Beautiful, fearless, tormented, at forty-five she has lived a life of lovers and adventures. Now, Dalva begins a journey that will take her back to the bosom of her family, to the half-Sioux lover of her youth, and to a pioneering great-grandfather whose journals recount the bloody annihilation of the Plains Indians. On the way, she discovers a story that stretches from East to West, from the Civil War to Wounded Knee and Vietnam -- and finds the balm to heal her wild and wounded soul.

    This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers from incurable dreaminess, occasional pounding of the heart, and the not-too-distant losses of a career, a son, and a marriage. In the course of the Easter week in which Ford's moving novel transpires, Bascombe will end up losing the remnants of his familiar life, though with his spirits still soaring.

    He didn't want to use the weapon, but feared he might anyhow. This was a justifiable assumption, for Caswell was a homicidal maniac.It was a gentle, misty spring day and the air held the smell of rain and blossoming-dogwood. Caswell gripped the revolver in his sweaty right hand and tried to think of a single valid reason why he should not kill a man named Magnessen, who, the other day, had commented on how well Caswell looked.What business was it of Magnessen's how he looked? Damned busybodies, always spoiling things for everybody....Caswell was a choleric little man with fierce red eyes, bulldog jowlsand ginger-red hair. He was the sort you would expect to find perchedon a detergent box, orating to a crowd of lunching businessmen andamused students, shouting, "Mars for the Martians, Venus for theVenusians!"But in truth, Caswell was uninterested in the deplorable social conditions of extraterrestrials. He was a jetbus conductor for the New York Rapid Transit Corporation. He minded his own business. And he was quite mad.Fortunately, he knew this at least part of the time, with at least half of his mind........

    Trilogy's three long poems rank with T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" and Ezra Pound's "Pisan Cantos." The first book of the Trilogy, "The Walls Do Not Fall," published in the midst of the "fifty thousand incidents" of the London blitz, maintains the hope that though "we have no map; / possibly we will reach haven,/ heaven." "Tribute to Angels" describes new life springing from the ruins, and finally, in "The Flowering of the Rod"—with its epigram "...pause to give/ thanks that we rise again from death and live."—faith in love and resurrection is realized in lyric and strongly Biblical imagery.

    A true classic, it is sure to enchant, enthrall, and intrigue readers for years to come.

    . .”In the midst of the broken consciousness of mid-twentieth century suffering anguish of separation from my own body and its natural infinity of feeling its own self one with all self, I instinctively seeking to reconstitute that blissful union which I experience so rarely. I took it to be supernatural an gave it holy Name thus made hymn laments of longing and litanies of triumphancy of Self over mind-illusion mechano-universe of un-feeling Time in which I saw my self my own mother and my very nation trapped desolate our worlds of consciousness homeless and at war except for the original trembling of bliss in breast and belly of every body that nakedness rejected in suits of fear that familiar defenseless living hurt self which is myself same as all others abandoned scared to own unchanging desire for each other. These poems almost unconscious to confess the beatific human fact, the language intuitively chosen as in trance & dream, the rhythms rising on breath from belly thru breast, the hymn completed in tears, the movement of the physical poetry demanding and receiving decades of life while chanting Kaddish the names of Death in many worlds the self seeking the Key to life found at last in our self.

    With these metaphors in place, he makes clear his difficult poetic task: to delve into the past, both personal and historic, while remaining ever mindful of the potentially fatal power of language.Born and raised in Northern Ireland, where any hint of Gaelic tradition in one's speech was considered a political act, Heaney is all too aware of the dire consequences of speaking one's mind. Indeed, during times of crisis, he has been expected to appear on television and dispense political wisdom. Most often, however, he stays out of the fray and opts for a supreme sense of empathy to guide his words. As excavator--of earth, of his beloved Gaelic, of his own life--Heaney is unmatched. In "Bone Dreams", the archaeologist's task is synonymous with reaching for a cultural past: I push back through dictions, Elizabethan canopies, Norman devices, the erotic mayflowers of Provence and the ivied Latins of churchmen to the scop's twang, the iron flash of consonants cleaving the line.And in early poems like "Blackberry Picking", Heaney's images--deftly, delightfully--carry us back to childhood fields: At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full... Opened Ground is a pleasure and a triumph. These three decades of work confirm Heaney as one of the most important poets of his time. --Martha Silano

