from obscure and forgotten figures. The results were mixed at best, with many of the interpretations shockingly bad. These readings were based, in large part, not on the texts themselves but on then-current opinions, presuppositions, theories, and beliefs. The results led Richards to define a set of interrelated mental obstacles to intelligent and accurate reading including "irrelevant associations," "stock responses," "sentimentality," and a general misunderstanding of the purpose or "doctrine" of poetry.Richards' concerns in Practical Criticism went well beyond the merely formal. In the humanist tradition, he believed that the ability to read critically and use language truthfully was culturally regenerative, a necessary skill in the modern world of mass-produced art and advertising. This classic volume will be of interest to teachers of literature, cultural studies specialists, and intellectual historians.

    It is the work of one of the most influential attorneys in America, who has dedicated his life to the protection of individuals' rights and our Constitution's commitment to equal justice under the law. Above all, it is a clear, straightforward book that brings into sharp focus the very human significance of the right to marry in America—not just for some couples, but for all. Why is the word marriage so important? Will marriage for same-sex couples hurt the "sanctity" of the institution? How can people of different faiths reconcile their beliefs with the idea of marriage for same-sex couples? How will allowing gay couples to marry affect children? In this quietly powerful volume, the most authoritative and fairly articulated book on the subject, Wolfson demonstrates why the right to marry is important—indeed necessary—for all couples and for America's promise of equality.