On top of the genius singles and a longform composition for Nike, there was a trilogy of full-length albums. During that initial run, LCD Soundsystem-and the project's mastermind, James Murphy-were at the center of several 21st century developments in pop culture: indie music's growing mainstream clout, Brooklyn surpassing Manhattan as an epicenter of creativity in America, the collision and eventual erosion of genre perceptions, and the rapid and profound growth and impact of digital culture. Amidst this storm, Murphy crafted Sound Of Silver, the centerpiece of LCD's work.At the time of Sound Of Silver's creation and release, Murphy was a man closing in on 40 while fronting a critically-adored band still on the ascent. This album was the first place where he earnestly grappled with questions of aging, of being an artist, and the decisions we make with the time we have left. Anchored by a series of colossal, intense dance-rock songs, Sound Of Silver called upon the rhythms of New York City in order to draw out, dissect, and ultimately rip open these meditations. By the time LCD Soundsystem reunited in 2016, Sound Of Silver had already proven to be a generational touchstone, living on as a document of what it's like to be alive in the 21st century.

    “Taken together,” as the editor Ignacio Echevarría remarks in his introduction, they provide “a personal cartography of the writer: the closest thing, among all his writings, to a kind of fragmented ‘autobiography.’” Bolaño’s career as a nonfiction writer began in 1998, the year he became famous overnight for The Savage Detectives; he was suddenly in demand for articles and speeches, and he took to this new vocation like a duck to water. Cantankerous, irreverent, and insufferably opinionated, Bolaño also could be tender (about his family and favorite places) as well as a fierce advocate for his heroes (Borges, Cortázar, Parra) and his favorite contemporaries, whose books he read assiduously and promoted generously. A demanding critic, he declares that in his “ideal literary kitchen there lives a warrior”: he argues for courage, and especially for bravery in the face of failure. Between Parentheses fully lives up to his own demands: “I ask for creativity from literary criticism, creativity at all levels.”

    With the same dazzling mix of emotion and idea that characterizes his novels, Kundera revisits the artists who remain important to him, and whose works help us better understand the world we live in and what it means to be human. An astute reader of fiction, Kundera brings his extraordinary critical gifts to bear on the paintings of Francis Bacon, the music of Leos Janacek, and the films of Federico Fellini, as well as the novels of Philip Roth, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Gabriel García Márquez, among others. He also takes up the challenge of restoring to its rightful place the work of Anatole France and Curzio Malaparte, major writers who have fallen into obscurity.Milan Kundera's signature themes of memory and forgetting, the experience of exile, and the championing of modernist art are here, along with more personal reflections and stories. Encounter is a work of great humanism. Art is what we possess in the face of evil and the darker side of human nature. Elegant, startlingly original, and provocative, Encounter follows in the footsteps of Kundera's earlier essay collections, The Art of the Novel, Testaments Betrayed, and The Curtain.

    As a child, he rooted for conventionally good characters like wide-eyed Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. But as Klosterman aged, his alliances shifted—first to Han Solo and then to Darth Vader. Vader was a hero who consciously embraced evil; Vader wanted to be bad. But what, exactly, was that supposed to mean? When we classify someone as a bad person, what are we really saying (and why are we so obsessed with saying it)? In I Wear the Black Hat, Klosterman questions the very nature of how modern people understand the culture of villainy. What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don’t we see Batman the same way we see Bernhard Goetz? Who’s more worthy of our vitriol—Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson’s second-worst decision? And why is Klosterman still obsessed with some kid he knew for one week in 1985?Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and limitless imagination, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the anti-hero (seemingly the only kind of hero America still creates). I Wear the Black Hat is the rare example of serious criticism that’s instantly accessible and really, really funny. Klosterman is the only writer doing whatever it is he’s doing.

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    One of the most influential poets of his age, W.B. Yeats eluded the grasp of many who sought to explain him. His life was complex in both its outer and inner events. Yeats's mystical concerns, such as his involvement with spiritualism and construction of a transcendental world system in A Vision, coexisted and occasionally clashed with his active involvement in public affairs. In this classic critical examination of the poet, Richard Ellmann strips away the masks of his subject: occultist, senator of the Irish Free State, libidinous old man, and Nobel Prize winner.

    Tolkien's classic essay on fantasy, "On Fairy Stories", is complemented by his charming story, "Leaf by Niggle" and the poem "Mythopoeia".

    Important, so inspiring... Please read this book" -Sonny Moore, Recording Artist "There are very few ways to get inside the mind of a lyricist. One way is through reading their diaries, the other through sleeping with them. Eric's book is the more entertaining of the options. It's a raw look inside the heart and mind of a rock 'n' roll spiritualist whose struggles with love (Chaplin) and versus the world (Keaton) are laid out bare like an exhibitionist on a double-dare." -Mike Shea, Founder, AP Magazine "Coma Therapy" is the sound of a powerful new voice in contemporary American literature. Victorino's brand of punchy prose often draws comparisons to the likes of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. This debut collection of poems and short stories draws a dangerously thin line between the heartwarming and the horrifying... Eric Victorino then mischievously walks that line all the way to the last page. Defiant, triumphant, hopeful and wise.

    

    He hitches a ride to San Francisco with a blonde, goes on the road with photographer Robert Frank, rides bus through the Northwest and Montana, records the blues of an old Negro hobo, talks about the Beats and how it all began, gives his "Essentials of Spontaneous Prose" and defends his novel The Subterraneans, compares Shakespeare and James Joyce, describes the cafeterias and subways of Manhattan, goes to a ballgame and a prize fight, and reflects on Céline, on Christmas in New England, on Murnau's Nosferatu, on jazz & bop, and tells us what he's thinking about. And in the closing piece "cityCityCITY," we're treated to Jack's science fiction vision of the future."Table of Contents Robert Creeley: Thinking of Jack: A Preface On the Road On the Beats On Writing Observations On Sports Last Words cityCityCITY Editor's Note

    Michael Gray's 'Song and Dance Man III', on Bob Dylan's life and work, offers studies of Dylan's' entire oeuvre, and the ever-popular album-by-album guide has also been extensively updated and extended.

    Employing examples of world literature from ancient times to the present, he provides a conceptual framework for the examination of literature. In four brilliant essays on historical, ethical, archetypical, and rhetorical criticism, he applies "scientific" method in an effort to change the character of criticism from the casual to the causal, from the random and intuitive to the systematic.Harold Bloom contributes a fascinating and highly personal preface that examines Frye's mode of criticism and thought (as opposed to Frye's criticism itself) as being indispensable in the modern literary world.

    'Revolution on Canvas' presents another collection of poetry from some of the country's most popular indie-rock bands, including Deftones, Fall Out Boy, Armor For Sleep, and Say Anything.

    This award-winning collection moves from the dark and technically astonishing title essay—on growing up within the confines of a huge Army arsenal in Ohio—to reflections on mountain hikes, limestone quarries, and fathers teaching their sons.

    It tells the story of William Stoner, who attends the state university to study agronomy, but instead falls in love with English literature and becomes an academic. The novel narrates the many disappointments and struggles in Stoner's academic and personal life, including his estrangement from his wife and daughter, set against the backdrop of the first half of the twentieth century.In his entry in the Bookmarked series, author Steve Almond writes about why Stoner has endured, and the manner in which it speaks to the impoverishment of the inner life in America. Almond will also use the book as a launching pad for an investigation of America’s soul, in the process, writing about his own struggles as a student of writing, as a father and husband, and as a man grappling with his own mortality.