    Connell sends us through the complete experience of a man initially intrigued and then enslaved by art: a curious interest, a rapt fixation, and the becoming of a connoisseur. The Connoisseur trails the evolution of Muhlbach, an insurance executive on a business trip in Taos, New Mexico, who develops an obsession with pre-Columbian figurines after meandering through a curio shop. Entranced yet bewildered by his sudden affinity for a little figurine, Muhlbach succumbs to his intrigue and, thirty dollars later, begins his journey as a connoisseur.With superb delivery and subtle clarity, Connell allows us to see and feel Muhlbach’s emerging mania, with its impending tension and sudden exhilaration. He illustrates how a new fixation alters our lens on life and shapes our actions.

    He and his family live an idyllic life of peace and solitude, punctuated by afternoon tea, long strolls in the garden, and summer showers. Or would if they weren't in a Wodehouse story.The apple of Lord Emsworth's eye is the Empress of Blandings, a splendid Berkshire sow who has twice won honors in the Fat Pig class at the local agricultural show. Besides keeping his pig in shape, Emsworth must deal with his sister's snobby demeanor, his brother's crazy memoirs, and a rival pig whose bulk might dash the Empress's hopes of another medal. Throw in a few young lovers and you have yourself a perfect brew of hilarious adventures. Included in this omnibus are Summer Lightning, Heavy Weather, and Blandings Castle. Evelyn Waugh once said, "The gardens of Blandings Castle are that original garden from which we are all exiled. All those who know them long to return."

    An essential book for a full understanding of one of our major poets.Color woodcut, Night Scene, by Neil Welliver. Courtesy of the artist.

    Seventeen stories written over the past fifteen years reveal the author's vision of human love and tragedy.Wants --Debts --Distance --Faith in the afternoon --Gloomy tune --Living --Come on, ye sons of art --Faith in a tree --Samuel --The burdened man --Enormous changes at the last minute --Politics --Northeast playground --The little girl --A conversation with my father --The immigrant story --The long-distance runner

    From the beach towns of Normandy to the streets of New Orleans, these thirteen vignettes introduce us to a covetous French painter, a sleepless wanderer of the night, a guitar-playing gypsy, and a host of others who yearn for and dive into the turbulent depths of romantic experience.

    Laying bare the heart of a witty, belligerent and vigorous writer, this manifesto of Mailer's key beliefs contains pieces on his war experiences in the Philippines (the basis for his famous first novel The Naked and the Dead), tributes to fellow novelists William Styron, Saul Bellow, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal and magnificent polemics against pornography, advertising, drugs and politics. Also included is his notorious exposition of the phenomenon of the 'White Negro', the Beat Generation's existentialist hero whose life, like Mailer's, is 'an unchartered journey into the rebellious imperatives of the self'.

    It also began Coover's now-trademark riffs on fairy tales and bedtime stories. In these riotously word-drunk fictional romps, two children follow an old man into the woods, trailing bread crumbs behind and edging helplessly toward a sinister end that never comes; a husband walks toward the bed where his wife awaits his caresses, but by the time he arrives she's been dead for three weeks and detectives are pounding down the door; a teenaged babysitter's evening becomes a kaleidoscope of dangerous erotic fantasies-her employer's, her boyfriend's, her own; an aging, humble carpenter marries a beautiful but frigid woman, and after he's waited weeks to consummate their union she announces that God has made her pregnant. Now available in a Grove paperback, Pricksongs & Descants is a cornerstone of Robert Coover's remarkable career and a brilliant work by a major American writer.

    He's having a hard time getting started because his career is floundering, his girlfriend Roz has recently left him, and he is thinking about the great poets throughout history who have suffered far worse and deserve to feel sorry for themselves. He has also promised to reveal many wonderful secrets and tips and tricks about poetry, and it looks like the introduction will be a little longer than he'd thought. What unfolds is a wholly entertaining and beguiling love story about poetry: from Tennyson, Swinburne, and Yeats to the moderns (Roethke, Bogan, Merwin) to the staff of The New Yorker, what Paul reveals is astonishing and makes one realize how incredibly important poetry is to our lives. At the same time, Paul barely manages to realize all of this himself, and the result is a tenderly romantic, hilarious, and inspired novel.