As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past, Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer--and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.Humanism --Reformation --Grace --Servanthood --Givenness --Awakening --Decline --Fear --Proofs --Memory --Value --Metaphysics --Theology --Experience --Adam --Limitation --Realism

    Combining muscular guitars and driving rhythms with an irresistible pop sensibility, their blistering live show and endlessly dynamic front woman Hayley Williams has taken them from club shows in their hometown to sell-out arena dates across the world - and earned them a fiercely dedicated fan-base along the way. But with their success has come the pressure of growing up under the media's scrutiny. Small-town kids from Tennessee thrust into international stardom, they have had to negotiate their adolescence alongside the demands of a gruelling tour schedule and numerous line-up changes. This test of character brought them to the brink of collapse. And yet, from this adversity Paramore returned with their most confident, accomplished and deeply personal album to date - Brand New Eyes. This unauthorised book is the first to tell their story and details the early years forming the band, their explosive debut record, the strident, platinum-selling follow-up Riot! and their status in late 2009 as the 'next major rock act' in the world.

    In a series of coruscating set pieces, Greif asks why we put ourselves through the pains of exercise, what shopping in organic supermarkets does for our sense of self-worth, what the political identity of the hipster might be, and what happens to us when we listen to too much Radiohead. From such counter-intuitive observations, Greif exposes the fundamental contradictions between our actions, desires and the excuses that we make to ourselves in hope of consolation. With the wit and seriousness of David Foster Wallace, Against Everything is the most thought-provoking study and essential guide to everyday life under 21st-century capitalism.

    

    But there is much more to the book than that. In Why Kerouac Matters, John Leland embarks on a wry, insightful, and playful discussion of the novel, arguing that it still matters because it lays out an alternative road map to growing up. Along the way, Leland overturns many misconceptions about On the Road as he examines the lessons that Kerouac's alter ego, Sal Paradise, absorbs and dispenses on his novelistic journey to manhood, and how those lessons, about work and money, love and sex, art and holiness, still reverberate today.He shows how On the Road is a primer for male friendship and the cultivation of traditional family values, and contends that the stereotype of the two wild and crazy guys obscures the novel's core themes of the search for atonement, redemption, and divine revelation. Why Kerouac Matters offers a new take on Kerouac's famous novel, overturning many misconceptions about it and making clear the themes Kerouac was trying to impart.

    With insight and thoughtful analysis, Felix explores the tenacity that makes Sotomayor a sharp, fearless judge; the sense of compassion that drives her to seek justice for the underprivileged; and her strong community ties, which never let her forget where she came from. Drawing on candid interviews with figures from Sotomayor's personal and professional life as well as speeches, interviews with Sotomayor, and published papers-Felix paints a revealing portrait of the woman who would come to meet President Obama's rigorous criteria for a Supreme Court justice and whose appointment would make history.

    It is filled with dozens of humorous tales of musician antics and concert meltdowns. Outsiders are rarely allowed such access, but at last you can have your own personal tour of the mystical and magical realm of professional orchestras and the people who play in them. "Real Men Don't Rehearse" was written by Justin Locke, who spent 18 seasons as a professional freelance double bassist in Boston. He played with the Boston Symphony and the Boston Pops, as well as for ballets, operas, and Broadway shows. He is also well known in the symphonic world as the author of "Peter VS. the Wolf" and "The Phantom of the Orchestra," which are internationally acclaimed programs for orchestra family concerts. This is the perfect gift for your favorite music lover! This is a book no musical library should be without!

    Now, its 150,000 devoted readers can devour The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors -- an all-original, A-to-Z guide to 225 of the most fascinating writers of our time, penned by an international cast of talented young critics and reviewers. Here are profiles, reviews, and bibliographies of the authors that matter most now -- from Margaret Atwood to Tobias Wolff, Paul Auster to Alice Walker. Also included are essays and recommended reading lists by some of the authors themselves, such as Dorothy Allison on the books that shaped her, A. S. Byatt on her five favorite historical novels, Rick Moody on postmodern fiction, Robert Stone on the greatest war novels, and Ian McEwan on the best fiction about work.Peppered throughout with marvelously witty illustrations, The Salon.com Reader's Guide to Contemporary Authors will be a must-have for anyone who is looking for cocktail party conversation starters, a good read, or advice on what to read next.

    

    Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart - to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.

    

    McCarthy examines how the work undermines traditional concepts of fiction and explores parallels and contrasts between Camus's work and that of Jean-Paul Sartre. Providing students with a useful companion to The Stranger, this second edition features a revised guide to further reading and a new chapter on Camus and the Algerian War. First Edition Hb (1988): 0-521-32958-2 First Edition Pb (1988): 0-521-33851-4

    Chip Kidd is renowned and revered as a maverick graphic designer. Specifically, Kidd's book jacket designs for such major New York publishers as Alfred A. Knopf are among the most significant and innovative of our time. This richly illustrated book--the first critical selection of kid's design work--looks closely at this contemporary visual pioneer. Veronique Vienne presents a full and nuanced view of Kidd, discussing how he has developed celebrity status as a designer, design critic, lecturer, and editor. She also relates how Kidd is greatly influenced by popular culture, noting his vast collection of Batman memorabilia. Vienne concludes by examining Kidd's editorial involvement with books on cartoonists as well as his own first novel, The Cheese Monkeys, published in 2001 to critical acclaim. Chip Kidd reveals the fascinating life and career of a revolutionary graphic designer with a winning public persona, whose ambitions now also lean toward editing and writing. The book will appeal to anyone involved in design and popular culture as well as admirers of Kidd's extraordinary creative spirit.

    In the bustling, cluttered arcades, street and interior merge and historical time is broken up into kaleidoscopic distractions and displays of ephemera. Here, at a distance from what is normally meant by "progress," Benjamin finds the lost time(s) embedded in the spaces of things.

    Celebrity worship and media frenzy, suicidal cultists and heavily armed secessionists: modern life seems to have become a "pyrotechnic insanitarium," Mark Dery says, borrowing a turn-of-the-century name for Coney Island. Dery elucidates the meaning to our madness, deconstructing American culture from mainstream forces like Disney and Nike to fringe phenomena like the Unabomber and alien invaders. Our millennial angst, he argues, is a product of a pervasive cultural anxiety-a combination of the social and economic upheaval wrought by global capitalism and the paranoia fanned by media sensationalism. The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium is a theme-park ride through the extremes of American culture of which The Atlantic Monthly has written, "Mark Dery confirms once again what writers and thinkers as disparate as Nathanael West, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Sigmund Freud, and Oliver Sacks have already shown us: the best place to explore the human condition is at its outer margins, its pathological extremes."