Book picks similar to
Granta 118: Exit Strategies by John Freeman
granta
fiction
short-stories
essays
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature: Departures, Arrivals, Generations, Returns
Dohra Ahmad - 2019
From war refugees to corporate expats, migrants constantly reshape their places of origin and arrival. This selection of works collected together for the first time brings together the most compelling literary depictions of migration.Organized in four parts (Departures, Arrivals, Generations, and Returns), The Penguin Book of Migration Literature conveys the intricacy of worldwide migration patterns, the diversity of immigrant experiences, and the commonalities among many of those diverse experiences. Ranging widely across the eighteenth through twenty-first centuries, across every continent of the earth, and across multiple literary genres, the anthology gives readers an understanding of our rapidly changing world, through the eyes of those at the center of that change. With thirty carefully selected poems, short stories, and excerpts spanning three hundred years and twenty-five countries, the collection brings together luminaries, emerging writers, and others who have earned a wide following in their home countries but have been less recognized in the Anglophone world. Editor of the volume Dohra Ahmad provides a contextual introduction, notes, and suggestions for further exploration.
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.
Quite Early One Morning: Stories
Dylan Thomas - 1954
Many of the 25 short stories, autobiographical sketches and essays in Quite Early One Morning, a volume planned by Thomas shortly before his death, were read by him on such occasions. They are alive with his verbal magic, his intense perception of life, his gargantuan humor and with the very ring of his voice.Included in this collection of prose pieces are such favorites as the hilarious “A Visit to America,” the account of a small boy’s marvelous day’s outing—“A Story,” and the memorable “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” which has been called ‘the twentieth century Christmas Carol.’ Other pieces show Thomas’s power as a sensitive critic of poetry and as an exponent of his own intent as a poet.
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists
Irene Taylor - 1990
The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English, Volume 1
Sandra M. Gilbert - 2007
Now, the much-anticipated Third Edition responds to the wealth of writing by women across the globe with the inclusion of 61 new authors (219 in all) whose diverse works span six centuries. A more flexible two-volume format and a versatile new companion reader make the Third Edition an even better teaching tool."As diversity itself has shaped the evolution of feminist criticism, from its early preoccupation with women's shared experiences to its more recent absorption in the complex issues and assumptions informing English-language texts by women writers of diverse geographical, cultural, racial, sexual, religious, and class origins and influences, so diversity has shaped the revisions of this anthology."
Coming and Crying
Melissa Gira GrantArielle Brousse - 2010
We wanted to make a book that charged people with telling real stories about sex but didn't pressure them to turn anyone on. Coming & Crying aims not for conclusions about sex but for the truth that is found in our shared experience of it. We recognize each other as human not through a singular narrative, but in our own particular stories.There are twenty-four stories in this book and we hope all of them will knock you out or wake you up or make you feel less alone. You'll encounter at least twenty-four people in a way one does not usually. Some of the names you'll recognize, because they are established writers or your friends or people you follow on the Internet already. That's how we know them, too.
Telling Tales
Nadine Gordimer - 2004
Their stories capture the range of emotions and situations of our human universe: tragedy, comedy, fantasy, satire, dramas of sexual love and of war in different continents and cultures. They are not about HIV / AIDS. But all twenty-one writers have given their stories--chosen by themselves as representing some of the best of their lifetime work as storytellers--without any fee or royalty.Telling Tales is being published in more than twelve countries. The publisher's profits from the sales of this book will go to HIV / AIDS preventive education and for medical treatment for people living with the suffering this pandemic infection brings to our contemporary world.ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionBulldog (Arthur Miller)The Centaur (José Saramago)Down the Quiet Street (Es´kia Mphahlele)The Firebird´s Nest (Salman Rushdie)Cell Phone (Ingo Schulze)Death Constant Beyond Love (Gabriel García Márquez)The Age of Lead (Margaret Atwood)Witnesses of an Era (Günter Grass)The Journey to the Dead (John Updike)Sugar Baby (Chinua Achebe)The Way of the Wind (Amos Oz)Warm Dogs (Paul Theroux)The Ass and the Ox (Michel Tournier)Death of a Son (Njabulo S. Ndebele)The Letter Scene (Susan Sontag)To Have Been (Claudio Magris)A Meeting, At Last (Hanif Kureishi)Associations in Blue (Christa Wolf)The Rejection (Woody Allen)The Ultimate Safari (Nadine Gordimer)Abandoned Children of This Planet (Kensaburo Oe)The ContributorsSource Notes----21 weltberühmte Autorinnen und Autoren erzählen ihre Lieblingsgeschichten; ein Short-Story-Band der Superlative
Peter Watts Is An Angry Sentient Tumor: Revenge Fantasies and Essays
Peter Watts - 2019
Even when you probably should.
