The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader


David Levering Lewis - 1994
    This magnificent volume features a wealth of fiction and nonfiction works by 45 writers from that exuberant era.

Napoleon in Egypt


Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti - 1798
    Sheik Al-Jabarti's chronicle is a unique combination of historical narration and reflection combined with daily observations about the atmosphere in Cairo and the mood among the local population. The book is an Arab view of a turning point in modern history. This expanded edition celebrates the 250th anniversary of Al-Jabarti's birth. The French view of these events is described by Napoleon's secretary; Edward W. Said, Columbia University, provides a stinging critique of French preoccupation with Egypt and the resulting cultural "Orientalism"; Robert Tignor (Princeton University) provides a scintillating introduction. An additional chapter by editor Shmuel Moreh examines the Arabic interpretation of Al-Jabarti's writings. Illustrated.

The Norton Anthology Of American Literature


Nina Baym - 1979
    This modern section has been overhauled to reflect the diversity of American writing since 1945. A section on 19th-century women's writing is included.

Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man


U.R. Ananthamurthy - 1965
    As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village ofKarnataka, Samskara serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail, a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths, and a serious, poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death which stands as the central event in the plot brings in its wake aplague, many more deaths, live questions with only dead answers, moral chaos, and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths, customs, Indian names, flora, and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained, faithful, and yet readabletranslation.

The Portable Enlightenment Reader


Isaac Kramnick - 1995
    In championing radical ideas such as individual liberty and an empirical appraisal of the universe through rational inquiry and natural experience, Enlightenment philosophers in Europe and America planted the seeds for modern liberalism, cultural humanism, science and technology, and laissez-faire Capitalism.This volume brings together works from this era, with more than 100 selections from a range of sources. It includes examples by Kant, Diderot, Voltaire, Newton, Rousseau, Locke, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Paine that demonstrate the pervasive impact of Enlightenment views on philosophy and epistemology as well as on political, social, and economic institutions.

The Tiananmen Papers


Liang Zhang - 2000
    In this extraordinary collection of hundreds of internal government and Communist Party documents, secretly smuggled out of China, we learn how these events came to pass from behind the scenes. The material reveals how the most important decisions were made; and how the turmoil split the ruling elite into radically opposed factions. The book includes the minutes of the crucial meetings at which the Elders decided to cashier the pro-reform Party secretary Zhao Ziyang and to replace him with Jiang Zemin, to declare martial law, and finally to send the troops to drive the students from the Square. Just as the Pentagon Papers laid bare the secret American decision making behind the Vietnam War and changed forever our view of the nation's political leaders, so too has The Tiananmen Papers altered our perception of how and why the events of June 4 took the shape they did. Its publication has proven to be a landmark event in Chinese and world history.

The White Album


Joan Didion - 1979
    Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central text of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.

Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies


Moss Roberts - 1980
    Illustrated with woodcuts.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad


Twinkle Khanna - 2016
    Sixty-eight-year-old Noni Appa finds herself drawn to a married man – ‘Why do people have to define relationships, underline each word till the paper gives way beneath,’ she wonders. Bablu Kewat becomes obsessed with sanitary napkins much to his family’s horror, and a young woman keeps checking the weather forecast as she meticulously plans each of her five weddings. Funny, observant and wise, this is storytelling at its most irresistible.

Up in the Old Hotel


Joseph Mitchell - 1992
    These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould's Secret—that are still renowned for their precise, respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style.These masterpieces (along with several previously uncollected stories) are available in one volume, which presents an indelible collective portrait of an unsuspected New York and its odder citizens—as depicted by one of the great writers of this or any other time.

Erotism: Death and Sensuality


Georges Bataille - 1957
    He challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade, from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss, and Dr. Kinsey; and the subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is "a psychological quest not alien to death."

Banaras: City of Light


Diana L. Eck - 1982
    This is the acclaimed study and interpretation of Banaras, the holy place of the Hindus.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. F: The Twentieth Century & After


Stephen GreenblattGeorge M. Logan - 1999
    Under the direction of Stephen Greenblatt, General Editor, the editors have reconsidered all aspects of the anthology to make it an even better teaching tool.

The Portable Sixties Reader


Ann ChartersDouglas Blazek - 2003
    In this anthology of essays, poetry, and fiction by some of America's most gifted writers, renowned sixties authority Ann Charters sketches the unfolding of this most turbulent decade. Organized by thematically linked chapters chronicling important social, political, and cultural movements, The Portable Sixties Reader features such luminaries as Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Alice Walker, Robert Lowell, Eudora Welty, Bob Dylan, Malcolm X, Susan Sontag, Denise Levertov, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Hunter Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Lenny Bruce, Ishmael Reed, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Rachel Carson, and Gary Snyder. The concluding chapter, "Elegies for the Sixties," offers tributes to ten figures whose lives--and deaths--captured the spirit of the decade.Cover photograph by Herbert Orth/TimePix.Contributors that wouldn't fit in the author field:Norman Mailer, Dave Mandel, Peter Matthiessen, Michael McClure, Country Joe McDonald, Thomas Merton, Kate Millett, Janice Mirikitani, N. Scott Momaday, Anne Moody, Larry Neal, Tim O'Brien, Charles Olson, Dan Paik, Rosa Parks, Sylvia Plath, Allen Polite, Dudley Randall, Ishmael Reed, Carolyn M. Rodgers, Muriel Rukeyser, Edward Sanders, Richard Schmorleitz, Anne Sexton, Gary Snyder, Valerie Solanas, Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, Hunter S. Thompson, Sally Tomlinson, Calvin Trillin, Eric Von Schmidt, Diane Wakoski, Alice Walker, Lew Welch, Eudora Welty, Malcolm X, & Al Young

May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India


Elisabeth Bumiller - 1990
    In their fascinating, and often tragic stories, Bumiller found a strength even in powerlessness, and a universality that raises questions for women around the world.