Greg Carlisle, author of the landmark Wallace study Elegant Complexity, provides an introduction that sets the scene and speculates on the future of Wallace studies. Editor David Hering provides a provocative look at the triangular symbols in Infinite Jest. Adam Kelly explores the intriguing question of why Wallace is considered to be at the forefront of a new sincerity in American fiction. Thomas Tracey discusses trauma in Oblivion. Gregory Phipps examines Infinite Jest's John "No Relation" Wayne and the concept of the ideal athlete. Daniel Turnbull compares Wallace's Kenyon College commencement address to the ethics of Iris Murdoch. These 17 essays stem from the first ever academic conference devoted the work of David Foster Wallace. Held in Liverpool, England, in 2009, the conference sparked a worldwide discussion of the place of Wallace's work in academia and popular culture. Essential for all Wallace scholars, fans of Wallace's fiction and nonfiction will also find the collection full of insights that span Wallace's career. Yes, there are footnotes.

    Collections of interviews with notable modern writers

    Heinlein was sixty-six, at the height of his literary career; J. Neil Schulman was twenty and hadn't yet started his first novel. Because he was looking for a way to meet his idol, Schulman wangled an assignment from the New York Daily News--at the time the largest circulation newspaper in the U.S.--to interview Heinlein for its Sunday Book Supplement. The resulting taped interview lasted three-and-a-half hours. This turned out to be the longest interview Heinlein ever granted, and the only one in which he talked freely and extensively about his personal philosophy and ideology. "The Robert Heinlein Interview" contains Heinlein you won't find anywhere else--even in Heinlein's own "Expanded Universe." If you wnat to know what Heinlein had to say about UFO's, life after death, epistemology, or libertarianism, this interview is the only source available. Also included in this collection are articles, reviews, and letters that J. Neil Schulman wrote about Heinlein, including the original article written for The Daily News, about which the Heinleins wrote Schulman that it was, "The best article--in style, content, and accuracy--of the many, many written about him over the years." This book is must-reading for any serious student of Heinlein, or any reader seeking to know him better.

    This collection has more than twenty-five selections, including such important statements as "Modern Fiction" and "The Modern Essay."

    Throughout his career, he remained haunted by his inability to master a series of personal and professional challenges: his less-than-heroic military career; the loss of his brother in an airplane crash; a disappointing stint as a Hollywood screenwriter; and a destructive bout with alcoholism. In this imaginative biography, Philip Weinstein--a leading authority on the great novelist--targets Faulkner's embattled sense of self as central to both his life and his work. Weinstein shows how Faulkner's troubled interactions with time, place, and history--with antebellum practices and racial division--take on their fullest meanings in his fiction. Exploring the resonance of his own unpreparedness, Faulkner invented a singular language that captured human consciousness under stress as never before. Becoming Faulkner joins Faulkner's life and art in a bold new way, giving readers a full vantage from which to better understand this twentieth-century literary genius. Weinstein shows how Faulkner's troubled interactions with time, place, and history--with antebellum practices and southern heritage--form a pattern that played out over the course of his entire life. At the same time, these incidents take on their fullest meanings in his fiction. It was in meditating on his failures, his own unreadiness, Weinstein argues, that Faulkner came up with his singular language, one that captured human consciousness under stress as never before. His fruitless striving catapulted American literature to a new level of sophistication. Narrating the events that comprised Faulkner's life, biographers have long struggled to depict his personal complexity, the paradoxes that shaped his decisions and dogged his relationships. But without a consideration of the writing as well, the troubles in the life fail to reveal their deeper resonance. By skillfully analyzing the work while tracing the events, Weinstein achieves a full portrait, revealing struggles that animate his life and shadows that complicate his work. Becoming Faulkner thus conjoins Faulkner's life and art in a bold new way, giving readers a full vantage from which to better understand this twentieth-century literary genius.

    Brooks shows that Faulkner's strong attachment to his region, with its rich particularity and deep sense of community, gave him a special vantage point from which to view the modern world.Books's consideration of such novels as Light in August, The Unvanquished, As I Lay Dying, and Intruder in the Dust shows the ways in which Faulkner used Yoknapatawpha County to examine the characteristic themes of the twentieth century. Contending that a complete understanding of Faulkner's writing cannot be had without a thorough grasp of fictional detail, Brooks gives careful attention to what happens: In the Yoknapatawpha novels. He also includes useful genealogies of Faulkner's fictional clans and a character index.