A Detroit Anthology
Anna Clark - 2014
In this, we are rich. We begin with abundance. But while much is written about our city these hard days, it is typically meant to explain Detroit to those who live elsewhere. Much of this writing is brilliant, but our anthology, this anthology, is different: it is a collection of Detroit stories for Detroiters. Through essays, photographs, poetry, and art, this anthology collects the stories we tell each other over late nights at the pub and long afternoons on the porch. We share them in coffee shops, at church social hours, in living rooms, and while waiting for the bus. These are stories addressed to the rhetorical “you”—with the ratcheted up language that comes with it—and these are stories that took real legwork to investigate. We may be lifelong residents, newcomers, or former Detroiters; we may be activists, workers, teachers, artists, healers, or students. But a common undercurrent alights our work that is collected here: we are a city moving through the fire of transformation. We are afire.Featuring essays, photographs, poetry, and art by Terry Blackhawk, Grace Lee Boggs, John Carlisle, Desiree Cooper, dream hampton, francine j. harris, Steve Hughes, Jamaal May, Tracie McMillan, Ken Mikolowski, Marsha Music, Shaka Senghor, Thomas J. Sugrue, and many others.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales
Kate BernheimerFanny Howe - 1998
In this elegant and thought-provoking collection of original essays, Kate Bernheimer brings together twenty-eight leading women writers to discuss how these stories helped shape their imaginations, their craft, and our culture. In poetic narratives, personal histories, and penetrating commentary, the assembled authors bare their soul and challenge received wisdom. Eclectic and wide-ranging, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall is essential reading for anyone who has ever been bewitched by the strange and fanciful realm of fairy tales.Contributors include: Alice Adams, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Rosellen Brown, A. S. Byatt, Kathryn Davis, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Deborah Eisenberg, Maria Flook, Patricia Foster, Vivian Gornick, Lucy Grealy, bell hooks, Fanny Howe, Fern Kupfer, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carole Maso, Jane Miller, Lydia Millet, Joyce Carol Oates, Connie Porter, Francine Prose, Linda Gray Sexton, Midori Snyder, Fay Weldon, Joy Williams, Terri Windling.
Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands
Michael Chabon - 2008
Throughout, Chabon energetically argues for a return to the thrilling, chilling origins of storytelling, rejecting the false walls around "serious" literature in favor of a wide-ranging affection.Cover art by Jordan Crane.
Nothing But You: Love Stories From The New Yorker
The New Yorker - 1997
This is the first fiction anthology in more than three decades from the magazine that has defined the American short story for almost a century. As noteworthy for its range as for its excellence, Nothing But You features a stunning array of present and past masters writing about love in all its varieties, from the classic love story to dislocated narratives of weird modern romance. Taken separately, these stories suggest the infinite variety of the human heart. Taken together, they are a literary milestone, a comprehensive review of the way we live and love now.
Everything I Needed to Know about Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume
Jennifer O'ConnellStacey Ballis - 2007
I wonder if she knows that at least one of her books made a grown woman finally feel like she'd been a normal girl all along. . . ."" -- FROM Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned fromJudy BlumeWhether laughing to tears reading "Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great" or clamoring for more unmistakable "me too!" moments in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," girls all over the world have been touched by Judy Blume's poignant coming-of-age stories. Now, in this anthology of essays, twenty-four notable female authors write straight from the heart about the unforgettable novels that left an indelible mark on their childhoods and still influence them today. After growing up from "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" into "Smart Women," these writers pay tribute, through their reflections and most cherished memories, to one of the most beloved authors of all time.
Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans
Mai Neng Moua - 2002
Their numbers make them one of the largest recent immigrant groups in our nation. Today, significant Hmong populations can be found in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, and Colorado, and St. Paul boasts the largest concentration of Hmong residents of any city in the world.In this groundbreaking anthology, first-and second-generation Hmong Americans--the first to write creatively in English--share their perspectives on being Hmong in America. In stories, poetry, essays, and drama, these writers address the common challenges of immigrants adapting to a new homeland: preserving ethnic identity and traditions, assimilating to and battling with the dominant culture, negotiating generational conflicts exacerbated by the clash of cultures, and developing new identities in multiracial America. Many pieces examine Hmong history and culture and the authors' experiences as Americans. Others comment on issues significant to the community: the role of women in a traditionally patriarchal culture, the effects of violence and abuse, the stories of Hmong military action in Laos during the Vietnam War. These writers don't pretend to provide a single story of the Hmong; instead, a multitude of voices emerge, some wrapped up in the past, others looking toward the future, where the notion of "Hmong American" continues to evolve.In her introduction, editor Mai Neng Moua describes her bewilderment when she realized that anthologies of Asian American literature rarely contained even one selection by a Hmong American. In 1994, she launched a Hmong literary journal, Paj Ntaub Voice, and in the first issue asked her readers "Where are the Hmong American voices?" Now this collection--containing selections from the journal as well as new submissions--offers a chorus of voices from a vibrant and creative community of Hmong American writers from across the United States.Contributors: BC, Bee Cha, True Hang, Sharon Her, May Lee, Kou Lor, Pacyinz Lyfoung, Mai Neng Moua, Vayong Moua, Noukou Thao, Bryan Thao Worra, Va-Megn Thoj, Ka Vang, M.S. Vang, Mayli Vang, Soul Choj Vang, Hawj Xiong, Kao Xiong with Dia cha, Pa Xiong, Naly Yang, Peter Yang, Kao Yongvang
Required Writing: Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982
Philip Larkin - 1983
The book's first two parts, "Recollections" and "Interviews," provide autobiographical glimpses of the very private Larkin's childhood, his youth at Oxford, the genesis of his forty-year career as a librarian, and the influences that initially steered his poetry. The second half of the book reflects Larkin's literary standards and opinions in often witty and surprising, always beautifully wrought, essays and reviews. His subjects range from Emily Dickinson (were her first lines her best?) to the contemporary mystery novel. Required Writing concludes with a selection of pieces on jazz music."Larkin is a punctilious, honest critic. He prefers good clear writing to pretentious eyewash; he prefers tunes to discordant wailing; and he prefers home to abroad. Unlike the majority of critics, he is clear-sighted enough to say so." --A. N. Wilson, Sunday Telegraph"I read the collection with growing excitement, agreement and admiration. It is the best contemporary account of the writer's true aims I have encountered." --John Mortimer, Sunday Times (London)"Subtle, supple, craftily at ease, Required Writing is on a par with Larkin's poetry--which is just about as high as praise can go." --Clive James, Observer Philip Larkin was the author of poetry collections, including High Windows, The Whitsun Weddings, and The Less Deceived; a book of essays entitled All What Jazz: A Record Diary; and two novels, Jill, and A Girl in Winter, published early in his career. Required Reading was originally published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.