    Under Nina Baym's direction, the editors have considered afresh each selection and all the apparatus to make the anthology an even better teaching tool.

    Photographs.

    Editor Stephen Cope has made a judicious selection of Oppen's extant writings outside of poetry, including the essay "The Mind's Own Place" as well as "Twenty-Six Fragments," which were found on the wall of Oppen's study after his death. Most notable are Oppen's "Daybooks," composed in the decade following his return to poetry in 1958. iSelected Prose, Daybooks, and Papers is an inspiring portrait of this essential writer and a testament to the creative process itself.

    Using cultural and gender studies as contexts, Wagner-Martin brings new information to the story of the Alabama judge's daughter who, at seventeen, met her husband-to-be, Scott Fitzgerald. Swept away from her stable home life into Jazz Age New York and Paris, Zelda eventually learned to be a writer and a painter; and she came close to being a ballerina. An evocative portrayal of a talented woman's professional and emotional conflicts, this study contains extensive notes and new photographs.

    The method employed is to take the obscurantist vocabulary of monotheism and translate it into plain language. In doing so, the book attempts to show that god worshippers themselves do not understand the things they claim to believe, and by which they live their lives. For the reader who believes in god, this polemical little volume may help them to understand why secularists get so frustrated and infuriated when in debate with god worshippers. For the secularist, this book is a reminder that not everyone is susceptible to reasoned argument. The reminder is a timely one for those who live in an era of the resurgence of Islamic Jihad. A clear understanding of the irrationality of monotheism is something which matters urgently when confronted by the global rise of religious fascism. What is said in this little book will no doubt be found impolite and overly-provocative by those authoritarian people within the politically correct establishment who conflate morality with niceness. They will probably utter the familiar refrain that we ought not to denigrate other people’s deeply and sincerely held beliefs. Instead we should live in a permanent state of apology for the crime of having minds of our own. But religions are no more above criticism than any other ideologies. They have no entitlement to a privileged status. Besides which, large numbers of god worshippers feel free to denigrate and insult everyone else’s deeply and sincerely held beliefs, so why should they have special permission to be hypocrites? Topics covered: 01. God 02. Prayer 03. Worship 04. God the Infinite 05. Immortality and Heaven 06. Soul / Spirit 07. Salvation 08. Faith 09. Spreading The Word 10. Theocracy 11. Theocracy and Nuclear Armageddon 12. God, Guilty of Genocide 13. Religion and Morality are Mutually Exclusive 14. God worship is Immoral 15. God worship is Obscene 16. Everything is God’s Fault 17. If it’s in The Book, then it Must be True 18. Claiming Incomprehensible Beliefs 19. Is Islamism the New Fascism? 20. The Moderates

    A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. The books in the series will all follow the same structure:a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences, and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas; a summary of how the novel was received upon publication; a summary of how the novel has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations, literary prizes, etc.; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites and discussion forums; and a list of questions for reading groups to discuss.

    W. Norton in 1993, now out of print. In Walking Light, Dunn discusses the relationship between art and sport, the role of imagination in writing poetry, and the necessity for surprise and discovery when writing a poem. Humorous, intelligent and accessible, Walking Light is a book that will appeal to writers, readers, and teachers of poetry.Stephen Dunn is the author of eleven collection of poetry. He teaches writing and literature at the Richard Stockton College in Pomona, New Jersey, and lives in Port Republic, New Jersey.

    Vale: Four leading figures in social movements discuss the state of Western culture and what led to its demise, with firsthand accounts of their own experiences, including subjects that concern every creative artist and thinker: The Internet and social change; why every one must paint( ); mind control, marketing, branding and consumerism; corporate chain stores and the problem of Amazon; punk rock history; the rise of Do-It-Yourself (D-I-Y) culture production; fame and its downside; sex and relationships.

    Herein, John Cage recalls the turning point in his career; Ben Johnston criticizes the operas of his teacher Harry Partch; La Monte Young attributes his creative discipline to a Morman childhood; and much more. The results are revelatory conversations with some of America's most radical musical innovators.